For one thing, the quality of the venue is unsurpassable. The Hotel Murano is a 25-story art gallery that you can live and walk around in. The lobby is done in aqua blues, stylish grays and browns. Wool couches with decorative wool pillows anchor the center of the spacious lobby where you can gaze at a translucent glass Venus or a larger-than-life-size horse with a lamp on its head. Or sit by the room-sized fireplace and knit with your friends.

The food this time was comforting and surprising, 2 years ago the one small restaurant was overwhelmed with knitters and room service was a cruel joke, my breakfast arriving 2 hours late one morning just as I was walking out the door. This year I had an appetizer at the lit glass bar of spicy shrimp, roasted asparagus and a new twist on coleslaw. The breakfast buffet had everything you'd want including biscuits and gravy, as was the on-the-go selections at the coffee bar.

The quality of knitting knowledge is very high here. No one comes to my booth asking to see the acrylic yarns. (Not that there's anything wrong with acrylic, all fibers have their place in the knitting pantheon. My aversion comes from the 70s and double knit pants, but that's my own personal trauma, your mileage may vary). Everyone seems to know that Bluefaced Leicester is a breed of sheep. No one thinks the rabbits were killed for their fiber.

But really what stands out above all this is the stunning aristry of the knitters. Here Pat Nida, The Artistic Stitcher from Lake Oswego, Oregon, displays a shawl she made from some Butternut Woolens combed top in the Missouri River Breaks colorway she bought in 2008. I was utterly gob-smacked at this piece. Pat sent the top to be spun at a local mill, and it is incredible spinning; fine, but woolen, airy with just enough variation in thickness to give it artisanal quality. Pat used a stitch pattern from Barbara Walker's stitch dictionaries that reminds her of post and rail fences of the American West. The way Pat has designed and knit this, her use of color and texture, and her refined artist's eye, elevates this piece to the realm of magic. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Pat also showed me a second piece she had done. The stitch pattern was similar, but she had used a non-descript sagey green alpaca, an ecru and a white yarn and the result was stunning. I really like how she had taken three quiet, some would say boring colors, and combined them in a way that was utterly beautiful and captivating. It was hard to look away from this piece. I've talked before about Japanese design and how at first a piece seems simple and unremarkable, on second glance it looks mind-bendingly complex (why does the green advance and recede like that?), and then finally, one can see the deep integrity of the piece as a whole. It takes a very good color sense to do what Pat is doing. If anyone from Madrona is reading, let's get Pat as a teacher. Pat, if you're reading could you please send me the name of the mill that spun your yarn.

Speaking of good design, Jennifer Hagan of Figheadh Yarnworks on the right, is a master. Her work has appeared in all the major knitting magazines including Vogue Knitting and Interweave publications. Her cablework designs are well thought out and she combines these with lace to create pieces that are quietly working in the background to make the wearer look beautiful, the design doing things like waist shaping that isn't obvious but is vital for garments to fit well. I'm thinking particularly of the new Alisa a sleeveless sweater combining cables and lace for shaping and fit with a wrap top body flattering to the bust.

Lo Shu is a wrap utilizing 9-square shaping provided by the lace pattern which looks like the Lo Shu Magic Square of Chinese legend.

But when you think of Figheadh, you probably think of cables. Jen's cables are nimble and sinuous. Check out the inticately cabled tam in Vogue Holiday 08/09.

Jen will be showcasing new patterns and kits in Butternut Woolens' and other small yarn companies' offerings at Stitches South in Atlanta, April 22-25, a great opportunity to see in person what this smart designer is up to. You can also find Figheadh's patterns at your LYS.

Ferritin is an iron-binding protein stored in the body's tissues and my doc said most women feel better if their level is over 40 units. Mine was 11. The innernet says supplementation is indicated if the level is below 50-60. Normal can be up to 300. After about a year of twice a day supplements and birth control pills to slow iron loss, it edged up to 22 and I did feel much better, but then all hell broke loose and I forgot about it what with the apocalyptic divorce thing.

I'm uninsured now and the generic birth control pills cost $70 per month, so I dropped those like a hot multigrain muffin, it wasn't like I was getting any other benefits from them, if you know what I mean. And somewhere along the way in the last few months I stopped taking vitamins (spendy and the non-expensive ones made my stomache hurt) and iron supplements. And when I feel like I don't have enough money, or just overly stressed in general, I stop eating. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but it's really not a healthy way to lose weight.

