Furry critters

Today was field trip day! The spinning class went to the Country Pumpkin, a vegetable stand about 10 km outside of Fredericton. I thought that the babe might enjoy seeing some animals and so we tagged along. It was a cold and breezy day, but those furry little guys didn't seem to mind a bit.

The gals were so happy to see these fellows. There was a lama, two alpaca, a few pygmy goats, some sheep that totally ignored us all, two donkeys, several chickens and some horses.


These two were scratching each other on their shoulders and, of course, when I got the camera out they turned away. How could I resist a shot like this?

The alpaca were much smaller than I had expected. And much greasier. I suppose that that makes them much more water proof.

This fellow was the lone lama. He was larger than I expected. He was also so funny when you offered him something to eat. Every offering was inspected with a sniff before he delicately took it out of my hand. He also had really crooked teeth. Every time I walked by him, I handed him another bit of cabbage. I take my spitting lamas seriously.


And here he is with a couple of the goats. It's been a while since I had seen a goat and I forgot how creepy their eyes are.



And I had an anonymous commenter who said that there has been no spinning on my blog. This was said because I am part of Yarn Aboard and signed up for the spinning swap. There is a good reason for the lack of spinning content, and that is my lack of time right now, and my low level of spinning ability. Our studio head just came back from a weekend spinning retreat, and it was all that I could do not to hide in her suitcase. She had a great time and said that next year it is happening on PEI. I am definitely signing up for that one! I will hopefully be more organized next year at this time. Stop laughing! It's possible. Highly unlikely, but possible. In any case, it is one that I will aim for. And I didn't even mention the goodies that she brought back. Oh, my.
As for the low ability of my spinning, I have made arrangements with the spinning teacher for a few private lessons, but that is not until life has settled into a dull roar for both of us. Read: After Christmas. Two months until Boxing Day people! 9 more markets for me, and 7 weeks of classes. The kids are in school until Dec. 22 and don't go back until January 8 so we will have a couple of relaxing weeks after the big day.
So my anonymous swap buddy, you will see spinning, it might just be a little bit on my drop spindle to satisfy the urge that I know I will have when a BOX ARRIVES ON MY DOOR IN A FEW DAYS!!!!!!
I'm so excited! It's like Christmas two months early! I can hardly wait!

Where do I start?

And when do I get to stop?

Things here at OTTT are really getting busy. I think that I have never been so busy. Ever. It starts with the family. They always come first. Sort of. Then work and school and then getting product ready to sell. Sales have started to pick up a bit at market, but I need to weave more. What I really need is a few more hours in my day.




Here are a couple of picts from the Art Trek opening last weekend. My scarves and temari balls are cleverly displayed in the center of the room. There were 4 other artists and around 50 people that came and went that evening. As Maria, the Fredericton Arts Alliance director said of the opening "It wasn't an opening, it was a party!" Everyone had a great time and we, my family and I, left at about 9:30. Half an hour after the "opening" was suppose to end. Apparently there were some people were there much later. Basically, a good time was had by all. I even sold a scarf.

Last week I also put another warp on a loom at the college. More merino shawls. These turned out darker then I intended. You know that when you are tired, you get...well, lets just say, the brain cells don't fire as well as they could. In any case, I made this warp up (including a colapsing warping mill, but I'm NOT going to talk about that, just know that that is a BAD thing). So I go to dye this thing. For those of you who have been with me for a while, you have seen me dye a warp before. Plastic wrap, vinegar soaked warp down, apply dye, wrap warp, steam, rinse, repeat. It works great. If you don't forget a step. Like the vinegar. Sigh. So what happened was I decided to dye in the dye kitchen at the college, cause I could. Dedicated dye kitchen. I'm in heaven! But I digress. Warp made up. I decided to skip the vinegar soak part because I thought that I would spray the vinegar on with a spray bottle after I soaked up the excess dye. Less waste of vinegar. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I should have known better than to mess with established procedure. Live and learn.
So plastic wrap is down, warp is on it, dyes applied. Pooh. I forgot my rack for steaming at home. Steaming is not something that is taught now at the college and so they have no steaming racks. I live a few minutes away from the college and so home I jaunt to pick up my rack while my warp sits for its 30 minutes. All is right with the world. I get back and set up the pot, ready to steam. Wrap up my warp put it in the pot. Turn on the heat.....and then think %$#@%^&!!!! Forgot the vinegar. Have you ever tried to get wet plastic wrap to stick to itself? Add dyes and 312 inches (over 8.5 yards people) of warp. Wet, dye soaked warp. Not a pretty sight. Didn't sound very nice either.
I took three deep breaths, looked at my options, and dumped the whole thing in a pot with the correct amount of VINEGAR and just enough water to cover the yarn and called it a rainbow pot. Let it cook an hour and sit for two days to cool down and clear. The result is a beautiful (but very dark) warp. I am going to miss this yarn when it is all gone. And there was a lot of it. In any case, the shawl that is on the loom is a plain weave that is 28 inches wide. After the first shawl, I will cut it off, and re-sley it for a twill. I have it threaded in a rose path. I am going to do some experimenting with an 8 harness that I can use, but it was in use by a student when I was ready to warp, so went back to a good old standby on a 4 harness.

