This and that.......

Been doing a bit of this and that lately. Haven't been setting any records, don't really care. Having a hard time getting motivated to start certain projects but I'm not idle...….

I bought a few runner kits from Jordan's Quilts - these kits are so fun, so easy, all fabric cut precisely. They also have directions online to take a kit and make placemats so I also made 4 placemats. This set looks like winter to me so it will be put away to be brought out next winter.

This is the shawl out of handspun that was recently finished - I finally blocked it.  It's the Pretty Basic shawl pattern although I kept going on the lace section on the bottom making it much longer than the original pattern. This pattern is no longer available on Ravelry from the designer.

Yesterday I sewed this sleeveless top from some rayon I had in my stash. A very comfy and crazy summer top. Our 90 degree weather has now gone back to the 60's but it will be hot again very soon.

In the grocery pick up last week I was given way too much of certain produce, bananas being one of them.  This is not a great picture but these are incredible banana crumb muffins. I mean really good, really really good...…...but don't expect healthy, they have their share of butter and sugar. The recipe says it makes 10. Muffin pans are for 12 so not sure why it makes only 10 but they ended up huge. If anyone else makes this recipe divide up to make 12 muffins. This is what I call a saver recipe - one I will be adding to my recipe collection. It's one of the best banana muffin recipes I've tried.  You can find the recipe HERE.

And now a few pix of what's going on in the yard.....here is my little garden, it's already growing

One of the apple trees is loaded with 'baby' apples - we should have a bumper crop as long as we can keep Misty from eating them - she's already eaten 2 baby apples off the other tree pulling branches off along with them.........I was not happy.........

These are the red grapes, there are also green grapes

I didn't realize this was a lilac, it's not shaped like the ones I grew up with

And the rest of the pix are of the roses.  I have 15 rose bushes - here are 12 of them, two aren't blooming yet, the other one the picture was fuzzy.  These bushes are taller than me and are covered with hundreds of blooms. I'm thinking I should have cut them back further back in February, still learning about roses. 

Onward to another project......

I had plans of putting another towel warp on the loom but that cone of 8/2 black cotton had other plans. I spent hours figuring out the color order for a draft, then started winding the warp making constant color changes. I got around 5" wound before I cried uncle.  The black, of which there were quite a few stripes, kept breaking - it would break if I looked at it wrong.  Sam found me sitting on the floor trying to repair a break at the bottom peg only to find it breaking over and over again as I tied a knot, I was ready to cry but just got myself up and walked away.  An hour later I went back, pulled everything off the warping board and sacrificed it to the weaving goddess, aka trash can.  At that point I decided I needed to do something different...….

…..and here it is - a quilt wallhanging kit I bought months ago. It has 12 different barn blocks which will be separated by sashing and star cornerstones. I'm loving the look of the blocks I've sewn so far up on my design wall.  And yes, I made the design wall too.  It's a big piece of felt that I hung using command hooks and office binder clips - it's in front of the sliding closet doors in my sewing room. Easy to move out of the way or remove and so much better to see the quilt in progress.  I can't wait to get to the sewing machine today to work on block #6. I'm getting better at matching my points, still not perfect but I'm learning, matching points and working with bias pieces is new to me. Although not perfect I'm happy with my blocks.

I'm still working on my shawl a bit in the evenings. it's slow but coming along. This is my handspun, merino and merino/tussah blends that I blended together on the blending board - a total of 8 different colorways.

Handspun projects....

 I cut the shawl woven from my handspun off the loom today, twisted the fringe and washed it, it's now hanging to dry. I didn't agitate it but did think it might full a bit more than it did. I'll check it after it's dry and see if I need/want to full it a bit.

Yesterday at my spinning group I started another shawl.  It's the Pretty Basic shawl pattern I've knit in the past. I wanted to link to this shawl pattern on Ravelry but it's now discontinued and no longer available......glad I got it when I did...….

This and that.......

 I finally got a decent picture of the shawl that I blocked last week, the one that I spun the Inglenook Fibers 12 days of Christmas fibers for. Love how it turned out but in this heat won't be wearing it until fall or winter.

