Happy Birthday Harry Potter!

And JKR also, who I see in the paper this morning is 44. A good age, don't you think? Even though I have to wait 8 days to find out . . .

Here's a picture from about 2 weeks ago of the family with our 2009 cherry harvest! I haven't done the promised spinning & knitting post yet but have been staying out of trouble with domestic duties, seeing the HP6 movie with DH (we l0ved it), following the Tour in the newspaper, going to the geology museum's quarry fossil hunt, babysitting neighbors' pets, and the like. Only 1 month until school starts and I am both very keen for it and sad to see the summer race by. How did you do on the Tour de Fleece?? Was it fun? I'm thinking we maybe should form a team some year. More soon, love, Cindy, almost 44

Spinnin' the Summer Away

Hi Cindy!

Glad to hear your weather has been treating you better than us. We've been hanging at over 110 for the last 10 days and it is getting really old. This weekend we hunkered down inside the house, trying to keep cool. We couldn't even hardly get in the pool since it faces full west and is pretty bright. I went grocery shopping on Sunday and it was 110 in the garage. Bleck!


Here is the Mountain Colors Lodgegrass I've been working on the last week or so. It was 4 ounces and I've been spinning for about half an hour each evening, longer on the weekend.


Margi finally got up the courage to sit on my lap while I spin. She's been circling me for the last 2 weeks. Finally on Sunday she jumped up and thought she should help me draft, with her teeth. Or maybe she just wanted to taste it. Yum, fibery!
This isn't a great picture of the plied yarn. It is really dark in this picture. I'll wash this and the last bit of Bill the Lizard soon and have better pictures soon.


As I hinted in my comment the other day I've learned a new skill. It was inspired by this library book. I love the knit flowers but there are even more crochet flowers. So, over the weekend I fired up YouTube and found a How-to-Crochet video called The Art of Crochet. It is actually a whole series of videos that covers the basics plus patterns, flowers and granny squares.

Here is my first bit of experimentation. The cloth on the right is all single crochet although I didn't do the chain stitch at the start of each row so it is a bit misshapen. The one on the left is a combination of stitches and done all around the edge instead of back and forth. It was almost free-form doodling but not quite.

And here is my first completed piece, it is a bag done in the round with single, double and triple crochet stitches, or at least my unlearned interpretation of what I was watching and reading. The bottom is Sugar N' Cream in chocolate ombre. The upper part is a Bernat Organic Cotton in mixed greens. It is a great size for projects.

Hope you've enjoyed the pictures. I'm still waiting on that piece of raspberry tart, looks yummy! Are you headed out on vacation around your birthday? I've picked up something for your birthday and I want to make sure you're around when it arrives.

Stay Cool! A

Summer update, part 2

Hi! Here's most of the handspun I've made so far this summer. The blue and purple are from a roving I got at the Sow's Ear. The greens are from samples out of the April Phat Fiber box. The grays, browns, and natural "whites" are from that lovely Jacob fleece.

I dithered a lot about what to make from my fleece. At first, I wanted a Kaffe Fassett vest but kept thinking that a multi-colored vest would be pretty hot to wear . . . not a bad thing in Wisconsin but toasty enough to limit its wearing to winter only. So I've opted to make a groovy Satchel instead. I'm going to knit a Kaffe multi-color pattern on the big blank space on the outside. This also has 2 great advantages: I can carry it with me everywhere I go year-round ;) and it hides the (ahem) many irregularities in my spinning from my learning to card and spin long draw.

We've been busy with the garden (doing amazing despite a cool dryish summer) and assorted family activities like going to the County Fair. Hope all is well there. How goes the TdF?? Love, Cindy

Summer update, part 1

Hi Alene! Here's some of what I've been up to this summer. No, I'm not playing poker; those & the jar are for a Hogwarts-style points system for the kids. That's a raspberry dessert (yum!). I'll get together my spinning for a photo op as soon as a few skeins are dry. Hope your Tour is going well. May the Fleece be with you until my next posting, Cindy

p.s. I LOVE your Team's Oz-themed ravatar.

Here come the mountains!

Yay for you, Alene, in the TdF! I'll be at your water stops to cheer you on, spinning on the sidelines. :) Thanks for your recent posts, and so sorry to hear of your loss. Loved the pictures from the Navajo Nation and also the felting; made me itching to start another project LOL!!

I'm spinning up my Jacob fleece and some dyed merino/tussah from my LYS. It's a great stress reliever, and a progress report will be coming soon to a blog near me & you. Love, Cindy

Tour de Fleece

Hi Cindy!

As you know both the Tour de France and the Tour de Fleece began on Saturday. I've decided to take the plunge this year. I've joined the local team, Fred's Fiber Fiends from Tempe Yarn and Fiber. I love this Ravetar that one of the members created. What do you think?



Here is most of my fleece. My goal for the tour is to spin up as much of it as possible. I estimate that I have probably less than 5 pounds total. The only thing not show here is the fiber from the Mystery Spin Along from last fall. I've only spun two of those recipes so I'd like to finish that too.


