Finally something fibery to talk about! Spent the day doing this and that…taking care of baby, eating, doing dishes, etc. Went to the Bellmore Antiques flea market and picked up a wild dress that I think I’m gonna shred and spin up, Pluckyfluff style, though I don’t expect it to come out great like “The Emperor Has No Clothes” which was truly amazing! This dress is sheer and sparkly and has it’s own brilliance that I hope I can transform into a beautiful yarn…I figure for $6 it’s worth a shot! I also ran across another Sheffield Farms glass milk bottle to add to my collection. This one may be a cream bottle as it’s a half pint. My Grandfather worked for them (out of Brooklyn I think) as a milkman–I believe it was around the 1920’s– delivering milk with a horse and carriage, so I keep grabbing the bottles as I run across them.

So it was pretty much “do anything” today to avoid doing more cleaning/organizing/paperwork that I’ve been working on, though I’m off to work on it again late tonight after I scavenge something to eat for myself. This evening, baby O went to bed around 7–teething, cranky and exhausted–and since the rest of the fam is in FL visiting Grandparents, I broke out my bulk white roving and the dye pots and went to work! I always forget just how easy it is to dye, really. I managed to do about a pound of miscellaneous stuff in about an hour and the results, though still too hot to handle, look promising. I won’t bother to touch it until tomorrow when it’s cooled off. I think it’s just easier that way and less likely to have a felting accident from too much handling and wild temperature changes.

So, on the stove top I dyed some Wensleydale in sunset colors (accidentally let that one boil, so cross fingers it’s not a big felted glob when it cools!!). In my enamel roasters in the oven, I dyed some merino/tencel in red-purple-chartruse blend and some bluefaced leicester in a red-purple-dark green blend. I’ll add pics tomorrow when I rinse and hang it all to dry. It’s not much compared to the amazing Yarn Wench or others who dye for hours and produce piles of rovings to spin and sell, but a pound is enough for me to accomplish, and will keep me busy for some time.

Maybe I’ll use some of it to finally get some of my spindle kits packaged up to sell…a girl can dream, right?

Sorry I’m still not posting about fibery stuff, but I have to get this one out there. Mattel is recalling 92 (YES, you read it right, I count 92 product numbers on their recall page–horrific!!!!!) children’s and baby fisher price toys that have lead paint on them. Here’s a link to the CPSC page about it. Most of them are Dora and Sesame Street characters, and all of them seem to be aimed at kids under 6 or so–the ones most likely to get brain damage from lead poisoning.

I’m on the CPSC mailing list for recalls, and every week it seems that I receive 2-3 emails of toys or kids’ jewelry that contains or is painted with lead paints. Remember the lead pvc lunch box scandal of two years ago? The recent Thomas the train recalls? Why can’t these companies have quality control? You know they would turn the stuff away if a shipload arrived in the USA painted green instead of orange. Why can’t they attempt to keep their customers safe? It makes me sick to think about it. I paid $2 apiece for good-quality lead testing swabs to check my house. Why can’t these companies simply test samples of this stuff before they make billions selling them to our children? I think that corporate lead testing needs to be a law to protect our kids. It’s simple and can’t cost more than a few bucks per item. Enough is enough.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I believe that PVC is an evil toxic product and that much of it is tainted with lead (no real science behind it yet, but from a little reading I’ve done I’ve come to this conclusion…apparently lead is often used as a stabilizer in vinyl–remember warnings not to drink from the hose? That’s one of the reasons!) Beware and be suspicious of all PVC products, and all items that come from places where manufacturing standards are questionable. Think of those poor people who painted all that stuff, probably not wearing any protective gear, and then going home to spread the lead onto their kids. No doubt the recall won’t protect them. Blech.

Off to throw away anything suspicious while little A isn’t watching, and to pray that someday our corporations act responsibly, sigh.

Sadly, I have to add this bit, from today’s Reuters news, 8/13: 
China recall toy factory boss hangs himself IMO, despite the lead painted toys being his fault, and that he does bear responsibility for the safety of his workers and their families, ultimately the burden for this horrible crime rests elsewhere. If they had simply done routine and cheap testing (as I suggested above) when the toys left the factory/entered the US, the whole problem would have been avoided. At the heart of it, corporate execs in charge of quality control at Mattel and Fisher Price are responsible for this mess. So sad…

I couldn’t resist finally posting a Temptress Yarn update to Handmade. I just added three skeins (two were previously only over at etsy, but are now in both places). I’m especially happy with this corespun yarn from wool, sparkle, recycled denim cotton, flax, ingeo and bits of two synthetic novelty yarns. It’s on a cotton/linen core, and named “When It Sizzles”. Here’s a pic before I took it off the bobbin to set the twist and skein up. Enjoy the update…lots of yarn available right now in the pre-summer lull!

A visit to one of my favorite events in NYC, the Union Square Greenmarket yesterday yielded some gorgeous reds and leafy greens in the form of these photos that I couldn’t resist taking. There’s nothing like fresh, locally grown produce and other goodies, is there? Too bad we had hands full with the two kids, had taken the train and really had no way to carry much home (though we do get our CSA share of produce from Golden Earthworm this Tuesday and we have fresh lettuce, arrugula, peas and a few other things in our own garden, so we really don’t need much until I see what we get).

We had a few fresh baked things and we managed to procure about a pound of tiny roasting potatoes (the size of your big toe and smaller, yum), Craig and little A bought some of those cherries you’ll see below, and I couldn’t resist locally grown shiitake mushrooms to cook up with our home grown snow peas though they barely survived being squished in the diaper bag all day. And something fibery to add–I ‘ordered’ a gorgeous border leicester fleece from one of the sheep farmers that was there…couldn’t resist it was so soft and beautiful brownish black.

Anyhow, enjoy the produce and the alluring alliteration:

Super strawberries sitting scrumptiously.

Cheery cherries!

Lazily languishing lettuces.

Ravishing, round rosy red radishes.

Perfectly purply and pinkish peonies

Pecks of perfectly piled petit pois