Cookie Making

It's begun. The baking that is.

Tis the Season

I've been busy with the usual holiday activities. Knitting for Christmas has kept me busy as well. But I'm in good shape. I'm hoping to knit at least one more gift at this late date. I don't know about you! but just when I'm coasting into the holiday with quite a bit done, I try to do more ! Any one else do this? Talk about making the days whirr.

Tomorrow it's cookie baking time. Thanks to DD I am only making three or four kinds. These last few years she's volunteered to make some as well. When I think about it, I've been making cookies for more than forty years. Up until the last four years I used to make decorated trays of cookies for gifts. Hmmm what cookies shall I make? Butter balls, Christmas Pistachio M and M squares, Hidden Kiss cookies.........

What cookies are you baking?

Spindling for Sheep Heid

All I need is 25 yards of 9 natural shades of wool. I can do it.

Natural Dye Day

Our local weaving guild sponsored a natural dye day last week. With the guidance of Ellen Stone, who is widely known for her knowledge of natural dyes, we dyed fiber and yarn using jewelweed, cochineal , indigo, goldenrod, black walnut, rhododendron and more.

Here is a pic of my merino fiber in the cochineal dye pot. Below that is the cochineal dyed handspun merino yarn I just finished plying.

Spinning from a center pull ball

You know how you can forget to weigh your fiber to split it evenly so you have two bobbins worth of singles to ply. Well..... it happened here at my house. Not to worry .... creating a center pull ball and using a spit splice,I am able to ply the singles into one skein.

Soon I'll have 2-3 ounces of Suri Alpaca and silk. Perhaps it will be knit up into some adornment.




I'm also enjoying some garden bounty.

Hurricane Spinning

Low tech hobbies don't need electricity !

Beavertail,Jamestown

Painting at Beavertail.....

I love blue !

It never fails to please.... I love blue. Especially blue that has other hues blended into the roving. Tuesday I finished this skein.



I'm moving down the home stretch on the horseshoe lace section of Bridgewater.

Fig Tree!

Yesterday I purchased a small fig tree. Found it at the local farmer's market. It's called Brown Turkey. The seller gave me some articles about growing it in the northeast.

I'm excited to give it a try.




I'm still plugging away at Bridgewater's lace section. I have a couple of small items to start knitting.

What a wonderful weather day. It made me want to do some long overdue chores around the house.

Presently I'm sitting in the Florida room listening to the birds, sipping iced tea and getting ready to knit and or read The Omnivore's Dilemma.

It's been a while.........................

I've been doing this and that lately. I'm always thinking I should blog about my knitting, but I put it off. So.....................today I've tackled the blogging beast.

I have been working on the forever project, Jared Flood's Bridgewater. It started as a KAL, but some KAL members have been busy with life so I may be forging along solo. The yarn, Classic Elite Silky Alpaca is wonderful....very light and airy not to mention soft. I'm on the first lace chart, a nice easy horseshoe lace pattern,

I've also finished spindle spinning 2 oz. of some fiber that I'm hoping to use as a singles in order to retain some of the lovely color. I'll need a garter or linen stitch pattern to coral the bias.

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated my mom's 80th birthday. One of my gifts to her was a hand spun hand knitted shawl in one of her favorite colors.

Hope all of you get to enjoy the long over due sunshine today in the northeast. I'm off to get some exercise..........................

Spinning Paper

After reading about spinning paper here and reading the latest version of Spin Off which contains the article "Spin Yarn from Paper", I decided to give paper spinning a try.

I visited The Paper Connection International LLC which is a full range Asian paper shop at their Saturday sale in Providence and bought some kozo (mulberry) paper in white and off white.

This morning I began my paper spinning adventure.

I cut the paper into 1/4 inch strips after folding the large sheet. I may experiment with cutting it so that I can create a continuous strip. Making joins is the more challenging aspect of spinning paper, but I'm having better luck as I practice. I spun the paper using my Forrester spindle and I plan to try using my wheel.