Margi thought she'd check out the wheel. Of course the bobbin is off so she couldn't really spin all that much.


Here are two bobbins worth that I spun up on Monday and Tuesday nights. Tonight I plied them together.
The fleece was "Bill the Lizard" that I bought from Violet (of Lime & Violet's podcast). Half of the braid was green and half was purple. The first half of both I spun separately and then plied together. These I mixed the green and purple on each bobbin so I ended up with a mix of green sections, purple sections and combined sections. I really like how it plied together.

Here are all the hanks I've spun from the fleece. The top two are the earlier ones and I've washed them already so they've muted slightly. The bottom two are the new ones. There is still a portion on one bobbin that I'll either ply on itself or with a different single.

More soon, A

Time Flies

Hi Cindy!

I'll start off with our sad news first. DH's grandma passed away on Friday. She'd been such a tough old gal, hanging on way longer than anyone really expected. There was nothing specifically wrong with her, her body just wound down to its end. The last 6 weeks were the toughest, walking along the edge of expecting her to pass at any time and then her rallying, repeatedly.
The picture above is from over 2.5 years ago when she was still rather spry although getting weaker. Although the last couple of months have been hard, we're glad she's at rest now and we can remember the happy times. Until her eyesight got too bad (macular degeneration) she used to spend long hours quilting.

My friend L got married earlier this month. As a thought for a shower gift I decided to try a nuno felt shawl. I bought a plain white chiffon scarf through Dharma Trading and dyed it a pale lavendar. Below it is laid out on a layer of bubble wrap. I then randomly covered it with bits of roving in various shades of purple and then some wisps of green dyed mohair locks. I wet it with soapy water and then covered it with old nylon curtains and rolled it up in matchstick bamboo placemats like a giant burrito.

After working it for quite a while, re-wetting it as necessary, I finally gave up. My arms were too tired to continue. Here is the finished item.

And here is a close up of it. I like how it looks but there are bits that aren't felted and I didn't feel comfortable about giving it as a gift. I'm not sure if it would do well as a shawl/scarf or if it should just be a wall hanging. As you can see the generic wool felted into the silk just fine but the mohair locks didn't do as well. I'm waiting for Margi to find it and lick it.

As I said above, my friend L got married earlier this month. She is Navajo and her parents live on the reservation in NE AZ. She planned the wedding to be on her grandmother's land on the Defiance Uplift. We drove up on Friday and took a scenic route up there. Instead of taking I-40 from Holbrook to the state line we went north on a little two lane road, past the west side of Petrified Forest, towards Keams Canyon. It was rugged and beautiful with little traffic. There is a series of old volcanic plugs along the road that have eroded into scenic buttes.


We stayed 2 nights in Window Rock, AZ, the capital of the Navajo Nation. This is the road out of Fort Defiance to L's grandma's place. More beautiful scenery (even if it is obscured by a bug smear).


And here is L being escorted in by her parents. The entire ceremony was a blend of a typical wedding ceremony with Navajo elements as well as Russian-Jewish traditions for the groom although no breaking of the glass and no chuppah.
The ceremony was in a lovely meadow with beautiful red rocks as a background. It was a very sunny and windy day. Early in the ceremony L's veil blew off and on of her aunts caught it. The unity candle ceremony didn't do so well as the candles kept blowing out. The minister they had went way beyond the non-secular ceremony they requested. They were only supposed to have a Navajo blessing but the cousin in charge of it went ahead with the entire Navajo wedding ceremony, complete with the blue corn mush. As one of our friends from work observed, of all the parts of the ceremony, the Navajo portion seemed the most binding.
Despite the sun, wind and delayed time schedule (they were over an hour late getting started) it was a beautiful wedding. I ended up with a pretty severe sun burn on my face and arms but the sting and color has faded and we're just left with the happy memories.

More soon, A

A real entry soon, I promise

Hi Cindy,

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately. I could use the trip as an excuse but that was over 2 months ago. Mostly we've just been about work, school and family crises. DH finished up his A&P class last month and ended up 3rd or 4th in the class. He had a high enough grade that he didn't have to take the "final". Right after that his work kicked up a couple of notches and his grandmother moved closer to the end.

His work has been crazy for the last year with all the unemployment extensions and then there have been lawsuits added on top. He's never really been comfortable in this job and it has just gotten worse. Additionally in the middle of this his grandmother has been close to passing away a couple of times and he gets no sympathy from his boss. We've gotten calls 3 times in the last month from his mom that the end is in sight just to have her rally.

In the midst of all this I have been doing some knitting. Unfortunately, no pictures right now. I will write more in the next couple of days, I hope.

More soon, A

Catch-up blogging

Hi Alene! Hope all is well there. I've been having a busy few months. It has not been without some time for crafts, however. Here is my washed fleece and a picture of the four color piles I've sorted it into. Since I'm planning a Kaffe Fassett project, strict color sorting isn't needed. Also here is my first skein from the dark pile. You can't easily see its unevenness because of the color. It was a useful sample because I've gotten more even in my rolag making and doing better at spinning woolen (thanks to some amazing YouTube videos).

