In need of a change in weather.....

No, it's not snowing here - this is represents wishful thinking on my part. 

The fires around us are still growing, the smoke in the air all over the region ranges from unhealthy to hazardous....it's hazardous here at our house. Yesterday I went to town for errands (Grants Pass) and drove with headlights on - picture thick soupy fog - that's what it looks like here only it's accompanied by smoke smell. Here at our house the van, and everything else, is covered with ash and burnt pine needles that dissolve into dust if I touch them.  And all this smoke hanging low is hampering the fire fight as the retardant bombers and copters with buckets can only drop on areas they can see which isn't on the fires closest to us.

There are now more than 5000 fire fighters working the fires, living in 3 different tent cities in the region, one up in Glendale, one in Selma, one at the high school near us with another to open near us soon. More fire fighters from across the nation are on the way, the Oregon National Guard is awaiting activation orders.

My mailing address is Grants Pass but I don't live in the city - I live 13 miles northwest of  the city in Merlin right in the thick of it. I live close to the Rogue River - as of midnight the Wild & Scenic portion of the river closed for rafters safety concerns, a decision not taken lightly as it has a huge economical impact on the region. The GP community concert was cancelled last night, the Merlin concert for tomorrow cancelled - both are held outdoors. The Thursday afternoon grower's market has been cancelled - not sure what will happen with the huge Saturday market.

Here are the major fires in my area - all are in steep and dangerous terrain, now over 35,000 acres.....did you know there are 640 acres in a square mile? It's amazing the things I've learned over the years because of forest fires (the Biscuit Fire here in 2002 was 500,000 acres and burned for 6-7 months).

Brimstone Fire is the closest to us - 0% contained, it is continuing to grow as the smoke is so thick there is no air support and the fire fighters on the ground can't even see the fire but they can hear it. This is the fire of immediate concern to us. *Update - I just saw an update on this fire - overnight they got fire line improvements on the SE side of the fire and back burns were successful - this is the closest side of the fire to us.

Labrador Fire is to the south of us - 0% contained - doubled overnight. It is burning in the area of the Biscuit Fire 11 years ago, snags and rolling logs are causing issues. Big controversy after that fire on whether or not to allow logging of the snags and logs.....decision to leave it be......now it is a hazard. There are voluntary evacuations in order.

Big Windy Fire to the west of us - 0% contained - this is the one that has closed the Rogue River to rafters, last I heard they were wrapping the Zane Grey cabin to save it.

Douglas Complex to the north of us consists of 3 fires, a finger of it approaching the Brimstone Fire - 5% contained. There are 150 evacuations, 90 in Douglas Co, 60 in Josephine Co (my county). And there are 400 other homes on stand-by for evacuation if need be.

Whiskey Complex - this is to the east of us and not of concern for us personally - 7% contained.

I am breathing a sigh of relief this morning, not because of any progress on the fire fight but because Sam who was to leave tomorrow morning for a week long trip to the east coast has postponed his trip until it's safe. I was getting panicky thinking of being left alone to deal with the situation.

This morning thru tomorrow there is a chance of thunderstorms, dry thunderstorms with lightning - am keeping fingers crossed that our weather forecasters who are so often wrong are wrong on this prediction.

Send good thoughts our way for all those who have been evacuated, those of us they may need to and for the fire fighters out on the lines who are doing such a dangerous job fighting these fires.

And for me today, I'm staying inside out of the smoke and will work in the studio to try and keep my mind off the fire situation.....not sure how well that will work but I'll at least get something done....

Photography challenge - I is for.......

I had other ideas for 'I' but I just couldn't get to them, it's just not happening right now

I is for Ireland Rd. along Rt 42 on the way to the coast

I is for Interstate 5 - this is from my neck of the woods but for those of you that don't know I5 is the main north south artery on the west coast going from the CA/Mexico border north to the Washington/Canadian border

I is for Iris........yes, Bailey got in this week, he said it was time


 

Trying to keep busy........

