Life on Silverhill

A Northwest Sunday

2006-09-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

Har!!! No, the PNW hasn't been invaded by pirates! This was a scene out in the water during the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival on Sunday. There were a couple of old schooners out there having entirely too much fun shooting off canons into the water! Wish I could have been out there with them!
Here's a shot of the town harbor. About 200 wooden boats, some old and some brand new came out to play for the weekend. They were amazing to see - such nice lines and so beautiful. I was drooling over all the wooden kayaks. There are even companies that will sell you a wooden kayak kit - very tempting. Only thing is, I know how I end up beaching my plastic kayak to get in and out, and no way would I want to do that to a gorgeous, shiny, varnished wood boat! When we got on the ferry to come back home, we saw a girl with a beautiful kayak covered in some kind of skin, with a hand lashed seam along the top. Turns out she made it herself at a class somewhere in Anacortes. I'll have to check that out!

The ferry ride home was interesting.
Two huge cruise ships passed in front of us, and the ferry captain had to practically turn the boat around to avoid their wakes. Wimp! He should have just gunned it and jumped the wakes the way my cousin does up at the lake! Ha Ha

I checked with our wonderful little town library today, and they have purchased the i-Web book I requested, and I should be able to check it out soon. I'll post the new blog address as soon as I finally figure out how to use the system!

Sending lots of Whidbey Magick your way.....

Habitats for All

2006-09-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

Today DH and I worked on a Habitat for Humanity house for the first time. What a wonderful experience! In addition to making our little inner builders very happy, it is just a very good cause. The project is an adorable one story, 1,000 square foot house on a nice wooded lot. When we arrived at 8AM, there was a foundation, and when we left at around 3PM, we (a group of 8) had installed the cap boards and all the floor joists. It was a nice day to be there, because they also had the official ground breaking ceremony. The partner family (a nice girl and her little daughter) were working right along with us. They are very sweet and I wish them much happiness in their new home, which should be completed by Thanksgiving. We may be going back on Friday to help nail up the siding.

On another note, our yard remains a habitat for coyotes! They still enjoy performing howling operas at night - usually around 1 or 2 AM. But we are starting to get used to this, so they do not always wake us up (completely). They serve to remind us that this is not really "our" land, but we must share it with other creatures, great and small. And that is fine.

My fiber stash has been sorted and organized, and now resides in a lovely habitat of 15 quart Sterlite boxes in the hall closet (except for the fleeces, of course). I will try to post a picture soon. I even bought a Dymo labeler! Scarey, isn't it?

Finally, I've learned that the habitat for my blog is going to have to change sooner rather than later. Blogger has started a Beta blog that requires a Google mail account. Been there, done that, and I refuse to do it again! I found Google mail a nuisance to use and I didn't appreciate the fact that they keep every email you send and receive on their servers for, basically, forever! I have no intention of giving them access to my blog. So I will probably have to give in and spend $25 for an after market manual so I can figure out how to use Mac's I-Web application, which will allow me to publish a blog to the dot Mac service that I already have. It annoys me no end that Mac sells an application with so little documentation that I can't figure out how to use it!

Sending lots of Whidbey Magick your way..........

Fair Photos

2006-08-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of the Fiber Arts department at the Island County Fair on Whidbey Island, Washington.

Fair Days!

2006-08-18T22:09:00.000-07:00

I've been busy at the Island County Fair for several days now. First I helped to check in the entries for the Fiber Arts department. And, I am pleased to say, we had close to 200 entries, not including items knit with commercial yarn, which went to the Needlework area. We had about 65 skeins of yarn (more on this later). I got brave and entered several items of my own, including a lace shawl knit with commercial yarn, several things woven with commercial yarn, a scarf woven with handspun, and two shawls knit with handspun. I didn't enter any skeins (thank goodness! - more on this later!)

Tuesday was judging day. My job was to play scribe for the spinning judge, recording her scores and comments on the individual judging cards. The judge was very thorough, spending from 10 - 20 minutes on each skein! If you do the math, you will see that there's a problem brewing! Thirteen hours later, at about 10 PM, with 25 skeins left to be evaluated, the judge decided that perhaps she should stay overnight and finish judgeing the next day! I agreed to come back the next morning, and the department Superintendent managed to find a room for her.

