Grey Sunday

I'm just about to go and sit with my knitting for one hour and then on to the cotton.  I am determined to get this cotton done and off the wheel by tomorrow evening.  Outside the temperatures have dipped to -27 degrees. It has been snowing for two days though you can't really see any accumulations. It is very fine snow but it is blowing too and that makes for an eerie day. The wind is howling around the house and I keep watching to see if Fanny is going to drop her lambs. I hope she doesn't because it would not be good for her wee lambs to have to suffer this cold and wind chill.  But she is due at any time so we wait and hope the the temps warm up soon.  I took pictures of the snow but it just doesn't do the weather justice.  You can't take pictures of wind and cold and that is as much of what is making this morning so blah.  While I'm glad we are still getting snow, (mostly because we need the snow pack to help restore the water table after the last few years of draught), I am sorry to see it so cold.... I just wish it was a little warmer like -4 degrees C. Doesn't this look brrrr....

It makes my nose cold just looking at it.

I think I'll go listen to CBC radio and have some tea and knit on a scarf for a while... before I spin cotton. See ya... and I hope your Sunday is milder than mine.

Getting In Touch With My Inner Pink 2

I'm thinking that after all this is not so bad... at least it is not Barbie Pink. Yuck! Tomorrow I may feel like puking but for today I'm ok with it. I think I'll try snuggling socks next.

In Touch With My Inner Pink

I'm not sure how long this will last... it's pink.... and pastel too! Eeew! It's like snuggling with socks... weird!

Friday... How Did That Freaking Happen????

Ok so the week has passed and I find myself at the end of the week with nothing done. I spun cotton yesterday and as it always seems with fine spinning you can spin forever and never really see what you've done. I wanted to get the cotton off my wheel before I started working on the flax... but I wanted to get flax done and Lopi finished before the end of Feb. I have a friend coming for lunch today and spend the afternoon spinning.   I will spin cotton since I can do that without really thinking but tomorrow I have to work on the flax and get that done then Monday I can work on the Lopi and try to finish that then I will be on schedule... hmmm... we'll see!

It has warmed up to a balmy -13 degrees which is quite cold for the end of February... usually by now we are getting the scattered day of warmth... but not this year so it seems. Mind you if the extra cold means that the snow last longer and more moisture in the end I'm all for that since it will mean a better year for hay.  Still it is gusty out there and so Queen and her lamb languor in the birthing shed with the hopes that when Fanny is ready to drop her babies (Fanny always gives twins) the temperatures will warm slightly.

I went to Knit Night last night and we are sorry to know that one of our knitters will be leaving us permanently.  She hasn't been coming very often this year due to her job taking her away to travel but it looks like she will be transferred... so our little Knit group is starting to drop away. Last year I lost my spinning group here in HH with the loss of Anita and then two other member moving away it left only three people and myself. two were not really steady spinners and weavers anyway so our group just fell apart. I've been so busy that I decided to give it a year and then maybe next fall I will actively seek spinners again for our group. This is one of the side affects of living in a small town. Groups can go from very active to dead overnight. It all depends on whose moving and whose ill and whose not around any longer.  I just continue to spin and weave and knit... it's what I do.... it's who I am...

So about a couple of hours from now I have this friend coming so I should go have a shower since my hair looks like a chicken's arse.  See....

 
Now that would scare anyone....

Relieved

For two days I've been waiting... and hoping.  Our friends that are in New Zealand were not hurt. I finally heard from them this morning. They were almost in the thick of things and their house shook for about 20 seconds but their friend's house was hit and they have been helping to shovel the debris from the streets. I am so glad to know that they are alright. My friend says that the devastation is terrible and there are still bodies coming out of the fallen buildings all over the place.  I'm sure things will never be the same there...We look forward to seeing our friends here in Canada when they come back in May.

I have had a two day break from spinning and have been decadently going back to bed so I guess it is time to stop that goofing off and get back to work... cotton today but then I've just gotten line flax in the mail so that will be my next group of questions to attack. It is great that Teapot brought home a nice printer the other day and it prints stuff like zoom. So quick and efficient. I'm really happy with it.

So a short post today... we'll see you all bye and bye... (now that's a Newfy saying)!

Photos From The Blueberry

MW prepping for a walk in the excruciating cold.

LW picking wool for the drum carder.

MA is working on her spinning.

RG who sat next to me and kept me cracking up looks oh so serious here but is anything but serious.

NC working on an Inkle loom with very pretty purple Inkle bands.

