the most thankful thursday ever!

i am thankful for the best phone call ever from my surgeon- no cancer!!!!

now i don't need to worry about not seeing my gingersnap grow up!





i am thankful for my wonderful primary care doctor, dr. michelle fiorillo, she is so caring and thorough, and never makes me feel like i am lost in the crowd.

last month i went to see her, ladies if you have any of the signs of an ovarian cyst, or ovarian cancer, which are very similar, please go see your doctor!!!

on monday i went in for my laprascopic surgery, today i got the wonderful news, no cancer!!!



i am thankful for my loving husband, tom, definitely the strong silent 50s type of man.

i am thankful for my children

i am thankful to have the best daughter-in-law in the entire world, natalie has been my rock through all this, and i love her as much as my own children.

i am thankful for my beautuful daughter rebecca, she is my shining star.

i am thankful for my son bart, and so proud of him for serving his country.

i am thankful for my dog shimmo, who gives me more comfort than anyone will ever know.

i am thankful for my knitting, keeping your hands busy is very calming for the soul.

the pattern is basil from the pattern factory.

the yarn is my friend lisa souza's hardtwist merino petite in jellybeanz and vermillion, lisa made a special skein with 50 extra yarns of jellybeanz.

this is the second time i've knit this blanket with exactly the same colors, perfect!

should i be thankful that i am so wacky to do a half-kitchener for the bind-off?


i am thankful that luminen is finished in time for christmas! i hope natalie likes it, the size is perfect.

i am thankful that my friend jessica rose-kim of the fiber gallery could special order the lanaloft in cones, no ends!

happy thursday!

ashley

ashley, oh ashley

every time i look at this lovely ashley, vivian leigh's right there in my head.

what a thing of beauty. mine came in unfinished cherry.



thank you mr. jensen

purchased from colina del carl, wonderful customer service.

for a little info on how i put the finish on the wheel, linky linky. if you aren't on ravelry, why the hell not?

shetland roving, wood nymph colorway from mary jean martin's etsy shop.

after i weighted the roving into 2 bits, i split them for slightly shorter color repeats. and fluffed them into little clouds.

my spinning spot.

one bobbin

second bobbin

on the kate

plied on the robin wheel that i bought from my friend kim :/)
this wheel is bird's eye maple, and i believe it's the 5th robin made.

i lurve the huge bobbins.

skeined on the winder from the woodenspinner's etsy shop.

right after plying, the skein looked overspun.

but after a nice warm shampoo

rinse

conditioning and more rinsing

the skein hangs perfectly.

approx 956 yds, approx 24 wpi.

at rhinebeck, the lady from wild apple hill that we got our wee shetland fleeces from, gave me, hope and jen each a huge lump of scoured black fleece.

i needed the carding practice, so i grabbed the hand cards.

brush brush

like a cat's lick

rolling up the rolag

a huge basketful!

my spinning and knitting assistants, shimmo and rajah.

rebecca and peggy, don't fall into a deep faint because i've posted again before madrona ;/)

rhinebeck, need i say more?

the weekend started with lunch on friday at the cia. my friend hope and i were too late to get a reservation at one of the sit down restaurants, and boy am i glad we were late.



we had lunch at the apple pie bakery cafe, it is nirvana.



we shared the warm goat cheese spinach salad and the braised short-ribs.



i think we liked the short-ribs :-)



maple and chocolat pots de creme, yum! and we took home 2 huge cookies and 2 croissants.



our friend jen joined us friday afternoon, the three of us hung out at the poughkeepsie marriott with a huge group! wee, i got to give everyone a hug in person :-)

the three of us stayed at the poughkeepsie holiday inn express, very nice. hope enjoyed jen's tina II so much that she had to order one for herself.

we had dinner with a whole group of our friends even a couple all the way fron london!

saturday turned out to be a lovely day, here are jen and hope loving the leaves.

sunday morning jen and i took the spinning luxury fibers class along with my friends knitspot anne and kim of the woolen rabbit. if only we could have all sat together.

what you've been waiting for- the haul.

in the back, the cutest little shetland fleece from wild apple hill farm in hudson new york. no web, the email is wildapplehill@aol.com, i'm blaming jen and the wool fumes for this one.

the dark chocolate roving is 65%alpaca/35%lambswool, can't find the card, but it was the booth left of carolina homespun.

a tiny lambskin from freedom farms, exactly what i was looking for. i have the card if anyone would like the phone number, no web.

