fabric dyeing

whooohooo! today was the beginning of my venturing into dyeing fabric for quilting! in with all the acid dyes in the cupboard, there lurked 10 or so little jars of MX dyes in a variety of colors, and in the fabric stash there lurked a couple of yards of plain white fabric. so, i jumped into the project with great hopes and will know the outcomes of 4 little experiments tomorrow a.m. and will get photos... if the results are worth it. i was talking with Anne, a good friend who was visiting from Vietnam... she is a fabric dyer and quilter of great talent and creativity. she advised that it is ultra important to be meticulous in measuring dyes and chemicals and keep very exacting notes. this is so contrary to my haphazard methods, that in no time my eyes glazed over, my brain went into hibernation and i started muttering that i have no desire to keep records and repeat any dye batches. i may have to eat those words, but if i do, then my fabric dyeing will be done, finished, over with!! i'm sure that the meticulous approach works well for many people, but hell will freeze before that entices me in the least. the closest i can get to that is the precision and measuring that i've (so far) had to use in quilting. i'll open up the baggies of dyed fabric in the a.m.... and might take photos.....

9/2/07 - difficult to get a good representation of colors and placement of colors on the whole piece.... first is clear red and sunshine yellow dye powders sprinkled on fabric wetted with sodium carbonate water, put in baggie and mooshed around a bit and left overnight, then washed out and dried on hot in dryer --tho it looks like white areas, those are actually a light color
and clear blue, bright violet and forest green sprinkled on (same as above)

IKEA

see previous post... actually i do have something to say about it....

many of us in the Portland area have been impatiently waiting for the IKEA to open here, and finally they did!! for anyone who hasn't heard of (or experienced) this store... it is way more than enormous or gigantic.. and they seem to have just about anything you'd want for a home. and the prices are pretty good, too. i have been to the one in Seattle with Chris and Kate, so wasn't as overwhelmed as i might have been. went with my nieces, Jen and Maggie, and browsed, had lunch there in their cafeteria. their Swedish meatballs are very good. there was a
mob of people there, which makes me think i don't want to go on a weekend as the crush of people must be awful then. we went thursday mid-day.

adventures in retail therapy

need i say more???.....

vest project

check out Lynne's Rectangular Vest Challenge and get your knitting needles going!
www.handspuncentral.blogspot.com

Now i just need to finish unraveling a sweater disaster so i can use that yarn (which i love!) and get my vest started. wheeee......

in the meantime, i've been working on a quilt for my sweet grandson, Alex. tried the "quilt-as-you-go" method, which seems to be working out well. will have to reserve final judgement on this until the quilt is finished!!

back from Boise

I know the dogs have gotten a lot of space lately, but they are so damn cute i just can't help myself... or as my granddad would say.. "Ah cain't hep it". I bought each of them a bright little scarf at the Boise Saturday/Farmers' Market esp. for them to wear when they go on their morning walk with Jim.





i had a really lovely time in Boise with Anna.. and the time just flew by and in no time at all we had used up a whole week. now i'm home and exhausted... marathon shopping and good times will do that to ya! will elaborate tomorrow, but for now will crash and sleep.

from Boise

I will do a "catch up" when i'm back home at dome central, but for now....
-it's getting hotter here (was comfortable the first day)
-Boise Saturday Market yesterday was fun and provided good shoppin', not so good for my wallet
-we watched an unforgettable movie last night. if you haven't seen it yet, please watch "Freedom Writers". it was truly a powerful message of the impact that one person who cares can have on young people who really need someone to care about them. Anna and i both had tears.
-being able to spend time with my best friend is incredibly sweet and priceless!

fiber

today i got to have my "reward" for all the backbreaking labor with the bricks and the patio! the re-setting of the bricks is far enough along that the patio is usable, so there i sat to start spinning the BD fiber that Lynne gave me:


there are 2 bundles and this is the one that grabbed my attention the strongest. it's merino and bamboo (60%/40%) and is a delight to spin... so soft and shiny!!