Sorry. I just realized that I am rambling. I guess that is what happens when I have three people talking at and around me while I am trying to share with all of you. Add sleep deprivation , and you have a recipe for a babblefest.

Oh, yeah. I also wove off my first chenille scarves of the season. They were fringed and washed and ready for the table this weekend. The two were a burgundy and dark chocolate colour and weave. I have three more chenille scarves on my loom at home that are tans and browns. The colours remind me of a seal. The kind with flippers.

And today at market I sold two scarves. Both pink off of the same warp! Who could have known. And to think that I was so tired this morning that I almost didn't go to market. Small soggy girl in the early hours of the morning contributed to that decision. I packed the car last night so felt that I had to go. Glad that I did.

And then, this afternoon, after market, I taught a dyeing workshop to 9 people. Most of them are coming back for stage 2 in two weeks. More about that when Karen sends me pictures. Let's just say that a good time was had by all!

Till then....

Comfort food

Saturday after market, I was feeling a bit tired and needy. O.K. I was feeling a lot tired. I had another one of those wake up at 3 am and not able to get back to sleep until it was time to get up and get ready for market. But I digress. In any case, I stopped at Victory (a small locally owned grocery store) and picked up the fixings for Scandinavian Chicken Salad. Comfort food if ever there was one. I know that the recipe looks long and involved, but it really isn't.




The following recipe came to the family with my husband, Bill. In as much as I know its history, it originated from a restaurant called Scanway, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was slightly modified by Bill. He eventually went to that restaurant once and tried their version after he had been making it for a couple of years, and, as is usually the case, it was not nearly as good as what he made at home.

Heart of the dish

2 chicken breasts
dry white wine
salt, pepper, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, celery tops, herbes de Provence
romaine lettuce (use iceberg lettuce in desperation only)
white rice (preferably basmati)
butter
curry powder
green onion
Sauce
whipping cream
plain yogurt
one can of mandarin oranges (in light syrup)
slivered almonds (not toasted!)
one large orange
english cucumber

Skin two chicken breasts and poach them in a 50:50 mixture of white wine and water. Also include two bay leaves, some thyme, rosemary, celery tops (the leafy bit), black pepper, salt, and herbes de Provence. Use a low heat for a long time so the chicken will be very tender.

Cook two cups of rice, preferably white basmati or some long-grained white rice. First rinse the rice several times with cold water to remove some of the soluble starch. Drain it well. Add two cups of water for the two cups of rice. Bring the rice to a boil over high heat and as soon as it begins to boil turn the burner to low. Simmer for 15 minutes and then turn off the burner and let the rice sit, covered, for another 15 minutes. When the rice is cooked, add about a third of a cup of butter, some curry powder, and one finely chopped green onion. You should use enough curry powder to give the rice a light flavour; it should kiss you with sweetness, not assault you with heat.

Prepare a sauce from a 50:50 mixture of plain yogurt and whipped cream. Carefully fold into the sauce some of the juice from the can of mandarin oranges until it has a light sweet flavour.

For this dish presentation is important so assemble the plate as follows. Prepare a bed of lettuce, romaine or iceberg. Spoon and shape a pile of rice on the lettuce. Break the chicken into small chunks (about the size of a mandarin orange section) and dot the top of the rice with chunks of chicken and mandarin sections. Spoon a generous quantity of the sauce over the chicken, orange, and rice. Garnish as follows. Take a slice from the centre of an orange and two slices of English cucumber. With one slice of cucumber on each side of the orange slice, split and twist the three of them and place in the centre of the sauce. Surround with a few sections of mandarin. Sprinkle with shaved almonds. I know there are no almonds shown in the picture. For me it's an allergy thing. As for the missing mandarins....ooops.

This dish is one that we all absolutely love. Even on the hottest day in summer this dish sits lightly on the stomach.

As given the recipe serves three. We double the recipe because there are six of us. Oh, and the stock you have left after poaching the chicken is a fantastic chicken stock for any use. As a starter for chicken soup it can't be surpassed.

Requiem

It has been three weeks since the Bug went out and never came back. She was 14 and in decline. She started loosing weight and eventually stopped eating. We think that she went off to die. No trace has ever been found. We think that she had hyperthyroid disease, and one of the side effects of this disease is potential heart attack.



I realized that I did not have very many pictures of her when I looked. I took a few when she was younger, but I soon came to discover that a black cat is hard to photograph. Especially if her eyes were closed.