I tried to keep busy today and not worry about the fires surrounding our area......I wasn't very successful though. I did get some more of the quilt blocks made, 32 in all now, probably need around 160.......just a guess, will check for an exact figure as I get close.

I'm having trouble coping today, I need details and information, the more the better but not much is coming.  I check numerous sites for fire updates - very little new reported this afternoon other than more evacuations north of us and a few reports that fires have grown today and my county has declared a state of emergency. Many retardant bombers have been going over but they're not dropping at the fires closest to us because the smoke is so bad aircraft are not able to fly over those fires. I keep looking at any maps I can find when I hear locations of new evacuations.

Yesterday Sam got up on the roof and blew off all pine needles. I had him pick up sprinklers for the roof and deck and extra hoses - tonight when he gets home from work he'll figure out how to build a platform for them to sit on the peak. I'm hoping going to these measures will mean the fire doesn't reach here. Working on some other options too.

Thank you all for sending good thoughts our way.  We are not in immediate danger but we are very guarded as there are no fire lines as of yet, 0% containment and fires are growing. We live in a heavily wooded region, up on a hill with draws on each side of the house - not a good thing. And they're predicting more dry lightning this week..........What happened to that house I suggested after the Biscuit Fire - cinderblock walls, metal roof out in the middle of a big irrigated field...........

Fire sunrise

Sunrise this morning. Sunrise and sunsets are brilliant during a forest fire although we had no sunset to see the past couple of nights as smoke was too thick. This morning I'm actually seeing Mt. Sexton from the deck, little smoke to the east at the moment......too smokey to see anything to the north, south & west and we're pretty socked in with low smoke at the house.

The good and the bad.....

The good news is that finally the temps have come down a bit - it's just 81 out as I type this as opposed to the 100's it's been......but bad news is there is no being outside or having windows open to enjoy it because we are socked in with heavy smoke at ground level from the many fires in our area. Even with air conditioning running we both have headaches, are a little weezy and eyes are burning. I hear the tankers and copters flying over but can't see them through the smoke, very eerie feeling. Information is posted to the many sites I check for fire updates but not often enough to make me feel better. Just read where the fire in Galice, just west of us, has grown to 1500 acres, not a good thing, too close for comfort. And there's the fire up Pickett Creek which is up the ridge from the river a mile from us - I hear practically nothing on that so am hoping they're getting a handle on that one or are at least holding the ridge. The bigger fires are around 15 miles to the north and many evacuations last night and many more just a bit ago. It seems overwhelming to have so many fires going at once and firefighters coming in from all over the country.......been here, done that before with the Biscuit Fire 10 years ago when 500,000 acres burned near us. Trying to keep my mind on other things but am finding it difficult........

SW Oregon on fire......

I just returned from 3 days on the sunny, cool, clear blue sky Oregon coast.......what I returned to is SW Oregon on fire. While on the coast I heard about the dry lightening storm that went through our area - over 3000 lightening strikes, over 100 fires started. As we got closer to the Grants Pass area we could see the huge plumes of smoke and the air tankers dropping retardant. There are fires to the north, south and west of our house - I'm waiting to get the update for the day of how things went which I'm guessing was not good since it's windy. The smoke here at our house is horrendous - I may not be doing much outside this week even though the temps are supposed to come down to the upper 80's rather than 100. Send positive thoughts our way.............

Finally........hand-dyed yarn listed in etsy shop

Finally I have gotten this hand-dyed yarn listed in my etsy shop where I also sell roving. There's absolutely no chance of selling it if no one sees it.....now maybe I'll have a bit of a chance. Back to the yarn - it's Lace Weight 70% Merino/30% Silk, approximately 50 grams and 400 yards - perfect amount for a scarf or shawlette, 2 skeins for a full size shawl depending on the pattern. Maybe deep down I hadn't listed it yet because I was trying to decide which one(s) to keep for myself to knit a shawl out of.......

