A Little Gift

My guild is sister guild to the Pembrokeshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers. Every alternate year we choose something and everybody in our guild makes that item as a Christmas gift for the members of their guild. I know that is confusing but they do the same thing for us.  My last gift was a bag for my tools which I hang on my spinning wheel.  This year is our guild's turn to make and send a gift to them. We chose distaff bags that are used when spindling. It is a small bag that hangs off your wrist and you put fibre in it and then hold then end of the fibre between your fingers as you spin on your drop or support spindle. They are great handy little things because it keeps your fibre source from getting tangled in the fibre that you are actually spinning.

We have known that we needed to make these since last winter but as usual I put it out of my mind with the thought that I had lots of time to make a few. Our due date was the third week of September and we needed to make more than one each since their guild is larger than ours. So in a mad panic at the beginning of September I rushed to make a few. My first one was woven and I wasn't really happy with it. So instead of carrying on with woven distaff bags I decided to try felting one. The orange one was my first one.

I took a chunk of roving and wrapped it around my hand and with a felting needle started to felt it slightly. (Yes, I did poke my finger quite a few times, thank you very much). Once I had it so that it would hold together, I took another chunk of roving and pushed it down into the bottom... then I felted that with the felting needle.  I then patched any holes that there were and thickened up any thin areas with small amounts of roving.

After I was finished with needle felting so that it would all hold together. I got a tennis ball and covered it with Seran Wrap, and poked the ball down in the bag. I then sewed the top closed with a needle and thread, and submerged the whole thing in hot soapy water. Then I put the thing in the dryer for about 45 minutes. When it came out it was a well felted ball. I removed the thread from the mouth of the bag and trimmed the top of the bag to make it more even and less ragged looking. Then I stretched the neck of the bag to get the tennis ball out and turned the whole bag inside out.  Then I picked from my stash of hand spun yarns a yarn that was close in colour to the bag and chose some embellishments to decorate it. The yarn was twisted into a cable to make the handle and then was sewn on to the bag.

I made the green one at the same time as the orange one and then they sat there.  A couple of weekends ago, when we were supposed to bring them to the guild, I had forgotten mine at home. There were 27 little distaff bags to be shown that day which wasn't near enough for the Pembrokeshire Guild as they have well over 40 members.  I came home and thought about the ugly woven bag I had made early on. It just wasn't good enough to send but I needed more than the two that I had originally made. So two days ago I got at it, and made the blue one and the white one.

The orange one is Merino and silk felted, with autumn leaves as embellishments. The green one is Merino and silk also felted with a white woolly handle and sheep buttons as embellishments. The white one is plain wool and I'm not sure what kind, with gold cherubs and hearts, and roses as embellishments. The blue one is Corriedale, and Mohair and silk blended with the same in the handle and a ships wheel, an anchor, and a lighthouse as embellishments.

Teapot took all four of them and headed off to FSJ today and will get them to the person who is going to wrap them and prep them for their overseas trip.  I was very pleased that they turned out so nicely..... as a matter of a fact, I liked them so much that I think I'm going to make a couple for myself.

Sorry the picture is not brighter.....

See ya....

What A View

Northern Lights Over Prelude Lake, Nunavut

Thundery sky over Spain.

Every few days I check all my favorite blogs and websites.  A few years ago a friend led me to APOTD.

I just love that site.... if you can't find anything to read or see on the internet that one will always have something cool...

I can't imagine anything more awesome than the sky.....

These two pictures from APOTD are a celebration of what I like best about that site.....

Cool eh?!!!!

Eye Opener

Now here's a scary thought. Today is the 26th of September..... 3 months from now we will have had our turkey and the gifts will be opened..... it will be boxing day. Gak! There's only 6 paychecks till Christmas. (Argh!)

Indian Summer

With the leaves mostly gone from the trees, I think everyone is starting to prepare for winter. Already one flu has swept through most of this family. Daughter #1 got it first, then moi, now Daughter #2 is looking like she is the next one since she is going off to school with congestion and a sore throat. Teapot for some reason seems to be able to fight it.... so far.

Our yard looks odd with 1400 lb bales of hay standing sentinel. Teapot is heading off for a sleep over with the JCRs this evening and will be taking Daughter #1. They will be sleeping in tents and doing the usual challenge course where they repel, climb trees using arms only and 6 inch pegs, shoot, cross over a small pond using a rope and nothing else, hit specific targets with balls, tight rope walk across an 8 ft span, and other fun things too. They have lovely weather for it since in the last few days the weather has turned soft again. Indian summer...