I got her as a kitten. She was 7 weeks old and had been away from her mother since she was 4 weeks. She had been in two places by this time. Apparently the first fellow that had her was a heavy drinker and didn't feed her so the neighbour took her in. But this woman had two small and very active children and was concerned for the tiny kitten's safety. Enter me. I heard about her from a friend and went over to see her. She came right up to me and mewed. I took her right home. Because she had been taken from her mother so early she was a suckler. Big time. She had a litter of kittens when she was about a year old and funnily enough, she stopped suckling. She was a good mother.
When she was little, she liked to eat peanuts and raisins.
We moved several times and she always adjusted quite quickly. Even if there were other cats involved. In fact the first move we made together was in with a friend who had a cat about the same age. About three months old. After a week of hissing, I saw the two of them together on evening grooming each other. It was lovely. A few moves later, we ended up in a second story bachelor apartment right down town. Her outdoor days came to a halt. At this same time she some how injured her back. We had been living in the country and it might have been a kid, a car, or a cow. She never said. She had a cracked spine and was at the vets for about a week. They said that she would probably be fine if she managed to go to the litter box. Otherwise we would have to worry about kidney failure. She survived, but her jumping abilities were affected and she was always tender in her hind quarters.
She hated to be held like a baby.

Her first name was Hagel. Which came from the Norse ruin meaning a disruption in ones life. The summer that I was pregnant with Mira, there were an awful lot of small green lacewings that were flying around the apartment. She liked to eat them. LOVED to eat them. That summer her name slowly changed to Bug. She was a hunter of spiders and flies.
She was not a hunter of other things. Although she did once catch a bird, and once a bat. Both times, she brought the live creature to the foot of my bed and stared at it as if to say " OK. Now what?" The bird survived the encounter, but the bat didn't.
She never played with my yarns or fibers. I could wind a warp or a bobbin and she would just watch. Occasionally she would sniff.
She was a small cat and people were always amazed that she was so old.
She was a lap sitter. She loved to be on my lap. Any adults lap actually. She liked to have about two minutes of petting, and that was it. And if some unknowing person stroked too hard by her tail, she generally just hissed.
She liked butter. I have to say that I am not going to miss tongue marks in the butter.
Nor am I going to miss the litter box.
But I still keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye. Asleep on the couch, or curled up on the futon. Until the shape reveals itself to be a discarded kids sweater or cap.
Good bye dear Bug. I'm glad that we had 14 years together.

And to all of those who are wondering, No. I am not going to get another pet. Unless you count the spider in the bathroom.

Fibre Content

What a surprise! Actual fibre and weaving in one post. Three new silk scarves in hot oranges and reds. The pattern is Gothic Cross from Marguerite Davidson's Handweavers Pattern Book. The book is definitely worth how ever much I paid for it all those many years ago. The scarves are not quite what I envisioned when I put them on the loom, but they will do and hopefully they will find new homes before Christmas. And on the loom now are a couple of chenille scarves. Rust and dark chocolate brown colour and weave. I have two more warps waiting in the wings to go on. One is greens and tans and the other kind of reminds me of the colour of a beagle's coat. Browns and tans. The warps are pretty. I hope the scarves are too.

I also dyed another merino warp for three shawls. Lots of fun there. Lots of mistakes too. One major one was forgetting the vinegar, Duhh. So I ended up dumping the whole thing in a pot and pretending that I was doing a rainbow type dye job instead of a painted, then wrapped and steamed type of dye job. It's a bit darker than I wanted, but still nice. I'll see how it looks on the loom.

Tomorrow is an opening for Art Trek '06, sponsored by the city of Fredericton. Various studios are open to the public and I am showing in one of the galleries on the tour. Hopefully I will have some pictures to share with you tomorrow evening, or at the latest, Saturday evening.

Until then...

Bad house keeper or good hostess? (warning:spider ahead)

You decide.

This is my little friend. S/he lives in the bathroom. Just above the night light. At the corner of the cabinet. I am sure that s/he drives my mother-in-law crazy when she comes to visit. This spider has been in my bathroom for about a year now. Before that, her/his mother was there. I know that the previous one was female because she laid an egg sac and many little spiders came out. Most of those went outside, but I missed this one in the clean up and surprisingly enough, s/he has thrived. I mean, really, how much food is there in a bathroom? Every now and then, I try and throw some food her/his way in the form of a fruit fly, but I am not exactly what you would call a great waitress. But this little spider has a great capacity for patience.
A couple of years ago, a spider got caught between the kitchen window and the storm window (we live in an old house) just before freeze up. I didn't notice her until after the window had swollen shut ( this happens every fall when we start closing the windows and the humidity inside skyrockets. We can't open the kitchen window again until about June and even then it involves a hammer and some swearing) That spider lived for MONTHS in sub freezing temperatures with no food. S/he finally succumbed about March. What an amazing creature! And better yet they eat FLIES! And MOSQUITOES! And FRUIT FLIES! What's not to love? I know that some people have a real phobia about spiders and I have to admit that I have been startled by a few in my time, and actually, I'd give a tarantula or a black widow a wide berth, (I don't play in traffic either), but your little garden variety orb spider? If you are not a fly, you really have nothing to worry about. In any case, I hope that I have not scared you away. I promise that I will not speak of spiders again for... well.. it's been almost a year and this is my first spider post, so I will say that you are good for at least another 9 months spider free. Unless Louise from work really does bring me the HUGE spider in her garden. That one you will hear about!

My little friend is as yet unnamed. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Happy Thanksgiving

Yup. Thanksgiving. We up here in Canada celebrate our Thanksgiving earlier than you down south. The harvest is earlier. The cold comes earlier. The snow flies earlier. So it works for us.

