Saturday, December 31, 2016

12 Days of Christmas - Day 7

 Oooh, into the greens now..........

Friday, December 30, 2016

12 Days of Christmas - Day 6

 Day 6 - More purple but with lots of black in it - I think this is stunning. This is the halfway mark for the spinning packets. Will be fun to see what tomorrow brings. It's going to be sad when this is over but then I'll get to figure out what to ply it with (rayon or silk thread in who knows what color) and then to let it sit for a bit on the shelf while I figure out what it will grow up to be.....knitted, woven, crocheted........at some point in the next couple of months a project will turn up to be perfect for this handspun.

Thursday, December 29, 2016

12 Days of Christmas - Day 5

 More purple only darker today - what will tomorrow bring?

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

12 Days of Christmas - Day 4


Day 4 is really pretty - can't wait until I see what's in store in the 5th day packet


Tuesday, December 27, 2016

12 Days of Christmas - day 3


Nothing to say, just sharing today's spinning from the 12 days of Christmas spin-a-long

Monday, December 26, 2016

12 Days of Christmas - Day 2

Day 2 of the 12 Days of Christmas spin-a-long. This batt is a bit lighter color than the one from yesterday. Today I did better with the photo........yesterday I was lazy about it.

Here it is spun, I just kept going on top of day 1. This is really fun. I can't wait to see what's in tomorrow's package, I'm hoping for another subtle change.


Sunday, December 25, 2016

12 Days of Christmas

Today is day 1 of the Inglenook Fibers 12 days of Christmas spin-a-long. I did great ignoring the box of 12 bags of fiber inspired by the Snow Maiden since it arrived in the mail. Here's a link to the day it arrived so you can see what I've been tempted by for the past couple of weeks.
This afternoon I spun up the first 1/2 oz of fiber. I'm spinning on my Hansen mini-spinner.....hmm, looks like it could use some dusting........ I could easily just keep on ripping those little bags open and spin them but I'll try to have strength and wait until tomorrow to spin day 2's bag and so on for these 12 days. It will be fun to see the color blending each day. I'm thinking I'll ply it with either some very fine commercial silk or perhaps rayon, maybe a solid color, maybe a variegated color.......will decide once I've spun it all up and have seen all the colors in it.



Saturday, December 24, 2016



Seaglass scarves

 Yesterday I spent some time twisting fringe on the latest scarves and doing the photography work. These were both woven on a painted warp which I deliberately dyed very pale seaglass colors. I love the one with the lavender weft above......


 .....and I guess I love this one with the dark teal weft just as much......both are now up for sale in my etsy shop......unless I change my mind and keep one of them.


After I finished with the two scarves I decided to pull out another painted warp, this time to go on the Macomber in a 8 harness fancy twill. I dyed these bouts ombre style but when it came time to put them on the loom I could decide on where two of them should go. The two on the left are so close in color I think they could have gone in either spot........but this is the way they are now. Weaving won't start on these for a while as I'm taking time off for the holidays to do some other things...........although weaving on this warp is looking very inviting.........


Thursday, December 22, 2016

A bit of weaving...........

 Today I was able to get a little time at the loom so wove off the second scarf on the painted tencel warp. Both are washed and hanging to dry.


Friend Theresa gifted me a very fun cookie cutter with Bailey's name - whoops, meant to take a photo of the cookie cutter, just realized I didn't......oh well.  Anyhow I made some 'cookies' for Bailey. What Theresa doesn't know is that I'm cookie cutter challenged. This is the best one out of the bunch - Bailey doesn't mind that the others have crazy compound fractured legs or giraffe necks - they still taste very yummy.

Monday, December 19, 2016

Finally........

 Finally a bit of time at the loom.  I put on a painted tencel warp, enough for 2 scarves. It's a 20 harness design, originally more harnesses from out of the Complex Weavers book but I turned the draft at which time it became 20.  Above I'm auditioning wefts. Definitely the dark teal for one scarf, still deciding between the lavender or light teal for the second scarf.


Here's the dark teal scarf. The painted warp is very subtle, on purpose, in pale shades of sea glass......well, not the colors of sea glass I find on the Oregon coast beaches but the colors I see in jewelry which is probably man made sea glass............


