Spinning

   Most of the morning today I spun up the Wensleydale, I am happy with the spin-although still not even-it's not overspun, and I think it's my finest yarn so far. I have been spinning bulky singles-which will be fun to weave with, but I have been spinning to improve this summer.

  Some how I have ended up with lots of spun yarns that are white in color-I will be needing to get out the dye pot this fall.

  

  I started on the Shetland that I shared on my last spinning post-and got a basket full pre drafted and ready to spin. This is a light brown fleece.

  I did not have any of my own lavender in the garden this year, so I needed to order some-It came today-I use it to keep bugs away from the wool The lavender was packed nicely and smells wonderful-I always have loved lavender.

  I have never bought dried lavender on stems before so seemed strange-haha My  new plants should be doing well next year.

  It was so hot and humid again today that neither of us worked outdoors. Larry hurt his neck and shoulder really bad a couple days ago so he has been resting and using ice packs.  

   Need to remember to take food photos-I wanted something simple today so I made us a goulash. I saute'd chunks of zucchini, red onion, sweet pepper, and fresh mushrooms. When tender I added a jar of spaghetti sauce, then added the browned organic hamburger, and lastly a gluten free pasta. This meal turned out really nice-pasta not over cooked, and the dish not to dry-just the right amount of sauce. Good Eats and of course I used cast iron-smiles

   Have a good evening

  

T Stands for Windy & Bird Feeders

    It's time for T Stands for Tuesday-find link in my sidebar, anyone is welcome just share a drink related photo in your post.

  Since early Saturday evening it has been non stop strong winds here-my guess is over 25 miles an hour, and up to at least 50. I am typing this post up around 4:30 pm Sunday and the wind has not stopped. Driving me crazy and on edge for sure-I do not like wind like this.

  Not much happening here, except I am still spinning most every day-getting a more even yarn each time I spin now . I am still spinning the Nash Island Maine rare wool that I shared last time. These sheep live on an island mostly to themselves-until they need sheered and taken care of. I am up to 4 niddy  noddy's full now.

  I love the feel and texture of this wool.

We still have had no rain now for several weeks-I will need to get the garden hoses up out of the basement and hooked up so I can water the perennials and bulbs this week. I did get one side weeded on Saturday, and I planted my German Chamomile and red yarrow that I grew from seed in the bottles.

  This is the first blooming Iris

    Larry has been making us more bird feeder poles along with the one I just purchased.

   I am finding more items available at Wal Mart online-with free delivery as well-right to my door. It is where I found this stand, and on sale I also found a better quality bird seed at their online store too-and they carry it down the hill and steps for me-smile 😀

This was a nice tall stand and has these four decorative hangers. It also came with a little basket for seed or fruits-thinking oranges for the orioles, a bird bath plastic dish, a suet holder, and a small tube seed feeder. Some of these other parts Larry is making us new feeder poles along with some vintage parts. This is one of them-looking through our wall of windows that faces the lake-these windows go all the way to the sides of the this wall both left and right. So of course I fell in love with this view. We do get hammered with boat traffic in the summer though-but I tell myself its only 4 months out of the year  We need to replace this deck-as it is in bad shape.

I thought I had another photo of the other stand he made for me-but it is above this squirrel in the corner The squirrels and chipmunks are huge pests here as they have no predators at the lake-so we have to chase them off in the mornings when I first fill the feeders.

  I am still adjusting my new camera for zooming in, but we saw a sailboat over the weekend

     Sunday was a nice day for us. Our friend called to say he wanted to bring us lunch and for us to meet his new fiance. His wife passed a couple years ago from an operation on her lungs. She was my friend that drove me to Yellowstone Park back in 2017 because I wanted to see the park so badly. I have always been so grateful for that trip.  His  fiance was not at all what we were expecting, but we liked her allot and they seem very happy together. The lunch they brought was from a bbq smokehouse near us that was really really good-totally forgot to take photos. I made brownies in the morning to serve

   After they left I poured myself a small glass of this wine. I really like this brand and it is not very expensive and good tasting. I have open now the Pinoit Grigio-my go to wine is usually a white that is a little sweet to dry.

