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This is the face of a girl who may have found a new fiber addiction. As well as the face of her lover (sorry, @nathanjandl)—a skein of Merino ram lambswool from WI’s Yorkshire Rose Farm, handspun by my friend @kewersan, and dyed by avocados... and me! . I’ve long admired the dusty pinks produced by 🥑 dyeing, but got the bug to try it myself after Kate was kind enough to give me a skein of her undyed handspun. After a first attempt where the dye didn’t take, I did some additional research, and was helped by so many of YOU! So I feel like this is a bit of a collective project, for which I am very grateful. . Below are my notes, with the caveat that you should definitely defer to the pros like @rebeccadesnos, @bedheadfiber, @fragmentario, and many more—leave others in the comments! . Next up I’m going to try dyeing with thistles. Nathan pointed out a very tall thistle tree in the yard behind ours and I was like, “Right, but... how... do I get the leaves?” He looked at me blankly before reminding me that there are thistle trees all over town. So. . My 🥑 experiment: 1. Scour yarn (my missing step last time)—I used instructions I found on @bedheadfiber’s supremely helpful website. 2. At the same time, slowly heat avocado pits and peels in enough water to cover your skein(s); I used about two pits and 5 half peels, collected over the course of a couple weeks. I let them heat for 1-2 hours, then turned off heat and let soak. 3. Repeat step 2 after dye has cooled. You can either leave overnight & repeat the next day, or if the dye color looks good, proceed. I knew I wanted a lighter color so I continued to step 4. 4. Strain 🥑 out of dye using cheesecloth or a strainer. 5. Wet yarn again if it has dried after scouring so it absorbs dye evenly. Put in pot. 6. Heat slowly once again. You can leave in the pot overnight but I just let it soak for a few hours. 7. Rinse until dye runs clear.
I fell in love with story by reading novels, but I fell in love with sentences by reading short stories. Sometimes I think it was Flannery O’Connor and ZZ Packer, Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore, who taught me how to write. . These are some of the collections I gobbled up in high school and college, annotating furiously and writing terrible knock-offs, trying on other people’s styles until I discovered my own. . If you want to explore any of these writers, here are my favorite stories (many of them are online!). . ZZ Packer: “Brownies” Tobias Wolff: “Bullet in the Brain” Lorrie Moore: “People Like That Are the Only People Here” Alice Munro: “Floating Bridge” Miranda July: “Something That Needs Nothing” George Saunders: “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” Flannery O’Connor: “Good Country People” Mary Gaitskill: “Don’t Cry”
This is my Dad. . Just over a year ago, he went to the doctor about a persistent cough and found out he had stage 3B lung cancer. . We were stunned and devastated. He’s never been a smoker. My brilliant brother @jordanbenj urged Dad to seek treatment at UCSF, where doctors were pursuing brand new targeted therapies, which treat the mutated gene causing the cancer. Only 1% of lung cancer patients have a mutation in the BRAF gene. We prayed that Dad would be one of them, as the FDA had approved targeted therapy for lung cancer patients with BRAF just one year earlier. . Miraculously, he was. The targeted therapy shrank the tumor from 8 cm to 1.5 cm—an incredible outcome. After that, he underwent months of grueling chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy, the side effects of which have caused him immense and ongoing discomfort: terrible pain, full-body rashes, cognitive impacts and more. . Dad never quit. His positivity and determination to endure took the place of depression or anxiety; it was as if his very highest self bloomed in just that moment, and we’ve all followed suit. Dad wrapped up his environmental law practice far sooner than he expected, but with dignity and grace. Last night he realized he’d been working for 52 years, ever since was hired in a record warehouse on the Lower East Side at the age of 12. During high school and college, he worked as park ranger, a late night radio DJ, and a night shift doorman, tucking his ponytail up into his hat. He volunteered at the 1972 Democratic Convention and for Bella Abzug, whose campaign slogan was “This woman’s place is in the house.” But he’s not only a cool-ass dude; in Jewish parlance, he’s a mensch: a deeply good man, someone who has always put his family over himself. . This week he and my stepmom, Ellen, are visiting Madison. We know the future is not promised, but we’re wildly grateful for the present. . One of my favorite stories about my Dad comes from the day The Immortalists made the New York Times bestseller list. I called him on the phone while I sent him the PDF. . “Oh, my god,” said Dad—an ancestral Jew but self-proclaimed atheist—before he clicked. “Give me strength.”
I’ve wanted a better #yarnstorage solution for years—better than stuffing it into too-small bins and cardboard boxes in the closet, that is—and when I knew we’d be moving, I started trolling Craigslist and antique stores for a better solution. I found this midcentury cabinet at Odana Antiques and instantly envisioned it full of yarn and knitting books, with space for my winder and swift on top. . I’m so excited about the way it turned out—isn’t there something about being able to *see* your yarn? I got the metal baskets at @michaelsstores and filled the bottom compartments with all sorts of extras—I’ll put some close-ups with more info on my stories. 🧶 . How do you store your yarn... and/or what’s your dream yarn storage solution? ➰