A bit more stitchin'

A bit more cross-stitching going on in the evenings here - just quick little projects I've had in my stash for a long time.....some a very long time.  This little one is finished except for the starfish charm and seed beads for bubbles coming from the fish. Sometime in January I'll get over to Michaels to look for frames for all the stitching I'm doing - there are at least a few that I can buy ready made frames for, others I'll have to get framed........but I'll do the stretching over foam core myself.

A fun part of stitching is using accessories dear friend Cathy made me years ago. The little sheep chatelaine actually has a date stitched on the back - 2003. The precious needle roll doesn't have a date on it but it was either a year before or after the chatelaine.......I'm guessing.


Saturday, December 17, 2016

Bah Humbug

Yes, that's how I feel this year - bah humbug - just not in the holiday spirit, actually a bit depressed....hopefully this will pass soon.
I've been doing a little cross-stitch in the evenings, very fun. I have so many patterns already put aside with fabric and floss. This little sheep was actually a kit from Heart in Hand. I love the piece of wool appliqued on for the face with the googley big button eyes. The fabric that was in the kit had discolored from the plastic pouch it had come in - what a shame.........but I found a similar size fabric in my stash. I'm loving working on these little cross-stitches. I used to do a lot of it years ago but there's just no time anymore......but I'm going to be making time for fun projects from now on........in addition to my weaving..........

So, the bad news with this stitching is that it aggravates my thumb. The past few months I've been having issues with my thumb hurting from the knuckle closest to my palm to my wrist, possibly tendonitis. I think the tremendous amount of knitting I was doing this year might have done me in, it also bothers me throwing the shuttle although not as bad, and interestingly it doesn't bother me spinning. But I think the position of holding a needle doing the cross-stitch is the worst of all. I may have to put the cross-stitch aside for a bit and rest my hand.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

2016 Holiday Cards

Here are this year's holiday cards. It's a 26 harness twill star. I started with a star design from the Complex Weavers compilation publication and then tweaked it to how I wanted to see it woven. The warp is 20/2 perle cotton the weft a similar size metallic thread from my stash.

I used 3 different types of gold scrapbook paper. The top right was my favorite but I only had 2 pages of it in my stash and couldn't find it anywhere - it was a matte gold metallic color. Then the bottom left was a very cool paper, or so I thought since it was found in with the scrapbooking papers........it was actually metal combined with something else, maybe a plastic coating - it was destroying my square punch so I had to toss that idea. Then I found a 24"x36" sheet of the glittery card stock, upper left, that the punch liked and ended up making the majority of the cards out of that.  I cut the bottom edge with deckled scissors and then used a gold metallic marker on the inside so it shows when the card is closed. I neglected to take a photo of the inside - I printed the sentiment on a gold parchment and added it inside.

Found a couple more cross stitch patterns stashed away and have been stitching in the evenings. I also found 8 finished cross stitch projects in need of framing, they've been stashed away for years. Goal next year is to frame some for our bedroom and possibly gift the others.

I've already been working on going through my stash, in small bits of time, and selling, gifting, donating craft supplies I don't use and will never use........someone else might as well enjoy creating with them rather than leaving them to take up space in my studio.



Sunday, December 11, 2016

Cross-stitching.........

I'm not quite sure when I started this cross-stitch for the beach cottage, maybe 2 years ago, maybe a bit longer. Yesterday evening I pulled it out and started to stitch on it again. I think I remember why I must have set it aside, I'm to the point of stitching the scallop shells which are almost the same color as the linen fabric.......tough on the eyes, even with an OTT light.......and I can't seem to find my magnifier that hangs around my neck anywhere.......

In the same tote bag were two other simple small ocean related cross-stitch patterns along with fabric and floss so once I finish this one I might as well move on to those.....then I'll have 3 to frame at the same time.

It's fun to get away from always creating to sell or dealing with roving to sell and do something relaxing and fun like this.........well, it would be more relaxing if it were easier to see.......2 scallop shells down, 4 more to go, then the outlining which will be a snap. There are little scallop shell pewter charms to add on top of each stitched scallop shell. I did a tea cross-stitch like this, I have the matching frame, I just need to get around to blocking, stretching and framing it........hmm, maybe need to pull that out too........maybe 2017 can be the year of finishing up many UFO's.

Now back to sitting in front of the fire to stitch..........


Friday, December 9, 2016

Whoo Hoo!!!!

