A Yummy to Share

A yummy gift idea to share, I'd share them with you all if you were here but since you're not we'll eat them all ourselves. These homemade gourmet marshmallows arrived in the mail yesterday from Sandra & Monte in Montana (aunt & uncle). A friend of theirs up north on the Oregon coast makes them. Oh My Goodness is the name of the company and one bite of these had me saying "oh my goodness". There were 4 boxes in different flavors; chai tea, valrhona chocolate, bubble gum and vanilla bean plus there was a baggie of peppermint swirl in the box (not pictured). I ate one of the chai tea before taking this picture......then quickly popped the other one in my mouth......yummy. So, if you're looking for a nice little gift check out the website and place an order, better order for yourself too while you're at it......you won't regret it. On the schedule for tonight, hot cocoa with a vanilla bean marshmallow on top. Oh, and Sandra & Monte own a graphic design company called Saga Designs and did the packaging design for these.

Bailey wanted his picture taken too but wouldn't stand still - this was the best one out of five tries.

Ashland Bay discontinued colors.......

Yep, still nothing I'm working on to share but thought I would share with those interested that these Ashland Bay Trading Co roving colorways are being discontinued. I do still have some of each in my etsy shop in case anyone is interested.

This is 100% Merino in Sunflower. I'm not sure why this is being discontinued, it's a really popular color in my shop and here locally. I love the way it looks when plied or combined with pumpkin or nutmeg. Hmm, I better put some of this aside for myself.......I've lost out before when colors have been discontinued.

This is Midnight, another 100% Merino, it's lovely but I have to admit I haven't sold that much of it.

Daffodil is another 100% Merino roving, nice yellow blends for those who like yellow like me but yellow is a difficult color for some to wear.

This 70% Merino/30% Tussah Silk blend and the next I can't figure out why they're being discontinued, very popular colors in my shop.  Above is Blue.

This is the Merino/Tussah in Purple.

And this is the Merino/Tussah in Pewter - I still have quite a bit of this lovely grey silver colorway because I knew ahead of time it was being discontinued and stocked up on it.

Great knitting hint.......

Yes, still at work on gifts so no pix to share but I did read a hint this morning from Clara at Knitter's Review that I wanted to pass on. The latest article is a review of interchangeable knitting needles sets, which I don't need since I have a Knit Picks set, but this paragraph caught my eye. I knit lace often and put in lifelines at the end of pattern repeats - this tip will be a real time saver for me. Thank you Clara!

"All of the needles use a screw-and-key mechanism that will be familiar to you if you've used the Knitter's Pride Symfonie Dreamz or Knit Picks Options needles. You screw the tip into the cord and then insert a fine metal rod through a hole in the join to tighten."

(HERE'S THE TIP) "The key hole serves a second function for those knitters who love to work intricate lace. Every few dozen rows, or perhaps every pattern repeat depending on what you're doing, simply run a thin strand of yarn through that keyhole and then proceed as normal. As you go, you'll be quietly stranding a lifeline into that row so that you can unravel any future mistakes back to that point. In technology terms, you're making a backup of your project—any changes made after the backup will be lost, but it's a whole lot better than having to erase and start from scratch."

Nothing much to show.......

Nothing much to show lately as I'm still working on gifts and can't post pictures of them. We did spend 3 days on the coast this weekend for some R&R, did a little knitting.

We ate dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Bandon, The Loft. If you want to read a description of the food check out my post of October 22nd, I had the same thing because it was so good last time. It is to die for, Sam asked our server Roxie if it would be bad manners if he licked his plate.......he didn't, but did use the foccacia to sop up the rest of the sauce from his locally grown steak. If you're ever in Bandon be sure to try The Loft. We can't afford to eat there everytime we're on the coast but yesterday was my birthday and today is Sam's so it was our birthday dinner.......hmm, wonder what excuse we can find next time to eat there.

Our server at The Loft, Roxie, is also at the grower's market on Fridays and Saturdays over there selling her son's tuna caught off the Oregon coast. It's wonderful and I have picked up some lots for gifts. Check out the site of Ocean Harvest if you're interested in locally caught tuna. It's now coming in these nice little pouches.

Today finally took pictures of embroidered towels for my etsy shop, got pictures edited and a few towels up in the shop, many more to go.........

