I'm still here

I have found myself doing fewer and fewer fiber things as of late. And the things that I have been doing, while somewhat fun, haven't been fully resolved in my mind. But some progress is better than none and so I give you what I have been working on.

Socks. Do not adjust your set. They are a pair, they just aren't quite the same. They are for Liam, and I am sure that he won't mind. I am almost finished and there may even be enough yarn left over for another non matching pair. The skeins of yarn looked close enough to me, but apparently one ended up a little lighter. Which means that one is doing that spirally thing, and the other is not. Hmmmm. Seeing as I dyed them myself (but not with a pair of socks in mind) I really can't yell at the dyer, can I? I never would have guessed that there would be so much of a difference when they knit up because in skein form, the yarn looks almost the same.

I have also been playing around with felting. A couple of weeks ago, the felting class learned felting on a flat pattern. One of the students missed the class and came in over the March Break to catch up. I was kind of tired of cleaning so when she asked me to tell her how to felt using a flat pattern, I said that I would show her and we could do it together. I made a small vessel and had so much fun that I decided to try another one. It wasn't quite felted enough for my liking so I chucked it into my front loading washing machine. I checked it from time to time and it came out smaller and firmer. No great surprise there.

It is not quite finished yet. I am not sure what it need, but I am bouncing around some ideas.

And so I decided to try a larger vessel. This one stared out on a pattern about 18 or 20 inched round. Once I got it to soft felt, I took the pattern out and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed.... And it really wasn't felting up to much more. So I did the washing machine thing again. Except that this time I became distracted by life, the universe, and everything, and didn't take it out until I walked by a couple of hours later and noticed that the washing machine had stopped. It came out a nice oval, and the bottom measures 9"x7.5". It is nice and thick and firm though. Again, I want to embellish it somehow, but I'm not quite sure what I am going to do.


I have also been doing some spinning again. This is once again a surperwash merino and silk blend (80% merino-20%silk). I love the way it spins.

I had about 6 ounces of batts and most has been converted into the singles you see below. There is another bobbin that is almost as full still on the wheel. I am going to try and have it spun and plied by this time next week.
Wish me luck!

And here is the frost that mamoo was talking about in my last post. I have never seen frost like this before!

F is for .....

Frost.

Feathery Frost Fronds.

Pretty, isn't it? Jack Frost doing his magic on my screen door. In the colder months, the screen door is a bit of an indicator of how cold it is out. When you can't see out, put on an extra layer of clothing.

These frost patterns are just gentle reminders that it is not spring yet. We have had some rather cold nights lately, but today it actually rained for a bit. The rain helps the snow to melt. And melting snow is a thing that I want to promote.

Here is a frost from last month. You can see the difference in the whiteness. It is cold and unrelenting. This frost was probably a couple of weeks old when I finally photographed it.

I am hoping that the frost in the morning will soon go the way of the dodo. Or at least until next winter.

Post Cards from the Selv-edge

Another month and another new postcard.

It was quite full despite the fact that it had only gone through two hands. I added the little school of fish.

And the previous person had added the quilled frog and fish. They are so cute!

First day of spring?

Nothing like the sounds of ice pellets in the morning.

Yes. This is another whining post.

We heralded in spring with a snow day for the kids. I had worked an extra day a couple of weeks ago and just "held" it so that I could take a snow day when we had a storm. The sitter (Mamoo) had to come in from outside of town, and seeing as I am rather fond of her, I don't want her to have to take chances on bad roads.

We had some snow last night, ice pellets and freezing rain today, to be followed by rain this afternoon. I have to say that I am heartily sick of winter. Pretty soon I will be sick of early spring. The snow banks in the above photo are over my head.

I remember back to that day in early February, the one called "groundhog day" around here, others call it imbolc. The basic premise is that if some critter shows it's face and hangs around for a while, we will have an early spring. I think that this tradition is just one of hope. "I hope he doesn't see his shadow", "I hope spring comes early", "I hope winter will be over soon."

Living in this part of the world, I have come to a conclusion. There is no such thing as early spring.

My plans for the day include laundry, cooking, cleaning, some weaving and spinning (I hope).

Do I have travel plans?

Nope. I'm not stepping out in that!

And now we wait.

I started my planting today. 4 different types of peppers, 3 varieties of broccoli, 2 kinds of eggplant, and basil and cabbage. It is a humble start and I will be planting more in about two weeks. Or maybe I'll let Bill do that session. It will include tomatoes and tomatoes are his favorite.