Today my Inglenook Fibers 12 Days of Christmas Spin-a-long arrived in the mail.  The rules are it is not to be opened until Christmas Day and then to spin one packet a day - the packets are numbered. Ok.........so I opened the shipping box but that's as far as I'm going to go until Christmas Day........I hope. I'll have to hide it away so I won't be tempted to sneak a peek or start spinning.
This is what it looks like

Here's the label. The fiber colors are based on this illustration. I can't wait to see the progression of color. This is my first time for the 12 Days SAL but my friend Cathy did it last year and the color progression was incredible.

There are 3 of us that I know of in my spinning group that got in on this limited offering so the goal is to spin it up, however we choose, make something, and then we'll all put it in our county fair display next year. It will be a fun challenge. It was available with sparkle or without - I chose without, the other 2 chose with. I'm already thinking I might need to ply it with some fine silk or rayon to make it go farther.

If Inglenook does this again next year and you're interested you'll have to keep up with goings on in their forum on Ravelry next fall to get in on it - it's not something they put up for sale in their etsy shop. When we heard the date for sign-ups we were right there on Ravelry to get in on it.

Now, I need to step away from the box and try to ignore it for over 2 weeks - yikes - now that's a challenge.



Thursday, December 8, 2016

Earthquake, weaving and the beach......

This morning shortly after Sam left for work I felt a jolt, it was 6:50am. I jumped out of bed because I was worried that someone kicked in the garage door, that's what it felt like. I turned on the outside lights and bravely, with Bailey standing behind me (that coward), we walked down the deck steps to look at that door. Once I could see all was secure I assumed one of the big firs fell somewhere on the property. But then on the news I heard of a 6.5 magnitude earthquake 100 miles out in the ocean west of Eureka, CA at exactly the time I felt that jolt - I'm taking a wild guess the location is around 200 miles SW of us. So, that's the exciting news of the morning - no tsunami reported along the coast.


Back in 1989 on our way to our acreage in SW Oregon we spent 2 1/2 years in the San Fran Bay area - we arrived from the east coast 3 months before the Loma Prieta quake which was centered 20 miles south of us - rude awakening to California. We were fine as the house we bought was newer and built to earthquake standards..........devastation elsewhere.


We spent 4 days on the coast over the past weekend. I got back to the towel warp I put on the loom over there a couple months ago. I didn't weave much as I was busy with other activities but I enjoyed throwing the shuttle a bit.

........come on Mom & Dad, the beach is waiting...........


.........wait a minute, did I see Dad putting his shoes on..........

........big stick in the scary ocean.........better keep an eye on it, would love to grab it but I'm a water dog that doesn't go in the water above my knees........

........it's close, maybe I can grab it before a wave comes and gets me........


.........there it is for the taking but wait, there's a good smell here............


.........success, got that stick............



..........oh but wait, Dad had a better stick I could steal...........ah, life is good..........


Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Giveaway Winner!!!

Using Random.org I have a winner of the Sashiko kit giveaway - it's Deanna.  I went to your blog Deanna but didn't see a way to contact you so please drop me a note letting me know your complete name and mailing address and I'll get the kit out in the mail to you. Congrats and happy stitching!  cindiesam at yahoo dot com



Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Giveaway


I'm slowly going through stash in my studio and finding homes for items I know I'll never use. I'm being overcome due to too much stash.......much of it I'll never use.  I've found homes for some things here local but would like to offer some up on my blog over the next few months. So, here's a holiday giveaway.

I was gifted with this sashiko pillow kit from a Japanese business associate of my husbands over 15 years ago (the president of that Japanese company also gifted me with a wooden box of bits & bobs of Japanese fabrics, some I've used, others I will use in the future). Anyhow back to this kit - the only reason I have not stitched this is because I'm not a blue person, it's an incredible deep shade of indigo. Instructions are in Japanese but it's pretty self explanatory and details on how to stitch sashiko can be found on the internet. It includes the fabric for the front and back of the pillow (front printed, back plain), a zipper, the thread, a needle and thimble.......and instructions in Japanese.

If you're interested in this kit and live within the US (due to postage costs for me outside the states) please comment to this post and make sure I can reach you either through blogger, by leaving your email address or checking back on my blog December 7th to see if you're the winner of this giveaway. I'll be using a random generator to pick the winner from those posting.  I'm hoping someone will be interested in this kit, it's really nice, it just won't get stitched here.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

The agony of defeat.......

I've had two boundweave kits from Sweden for years, so many years I can't even begin to remember although if I had the inclination I could look it up in my records, year by year......not going to happen. I have never bought weaving kits but these were so cute, one was a farm theme with the farmer, farm critters and produce........the other I think (???) had to do with trees, mountains and whatever.

