You Make My Day

Sharon has graciously awarded me this honor. I often go to my bloglines during the middle of the night for some inspiration until my body tells me it's time to go back to bed. Imagine my surprise when I saw this. So many of the blogs that inspire me, "make my day" have been listed. I will now have to think ourside the box knowing there are still some fiber lovers that have not been mentioned. I will now save this to draft, go back to ponder this as I hopefully drift back to sleep.


To quote Sharon: The rules are as follows: “Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.





As The Whorl Spins: Love her opinions


Constance Rose Textile Design: a fairly new blog. Wonderful photos of her work that often shows works in progress that I always appreciate


A Movable Feast: Neki thinks outside of the box. This is the only blog with a black background that I will read


A Simple Yarn:A North American living in Ireland and tags each day of the week with a task.


Sheep Tales: Dalis is one of the most fearless people I know. She will jump into almost any situation with both feet and come out a winner. She is singlehandedly responsible for most of my fiber madness.


Carol's Blog: I love how she often takes a philosophical view of her life or life around her. Not to mention her love of all things fibery!


Beebonnet Report: Always something of interest.

Fiber Arts and Furry Critters: She'd rather do fiber related things than clean house, and has goats.

Fiber Brain: a new blog to me but fun to watch her progress.

The Knitting Curmudgeon: my kind of woman! And if you think I'm going to email her and tell her that she has been mentioned, you're nuts.

I tried to mention those that have not been mentioned, or that I've not seen mentioned, which is probably closer to the truth. I read a fair amount of blogs, ha!, more than I should. However I've learned so much from the above blogs and from the many, many blogs that have already been "awarded". Note to Charleen: I gave you a break!

I promise to follow the rules and email them (if I have their addresses) or report their "award" on their blog. Soon.

Now off to see if we have any new lambs.

Thanks, Sharon!

PS Spell check isn't working. So get over it!

None of the links are working either, even though the addresses are correct. I dunno. It's not even Monday.

Three Bags Full

I have three bags of roving sitting, waiting, to be spun. They've been waiting for about six years. I decided to start with the silver/gray 4# bag. Very greasy. Hard to draft. I struggled and managed to spin 180 yards. Not acceptable. I washed a handful but found that it felts easily and I just don't want to fiddle with 4#s of roving. I measured out about 6 yds of roving and stuck it into the microwave knowing that heat would loosen up the grease and make drafting easy. It works! I am trying to spin it up bulky but the fleece prefers worsted weight. I can't remember how to spin bulky weight yarn. I took a class from Peggy (?) Casey at SOAR, but it was a number of years ago and my memory is, well, not great. But, she had me spinning bulky and it was easy-peasy.

Blogless Kim gave me 400 grams of Polworth-Mohair a few years ago. It is luminous. The roving graduated from navy to a wonderful copper, with bits of natural brown here and there. I now have just under 1200 yds of plied goodness.

The newest warp is on the Union. At this rate I'm going to have wall to wall rag rugs.

Now to publish this and get to winding 10 yards x 30" for the other loom.

tote revisited

New straps/handles...........old ones in the trash. Happier, but still not that pleased. I may just have to buy strapping. I can't find what I want on-line, but may be there is another term I don't know about.
Magnolia at night during a snow fall. If you look up to the right you can see some snow falling.

Wee Bear

I forgot to mention that the bear pattern is from '94 SpinOff..........I thought I had made this one before, but the previous bear was 12" tall. I must find that pattern!



I used EZ's percentage method to knit Wee's sweater. The panties and hat was from my own noodle. Not brain surgery, but got the deed done.



And Kim, what is a blog without a little bit of porno?



Another project just completed:


This is what I did at the end of the warp for the 2 rugs.
I'm very unhappy with the braided handle. It doesn't have enough body. I'll cut it off today or tomorrow and try something else. There is no fabric store close so I don't have any of the obvious remedies on hand. My interfacing is too thin and I have no welting nor any rope the right size. So, here is my plan. Sew two pcs of fabric together and stabilize it with wide black elastic..........because that is what is on hand. The elastic is for body and not "boing". I'll get back to you about this plan ("A"??). Mother of Invention signing off.

Rugs and A Bear

One of two matching denim rugs, fresh off the loom..............................

A 4.5" bear knit from brown handspun wool from the flock. Her sweater, hat and soakers are knit from sock yarn. Front view:
Rear view:
Front and back view:
Showing off her panties from the front, and
from the rear!

another Monday

Here we go again. It seems to be the same snow the Packers experienced on Saturday!


This last photo certainly doesn't represent the true color! That's what I get for playing around on Infraview. Oops. The first picture is the closest to the true color. This is the completed Clapotis (pronounced clap-o-tee), and sounds like a gynecological problem when pronounced in "American". Much better in French. I used handspun, a blend of Finn and mohair. My shawl/scarf measures 6'3" in length, well over the patterns measurements. It was fun to knit, except for the middle section when I found myself becoming bored. I put it down for a week and that helped. I love the way the shawl stays on and seems to hug my shoulders. My neck isn't long enough to use it as a scarf. I would consider knitting it again...

During the one week hiatus from the Clapotis I knit a purse and felted it. I'm underwhelmed for several reasons. It is a mosaic knit which I've done before. Silly Marie. I knit it fair isle. Duh! I also over felt the piece because I was so angry at myself. I threw it into the washer and let it go. The strap is too long but fix-able. The bottom was to be flat but the blue felt differently than the off white. I thought the blue and white were both Icelandic wool. Apparently not. So I cut the bottom in the center and adjusted a bit. I probably should have cut the entire bottom off since there is still a bit of a flair. I'm mulling that over. Then again, I could re-knit it properly!

What am I doing today?