Heaven knows when I'll be getting my peas in. The ground is still frozen and covered in several feet of snow. And then there is the flood to get through. From all accounts, this years is going to be a doozie! Once the garden is dry enough for dad to plow it, I will be planting those wee green beauties. For those of you who have been here for more than a year, you know that peas are my favorite. Yes, nothing quite like garden fresh peas. I can finally believe that spring is coming.

I am so in the wrong profession!

Today was my 6th trip to the dentist since the beginning of January. All the kids needed checkups (and a few fillings) and the older kids needed cleanings. I had a checkup and cleaning too. Today it was for Simon and he had both a checkup and a cleaning. I'm sure that my eyes bugged out of my head when the receptionist told me the amount.

The fee breakdown is such

1. check up- $31
2. two x-rays- $26
3. Cleaning- one unit- $49
4. Cleaning -one half unit- $24
5. Polishing- one unit- $23
6. fluoride treatment- $21

I asked about the whole half unit thing and it is measured in 15 minute increments. As in for 15 minutes of cleaning is $49!!! The polishing takes less than 2 minute. Talk about a good hourly wage. Can anyone tell me if this is typical? My old dentist was in an accident and couldn't work as many hours so sold his practice to a new younger dentist. And the priced have sky rocketed! A check up used to be $20 and I wasn't charged a "new patient fee" when I brought in the kids for the first time. Nicole's first check up was last year and I was dinged with a $50 new patient fee! I can understand if you were transferring from some other dentist and had a history of dental problems but to peek into the mouth of a 3 year old and charging $80? I am not impressed. The first time that I went in for a cleaning, it was $72 all included. I know that she probably has some bills to pay off, but really! I'm just glad that we have coverage.

So when I got home from my very expensive dental trip, I made some new stitch markers. I found some shell beads and love them. Nicole helped me by putting on the smaller beads.

Small Steps

We have a week full of sun and slightly above freezing temperatures coming. Or so the weather page says at this time. That will hopefully diminish the snow banks a bit and melt some of the hard packed ice on the side streets and sidewalks.

Yesterday I hauled all of my fleece away from in front of my loom so that I could put on a warp. I chose Midnight Garden for the simple reason that I already had the perfect colour weft in my stash. The other three scarves will have to have weft dyed or purchased before I can weave them.
When I had moved all of my various fleece, batts, roving and fluff in general I realized that a fair number of them were in plastic bags. Apparently, fleece will felt just by sitting in a plastic bag. And having spun roving that this has happened to, I decided to do something to prevent this from happening again.

So I dug in my fabric stash and found about 3 yards of a thin cotton in a pale pink that I would probably never use for anything else, and made a bunch of bags to contain my fleece. I have to admit that it took me a bit of thinking before I remembered where this fabric came from. I have never purchased anything that was that colour of pale pink before so was at a loss as to where it cam from. Then I remembered Carol had brought over some fabric for me to pick through when she was cleaning out her mothers house last summer. It is a beautiful fabric, just not in my usual colour palate.

Not everything needed to be bagged, and there are still a few things that are in plastic (like the baby llama butt). The fleece that I am spinning usually resides in a gift bag that I can easily move around and will sit upright beside my chair while I spin.

All small steps heading towards my New Years resolution of getting more organized. And while we are mentioning resolutions, I have to admit that I am having mixed results in the "drinking more water" one. There are days when I drink my two litres (or more), and other days when I don't get anywhere close.

It's Official

The February Blahs have passed and I now have the March Doldrums. We still have 200 feet of snow and ice. Yes, the days are a little longer, and that is good, but I want to put away my down parka and get rid of my winter boots. And sun. Check out all of the snow and flurries in my future! And right now the radio is talking about all the snow up north of the province which, when it melts, comes down the river and rushes by Fredericton and leads to flooding. Oh joy. Which leads me to another concern. Our garden is under at least 3 feet of snow and it's on the flood plain. So I don't think that I will get my peas in early this year. In fact, I'll be lucky to get anything in the garden until mid May. Sigh.

I did make up 4 warps out of my hand spun yesterday so for those of you that have put up with my whining, here's a little reward.

Now I need to unearth my loom from all of the fleece that is in front of it and I can start weaving.

E is for....

emerging.



