Flu.

Ugh. So it has now hit everyone in the house except for Bill. It is also strange in how it effects everyone differently. It hit poor Simon the hardest. He was down for three days. He has just reported that he feel better.

Gotta go though. Small girl wants a book read. I'm hoping it is not one that I have memorized.

Why did I want snow?

Well, today was a snow day for myself and the kids. Bill had to go to
work for the afternoon. Wonders of wonders, the powers that be actually
cancelled university classes for the morning. Thank heavens. That meant
that Bill could help shovel before he had to go to work. We had snow
last night, followed by some rain and then we are being plunged back
into the deep freeze by late this afternoon. So there was no waiting
for later. It was hard to shovel the wet snow, but it would have been
impossible to shovel the solid frozen mass that it would all become.
Kora, from upstairs, came out and did her part too. It is so nice to
have neighbours who will help with the shoveling chores. We have had
several who wouldn't even shovel the front steps. Now I am slightly
sore and tired.
So I took one of those online tests. This one was
pointed out by Judy

Take the Quiz here!

I always liked Elinor. Although I don't think that I could live up to her example.

I hope to get some spinning done this evening. I've been a good girl and deserve a treat.

FYI

I thought that this was common knowledge. Why? I have no idea. Maybe because I have know about this strange reaction for years. My sister and I used to do this all the time when we were kids. Why? Again, no idea. Some things kids just DO. I feel sorry for a lot of kids these days. Some are so schedulized and watched and kept near that they have no time to explore and experiment like we did as kids. You know who you are. You are the ones who wouldn't want your kids to do what you did when you were a kid. I some days have to take a deep breath and let my kids go when we are at my parents house. They live on a farm and there are all sorts of potential dangers. But there are all sorts of learning opportunities too. We ran wild from June to September and I survived. The things that I have to worry about out there are inanimate and not living breathing beings. Some people are scary. To all of you scary people, I say "GO AWAY".
But enough of that. The funny reaction that I mentioned earlier was the simple fact that you can clean pennies (and any copper) of corrosion with ketchup.
It is science fair project time and Mira finally decided what her project was going to be. She had made a battery with zinc washers, pennies, lemon juice, and paper towel a couple of years ago with her papa and decided that this was what she would do for her project. Bill decided to bump up the demo (and at the same time make a piece of equipment that he may be able to use in his first year lab as a demo) and make a battery cell using copper plates and zinc flashing all soddered together in a battery type cell structure (in reality, a pill case). I was helping to clean the copper and zinc plates and Bill wanted me to sand all of the copper plates to clean them. "Why don't I just use ketchup?" I asked. Well, I'm not going to get into the discussion that followed, but let us say that the sceptic was soon converted. Converted to the point that he told a few people at work today about the wonders of ketchup on copper as a cleaning agent and they were all amazed! Who knew? Just one of those useless bits of childhood information that actually turned out to be useful.
Don't believe me? Just dump some ketchup on some dirty, scuzzy pennies. It only takes a minute and they look shiny and new. Did you know this? Or are we New Brunswick farm girls just weird?
And you though that ketchup was just for fries!

happy V-day

Happy Valentines Day all! I hope that it is a good one.
Today is a working day for me, so when I polled the kids last night at supper as to what they wanted to eat tonight for supper, I sadly had to shoot down Pizza and Lasagna. There were a few other dish ideas tossed out on the table, but the clear majority turned out to be pesto. And salad. That is for me. I feel that I need to chew on some crunchy green stuff to combat all of the cookies that I ate on Monday. This week is Teacher Appreciation week at the Boys elementary school and I had volunteered to do something or it. Bake cookies was the easiest thing, but it turned out not to be the wisest. Butterscotch chips and I get along too well.
I had recently been a part of a recipe swap hosted by Amanda and there are some tasty dishes there, but a lot of them take more prep time than I have between getting home from work and having supper on the table before the kids "die from starvation". But on the good side, tomorrow looks like it is going to be a snow day and I will have a bit more time to cook. 15 -20 cm of snow and then some rain in the morning. Rain! Can you believe it? After the deep freeze that we have been in all this time, it is going to rain. Global warming for you. The clouds must be able to retain a lot more heat than they used to.

Note to Self.....

When Pyrex says " from stove top to oven" the don't really mean it.