Wednesday morning we started working on those last 25 skeins. In addition, there were 15 handspun "garments" (knitted and woven items) that needed to be judged. Thank goodness I had opted not to enter skeins! At 4PM the judge finished the skeins but had to leave without judging the garments, so our poor Superintendent had to really scramble to find a judge for the handspun garments at the last minute. Believe it or not, she actually did manage to find a well qualified judge who arrived at 5:30 and judged the remaining items, which took her a little over one hour. It was actually a blessing in disguise, as the skein judge told me that it takes her about twice as long to judge a garment! We would have been there all night!

Those were two looooong days at the fair, but it was fun and I learned quite a bit from the spinning judge, what I was able to overhear from the weaving judge, and the way that the Superintendent handled all the monkey wrenches so calmly, with good grace and a sense of humor.

The judging was done under the Danish system, which means that each item is judged against a set of standards, rather than ranking one item against another. So, it is entirely possible for every entry to be awarded a blue ribbon. I am amazed to say that I was awarded a blue ribbon for every item that I entered, and I received an additional merit award for my llama triangle lace shawl!

This morning I was back at the fairgrounds to spin in the fiber booth from 9:30 - 12:45. I picked this time because I thought the fair would be pretty quiet on Friday morning (Thursday was opening day) and I was right. DH met me when my shift was done, and we spent the next 7 1/2 hours wandering through the fair! I am pretty tired after yet another 12 hour day at the fair, but it was fun!

I took a bunch of pictures and will try to post them on Sunday!

oops - forgot to mention that DH and I also warped a loom for the booth!

A Wonderful Whidbey Day!

2006-08-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning I looked out the back window and saw five coyote pups, eating blackberries! They are very cute, with huge ears, and they bounce around like Pepe LePew when he chases the girl skunk! A little while later, we saw mama in front of the house. This is why our cat goes outside only on her leash, with two large people! (well, large from a coyote's point of view, anyway!)

We went to an art exhibit by a Native American artist, Windwalker, and his wife Mary Jo. Such talented and nice people! They paint, make jewelry, and create Fairy Houses, which are little whimsical dwellings. We must have talked with them for almost an hour. I am sure our paths will cross again.

Next, we went to a sculpture and print show at Froggwell Gardens, which is a private home and garden. The owner has had his gardens for 25 years, and they are spectacular! The hydrangeas are blooming now, in amazing colors. I took pictures, but they are at a high resolution and won't upload to Blogger. I'll have to remember in the future to take some pictures at low resolution for the blog! He likes to have a couple of open house art shows a year, as an excuse to share his gardens with his island neighbors. Lucky us! His partner told me that he will have a quilt/textile show in May when the rhododendrons are in bloom.

Later, we went to the 4:00 showing of the Pirates movie at our amazingly cute little theater, The Clyde. It is owned and operated by a nice lady and her husband, rather than some huge faceless conglomerate. Admission is only $5, and you can get popcorn and a drink for $2. AND, it is the only place I know of on the island where I can get Coke (yeah!) rather than Pepsi (boo!) Their website is worth a visit. Be sure to read the history of the place.

It was such a nice day, spent sharing time with some of the wonderful people who call Whidbey Island home.

Dye Party

2006-07-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

What fun! I went to a dye party! There were several dye pots going with an assortment of dyes and colors. A couple pots of Indigo, one of onion skins and Montana goldenrod, a purple/lavender pot, and one that kept changing colors throughout the day. It progressed from a teal-ish color right along to red and fuschia!
This is the onion skin/goldenrod pot. The fleece I tossed in there came out orange, but most of the color rinsed out and I wound up with a pretty light yellow. I had soaked my fleece in water with a splash of vinegar overnight, and gave it a short dip in alum before throwing it into the pot.

There were several stations set up for people to paint roving. This is some wool/silk roving being painted with cochineal, madder, and other natural dyes that I can't remember the names of. I painted a silk roving with these.

The indigo pot was fascinating! It needs to be brought up to a very specific temperature and color (you are supposed to see a yellow tint just under the scum) before you add fiber to it. You can let your fiber stay in there as long as you want, and when it comes out it changes color from yellowy-green, through many different shades of green, and it ends up some shade of indigo blue when it is done oxidizing. I think the way it works is the longer it stays in the pot, the bluer it will end up.

This is the magic dye pot that kept changing colors all day. Everytime the dye bath exhausted, someone would dump another color in (as you can tell, this was highly scientific!) This picture is towards the end of the day when we all decided we were tired of blues and greens, so we went for red and fuscia. It was so interesting to see the different colors that came out of the same pot, depending upon what kind of wool went in. We had everything from deep red to shocking pink to many shades of salmon. Reproducible?? NO WAY!!! But who needs reproducible when you're having this much fun??