It is a perfect time to take advantage of natural dyeing.... while my back is not better (not by any stretch of the imagination) it is good enough to be getting around a little more. I can move around the kitchen for a few short minutes before I have to go and sit down again. With my back feeling a little better, I am hoping that today I can do a little logwood dyeing. I have been planning a project for quite some time using Gems Fingering Weight Yarn by Louet. I will be using it and dyeing 25 shades of Logwood which was a question that I did in my level 3 course, only I did it with Madder.... I'm sure you remember those pictures of the vest I made with the dyed skeins.... So today will make a good day to do that... if I can get my back to cooperate. I can't imagine letting this lovely fall weather pass without taking advantage of it and doing something special.

The few leaves that are left on the trees are gently rustling in a small breeze.... the autumn day is calling...

Creativity

What a sunrise this morning. This is what I see as I sit here writing.  This is the kind of view that would inspire anyone.... and of course, the picture is nothing to the real thing.  It looks like the whole sky is on fire. I've never seen such an intense orange. Awesome!


Daughter #2 has been taking Art class this year, which for our school is great. Because our school is so small, there are not so many electives that they are able to offer. Mostly they offer the core classes that are needed for kids to go on to further their education. Electives are a luxury.  This year Daughter #2 is able to take Art class.... when she came home the first week I asked her how it was going and she was quite dismayed that they were drawing squiggles. So I told her that she needed to draw the best squiggles that she could and to put some imagination into her squiggles. But I had to admit that it wasn't the best start for Art class. Daughter #2 is very artistic. She has been drawing since she was 4 years old and by the time she was 6 she was able to draw a pretty good rendition of my spinning wheel.... my saxony.... By the time she was 10 she was drawing very recognizable portraits.... by the time she was 12 she was drawing monsters and relatively scary creatures as well as other magical creatures. Her ability to draw from her imagination is awesome. She's way better than I was at that age... and then last spring she won an award for art and creativity in school. I missed her getting it because I was in Olds. Still, I was very proud of her.

But as I was saying... squiggles... were not what she was hoping for from an Art class.  High school you see, in a small town does not always have teachers with the right credentials to teach the electives.... so they make do.  I have more artistic know-how in my big toe than does the art teacher.... but they have curriculum.... This week was better for Daughter #2. She came home yesterday afternoon with a smile on her face.... "guess what Mom, we have to draw monsters and give them a personality!"  Well considering that she has been drawing monsters for two years, this was great. She has drawn some acid spewing, bat winged, fanged, weird thing..... and she is in her hay day!  I wish she was drawing portraits..... but then monsters are not my thing.... but she's in to it... ever since she watched Lord Of The Rings. (She liked the Ents too.) But obviously she's enjoying Art a little more.

It's funny how creativity is different for everyone. One person's idea of a creative outlet is different for someone else. Daughter #2 is into monsters and magical/mythical beings... I love to paint and draw birds, flowers and trees. Daughter #1 likes to draw squiggles and small repetitive patterns. Teapot couldn't be bothered to create anything.... he's quite content with his world the way it is. (Though he does like to photograph the world around him.)  As a matter of a fact, he hates when I ask him to do anything involving creating something... especially wood. He groans quite often! Mind you he does kind of enjoy tying flies.. for fishing...too.. I guess he does do some create things.

I get such a feeling of accomplishment when I finish creating something. I feel tickled when I finish a poem, or when I have a yarn that's just plain awesome.. or if I finish a painting and look at it with pride.

That's why I look at a sunrise like the one I viewed this morning and I simply just have to say Wow!
I'm so glad to live in a world where creativity is such a freeing act. I wish I could be God.... just for an hour and create something like a sunrise....

Pat on the back?!!!... yeah you bet...

Makes my wool look like crap.....

Hay Day

5 bales in and more on the way. All that worry during the summer and here we are almost ready for winter with a good supply of hay arriving Tomorrow will see the rest of the hay arrive.

Ipwitch the non-ram has been enjoying getting his jollies off with the old ewe who suffered a nasty case of fly strike last spring. I really didn't mean for her to be bred.... she's really too old... but then I'm not sure she is since Ipwitch, we're pretty sure, doesn't have the equipment to enjoy her hind quarters even though he is trying..... although I have to admit that I've never seen a non-ram lift the skirts of a femme fetale and have at her. We bought Ipwitch as a ram and then Teapot discovered that he didn't have the equipment to do the job... we contacted the breeder and told her she had sold us a dud... she gave us another ram to replace Ipwitch, but now we're wondering if Ipwitch was hiding his equipment when we flipped him on his butt for a looksee... We were going to slaughter both of those sheep.... now we may have to keep them. I don't want to slaughter a sheep that might have a lamb. And I don't want to slaughter a perfectly good ram. Sheep! argh!!

The horse will soon be heading back to the arena where we board her for the winter, that way Daughter #1 can ride after school in the arena which is heated. The horse will also have shelter which she wouldn't have here... we didn't build her a barn when we built her the paddock she is in.