 It has been so cloudy here this past week that I have no new sunrise photos to share. One evening though the sky just before dark was pretty amazing.

      Same evening another photo

  Happy T

T Stands for Tuesday-We Have Photos

  Hellos to the T gang and all my readers

     It's Saturday morning so writing this up early for Tuesday. For the T Party we gather over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's and link up with a drink related photo in our post, and visit others on the link up. 

  We have spring blooms here, and another round of severe weather coming through today. Here are a few photos from early today (Saturday)  Tornadoes etc are still in the forecast for the rest of the day. There are allot of boats on the lake today for the big Bass Tournament-winning fish prize is $100,000.

  The skies were very black for awhile, windy with white caps on the lake-and then it left. I would not want to be on the lake during this type of weather.

  We also have lovely blooms.

  This first photo are dwarf size iris's I brought home from the family farm years ago in Indiana. This is the first year they are blooming well here at the lake-they got settled back in.

Lots more full size iris-different colors and gladiolas  growing

There is a very old red bud tree here-to the left-and the lilacs began to bloom

This is last year's crop of creeping thyme ground cover that I grew in bottles last year-the root system seemed to really spread over winter-these will get dug up soon and transferred to other areas.

Last week I estimated that I had 50 bottles-I actually have around 70, with 9 more to plant.

 The pink blooms are the ground cover phlox I bought from the Amish greenhouse last year

And the amaryllis has bloomed-it was slow to open up which was nice for longer lasting views.

 There will be 3 blooms on this stalk

Saturday the bloom opened even larger

I really love this color

  I also gathered dandelion flowers for my soap making-I infuse it in the soap with my lavender flowers-strain it and add the melt and pour soap to the molds. The dandelions here at the lake are large and lovely

I have always loved dandelions with their pretty yellow flowers welcoming in warmer weather.

   I am still spinning, getting better at the wheel, but still not even yarn and I don't always keep the wheel moving constantly-still spinning every day to hopefully improve.

  I found a bag of alpaca I had bought at one of the Fiber U events that I shared in the past of the classes I took there. I also found a big bag of small sample bits of alpaca that were for needle felting-so they were quite short-I blended them on the blending board. 

Rolags made from the blending board-the browns were small samples of alpaca

Here is the green-drawn out to spin 

Above greens spun into a very arty yarn-below photo

 I am now spinning on the wheel- white alpaca, next up a grey alpaca. I also found our (late) wolf Nikita's hair that she grew over winter-and then needed brushed out-very very short fibers and soft-I am carding that with alpaca and spinning on the drop spindle for better control. That will be an art yarn as well, will see how this looks after washed and dried-could go into a scarf. I have been able to spin it finer since this photo.

  Since I took above photo-found out how to delete date and time on photos

  I have been drinking my decaf coffee with whipped cream this past week, and a splash of my homemade kahlua  This is a hand thrown pottery mug we bought way back before retirement I have always loved handmade pottery dishes.

   

   I  make pancakes for Larry once or twice a week now for his breakfast-I made a gluten free batch for me today. I am using up the dried blueberries I had picked up at the Amish grocery store last year, with maple syrup-of course-smiles.

   This pure maple syrup we buy online from Pennsylvania-we were gifted this syrup from a friend years ago, so now I buy this for us. The best flavor we have ever had and we have tried many different homemade maple syrups from different states.  My cup of decaf black lemon Bigelow tea is also in a hand thrown pottery cup.

Sunrise early last week The sky was a brilliant red for just a bit

After the reds faded out

Happy T and new week

T Stands for Tuesday-This and That

  Posting for T over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's, just share a drink related photo in your post, link in my side bar.

  This has been an interesting full moon-pre Easter week. Are you effected by full moons? 

    Sometimes we get allot of negative things happening during one of these weeks. I had written a couple paragraphs on all the stuff that popped up and just erased it all-we need happy stuff to read not negatives. smiles.

   I wasn't really into fixing an Easter dinner for us and it doesn't matter to Larry that much for Easter-Passover, so I made us fajitas from scratch which he always enjoys. 

