Storms

It's been awfully hot in Vermont for the last few days. Farms are wilting, cats are sprawled out like watermelons on the floor, fighting one another for the windowsill when there's a breeze...and it's just miserable. Last night my husband and I were having a picnic at a park in Burlington, right on the lake, when a fast and violent thunderstorm ripped through. We huddled together in a shelter as the wind tore across the lake. It was horrendous, and beautiful. The wind blew the still-lit embers out of the public grills, and sparks went flying out into the black evening. There was something eerily gorgeous, and yet somber, about the experience. Gorgeous because I'm so rarely out in nature when a storm of that magnitude hits - and somber because it's still only May, and this isn't Vermont weather. This is something else entirely.

I've been sitting around fanning myself and moaning about the heat. The lake is still too cold to go swimming, so I feel I'm in some sort of limbo until the lake warms up and there can be some relief. I haven't been felting much. The last thing you want on a hot day is a handful of wool.

I'm hoping to spend this weekend finishing a commissioned piece and my peacock, which has been an immense effort. I think I've been pushing the limits of what a handful of fiber is capable of doing - creating a thin panel of felt out of a ball of wool using barbed needles. Sometimes I look at my finished pieces and think - "this was once on a sheep." It still blows my mind.

Here's to cool breezes and crossed fingers.