and here's a couple of shots of the patio. you wouldn't believe how happy my back and hands are to not be lifting and re-lifting and fitting and re-fitting bricks today!! those damn things are heavy to repeatedly lift with one hand... and my joints and knuckles suffered. ice packs and Tiger Balm helped a lot tho. The logical and practical way to approach this would have been to remove all the bricks, put in sand, level it and tamp it down, then re-lay the bricks. the problem with that being that the bricks are an odd assortment gathered from friends and here and there till there was enough. and then Pam and i spent hours arranging them... into the dark of night several summers ago... while Jim and Merle sat around and drank wine and made suggestions. however, it was our project and we finally told them to fuck off and let us do it the way we wanted it!! and we were quite pleased with the outcome. so... i had no desire whatsoever to arrange all those bricks again... and that is why i did not do it the logical and practical way!


there will be no close-ups as it is still a bit wonky looking.... but _so_much_better!!!

translation problems

this is a sign we saw outside a small taverna in Kalives, Crete. the first time i saw it, i didn't have my camera with me, but you can bet i brought it the next time we went to Kalives. since the small village where we stayed is... well, very small and not well endowed with shopping opportunities, Kalives is where we went for ATM, internet cafe, wine shop, newspaper printed in english, etc. Crete has been on my mind a lot lately, and even though it's likely hotter than high noon in hell there right now, i do wish i were there. we have reservations all set for 2 weeks there the beginning of Nov. (right after i go to SAFF in Asheville, NC)

life (and sewing machines)

well, i went and bought myself a new sewing machine which will, hopefully, make quilting a bit easier. the one i have is ok, just totally plain vanilla... no bells and whistles. i didn't know i really wanted a new one til i was at Joann's and wandered thru their sewing machine area, where i was greeted warmly and showed to the top of their line... a Viking which does everything including a cute little dance on the coffee table. i loved it! the salesperson knew that and hid the price from me. when i finally saw that it cost $1300 and it's fancier sister was $1400, i laughed hysterically. i did bring home a brochure and showed Jim, who gasped. there is just no way in hell i could ever possibly use all the features which that one offers. for one thing... i've figured out my attitude about quilting. i do like making quilts, and my favorite parts are looking at/buying the fabric, putting on the binding then admiring it as i ignore the mistakes. i went shopping online and found a Brother CE4000 for under $200, and it does all kinds of cool things. it should arrive tomorrow and i'm ready for it! have most of the pieces cut for a quilt for Alex. he still has and uses the first quilt i ever made, but it's 7 years old now and does look kind of worn (and .. uh,..loved).

while i'm waiting for UPS to get here in the morning, i'll be working on getting the bricks on the patio re-set. time, use and burrowing rodents have done a number on the level-ness of the bricks and there's all kinds of pot holes, bulging and general sloping. my plan was to start at one end, take up a few bricks, put sand under, get rid of the glaring lack of level-ness (i doubt that's a word.. but it says what i mean), kind of doing a small section at a time so that the patio was still usable for the most part. however, when i asked Jim to get me a few bags of sand, he got a pickup load and new boards for the border, took up the first row of bricks all the way around, put the chairs and plants and decorative stuff in the driveway and right in the middle of the patio, so it's now a "project" that needs to be done in a timelier manner. is there just a little teeny bit of snarkieness there? yes, there is! i think i got about 1/3 done today, so there's hope it'll be done for the weekend. on sunday Judy, Jen and Maggie and their girls, and my dad are coming out for dinner. the predicted "in the 90's" weather of the next few days should be gone by then and i'm hoping it'll be nice enough to sit outside.

and now i must put ice on my spasming lower back muscles!

more twistin'

this wonderful spindle was a gift from Kate and Chris

isn't it gorgeous? and it has lots more than beauty going for it!! it spins like a dream and keeps on going.... Made by Ken Ledbetter of wenge (finial), mesquite (whorl) and maple (shaft) with embedded Russian lacquered brooch... and very well-made indeed!! Ken was in the booth next to ours at BSG, and Kate watched me drooling all over his spindles, then went back and got this for me!! lucky, lucky me!

what a week it was!!

and a very good week it was, too! took Amtrak to Seattle on tuesday, met by Kate and kids, then spent that evening and Wed. just hangin' out at their house. They've built a raised bed garden, with deer fence near completion, which looks to be filled with super-dirt of some kind! the veggies are huge and lush and look delectable. Alex planted a bed of sugar peas, which are just getting to pickin' size:

Zylie has a pumpkin patch which is trying to take over the pathway and all beds near it.