It is that time of year when gardeners are starting their seeds for the upcoming growing season. After a winter like we have had in Eastern Canada, we are all looking forward to spring.
Like me, the seeds start to emerge from their winters rest. The sun is stronger and new life is on the horizon. (And no, I do not mean that I am pregnant-I'm talking about plants people!) Warm days are ahead. I survive in winter. I live in summer.
These plants are actually Mira's latest experiment. These are her Dragon Fruit seeds that she saved. I will start my planting hopefully within the next week or two with peppers and a few members of thebrassica family.

Stitch Marker Exchange

Are you tired of using the same old stitch markers? Do you want to add some new ones to your stash? You should go over to the Stitch Marker Exchange and sign up for the Spring Swap. It's a nice little swap that doesn't take a lot of time, nor a lot of money. You can sign up for as many swap partners as you like and the only thing that you are required to send are 5 stitch markers to each of your swap partners. It's up to you if you want to add anything extra. I always do. I love to find chocolate in my mailbox and figure that others do as well!

D is for....

Dog.

This is Winnie. We get to borrow her every now and then when her mom has a meeting in town. The kids get to play with a dog for a couple of hours and I don't have another creature to take care of.

Win-win. Or maybe that should be Win-win-Winnie.

Blue ......

I am having a hard time naming this one too. It reminds me of blue water surrounding some tropical island. There is heat, relaxation, some fancy drink with an umbrella nearby. It brings me to mind of diving off coral reefs and being visited by colourful fishes. You know the type of thing that I mean. Even if, like me, you have never been to a tropical country, we have all seen the travel brochures. I'm talking Blue Lagoon without Brooke Shields.

I guess that I just dated myself.

One of the reasons for all of this tropical longing is because there are at least 4 people at work that have taken themselves and in some instances, their families down to a warmer place while the rest of us have been left to deal with yet more snow.

Here is Simon laying on the small snowbank out our front door.

And Liam standing in front of the garage. And yes, that lump in front of the garage is indeed a car.
This year has definitely reminded me of the winters when I was a kid. Lots of snow. So much fun if you don't have to shovel.

Come on Spring. Anytime now would be good!

Midnight Garden

I'm feeling better. Still not 100% but much better than I was.

Before I became sick, I was doing some spinning for new scarves. So I present "Midnight Garden". Roving form.

It was a little bit felted so I drafted it. I usually don't bother with the pre-drafting, but I think that I will from now on. It made a huge difference and made the act of spinning more enjoyable.

And here is the final yarn. I have a number of hanks of slubby yarn hanging around waiting to be turned into scarves.

Now all I have to do weave them. Come to think of it, I probably have to dye some yarn for weft.

Approaching Human

And by that I mean that I am starting to feel better. I think that I did to much to soon and my body told me to slow down.

I started to feel a little better on Sunday and thought that I was out of the woods. So I went to an artist talk. Monday I had a mini-workshop to teach to the third years and so went into work. This was probably a mistake. I was so tired when I got home and I started to get the chills again. Yesterday was spent in bed again trying to get warm. I hate the chills.

Today I am feeling slightly better but still very tired. Thankfully schools were cancelled today, including mine, so I get to stay home and try to get better.

Has it been that long?

I just realized that it has been a few days since I posted last. A couple of busy days at work, followed by busy nights at home and then being hit with the flu Friday after I got home has kept me away from the computer except to check my e-mail occasionally.
Yesterday was spent alternating between shivering and sweating and it has been three nights since I had a half decent sleep. Only half decent because I haven't had a really good night sleep in years.

Seeing as I haven't really got anything right now ( I do have some new yarns for scarves, but I have to down load them and touch them up and I really just want to go lie down again) I am going to send you somewhere else.
My sister just started a blog about her travels around the world. Stop by for a visit.

Tumeric 2 or Strange Child

Mira just came in and asked "If someone took a bath in tumeric water would they turn yellow?"

And after having dyed my hands a slight yellow yesterday while rinsing everything, I knew the answer.

Yes.

She was very excited by this bit if information and decided that someone doing such a thing "could play a carrot. They could dye their hair green and have it sticking up! They would make a great carrot!"

Haloween is only eight and a half months away!

Post Cards from the Selv-edge

I have had my first "post card" for almost a month now and tomorrow is the day that I am suppose to pass it along. When I first picked it up, I was astonished by how much responsibility I felt being the first one to alter this cloth. It is a white jacquard fabric that Ellen stitched to a piece of muslin using the natural floral pattern as a guide.