At this time, we are told to think about what we are thankful for.

For me, the list starts with my family. For my husband Bill, a great and wonderful man, I am truly thankful. Without him, I wouldn't have the kids that I have. I am thankful for my kids. They drive me crazy sometimes (as does Bill) but life without them would be sparse indeed. I am thankful for my parents. Wonderful people both. I am thankful that they live so close and that I can still call on them for help if needed. And my in-laws. No overbearing, bossy in-laws here. Just a great cohesive unit that is free with the love and sparse on the advice. And Grandma makes a mean pie. I am thankful for my sibblings. My sisters, Nicole(the larger) and Christine, both far away, and my brother, Von, nearby. And the much revered Uncle Sandy. Aunties and Uncles are a wonderful thing.

I am thankful to have a job and enough money coming into the house. Still can't afford the holiday in the Swiss Alps, but necessities are covered and there is a bit left over for "fun". I am thankful for my ability to create beautiful things and for having a place to sell them. I am also thankful to those who recognise the quality and are willing to pay for it. And of course, the Carleton Artist Market would not be the same without my fellow vendors. They are a great group of people. I am thankful to be a part of it.

I am thankful that I have a loom small enough to fit in my house. I am thankful for my teacher, Susan, who both nurtured my love of weaving and gave me this loom.

I am thankful that I have the ability to grow my own food. I am thankful that the kids will eat all of the pickles (including the LAST NINE JARS) that I put up this year. I am thankful that I am done pickling. Really done with the dills. I hauled them out by their little roots last week. Enough is enough! Well, I still have that green tomato chow, but that is a story for another day.

I am thankful for all of the trees in this city. It is a truly beautiful place to live. I am thankful that it is relatively crime free.

I am thankful for the Craft College and the students there. There are some truly creative ones and I find myself inspired at times.

I am thankful for my friends, both near and far. For those who I see seldom and those who I see often. I am thankful for all of the people who I have met through blogging. It amazes me how much you can care about someone you have never met face to face.

I am thankful that I live without TV. Soul sucking consumer driven box. Have you ever watched the kids channel? The adds are enough to give me a headache. No wonder kids end up wired and hyperactive. I am thankful Bill agrees.

I am thankful that all grandparents will be here today to squeeze around our table and share this day with us. I am thankful that there is wine in the fridge.

I could go on and on, but, you get the picture. There is one last thing that I am thankful for. I am thankful that I live in a peaceful country. May we always stay that way. Nuff said.

What are you thankful for?

Dye Kitchen

Here we have the dye kitchen at the craft college. I love working here. There is space and equipment enough to do what you need to do. There is both heat and ventilation. The only thing missing is a fume hood for mixing the dyes, but there is one in the studio next door that we have permission to use. You only see the first of two long tables that have been jacked up to be a comfortable height to work at standing up, as well as having storage shelves underneath. Thank you Joe for doing the modifications!


And here is where we are headed with our dye samples. These are some samples done by previous classes (except for the magenta colour gradation chart done this term). Actually, the colour triangle was done by Denise when she was in school and there are a few wrong colours. Apparently her class dyed 5 grams of fiber at a time. We are doing 30. It is easier to be off when you have small quantities.






And lastly is my latest dyepots. Upper left and lower right are 80% turquoise and 20% sun yellow, and 40% turquoise and 60% sun yellow respectively. The other two are wee rainbow pots one in blues and greens and one in reds and yellows. They are samples for felting class on Wednesday when we will be trying layering colours and then doing cut away.

As for weaving....I could put up the same picture of the loom that I took last weekend and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. No progress. But I have scheduled an hour today to weave. I'm going to put it in early in the day so that it will get done.

Not done

Just when I thought that it was safe to clean out all of the dead stuff from the garden, what to my wondering eyes does appear? But yet more cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. Some dill and carrots and green onions too. Sigh.
I just can't let them rot. I know that I said that I could, but it is not in my nature to let good food go to waste. Well, there is occasionally the bit of buried treasure that finds its way to the back of the fridge, but we won't talk about that. Actually, I am thrilled to have some more tomatoes. There have been a few with bad spots, but nothing totally disgusting. I'm sure you know what I mean. There are enough green ones that they will ripen over the next few weeks and keep us supplied with fresh tomatoes for another few weeks. Bill said that he was in the lunch room at work the other day slicing a tomato and one of his coworkers mentioned the fact that he could actually smell the tomato. " You must have grown that tomato" he said." I can smell it! You can't smell store bought tomatoes" I never really noticed the smell before. The taste, yes. But the smell? No.

Mira also said that she wanted to make more dills. Why? I have no idea. But in any case, I said that if she does all of the prep work (read: wash cukes, dill, jars, pack everything into the jars, fill the pots with water, get all of the utensils out, etc.) That I would deal with the boiling water part. She went for it! So I guess that more dills are in the works. And there are enough green tomatoes left ( I forgot about the plum ones that were picked mostly green and have been ripening slowly, on a shelf, for our "sun" dried tomatoes. Dehydrator really, but who can tell the difference around here?) In any case, there looks like there are quite a few green tomatoes left and I think that they might be turned into chow. I've never had chow before, its a mustard allergy thing, but I have heard enough raves about chow that I am willing to try it once, sans mustard. The recipe calls for 16 cups of chopped tomatoes, but I am thinking that I could probably half it and be alright. Right?