Yesterday was one of those rare days when Bill had to be downtown at lunch. After he did his business, he stopped at Victory and picked up a few things including Chicken breasts. He lovingly brought these home, chopped and diced and poured various thing on them and left them to marinate. So (joy and bliss) when I got home from work, supper preparations had begun. I still had to cook it, but the thinking part was done. Note: "the thinking part was done". Apparently it was really finished for the evening.
I decided to steam some carrots, put rice on, and make a onions-mushrooms-red pepper concoction. Sounds good? Hmmmm.
So I put the carrots on to steam. Turn the oven on to preheat. Move the glass dish that the chicken has been marinating in to the stove so I can pop it into the oven as soon as it gets up to temp.
Have I mentioned that we got a new stove a few months ago?
On my old stove, the top dials were the back burner and the bottom dials were the front. Makes a bit of sense. Right? On the new stove the dials are reversed. You would think that by now, I would be able to get it right. But no. I apparently turned the chicken in the glass pan on to steam, while the carrots sat there cold. I heard a "plip,plip,plip" and thought "that doesn't sound right". And sure enough, there was the chicken, in the glass pan, on a red hot burner, boiling. Oops. "No worries", thought I. And I popped it into the almost up to temp oven.
So far so good. And then.....
About 5 minutes later, I heard a loud shattering sound. Followed by hissing. Picture if you will screaming Jackie running to the oven, opening the door to make sure that it really is what I think it was ( duhhh, what else could it have been?) shutting the kitchen door, opening the back shed door to let out a bit of the smoke. And then proceeded to laugh my fool ass off. Have I mentioned how cold it has been lately? Well last night was no exception. After the smoke cleared a bit, I looked back in the oven to find the chicken, high and moist, sitting on the rack, while the marinade and a whole lot of glass sat on the bottom. What to do.
Well, in the end I did what any frugal person would have done. 6 chicken breasts does not come cheap, so I washed them, checked for broken glass, put them in a stainless steal pan, and cooked them on the stove top while I cleaned out the now cooled down oven.
Thankfully when Pyrex breaks, it doesn't break into shards, but shatters into chunks. And even more thankfully, it was in a contained space. Can you imagine the mess that it could have caused? And if any of the kids had been standing around, the results could have been much different.
It was delicious, by the way. And now my oven is clean. Sort of.
Have a happy weekend. I hope the sun is shining where you are.

So what else is new?

It's cold here in the great white north. Well below freezing in fact. Tonight's low is -23C (-9F) with wind chill -34C (-28F). So to those of you who have flowers in your back yard, could you keep it to yourself for a few more weeks? I'm having a bad case of envy of some of you who live in a more, shall we say moderate climate. We should be over the worst of this in a week or two. I hope.

On the craft front, I have decided to frog the two socks that I have started and that have been sitting in my basket not being worked on. The first is some hot pink/blue/purple ones that I though that I liked, but I guess that I really don't. The others are the (sigh) lorna's laces. Again. You see, I am really a weaver and although I want to be a knitter, I don't know that I will ever progress beyond simple knit and purl socks. Well, I do know the ssk stitch that you use to make heels but beyond that.....? I have tried several different sock patterns, beautiful sock patterns, lacy, textural, cabled (mock of course) sock patterns and I'm struggling with them. And between you, me, and the gate post, right now I have enough struggles that I really don't feel the need to struggle with socks. Maybe some day in the future when things are less demanding I will haul out the lacy sock patterns again (they are sexy!), but for now, I am going to knit only from sock patterns that I have had success with. And thankfully I have a pattern for fine socks and two for heavy socks. Having said that , I have started a new pair of socks. These are from some muted purply pink merino yarn that I had dyed to sell at market before Christmas and I have two skeins left! I am about three inches down the cuff of the first one. So far, it is all good.

I have put a crackleweave warp on an 8 harness loom at the college, and so far I haven't liked any of the samples that I have woven. This may be because it isn't a true crackleweave, but more like a progressive point twill (even though it was called a crackle weave on handweaving.net). In any case I am cutting and rethreading to a traditional type crackle. I think that the pattern that I have on now would look beautiful if I were to use single coloured warp and single coloured weft, but I am working with a painted warp and the results are less than stellar.


I really haven't had much luck with my work in January. Even some of the dying that I did turned out crap. No luck at all. Except for spinning. Spinning is going really well. So well in fact that I am soon going to have to get myself some new roving. I just keep spinning and spinning and spinning. I'm glad that something went right in January. But now it is February and I have a few new things to try. But more about that later.

And the last "new" thing? No camera so no pictures of re-balled wool, crappy not-crackleweave or the couple of new skeins of hand spun. With the exception of the handspun, your not missing much. Oops, almost forgot my sock cuff, but I'm sure that you can use your imagination.

Just 'cause

What is that strange pink thing?
Why, Nicole of course, modeling her new dress-up thing.

A poem

For blogger (silent) poetry reading found on Grace's Poppies

Hug O' War

I will not play at tug o' war
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And evertone wins.