And here are the hexxie pieces hand stitched together so far. They're in sections with the flower and part of the white background. I was laying them out to see how many I'll need for an afghan size. I'm thinking 5 flowers across and 9 flowers down but will decide for sure after I get more stitched. Im undecided if I'll put half flowers on the edges or if it will all be white.....will decide that later too.  No stitching at the moment, finger is still sore but I'll be ready with the stick on thimble once it's recovered.  Don't ask me why pictures with the phone sometimes turn when I upload them to blogger - it's not this orientation on my computer. Technology...……

12 Days of Christmas

This morning I blocked the shawl I spun and knit from the Inglenook Fibers 12 Days of Christmas spin-a-long. It's hard to see the colors sitting on the rubber squares plus the shadow of the house at the top of the picture but I'll get a better pictures on my mannequin once it's dried. It will be interesting to see how the asymmetrical shape works on the body.

A bit of progress.........

 Remember way back last December 25th when I opened the first package of the 12 Days of Christmas spin-a-long from Inglenook Fibers?  Well, it didn't take me too long to spin it all, but it took a while before I found a pattern I wanted to use for the resulting knit shawl. I finally finished it up a few weeks ago but going outside to block it in this smoky hazardous air quality wasn't happening. Yesterday I decided to just set up a table inside to do the blocking. Here it is finished. The pattern is called Be Simple Variations - it's an asymmetrical shawlette.

 I decided to paint the loom room and sewing/craft room before unpacking boxes. I knew once it was all unpacked they would never be painted, I mean never. I painted a bright white which is great since so much of the walls will be covered up and there's only one window in each room. Unfortunately my loom room is a bit smaller than my last one so two pieces of furniture won't fit in and it's a bit tight but I'll make it work. Here's one view of the room.

Here's a view from the other corner. I still need to buy shelving for the closet to store all the books and magazines and whatever else. Above the closet is a 3 ft deep shelf - I'm going to put things I don't use as often up there like my table loom (workshops only), inkle loom, marudai, drum carder, etc. It will take a ladder to take them down but that's ok, they'll be out of the way when I'm not using them.  There is going to be a tv mounted up high so I can see it from my chair at the table and also from each loom. What you can't see is the view out the window is the side yard with roses all along the fence. 

 Here's the sewing/craft room - I've got two tables in there so I have space to work on 3 machines, my Bernina QE440, my Bernina 1350 Serger and my cheapie Brother embroidery machine.....which does a great job. I have another cheapie Brother but it's in a carrier to take to workshops.

Here's looking in the other direction. I didn't get a picture of the closet but it's the same as the loom room with the storage shelf above. Maybe it will be a good place to store roving.......not sure yet.

I plan on starting to unpack all the boxes into these two rooms this week. I'm anxious to be able to find things and get on with weaving. I've got several special orders to weave. I've got some sewing projects I want to get to with making café curtains for the bathrooms and then a special order of embroidered towels.

We have the worst air quality in the nation - the fires just keep burning and it's not just the fires close to us but it's the entire northwest. It doesn't matter which way the wind shifts, there's always smoke. They are making headway on our Taylor Creek Fire - it's now 38% contained. The Klondike Fire, only 5% contained, is getting close to meeting up with the SE corner of  our Taylor Creek Fire. For safety reasons (for fire crews) both fires will now be under one command. It's going to be a long fire season - what's really scary is that we haven't even entered the worst part of fire season yet. We've always had fires but nothing like they've been the last 10+ years - now it seems to be the norm to live with smoke the majority of the summer.

Hanging in there...........

I finally decided to knit the 'Be Simple Variations' asymmetrical shawlette using the 12 Days of Christmas handspun. It will be interesting to see how it turns out as it goes from color to color. It will also be interesting to see how big it ends up. I knit this shawlette using fingering weight yarn but this is more worsted size knit on bigger needles. I'm hoping it turns out big enough or I'll be ripping it out and trying something else. I am knitting on this when I'm not totally exhausted in the evening.

I'm hanging in there with the house buying project although I'm overwhelmed at times......many times. If all goes well we will be signing papers on the new house this week. I finally finished going through the entire house as I refuse to box up and move things I haven't used since we moved to this house 15 years ago. I've started packing so the house shows better............as in packing the weaving and sewing/crafts rooms as the rest of the house shows just fine. We have some work to do on the deck which Sam has started. Not sure when we'll get this house listed but am hoping it's in the not too distant future as we don't want to have an extra house for very long.