Here's some of what we all did.

And here's what I made.

Some people dyed self-patterning sock yarn. It's an interesting procedure - fun to watch, but probably not something I'll ever do myself. Basically, you take your skein of yarn and tie it off into two or four yard hunks (a special pegged board is a tremendous help here), depending on how big you want the repeats. Then you paint each hunk separately depending upon what you want your pattern to be. The whole thing gets steamed to set the dye. Then the real trick is to undo the separate hunks and reskein the yarn without getting a tangled mess!

So now I am all inspired (once again) to set up for dyeing at home. Every once in a while the dyeing bug hits me, and I'll go out and get some of the supplies. I am down to needing a heat source and dyes. Some of the girls were using the base from a turkey deep fryer, hooked up to a BBQ propane tank, with their own dyepots on top instead of the gigantic turkey fryer pot. Seemed like a good idea, so I will think about that for a while. I even found them at the local Ace Hardware.

Home At Last!!!!

2006-07-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

I am happy to say that I am home at last! After a 3 1/2 day trip across the country, DH, Cookie and I arrived May 20, on the 10:00PM ferry. Miss Cookie Cat turned out to be quite the little traveller. She had all her possessions in the back of the car - bed, litter box, food bowl and water bowl - plus, my lap in the front of the car. What more could a little kitty want? In fact, she was so content in the car that she refused to leave it until we got to the house, thus the super speedy trip across the country. You see, it was about 95 degrees in the midwest, and we had to drive from sunup to sundown in order to keep the car cool enough for the cat. Made for some pretty long days! Animals are so amazing - when we got on the ferry, I told her that the next stop would be home. And the cat who wouldn't leave the car hopped right out when we parked at the garage, walked right into the house, explored a little, curled up in her bed and went to sleep!

About 4 days after we arrived, the movers arrived with all our earthly possessions. We were happy that everything arrived in one piece, with the exception of some very minor damage to the patio table. Considering that we had some extremely heavy and bulky items, it is truly amazing that there was no damage. We were very pleased with our driver and his crew on both ends of the move.

So now we have been here for seven weeks, and we are settling in quite nicely. The pictures are hung on the walls, the furniture has been rearranged twice, and we are starting to get the yard in order. Getting the yard in order required the purchase of a 50hp John Deere tractor, which is a pretty cool toy! We have lots of brush to cut back from the house (big wildfire threat) and trails to blaze through the woods.

It is so much fun to go get our mail at the post office! The town is very cute, the library is right across the street, and on clear days we can see the Cascade Mountains!

This is a photo of Camano Island, right across the sound.

And such is life on magickal Whidbey Island!

Back to Life!

2006-03-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

I suppose I can't complain that no one reads my blog if I only post once a month, can I? It just seems that I never have anything to say! (At least, nothing that anyone would care about!) But then I realized that I do have something to share! A new spindle has entered my life!

Isn't she pretty? She is a Hatchtown Long Lady She spins a mighty fine very fine thread! She is an inheritance from a very cool lady and a good fiber buddy. I am sure that Karen's spirit is helping me spin so nicely on that spindle!

I also received some dyed silk caps, a gorgeous green/peach dyed mohair roving, a good sized portion of a beautiful Tintagel Farm wool/mohair blend, and a set of huge wool combs with very sharp teeth! We'll see if I ever get brave (stupid) enough to play with those puppies! I'd post a picture of all of it, except the Mad Packer scurried off with everything (except the spindle) before I even had a chance to let it all sink in. He says I can look forward to unpacking it in Washington. Quite true.

Speaking of Washington, we are a little closer to being able to escape the east coast! The planning board in NJ has approved our subdivision, and the planning board attorney approved our deed wording - but now he thinks it also needs to be approved by the town attorney. One step forward, one step back. We also have to get the blessing of the town engineer. Hopefully they won't then decide that the governor has to see it!

In the meantime, we are jumping through hoops to secure a continuing certificate of occupancy for the new owners. The chimney was inspected today, and the furnaces will be certified on Monday. Then, once we hang the mandated huge, bright red fire extinguisher on the family room wall (don't ask, but I will tell you that the law was created by a fifth grader!) we will be ready to call in the town inspector. Heaven help us!

Sadly, it looks like I will miss the Whidbey Weavers' Spinning Weekend on April 1st and 2nd. This year's teacher is Judith Mackenzie McCuin! It's a two day spinning seminar for $20 with an amazing mentor, and I won't be there! BUMMER!