So, who likes green tomato chow and what do you eat it with?

Oh, right. Fiber stuff. Cukes have lost of fiber! But seriously, I did some more sample dyeing this morning. Maybe you will get to see it tomorrow if I am having a hard time sleeping tonight.

Signs of the times

You know that winter is on its way around here when the greenery starts appearing back in the house.

First to come back in was the citrus, otherwise known as GF, or Grapefruit tree. Bill started this baby as a seed from a grapefruit that he ate back about 14 years ago. When I met him it was about 6 inches high and sharing a home with an avocado plant. The avocado had since left this mortal realm to go back to nature (read compost) but the citrus has grown and flourished and is now taking over our rather small living room.

And in the herb corner, not in their permanent home are, from the left, Lonely Rose (rosemary), LG (lemon grass) and Bay (bay laurel). Their winter home is TEMPORARILY (the "T" word in my house) occupied by a few other thing which will soon find a new home.....RIGHT BILL???!!!!!!
On the fiber front, I did four of my six dye samples Friday night. Two and a bit of the three scarves that are on my loom have been woven off. Here is number three on its way. I had a few extra demands on my time last week that I hadn't anticipated and so missed my self imposed deadline of having them off and ready to go to market with me this morning. I will aim for next week now. Last weekend I also drove down to Gagetown to pick up my weavings/yarns etc that were in a summer gallery down there. While we were there, the kids wanted to go for a bit of a walk, so off we went and at the place where people put their boats in (what is that called any way?) the kids (oh joy and bliss) found a dead bird. We think that it might have been a duck at one time, but I wasn't going to get close enough to do a through examination. Ick. Liam wanted to take home the bill. What is it with boys and grossness? I say no and he (thankfully) didn't fight it beyond a small whine. I think that my boy knows when I mean business.
I'll be dyeing more bright and early in the morning, so If I have enough presence of mind in those wee hours, I will bring the camera and give you a tour of the dye kitchen at the college.
Until then, have colourful dreams.

The beginning

of my dye samples

This is the percentage chart for magenta. I can do more colours on my own if I want. The basic idea for this exercise is to start out with a specific amount of white fleece and dye it different percentages using a 1% Dye Stock Solution. These samples go from .05% DOS to 4% DOS , DOS meaning Depth of Shade. This way you are able to make colours as pale or intense as you want.

This is the beginning of my colour triangle for Brilliant Blue, Red, and Golden Yellow. There is one that needs to be redyed (the light purple at the top, as it's a bit to light) and there was one that was missed. 60% Blue 40% Golden Yellow. It was dyed in class the other day along with our complex colours (mixing all three colours in various percentages) and is drying. We started on the other triangle, Magenta, Turquoise, and Sun Yellow , and have 6 samples to dye for next week. I am going to try and get mine done before the weekend is over.

But for now I am headed off to bed again. I am having one of those nights of broken sleep and have been up since about 1 am. It is now 3:30. After laying around in bed for a few hours not sleeping,I decided to get up and do SOMETHING productive. So here I am. Good Night.

Felt

Here are some of my felt samples.


This is one of the "secondary fiber" ones. The faint hand is laid down using tussah silk fibers.

These are pieces of felt that were made using what is called a rainbow dye pot. More on that later.

This motif was made using flax fibers and dyed fleece.

Gotta go get the kids ready for school.
Tomorrow is Friday!

How could I say no...

to anything that this girl wants? Especially when she just turned 3!

More felting stuff today. This week we learned about felting with secondary fibers. What you do is add different fibers to the top of your wool before you felt it. We are using merino sliver or roving for the base fabric and today we added silk hankies, tussah silk fibers, and flax fibers. Pictures as soon as they are dry. This is all very cool and I am loving it!

Done Done Done

I am officially finished with the canning and preserving. Anything else that comes my way has to be eaten fresh or rot.

Final tally

Dills
15 1.5 liters
80 quarts
20 pints

Jalipino peppers
12 pints

Blueberry Jam
3 pints
7 half pints

Grape Jelly
4 pints
7 half pints

Relish
5 pints
4 half pints

Lady Ashburnham

5 Pints

That is what is sitting on my shelves. I am good and done. Some of these will go out as Christmas gifts to co-workers. Others will be gobbled by the bottomless pits that I live with.

In fiber related things, I am almost finished my second orange scarf. Dye class is coming right along, but we are now down to a grand total of two in the class. That is a lot of samples per person. And I still haven't finished my homework for tomorrow. But at the end of it, I will have a kick ass sample book. Felting class is fun too, but also a lot of work. I was in the school last night to do my homework with Amber, the other woman in my class.