2 grey coopworth rovings from hatchtown farm , purchased with my longdraw quest in mind.

that adorable spinner's basket was woven by wendy g. jensen . laurie took one of wendy's classes friday, and made the loveliest basket, maybe next year....

now the score; a high speed jensen kit including 3 bobbins and 2 whorls, a jensen tension peg, a cherry mini niddy noddy by someone named schlange, schacht cotton cards, all from the wool room and all half price!!!!!!

my friend kim of the woolen rabbit gave me the silver pot of the wood cream she just whipped up. i can't wait to try it, thanks kim! mwah!

and beth of the spinning loft gave the three of us a spinning oil pen, thanks beth!

doesn't that little basket look right at home on the ashley?

aaah, the lambskin is perfection on the spinning stool.

totally fabulous time!

when there's a will

well, you know the rest.
my bicep tendon is very inflamed, so is the bursa in my left shoulder. and it has calcium deposits.
the good news is the rotator cuff looks fine.

so, i have to keep wearing a sling and ice is my new best friend.

i've been going mad from boredom. no knitting for almost 2 months.

hmmm, usually i spin left hand forward.

how hard would it be to switch to right hand forward, so my poor decrepid left hand could simply lay in my lap and hold the fiber?

so i found the fluffiest, wiriest, sproingiest fiber in the stashola, totally ready to spin.

gotland/border leicester/corriedale in green gold from spirit trail fiberworks.

and grabbed the walnut van eaton fold/n/tote.



divided the roving and spun up 3 bobbins.






stuck a fat book under the lazy kate, trying to make a 45 degree angle. maybe warren should have more pages written about him , not quite 45.





since it's not a smooth fiber, and i was using my other hand, perfect yarn was not the goal.



i love the yarn, and if i can ever knit again, i think it will be one of those felted dumpling bags that hang from your wheel. maybe with a little embroidery :-)




rajah has found a new use for the van eaton's bag.

shimmo says come on in, the water's fine!

meet my new baby

baby wolf!

schacht cherry 8 harness baby wolf from the yarn barn of kansas.

excellent customer service!

the red rayon chenille warp is a kit from cotton clouds. since i didn't have a warping board, or warping reel here, i called around til i found this kit, it has a precut warp chain.

i haven't woven in a few years, deborah chandler's book "learning to weave", and sallie guy's weaving video "tips and tricks" are invaluable learning tools.

here the reed is sleyed, 15 epi, i used a 10 dent reed, and sleyed it 2/1.

iow, sleyed 2 threads in one dent, 1 thread in the next dent, to make it 15 ends per inch in a 10 dent per inch reed.

the warp is tied in bundles with rubberbands behind the reed so the little suckers don't have a chance to fall out ;-)


next the warp is threaded through the heddles. it is threaded in a straight twill, but will be woven tabby or plain weave.


i separated 4 heddles at a time in order, so i wouldn't make a booboo.

but i did make a major mistake. i had way too many heddles on the harness, and since i was using the entire weaving width, there was no room for all those extra heddles to go on the sides.

deep breath

nothing to do but unthread the heddles, lift the harnesses out, take off the extra heddles and rethread.

uh, a learning exprience i am putting in writing in hopes i don't ever repeat it ;/)

i tied a white cotton string onto the middle of the reed, and threaded each side of the warp through the heddles from the center out.