Those are this spring's apple blossoms on our young tree. Ciao for now, Cindy

Daydreaming of lace

Hi Alene, I've been daydreaming of lace lately. Why? The gorgeous Aeolian Shawl from the latest knitty. Beautiful, beautiful, and with an earthy name as well. I hope to make one someday.

More realistically at this point in my life, I should do something a bit less complex since I have almost no experience knitting lace. I'm leaning toward that Mason-Dixon Knitting beauty, Belinda. I also like the Spinner's Shawl. Both of these have the virtue of being done on medium-sized needles for a small-needle-wimp like me.

I've got my fleece all washed now. It looks even better and a lot less yellow (that wasn't pee; it was dirt stuck to lanolin, whew). Fluffy and crimpy and soft. Ahhh.
C

What I Did On Spring Break

Last fall I chatted with Diana of Dreamfarm at our local farmer's market. As a long-time buyer of her family's excellent goat cheese and eggs, I was pleased to see yarn at her booth and bought a couple of skeins. Although the dairy goats and chickens are the mainstay of their farm, they also keep a small flock of Jacob sheep. They have wonderful spotted fleeces that she has made into yarn at a local mill. We made plans for me to get a raw fleece from her in the spring. I left the market that day feeling happy and a little dazed; my first fleece!! I didn't know until I asked her that I even wanted one! :)

So about 2 weeks ago, the kids and I went to pick up my fleece. It was a sunny but cool spring day, one of those days with a crisp blue sky. Diana gave us a farm tour. We got to pet the baby goats and the mama goats. We got to go inside a chicken shelter and adore the farm's big gentle dog! In fact, it was one of those days that make me wonder why I'm not a farmer myself. Diana emailed shortly after and said we'd narrowly missed the birth of twin goats.

I've been washing my fleece, a five-pounder from a ewe named Grace. She was pretty clean and almost all of her fleece is quite soft. I've gotten most of it washed, using the directions in the back of Start Spinning. I'm very happy with it and looking forward to spinning it. Hope all is well in AZ!

Quickie

Hi Cindy,

I should be headed off to bed but I haven't written yet this month and there is only 40 minutes left in it so I thought I'd post a few pictures.

We got new cell phones a couple of weeks ago. Mine is a pretty blue one that I want to protect so I made a couple of cozies. Guess which one is mine.
Two weeks ago DH went backpacking in Aravaipa Canyon with a couple of his buddies, one from Seattle and one from Dallas. It was the first trip they've done together in 14 years. Aravaipa Canyon is SE of Phoenix. I drove them down to the east end which is near Safford and picked them up two days later on the west end. Before I could pick them up though I had to call AAA for a jump, the truck battery had died.

Aravaipa is a perennial stream so they didn't need to carry water. There were plenty of frogs and fat squirrels to keep them company. They didn't see any rattlesnakes so it must have been a bit early for them.
The main part of the canyon is a Bureau of Land Management Wilderness area. You have to get a permit to hike there and they only let a limited number of people in each day. The Nature Conservacy has purchased ranches at both ends to help preserve the area.

This is my favorite picture. DH took it in one of the side canyons they hiked up to. Notice the columnar jointing in the canyon walls. Looks like a volcanic tuff to me. And notice how the smooth erosion of the walls is almost exactly the same height as the boulder in the distance. Imagine the force of the flash flood to move that!

I'll close this off and head to bed. DH is dropping me at the airport on his way to work. My flight leaves shortly after 10 and I should be to MKE by 3:30. I'll see you on Friday and may give you a call beforehand. Looking forward to seeing you! A

Love those natural fibers!!

Hi Alene -- spread the word: it's the International Year of Natural Fibers !! Word is starting to get around. I've read about it on Spindlicity and on the Martha's Vineyard & Hudson Valley Fiber Farms blog. Of course, my love of things woolly is well known but I can't wait to learn more about and see what people do with other natural fibers this year too.

The picture is of fiber and yarn scraps, mostly wool but other natural fibers, too, that I carded together to spin for Ravelry's Spin Your Scraps contest. What's going on with natural fibers down there in the desert?? ;) C

Start 'em Young, Part 2

DS spinning some pencil roving (no drafting required) -- any idea why it is underlining??

My service project

Remember a few posts back when I talked about making mittens for the homeless? I still think it's a good idea, but when I saw the low off-season prices of mittens at the store (yes, it is insane but mittens & gloves go on sale in February here in tropical Wisconsin), I wondered if I wouldn't help more people by raising some money. I've been thinking about how to do it. So here's what I'm going to try: Spin up some fun yarn in Ravelry's Spin Your Scraps challenge and knit it up into a scarf; then I'll auction off the scarf to benefit a local charity that helps homeless people in my city. So in March I'll work on the spinning!