Looks who's sleeping in my bed.........

....and he's taking up a king size share of this king size bed.  New mattresses arrived today for our room and the guest room and Bailey has tried them both out napping during the afternoon. I think ours will do the trick for bad backs.........and the guest room one is feeling so good it might be a nice place to lay and read in the afternoon.......if I ever have time to do that......

Go figure - decided to turn on the Bernina in the off chance it would work today and it did - I sewed for a couple hours with no problem. Did I mention I love my Bernina??? Even when it wasn't working I loved my Bernina. Probably still some sort of software bug that will need to be checked out but I was a happy sewer today.

Marshmallows and other things......

I've been asked about those hay bales marshmallows. Yes they are wrapped in some sort of plastic - not sure if it's actually plastic, something like tyvec or what, haven't been up close to any but they were dotting the countryside on the way to the coast this past weekend. I understand that they each weigh around 700 pounds, they are huge. I saw them being baled on one ranch but there was no where to pull off and get a picture of it.

Woke up this morning to find my yahoo email account had been hacked and bogus emails with links went out to folks - I know 2 people this happened to yesterday - argh - what a thing to wake up to. Luckily yahoo caught this and shut down anymore emails from going out until I changed my password. My yahoo account is not my main email account - it is for lists, store emails, etc. and my second etsy shop so not as many contacts in it, thank goodness. Why is it that people have so much time on their hands to spend it doing things like this. I'm already paranoid about clicking on links, attachments and going to sites I don't know - not sure what else I or anyone else can do to protect themselves.

Predicted thunderstorms in our area today into tomorrow which means no rain, dry lightening instead - keep good thoughts coming this way that no fires are started through the region.

Photography Challenge - H is for.........

This weeks pix for the alphabet photography challenge - H is for........

Hay Bales.....or as I call them Hay Marshmallows

Hostas

Hole in boat - this boat isn't going far

High Bush Cranberry Tree

Hummingbird

Home Sweet Home

 

Best laid plans....

After almost 3 years of collecting fabric for beach cottage quilts and procrastinating about starting, well actually putting it behind everything else on the to-do list, I finally got started sewing blocks yesterday.  Today my Bernina is not working - argh. I sew a line of stitching, fingerpress it open, go back to the machine and the detail screen is empty. Or if I leave the machine for a minute or so I come back to find the screen empty. I've tried unplugging it for a bit to reboot the computer in it but nothing happens. I've never had any glitches with my Bernina in the 6  1/2 years I've owned it, I love my Bernina. The worst part is that my Bernina store, Top Stitch, is closed this week thru next Wednesday.

I can't believe I'm finally in the mood to do this quilt top and the machine is not cooperating.  So, I pulled out the book for my cheapie Brother embroidery machine, which is also a regular sewing machine, to figure out how to use it. I've never used it for just plain sewing.  I found out how to switch it from embroidery to sewing, finally figured out how to shorten the stitch length and then I could not for the life of me get a nice 1/4" seam so I searched the manual page by page to find out how to move the needle so I can at least line up along the presser foot. Got it all set up and did get 4 blocks sewn but it's slower sewing and more paying attention than sewing on my Bernina. Since exact 1/4" seams are not an issue for making these simple strip blocks (but straight seams are important)  I'll keep at it - but once I get to sewing the blocks all together I will wait to use the Bernina.......after it's repaired.

Did I say I love my Bernina???  Well, I do and the difference in price of a few thousand dollars between machines is a huge difference in sewing quality.....well worth the money. And I love my Bernina shop, Top Stitch in Medford, Jonathan & Karen are so knowledgeable.

A quilt top started.....finally......