Cyber Monday Sale

I was no where near any of the Black Friday sales which started last night - no way am I hitting the stores with the hoards looking for a bargain.  But I did decide on a Cyber Monday sale in my two etsy shops - 15% off everything when this coupon code is used at the time of check-out - CYBERMONDAY2012. No one has to wait for Cyber Monday for the sale, it started today and runs thru Monday.....or whenever I wake up Tuesday and deactivate the coupon code.

eweniquely ewe - handwovens, felted items, my hand-dyed roving

eweniquely ewe fibers - Ashland Bay fibers, my hand-dyed roving

I hope everyone had a wonderful turkey day - ours was very yummy!

Happy Turkey Day

Peanut/Sweet Potato Soup

Since I'm working on gifts that I can't post to the blog until after the holidays I thought I'd post a recipe - one of our favorites - Peanut/Sweet Potato Soup. We had this for the first time around 4 years ago at my aunt's in Montana and had to get the recipe before leaving. This is a great way to use leftover chicken. If you don't eat meat just add extra sweet potatoes and use veggie broth. I don't know where it originally came from otherwise I'd give credit. I actually put more cilantro on mine but waited until after the picture to do it. Tonight Sam said it was so good he wanted to lick the bowl.

Peanut/Sweet Potato Soup

Saute in 2 T vegetable oil:
1 cup onion, diced
1 T garlic, minced
1 T chili powder
1 tsp kosher salt (I leave this out)
1/2 tsp cayenne

Add:
1/2 cup carrot, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
1/4 cup red bell pepper, diced
2 cups sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

Stir In:
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded
1 can diced tomatoes in juice (14.5oz)
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

Garnish with:
chopped dry roasted peanuts
minced fresh cilantro
limes

Saute onion, garlic and seasonings in oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook until onion is slightly softened, about 5 minutes

Add carrot, celery, bell pepper and sweet potato, saute 2-3 minutes (I actually do it a bit longer)

Stir in broth, chicken, tomatoes and peanut butter. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender (I find it takes longer than 10 minutes, I probably simmer mine for around 30 minutes)

Ladle into bowl, garnish soup with chopped peanuts, cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice. Enjoy!

Per cup: 260 calories, 15 gr fat, 16 g carb, 572 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 17 gr pro

I recently bought this incredible perpetual calendar/date book. It's been around 2 years in the making by the guild over in Brookings on the coast, Webfoot Weavers.....a small guild with a number of newer weavers who had never worked with the fine threads used for the date book. Mine was hand delivered to me in my booth at Fiber Mania last weekend right off the looms/press. I apologize for the color/pictures - I am still learning getting irritated with my new camera. I kick myself daily for dropping and totally breaking my other one. I just can't seem to get colors true and close-ups good with this one even though pictures should be way better what I could get with the old one.

This date book is so professionally done - kudos to the Webfoots. There is an acetate cover but I flipped it over for this picture as with it on I couldn't get a good picture - argh, camera learning curve.

Here's one of the months.....and below is another......there are drafts included for each handwoven sample, and a few pages for each month to write birthdays, anniversaries or whatever. On the bottom of the pages are little tidbits of info to go with each month.

If anyone else is interested in buying one of these just drop me an email (email address on the side bar) or put a comment to this post with your contact info and I'll send you the email for the contact person of the Webfoot Weaver's. The book is $35, plus shipping.

So back to the camera issue - we also got a new desktop computer which I estimate arrived just in the nick of time before the old one would have crashed. It's a Dell, like the old one, which lasted for  years trouble free. But my pictures didn't dump where I wanted them to so yet another challenge to figure out. I need to take pictures of embroidered towels to list them in the etsy shop but the ones I took today are just not up to par. Think I need to move on to doing something else less aggravating and get help this evening.

I don't usually do this....

I don't usually post pictures of holiday things before they're gifted/go out in the mail but since I have nothing else to show I thought I'd show our Christmas cards in progress - there are two versions. I scanned them because I use the scanned image in miniature on the inside of the card with the greeting. These are machine embroidered on burlap. I worked on these yesterday, hoping to finish up today but need to pick up more deep red cardstock which I'll hopefully find here in town while I'm out doing errands.....then I'll be working on assembly of glueing burlap to cards, putting inserts inside.....then one thing can be marked off the long to-do list. 