But, to end on a happy note, Spring is here, the crocus bulbs are blooming, and the birds are chirping and hopping around all over the place! Time to crawl out from our winter refuges and enjoy the renewal of life once again!

Cotton Mystery Solved!

2006-02-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

Well, this is something I never thought I would be able to say - I'm spinning cotton! A dear Fiber Fanatic buddy gave me a gorgeous walnut support spindle, and - will wonders never cease - I am actually able to spin cotton on it! I had tried in the past on a wheel, and got nowhere. I once sat with an expert cotton spinner (boy could she do a beautiful long draw) for a couple hours trying to learn, and I was a total failure! My friend Kelli supplied the final piece to the cotton spinning puzzle yesterday, when she suggested that I try spinning the spindle with my right hand and draft with my left (I usually draft with my right hand). Well, that did it! The cotton spinning mystery has been solved!

OK, so now I can spin cotton. So that leaves me with.......cotton thread. Hmmmm......not exactly sure what I will do with it. However, it's great to have a new skill, and I am hoping I can spin on the support spindle while we drive across the country to our new home (whenever that may be!) That is, if our furry little travelling companion will allow it!

Project Done!

2006-02-19T14:31:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is, the end of week 1, and I've finished my Olympic Knitting! The Shrugawl is done! This is what it looks like all blocked out.

And here it is all put together with the fringe! Pretty darn cute! And it stays nicely on the shoulders! All in all, a fun little project.

But there's a week left to go! So, I will just jump right into another event and work on completing Samus before it becomes a UFO!

Let The Knitting Begin!

2006-02-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

Well, how cool was that??? 4,000 knitting sisters and brothers all casting on together!!! You could just feel the energy in the air! If we had all been using metal needles, there would have been one giant CLINK heard all over the world! (Yeah, I know, different time zones, blah, blah!)

Here's a photo of my small start, which is growing this afternoon while I watch the skiing!

Knit On!!

Finished Project!

2006-02-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

Well, ok, it's a teeny weeny little project I decided to sneak in, despite having two sweaters on the needles. But it's finished!

TA DAAA!!!!!! Fingerless Mitts, one of my very favorite things!

They are knit from Heavenly, by Artful Yarns. I bought it at Woolbearers, a great little yarn shop in Mt. Holly, NJ!

And guess what I found in my mailbox today??? Yup, the Cherry Tree Hill Yarn that I ordered from Bee's Knees Knitting I think I will use the lighter color on the right for my Shrugawl.

One week till the Olympics (knitting and otherwise)!

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!

HJ

I'll Always Find A Bargain

2006-02-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

Today was my day to get yarn for my Knitting Olympics project. First, I did a little research into the yarn I thought I had liked at Joann's. Turns out it is acrylic/nylon - YUCK!!! So off I went into cyberspace, to hunt down the recommended yarn - Cherry Tree Hill Merino Boucle.

It was easy to find the yarn - but it was quite a bit more than I wanted to spend. But after a couple of Googles, I found a website selling off some older stock at 40% off! AND I liked the colorways she had left!!! AND her shipping was extremely reasonable!! So I ended up buying two skeins for the same amount that one skein plus postage was going to cost at the other site!! Snoopy Dance! And many thanks to Jenny at Bee's Knees Knitting for making my Olympic Knitting attempt possible! (Did I mention that I placed the order this morning and received an email from Jenny oh, about 10 minutes after I placed the order, saying that she would ship it out today!!)

Warm up your needles - only 10 days till they light the flame!!

HJ

Olympic Fever!

2006-01-31T15:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I had to do it - I've joined the Knitting Olympics! And with many thanks to Risa, One Crazy Fiber Lady, I've even managed to post the Knitting Olympics Logo!

My project will be a Shrugawl, which is a cross between a shrug and a shawl. The pattern is on www.yarnmarket.com if anyone is curious. While it is a pretty basic pattern and it won't be a big challenge for me, I want to be able to actually watch the Olympic events! Lacey patterns require my full attention, thus would not be a good choice. I already have two sweaters on the needles, so I don't want to start a third. The sock yarns and needles are all packed. So, a Shrugawl it will be!

My Denise needle set has escaped being packed, so I have the needles I need. The entire yarn stash is packed, and I refuse to go tearing through boxes that have been packed and sealed, so I will go off to Joann Fabrics with my 40% off coupon to get my yarn. They have some boucle yarn that I have been eyeing for a while, so I now have an excuse to buy it! I am really excited about joining the Olympic fun, and I am excited about my project. I think it will come in handy in the cooler PNW weather.