And my sister sent me some more Alpaca yarn. This is mixed with some acrylic, but I don't know the quantities. Alpaca/ Acrylico is on the label, but no percentages. I did a burn test and there was a lot of burning hair smell and very little black bead. So I think that it is mostly alpaca. What I want to know is why anyone would mix alpaca with acrylic? This batch actually had Peru on the label as the place of origin.

Back to the kitchen to finish the cleaning.

Toodles

Happy Friday

Is my house the only one where this is a true. With one notable exception. Replace "game" with movie or some form work on the computer.



On top of everything else that is happening in my life, I am also taking a couple of classes at the Craft College. There is a new dyeing teacher who is REALLY GOOD! She is very precise and looks for reproducible results. So far, my dye book has read like the journal of unreproducable results. I shall now be able to change all of that! For my warp and skein dyeing, I may some day want to match colours and dye lots. She is also a felting teacher and I am sitting in on that class too. It is good to be able to answer students questions, But, we also have homework. The rule of thumb is that for every hour of class you do an hour of homework. That's an extra 6 hours a week that I need to come up with. I'm loving it though. I love being given an exercise to challenge my mind. Get it out of the dish pan, so to speak.

And do you know what I did yesterday in the middle of running errands? Stopped off at the garden to see how things were progressing, and apparently, they were progressing quite well because I picked two more grocery bags of cukes. These we will eat. Last night there was frost and the cucumber plants shall produce no more.

I am off to market in the morning and I shall make sock progress and hopefully sell a few things at the same time.

soon to be socks

I chose my yarn, picked up my pattern and needles and started the socks last night. I got about an inch done on them before it was time to stop. I'm hoping that it doesn't take me a months to finish this pair.

I'm off to work! Happy day.

I swear...

that there will be some actual content soon that has to do with fibre, and not of the vegetable matter.

In the mean time, the latest count on the vegetable count is ....

5 pints of Lady Ashburnham pickles. And these are definitely not for my benefit. I am allergic to mustard and cannot eat them.. The kids like them though. And some days breathing mustard fumes is all about sacrifice. One batch per season is about all that I can handle.

And that leaves me with...

Green tomato relish. Now this one is definitely for me. As stated earlier, I am allergic to mustard and mustard figures very large in most relish recipes, It actually is in my relish recipe, but I figured that I could just leave it out and get something that I could actually eat. It worked and it is a really good relish. Truly kick ass. And seeing as we had a bit of an early frost and I have a few (cough,cough) green tomatoes I think that I will get a batch of relish out of them yet. You want the recipe, Give a holler and I will post it for your pickling pleasure.

In the mean time, I seem to have picked up a bit of a late summer cold. I feel like that stuff that no one really wants to talk about that lands on the sole of your shoe. Or the sole of some other unfortunate that happens to settle near you at an awkward time. And we have a leak in the brake line. Very tense drive home from market yesterday. Sigh. Someday I will feel that I will be making headway instead of just treading water.

Hope your weekend was restful and relaxed and I swear that soon the gardening/vegetable content will be done and it will be back to dyeing and weaving.

No! Really! I mean it!

Don't look for any lace updates until after Christmas. I am trying to live within reality here! In the mean time, I MAY just start another pair of socks from a skein of yarn that has been sitting on my table for a few weeks. I'm thinking either one of the purple/pink skeins or the brown/yellow one on the lower right. I LOVE hand knit socks. And I could actually get some knitting done while sitting waiting for people to give me money. Sounds like a plan to me. And you?

Saturday Sky

Here is the sky this morning. Foggy. Cool. Not so pretty. Nice trees though.



And here we are about one hour later. I was at my market which is in an alley way. But sunny! How nice. It even warmed up enough so that I could take off my jacket and sweater. It is really cool in the alley, and there is always a nice breeze. Wonderful conditions if it is hot. Not so much if it is cold.



We had a visit from our old market manager Mike. His wife, Monique, makes and sells jewelry. Nice stuff too. In any case Mike is running in our provincial election. He is a really nice guy. He looked a little tired and dazed this morning, but after 4+ weeks of hard campaigning, I can't imagine what I would look like. I hope I never know. I wish him well on Monday.

We also had a visit from Brian A.(sorry, can't remember the rest) He was to take pictures of the market for the tourism department. He had a lot of fun trying to set up the picture. He had all of the vendors set up where he wanted , and then there were no customers. Not a single one. Eventually he had what he wanted and went on his merry way. It was his birthday by the way. So happy birthday Brian!

And I was on my way to use the facilities and I saw Daniel. Holding court it looked like. He is a pointillist. And he is GOOD! And he is a nice guy too. There were about 8 or 10 people and he was talking away about what he does. He is really talented. There are some of his pieces that have over 500 hours of work in them. Boggles the mind.
There were lots of people that came through because there were a lot of people downtown for the festival. All in all, a pretty good day.

Just to shut you up...

Here is a blog entry.

Bill has been complaining that I haven't been blogging enough lately. So I am making a special entry just for him.