   A surprise came early morning Sunday- I was outdoors looking for the hummingbird feeders in the little shed and I see the postal lady with a big amazon box. I said Wow I can't believe they have you working on Easter Sunday? She says well her boss called and said they got allot of Amazon packages in on Sunday can you deliver them? She gets double time pay for Sunday and mileage, so she said Yes.  Inside was items that were coming in on Tuesday including my new camera!  So that was fun. 

   I do like this camera better than the other one so far and it was half the price of the first one.  It does focus and work different than what I am used to but this one had a good instruction booklet so hoping I can get it all figured out.

  On another positive note I am finally getting more coordinated with the spinning wheel. When you watch someone spin-it looks so soothing and easy-Not! haha  I was having allot of troubles keeping the wheel spinning-it takes lots and lots of practice, patience and coordination to get your foot moving smoothly on the pedal while drafting out and making yarn. I finally had a turning point late this afternoon. Finally!

The photo colors are a bit off so I need to look at settings and figure out why the flash is not coming on.  This is what I spun up late Sunday afternoon-this fiber is a black alpaca- very soft, and finally a little more even of a yarn too-I think it is a bit over twisted though-but thinking it will be ok after setting the twist in warm water. Right now I am not going for those super fine yarns that spinners like to spin and then ply, I do like a nice single instead-I want to really see the yarn and it's textures.

  I finished up the rest of the white long wools too on Sunday-this was 2 pounds total that I had spun on the drop spindle as well. I had purchased quite allot of fibers to spin around 2015-2017 This is the last of this white. Looking forward to dyeing these skeins with the black walnuts- soon I hope.

  This is the Christmas amaryllis I bought two Christmas's ago. I had put it in the garden last year summer, and dug it up and put it back in the pot and in the house, before the freeze. About a month ago it started sprouting so I have been watering ever since. Was not expecting a bloom til I put it back outdoors in May-but I was excited to see this. 

For my drink reference this week, I am using a past photo-of my herbals for asthma & allergies-I needed to get back on that this week. 

  A slow mail surprise came in my mail box on Saturday-an Easter card handmade from Iris-thank you sooooo much-it made me very happy hugs

  This will be a busy week, I need a big grocery shopping trip, use the weed eater for cutting the grass again-this grass grows so fast and thick-clean house and get ready for our Wisconsin friends that will be arriving on Friday for a long weekend. Whew  sounds hectic and busy for sure-good news warmer weather coming in, hoping Larry feels good enough to get out and fish with his friend.

Happy T and new week

Good morning Thursday & a Little Catch Up

   Good morning everyone,

      So grateful-where we live we were spared the tornadoes and hail that hit Missouri. This was a wide spread  severe weather event in many states here in the midwest and I think this went south as well.  A small town outside of St Louis Missouri got destroyed-a reminder of what happened to Joplin years ago. That day we did get to 85 degrees F before storms hit and dropped the temps way back down.

   Prayers for all the suffering.

   Early Tuesday and Wednesday-I cleared out all the weeds in that upper area of the driveway-so once it warms back up a bit I will transfer some of the creeping thyme ground cover. I also need to buy a bit more bags of soil. 

  I took my car into a service near us that I like early this morning, they have a lady mechanic too that is a sweetheart.  The problems before were do to a bad battery-it was only a year old so we got a new one for free. My car is old so I took it in for a tune up, oil change, and to really check out belts that may need replacing. The shocks are pretty much gone in this car but that can wait. I just don't want to worry about breaking down.

  I got my new camera in Tuesday's mail. I took a couple photos, don't like the camera at all. When charging the battery - the camera gets very warm to the touch-I really don't think that is normal (?)  The little instruction book is totally useless, and since I am not good at figuring out things-didn't like that. I just started pushing buttons to get a couple photos off. I packaged it up and am sending it back to amazon. That is one of the good things about amazon I have never had an issue returning things. They email you a free label but it is a UPS label  There is a drop off at the bank across town, I will do that tomorrow when I get my car back.