Today we went in search of a Seattle Seahawks hat. None to be found. Anywhere. Evidently, if the Jets or Giants are not in the Superbowl, the NJ sporting goods stores opt to completely ignore the entire event. And look at you like you have 4 1/2 heads if you ask if they have any Seahawks merchandise.

Then, we went next door to the pet store to buy some supplies for transporting our cat, Cookie, across the country. This should be fun. Right. This is a 17 year old cat who screams her head off on a 10 minute car ride to the vet, and we will be driving 3,000 miles! We picked up a harness (laughing hysterically as the salesperson explained which parts of the cat go where), a leash, and a litter box with really tall sides. Now we have to try to get her into said harness. Right. Falconry gloves might be a good idea. Next I have to track down some spillproof bowls for food and water in the car, as our little furry darling is a grazer. Right now the poor little angel is sound asleep on her blankie on the couch, halo glowing, with no clue as to what we are about to do to her! If I never again post to this blog, you will know that Cookie has slashed DH and me to bits (yes, she has her claws and she isn't afraid to use them!)

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!

HJ

Springtime in January

2006-01-28T18:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Springtime Greetings!

The calendar says January, but the weather says April! So today we took advantage of this gift to clean out the garage. We threw out tons, and gave away a bunch of stuff. So now we are that much closer to moving!

January 25 was a momentous day - the town planning board finally approved our little single family lot subdivision! Woohoo!!! It's been 9 stressful months! We have to wait a couple of weeks for the official resolution, then we can start chasing papers around to get it finalized and filed with the county. Then we will finally be free to head west!

I just learned of a big fleece sale on Whidbey Island, but it's going to be in late February, and I don't think we will be there yet! Waaaaaahhhhhh! No fair!!!!

I have no fiber updates - just have not been able to get myself to do any spinning or knitting lately! Samus would be done if I had spent the time I've been on the computer knitting instead! But I have rejoined a jewelry making list that I used to participate in, before all my tools and supplies had to get packed up to sell the house. Even though I can't make anything until after we move, it is good to participate in that community again and get some ideas and encouragement for the future. I'm going to try to use this down time to work on things like business cards, tags and packaging.

Our kitty is having a blast climbing on all the boxes that are piling up throughout the house. I keep telling her about the big adventure she is about to have - after all, how many kitties get to travel 3,000 miles across the country?? Especially at her age (we think she is 17 years old!)

Until later,

HJ

Life Path

2006-01-22T16:38:00.000-08:00

With apologies to Blogthings, my revisions and comments are in italics!

Your Life Path Number is 5

Your purpose in life is to live life freely and collect experiences.

You love life - new adventures, new people, new ideas.

You are very curious, and you crave novelty in all forms. Just like a cat!

You tend to make friends easily,(not really), and you enjoy the company of all types of people.

You are impulsive and spontaneous - which sometimes leads you to do things you regret. Regret? What's that mean?

Sometimes you can be overindulgent with fiber, jewelry supplies and other toys.

You have many talents, so many that you are often scattered and unfocused.
Who, me???

What Is Your Life Path Number?

Fiber Resolutions

2006-01-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

Well, thanks to my wonderful NJ Fiber Fanatic buddies, I now have a New Year's Resolution. Our task was to dig up a UFO and commit to finishing it by the end of the year. Mine is this lovely mohair sweater, which I think I started 3 (or was it 4, or 5??) years ago. I remember I put it aside for some long forgotten reason. Then, the next time I pulled it out, I wasn't able to easily figure out where I had left off in the instructions, so I buried it very deep in the cedar closet. This, of course, is the same cedar closet that left for its new home in Connecticut last weekend. Since it no longer has a closet to hide in, I guess it had better become a sweater sometime soon!

Now here's a secret - what I didn't tell my spinning buddies is that I also have two other neglected projects. One is a pair Nancy Bush Ute Socks (pattern is in the Fall 1999 Interweave Knits). I haven't got the slightest idea why I never finished them - I am at the heel on sock #1. And yes, I did start them when the magazine was fresh on the newstands! It shouldn't be a huge problem to finish the socks sometime soon.

The second secret neglected project is an American Heirloom rug. I don't know what possessed me, but one year at MDS&W I just got sucked in and decided that I had to make this really cool, round rug. No promises that this one will be finished in 2-0-0-6, but I will try to at least work on it here and there.

All of the above will have to wait until I finish Samus, however - otherwise Samus might end up as a 2008 resolution! I am almost up to the point where you start working the right front part of the cardigan.