and here's Kate's salad garden:

Thursday we awoke to steady rain, and being the tried and true Northwesterners that we are, we tossed raincoats in with the other gear and headed out to take the ferry from Anacortes to San Juan Island to visit Pam and Larry, and go whale watching! It was a shock to me to find that the fare was $68 for car, 2 adults and 2 kids, and that was with a really reduced rate for seniors ($6.65 for me). Alex really loved the ferry ride:

When we arrived at Friday Harbor an hour later, there was some sun showing and weather just got better all day. the kids had a rompin' good time with Buster-the-kitten, who loved chasing anything they'd drag around the floor for him. Buster finally wore himself out and snuggled up by my feet for a rest.
(cool socks, huh? didn't make 'em... bought 'em from socklady.com and i love 'em)
we drove to the other side of the island, and stood on a bluff to watch the Orcas... and they really put on a show! they were quite close to the shoreline and it looked like there were several pods of them. the amount of time they are actually out of the water is so brief i knew i'd never be able to catch a photo of them... but what a magnificent sight it was! here's where we were:
you can see that it became a gorgeous clear and sunny day... and made us really glad we stayed with the plan. got up thursday a.m. to pouring rain, hung out with Pam for awhile, then rushed off to catch the ferry... missed it... waited 4 hours for the next one. wandered around in Friday Harbor, had lunch, yadda yadda....

took Amtrak back on saturday. and i gotta say, the party that Jim planned and executed for my
birthday on sunday was far beyond my expectations, and ranked up there with the best ever!! first.... he cleaned the house, including mopping floors... and right there he got highest marks!!! he had invited my twisted sisters so we could twist awhile and eat a lovely meal and admire the fabulous "twisted sister flower tower" he'd given me early as a bd gift (photo on an earlier post). in keeping with the twisted theme... he made a drink he'd heard about when visiting a winery... called (of course) a "twisted sister", made with a white port (tasted like gewurtztraminer) with orange zest, lemon zest and tonic water... and it was excellent!! and for lunch he served Caesar salad, Hungarian mushroom soup (made by special order by Maggie herself at Maggie's Buns, a local cafe), warm garlic bread, and the bd cake was (ta da my most favorite) tiramisu (also made by Maggie) Livin' large on my birthday! Laurie brought me a twinkling lights tiara and sceptor/magic wand which she had decorated with dyed mohair locks (tho guests were instructed to not bring gifts!)
me in my tiara and Rachael

Rachael and Matt came down from Goldendale:

Laurie, Jane and Jan were here

Stephanie showed off her new talent of balancing a vase of flowers on her head... ok, the shot wasn't set up really well, but it sounds better the other way.

Gail arrived after the picture taking and i neglected to get out the camera and document her lovely presence!

I had an outstanding 69th birthday and felt very loved and honored and who could ask for any more than that? so now i'm really and truly "almost 70" and feel like i kind of missed the 67
and 68 because what i kept hearing in my head was "almost 70".

so if you got this far in this very long missive... thanks... and that's all for now!

pooches

it's been quite awhile since our pooches were featured here, so here's Meika wearing a lovely plastic flower that Jim stuck in her collar. i don't think she fully appreciated how utterly adorable she looked. and what we do for one, we also do for the other. here's Tasha...with her usual kind of woebegone expression.

and speaking of "pooch" reminds me of "Project Pooch" ... which i've discussed previously and where we have been boarding the dogs when we are away. We recently received the news that the Oregon Youth Authority has decided that dogs cannot be boarded there any more. we really hope they will change that decision as it seems to be so beneficial to their program... and to those who board their dogs there!

meika again wearing her flower. and we did take their flowers off before they could get them off and eat them!

more flowers

and today's flower is this gorgeous yellow daylily:

it usually has 4 or 5 stems per year with 3 or 4 buds on each stem.. and is so outstanding and awesome looking that i really treasure each blossom. the petals are long, curved, graceful... and it's unlike any other daylily i have.

and then there's this lovely red flower... name of which i cannot remember today... maybe tomorrow.

before the heat of the day set in, (102F) i got the garden watered and picked a cucumber and some broccoli, then pretty much stayed inside the rest of the day. got about half way done on the quilting... photo when it's done.