In my effort to go through things deciding what to keep, what to gift, what to sell I went looking for these kits so I could pull out the instructions and translate the color names to English. I know how to weave boundweave, there were graphs for the treadling/color order so all I really needed was to figure out epi from metric and translate color names. Today I pulled the kits out - there are two big bags of wool and two linen warps. Instructions - argh, no where to be found!!!!  I'm not one to misplace things and in this case I would have kept the instructions in the big bag with the kits. I looked all over on the shelf hoping they just fell out of the bag but no luck. I looked through every piece of paperwork I could find, no luck. The only thing I can think is that someone offered to translate the instructions for me and never gave them back and it was so long ago who knows who might have volunteered that..........I will be asking a few of my fellow weavers but I'm not optimistic.

So, back up on the high shelf these kits go until I can hopefully unearth the instructions. If not there is a lot of wool that can be used for some project or another. I don't even have the name of the company in the bags of yarn to contact them........if they're still around, if they still have these kits. Sure glad I didn't pay full price for these - a local weaver (now out of the area) used to sell all things Swedish having to do with weaving and ordered them for me at cost.  These were to be the next projects to weave while on the coast.

On the upside while going through paper I did put a tremendous amount of it in the recycling cart.

Nothing creative here to show as I'm still finishing up holiday gifts and trying to find other gifts hidden throughout the house during the year, I'd love to get them in the mail this week.

Earlier in the week I finished reading The Boys in the Boat - loved it and would recommend it especially for those who love historical books.

I hope everyone had a wonderful turkey day. We didn't eat at home but I did make a turkey breast yesterday so we'd have leftovers for sandwiches, pot pie and soup.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Basking in the sun

No, it was not me basking in the sun although we did have some sun the past 4 days in-between squalls coming in off the ocean and even a big thunder/lightning storm one evening. We escaped to the coast for some R&R.......walking the beach, a lot of reading, making some ornaments, going to a community concert and dinner out with friends. Of course as always 're-entry' sucks - so much to get done in the next week with finishing up gifts, getting some mailed, putting together our holiday cards, etc. I'm anxious to get back to the loom and perhaps I'll start having some creations to share on the blog but right now everything I'm working on are gifts which can't be posted.

So, back to the basking in the sun - these two sea lions were enjoying using a rock in the water as an anchor to relax in the sun. They were less than 20 feet from us on the shoreline and didn't seem too concerned although they did keep an eye on Bailey opening a slit of an eye to check on what he was doing every once in a while. I think they figured out pretty quickly that Bailey, although a water dog, is afraid of the water and wouldn't be swimming anywhere close to them. If I had brought my camera along I would have gotten a better photo than with my phone.

I think this week is the one where we should be buying lottery tickets as we saw 7 rainbows in 4 days - that must be a record. And when driving home yesterday we chased the end of a rainbow and drove right through it. I'm thinking seeing all those rainbows must be a good sign hence buying lottery tickets.........but will I actually go to the store and buy them is another thing..........



Sunday, November 13, 2016

In mourning..........

We have been in mourning here since election night........even Bailey is down in the dumps over it. I won't say much because I could go on and on but I'm worried and very scared for our country for the first time in my life. In the past if my candidate didn't win I still had high hopes that the new president would do his best for the country and we'd be ok........I don't feel that way this time. I have fear for the hatred, bigotry and intolerance we've seen this past year and continue to see. I worry about new policies which will be detrimental to all nationally and internationally. Thumbs up to all those demonstrating but please, please, keep it civil, don't lower yourselves or give in to the hatred yourselves. And for those of you that didn't make the effort to get out and vote - shame on you. Ok, that's all I can say about that because it will give me an anxiety attack.  (note - any nasty comments, on either side, to this post will not show up on my blog - my post is not meant to open up any political discussion)

So, on to a complaint - Windows 10 - argh. Once again on my laptop (which thank goodness isn't my main computer) all my bookmarks/favorites were lost in an update last weekend. This is the 3rd time this has happened since spring, supposedly in June they fixed the glitch......not. Luckily I only use this laptop when traveling so it only has a small number of favorites and I got smart last time and made up a document with the links for them. If I had Windows 10 on my main computer I would be grouchy every single day. I hate Windows 10, there's always some snafu happening with it.