I did find out yesterday that not all burlaps are created equal. I'm pulling from my stash and this was the quality burlap - the other is much more loosely woven but still looks great since it's supposed to look primitive and country like. But oh, the dust created from cutting the burlap. I've got the laptop sitting near the machine to run it and had to put a towel over the keyboard to keep the dust off of it even though I was doing the cutting in the other room, there was dust just from it moving in the machine while being stitched. I also used a cotton embroidery thread rather than my usual rayon, that created tons of red lint all over the machine, hoping the inside isn't looking too bad, may need to go in for a cleaning this winter if I can't get to it all.

Very often I weave our cards and I do have a drawing that I want to make into card inserts using my 40 harness AVL but, for me, at this point that is a lengthy process so I chose to not stress myself over it and go this route saving that design for next year.

Now on to thinking about holiday gifts - I'm feeling way behind for those I'm making....actually for those I'm buying too - haven't done a thing - need to work on that to-do list again and get myself organized.

Very sad state of affairs.

This past weekend was Fiber Mania in my own home town. Here are a few glimpses of my booth, such as it is, looking at those tall cement walls is really pretty depressing but I'm not sure what could be done about them, the building is what it is. I did just ok in sales, not as much traffic as last year....the parking lot was jam packed Saturday but there were two other events going on at the fairgrounds at the same time. The very sad thing is that I had two scarves and two of my felting landscape kits stolen, I noticed it fairly early Saturday morning. I'm a small business as all the other fiber vendors there, I can't absorb losses like this, $192. I'm even wondering if it happened before we opened, people walked in and out of the building all day Friday and early Saturday morning. There are two folks I'm suspicious of but can't say anything since I don't know for sure.....if I were Patrick Jayne, The Mentalist I could trick them into confessing!  So life goes on, I learn with every experience on the direction I want to go in for the future.......

This picture was taken by my friend Yvonne who spent all day Sunday with me in my booth

These next 3 pictures were taken by friend Karen of Liongate Farm whose booth was next door. Some things were rearranged in the booth once the thefts were noticed to get the scarves away from the front of my booth.

A bit more embroidery

A bit more embroidering machine work went on here yesterday afternoon as my towel order arrived. I needed to make more towels to hopefully sell at Fiber Mania this weekend. Thank you to all that bought them when I posted them to my blog a couple weeks ago. I have lots of other embroidery patterns but am just concentrating on the fiber related ones at the moment. There are two of each towel, these are a linen/cotton blend. I also got some really sweet white towels with a crocheted trim.....I think they'd be lovely with some delicate flowers embroidered on them.

White sheep with black faces and blue eyes on oatmeal towels

Natural sheep with gray faces and black eyes on oatmeal towels

I love weaving in rust/peach on natural towels

I love weaving in blues on white towels

Spinning wheel on white towels

A sigh of relief......

Phew....was worried for a bit earlier this afternoon but a big sigh of relief as more election returns started coming in.....so glad Obama will stick around another 4 years.....now do some real good Mr. President.....make me proud.

Be calm, center myself......

This past weekend was spent on the coast, it was beautiful, sunny, warm, blue sky, the waves were really kicking up out there. It was a calming weekend getting away from watching the news, picking up the phone only to find a recording or real person talking politics......instead of the usual credit card services annoying call. It was a weekend to try and center myself but here, back at home, I'm reminded that tomorrow is a crucial day. Women's rights could be set back 40 years if the wrong person (in my eyes) is elected. I realize we all feel differently about who we want to win and that's ok, I respect others beliefs political and religious, we'd be a boring country if we were all the same.....just don't push those beliefs on me.

In reading Avalanche Looms blog this afternoon I watched a utube video Susan posted a link to - I hadn't seen it - it's great. So, if you haven't voted yet (I have) and are on the fence, or just want to think about something other than what your candidate is focusing on, watch this Lesley Gore music video. Oh heck, watch it anyhow and sing along at the top of your voice!

So small are my problems.....

So small are my problems in light of what has been going on over on the east coast. My heart felt concern goes out to all experiencing the devastation left in Sandy's path which will affect them all for a long time to come. I'm originally from the DC metro area and have family and friends there - all are fine, no major issues other than short periods of no power. I grew up spending my summers in Cape May Point on the Jersey shore at my parents beach cottage, which later became their retirement home - there is some damage and flooding there but nothing like in Atlantic City just 45 minutes to the north - they were spared the worst of it.