Gerbera Daisy

this is my new favorite flower:

they are available in many lovely and vibrant colors and i'd sure love to have one of each! Costco was selling a 6-pack of 6-inch pots of them and i gave in with hardly a murmur, even tho i already had several in the ground and in pots. I was able to keep 3 alive over the winter by digging 'em up, potting them and keeping them on the kitchen windowsill. they didn't bloom in that time, but they did stay alive and that was all i was asking of them! and now they are all looking glorious. i do hope they can make it thru the current (very) hot spell, with temps for the next 2 day predicted at 103F. believe me, i will be staying inside for the duration and giving thanks to all deities for the person who invented air conditioning. we've only had the heat pump for about 5 years, and i have very clear memories of suffering thru temps like that for several day stretches at least once each summer. so now i will happily stay inside and cool and be a delicate flower. and now i need to put the sprinkler on the flowers and get them well-soaked.

quilting... and stuff

At last, i pulled out the partially sewn quilt i started ... can't remember even exactly how long ago i started it, but it's for Zylie and she's 4.5 now so it can't be a longer time than that. took me awhile to figure out just what i was intending to do to finish it. it's one of those projects that has been altered from the original plan (typical of my projects!), but i got up to speed pretty quickly and now the top/front is finished (bravo!!) and i'm figuring out what to do for the back. there are many small pieces of fabric left over from the front. that happens when one greatly alters the original plan. in fact, i'll probably use lots of the left-overs to put together a pillow to go with the quilt. for the back, tho, i'll need to decide whether to piece together some fabric already in my stash, or make a trip to the fabric store. hmmm, in fact i'll be in portland sometime next week and could probably make time for shopping then, or there's tomorrow morning..... It is really a mystery to me why i like quilting, because i really don't like detail work, and symmetry has no appeal to me. actually, "crazy quilts" are fascinating and i really want to make one of those.... no symmetry there.

it's been sizzling hot here, which has been well-received by some of the plants in the veggie garden.. and especially the tomato plants (2 of them) which are living in the greenhouse. there was actually a ripe cherry tomato, which Jim put in my salad tonight and it was oh so sweet and yummy. to have a ripe home-grown tomato this early in july is truly a treat, especially since we have had so many summers of green tomatoes in August. already i've picked a cucumber, snipped the tops off basil plants to keep them from blossoming, harvested some of the dill and fennel and i think there'll be green beans in a week or so! we do so love that fresh organic produce from the garden! according to the weather predictor folks we'll have mid-80s and into the 90s for the next 10 days, and that will be good for the garden... if we get enough water to the plants when they need it.

Twisted Sister Flower Tower

Installation of this grand piece of lawn art pottery took place this morning, before the mister even had his breakfast. There was a pressing need to grab the neighbor (Dave-the-potter-down-the-hill) before he headed off to town, as it took 2 strong men to move the tower from the back of the pick-up. and here it is in it's place:

and Dave, who knows all about pottery, pronounced it a truly fine piece of pottery (and... how'd they do that???)

photos

On my flickr account are a bunch of photos i took tuesday evening at Northwest Wools when we had the twisted sister book signing/get together/preview of the new book. there are just too many to transfer to the blog, so if you want to see them, click on the link to flickr on the right. The sweaters you see displayed are all from the new book... tho it's hard to really see them in these photos. guess you'll just have to get the book.......

sorry that i don't have the names of the 2 young women who are new spinners and showed us their truly outstanding yarn... so, if you are reading this... email me so i can put your names on the photo!!

*** and the mystery has been revealed! the new spinners are Helen (on the left) and Lorajean (on the right). thanks, Helen!

sock yarn

here's the sock yarn i got from Lynne. I have 2 skeins of the darker one and plan to do some kind of color patterns with the lighter one. and, as always, they look much much better in person! The handpainted/dyed sock yarn we had in the booth (from Lori and Lynne) were very popular and sold like hotcakes. In fact, Northwest Wools now carries both these sock yarns. (and i am affiliated with all three of these entities, so does that make this a commercial??) (well, since i get nothing from it, i'm just passing along some information for friends... ok?)

new fiber!

here's some of my stash acquisition from BSG. the top one is Merino/silk/angora from Lori and the other is BFL and was dyed by Lynne. I got them to ply together... and here's what i got:

the yarn is soft and heavenly, and will probably become a scarf. I have a couple more of Lori's blends which will show up here another day.