I'm trying to work on holiday gifts so nothing can be shown here on the blog yet. I'm anxious to get them finished up and move on to some new weaving.  Has anyone else found a way to get more hours in your day??? 

Monday, November 7, 2016

Slowing down.......hah!

Trying to slow down life and find more time to be creative just seems to elude me. These next 2 weeks area jammed packed and very little of it is earmarked as creative time. Some of it is fun but I will still be a grump-head by the end of the month.


We spent the past 4 days on the coast for some downtime. It was great. I did get the loom over there warped up with some more cottolin towels in a basket weave/herringbone pattern. After this warp there will be only bits & bobs left on around 70 cottolin spools........they'll be good for future inkle or card weaving. I've never used cottolin for either of those weaves so it will be fun to see how the bands feel made out of cottolin.


Does anyone out there watch Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel? Well, recently they had a spin off show called Deadliest Catch: Dungeon Cove. This show is all about the dungeness crab fisherman off the Oregon coast. These fisherman are based in Newport up the coast from us but they fish up and down the coast from there. This past spring there were a couple tragedies just 20 miles up the coast from us with lives and boats lost - those are talked about on the show. While the season was airing in September we had a tragedy right in Bandon with 3 lives lost and shortly after a boat couldn't find it's way in the fog and ran aground - we were there that morning but didn't hear any commotion when it happened. In this picture, which I took Friday morning, at low tide, you can see the waves coming in, they were huge and no boat could get in or out in-between those jetties. That's where a boat went down the later part of September where 3 lives were lost. The boat that ran aground was just on this side of the jetty. I sure wouldn't want to have to go in and out in a fishing vessel. I think of the fisherman that do this on a daily basis to make a living for their families and provide us with yummy crab and other delicacies - stay safe out there.

Many thanks for the comments and numerous emails about continuing my blog. I still have not decided if I will give up blogging, in the meantime I'll just slow the posts. I have no deadline where I have to make this decision so I won't be rushing in to it.

Will everyone else be as glad as I am after this election is over? I am so done with it, so tired of the negativity, so tired of the coverage, the commercials. I'm hoping my candidate wins as it scares me if the other one does what will happen to this country. No matter who wins there will be unhappy people in a country which is now so divided - there will be a lot of healing needed............


Friday, October 28, 2016

To blog or not to blog......

Or all good things must come to an end.........maybe. I've been rethinking so many things in life this past year - I need to simplify, I need to de-clutter....and most of all I need to free up more time for creating.


I'm pondering giving up blogging. I started out on this adventure over 8 years ago with the intention of promoting my etsy shops but it's turned out that my main audience are other weavers. I have met some great fiber artists over the internet throughout this 8+ years so it's been a good thing. Has it promoted my shops, probably not much, if at all.


How do other fiber artists keep up with online shops, blogging, tweeting, instagram, facebook, pinterest, not to mention online communities???  I can't seem to accomplish everything I want to and I've only got 2 etsy shops and a blog. Although it would be great networking I steer clear of the rest of it because they're time suckers (in my opinion). I'm sure younger people would think I'm some old woman who doesn't want to learn - well, that's not it, I am fully capable but I'm choosing to create rather than be consumed by being in front of monitor, tablet and phone screens all my waking hours. I want to weave, spin, knit, crochet, sew, bead, etc. etc. etc. I've had things on my very long to-do list for years - they're things I want to do (not the to-do list of chores that I can easily ignore). I want to read more, I want to learn more. Life is finite - if I don't de-clutter and simplify I'll never get to these fun activities.


In my efforts to de-clutter and simplify I have been gifting or selling many art/craft supplies that I know I will never use. If I haven't used it in 10 years I'm not going to..........yes, 10 years is a long time to set the 'used' rule but art/craft items don't fit into the regular household 'used' rule of 1-2 years. So, don't be surprised if you see a giveaway on the blog.


So, I will slow down my posting, eventually I may not post at all........someday the blog may totally disappear. I have no clue at this point and don't have to decide that today.


New on the inkle loom - for those of you getting excited that I'm making inklings again - I told you all last year it was the last inkling after many years of creating them. This is for another project.



Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Birds drunk on basil seeds

 Sunday late afternoon and evening I noticed lots of little finches (I think they're finches) on my almost spent basil plants on the deck. I was able to grab a few pix through the window. They were out there munching away on basil seeds since I had let the plants go after making the last batches of pesto.
I would have never guessed they would have loved the basil seeds so much - I'll remember this next year.

