That’s about all the useful content I have for now; I’m too slammed with back-to-school prep and trying to keep all balls in play, to be able to pull together anything really cogent.

“Spindle vs. Wheel” is in final editing stages; hopefully tomorrow. The break in the weather has windows finally open and a little natural air; amazing how cool 92F can feel after days of more than 100. I’m thrilled to have gotten a few pounds of superwash/tencel and merino/tussah dyed up in the past week, not to mention some custom orders and a bunch of blending stuff that’ll soon be showing up as batts. Fighting heat and humidity to get stuff dyed and dried has been really exciting. Watching fiber dry, it turns out, is more interesting than watching paint dry. But it sure doesn’t happen fast in Ohio Valley August.

Today, it’s back to batts. Batts batts batts batts batts! Oy. Also, batts! I’ve updated First Dibs pages (you can get to all of them from the Shop Abby’s Yarns link at the top of the page) with the dye day goodies, and there’ll be new batts going up this afternoon also. Expect daily, or near-daily updates, to those pages from now through the start of school next week. After next week, things people haven’t dibsed will be headed for eBay, and I’ll be in Batt Club production mode again, and there won’t be new stuff other than that for a little bit.

In other news, I cleaned out my camera phone’s memory card, and have concluded that the camera phone may just possibly be one of the stupidest, horriblest inventions ever. It gives you the illusion of having some semblance of a camera with you, but really, even if it’s got decent resolution, the optics are such a joke that… well…

Can you even remotely tell that’s a Blackhawk helicopter in the background? I arrived to pick the manchild up from day camp early this summer, and they’d had the helicopter there (“The pilot is a friend of the guy who runs the camp,” Edward explained) for kids to climb in and out of and whatnot.

Or this.

It was an ice storm; it was dramatic and pretty. You’d never know. Then we have other moments…

There I am, carding and carding and carding with my foot on Cardzilla’s pedal, and in sneaks Kaylee and lays down on my foot. I think she’d been with us for about a week at that point. Normally, I keep the cats out of the workroom — Paimei likes cashmere, there’s whirring equipment, and customers have pet allergies, so, sorry cats. But Kaylee snuck in that time. And I realize she’s the exact colour of the carpet and it’s perfect camouflage, but geeze. This is what I’m talking about — you wanna be able to whip out your camera phone and snap a photo that… is… well, visible. And look at Miss Moneypenny:

She’s like the Cheshire Cat.

But sometimes it gives you hope. Edward and I, at a stop sign, got ready for our fourth Turning of a 5,000 Miles in Ginny, the Mommy Car. Every one of those 5,000 mile markers, he and I have been in the car going someplace listening to funk. It was a coincidence the first 3 times, but we figure it’s a tradition now.

The next stop sign, we knew, we’d have turned 20k. And we did. So I took another picture to document the occasion.

For cryin’ out loud. But then pictures come out fine when it’s of a post-office run:

but I forgot all about how I’d planned to blog about how the manchild helped me make that one…

So really, what’s the point of the stupid camera phone? It’s nothing but awful, terrible pictures of things you wish you had a halfway decent picture of, and then there you are with these hideous shots, saying “Well, uh, so here’s the terrible photo of something really cool…” And I mean, the screens on them are too small to be able to see anything when you send pics to other people, too. Or maybe my phone is just almost 2 years old and needs replacing. Blech.

But yeah, anyway, back to the happy photos. Like this one.

Or this one.

Or this one.

Maybe what I need is a digital SLR that makes phone calls and fits in my pocket. Not a phonecamera, but a camera… with phone. Hah.