I've heard interesting comments from those around me about our move. Friends are feeling bad for us because we're downsizing - huh??? The new house is only a tiny big smaller so I wouldn't call that downsizing, we are downsizing from acreage to a neighborhood and no one should feel bad for us over that - it's what we want to do, it's a choice, we don't have to move, we can stay right where we are but we are ready to take care of less and have more time for the things that are important to us like weaving, spinning, quilting, sewing, beading, knitting, golfing, fishing, walking on the beach, etc, etc, etc.....   So dear friends, if you read this, please stop making those comments as it's starting to get on my nerves. Other than having to go through all the pains of buying and selling, which seem to be much worse this time than ever before, we're very happy...........we're both thinking about now that we don't ever want to move again but who knows what the future holds......

Finally.........shawls blocked

I took time early one morning last week to block a couple shawls so I could pack them away. It's not my favorite thing to do but I thoroughly enjoyed taking a break from house buying duties and getting the current house ready to put on the market. I love the way both of these turned out.

This is the Pretty Basic shawl pattern (Janina Kallio) knit from some beautiful hand-dyed fingering weight yarn a friend gifted me - I can wear this with so many colors - I love it. What I love about this shawl pattern is that I can knit it as long as my yarn will go, this one was knit several inches longer than the pattern calls for.

This is the Be Simple Variations asymmetrical shawl/scarf pattern (Carolyn Glauz-Todrank). I knit it in hand-dyed gradation fingering weight yarn, I think from Brambleberry Yarns but don't hold me to that, I can't find the label. I wasn't sure if I was going to like these colors but I love them.

Now back to cleaning windows and packing up coned yarns and knitting yarns in my studio so those rooms look bigger for showing of the house - one can barely walk in those  two rooms because of shelves and shelves of fiber. If I were looking at a house I could look past that, or get totally engrossed in seeing what was on the shelves, but most buyers would rather see an uncluttered room.

Hoping before the end of June I'll be weaving away again in my new space.........

What I've been up to......

Hmm, what have I been up to this week..........other than adminstrivia, which I've grown to hate.  Well, I've been out several days, one of them very fun getting together with a friend to lunch and start watching the new season of Frankie & Grace........or is it Grace & Frankie???  I can't remember, doesn't really matter.  I have pulled together all business and personal tax stuff but am still waiting on some 1099's - this is the earliest I've ever gotten it done. I've written a grant proposal for my weaving guild.......not submitted yet as I need to ponder on it a bit more. And I finally did a little work on my handout for the boundweave program I've got to present next month - I just can't seem to get my mind wrapped around what I want to write and what illustrations/photos to include.......to make myself feel like I've done something for it I did type up the bibliography this morning. This afternoon I started pulling many cones of cottons off some shelves, 4/2, 6/2 and slubs - time for them to move on to other homes. Eventually they may end up in my etsy shop but first I'll see if there are any takers here locally.

I needed to start another knit shawlette as I needed something mindless to work on while watching Frankie & Grace. This photo doesn't do this yarn justice - the color is much softer in person - I'm loving it.

In the evenings I've been working on a cross-stitch for the beach cottage. I've just got the border to finish up, charms will get attached on all the starfish. After I finish this one I'll pull out another one I already stitched with a shell theme - I'll need to add the charms, block the fabric over foam core and then get them framed.

Yes, been missing in action again - just not doing anything much and don't feel like writing a thing. It's ok - just trying to go with the ebbs & flows of life as smoothly as possible.

Here is the finished Bella Shawl (by Annie Lee-Baker) - I finally got it blocked early last week. I used Berroco Boboli Lace Yarn. Colors are not as vibrant in the photo - very foggy out this morning so this is the best I could do. I love the way it turned out - not sure if it's me though, will try it on with a black outfit and then decide.....but it was great fun to knit.

I just started on a new shawlette/scarf using Huckleberry Knits gradient yarn - it goes from green to blues to purple. This is a no thinking shawl which suits me just fine for tv watching.

We get no real fall color here in SW Oregon - too many evergreens, temperatures not right. We have numerous oaks on our property but they always turn an ugly yellow brown and then fall off but this year one tree is a lovely orange. This pic was taken yesterday when it was sunny out, today we're socked in with fog.........at least at our house, sunny in other areas.

Oh, and as of last Friday fire season was officially over - whoo hoo!!

This and that.........

I haven't written all week because I just don't have anything to say or share.........in one of those moods where I wonder if I'll keep with my blog or not, but no decisions need to be made one way or the other, I'll just post when/if I feel like it.