Yesterday, the day started off with blueberry jam making ( 4 pints, 6 1/2 pints) followed by a trip downtown to run some errands and see the casemates show that I am in. It is a group show of all the artists in residence from the casemates that I was in earlier in the summer. Sorry, I had no camera at the time, but I will try and get some photos up soon. There are some very nice works by some very talented people. Everything from stain glass combined with felt to my weaving, to pottery and drawings and paintings. Then it was off to Liz's house to harvest grapes and back to my place to process them. 1 pint and 6 1/2 pints later (4 pints for Liz) it was time to collect kids.

In the mean time, cucumbers for Lady Ashburnham pickles are being chopped and salted and ready for processing.... tomorrow. I was going to do it today, but I just couldn't face it.

As an aside, I went shopping with Mira yesterday. This is a big deal because Mira HATESHATESHATES shopping. Except for grocery stores. Because grocery stores have lemons. But I digress.

In any case, we went shopping yesterday. With Mira it is something that you have to work up to. Warn her weeks in advance that we are going to buy her new pants because she grew 6 inches over the summer and the pants that fit her in June just don't fit any more. We went to the (evil) mall. We found pants that fit. We bought two pairs because that was how many pairs that there were. Same colour, same style. I care not. We came home. I washed the new pants that fit. She puts them on this morning and.... they were flood pants. Just as bad (almost) as the ones that I physically ripped from her body last week. So after another trip to the mall, I just couldn't face cooking more pickles. Not today. The cukes are salted and will defiantly keep until tomorrow afternoon.

And now for something completely different....I had a package arrive in the mail yesterday. My sister, Nicole, was in Bolivia this summer and picked me up some alpaca yarn. Unfortunately, it is not 100% alpaca. It just didn't feel quite right and so I did a burn test and there is definitely some sort of synthetic in it. It has wool because you can smell it, but that hard plastic bead.....hmmm. I will see how it dyes and weaves up. It is still a beautiful yarn. Very soft. Very colourful. I am thinking of shawls.


And Simon got a harmonica today. This evening he was out on the front step playing it (doing quite a good job I might add) and calling out " 10 cents for a 2 minute show". Then I heard him say " Wow! I got my first customer!" Someone had dropped some change in the little plastic cup that he had out beside him. He was thrilled. We all had a good laugh.

I'm off to bed. It's market day in the morning. Good night all.

Good enough for you, boyo?

Why?

Why do some people feel compelled to go into a building and shoot others?

In case you haven't heard, a young man walked into Dawson College in downtown Montreal and shot students. Some reports say that as many as 20 people were shot. One woman has already died.

My heart goes out to the families of the victims.

Mean people suck.

And the count continues

Yesterday I made

20 pints of Dills
2 quarts of Dills
3 1.5 litres of Dills

I'll give you the grand total soon but I can safely say that I am officially not making any more dills this year. So I moved on to....

14 pints of Jalapeno peppers.
That is it for the peppers. I can still smell them in the air.

I also washed 243,675 tomatoes. and if I miss counted, I can honestly say that I am not far off. Most are still green, but I have great hopes for the majority of them. Tonight for supper I made an uncooked tomato sauce that was sooooo GOOD! I'll give you the recipe tomorrow. Maybe.

Tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, it will be grape jelly time. And maybe some blueberry jam too. And then there is the Lady Ashburnham pickles that the kids all like. But those are for another day. And much later the green tomato relish that I really like. And I thing that will be it, but I am so tired right now, that I might be mistaken.

And all this time I have a lovely orange warp that is on my loom just asking to be woven. And it is the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival this weekend and I had wanted to get a few new scarves ready for all of the lovely people that would be coming through town and hopefully our little market. Instead, I make pickles. Maybe I could put a few of those on the table. I think that I have a few extra.

And just to let you know, all of my spare basil found new homes.

And I am off to bed.

Goodnight.

Baa Baa Black Sheep...

have you any Basil?

Yes, sir! Yes sir! Five bags full.

And that would be garbage bags full. Two have already been given away, one dealt with in my own kitchen, and I have three people interested in the remaining two. One confirmation just came in for a half a bag. It is really funny when I ask "how much do you want?" and people say "as much as you can give me". Then I mention garbage bags and there is silence. Then a "How Much?" It was 11 large plants that I picked yesterday. And by large, I mean 36" high.


I sent Mira to pick the peppers while I dealt with basil and a crap load of green tomatoes and she came back with this curiosity. A truly Canadian pepper. To me , it looks like a moose.


And here are the dills so far. I say so far because I have yet more cukes that were picked last night that shall be made into pickles today. And then there are the scores of tomatoes to wash. The good news is that most of them will slowly ripen over the next month and a half and we shall have tomatoes that , although were not fresh picked, we know where they came from.

In case you haven't guessed, we had our first serious frost threat. Last night it was forecast to go down to just above freezing. Time to go process.

