A Dash of Colour

I test knit a shawl for a friend. It is designed to use one skein of Noro or colorful sock yarn, but I did it in some barely colored handspun that has been marinating in the stash for some time. The pattern is available on Ravelry here.

It is a very easy knit, perfect for the beginning lace knitter. It is a shawlette that sits nicely on the shoulders due to the shaping. I made it a bit bigger, as I wanted more coverage, and had the yarn available.

These photos were the best I could do, as it has been very windy here. Spring on the prairie, you know.

Peg loom shop now open!

My friend Lynette made herself this lovely shawl on her peg loom.

She is now making peg looms for sale. They are generally custom made, to your specifications regarding peg width, distance between pegs, and how many pegs.

Painted, or not painted.

If you're interested, just drop her a line at daisyhillhandiworks at hotmail dot com. She has limited internet access, so your best bet is to send her your telephone number so you can discuss the specifics of what you want.

Waffles

I have a confession to make. I have a box of waffles in my freezer.

I'm sure plenty of people have frozen waffles in their freezer, so why the need to confess? They're over two years old. Towards the end, that was all I could get Mom to eat. I don't eat them, and they're taking up space in the freezer that I could use for something else. The chickens would probably like to eat them, freezer burn and all.

Yet, as I rearrange the freezer to make room for the day old bread that was on special, the box always stays, even as I am cursing and shoving and smooshing the day old bread to make it fit. I'm not ready yet. I don't know when I will be.

I can promise you this though. If you ever come for breakfast, I won't be serving frozen waffles. The French Toast might be slightly smooshed day old bread.

The Changing Landscape

A friend asked me the other day why I hadn't posted in such a while. I didn't know how to answer him. I don't have an answer. How about I just post something?

This summer, another wind turbine farm popped up near me.

I swear, one minute they weren't there, and the next they were, just like mushrooms pop up out of nowhere in the spring. I'm sure it didn't feel that way to the people erecting them in the blazing heat we had.

These turbines are about a mile away from me, yet I can't actually see them from my place because of the trees and hill between us. This disappoints me. I rather like watching them. They are mesmerizing, like sitting at my spinning wheel, I think.

Luckily, this view is just a short walk away.

Someday, I'll have one of my own. Not a big one like these, of course, just one that will let me generate some of my own power. Maybe one of these babies? It seems almost wasteful not to.

Hit and Run Post

Sorry, just wanted to show what I've been doing recently. This is yarn that I had mill spun with a friend. It is my alpaca, his wool, and another friend's mohair, a third of each. I've been playing.

A Conversation

I had a lovely conversation with Mom early this morning. It was raining and thundering, and I was in that half conscious state. It was wonderful.

We were sitting around the kitchen table at the family home. The radio was on 'CCO, and Mom was eating a piece of toast. My nephew, just turned 9, was there too. Mom told us this story.

She and her sister Mary Anne were 5 or 6 years old at the time, and their dad was driving them to my Great Aunt (their Aunt)Teeter's place in Wisconsin. The road to her place was gravel, and had a lot of hills. If you drive fast, your stomach does that rising up in your belly thing as you go over the top of the hill and back down. They were sitting in the back seat of the car, leaned back against the seat, heads back and staring up at the sky through the rear window, enjoying that up and down, almost falling sensation as they rode over the hills. All of a sudden, that falling sensation didn't stop, they were falling, falling, falling. They looked at each other, and asked "Are we gone?" (As in, had they died?) Nope, they had gone off the road and into the ditch, landing in two feet of snow.

This is the story as told to me in my dream. I have no idea if it is a real one, that Mom told me years ago, or if my head made it up. I do know that I loved going to Great Aunt Teeter's, and enjoyed the ride there, always urging Mom to drive faster so we could get that rollercoaster effect. I don't remember ever going in the ditch though.

It was great having a conversation with her about our shared past, whether she was sharing her love of riding to Teeter's too, or I was just remembering mine, which she was a huge part of.

Anyway, how have you all been? I've been busy trying to keep up with the mowing, both of the yard with the riding mower and of the pastures with my scythe. I rode (on bicycle) the Tour de Pepin, 32 miles half way around the lake, and then a paddleboat ride back across the lake. It was great fun and amazingly enough I wasn't even sore the next day!

I love this color.

This is a giant hyacinth getting ready to bloom in a flowerbed right outside my front door. I have never noticed the green shading to blue shading to deep purple. It makes my eyes happy.

I sense a colorway coming on. I am imagining it in felt, not yarn, to get the subtle shading from one color to the next. I'll have to pull out the dyepot some other day though, for tomorrow is Shepherd's Harvest! There is a Cormo fleece with my name on it (They've got a beer named Jeff? I know at least one of you will get that!) waiting for me there.

Is this thing on?

Yep, still working.

It was a good day for sun bathing.

Art of Alzheimer's-Linens and Lids

I didn't think I'd ever have more of these to share. I was looking through old photos, and found this.

I had probably given her some towels to fold, and she made art with them. The white is a lid from a plastic storage tub, and the blue lid from a plastic food container.

Waaaaahh!

New Peg Loom

A friend and I were discussing weaving on the peg loom, and the subject of a finer peg loom that what I had came up. By finer, I mean one with smaller pegs set closer together. The next thing I knew, she had built one for me.

Isn't she pretty? All painted and everything.

This is the best part.

She is thinking of producing these for sale, so if anybody is interested, let me know.