A few nights ago I started knitting the Bella Shawl by Annie Lee-Baker. I was using one of those hand-dyed knit blocks with a color gradation. I love the colors but did not like the way the knitting was looking. The knit block is unraveled to knit it into a new project, well it leaves crinkles in the yarn, which in turn makes for messy looking knitting.  I pulled it out yesterday evening and wound it all into a skein, it's been washed and is now out on the blocker drying. In the meantime I still wanted to knit one of these shawls - it's a fun to knit pattern. So in my stash I found some Berroco Boboli Lace and started knitting last night and since I have 2 balls of it I may make the shawl a bit bigger.......I actually call patterns like this shawlettes since they're not full blown shawls. It's hard to tell in this photo but the colors are incredible and will look striking when worn over black. After I finish knitting this one I'll start on the one using the knit block color gradation yarn.

I started working on our holiday cards - they are not woven this year, instead they are fabric and based on quilting - no pix until after the holidays. I've worked on some small gifts, have some more to get to but am not inspired at the moment.....the story of my life right now, no inspiration or motivation - I think summer got to me this year.

On the fire front - since a bit of rain over a week ago and cooler temps the growth of numerous fires has slowed. They are still fighting them and we still have smoke but we've had some relief. Rain is moving in this week which should help even more with the fire fight. It's been a heck of a summer - more than the usual fires, lots of smoke, and so much heat most of the summer that I never got outside to do any dyeing.......maybe it will happen before winter hits, maybe not............I won't fret over it..........

This and that........

Not much happening here on the fiber front, loom still not warped and have no desire to do it at the moment. Many skeins of handspun are sitting out for a woven afghan project.....once I get off my butt and get it on the loom.

 I did get the knit Saratoga Shawl blocked yesterday. The pattern and yarn came from Greenwood Fiberworks. I used Yakity Yak yarn which is superwash merino/yak/silk. Jury is out on if I like this on me. It's ok on my mannequin which must be a size 0000 but on me, not so sure, it's really quite small. I think I need to try it on again over a black dress.  I also blocked another Pei Cowl knit out of my handspun but I put it in our education fair display on Saturday before I took a pic of it.

I finished up the small felt applique stockings which should hold a gift card.......I say should because I haven't tried to fit a credit card in one of them yet. They turned out cute. A lot of handwork that bothered my smarting hand more than spinning or weaving does.

Still hating fire season - way too many weeks left of it.  Saturday evening I heard sirens and the horn honking of the fire trucks - they stopped way too close. I called a friend who lives close by and whose husband has a scanner - yes, grass fire just over the hill on a street coming off the side road behind us. And Bailey and I were alone as Sam and a friend were on the coast to do some work on the cottage and golf. Talk about panic time. I was preparing to pack up the car and leave if necessary. A few hours later she called back with an update that all was quiet on the scanner, a spreading fire averted. They were more on the ball than I - they had turned on their sprinklers and had opened their gate in case fire fighters came to tell them to get prepared to leave. We have sprinklers mounted on wood to set up on the peak of the roof but they're not up there right now, Sam only puts them up if we may be in dangers of flying embers........hmm, might have to think about that this week.

The fire close to us, Shan Creek Fire, continues to burn slowly. I've found very few details on it compared to other fires in the region but this morning there is 20% containment (that's new info since yesterday) but it is actively burning with flanking, torching and uphill runs in steep terrain. As of this morning there are now structures threatened - not us, I'm assuming those actually on Shan Creek Rd but I don't really know. The smoke smell this morning is horrible - I had to scan the sky to see if there was another fire close by when I walked out the door - not seeing anything so it must be a shift in the wind this morning. I wish updates were more often but they are better than in year's past - I am grateful for them.

Now off to try and get something done today other than letting fires consume my thoughts.........

Patina......again.......

 Here is one of he finished Vines & Leaves scarves. The photo doesn't do it justice. The combination of 3 colors of copper in the warp and dark teal in the weft creates the most incredible iridescence. I wasn't sure if I'd like them or not but I like them so much that I'm considering keeping one for myself. This one is now listed in my etsy shop.

 Yesterday I blocked the shawl I started back in May. It really looks more pink in person than in these photos. I'm not quite sure why I'm having trouble of late capturing accurate color.

Here is it worn around the front as I so often see shawls online and in magazines these days. Usually it's too much bulk......in my opinion......but this shawl is so light and airy that it feels great wearing it this way........yes, I did put it on to test it out.........