The smell of vinegar

Yup.
More pickles. That is Bill's hand BTW that is stuffing those jars. I told you he was a prince among men. In this case, he is the pickle prince.
The kids feel the same way about dill's as I feel about fresh peas. Which means that I have been making a lot of pickles.
17 liters and 6- 1.5 liters jars. And we have been having lovely warm days and evenings and THAT mean that I'm not done yet. As they say about opera, "it ain't over till that fat lady sings" (and for those of you who are opera fans, that is NOT in any way, shape, or form degrading the opera. Relax. It's a saying) we say, "it ain't over till the frost hits". And if the forecast is to be believed, it ain't over yet. Thank (insert favoured deity here). I want a few more ripe tomatoes. Our tomatoes are not so happy this summer. Cool temperatures, moist/wet conditions make for small blighty tomatoes in my garden. I just hope that we actually get some plum tomatoes that we can dry. I have visions of Chicken Fettuchini with Sun Dries Tomatoes dancing in my head. We also have a dehydrator that has done yeomans service.

I also dyed some more yarns Thursday. But I don't have a camera today and so I don't have any pictures of them. But just to tease you, I have named one Chocolate Flambe, one Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright, one Tahitian Sunrise (not that I have ever been to Tahiti), one Chocolate Dipped Grapes. There are two others whose names I am still playing with. Or at least thinking about. They will be named first thing in the morning just after coffee, and just before being lovingly laid out on my table at market.

And for those of you who are local and were wondering, I was serious about the basil. Does anyone want some?

A WHAT in the hand?

Apparently, 7 snails in the hand is worth a lot to a certain 11 year old girl. Better her than me. It's not that I am afraid of snails or slugs, Heck, I pick up worms in the garden all the time and move them to safer places, but there is something about that slime trail that just makes me not all that anxious to pick them up. Mira delighted in grossing out my cousin's wife this past summer when they were visiting. She was raised in Montreal and is not used to the ways of a gal in the country. Especially when that gal is a tom-boy.

And what is Bill holding?

It's a quick trick bubble stack! Pretty impressive display, eh?
Well, actually, it's not so impressive when you find out that the bubbles are the kind that harden a few seconds after they are blown. Not hard like a glass ball, but their surface actually is able to be touched and retains it shape. Think of them as fragile balloons. Fragile sticky balloons.



And I have been hard at work creating more temari balls. I am down to about 3.5 hours for most of these balls. Now I am looking for new patterns. Not that it is hard to find them, it's just hard to chose one that won't take 20 hours to complete and still look great. I think that I may have found a few to try over the next few weeks. As well as getting a new warp on the loom. And working. And dealing with the much dreaded HOMEWORK! Oh, pooh. The garden is almost ready to be taken out and what with frost threatening, the basil, ALL the basil will have to be processed soon. All 8 or 10 large bushy plants. We pre-measure it into double batches of 4 cups packed basil and a cup of olive oil, pop them in the freezer in tubs and eat pesto all winter for the price of pine nuts and parma. But there is a limit to how many times we have pesto in the run of a winter. And I think that we have about 6 or 8 tubs in the freezer already. And it doesn't even look like I have touched the plant. So I will get to the temari balls..... sometime.

So, does anyone want some basil?

A walk in the woods

Friday was such a nice day that Liz and I decided to take the kids for a picnic lunch and hike at O'Dell park. I love that park. After scrambling to pack lunches and a quick stop at the grocery store on the way, we made it up into the park and found a spot to eat. We ate our sandwiches and wraps, grapes and veggies....and then Liz cracked open the pretzels and doughnut holes. Well, the doughnut holes were nothing spectacular, but some of the pretzels!

Liz was the first to find an altered pretzel. She thought that it looked like a pregnant Virgin Mary. The kids all thought that she should sell it on e-bay and make "a bunch of money". Somehow, Liz wasn't convinced. Every time that she ate a pretzel, the kids just about blew a gasket until she would hold up her "special" pretzel.


Then Liam found one, and we realized that maybe it wasn't so special after all.


With India's find, we knew that there was a problem with the pretzel making equipment. No big sales on e-bay. But then again, I have seen some pretty weird things for sale on e-bay. Like used toilet paper, and a used tampon. My sister found them and brought them to my attention. Actually it is not a gross as it sounds. The toilet paper was used as a paper weight, and the tampon was still wrapped and used to separate two classes of CD. And they sold. So who knows, maybe someone out there would actually pay for a funny shaped pretzel.

And now for something completely different....

New purses.




I inherited some scraps from a silk painter/dyer/designer of beautiful household items. I think that they are pretty. I have 5 more that are ready to sew up. I just have to do it. And I have another 6 or 7 pieces that are waiting to be incorporated into a tote bag type of thing. I just have to come up with a pattern and the rest of the fabric and not to mention the time. Sewing is not my favorite thing. Probably because the only sewing class that I took was in grade 8 and I didn't want to be there, so I didn't really pay attention, and all of the clothing patterns that we were to chose from were pretty fugly, so I sewed a hamburger pillow and a light bulb pillow. They were cute, but useless and somewhere along the way disappeared from my life. Needless to say, I am not the greatest seamstress. Someone suggested that I find someone to pair up with and have THEM do the sewing, but I am selling these things for so little as it is that I don't see that as a viable option. If I had an outlet in Toronto or (gasp) New York, where people actually SPEND their money, I could probably charge a good price and give someone else a cut. But here, not so much. But they are so pretty that I will continue to make the purses. People really like them though, and maybe I will sell a few at Christmas time.

Until then, wish me luck in my sewing pursuits.

See y'all later.