Getting caught up with time

Well, 6 months after my last post I lost my big brother.

 
What a blow.  I went thru several months of hell but I became the estate's personal rep.  I had no idea the amount of stress this was going bring.  Knowing he is now with our Dad that eases my heart a little.  Rest is Peace Big Guy, you are missed

So now here we are, 1/2 way thru 2014, Black Sheep Gathering was last weekend.  It was great, I got some good down time.  Got some beautiful fleeces too.  The highlight of the trip was watching Judith judge the fleeces.  She is great, 2 days of judging and 2 days of gleaning more knowledge!

It was so great to see friends I only see at the fiber shows.  I was able to give Morgaine and Lann a hand in setting up their booth, what fun!  They gave me an Ashford Flicker for helping, so very generous, I do love to help, it's always fun!

Update on D~ and d~.  D~ now manages the farm for Mom and d~ is a senior!  Where did the time go? 

Really great news!! Book 8 of the Outlander series came out last week!!!  It is call 'Written in My Own Hearts Blood'.  This series of books are outstanding!  I recommend them all the time.

I really hope to keep up ridge happenings, more frequently than every 3 years.

Peace to all.

The Wheel of My Dreams Comes Home!

Here She is!!! She came home last Friday. Betty's craftsmanship is incredible! This is the most beautiful wheel I have ever seen.

I wanted to get right to spinning on her but after a whole weekend of cleaning out the garage I couldn't even lift my foot to treadle.

I will let you feast your eyes on her with these pictures --- I'll have more!! I will be spinning on her before the week is out!!!

The Spinnng Wheel Of My Dreams!

My friend Betty is a brilliant wood worker and she is making me a gorgeous spinning wheel! I could never have dreamed I would ever own one like this. Here are some pictures of it, work in progress. I can't wait to spin on it! This fabulous spinning wheel is made of walnut and birds-eye maple. The source of the walnut was from my family's farm.

The detail is incredible, carving on the table, lattice work on the wheel.

And beautiful ivory detail.

It is so gorgeous!

Here is the wheel itself. The center is birds-eye maple and bone. Look at that the inlaid mother of pearl too! Would you believe that the wheel is one piece!!


I absolutely love this spinning wheel. I can not wait to spin on it.

Washing the fiber!

June was the month I purchased the fiber and July was the month I washed it all. Now it's August! Carding will be happening this weekend--weather permitting of course and it looks like it will.

Here's my method of washing fleeces:

It's a little unusual, I use a cooler. My friend Debbie turned me on to this trick! To start off I have 3 coolers, 1 normal sized and 2 really big. I can usually wash 2 or more fleeces (depending of their size) at a time.

I fill the cooler I'm going to use with hot water and a few squirts of soap (I use 5 Star Soap). Then I place a portion of the fleece (about the size of a gallon jug or slightly larger) into a large mesh laundry bag,
then soak it down with hot water.

You would not believe how much dirt comes out just by doing this first.

Now that I have it good and soaked, I place it in the cooler and close the lid!

After 2 days or so, if the weather is hot I can leave it an extra day or 2 and I open it up and find? Dirty icky water.


I pull out the mesh bags and rinse again with hot water for a few minutes while the cooler drains. Give the cooler a really good rinse and start to fill it up again, this time with just hot water.

Depending on how the dirty the fleece is depends on how many soapy soaks I do. On average I will do 2 soapy soaks. I always follow a soapy soak with a minimum of 2 rinse (hot water only) soaks.

By using the coolers, it really frees my up my time to do other chores I have on the ridge.

I do have to tell you that I'm very spoiled! I have a hot water faucet right off the front porch that makes this whole operation SO much easier.

As for what I've been knitting. Well I finished the baby set!
Currently I've been knitting socks . I have 2 different ones on the needles, this one is for D~. (I don't have a picture of mine though).

Hope everyone has a great rest of their week!

Fiber June!!!

This month has been full of fiber goodies!! In the beginning of the month I was in Seattle with my sister-in-law Bren! We had a fabulous time. Friday we made sushi with our friend Roxanne and did a trip to 1/2 Price Books. Saturday was a trip to Weaving Works, the town of Snohomish, some killer Thai food from Jai Thai then we watched the movie Dear John (a real chick flick, tears and all).

My Weaving Works haul!
(there is some sock yarn in there that will be a pair of socks for my sis-in-law!)

Here is the tea cup I picked up in Snohomish. There is a great Tea Shop there called Everything Tea. Great place. [I also picked up some delicious tea]


Next on the calendar was Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene. What a show! D~ and I drove down Saturday morning and stopped at The Hole in the Wall BBQ Restaurant to picked up lunch for our friend Loyce. She is a marvelous felter and teacher. She was teaching an all day class so we wanted to make sure she had lunch waiting for her when she had her noon break. We brought brisket, chicken, ribs and all the sides! Sorry no pictures of the food. Sure smelled good though!

Here is what we brought home from BSG.

Isn't this drop spindle cute! It is a Jenkins turkish drop spindle. They call this little beauty Kuchulu.


Now these fleeces, this was the first time I have even been to the BSG fleece sale. I have to tell you I have a wonderful husband. D~ found these wonderful fleeces. What a great enabler!!