And here's some sock yarn i got from Lynne... it's merino/bamboo and will be the first socks i've
knitted with this blend. and for some reason, the photo won't upload, so will come later!

back home in my queendom...

It's no surprise, it was an awesome 3-day extravaganza at Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, OR

We were so sad that Lynne was not able to be there and we missed her hugely!! So, Lori and I had the booth with handdyed fibers and yarn done by all 3 of us. we also had an advance copy of the new Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters, and the actual Zylie sweater which Kate brought with her. Too bad Zylie couldn't be there to model it! We were able to russle up some excellent booth help from Linda (NW Wools) with whom i had a booth at BSG for many years, and from Rachael, who has helped us in the booth many times, and from Kate, my very dear DIL, who was there for the first time and caught on really quickly! don't know how i could have survived without them... they made it possible for me to be out of the booth a lot for shopping and catching up with lots of friends! the shopping was actually not terribly expensive this year as i was able to be quite restrained in stash enhancement. i think i spent a lot of that energy on enabling anyone who would stand still long enough. I think Pam took the prize in our group for stash enhancement (3 fleeces, a spinning wheel + a few other items) Kate was the focus of quite a bit of my enabling efforts and seemed to enjoy it. she has enough new stuff to last for awhile. Over the years, it seems the characters change some, but the twisted element goes on in grand style!! the past few years we have stayed in a motel which has way more room for gathering in the evening for spinning, show and tell, lots of laughter and the telling of wild and crazy stories.

and when i got home, Jim had my birthday gift waiting for me (he is quite early this year... it's still a month away). But he really outdid himself this time, with a tribute to twisted sisters! he was at an event at a local plant nursery and they were selling very special "garden art". he says he just could not resist the one named "Twisted Sister"... a tall and twisted ceramic planter with the focal plant being a cotoneaster with kind of twisty branches. it is SO tres cool and i totally love it...

color and beauty abounds

Today i was walking about in my queendom with my little bitty camera in my pocket, just admiring the variety of flowers and color around me. any time i feel icky, this is what turns the tide for me... tho i was feeling fine and dandy and peaceful and happy today... no ickiness! i am so fortunate to live in a (mostly) quiet rural place where i can go outside in the morning and hear only the birds, and sometimes the far-off drone of a tractor... it is very meditative. at this point in my life, i would not do well living in a neighborhood!! so, anyway, i took some flower photos today. here's one that i'm so happy i was able to get:

and this white peony, is still lovely as it is close to expiration:

The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters: A Knit-to-Fit Workshop

This is the new twisted sister book by Lynne Vogel and it will be released in August. Lynne just got an advance copy and you can read what she says about it on her blog www.handspuncentral.blogspot.com She let me see the galley, and i've gone through it and looked at every page and will now go back and really read it. I have to say that i do have a bias because Lynne is my dear dear friend and we have been working/playing with fiber together for years. Also, i know how much of her life and energy has gone into the creation of this beautiful
book. Lynne is really gifted in being able to explain and describe knitting in a way that makes me smack my forehead and say.... "ok, now i get it!" This book (like the Sock book) has gorgeous photos, the color is stunning, the layout beautiful, and the content will be so valuable to knitters that they'll wonder how they got along without it!! but you don't have to rely on my word on this... get your hands on a copy as soon as you can. you won't be sorry!! trust me on that.