finally the warp is wound onto the warp beam in the back, and tied to the cloth beam in the front.

first i wove with some thick white yarn to evenly space out the warp.




wheehee! actual weaving! the weft is a solid red rayon chenille. the warp is 3 colors of red rayon chenille, i threaded the 3 colors in a random pattern.

love it!

why does the weaving go so much more quickly than the setup?

outside photo-

inside photo, just to try and show more of the lovely drape. i wish you could feel the fabric :-)

21 1/2" by 41 1/2".

the cloth will be made into 2 large pillows for my son and ddil for christmas. i'll sew a solid back onto the pllows.

now for some gingersnaps!

a little waffle before the beach-
look at that facey- i just want to kiss her and kiss her!

swing!

daddy and gingersnap in the lake.

pappa reading a bedtime story, thank goodness we will be seeing her soon!

rebecca came for a visit with her new puppy, moby. he is a mini-shimmo!

madaket likes him.

just to show you how insane my cat really is.

rajah leaps from the bartop up to the stair railing-

then he climbs up to the top. the railing is about an inch and a half wide!

now for the ratty news. somehow i have totally messed up my left rotator cuff and bicept tendon. why didn't anyone warn me how painful cortisone shots are?

a week later, my first physcal therapy session . during the evaluation the physical therapist (i love her) told me i also have carpal tunnel in both wrists.

as we say in the south- how nice.

getting my money's worth

from my knitting lately. seems like all my projects get knit, then frogged at least twice, if not three times :-)



these green autumn (druid) mittens were started on the way up to pensacola for christmas.
i knit both the cuffs on 2.25 knitpicks harmony dpns. but the chart for the hand was not the best choice for vacation knitting...

last week i picked them up again. tried on a cuff, it fit me fine, but i knew they would be too tight for my daughter rebecca, who has very large hands and wrists.

rip rip, start over with 2.5. knit knit knit, hmm, the hand would still be too tight for rebecca.

rip rip, keep the cuff, but reknit the hand with 2.75s. purrfect width, but the hand is too short.

so i knit almost an extra repeat of the pattern, starting the decreases on the line that would be the extra row 69. i ended up with 11 sts before starting the saddle.

what a clever way to close up the saddle! that jared flood writes an excellent pattern.

for the thumb i only needed to add 2 extra rows before starting the decreases.


another present tucked away for christmas :-)

all that was left of 2 skeins of jamieson's spindrift was 14 inches!

when i knit the dusk pullover for tom, i had tons of leftover skeins, 3 each of dusk and midnight.

the mittens only used 2 skeins, the pattern calls for 3.

i'll knit a pair of midnight for natalie.

shimmo and madaket waiting for the tennis ball.

lucky lucky lucky me!

a few weeks ago, kim of the woolen rabbit wrote about her new van eaton potpourri wheel.

i knew mr. van eaton had retired from wheel making, the last time i spoke to him it was his 87th birthday!

after seeing kim's wheel i thought i'd ask mr. van eaton if he would make me a few extra bobbins. yes, he could make a couple of bobbins, then he said he had a potpourri traditional wheel that a lady had ordered and had never picked up. he said i could buy it if i'd like.

are you kidding? happy happy dance :-)

the wheel has all different woods, apricot, apple, walnut, mesquite, cherry, bubinga and teak.

my friend terri shea wrote a wonderful story about mr. van eaton on her blog-

it's truly an honor to have his wheels.

we have 11 new calves

aren't they sweet?

i love their colors :-)

daddy bull is on the right. blossom is the black and white cow on the left.

it hasn't rained here in central florida for so long that we've had to feed the cows twice a week. normally by now all they eat is grass.

the tree in the middle is our mulberry tree. the larger one behind it is a camphor tree.

when we planted the mulberry tree about 11 years ago it was 5 or 6 feet tall ;-)

now it's twice as tall as the garage!

happy spinning!