Not much of an update on the moving front. We are all set for our January 25 hearing date for the subdivision, and we continue to pack and get rid of excess stuff. We've sold most of the living room furniture and rugs, so now that room looks like it did when we moved in - empty but filled with boxes! The shed is cleaned out and the basement is coming along nicely! I am so happy that the new house does not have a basement! The ugly basementy sort of junk that accumulates will go into the barn, and I hope that the lack of basement will prevent us from saving junk that we really don't need!

I can't wait to finally get to Whidbey Island! I keep getting emails from the Whidbey Weavers' Guild about all the cool study groups and events that are being planned.

Westward Ho!

Spinning my Wheels

2006-01-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

First, my fiber wheels!

Plied Yellow Tweed

Here's the yellow tweed yarn all plied up! Isn't it pretty? It's a fairly heavy yarn, so I'm not sure what I will do with it - there isn't much yardage. Of course, even when I spin up lots of yardage, I still don't know what to make with it!

Red tweed on Woolee Winder

I got the winder for my Lendrum wheel because I always had such a hard time winding an even bobbin, as the wheel has a sliding clip instead of hooks. You'd think the slider would make it easier, but I guess I just need to have hooks to guide me! I am spinning yellow tweed's sister, red tweed. But this time I am making it a lot thinner so I will get more yardage. I'm thinking socks, perhaps.

Samus update: 10.5" done on lower body; 3.5" to go!

Now, for spinning our wheels on the moving front! We have finally made some progress. We are subdividing a building lot off of our NJ property, and the town engineer has finally (after 8 months) allowed us to have a planning board meeting date. So please send lots of good wishes our way on January 25! If all goes well, and the town approves our request, we should finally be able to move west by the middle of March (it will take about 45 days to clear up the red tape after approval.) Meanwhile, we are still packing and sorting through stuff. We have actually managed to sell some of our excess furniture rather than giving it all away! Now we can start a fund for customizing our new home on Whidbey Island!

It was a nice weekend. My aunt, cousin, and his wife came down from CT to pick up a huge cedar closet. I know, how can a fiberist pass up a huge cedar closet??!! Well, there is really no place to put it in the new house, so it needed a new home. My father built it in 1952 and he made it so it would come apart for moving. DH & my cousin worked hard to take it apart and carry the pieces up out of the dungeon. I am glad that it is staying in the family, and that it will be used and appreciated. Even so, it can be sad to get rid of some things!

Westward Ho!

Bye Bye 2005

2005-12-30T14:12:00.000-08:00

As 2005 comes to a close, I am still trapped on the east coast! Waaaaaahhhhhh! But at least I have a nice home waiting for me in the PNW and I know I will be there soon!

Santa Husband brought me a WooLee Winder for my Lendrum wheel! It's really cool to get such a nice even bobbin, and the bobbins are a little bigger than the standard Lendrum bobbins. I am almost finished spinning the yellow Extraordinary Throwsters Tweed from Little Barn. I think I will get to ply tonight or tomorrow morning.

I've finished the bottom cable band on Samus and have started the body ~ 14 inches of stockinette - wheeee!!! It'll go quickly and will make good mindless knitting.

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year!

2005-12-21T17:02:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my ramblings! Although I rarely meet a craft or artform that I don't want to explore, I guess you could say that I am primarily a fiber artist - spinner, knitter, weaver. My other current interests include jewelry making (with beads and sterling silver wire), papermaking, and bookbinding.

Right now, I am bi-coastal, in the process of moving from the east coast to an island in the Puget Sound, in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Moving out of a house you've lived in for 16 years isn't easy - especially for a reforming packrat! But I am slowly sorting through accumulated stuff, and making lots of donations to charity! Of course, I've kept virtually all of my fiber stash, with DH's blessing! We have found that fleece, roving and yarn make great box fillers as we pack!

We've christened our new home Silverhill Farm. We have lots of lavender, blackberries, and walnut trees. Although we've not entirely ruled out having sheep, that won't happen any time soon. Problem #1: coyotes in our woods Problem #2: pastures need to be fenced Problem #3: too many beautiful places to explore and it's hard to find a sheep sitter!

Most of my fiber toys have been packed, but I am spinning some yellow "tweed" roving that I got at Rhinebeck from Little Barn on my folding Lendrum wheel. As soon as I figure out how to post pictures, I will do so! I'm also knitting a sweater called "Samus", from Knitty.com. And that will have to keep me busy until we unpack in the PNW!