Mad as a hatter and spinning away

This weekend was the annual NOFA Winter Conference weekend. What fun! Hordes of farmers, gardeners, teachers, homesteaders, and everyone in between, convening to talk about farming and food. I got to meet my beekeeping hero, Ross Conrad, who gave me some sound beekeeping advice, as well as take a sausage-making class with three chefs, talk to spinners, dyers, and knitters, and catch up with friends and acquaintances. NOFA is such a wonderful, hard-working organisation.

3.5 ounces of yarn (!) on a handwoven rainbow plaid of my own design. 

Here are a few pictures of what I've been up to. The skein of yarn is the first one, hot off the spinning wheel, weighing in at all of 3.5 ounces! That means I'll need at least 5-6 more skeins that size, if not more.

Here's what I did in my spare time: a knitted mouse.
What do you do when you're bored?  

Heel turned. 

This little fact popped up in conversation today: do you know why the mad hatter was mad? Hatters used to use mercury to process their furs, exposure to which can damaged the nervous system, causing tremors, as well as apparently triggering strange anti-social behaviour, unexplainable outbursts, and the like. Here's an early reference to the madness of hatters via a fictional conversation from a British journal:

NORTH: Many years - I was Sultan of Bello for a long period, until dethroned by an act of the grossest injustice ; but I intend to expose the traitorous conspirators to the indignation of an outraged world.
TICKLER (aside to SHEPHERD.): He's raving.
SHEPHERD (to TICKLER.): Dementit.
ODOHERTY (to both.): Mad as a hatter. Hand me a sega.

(from Blackwood's Edinburgh Ambrocianæ, 1829) 


Keep on crafting! Just stay away from the mercury... 


Happy VDay!