We spent some days on the coast to relax and I taught a beginning drop spindle class on Saturday. Very nice group of gals - hope they went home to keep practicing and keep up with spinning. Not a craft learned in just a couple hours, takes much practice. I taught the class at The Wool Co in Bandon, OR. If you're ever on the Oregon coast stop in and say hi to Kelly.......and buy some knitting, spinning or felting supplies, we need to support the small local shops.

Getting a bit panicked about holiday gifts - need to sit down and make a list today of what I still need to create. I have a plan for our holiday cards but haven't put that warp on the AVL yet, so there's a plan but I have no clue how it will turn out so I need to get to this project soon. Today is prep work for a future day of gift making with a friend - can't say what kind of gifts, they're a secret.

If I can get to reading over the voter's pamphlet I'll also vote today - we've voted by mail here in Oregon for years - I love it. Easy choice for president.........hard to understand all the county and state measures and know close to nothing about many of the county and state officials that are running. Need to reread all info, once again, with hopes that I can figure some of this stuff out. And what's with many local positions that have only one person running, or a few with no one listed on the ballot at all - I'm thinking that's where I write in Bailey's name............I've done it before but never saw him on the news or in the newspaper as having received votes after the election is over...........



Wednesday, October 19, 2016

False damask weave structure

Peg asked if I'd share the draft for the False damask towels I'm weaving. I first saw this draft in Handwoven Design Collection 5 and have since seen it in several other publications. I did a similar threading repeat but totally changed the treadling repeats.

There are two blocks in threading and treadling, the A block and the B block. The fun of weaving blocks is that you can repeat each block as many times as you'd like in the threading and treadling. Pick up some graph paper and play with profile drafting to create your own design, or if you have weaving software you can use that.  I did use a floating selvedge on the towel project.




Sunday, October 16, 2016

Weaving towels......

Today was the perfect day to wind a warp and start weaving on a new towel warp.......old pattern, false damask as someone has requested a custom order of blue towels, the rest will be holiday gifts. Why was the perfect day? We're on our 4th day of raining pitchforks and shovels. Oregon can get rain but it's usually not flooding rains, it's usually light rain. I've been loving it - Friday was the official end of fire season until sometime next June - whoo hoo.  Perfect weather to weave, knit and cook soups in the crockpot......lentil soup on the menu for this evening. Life is good............as long as we don't lose power - the high winds predicted didn't materialize so we're safe so far from power outages and fallen trees on the acreage. A stream is running in the ravine along the side of the house, water rushing through the culvert part way down the drive.........Bailey is fascinated with all that rushing water and doesn't seem to care that we, as in me or Sam, get drenched out on these walks.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

This and that......

Yes, this is a terrible photo but I'm way too tired to walk down those steps to my studio space one more time today to get another one.  I went to the Hugo Ladies Quilt Show on Friday and bought raffle tickets - I won this 4 piece rolling sewing machine case. It has a long handle on it like a suitcase. I was so excited. I'm not quite sure how you fit a sewing machine in it and then get the 3 small cases back in but I'll worry about that if I ever need to take my machine to a workshop/class. I can see many uses for this when traveling, but mostly for workshop supplies or just to tote around my knitting, drop spindles and such for heading to the coast and back. This would even work great for an overnight bag.

Family visiting from MD and MT left yesterday morning heading north to Uncle Tony's, put the beach cottage back together yesterday before heading home, now working on putting this house back together. I did teach my two aunts how to ice dye, they each dyed 3 scarves while here. It was a very fun visit with everyone. I'm very anxious to get back to the loom - been away from it for too long. I've got some holiday gifts to make and our holiday cards - I must focus and get to work.........



Thursday, October 6, 2016

Phew.....finally a bit of weaving

I have been so busy lately but not being creative, just doing the mundane, and also getting ready for family from Maryland and Montana coming to visit.......who should be here within the hour.  I did get to sneak into the studio a bit earlier this week to get 2 of the 3 black chenille shawls woven.........I won't get back to that warp until after family leaves.

I was doing the happy dance in the wee hours last Saturday night - we had rain, a nice steady rain. And then again the next night and 2 days since then, just light rain here and there. It's now sunny again heading into the weekend which is great for Art Along the Rogue which is an outdoor chalk festival here in town. Also tomorrow starts the Hugo Ladies Quilt Show, much of it is also outside. It's still fire season here until we get more rain but this was a start.