This afternoon after I finished twisting the fringe on the scarves and taking photos I looked over at my shelves of handspun and decided I need to get brutal about going through it. Much of it that has lingered is from when I first learned how to spin, and it is lovely, but it's mostly Romney wool from a former local sheep herder and just doesn't suit the type of projects I care to do now. There are some really lovely singles I had originally planned to use as pattern weft for overshot afghans.......but I no longer have those colors in my house so go they must. So, I pulled everything down and have piles sitting waiting for photographs so I can move the yarn on to someone else......and then other bags that I will give away. So, how come I'm moving out all this yarn and the shelves still look stuffed??? 

Tomorrow I'd like to wind a warp to get on the AVL but I could easily get sidetracked taking photos of this yarn.........I'll see how I feel come morning......

Yakity Yak

Friday we took off for the coast, got back Wednesday afternoon. It was a great holiday weekend away. I did no work on the cottage, not a lick of work unless you count some house cleaning - but no painting - whoo hoo! I went to the spinning group one day, did some knitting, visited with friends, mostly lots of walking and going to community events (wine walk, parade, concert in the park, fireworks, etc) all within walking distance of the cottage. Mostly we just enjoyed the 60 degree weather compared to the 90+ in the valley just 80 miles to the east. I could get used to slowing down and not worrying about selling.........

Here's the shawl I started while over there. One year at Black Sheep Gathering I saw this shawl on a mannequin at the Greenwood Fiberworks booth - the Saratoga Shawl. I had to have it........it was free with purchase of 2 skeins of yakkity yak yarn (60% sw merino/20% yak/20% silk)......which was spendy but I wanted the pattern so I bought the yarn (of course now you can buy the pattern alone on Ravelry). I had a little problem figuring out the loops only because the photo with the pattern isn't big enough to show that they're loops and not holes created in the knitting. And it's been so long since I saw the sample in person that I'd never remember how it was knit. I went to Ravelry and saw others shawls from this pattern, some close-up pix, that showed the loops. Then the instructions made total sense. Now this is pretty mindless knitting - I'll be working on it in the evenings when not spinning. Nice to finally pull this yarn and pattern out of the closet......no need to buy more yarn here, have plenty of stash to work from. If I like this shawl on me once finished I'll be making another using my handspun.

It's only the beginning of July and I'm tired of fire season......we still have around 3 months left before the first rains, if we're lucky. A fire started around 5 miles away an hour after we returned home yesterday, they jumped on it quickly and got it out, thank goodness. A copter went over the house just a bit ago heading west.........my ears are trained to hear those copters coming from miles away even with the windows closed and air conditioner on........have I said it yet this week? I hate fire season!!!  My heart goes out to those in the midst of big fires elsewhere in the west.

Love this shawl

Here's the shawl that was blocked yesterday - I love it. I spun the yarn out of some mystery fiber I received in a raffle basket at a conference. This will make a lovely spring shawl but I think if I wore it over brown it would work for autumn too. I might have to knit this pattern again in the not too distant future..........but first back to mukluk knitting for holiday gifts........

Shawl spending time on the deck.......

This morning I finally got around to blocking the last shawl I knit out of my handspun. It's now spending time on the deck until it's totally dry.........which won't take long in 10% humidity, 90+ degree weather.........still thankful every single day that we no longer live on the east coast where we were born and grew up, that humidity was a killer.......of course the trade off is living in an area of high fire danger since it doesn't rain here for many months at a time. 

And yes, you're right I have not been complaining about fire season, yet, it started a couple months ago and will be for at least a couple more months. A couple of ODF copters flew over the house heading west yesterday afternoon, no buckets (for water) though, not sure where they were heading as I haven't heard of a fire in that direction.  I hate fire season..........

Blocking......a necesssary job

Yesterday I blocked two of the shawlettes knit a few months back - it's a necessary chore or the lovely lace design will be totally lost and the knit item will just look like a scrunchy mess. These are still pinned out, can't wait to unpin them and see how they turned out. These are holiday gifts for later in the year - I can show them as these two don't read my blog but once I start blocking other ones they will not be seen here as they are also gifts.  The shawlette I started last week is almost finished, the peachy one, I worked on it while riding in the car on our road trip.

Yesterday I also did another chore, a dreaded one...........weighing out a big order of roving to sell in one of my etsy shops. Sam helped me which makes the job goes three times as fast as just one person doing it - as he says, we have a 'process'. Then I spent much time on administrivia putting it into inventory and updating the etsy shop. So, glad to have that behind me........until I place the next order........or decide to call it quits on the roving side of my business.........

Happy Father's Day to all the father's out there. I miss my Dad terribly, we lost him in 2007.