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!

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!

Fabulous O.F.F.F. Weekend!

O.F.F.F. was absolutely wonderful! I think is was the best one yet for me. I haven't been to many, only 4, or is it 5, well no matter, it was just perfect! On the way in I had to stop on our road and take this shot. Isn't that just cool how the fog has stayed right at the tree line?

Friday's plying class with Ruth was really cool (she owns The Dizzy Ewe) I really learned a lot, thanks Ruth!!! I was also her wheels while she was here too, what an added bonus spending that extra time with her!

The machine knitting class was taught by Judy Sours. Judy was fabulous! She brought some things that she did on her machine(s), all I can say is WOW. What an eye opener! I have 3 knitting machines and just now learning what amazing things that can do with them. I will need a new sponge bar for each one but once that's done I'm ready to go. I can't wait, I have more wheels turning on what I am going to make first.

I also was a helper for my friend Debbie. She taught 2 beginning spinning classes that were filled with eager learners. Everyone left her class spinning and wanting more! She is a great teacher. Then I was my friend Loyce's helper--she is the Chairperson of the Education Committee for O.F.F.F. and what ever she needs me to do, I do! Loyce also taught this year, she is so talented. She is an incredible felter, the things she makes with felt are so cool! She also makes lampwork stitch markers and then there is her spinning, knitting & crocheting. A very cool gal!!

O.F.F.F .this year was packed! I remember last year had a lot of people but this year I think there was more. I know there was more vendors! So many cool things to look at and touch! Here are a few shots of the lawn area

Speaking of vendors, I got to meet Lisa Souza from Lisa Souza Knitwear and Dyeworks. I have read her blog for a long now and loved her work. Meeting her was a great highlight for me. Here is Lisa in her booth. And speaking of great work, here are the goodies I could not live without.

The left one is superwash in Evan-Glade colorway; the right is Blue Face Leicester in Deep Sea colorway. Aren't they just beautiful! What about the yarn & needles magnet! That goes on Benni (my Jetta).

Here is some goodies I picked up. Some roving from Dicentra Designs, superwash & Blue Face Leicester both in her Picnic colorway.

Then there's some natural greys of Wensleydale from Bellwether Wool Company.

I also found some old knitting machine magazines, very cool score! There are 35 total Knit King magazines, ranging from 1972 thru 1978. And there are a total of 34 total Alle's Knitting Machine News, ranging from 1976 thru 1979 along with a few odds and ends.

And last the 'Parking Lot Fleece Sale'!

I found some beautiful black Romney lamb & creamy Coopworth cross. They were both dropped off at my processor and I'll have them back in a month or two, washed and ready to spin.

And that was this year's Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival. I had a fabulous time, looking forward to next year and what goodies will be waiting for me.

Father's Day in Ashland

It was a wonderful Father's Day weekend. D~ was treated to a weekend in Ashland with a play and everything. He had never been to a play down there so it was great to see his face afterwards. He really liked it, even d~ liked it, sunburn and all. We all had a great time. I have always loved Ashland, that is why I went to college at Southern Oregon State College, they now call it Southern Oregon University. Here are some pictures of our weekend.





Here is the Green Show. This is a show that they do before the play at night.



We saw The Comedy of Errors. It was set in the wild west era and so funny. We really enjoyed it!

Here are my boys just before the play.

Here is a picture of the 'Mall'.

This is a very cool jungle gym, for lack of a better term for it anyway, it was made out of nylon rope that have been twisted together. There was I bet 10 separate ropes, or more, twisted together.

This is where my good friend from college, Kris, works. This is a great shop! It's got everything for the fiber junkie!

It's official, I made another lap around the sun.

Ya, I'm 1 year older--ugh. I'm still trying to figure out what 30 is suppose to feel like and now I'm way over 40. I had a great weekend with my boys though. D~ took me to a fabulous little beach house in our favorite town at the beach called Manzanita. This was a very small house, 2 story and quite narrow but perfect for us.
d~ was going to go on a camp out of his own but he had come down with a cold with a real rough cough so he went with us. We all had down time, I knitted by the window and read 'A Good Yarn', D~ read his latest book and d~ was able to play on the laptop or lay on his bed at watch some movies. We even had Sandy the dog with us.

The one very cool thing about this house was the sitting area. Look at the view we had!

Can you see me knitting those socks [still!]? I wanted to finish them over the weekend but didn't make it--I had to frog about an inch or so. Isn't that the best view of the ocean? There is the street right in front of the house, but you can't see it unless you stand up and look down.

Manzanita is a small town with the best pizza spot and a coffee/donut shop within an easy walk. It is a little touristy but not bad at all, they had a yarn shop but it's gone. Just up the road is Cannon Beach and they have a great yarn shop call Coastal Yarns. I picked up some great sock yarn [of course I don't have them with me so I can't tell you what they are] and a collection of sock patterns in The Little Box of Socks.

Here is a picture of the whole beach from Neahkahnie Mountain, miles of beach!

All in all it was a great weekend!