life is good... and time does fly by

and life has been happening since that last post... May 3. Jim left may 1 for his trans-Siberian rail trip, and came back may 22 having evidently had an excellent adventure! while he was gone my inner cinderella-harriet-housewife appeared from the depths and went to work purging some of the extraneous crap around here. Good Will is a big winner, along with my nieces who are the happy recipients of about 1/2 of my bead stash. Cinderella also tackled a lot of mess and dirt which should have been seen to long ago. it is always so much easier for me to get into a cleaning/purging project when i'm here alone. i'm so easily distracted that i might get a portion of a project finished and leave it for something more interesting (is that ADD?) and it is just lovely to be able to walk away from it mid-battle and come back when i'm ready, having been free to leave the mess in whatever stage it is and not even think about anyone being annoyed by having to trip over "stuff" and negotiate around a project that's only gotten to mid-way. also made several trips to plant nurseries and came home with veggie plants, a bunch of flower plants... and ready to beautify my queendom. and i had decided that Jim's upcoming 70th birthday on the 27th of may deserved some celebrating, so invited family (his and mine) and some special friends to come and party with us ... and somewhere between 35 and 40 of them came, so dome central was rockin' on sunday. Chris, Kate and kids arrived on saturday, though i really hated asking them to travel on this holiday weekend, and were a huge help in getting the rockin' launched. i did feel a little sorry for Jim... he got home tuesday night and i told him he could have wed. off to rest up and get over jet-lag, and then had 3 days to work his way thru the list of what needed to be done... e.g. the grass/weeds had grown almost a foot while he was gone! as always, he was a good sport about it...... and he did seem to enjoy his party!! during the party i was talking to my friend, Sarah, who asked "so.. what have you been doing" and i don't know if this happens to anyone else, but my mind went blank, and i finally mumbled something or other and Sarah said oh yeah she'd read that on my blog... so i invited her to tell me, and that confirmed to me that blogging is definitely a good thing. i can always look back and see just what i've been doing, or even tell friends to check out my blog cause i just can't always remember. that sounds pretty pathetic, but it seems like there is always so much going on that there is no time to dwell on it... just move on to the next adventure! Zylie wore her "gramma sweater" at the party, which received lots of admiration... and Kate said she acted as my "PR person" by showing around my printout of the cover of the new Twisted Sister book, which is the Zylie Sweater, and telling all about it. (the book comes out in august or sept., is The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters by Lynne Vogel and you can read about it on Amazon or the Interweave Press website)! My adrenalin rush over this is indescribable!! like who would have ever thought that i could/would ever knit a sweater that would end up on the cover of a book??? and then seeing it on my granddaughter is a whole 'nother rush! Another event in the last 3 weeks is that my niece Jennifer is close to graduating from UofPortland school of nursing and i went to her pinning ceremony on May 5. She deserves such admiration for starting nursing school when in her mid-30s, and while having 2 children and a partner, doing the whole thing so well and earning awards, too! i'm so very proud of her, as is her mom (also a nurse), and then there's her greatgrandmother, a nurse... my grandmother who i adored. She, Effie Miller, was a true strong pioneer woman who came from rural North Carolina in the early 1900s to Portland, OR to go to nursing school at a hospital which had been established by a doctor she knew from NC.

and that's about enough from this blabber-fingers for tonight!

denim vest/jacket

for Angi - here's the vest i turned into a jacket

Robin's sleeve

Several years ago I made myself a jacket by knitting sleeves and attaching them to a denim vest, and my sister, Robin, asked me to do one for her using blues, greens, purples. The first sleeve is finished and the 2nd one is started... as of tonight. Since she lives in TN and i can't try it on her for sleeve length, i've just put the live stitches at the cuff on a piece of yarn and will knit the 2nd to that length and sew them into the vest. when we get together again she can try the vest/jacket on, we'll adjust the cuffs as needed and i'll finish 'em off!!


and this is the stash o'yarn i'm using... mostly handspun, but includes some yarn i got in Crete last fall.

this is not an original idea... i saw one several years ago, then scored a denim vest at good will, looked at a sweater sleeve pattern which looked roomy enough, made 2 sleeves and sewed 'em in! i've worn the jacket so much that it's starting to look kind of ratty, so will probably be knitting new sleeves one of these days! goddess knows i've got enough stray yarn stashed around here for many projects! have been trying lately to reduce the stash and am failing miserably. i do have it better organized and uncovered several unfinished items which are now where they can be seen, and may inspire in me some incentive (or guilt) to get on with finishing.

another finished item.... a pair of socks for Jim. these are not as wild as my usual socks and are more "fraternal" than most, because that's what he wanted. i fiddled with the color in the editing program and just couldn't get the true red... which is really scarlet and doesn't look at all pink as the photo here indicates! also dyed some solid red and brown so i could make stripes and that was as wild as he wanted to go. the socks are specifically for his upcoming adventure!

he leaves next week for a trans-Siberian railroad trip.... and is really looking forward to it. He will fly into Beijing then take a train up thru part of Mongolia, across Siberia and spend a couple of days at the end of the adventure in Moscow and in St. Petersburg. Somehow, 3 weeks on a train just isn't the kind of adventure for me, so he found a small tour group to go with and i'll stay home with the dawgs.

answers and etc

for Carolyn... my "non" traveling most often used spinning wheel is my VanEaton oak double treadle wheel, 24", double drive (does also have scotch tension).