To all those on the east coast I'm sending good thoughts your way with this hurricane barreling down on the area. We have family in Indian Harbour Beach not far from Cape Canaveral - s-i-l is already in Orlando at a conference, hoping b-i-l heeds the warning and heads inland, as of this morning we heard he was planning on sticking it out. They are on a barrier island and once that bridge is closed there will be no getting out. I also have family more to the west I'm hoping will be safe as she's not near the coast.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

The Lounge Singer


Tonight was date night, which was a community concert evening. Generally the concerts are phenomenal, as in I can't believe this entertainment has come to this small southern Oregon town. Over the years there have only been a couple that we really didn't enjoy. Tonight's was not the worst but it wasn't our favorite either.  During the entire show I was thinking back to a time, 41 years ago, when I dated the manager, if it could be called dating, and it was for a very short time as I was young and fickle, of W. Bell & Co, a catalog store with high end jewels and loose gems whose regular customers included many rich foreign dignitaries from the embassies in DC. I was a cashier on weekends and evenings as this was my still in college gig - it was a very fun place to work as a college student and had great side benefits since I was dating the man in charge. Yes, I'm not proud of it but I was young and I was having fun.......and free food and drinks ranked up there as a big score for a college student. But I digress - back to the community concert.  One song into the show and I was thinking back to that time when my manager would take me out for dinner and drinks after work to a local hotel's smoky dark lounge complete with a lounge singer. Yes, tonight's entertainment could have been sent back in time to that lounge..........maybe they were one of the groups performing 41 years ago in that hotel in Rockville. I liked many of the songs this evening but not sung by this 'lounge singer' - they all ended up sounding the same. So, I was dying to tell my husband that I considered this lounge music and the story of my hotel lounge days but there was no intermission - I started panicking, was the show going to go on for hours, it didn't seem as if it would ever end. But finally end it did and as soon as we walked out the door, well not quite that soon as the entertainment also comes out that door heading to the front lobby with hopes of selling their CD's, I couldn't stop talking about the 'lounge' singer...........funny thing was that he was thinking the exact same thing during the show.  Of course as I mentioned my lounge days being 41 years ago I stopped dead in my tracks.......how could that have happened 41 years ago, I only feel like I'm in my 40's now.......

So, here's the interesting thing. I was at that same hotel lounge 7 years later (I hadn't been there in at least 6 years) and so was my husband, although we hadn't yet met at that time. Only there were no lounge singers at that point, no smoky dark lounge - it was a rocking dance club by then. I went there often with a friend to listen to a band she knew and dance the night away (made for havoc having to be at work early in the morning). One particular night we were there celebrating my birthday and the band surprised me with a cake so I started passing out pieces to all the cute guys. Ah, but I didn't make it to the back of the room where my husband and his friend were sitting so they missed out. But when we met 6 weeks later at a different dance club he remembered that night and the cute young girl passing out birthday cake........who never made it back to their table. But I guess we were meant to meet when we did as we haven't been apart since...........and that must only have been a short time ago as I can't be possibly be that old.........


Friday, September 30, 2016

Yum....preparing for family

I'm trying to get ready for family arriving the middle of next week, cleaning house (argh), baking ahead of time, and thinking on menus. It's a little overwhelming for some reason, probably because I'm overcommitted as usual, but I'm plodding along. The other day I baked some muffins to put in the freezer. You see, I don't cook breakfast so everyone is on their own. Muffins, bagels with fixings, cereal, fruit........I will make oatmeal though as it's a staple in this house.

These are two of my favorite muffins to bake. Blueberry Streusel Muffins, these made with berries we picked this summer and froze. Here's the recipe.  Banana Nut Muffins with Oatmeal Streusel, mine are minus the nuts as I like to eat nuts on their own but don't want them mixed in with my baked goods or ice cream......yes, I suppose that's strange. Here's the recipe for these.  It killed me not to sample but straight to the freezer these went.

I'm trying to decide if my pumpkin streusel cake would freeze well. I know my lemon blueberry bread will so I'll bake some of that up in the next few days.



Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Close-out Sale

I'm having a close-out sale on felting/spinning kits in my etsy shop. I'm no longer going to be making these up and am ready to move them on out of the studio.

This kit is regularly $22.00 - it's now on sale for $17.00


These kits are usually $28.00 - they're on close-out sale for $22.00

Click HERE to purchase