Shel Silverstein - 1974ish

Small Pleasures

A few weeks ago, the carafe for my small (4 cup) old (about 11 years) coffee maker slipped from my hand and broke in the sink. "Ah Ha!" I thought. "A sign!" The Co-op that we belong to was having a sale of in stock small appliances. "Another sign!" So off Nicole and I trek to the Co-op. There were several choices of coffee makers ranging from the kind that will give you a foot rub while you drink (read waaaaayyyyy out of my price range) to the basic no frills. And a little ways up from no frills was the no frills programmable. I'm loving it! I set it up at night, push the "auto" button and when the alarm goes off at 6:30, there, ready and waiting is coffee. How bloody civilized. I know that some of you have had this technology for years, but in my house it is new and pure bliss.

Oh, and I am still spinning like a mad woman. I am glad that I can dye my own roving or by now I may have resorted to spinning the dryer lint.

Fat Cat Owns 23 Old Ladies

I have to admit that I've been having a bit of a rough week. It has been cold. Really cold. Not the coldest we've ever had up here. But cold enough that people are barely recognizable beneath all of the layers. The high today was -16 C (4 F) with a wind chill quite a few degrees below that. All of which means that I don't spend a lot of time out side. Which also means that I don't get a lot of sun. The south facing part of our house is the back shed. We get about an hour of sunlight in the front room first thing in the morning. And maybe as much in a small, high window in the back of the kitchen when it is setting. Even if I was able to catch these few, week rays, I have figured out that this is not anywhere near enough sun for me. So I have been feeling a bit SADD. Which brings be to the title of this post. I was in the grocery store getting some tonic water to go with the gin that I am sipping on right now and one of the tabloid's caught my eye. Fat Cat Owns 23 Old Ladies. Complete with a picture. Made me laugh out loud. Not the good old belly laugh. More like a "HA!" But in any case, it brightened my day just a bit. So I thought that I would share it with you all.

Last night was also the first meeting of the "neo-spinsters". There were 5 of us and it was really nice to get together, gab, drink tea, and spin. We will be meeting every two weeks. A couple of people there thought that they may know another person or two that may be interested in coming. Maybe some day I'll have some pictures of our meetings.

And speaking of pictures, here is what Nicole has been up to with paint and paper.




I think that we have another artist in the family.

The Gallery

Mira tried her hand at the spinning wheel yesterday. If you look closely at her face (and at the yarn on the bobbin), you can pretty much tell how she felt about the whole experience. She spins fine on a drop spindle, so I think that it is just a matter of time before she gets the wheel. I hope that she doesn't let a not so successful first try discourage her from trying again. Her biggest complaint? The wheel kept spinning the wrong way.
Here is a little scene that she set up on a shelf in her room. The ground and background is painted, the trees are make from wine corks and green felt, and the critters (mostly dragons are fimo. Click on the picture of a close up.You can really see the size scale too. Everyone knows how big a wine cork is.
Here is a snake smelling a flower
A mother with her hatchling and eggs.


flying dragon
Fire breathing snake and rat with a pin for size scale.
And another hatchling. These things are all incredibly small and as you can see, quite well done. Sorry about the blurry photos. Some of us are good photographers... and then there is me.

Pretty skeins all in a row

Here they are. My spinning production from the past few weeks. On the right is some merino that I dyed to felt, but the call of the wheel was stronger that the call of felt. Next to it is the roving from my Yarn aboard pal Margene . She also sent a lovely drop spindle, on which I spun about a quarter of this skein. Then life got in the way of spinning. Followed by Christmas and New Year. And then the miraculous delivery of a wheel and a bit more time. So I finished the skein on the wheel. Then is the two skeins of sultan. Lastly is a combination of some of the left over dye samples that I carded together when I was desperate to spin, but had no dyed fleece. It is mostly reds with some pinks, oranges, and purples mixed in.
Here she is... solo. Gotta love it.
And here is what I did yesterday. One bobbin was spun at the S&B the other night, and the second bobbin and the plying happened yesterday. Of course, the colours are not quite right. They are a little washed out.

Snow Day

Kids school canceled. My school canceled. Bill still had to go to work. But I get to spin some today!

Cold enough for ya?