I probably should be putting a warp on the loom and weaving to sell but I've got quite a bit of stock so I'm doing something I've wanted to do for almost 3 years - making a quilt top. I won't be doing the quilting, I'll  find a long arm quilter to do it for me - I know my time limitations plus I don't really enjoy the actual quilting process, especially on a large quilt....a wall hanging, maybe. I'm not sure what kind of quilting design I'll want - will discuss that with the quilter doing the long arm stitching when the time comes.

I had to iron all the washed fabric, then I started cutting strips ranging from 1" - 2 1/4" wide

I started with just cutting one of each size, I increased it 1/4" for each strip - here are my piles

Then on to the paper piecing for the 8 1/2" blocks - here you can see where the latest fabric to be added (lavendar) is flipped right sides together with the previous strip and sewn with a 1/4" seam

Here is it flipped over after being sewn. I used a little wooden tool for the finger pressing after each strip is sewn

Here's the mix mess of strips pieced

Here it is turned over to show the wrong side. After I ironed it I pulled the paper off at the stitching lines

Here's my new toy - a rotating cutting board for trimming up that mess above into a nice neat 8 1/2" square.  Doesn't everyone need a new toy for a new project??? I can't believe I waited this long to buy this toy - there are so many projects I could have been using it for. Cutting the 'mess' into a nice block is so easy using this and my square-up ruler.

Here's the block nicely trimmed.

And here's what 4 blocks look like. There is no sashing between any of the blocks, just keep adding blocks. These aren't sewn yet, just laid out to give an idea of what the quilt will look like. After spending much of the morning ironing and cutting strips I only got 6 blocks sewn before wrapping it up for the day - just got way too hot with all the bright lights I like to use when sewing.  I'm not sure how many blocks I need for a king size quilt yet, decided it might sound like an overwhelming number so I'll wait until I have a number of them made before figuring out how many I need. I think this will look really nice in the room with the recently painted furniture.

Blogiversary giveaway winner

Congrats to Sue who won the book, The Herbal Body Book from my Blogiversary Giveaway.  Sue, I see where I can contact you thru your etsy shop so I'll be doing that to get your mailing address.....but if you read this drop me an email with that info.  (and no one was interested in the other book so I'll try and find a home for that another time)

Fire

And once again more fires in my area but those hot shots got them out quickly - 4 in my area of the county, but not too close to our house or others.....higher up in the mountains, all started and snuffed out yesterday - it's sounding awfully suspicious since we've had no dry lightening, as in most of the fires most probably human caused.

A little smile for the morning.........

After 2 days of fires I thought a smile was in order. Mama turkey and turklets in the front yard last night - pictures taken through the kitchen window. Yesterday's fire quickly blew up to over 500 acres but as of last night it was 100% lined so now they just need to hold those lines as it heats up today. So glad friend Pat and others in that area can relax a bit this morning.

Mama turkey showed up last night in our front yard, she had 12 turklets on her heels.

How can something so cute grow up to be something so homely???  Although I'm sure that mama looked very good to one of the tom's around here not too long ago.........

Will it never end............

Oh it's going to be a long fire season.......had a call from a dear friend just around 45 minutes ago asking what to do if there's a fire. A fire just broke out 2 miles from her house - she's on the southeast side of town (we're northwest of town). She can hear the crackling at her house. They're already doing updates every 5-10 minutes on the local radio station - the fire is growing, people close to the fire are being evacuated. It's windy out there.........keep my fiber friend and all others in her area in your thoughts.......

I sure hope the fall rains start before the usual late September/early October........

Another fire update......

Fire reports are starting to sound good now, they're calling the fire stabilized, I'm not quite sure what that means but it's better than voracious, the description that was being used earlier to describe the fire. Another grass fire started down the road from the first fire but they got that one quickly knocked down. Sam hasn't heard from the friend from work yet who lives in the direct path of the fire, he still wouldn't be able to get home, hopefully he found his wife. The latest report is that 2 houses were scorched, a garage burned, that's incredible since there are quite a few homes in that area.  I did find at the top of the steps on the deck I could see thru 2 tall pines and watch the copters dropping water on the fire.

