return of the dye muse

drying fiber
i was able to resurrect my dye studio from the disarray into which it had fallen during the last few months.  unbelievable the amount of dog hair, dirt, piles of miscellaneous unrelated stuff that had accumulated on the counters and floor.  the exit path for the dogs to get to their yard goes directly through my studio, so their hair, muddy feet and outdoor debris adds up to a mess.  and then there were the cups and jars of dyes that had been sitting there unused since early sept. and had become dehydrated and/or a thick, jelled glop.  amazing what some boiling water will do.  i always do a few "test pieces" to check for the fastness of dyes after reconstituting them and am delighted that they react with the fiber just as they did 3 months ago.  don't throw away those gloppy, neglected dyes, i tell ya. 

pouring color on white fiber

i needed bright color in my fiber life!  going thru my yarn stash and spinning fibers, i found not a lot of bright.  there's some in the current knitting project (the poppy sweater), but that's all dedicated.  so there's some fiber and yarn with attitude comin' up.  and i do need that to ward off the cloudy, gray winter day goblins of gloomy.  also, have on the dyeing agenda, a bunch of that sock yarn with the silver, and plan some sexy black, magenta, bright violet, turquoise for that... plus other bright combinations!  hmmm, bright seems to be the operative word here.

tgiving at Jen and Maggie's

i love that Max likes to dress up for parties

 and a lovely and filling day it was!  for anyone who knows and/or loves and/or is related to any of these folks, you will probably enjoy the photos.  anyone else, maybe not so much.

one might ask where are the women folks... short answer is in the kitchen fixing the feast, hangin' out and enjoying each others' company!  sorry none of those photos were worthy of posting.  we really missed those who were in other parts of the world and hope they also had a wonderful day.

power - or not

just when it seemed life just couldn't get any more exciting at dome central... we decided to get a generator for when the power goes out, and we KNOW it will go out because this is predicted to be one of the coldest and worst winters in a long long time and that means that our fragile electrical power source will most certainly go out and often, when it is gone, it stays gone for many days because we are far enough out and so at the end of the line when it comes to crews getting out to make repairs!  so, we got one powerful enough to run the small freezer, refrig, microwave, coffee pot, maybe a part-time space heater.... and charge the batteries for our laptops.  so, if the dire predictions do come about, and based on the percentage of accuracy in previous forecasts and "weather alerts", this past week could be the only adverse and way below freezing, power-outage possible bad weather we'll see... but however, we are prepared!!!  and after considering where this generator might be safely housed in order to prevent a human who is tending to it being overcome by carbon monoxide fumes, he decided to build it a little house.  here is the framing of the generator house.  it will have a roof and removable sides (probably tarps).  and this is the exciting news in my queendom.  seriously tho... it will be lovely to have some power for some of those conveniences that make our lives comfortable.  i'm so over that pioneer woman crap and so past the time where i want the challenge of preparing food on the top of the wood stove.

chanterelles

got a call from a neighbor last night saying he and a friend had picked 2 grocery bags full of chanterelle mushrooms and would we like to have some! i've always liked neighbors Don and Carol, and now they are even higher up on the good neighbor list!!  these are a highly prized gourmet treat, tho i can't say they look very appetizing to me.  i know that they taste yummy, so guess what's on the menu for tonight.....  The instructions are to brush them off - DO NOT wash them - i just don't know about that.

it's snowing and predicted to be very cold with more snow in the next few days.  we have snow tires on the Prius and cable chains for it but i surely do wish i had my 4WD toyota pick-up!  i loved that truck and felt very safe in it, no matter the weather.  ~~sigh~~

what i did on my winter vacation

of course i started making my fiber nest... looks pretty puny.. but it's just the first day and i hadn't unpacked it all.  stay tuned.  more to come.

now after a couple of days it's beginning to look more like "my nest".

it's reallly realllly cold here and always looks like it's going to snow... kind of grey.  i'm perfectly content to stay inside with spinning, knitting, reading, computering, grazing and wine drinkin'.  we did venture out yesterday in search of the thrift store which supports the nature center and it was packed with all sorts of stuff... from furniture to books to kitchen stuff to a crafts corner where i found a dandy little package of 1/4 yd pieces of fabric and a like-new book on making small quilts and projects.  we have cable tv here, but i'm sad we can't get MSNBC or comedy channel, so no Rachel or Daily Show... but however, we also have wireless so can watch those shows on the computer! 

this is the view from our porch.... we did get some sunny days, tho it's cold and i've been unable to keep my feet warm, even with wool handspun and knit socks!

cute bear in the main lobby at the grand lodge at Sunriver.  he feels all soft and like a plushie,  and i wanted to bring him home with me.  didn't happen!

  

hope we can get back home before there's any snow!!  we'd planned to leave on thursday, but forecasts of big dumping of snow over the passes brought out my inner weather weenie and we'll leave Wed. a.m and scoot across them mountain passes before the flurries are flying.  will be happy to be home again!!

where i am, Terry, is Sunriver, close to Bend, OR.

new again

not to sound like pollyanna, but... sometimes memory lapses/brain farts/losing my mind turns up good things! in the basement under a shelf, packed in a big box i found a lovely fleece which must have been brought to me by the wool goddess as i have no idea when or where i bought it. and it's a gorgeous bag of wool with no miscellaneous pasture debris mixed in the wool!! so... i washed some of it and it comes out brilliant white, perfect staple length. so... i dyed a small batch and it is totally wonderful and makes me very happy!