You know it's cold when.... I break out the hair dryer. I have one of these beasts for one purpose only. That is to shrink wrap the leaky windows in my old house every winter. The hair dryer in question was one that my sister had when we were teenagers. She just turned 40 this summer and so I am actually quite impresses that the thing still works. But then again, as I stated before, it doesn't get much use in the run of a year.
So in any case, this morning dawned -24C (-13 F) with a wind chill of -33 (-27F). This after weeks of temperatures hovering around freezing. I swear that when I said earlier that this winter was mild, it WASN'T A COMPLAINT! Today is a day off work for me (read: day to run errands) and so the babe and I are off to the grocery store, but one look in the mirror convinced me that I had to do a few repairs before venturing out in the cold. Hence the early morning shower instead of the late night bath. And after emerging with wet (but clean ) hair. I decided to break out the hair dryer. First time in about 15 years.
And why did I not take the late night tubby? I was called around 5:30 last evening to be informed that our S&B group was getting together. At one point we were very regular, but times change, and lives change, and we found ourselves getting together less and less often. But we still get together about once every two or three months. Last night was at Amy's house and I brought my spinning wheel. Or at least, Kora's spinning wheel. I talked to her and she said that I could keep it for the time being. She is too busy with school and music to be doing any spinning. All the better for me! In any case, I spun about 2.5 ounces of pink/purple/burgundy merino. I hope to spin the other bobbin on the weekend and get them plied. What an addiction! None of the gals had ever seen a spinning wheel in action and had quite a lot of questions. One of them asked what I was going to do with the yarn. I had to laugh and say that for now it was all about the process not the product. I guess that I can call it "zen spinning". I can't work on it tonight because I have some homework to finish up. Yup. Homework. I know that I said that I wasn't going to take any more courses, but I was lured into this one. But this is getting to be a bit of a rambling post and I will talk more about that tomorrow. Hopefully with pictures.

E-mail mystery solved

I'm sure that you all remember my ranting about not being able to reply to comments because the comments came in with "no reply" . I think that I have found the culprit.
The problem? When I "upgraded" to beta, somewhere along the way, my e-mail address that had been shown on my profile disappeared. So I updated my profile and checked (again) the box that said "show my e-mail address".
Any of you that had your e-mail visible may want to do this and once again, replies will come from your comments. And I really do like to reply to your comments.

6 weird thinks about me

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the "6 weird things about you.
People who get tagged must blog 6 weird about themselves as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

1. There are certain sounds that I hate. Not just dislike, but jaw clenching, blood pressure boiling HATE. Bill thinks that this is extremely weird. Among the sounds are hot liquids with milk in them being stirred, business shoes walking down a long corridor, chewing. Some of them are very specific, others are a little more general.
   
2. When I was a child, one foot was a full size larger than the other. The smaller one has almost caught up now , but is still smaller by a mm or two.
   
3. If my feet are too hot, I get cranky.
   
4. My ears are also two different sizes and are too small to tuck my hair behind.
   
5. I can't sleep with any part of my body hanging off the edge of the bed. No feet or arms can be past the boundaries of the bed. I also have a very small temperature window of comfort when I sleep. I often wake up in the night and am just a little bit too cold, but not cold enough so that I know that I am too cold to sleep. Sometimes is takes me an hour to come awake enough to realize that my problem is that I am a half degree too cold. I think that this weird thing sucks.
   
6. I need to eat on a regular basis. If I don't, I get the shakes and have anxiety attacks. Bill also thinks that this is really weird. What I think is weird about it is that this only started after I had my first child
7. Nice yarn make me drool. Really. When presented with really nice yarn, my mouth fills with saliva. I find myself swallowing a lot. In fact, Trish, the owner of the local yarn store has been know to say "don't get too close to that one"
   
8. I smell yarn. I love the smell of silk and I always have.
   

OK, so maybe that last one isn't so weird to most of you, but to those non-fibre people, such a thing is weird indeed.
Apparently I also have a hard time stopping at just six weird things.
I also hate pointing fingers so I'm not going to tag anyone.

I also have finished spinning the roving that Margene sent me through Yarn Aboard .
I was spinning it on the drop spindle that she also sent and meant to continue, but I was caught up in the whorl and pull of the wheel. It is ever powerful and I can't seem to stop. I wondered how people could ever have too much hand spun, but I am beginning to see. I am going to have to come up with a few weaving projects to justify my new addiction.
And while we are on the subject of spinning, a friend of mine is looking to start up a spinning group, so if you live in the greater Fredericton area, have or can get a spinning wheel and are interested in spinning with others, comment, or drop me an e-mail and I will send you more information. My friend has been teaching spinning the past few years and is willing to give pointers and help to anyone who is just learning (like me) or is rusty.

Free Hugs

Free Hugs came to my attention thanks to Amy. It brought a tear to my eye and a smile to my face. Check it out.