 
I have nothing to share picture wise, no new weaving going on, no spinning, no knitting, just shipping out lots of orders (yes, that's a good thing) and getting ready for Fiber Mania. So you get to see a picture of Bailey on this rainy but mild morning in one of his favorite spots on the guestroom bed right behind me as I type. That's his quilt on the bed covering the 'real' quilt. He is staring at my back right now wondering when we are going for a walk......should have done that an hour ago when it was just a steady rain, not raining pitchforks and shovels as my friend JoAnn on the coast says.

It's been a challenge writing this post, my desktop computer is failing, a new Dell is en route as I type. I've had to reboot 3 times in the past 30 minutes. Sunday evening was a marathon fix on the ipad which started with upgrading the operating system as required by 'the square' credit card swiper - 6 hours later, hardware failure, restore done, it looks like the ipad is fine again and I'll hopefully be swiping lots of cards using it at Fiber Mania. Now if I could just get faster internet, our only option is dsl that's almost as slow as dial-up these days.

I have been playing with the WeavePoint software for my AVL loom - working on my gingko leaf draft. It's a challenge as I've already forgotten much I learned in the recent 3 day workshop, luckily I have a good workbook that goes with the workshop. I may not be designing my gingkos the easiest way but it's a start, hopefully I'll get more time on the project today......I'm anxious to get a warp on the loom to give them a try.

A bit of this and that ........

A bit of this and that getting done around here this week. Yesterday and today I played with the embroidery machine, as if I didn't have more pressing things to do but this was more fun. I have to stick around while the machine is running to change thread colors and to fix broken threads once in a while so I worked on hemming numerous pairs of exercise pants and twisting fringes on handwoven scarves. I'm hoping (think positive) to sell these fingertip towels at Fiber Mania, in my etsy shop or wherever. All are stitched on nice crisp commercially woven towels of 55% linen and 45% cotton. I stitched multiples of a number of them......need to order more towels, this is fun. Tomorrow it's back to mundane things - weighing out bags of wool roving from a shipment that arrived yesterday and running up and down the stairs doing massive amounts of laundry.

These sheep are as cute as the dickens (hmm, what does that mean? are dickens cute? what are dickens?) They're the same thread colors but on different colored towels, oatmeal and natural........

......oatmeal hemstitched towels with deep red stitching.....

......oatmeal with black stitching - I love these simple sheep........need to make some for myself.....

.....cute sheep and butterfly - and isn't the weaving one fun.......

......alpacas on natural and oatmeal towels.......

.......lovely traditional spinning wheel with distaff - the natural towels have a little dot woven in the towel in-between the hemstitching.......

Food, sand, shells, etc......

No pictures to share from the weekend on the coast - just forgot to take any. Weather forecast was for rain the entire time, it turned out beautiful, sunny, blue sky on Saturday, only rained at o'dark thirty Sunday morning, then a mix of sun & clouds Sunday.

It was shellapolooza - pockets full of shells. Yes, we're still filling antique blue glass Ball jars with shells.

I went to the spinning group in Bandon at The Wool Co Saturday afternoon, I didn't bring my wheel, brought a drop spindle that lives in the cottage with me, nice group of spinners.....

Highlight of the weekend was dinner at The Loft, it's one place in town we kept meaning to try but never have for one reason or another. It was outstanding.....25 year old young gal as chef, organic local foods, imaginative menu. Each bite of my salad I had to hum...yum - beets on mixed salad greens with grilled brie, pistachios and a beet vinaigrette. Dinner was roasted butterfish marinated in ginger & garlic served atop spinach and rice noodle salad in a porcini mushroom sauce. I've never had butterfish before, it's a cod that lives very deep in the ocean and is an oily fish.....not usually my choice for fish but I'm so glad I chose it, outstanding! Our server Roxie was wonderful, she also sells her son's catch of tuna at the grower's market. We were just sorry we hadn't left room for dessert - next time we will.....and there will be many next times.

So nothing much happened fiber wise over the weekend other than spinning for a couple hours. Today I'll be cutting the chenille scarves off the loom to wash and put together more felting kits for sale, I've also got some gifts to work on not to mention getting back to the WeavePoint software.  I got news that my scarves & shawls were accepted into the Rogue Gallery again for the Holiday Boutique which starts Nov 16th thru Dec 22nd - need to pull together what I'll be dropping off there next week. Have more scarves to get listed in the esty shop.  Hmm, guess I better get moving....lots to do today......