It is funny how we set goals for ourselves here on the farm but they never seem to be met. Teapot intended on putting in the new steps to our veranda on the front of the house. But that didn't happen. He thought he would get the roof on the electrical shed.... but that didn't happen, he thought he would finish the fencing for the three new paddocks.... and only one paddock got finished... the other two are only partially done.  But then I have to wonder what we did all summer long. I was going to help him when he got to the work on the roof but he never got to it so I couldn't help him.... and I sure couldn't do it myself.

So with September winding down and summer at an end.... with freezing temperatures starting to set in... well.... we will have to wait for next summer to get some more of these jobs done.

I have finished the level 3 homework and it has gone in the mail.  I have paid the marking fee and now I wait. I have been looking at my level 4 books and starting to think about what is next.  For level 4 I will be starting to spin more exotic fibres.  Bison is the first one.  I spun the other night on my charka about 15 gm of bison fibre which turned out nicely except it was underspun in some areas.... so the plied yarn is not satisfactory for a sample for my books. It was all the bison fibre that I had so now I am scouting websites that sell bison roving.... if you know of a source then please by all means do leave the contact info. in the comments.

Well 6:30 has come and gone and Teapot has unloaded the hay so I had better go too....

I'm really hoping my back will be a little better today....

Wee Kitty

For the last week I've had a wee kitty living here. Teapot was out doing stuff in the yard for the end of summer... you know putting away chairs and fixing up the deck so that there were no flower pots to freeze etc.. he happened to go out to the road where he had left our garbage bin for the garbage man to pick up, and while he was out there he noticed a wee grey kitty all alone on the side of the road. Not wanting to leave it for owl fodder he brought it into the house.

Unfortunately, I am allergic to cats.... not all cats, just to the females. People always look at me funny when I say that. But ever since Teapot and I have been married we have had a male cat as part of our family. Never a female. I don't know how we figured out that I was allergic to females only... I think we just figured it out.

Teapot, as a child always had cats in his home and it didn't take me very long to realize that every time I went to his parent's home I would have a severe allergic reaction... Eyes watering and sinus congestion and so forth... to the point that I was miserable no matter how hard Teapot's mom would clean... I felt really bad that she would work so hard to make her home livable for me and still I would have a horrible reaction.  Teapot missed having cats around and I think he really felt that he was a cat person more than a dog person.

When we moved to Ontario first when we were married, there was a great orange cat who followed us home one day.... (actually it followed our dog ,, but that is a really long story). We started feeding the cat out doors and it would come to our home regularly for food. Winter came and the temperatures would be oh so cold and I started to feel sorry for the poor thing.... I would let it in to feed it and then let it back out again. Well soon it was in all the time.... except at night.... I definitely couldn't do a litter so he was pretty good about letting us know when he needed to go out to do his business.  He lived with us for 6 years until we moved to BC.... then he disappeared.

By this time we had children and they were devastated when the cat went missing especially Daughter #1 who adores cats. So we got another cat.... but we made sure it was a male. also, by this time, I knew that I could handle having a male cat around me for limited amounts of time and with limited handling.
Females still posed a problem.

Our second cat was white and went by the name of Mister O'Malley.  Mister O'Malley didn't last long since he got sick and bloated and died withing a day of us realizing that there was something wrong. We decided to wait a while but it wasn't long before our big black cat Midnight came along when Teapot was talking to a lady in town who was looking for homes for kittens. He's black and he's short haired and he is still with us after ten long years. I do not have a problem with him.  Then two years ago came along Oozle the cat.... also known as Pinecone.... he disappeared last month and we were all really upset that he disappeared.... we think we know what happened to him though.

Lately, we have been seeing a great grey owl hanging around, and then Teapot discovered that there is a nest of grey owls in a copse of trees not far from our house.  We have seen owls and eagles lift full grown cats off the ground and then let go in order to kill the cats. Then they lift them up and take them to their young to be eaten.... it is a horrible sight. We think Pinecone/Oozle departed this world via the owls.

Now that I have told you the long rambling story of our cats, I'll get back to telling you about what I started to tell you all about..... so Teapot brings home the stray kitty.... Of course the first thing we did was put out a public service announcement to our community, to let people know we had found a wee grey kitty and that if someone had lost their cat they could come pick it up whenever they wanted. This got no response... zip... zero... nadda!

It is a female so we cannot keep it. Already she has made my eyes water. Daughter #1 is upset that she can't keep the wee thing but she has asked her best friend to take the kitten... (she lost her cat a year ago). The problem is that her friend is away for the next week and so we won't know if she can take the kitten for another while yet.... and so we take care of the kitten while I try not to have reactions and Daughter #1 and #2 and Teapot (and if truth be told, me too) grows fonder and fonder of the little wee cutie. She is a very nice natured cat and she's already got the dogs liking her......  it's hard not to like her.

But she has to go....

I hate dilemmas.....