I had many ideas of "I could..." but none of them seemed quite right. This went on for almost three weeks. I would take it out in a quiet moment and contemplate. I would think up a couple of more possibilities, revisit a couple of my old ideas, and then I would put it away.

And then one night, I had a break through. We had a curry dinner. I don't know if you have ever made a curry dinner before, but there are a lot of dishes to clean up afterwards. A lot. And my nice new very white dishcloth came out of the experience a lovely soft yellow.

I suddenly knew my problem with this piece of fabric. If any of you (and I am sure that most of you have) have ever sat in front of a blank white paper looking for that first word of that first sentence, or in front of that white canvas wondering where to put that first stroke, (and what colour should it be?) then you know my dilemma. It was just too bloody WHITE!

So I dyed it. With the ingredient that had made my dishcloth coloured.


Tumeric. I did a little research and after boiling the tumeric in a lot of water for 15 minutes, I put in the fabric and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I am amazed at the colour concentration. I put about 3 tablespoons of tumeric in my pot. There was so much colour left in the pot that I decided to dye some fleece. The colour came out very bright, but it was hard to rinse out all of the excess tumeric from the fleece without felting it so I won't be doing that again.

You can see the pattern much better now because the fabric was made up of two different materials and different types of fibres take dyes differently. There are a couple of hot spots that I am not to pleased about, but I tried dyeing it again in a new dye bath and it didn't help much.

And while I had dye stuff left in the pot I decided to do a little more experimentation. These are two skeins of cotton that I had kicking around. Normally dyeing cottons requires Fiber Reactive dyes and there is so much rinsing involved and so much dyes wash down the drain that I don't like using them. No problem with tumeric. The skein on the right was in the dye bath for about 30 minutes. And the one on the left was in for about 2 minutes.


Cool eh? It it smelled great too. If you like the smell of tumeric, that is.

the things they say

Bill and I are in the kitchen and Nicole comes in being her ususal cute self.

Bill : Oh! What a treasure! Are you a treasure?

Nicole: No!

Me: Oh yes you are!

Nicole: No I'm not. I'm made of bones!

I guess that she is a bunch of treasured bones.

It looks like WHAT?

Mira went to the grocery store again. And this time came home with a passion fruit. Bill loves them and had raved about them, and at $1.49 each, they seemed like a bargain after the Dragon Fruit experiment.

They are roughly the size of a baseball, only oblong instead of round and kind of soft but with a leathery texture. Apparently, you can tell when they are ripe by how wrinkly the skin is.

So Mira cut one open and her description of the interrior of a passion fruit?

"Hmmm. It looks like a leathery bag of frog spawn"


Well, I could only agree.

She loved the taste though, and came home with a few more the next day.

no name yarn

Here is my latest skein. Still in it's unwashed state, this started out as something completly different from the colours seen here. It was an experiment from some of the dyeing that I have been doing for work. Every now and then, experiments fail and I end up with something butt ugly. When this happens with fleece, I fill a pot with water, add my acid, add some dye that goes by the name of "evergreen" and let the magic happen. I have yet to be disappointed with the way that the final yarn turns out. Sometimes when this happens, it goes into the "not reproducable" pile and gets marketed as a "true one of a kind".

Here are the stats....

My own dyed merino
spun on a Louet
60 yards
250 g 0r 8+ ounces
2 ply
wpi-4

New Yarn

Here is my plied Shetland. This is in the Fortune's Rock colour way. It turned out much different than the last batch that I dyed in this colour because the fleece was grey instead of white. Lots of brown and orange and next to no purple in the finished yarn.

I have been spinning the past few evenings and so I will be back soon with more yarn. I have been enjoying a break from weaving but need to start up producing for sale again.

Dragon Fruit

Mira has been facinated by the look of dragon fruit for quite some time. The other day, Bill went to the grocery store and Mira gave him some money (and a drawing) with instructions to pick one up for her. He came back with a nice looking one, but we were all shcocked at the price. $7.70.
In any case, she cut it open and while we didn't quite know what to expect, we certainly didn't expect this!

It had a very lovely but very subtle flavour and I am in love with the colour combination! She saved some seeds in hope of growing one, but after doing some research and finding out that the plant that the dragon fruit comes from is a cactus and a rather large one at that, I think her propagation dreams have been put on hold. Thankfully.

Snow Day. The Valentine's Edition.