I tried her out using some cotton tape yarn I got at the Textile Center Garage Sale last year.

I love the effect!

I just realized what the yarn reminds me of. Shoestrings.

Open your Heart

"Open your heart" is this week's theme for MCP Project 52. Open your heart to a rescue dog, and she might rescue you right back.

Kora has been with me just over a year now. She is smart, outgoing, friendly, fearless, and self-confident. I need to be more like her.

Soothing Repetition

This week's assignment for MCP Project 52 was a no brainer for me. Soothing repetition. Come on, what else was I going to photograph but my spinning wheel? Well, ok, if I could have gotten the shed door open to get my scythe out, that was also in the running. In the end, the spinning wheel won.

Sob

I lost my best friend, faithful companion and footwarmer for the past twelve years early this morning. She was a good dog.

Week 3: Shades of Grey

The window of the art shack is the subject of this Week 3 photo. Shades of grey is the theme.

On a completely different subject, does anybody watch NCIS (Mark Harmon, call me!) and happen to catch last night's episode? Bob Newhart played a former NCIS medical examiner, with Alzheimer's. He nailed it. I recognised the "I am lost" look. Even worse, I felt the "I am lost to you" look.

MCP Project 52: Week 2

I'm participating in MCP Actions Project 52, where you post one photo for each week of the year, with each week having a theme. This week's them was to illustrate a song using a photograph. Not being very original, I chose "The llama song".

I can't actually use any of the Photoshop actions, as my version of Elements is very old, but that doesn't matter. The project is open to anybody, and you can join in at any time. I missed the first week.

Also, could someone please tell the llamas that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? They created this path, and unless I want to wade through 3 feet of snow, I use it to carry the water to them. Grr!

Bobbles and Bowls

This started out as the Spoked Hat from the Winter 2010 Interweave Knits. Not having the right sized needles, it ended up big. Really big. So I frogged the crown shaping back, did a few more rows of the established pattern, then repeated the first row, with the bobbles. Now, it is a spoked cowl. The yarn is a handspun, handdyed alpaca blend. There is enough left over, I could actually knit the hat too. Or maybe I'll do some fingerless mitts, using the same stitch pattern.

My second bowl from pottery class along with some tomatoes from the garden. They were picked green and are slowly ripening. The bowl is blue with some transparent purple on the inside and slopped over the side. I was trying to get more of the purple on the outside too, but I'll take what I can get!

Long Overdue Thank You

A while ago, I sent some fiber to an Internet friend. She was new to spinning, and I just wanted to do a little enabling to help her build her fiber stash. Pay it forward, just like other spinners had done for me when I first started. Then, back in September, I got a squishy in the mail.

Aren't they fantastic? She did all the spinning on a drop spindle. A drop spindle! Then she knit this beautiful cable and lace pattern and sent the socks back to me. They've been keeping my feet and heart warm ever since. Thank you G-A-M!

Felting

I've been on a felting kick lately. This is wool that I dyed felted onto a base of teal silk crepe de chine fabric. It was wet felted in a big sheet, then I cut out a vest shape. It is one piece, with the only seams at the shoulders.

I stood in the art shack for the first time on Saturday. Previously, when you opened the door, there was a big wooden apparatus directly inside that prevented me from physically getting inside the building. I dismantled it on Saturday, (with a wrench, a hammer, crowbar, and some well-chosen expletives) and just stood in there and got a feel for the space. Dreamed a bit. Thought about window and door placement. Loom placement. Dyeing station placement. Felting station placement. Pottery wheel placement. Big comfy chair placement. You get the idea!

It's getting closer, closer

Yep, it is finally here. I wasn't sure if it was going to make the corner turning onto my high, narrow driveway, but they did it. It is still up on cribbing so I can insulate underneath and come up with a better foundation, probably until spring. What I had there was basically destroyed in their moving back and forth trying to get the building in position. It turns out this building is heavier than a normal building of the same size because of the type and amount of wood used. The walls are 2 by 6, 12 inches on center. She's a sturdy one, designed to hold many tons of grain. Just think how much fiber she will hold! Apparently, my building is a girl.

Pottery Class

My first wheel-thrown pottery piece. A plate. That fancy edge? An attempt to cover a mistake. When I was trimming it, I had it secured on the wheel well enough for me. When the instructor sat at my wheel to show me how to do something, he kicked that wheel much faster. My poor plate went flying. It was mostly ok except for a gouge on the edge. So I just cut gouges all around the edge, and tada, a sprocket plate. There is also a crack in the middle, but it held together. I won't be able to use it to serve food, because the glaze wasn't able to seal it.

This little lopsided bowl is my second piece, my first bowl. Just the right size for ice cream!

One of the other students commented that "Art takes a long time." I had to laugh. I was thinking,wow, look how fast this is, one minute I have a ball of clay and a half hour later I have a bowl. There are additional steps of course, but to me it was way faster than the dyeing/carding/spinning/knitting or weaving I usually do. Once again proving it's all relative!

In other news, the Art Shack is coming on Sunday! Woohoo! The man who is moving it stopped by today to do a dry run and look over the site. He is the one that took it off its foundation, and he said that the building didn't flex one bit. As he bluntly put it, "That building is built like a brick shithouse!" Now, that is exactly what I thought,(maybe not exactly in those terms!) but it felt good to hear it from someone who actually knows about these things and who is an impartial third-party. Yeehaw!