Once again I have to thank KLDR for updates every 5-10 minutes. And most of all - all the firefighters working out there in the close to 100 degree heat to keep the fire from spreading.....what incredibly dangerous and hard work they do.........   Thank  you for putting up with my venting/worrying........

Fire update

Ok, so I'm sitting here on pins & needles so what else to do other than listen to the radio online and be nervous.....trying to calm my nerves by emailing.  The wind is picking up quite a bit, never a good thing, keep our area in your thoughts......I'm trying to think positive that any minute now I'll hear an update on the radio that they've gotten the upper hand on the fire. One good thing is that the fire is in a flat area rather than where our house is located with hilly steep terrain so I'm hoping they get it out soon. Sam just called from work and said he's leaving to come home - he's 45 minutes away. Someone in his office already left for home after Sam told him about the fire - his house is in the immediate area of the fire and he hasn't been able to reach his wife.  He won't be able to get home, hopefully his house is safe and he'll easily find his wife.  Retardant tanker just flew over my house, super low, shook the house, he was circling back to the fire. Just heard an update on how much more ground support has arrived on the scene and an extra copter.....some ODF copters are based 1/4 mile from the fire.....how convenient. Report is that many spot fires have started up but they're feeling like things are stabilizing......keep your fingers crossed.  Hmm, right where I had to turn around a gross, stuff stuck on the floor, Ray's Grocery store........now if anything was to burn it could be that.......

Fire

I don't say it on my blog every day but I say it to others - I hate fire season.  Fire season is always bad but this past winter has been exceptionally dry so it's dryer than usual here. This is what is going on right now 3 miles from my house. I went in to town to pick up something for my mother at the store  - I had driven by the fire area just 15 minutes earlier and there was nothing - came out of the store and could see smoke on the other side of the mountain in my area. I called my mother and told her I had to go find out where the smoke was coming from and possibly head back home.

As I was driving I heard on the radio where the fire was, too close for comfort so I headed home. This is the intersection where I had to turn around - both roads leading to my house were closed. It took me over an hour to get home via a different route when normally it would have taken 15 minutes. When I was turning around all of a sudden there was tons of black smoke which means structure - what I've heard is that it's a garage but homes are in danger - people living along there are hosing down their roofs.

 

At the moment the wind is blowing in the opposite direction of our house which is good for flying embers making it here but of course not good for others. Even though we live high up on a hill I am not seeing the smoke from my deck because that's exactly where the trees have grown and blocked the view. I am hearing the copters with buckets fly over heading to the river to pick up loads.

 

Word on how the fire started is that a car caught on fire and pulled off the road into the dry grass.....should have just left the car in the middle of the road.

 

Many thanks to KLDR radio for updates at least every 5 minutes - they were my lifeline in another fire and they are once again so I know what's going on, it's terrible to sit here and know nothing. I also pilfered these pictures from their site - thank you KLDR.

 

 

Blogiversary Giveaway

Once again I missed my Blogiversary - on July 4th it was 5 years since my first post.........have I said anything important in 5 years, eh, maybe not, but that's the way it goes.

I was thinking it was time for another giveaway from my stash anyhow so in honor of my 5 years of blogging I'm doing it now. I have two great books that I kept thinking I'd get back to but after this many years I realize that's just not going to happen, I just don't have enough hours in my day. I did make a lip balm and lotion out of The Herbal Body Book for gifts one Christmas. Both books are like brand new except for my book label inside the cover. I never used Perfumes, Splashes & Colognes.

All you have to do is write a comment to this post telling me which book you'd like to be in the drawing for, if you're interested in both books tell me that so I put you in both drawings. I'll use random.org to pick the winners next Monday morning (July 22nd). I'll post the winners at some point that day. Please make sure I can't reach you via email for your mailing address if you're a winner - either thru your blog or by leaving an email address in your comment. 