Here is Fleece #1, a medium gray kid mohair, it won First Place and Champion!
It is SO soft, I see a shawl in the future. [Weight: 2.5#]


Here is Fleece #2: This is a light gray Romney. [weight: 8.9#]


Here is Fleece #3 This is a medium to light gray Lincoln and it won First Place! [weight: 9#]

When D~ and I where done selecting our fleeces and waiting in line to hand over our hard earned cash. I saw the Knitmore Girls (Jasmin & Gigi). I was feeling guilty about having 3 fleeces when Jasmin told me she had 6! I'm feeling so much better now.

Even though it is only June you can't forget that Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival is coming in September!

And Life Goes On

It's Monday--ugh. Sorry I've been off the grid for a long while. I'm back now, spinning and knitting again and that is what's important.

I had completed this shawl while I was away. It was knit with some alpaca yarn the D~ bought me. Got to love a man who brings home yarn (and fiber)!!!The pattern is La La's Simple Shawl off of Ravelry. Very nice pattern, it's one I'll knit up again. Just so you know I have changed my 'name' on Ravelry. It's now QuailKnits. I thought I needed a little upgrade. I like it.

I also finished up a pair of socks for me but haven't gotten around to photograph them yet, soon though.

I'm spinning for the Beautiful Basket Stitchery Jacket from Jackets for Work and Play The Best of Knitter's Magazine. It is the cover jacket. I purchased this wool from a friend of mine. It is from one of her own flock, a black Romney that she dyed purple, blue & green. It is just beautiful! I have a lot to spin up but it is going to be worth it.

I am knitting another pair of socks for myself but no picture yet.

That's all I'm up to. I am knitting something else but I can't talk about that yet -- it's a gift so you'll have to wait.

Have a fabulous week!

What a way to start the week!!!

This is was I saw as I looked out my kitchen window this morning.

Beautiful double rainbow!

It is going to be a great week!!

Hugs to all!

ROAD TRIP!

I had a road trip last Friday with 2 of my fiber friends Kathy & Debbie (a mother daughter team!). We had a fabulous time too!! We stopped by 2 yarn stores (see below) then a great antique store, though I don't have pictures of that place--sorry.
Then we went on to SOAR (Spin-Off's Autumn Retreat) and we shopped even more! Great fiber goodies made it to the car.

Here is a few shots of the vendors.


It was smaller that I thought it would be but there still was great stuff to be bought.

Here is just one thing I brought home!

Isn't it CUTE! 5 1/2" tall, Turkish Delight Spindle made with purpleheart wood by Jenkins Woodworking. I purchased it from Carolina Homespun of San Francisco (Hello to Morgaine & Lan!). They have great stuff!!! It came to the office with me today, I have this canister that it fits perfectly in along with 2+ ounces of fiber, very portable!

Many months have past

I have to apologize for my absence. So many things have happened. I suppose other than my trip to Europe with my Mom the most notable is that I was diagnosed with cancer in August. I know some jaws will drop over this but please understand that it was a huge blow (how could it not be!) and D~ and I have had to come to grips with it. The long and the short of it is that it was very, very early uterine cancer. I have a hysterectomy 7 weeks ago. I have a wonderful Oncologist (he was the surgeon too), the cancer was confined to the uterus. The lymph nodes were totally clear and he has not recommend any sort of chemo. I am now in to full blow menopause--which has challenges of its own. I am totally healthy and will remain. There is no reason to think that I will have anything else.

I think that was enough to chew on, don't you think?

I'll leave you with a few pictures from my trip to Europe. It was a cruise on the Danube, from Budapest, Hungary to Nuremberg, Germany.

We got snow last week!

Can you believe it? Check these out!





This is the dwarf rhododendron that is blooming. Didn't I say it has been covered in snow before? Hmmm.

Now it is almost March - WOW!!

I have been so bad at keeping this up. I'm sorry. I am going to try very hard to do a better job.

I do have to get you all up to date though. I would like to start off with our first sign that Spring is coming.
This is our dwarf rhododendron. We have even had years when the bush was covered in snow and blooming.

Here are the goodies I made last year.
This is the hat and scarf set I made for my Mother-in-Law Lotus. She lives in Central Oregon and it gets cold there, so she needs to be warm. I am very happy on how this turned out. The wool is natural colored Wenslydale, dark and light grey

This was a 'Montana Scarf' for D~'s Uncle in Montana. Another colder climate so he needed to be warm too! I used the dark grey Wenslydale. This was a very cool scarf to make, turned out great.
This is little iPod sweater I made for new iPod I got for Christmas. Don't want to brag but, all the yarn used was hand spun and the teal I also dyed myself. I'm very proud of that little sweater.
Then I made this tea cozy. I always wanted one so when I finished the little sweater, I made this. A good use of those 2 weeks off. I loved those snow days!

I have never shared any pictures of my trip to France last year. So I thought I would end with a few of my favorites.

A wing of the Louvre seen from the Tuileri Gardens.

Beautiful french backyard.
A Street in Honfleur.
Palace of Versailles.
A very cool house in Honfleur.

How much more this morning?

We have over 2 feet now and we still have power, which is great. I think it snowed all night . I don't think we'll make it in to town this week 'till after Christmas so our Christmas cards won't get out let alone the gifts we have to UPS out. I hope all stay warm and safe.

More Pictures!!

It has now gotten down to the freezing rain. I went down to the barn to feed Cyndi (our 4 hoofer) and almost didn't make it back up the hill. The only mode of transportation is our quad we call Herc. It is beautiful if you don't have to go out in it. We have been snowed in for almost a week and it looks like it will be another week. I do love the idea of a white Christmas though. Before I ramble too much, here are the pictures from storm #3, or is it 4?