Back to iron pills and more meat. My gracious, thoughtful and generous brother bought a steer from a local rancher to share with the boys and I. They stood together in the field a couple of miles out of town and discussed which one to harvest and the rancher suggested leaving him on grass a little longer than usual so he'd be nice and big. It was processed by Vandevanter Meats which is now Montana Jerky, but is still Vandevanter's to us even if all the Vandevanter family is too old to cut meat anymore. It's goooood, too. And you can't get any more local, organic, grass-fed,and holier than that, that steer travelled a total of maybe 3-4 miles to my dinner plate. But still. It's an animal and I have the tiniest mental problem. I love animals. Except insects. I don't like insects or lizards, especially monitor lizards, I'll tell you that one later.

So, I'm going to try to eat more of that tasty steer (My brother is constantly urging me to take some more of it. "I've got another one coming, I've already picked it out and there's no room left in the freezer!" And "If I see you buying meat.....").

So if you're female and still menstruating and you were anemic during pregnancy or lost a lot of blood in delivery and are active (iron is lost through sweating and muscle exhertion) and generally feeling unusually tired and your hair is inexplicably falling out and your nails seem weak and brittle, get a ferritin test, it doesn't show up in the usual anemia tests, it's a separate deal, I think mine was $10.

And now I'm going to eat something ironic for lunch.

The written article is here.

1.Dye wool. Have burner crap out. Friend sends 2 more usually used for cooking critters from a bayou. Achieve the melting point of aluminum in about 5 minutes and unintentionally felted 2 lbs of Silkie.

2.Fill living room, dining room, bedroom and kitchen with boxes of wool. Stumble over boxes for 4 weeks.

3.*Skein yarn until shoulders hurt. Repeat from *.

4. Take 6 boxes of wool to UPS store in Less Rural. Clerk is so stunned when I tell her they're full of wool, that she opens one to see for herself.

5.Drive 599 miles to Tacoma in 2 days ignoring the Mapquest directions to start on Forest Service Road 9847-McInnis Creek, which I know for a fact to be buried under about 10 feet of snow. Wonder why old logging roads are even in the Mapquest database. Hate 5 lanes of Seattle traffic in pouring rain.

6. Have a great time at Madrona and wonder if I can make my house look like the hotel. Ship 9 boxes of wool to Stitches West.

7. Drive to Portland to pick up more wool.

8. Drive 2 days back home.

9. Dye for 4 days, throwing paper plates and bread toward the children at semi-regular intervals. Stop eating.

10.Send children to relatives', load car and drive 3 days to Santa Clara via Grants Pass where I picked up more wool.

11. Had a great time at Stitches West.

12. Shipped 12 boxes of wool home.

13. Loaded car and drove to Grants Pass. Dropped off some wool and picked up 3 rabbits.

14. Car broke down in Portland about 2 miles from the dealership where I bought it in 2000. Handed service guy all of the cash from Stitches West. Did not cry. Bought books at Powells and iced tea from Starbucks. Thought "easy come, easy go" and laughed maniacally.

15.Drove to Boise and dropped off 2 rabbits.

16. Fell into bed in Jerome, Idaho.

17. Drove to West Yellowstone and had coffee with my dad.

18.Drove to Three Forks and dropped off last rabbit.

19. Drove to Toston and spent the night with my mom and stepdad.

20. Drove home.

21. Stumbled over 12 boxes of wool stacked 3 high on the back porch, collected the children, fed them and have been sleeping, more or less, since then.

Today: Discovered the merchant account processor has taken 33% of my net sales as fees. Vow to commit murder after I have a nap.

Pictures and proper posts later.

Nevertheless, I'm really happy with these yarns which are inspired by sea glass and sea life.

Seaglass sock yarn-Superwash Falkland.

One of my favorite fruits is the mango. I don't know how that relates to sea life. As Uncle Walt Whitman said, "I have contradicted myself? Very well. I am large."

More semi-solid and thoughtfully variegated sock yarns.

Now to fire up a pot of tea and set to skeining and packing boxes.

Classified as sportswear, her clothes are some of the few that fit me perfectly right off the rack without alterations. Which is good, because by alterations I mean glue, staples and tape. Sadly, my mother, who is an excellent seamstress and ran her own tailoring business from the glassed in front porch that is now the yarn studio, was never able to teach me how to sew. We've tried many, many times, but I just can't get the hang of it. Also, I'm terribly afraid of sewing machines. Machinophobia? Puncturingfingersphobia?