A little morning sewing.......

Here's my morning sewing - a seashell pillow. A while back a friend found this cross-stitch at a garage sale complete with a bad frame job, she thought I could do something with it. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do until now. I took the cross-stitch out of the frame and found that it had been cut almost to the edge and then hot glued to a piece of cardboard - yikes. So I trimmed it up, pulled some really cute seahorse fabric from my stash, put a border on the cross-stitch and made a pillow. I found four 18" pillows stuck in the craft room closet so I used one of those.......sale stickers on them showed I got them on sale for just over $1 each - what a bargain. (that's my shadow on the right side, not dirt on the pillow)

On to thinking about the next project.......a king size quilt for the beach......finally. These are the fabrics I've pulled from all that fabric I've been collecting for three years. I might pull out a few more fabrics to go with these, still have a bit of time before I start cutting strips. It's a paper pieced pattern I found in Quilt (magazine) June/July 2013 issue called Espresso Please. Each 8 1/2" square is paper pieced so I need to pick up some paper on the next trip to town that's a big lighter in weight than the printer paper I've got, will be easier to tear off. I've put this project to the side for way too long. I'll be piecing the top but will find a long arm quilter to do the machine quilting for me - I know my time limits.

More wildlife out front - this time a doe and fawn. I saw turkey toddlers this morning too.

Now off to warp the inkle loom up. Too hot out to be dyeing roving. Not motivated to warp up one of the looms. Am thinking I just need to step back and enjoy doing whatever I want and not stress so much over selling. Might even do some reading this afternoon...........

Big rack.........

 

This picture I just took isn't great, I got it quickly through the kitchen window/screen. I ran to the bathroom window but he was gone before I got there. Look at the rack on this buck - it's huge. and he was so close to me at one point that I got to see just how 'fuzzy' it was (that was before I ran for the camera). Oh how I'd love to find those antlers when they fall off........would be great as basket handles........

Photography Challenge - G is for........

G is for Gravel

G is for Glass Floats

G is for Gigantic Pine Cone.......I took this pine cone to spinning today to give to a friend who will give it to her sister for décor......if more fall from that pine out front I'll bring her those too. We have small, medium, large and gigantic pine cones on our 5 acres

G is for Ginkgo Leaf

G is for Ginkgo Leaves - last fall I collected a big bag of these at spinning after they turned golden yellow, I carefully put them between the pages of a phone book and Sam promptly took the phone book to recycling........what was with that??? He never takes it upon himself to do those things.......will try again this fall

G is for Girlfriends........this was today at spinning in town, it was a small group today but oh so fun......but they didn't eat all those psychedelic cupcakes - I brought a number of them home - yikes  Note: one of the girlfriends just pointed out that I'm not in the picture so if you're looking you won't find me......this is a pic of my girlfriends

G is for Golden Retriever

G is for Golden Retriever.....again........Bailey said you didn't think he was going to miss this opportunity did you???

Check out Benita's blog, the brainchild of this photography challenge.

Cupcakes

Not feeling like doing much other than the mundane chores that had to be done I thought something fun was in order - psychedelic cupcakes to share with my spinning peeps tomorrow. And if you want to make these crazy fun cupcakes yourself just buy a package of neon food colors and a white cake mix. After mixing it I divided it up into 4 bowls and added the food coloring to each bowl........of course I just eyeballed it and had very little purple. Then plop a little bit of the first color in the bottom of the muffin cups, followed by the next, next and next......

Usually I'd put fun flower shaped (flower child era) sprinkles on them but I had bought a package of glitter gel icing décor. I tried to make nice little polka dots but the gel wasn't cooperating, sometimes it would come out watery, sometimes a thick gel........so don't buy that stuff, just stick with sprinkles.

Now off to deal with more laundry and maybe get some time in at the inkle loom.