As suspected, schools are closed today, roads are in horrible condition, both UNB and the Craft College are closed until noon. I won't be going in this afternoon because I don't want my mom (the babysitter) to have to drive on slippery roads.

Here is a shot of yesterday that I took on the way home.
This mornings offering of the house across the street.
Streets and the driveway that are icy. The city crews are concentrating on the roads and the sidewalks on the main streets. Which means that our sidewalk will probably not be plowed for a couple of days. I am NOT looking forward to walking on them.

And yesterday after I got home from work, Liam and I set off for the grocery store to pick up a few things for supper tonight. I was short a few esential items for Scandinavian Chicken Salad. that is going to be our supper tonight and the forcast was for rain yesterday evening. I didn't want to be out in it.
Liam (not surprisingly) said that he wanted a treat, and I agreed on the condition that he act as my pack mule and carry the groceries home. He readily agreed. We ended up in the junk food isle and he chose a sugary drink. He only complained a little bit on the way home.
I can harldy wait for supper time!

Update: the link to the recipe is fixed. Thanks to Bill for pointing it out to me.

Rain, freezing rain, ice pellets, and snow

20 cm of snow followed by an indeterminate amount of ice pellets and freezing rain turning into 25 mm of rain? Hello! Some consistency here would be nice.

How much do you want to bet that I am NOT going into work tomorrow? Thursday is my dyeing day. I look forward to it every week. I get to spend all day in the dye kitchen playing. Sigh. What's not to love?

Look! A picture!

My first finished knitting project for 2008. Actually the first thing that I finished with the exception of spinning yarn. It is Noro Silk Garden and knit with the Noro hat pattern with an added 3/3 rib. So simple. So quick. So little yarn left.

And I just did something that I thought that I wouldn't do. I just signed up for Ravelry. I saw a hat on Rhonda's blog and I MUST KNIT IT! I can see it in some fat handspun. We won't talk about my UFO's, okay?

It's all so pretty......

but I think that I have had enough.


We have had two more storms since the last one that I complained about and another one on the way tomorrow.


And instead my usual shot of more snow falling outside my door, here are a few of some of the trees on my way to work at the end of last week.

I love the no parking sign in the middle picture. It seems a bit obvious to me.



Keep warm and safe.

Oh, yeah. For all of you who are feeling a little envy at all the pretty white stuff that we in the great frozen north are experiencing, come on up and shovel my steps and drive way. It's beginning to get a little stale for me. I'll make you a great dinner for your pains.

C is for...

C is for many things in my life. Cats and cows, Christmas and Christine (my sister), colour and coffee to name just a few. But for me, right now, C is for Charlotte. She is my friend who died back in October last year. Her memorial service was just a couple of weeks ago and it was a beautiful service in which many of her friends and family stood and told stories and anecdotes from her life.

And hanging at the edge of the stage, bearing silent witness to all that people had to say, was a tapestry that Charlotte had created a number of years ago.




She was an avid outdoor enthuasist. Her garden was a thing of beauty and she spent many happy hours there in the summer. Her and her husband John would go for long canoe trips and spent a lot of time at their summer cottage. More than once I heard her joke about going to the cottage for Canada Day so that they could enjoy "scotch on the rocks". Apparently there were quite a few rocks in their lake and canoeing out to one with a bottle of scotch was a tradition that they enjoyed upholding.

John told us the the tapestry was based on a photograph that she took on one of those canoe trips. She was intrigued byt he way that the sunset was reflecting off of the water. Her use of colour and texture was amazing.

She taught a tapestry course at the Craft College a number of years ago that I wish that I could have taken, but at the time I was fully immersed in three small children and Bill was working more than full time hours. I though that I was going to have another chance. Sometime you never get a second chance.

Blah

Blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah.

I think that I have the February blahs.

Ick.

Spring better get here soon.

You Make My Day

Thanks to Valerie for nominating me for the You Make My Day award.
According to the rules, it is now our duty to do the following: "Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times."

So as hard as it is to chose, and in no particular order, here we go.
Hobbits Abroad
Spin Weave Knit and Cake
Homework
Canadian Crafter
A Simple Yarn
Snail Spirals
Two Wooden Sticks and a Ball of Wool
Leigh's Fiber Journal
Woven Thoughts
Fiberewetopia
Spin Me a Tale, Weave Me a Novel, Knit Me a Story
Cabin Cove (Dave, can I link to you now?)

Happy reading!