At the monastery I was assigned to the sewing group, even though I respectfully asked to be on the gardening crew. The irony of the situation was not lost. The monk in charge of sewing quietly asked me if I would sew, not could sew, but would. I whispered back, "Do you mean without a sewing machine?" He nodded. "Yes, I can do that." Handsewing is afterall, just knitting with a very small needle, kinda. Even so, I managed to take 30 minutes to sew a cushion pleat to itself instead of closing the gap where the stuffing went in. The woman next to me was running a sewing machine and I guess the sound of it was making me jumpy.

I get Eileen Fisher's seasonal planner which beautifully lays out in watercolor and pen-and-ink sketches what the upcoming colors, fabrics and outfits will be from now until June. If there's one complaint I have, it's that there's not enough color in the collection. EF has a lot of black and neutrals, but the texture and cut of the fabric keeps the clothes from looking drab. And they are a perfect foil for handknits.

For early 2010 EF will have the usual black, 10 shades of gray, gray-browns and taupes, khaki and white, with a limited palette of clear watermelon pinks, oranges, and an unusual mustardy green she calls chicory and I would call bronze. You'll see many of these colors with my tweaks on the Butternut Woolens fine gauge sock yarns-Super Sock Bluefaced Leicester, Super Sock Superwash Merino and a new line of Super Sock Superwash Falkland.

Getting ready for two large wool shows at once looks like this: The cupboard where we keep all of our clean dishes.

Silkie ready to be labelled.

Homegrown wool from North America.

Super Sock yarn.

For the first time in several years, I'll be offering raw angora fiber for sale. This is prime German and German-hybrid angora with a staple length of 2 1/2-3 inches, grown by farmers in Oregon and California. There's white and colors this time and I have several pounds of it. It'll be available by the ounce.

The Butternut Woolens yarn store is now closed, and I'll re-open the first week in March with a limited inventory.

See you in Tacoma and Santa Clara!

Come see the new yarns and colorways and stop and say hi.

I'll be taking the online store temporarily off-line for the month of February beginning this coming Monday, Feb. 1. If there's anything you want to buy from the store, now is the moment you've been waiting for. See ya!

Erika, a reporter now with the Kalispell Daily Interlake and formerly with the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a good article about My Year of Doing Nothing blog and dye work. Nathan of the DIL took some lovely pictures. You can read the article with colored photos here.

Butternut Woolens Silkie 60% merino/40% silk, single ply aran weight. Available at the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival, Tacoma, WA Feb. 11-14. After Madrona, it'll be available here on the website.

More Silkie in mango-y/papaya (I swear I don't know how these colors got in the dye pot. I'm trying to dye rock colors. Rocks are generally not the colors of tropical fruit.)

These Thick n Thin yarns are still available. Click on Thick n Thin on the sidebar to the right and specify in the messages section of your order that you want a yellow one. The blue-greens are already posted in the store. There are 6 of them.

Crystal finished her River Scarf in a slate blue-gray. Last Wednesday was the first time she had even held knitting needles and she jumped right in with this scarf worked back and forth on a long circular needle in Feather-and-Fan or Old Shale. She called me last Sunday morning.

Me: Hello Crystal!

Crystal: I have a knitting emergency and I don't know what to do.

Me: What's the problem?

Crystal: I have no end.

Me: Huh?

Crystal: There's no end any more.

Me:?

Crystal: You know how when I left your house the scarf had two ends?

Me: Yea-ah.

Crystal. Now it doesn't. It's a circle.

Me: Ooohhh....

I saw Darlene's husband Jeff at the post office just before knit night.

Jeff: So, knitting tonight huh?

Yep, you coming?

Nah, when you have ribs and beer, then I might come. Did Darlene tell you what happened to her scarf?

No, what?

The dog undid the whole thing right when she was at the end. I'll let her tell you the rest.

Despite knitting her scarf twice, Darlene finished in one week, too.

Crystal brought wine, I set out beer and cookies and many a bawdy tale was told involving Cabin Fever Days at a log cabin bar in Backwoods, America, about 5 miles up the [trap]'line as we say, from Rural, a barstool slalom race, and mouse races in which someone, I won't say who, was picking up the racing mice by their tales in order to sex them before the race began. She had to be reprimanded by the MC with the bullhorn, "Blonde girl, put down the mice. The race is about to begin. Blonde girl! You! Put down the mouse!" Mice that had already raced were skittering all over the floor because after each race the owner of the mouse would simply turn it loose in the bar so it could go back about its business.

I'm not sure Erika will come back after an introduction like that. We're shaping up to be a rather unusual knitting group I think.