FE and MW chatting while they spin.

MF is spinning mohair and it looks awesome.

KK who is one of our youngest and newest spinners.

I was always the first up in the morning so I would go around and have a good look at everyone's stuff.

Then I would watch the sun rise through the window as I spun... it was very peaceful.

We prepped skeins of wool for dyeing

 

Then we mixed dye.

We laughed a little.

And some of us laughed a lot.

Here are my dye results which was an  experiment with commercial yarn to see if I could get the colours that I want... I like this.

Here are some of my Lopi samples... I also spun flax.

When I laid it all out at home this is what I had.... I'm very happy.

Chill Man!

Chill is an odd word.... but it is most suitable for mt life these days... for several reasons. One time chill meant something like a cold. If you caught a chill then you were sick with a sore throat or a cold.... this happily does NOT apply to me right now. However there is a new meaning for the word chill which does apply to me. Chill can refer, of course to the temperature of the air... and recently around me chill has been the best word to describe it. It has been cold... really cold. Next the word chill can refer to calm down and take it easy and this more importantly refers to me. I need to chill.... seriously I do. So here's what's happening that makes me need to chill

I just heard about the earthquake in New Zealand... we have friends down there who are visiting their daughter and son-in-law.... I just hope all is well with them.  I have been looking at the pictures coming out of there and it makes me really worry. Our friends are enjoying their first grandchild and have spent the winter there for the last few years. They had emailed us with information about the house they are renting and Teapot has that information so we are trying to find out information about where they are and how the earthquake would have affected them. But as in any state of emergency it is very difficult to get information from specific friends due to power outages etc... but I have sent an email to our friends and hope to hear from them soon. I'm trying to chill.

Next reason to chill... I have been reading the blogs of friends and internet friends and have discovered that one of my intructors in the MSP was turned back at the border when she tried to enter the states to teach the MSP there. I was sorry to hear it since I think that these programs are  really good for any spinner and when I see people not allowed to teach for rather dubious reasons it feels like the most powerful and forward countries in the world has been derailed. Sad day indeed for Canada and the US. My instructor has been chillin' in Vancouver for a few days and while it is a big disappointment not to be able to fulfill her obligations I think she's doing the right thing keeping her wits around her and her head screwed on straight. The US border guards get really weird about teaching in the US... Visa's and all that are a little weird when it is just a few day workshop...

Next... we have our first new born lamb of the year. Queen my old pure blood merino gave birth on the coldest day of February. Thursday night while spinning a lovely Lopi yarn my phone blipped and there was a picture of a new white lamb in the barn. It was a whopping -27 degrees with a windchill of -34 degrees... (where I was it was -35 with a wind chill of -43 degrees). It is a lovely sweet female lamb and she's white.... and I want to keep her. Her name is Dewdrop. She's named after her dad who quite frankly surprised us when his ball did drop quite unexpectedly after making us believe for a full year that he was a whether and not a ram...  but ram he is... and lamb he has given us... So Dewdrop is chillin' in a shed with a heat lamp so that she's not chillin' too much.

The retreat.... one word.... outofthisworld!  Ok so I know that's not really one word but awesome just didn't cut it. It was a blast. Totally needed, in order to make February pass away quickly. The weather was cold.... like ohmygodit'sfreakingCOLD! But we persevered and enjoyed our time all the same. But while the weather was cold it meant that once again we were chillin'. When we arrived, the building had not been heated and so we were waiting for the building to warm, it was chilly and so were we in short order. But some of the rooms had heaters and we turned those on upstairs to warm our bedrooms so that we weren't too chilly at night. By the next morning the building was very obviously warming up, which made us all happy. I accomplished a lot but came away feeling like I got nothing done. Why? I don't know.... maybe I laughed too much. But in the end it was a great few days. I started out working on a flax sample then I did several Lopi sample with Icelandic wool and then with merino and mohair... then Saturday was spent teaching percentage dyeing and then finally I spun cotton... it all went well. The only thing is that I can't show my pics because Teapot has the camera with him today and I haven't had a chance to remove them from the camera and put them here. I got home on Sunday and am already looking forward to the next retreat.... but there's lots to do before that. I will post pics later.

Yesterday was a long day as I had to drive Mudder to DC for an appointment with a denturist... it snowed... I hate driving in snow. So today I'm having a chillin' day.... very relaxed. no spinning just a day to put my feet up.... a little laundry... a little cooking and a whole lot of unpacking and wrapping my brain around all that happened. 

See ya later and watch for those pics.....