First wheeled skeins

This is the spinning wheel that helped turn


this into



THIS!!!!!! 8 oz of Blue Faced Leicester in what I want to call "Sultan's of Swing". It makes me think of those romance stories that I read in my teens that took place in the desert in some opulent sultan's tent. You know, (or maybe you don't) silk and velvet, luxurious hangings, dates and honeyed mead almost always entered into the mix and a servant or two. I almost forgot the jealous serving girl who wanted the head guy for herself. One that I remember (inherited from my grandmother of all people) some poor woman some how got lost in the desert and badly sunburned, and before she could freeze to death in the night, Prince Omar (or whoever) rode in on his horse and saved her. He graciously waited until her sunburn was better before shameless seducing her. Oh, the things that stick with us after 20+ years.

Let's get a close up of that beauty!


In fact I had so much fun the other day that I brought home some more fleece (merino this time) and spun up 4 oz of loveliness. This will be niddy-noddied in the morning and soaked and hung. I was actually quite impressed with my first wheel skein (skeins really). When I skeined them off to do the soak and set thing, they hung almost straight. This compared to my first spindled skein that twisted back on itself about 6 times. I love the wheel. The loaner wheel is a louet. It looks like it has been around for quite a while and had a bit of a problem. The piece of plastic that connected the drive shaft to the treddle was broken and I did a quick fix that is functional but by no means perfect.

So now I have a question for all of you spinners out there. When you ply, there is always a bit (or a lot) left over. What do you do with the little bit of single ply? I actually tried Navajo plying today because even though I weighed out the two bundles of fleece (one for each bobbin, of course), I ended up with about 8-10 yards extra on one bobbin. It was a good learning experience. I'm glad that I had a demonstration before boldly striking out on my own.

A new spin on things

I have recently and temporarily inherited a spinning wheel. To make a long story short, it was on long term loan to Liz who just sold her house. The wheel belongs to my upstairs neighbour Kora. Kora was not home when Liz came by to drop it off, and so she asked if she could park it here. Spinning wheel in my house? No problem. I will return it to Kora soon,( Kora had offered to loan it to me a while back anyway) but I thought that while it was here.....I'd give spinning with a wheel a whirl, so to speak.
The result?
Addiction! Pure and simple. What fun! I had some BFL that I had dyed a few months ago and this afternoon I managed to spin about half. I am amazed at how quick it is compared to a drop spindle! I have another 4+/- oz left to spin on bobbin #2 and then I'll give plying a try. Guess what I am doing tomorrow? Actually, I am going to try and get a warp made up and perhaps dyed tomorrow. I want to try some 8 harness crackle weaves on my hand dyed warps. Bill is taking the kids to visit their grandparents in Woodstock tomorrow so I am going to have the day off. Some cleaning is necessary, but so is some time for crafterly pursuits.
Liz has sold the house and had the movers come by today and pick up most of the stuff. My large loom was stored at her house, and so it had to find a new and hopefully temporary home. My brother came and picked it up and it's new home is a shed at the farm. I hope that it is not there for very long.
As for pictures, sorry, but no camera in the home now. I hope to get my hands on one soon and be able to show you my new yarns!

I shall press on

With the socks. Thanks ms. pea for the cheering and the smarten up and stop whining slap. I have cast on again and have about 1cm of the cuff done. I am also going to get a second pair of needles and knit both of them at the same time. I'm also thinking of changing the pattern a bit because there is a whole bunch of purling in the leg of the sock, and I have to admit that purling is not my favorite thing to do. I have been knitting with my left hand and it gives me a bit of a cramp when I do that push down the yarn with your finger to purl. I am going to switch to my right hand. In fact I have been knitting with it from time to time, but, after putting the knitting down, when I pick it up, I automatically start knitting with my left. Re-training is in progress.

We had a great time on New Years Eve, (Mr. Green did it) but a bit too much was consumed and New Years Day was not a great day for me. I'm hoping that it will be the last time for this year that I feel like THAT! Faint hope really.

And yesterday was my first day back at work. Things are not looking good for the Fiber Arts studio. This year we have no first year students. Nada. Zip. There are three in second year, and three in third year. Curriculum changes have made the students chose their studio by November in their first year. Before, it was chosen in April after 4 months of intense instruction. There was room made for two first year classes and each had a full day of instruction. In our studio, they wove blankets and it is amazing how many people were convinced that weaving was something that they wanted to do once they wrapped themselves in a blanket that they had made. Also, there was a rumor that at least one student changed their mind after choosing another studio and wanted to take Fiber Arts and they were told "no". A few other things that are suspect have happened and I have begun to wonder if we are being phased out. Budget cuts are necessary and I feel that we have been labeled "fat". I hope that I am wrong. But for the first time, I understand how worker morale can plummet.