More to learn about paper spinning is in my future. I am interested in Shifu (cloth woven with paper thread).Here are some links:

Shifu Art

Lizz Aston's Blog

Shifu Artist Hiriko Karuno

Spindle Fun

Today I finished spinning some luscious fiber on my spindle. Here are the three steps in the process: centerpull ball, two plies wrapped around a felted ball and a small sample skein.

Soon it will be a shawl !
Onward to the next spindle UFO...

Spinning Away

I have had a productive week spinning. I'm sure it is due to my uneventful knitting on the garter stitch square that needs to be completed in Flood's Bridgewater pattern. Can't wait for the lace section.

I very much enjoyed spinning Ball and Skein's fiber!

Silk Knitting, Spinning and Paper

After a weekend of silk workshops I did some web research and came up with the usual suspects and more.

Silk Info

Wormspit- a site about silk worms silk moths and silk

Reeling Silk

Silk Knitting

Iris's silk hanky links:

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2011/02/02/mine_mine_all_mine.html
http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2011/02/04/mawata_wonders.html
http://www.spunkyeclectic.com/wp/2011/02/05/mawittens/

How to make Silk Paper by Ellen Doughty

Silk Fusion by Karen Selk

Silk Spinning

Hankies

For purchase:

Treenway Silk

Silk Spinning Videos ( I have not previewed all of these)

Getting Ready for Valentine's

Getting ready for Valentine's Day with a carded batt from Robin Russo's Silk Workshop. Robin's workshop rates an A!

Thanks to Judy's careful attention to feeding the carding machine, I improved my understanding of how to feed a carder.

Spinning from a handcrafted batt never fails to delight the eye and soul.

Arboreal Night

The snow made it all possible. It was a productive morning. Did some office work, shoveled a lot of snow, restarted my son-in-law's holiday sock gift.

Did I tell you? I made a pair of socks for DSIL and one was bigger than the other. I was totally puzzled since I'm rarely off gauge these days. But the second sock was noticeably bigger when DSIL tried it on. Back to the drawing board! I frogged the whole sock. then decided....let me check the stitch count on the first sock. Well....dang it I though it was 80 st when it really was 72sts. That's why it was bigger. It's not my gauge!!! Thought that was going the way of monkeymind.

Lastly, I finally got my backside in gear and added the Arboreal Night Cowl pattern in Ravelry. The link to the free pattern is on the right side of the blog.Please let me know if there are any issues with the pattern.

Cowl

I just finished the shawl collared cowl with Ball and Skein's Breckenridge yarn. I just love the softness of this yarn not to mention the wonderful colorway. I interrupted my holiday knitting because of it!

The wonderful button's were a gift from Riverrim. Check out her Etsy store.

Plying is a new experience!

I'm enjoying spinning some of Ball and Skein's Fox Grape BFL and Silk on my new Ledbetter spindle with interchangeable shafts.



I'm also working on some Edna Mower mittens for DH.


Here's a pic of the roving that is carried inside for more warmth.

The Gathering

This past weekend always proves to me that The Gathering sponsored by NHA is a wonderful experience. I always come away with more fiber knowledge than before I arrived. This year I took a workshop on "Cutting Without Fear" with Therese Chynoweth. I came away with some wonderful finishing techniques as well as more confidence about cutting steeks and necklines. She's inspired me to finish my longtime UFO, Rona, by A Starmore. Her book " Norwegian Sweater Techniques for Today's Knitters", is a very worthwhile purchase for the serious knitter.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Sara Lamb in her workshop Braids and Bands on the Inkleloom. I need much more practice learning the pick up technique on the inkleloom, but it will be worth the effort.

Of course, I added another spindle to my repetoire, A spindle with interchangeable shafts to enable me to spin 2 or 3 cops and them ply directly from them. This is a Ken Ledbetter spindle that Ball and Skein is selling.

Spindling Done

I finished spindle plying this wonderful merino and angora at 1 am this morning. It has a long history from handpainted dyeing to spinning and plying on my Kundert spindle. There is nothing more cherished than personally hand dyed spindle spun yarn. It's off to a hot bath to set the twist and on to the next creative step...... a delicious garment in fingering weight yarn.