It's here!

As I start to type this post it's the 5 minute count down to the opening of Trader Joe's here in SW Oregon - whoo hoo. No more stopping in Eugene (2 hours north of my house) when traveling to shop at TJ's. I was watching the early morning local news and saw that there was already a line to get in the door. It's going to be a zoo in the store for quite a while.....I won't be venturing in until it calms down a bit. I sure hope there's a segment on the evening news showing what a madhouse it was this morning. So, I did what any other self-respecting TJ's fan would do I checked out the Fearless Flyer newsletter on the website to see what's new - so much pumpkin. Whoo hoo again. I love anything pumpkin. My first time through the store I may have a cart filled with everything pumpkin including dog treats, Bailey needs his pumpkin fix too. TJ's is not in my town but a 40 minute drive away in Medford so I won't be a weekly shopper but I'll get over there at least once a month, maybe more and here's the big plus - Sam's place of employment is less than a 1/4 mile away, he has to pass TJ's to get to work. He's doesn't like grocery shopping but I think I'll be able to con convince him to stop when I have a short shopping list.

I haven't mentioned Fiber Mania yet this fall on the blog. It's the 3rd year for this event. I'll be there once again just inside the door with my booth filled with a riot of colorful roving and my handwovens. If you're in SW Oregon on November 10th-11th stop by and say hi. Very fun to have this event in my own town.

On the fiber front - nothing much happening, have spent my time since the WeavePoint workshop playing catch-up.....this weekend I will be working on designing my next, hopefully, weaving project in  the WeavePoint software, maybe using one of those recently painted warps.

Brain strain......

Major brain strain here but it's a good thing. I just finished up day two of a three day workshop on the WeavePoint software I use with my AVL loom. We brought Jannie Taylor here for the workshop, there are only four of us in it - it's great to have a small class. I may have gotten more lost this afternoon than I did if it were a big class. Jannie was great going over that one section again, I think I've got it now.

I've been flying by the seat of my pants with this software since getting the loom up and running last January, I can do enough to get by and have been learning as I go but I didn't know what all the tools did and didn't know how to do any real designing. The manual is just so-so - we've gotten a great class notebook from Jannie. I can't believe how much I've learned in two days and that's been on very little sleep. Tomorrow we concentrate more on designing - it's the hardest of the three days - yikes - guess I better sleep well tonight.

I can't wait to start designing my own drafts to weave - this is going to be fun. Guess I need to get more organized with all this administrivia so I have more time to do what I love most - weaving.

Art Along the Rogue

Last weekend was Art Along the Rogue, an annual event here in Grants Pass filled with chalk drawing on the streets, music and a few other activities. I chose a few pictures my brother took to share with you all.

The Angry Birds chalk art was amazing. It is huge. Remember this is all drawn on Hannah's restaurant wall, the sidewalk and across the entire road in front of it. It looks 3D but it's not, none of it. I keep wondering how easy it will be to get that chalk off the building, that's two stories tall.

There were invited chalk artists and then many local artists whose squares were sponsored by local businesses and organizations. Anyone could buy a square, several sizes were available all the way down to small ones for kids to purchase for drawing in.

These are just a few of the drawings we saw being drawn

They're pretty amazing

Very fun weekend for my brother to be visiting

New on the loom

Yesterday I got a chenille scarf wound, 3 scarves using black as the major color, a bit of taupe and then some fun variegated sparkley novelty yarn in golds and rusts.....unfortunately not only is the lovely texture of chenille hard to capture in a photo but the sparkle is even harder to capture. But here's the start of the warp, got one scarf woven today in-between lots of other chores, not sure when I'll finish with a busy day tomorrow, weaving guild meeting Saturday and 3 days of AVL WeavePoint workshop Sunday thru Tuesday.

Still getting used to the camera I was gifted from my aunt's things. I love it's size but it's a challenge for taking pictures of my weaving. I'm not as happy with the close-up setting, can't seem to get as sharp a picture. The stabilization/anti-shake setting can't be used with other settings such as close-up....doesn't seem right to be one or the other. But I'm grateful to have it and will continue to experiment to get better photos. Sam did figure out how to set it for a much higher resolution which has helped.