  I did take two photos of some yarn I am spinning on my wheel-Miss Ashley (my Ashford Traveler),  I am loving this hand dyed green that I picked up on an Etsy shop. It is a long wool and feels good to spin a less processed wool again. She hand "painted" the dye-so this different shades a forest greens with areas of yellow-greens, to browns-really nice.  I am thinking this will be pretty with my bison fiber-which I may try to re spin for a finer yarn. I should have saved the bison fiber til I was a better spinner-but I enjoyed working with it very much.  I will weave a short over garment of some sort with those two spun yarns.

  I am still thick and think with my yarn but it is nicer than my drop spindle yarn-especially the joins are nicer. I am not keeping the wheel spinning non stop-but that's ok for now

  In the back is the vintage wheel-I have been asking questions about this wheel, so will be trying out some things to get that one to work too.

  

I am very pleased with this white long wool yarn-much nicer on my wheel too I had bought 2 pounds of this a few years ago at a very good price-usa long wools carded together for spinning. This is the yarn I will dye with black walnuts. I am pleased to finally be spinning nicer yarns.

    It is a cold day today again, so I will be spinning and reading today.

T Stands for Tuesday Welcoming in Spring

   Happy First Day of Spring!  We had been so cold here in my area-low teens and 20's F in the evenings for over a week now and cold temps during the day as well. Today bright sunshine and we made it up into the 50's F. A pretty nice day for welcoming in Spring.  A little warmer this week with lots of rain coming in.

  Hoping those of you with all that snow will be seeing a melt off soon with warmer temperatures coming your way as well.

  This post is also for T for Tuesday, where we visit with friends over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's with a drink related photo.

 This past week-yep still spinning-smiles. Another skein of this pretty blended green and this blended blue. I am also working on more blues and yellows-oranges. 

  With all the different colors I have spun up for my garment project, I am thinking to make the various greens the dominant color-so I found on Etsy from a different seller, a lovely hand painted woodsy green, with woodsy yellows and browns. This is a long wool-Blue Leicester and is also 4 ounces. I am thinking that having more greens woven through out the garment will give a more cohesive look.

 

    For this rauna project I need to work up a weaving sample with these bulky singles and decide what weight of warp yarn to use. I never sample any craft or art project I just jump in and do it, but this time I need to sample since the weights of the yarns will be so different. So I brought out my adorable little loom that Larry found at a garage sale many years ago. I have not used it in all these years as I was either too busy with working-before retirement-or into my other crafts-dyeing, paper making etc.

   Isn't she too adorable? It's a shame I didn't find the time to use this already. This 4 harness loom was made in the 1920's-1930's and sold for around $10.00 back then including some accessories. Larry thinks he only paid around $20.00 for it at a garage sale, and it is in very good shape.

   The reed is rusty as you can see but everything works and in good condition.  I found a Facebook group for these little looms so was able to ask questions about taking the reed off of it's frame so I can clean it.  That was a big help for us-to know about it-as it has springs to watch for so not to lose them, I also would like to buy another size reed-this one is 15 ends (slots) per inch which is pretty fine, and I would like to buy a size 12-12 ends per inch.  I located a business that makes reeds-costly but good to know. For the heck of it I looked on Ebay in case there could be a reed for sale-but instead I found several of these looms that were not as nice as mine starting at $300.00 on up-craziness. 

  Do you like to make up a corn beef and cabbage dinner? We love it so I always make us corn beef with cabbage, little whole potatoes, and fresh carrots. This year I made up this meal on the 16th and then on StPatrick's day I made us reubens-sooo good.

  The smaller one on the left is my gluten free version. I love this cast iron grill pan for so many different things, and to weight down the sandwiches, I just grabbed another cast iron pan.

 For my drink share-the thermal cup has ice water in it, and in the background is a dessert wine from a local winery in Stover Missouri. I found these thermal cups at Wal Mart last year and made in the USA

Yesterday (Sunday) I wanted to make an upside down cake-but something different than pineapple. I grabbed a can of organic peaches that were thickly sliced with no added sugar, fresh blueberries, and a yellow gluten free cake mix from Bob's Red Mill. This turned out soooo delicious and moist. I used the strained peach juice in the cake instead of the water, and I used olive oil instead of butter.  This turned out so good.

I was able to flip this over onto a hand thrown pottery plate with no accidents-whew  smiles

Happy T Day