Yum - blueberry jam

Yesterday morning I made 2 batches of blueberry jam. I've checked my jam stock and realize I should have made some strawberry when they were selling at the local fruit stands......need to find some good strawberries to make at least one batch. If I get around to picking blackberries this year I'll make some blackberry jam too.....still plenty of peach from last year in the pantry. Some scones are sounding pretty good right now but alas no cream in the fridge to make clotted cream.........

New decor

I haven't been doing any weaving or dyeing like I should be but have been busy dealing with the roving order and then yesterday we worked on getting the new valances from Country Curtains up in the bedroom and bathroom. We live in the woods so don't really need window coverings but I had been looking at these valances for a few years.....finally I ordered them and am wondering why I didn't do it sooner. They're so sheer they don't take away from the view of the trees at all. I love them. Today we'll work on getting valances up in the guest room/office - they aren't sheer like this but will match the wallpaper border and matching paint job below the chair rail border.

Yesterday was spent mattress shopping - ours wasn't very old but broke down way too quickly. I spent a lot of time laying on mattresses in the store - too many choices but we made the decision to buy a Stearns & Foster, I think it will do wonders for my back when it arrives in around 10 days. Since we were on a roll we bought a Sealy for the guest room bed - I laid on that bed last month, it's the worst bed ever and I'm embarrassed I ever let anyone sleep on it. In 10 days time our guests will be sleeping well too.

Today I'm hoping to make some blueberry jam if I have enough sugar......I thought I had an extra bag but the hummingbirds have been devouring it. Am hoping to spin up some roving samples of the new colorways. Need to get back to dyeing but it's so danged hot - might have to resort to getting out to the dyepots at daybreak and just work until late morning.

New roving in etsy shop

I spent just about all day today finishing putting together more felting kits that had sold out, weighing, bagging, labeling roving and putting it into stock. I'm just starting to list new and sold out colorways. The four rovings above are brand new colorways of merino from Ashland Bay - they are listed in the shop now. I can't wait to spin up samples to see how they look spun up, I'll be adding the pictures of the handspun in the etsy listings once I get them done. Previously sold out felting kits are back up for sale in the shop. More previously sold out colorways of roving to be listed over the weekend.

Where do my hours go?  I thought I'd get the roving job finished up mid-day, then I'd make some blueberry jam and maybe run the vacuum......needless to say it's lucky that I'm making dinner after finishing up with the roving.

A new apron.....

Yesterday I finished sewing a new apron for myself - the white fabric has dragonflies, one of my favorite motifs. It had been sitting on the cutting board partially sewn for weeks as I moved on to other things and being out of town so much.

The rest of the day was spent dealing with fiber as was a day earlier in the week. Yesterday was putting together more felting kits I had sold out of in my etsy shop which will hopefully be relisted before the end of the day. And today I've got piles and piles of roving to weigh, bag, label, put in inventory and get listed in the etsy shop, some new colorways (which I'll post here later), some colorways I've sold out of and am just restocking. I'll need to spin samples of the new colorways in the next few days, it's always fun to see how they spin up. I really need to get back to dyeing roving but it's just too darned hot..........No rest for the wicked..........

Photography Challenge - F is for........

F is for Figs.......our two trees are loaded this year

F is for Foghorn.......this is the one I hear at night over on the coast when the windows are open

F is for Fossils - we find this in our treasure hunts on the beach.  The two on the left are actually one - we look for the rocks with a line which indicates a possible shell inside, then Sam hit it with the hammer to break it open to reveal the treasure inside.

F is for Flickering Flame

F is for Fish - a raku piece found at the Clayfolk Sale held every fall.....

....and another raku fish......

......and yet another

A steel Fish from a local artist.........

......here's another steel Fish found on a trip we took to the Olympic Pennisula........yes, a lot of fish in our house along with a river rock fireplace, live in the woods, near a river looking house.......no wonder I've stepped outside the box in decorating a beach cottage with all pastels and sea glass.........