The other wheel i use a lot is my Ernest Mason chair wheel. After Mr. Mason died, his daughter took over making the wheels for a few years, but i don't think anyone is making them now. both of these spinning wheels are much-loved treasures.


and for Terry... although dhJim has come over to the dark side as far as tolerating the pink flamingo decor (he can't really get away from them), "Flamingo Jim's" is a not-to-be-missed shop in Rockaway Beach... has everything from the tacky to the sublime!!

thanks, Lori! yep... these bright rovings "with attitude" do seem to do well at Black Sheep Gathering!! hope that's true again this year......

newest photos

my new flamingo sweatshirt purchased in Rockaway Beach, OR at one of the tackiest, touristy, and crowdedest shops in my universe!

well, actually, it's just the pic on the front of the shirt... we all know what a sweatshirt looks like!
yesterday i got my new travel wheel... Louet Victoria, and tho i haven't spent a lot of time spinning on it yet... i like it a lot. it came with a carrying case, weighs about 7 pounds, sets up very easily.... and no, i have no affiliation with Louet other than liking their wheels! when it is folded up and in its case, it takes up about the same amount of space as my Journey Wheel, which i love and have no intention of selling!!

and because i've spent so much time lately with fibers and dyes, i took a photo of my latest most favorite color combo. it's Blue Face Leicester... the bundle sitting on top of a bunch of merino/tencel.

lovely weekend

got back this afternoon from a weekend in Rockaway Beach, OR with some twisted sisters. Jane, Linda and I went friday, got there just in time for lunch, then went to the rental office where we'd made reservations, and were able to get in early (gave them very pitiful, homeless type looks). we were able to rent a condo on the top (4th) floor overlooking the beach. it has big picture windows in the living room... and we watched a big rain/wind storm roll in, and went to bed with the wind howling and rain blowing hard against the windows. couldn't ever hear the surf. then by morning it was over and the sun came out and gave us 2 gorgeous days! we managed to work in a shopping trip, but spent most of the time spinning, knitting, grazing and catching up on each others' lives. then Sue, Alina and Alyse (Alina's niece) got there about noon, we made room for them to set up wheels, etc, and carried on as before. Had a delicious fresh crab salad for dinner!! while out shopping we went to Flamingo Jim's and i found the totally perfect for me sweat shirt. will take a pic tomorrow. i thought i was really finished with collecting things flamingo, but could not resist this... and got lots of enabling encouragement from the sisters!

And now must get busy with some marathon dyeing. Even tho i thought i was retired from vending at fiber shows, i decided to have a booth at Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, OR one more time... this time sharing space with Lynne Vogel and Lori Lawson. With 3 of us, I'll still be able to have "time off" to take a class (signed up for a Joan Schrouder class on finishing techniques)... and shop and watch demos and judgings.. and all that fun stuff. The dates for BSG are June 21, 22 and 23. If you've never seen Lynne's and Lori's work, you're in for a real treat!! both of them have an incredible eye for color!! and will have the booth packed with beautiful spinning fibers and yarns!

quince

i absolutely adore this little shrub, and hope the neverending rain won't ruin all the blossoms!

finished it

here's the little entrelac camera bag for my new little Olympus camera! i replaced the photo i had here that i got from my scanner... this one is many times truer in color!! i think i'm loving this new camera!!!

I love entrelac!!!

well, i felt confident enough after the sample entrelac (last post) that i decided i could take off my training wheels and use some of my dye-along yarn and start an entrelac piece without knowing just what it will become. It could possibly become a hat... or maybe a small bag. And so, there i was knitting along and hardly needing to look at the directions any more, feeling just so confident... and then as i was admiring what i'd done, along came my humility lesson and whomped me. can you see my mistake? wish i'd seen it sooner. there is a selvage triangle missing on the right side, and nothin' to do but rip it back to where that triangle should be and put the damn thing in.