moirae knitting

I was gifted some amazing stuff in the Earth Day Yarn Swap. Unfortunately, I’ve been swamped and haven’t had time to post about it! The photographs have been on flickr since April 23rd. I haven’t posted the Yarn Harlot event stuff either, if that gives you an idea. I just got back from a conference in Las Vegas and boy do I have some blogging to catch up on. I was supposed to be back at 1AM but got in instead at 10AM due to a flight cancellation. So I got 5 hrs of sleep and then got up to head to Portland. Finally!

Anyway, Owlette (Maria) sent me a great package from Canada for Earth Day. It included lovely yarn from Indigo Moon, dried pineapple (which I broke my diet to eat and it was good…), beeswax candles, and a pen and mechanic pencil set made from corn, soap nuts and Denman Island chocolate! The chocolate is all gone of course and now I’m going to have to figure out how to get more. The mint was my favorite, but I think I ate the espresso flavored one pretty quickly too. I don’t own nearly enough solid sock yarn and I’m totally into the green Tanis Fiber Arts yarn she sent me. (I love the blue-purple too.) The Indigo Moon yarn was bought from Trish Moon, a spinner and weaver from Gabriola Island off Vancouver Island. She uses natural dyes and was the only locally available yarn. It’s Canadian sourced wool too. Beat that! The goodies were local too.

Happy Earth Day.

On April 26th, my husband and I will be working on a park clean-up. This particular Earth Day celebration is a bit late this year, but just as well. As my friend Greg pointed out, “Every day is Earth Day.” The weather was awful on the 19th. It kept hailing throughout the weekend (maybe this was a message).

I am celebrating it by going to see the Yarn Harlot and participating in the Blue Moon Fiber Arts replica of Toronto’s Inexplicable Knitting Behavior yarn crawl. I am buying some carbon offsets to offset the driving around for the day (even though this may be an empty gesture). (Here’s an article about the debate.) I will also celebrate it all summer by going to my local oregon farmers’ market every Friday and Saturday. (I still have two localities). It isn’t much of a gesture since I’m its’ program coordinator, but I will definitely support it!

Many of you know that I work in the environmental field. It’s hard to call it a career since I’ve bounced around so much: administrator at a land trust, environmental law paralegal, national environmental policy act coordinator,  leed a.p., volunteer sustainability programs coordinator and programs coordinator. What I actually do is coordinate programs and information and I’m best at ones that have to do with community and environmental issues.

I want to share with you some books and papers that changed my life when I was 17.

• The End of Nature - Bill McKibben
• Home Economics - Wendell Berry
• The Tragedy of the Commons - Garrett Hardin (Please note: I am not a fan of lifeboat ethics.)
• The Land Ethic - Aldo Leopold
• Encounters with the Archdruid - John McPhee
• The Control of Nature - John McPhee

These are three books I really like.

• Cradle to Cradle - Bill McDonough
• The Omnivore’s Dilemna - Michael Pollan
• Cadillac Desert - Marc Reisner.

It’s interesting to see what influences me now versus what influenced me at 17.

Here are some books that are Pacific Northwest and Oregon specific.

• Landscapes of Promise - William G. Robbins
• The Greening of Ben Brown - Michael Strelow
• Empty Nets - Roberta Ulrich
• A Richer Harvest - Ed. Craig Wollner and Tracy Dillon

These are other books on my book shelf that I’ve been meaning to read/finish.

• Desert Solitaire - Edward Abbey
• Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams
• The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins
• Earth in Mind - David Orr
• Ecology of a Cracker Childhood - Janise Ray
• Water Wars - Vandana Shiva
• The Small-Mart Revolution - Michael Shuman
• The Creation - E.O. Wilson
• The Future of Life - E.O. Wilson
• Run River Run - Ann Zwinger

Got any you’d like to add?

My birthday was in January and it included 2 gift certificates to the Loopy Ewe. And I had another one in my account already, so I’d been saving them for just the right moment. That moment was last week and the yarn came on Friday.

I’m sure you want to see the Casbah in Paris by Handmaiden,

the Mermaid Sock by Lime and Violet in Myrna Loy

and the Bellisma by Zen String.

All in all there has been a lot of slippage lately. I’m only allowed to buy 1000 yards more this year right now and that doesn’t include last weeks’ moment of weakness at Sweet Georgia Yarns, the Earth Day Yarn swap package I’m expecting, 2 shipments of Loopy Ewe Sock Club, 3 shipments of Scout’s Swag’s Sock Club, yarn at two festivals, or yarn at the Yarn Harlot’s Book Signing. Hmm, do I have anything on order? I’d better get knitting!

And the Salem Area Ravelers wonder why I keep avoiding the yarn crawls.