So many hobbies!

The Tour de Fleece begins

The Tour de France started Saturday which means the Tour de Fleece started, too.  I've joined Team TARDIS, Team Spindlers and Team Ashford.  I'm also on Team Crankypants.  Don't ask.  Anyway, I got tired of spinning silk hankies so I switched to this batt:

It's eight lovely ounces of 60% angora/40% Merino in the colorway Deep Sea Dream.  It's spinning up into a gorgeous single so far.

I turned my back for just a minute and when I turned back, I found this:

He really needs to be watched.  He's a total batt nut.

Jam!

The strawberries have been picked and the jam has been made.  Blueberries are next.  I got an email today from the place where I pick and the berries should be ready to pick in a couple weeks if the weather stays warm.  I'm thinking of making blueberry jam this year for the first time in several years.  I still need more Christmas gifts.

Does anyone else out there make jam?  If you don't, you should try.  It really isn't hard and the stuff you make yourself is SOOO much better than the crap you buy at the store.  I've been a jam snob since I was a kid.  First Grandma made jam for us, then Mom made it and I've been making it every summer for probably 30 years.  (God, I feel so old!)  So if you've never made jam, try it.  You don't have to pick the fruit yourself.  If you don't have access to U-pick farms, buy some fruit at your local farmer's market or, at the very least, at the grocery store when the fruit is in season.  You'll be amazed at how good you own jam will taste.

My new great-nephew

This is Leo, my new great nephew.  My niece has been wanting a dog for quite a while now and she finally wore her parents down.  Leo is a Hungarian Vizsla.  Vizslas are hunting dogs, pointer/retrievers to be precise.  They are very smart, very gentle and incredibly sweet. 

And the puppies are ridiculously adorable!

Leo isn't the first Vizsla our family has had.  We still tell stories about Red, our first dog, and he's been gone a good 20 years.  Man we loved that dog!

Maddie and Leo are already fast friends.

For the rest of my family, here's a little video:

 

I got a package today...

Lambs!

Sheri and I drove to a friend's Saturday to hang out and to visit this year's lambs.  The lambs were uber soft and extremely curious.  They would chew on just about everything:  my shirt, pants, shoelaces, my camera. 

We missed seeing them when they were first born but a month and a half later, they're still pretty cute.

As you can see, they really love Rhonda.  Of course, she's the one who gives all the lovin' and, for one lamb, the bottles.  One of the lambs was rejected by the ewe so Rhonda feeds her every four hours.

Saturday was also a craft day for the three of us.  I was planning on warping my rigid heddle loom but managed to leave the heddle at home.  Fortunately, I brought the silk with me and finished spinning my first ounce of hankies.  Sheri worked on the bookmarks she was weaving:

These are the first two she's woven.  I think they're gorgeous and she's got enough warp left for a couple more.  I'm really impressed with these bookmarks.

What I'm reading

Little House in the Suburbs:  Backyard Farming and Home Skills for Self-sufficient Living

I still haven't given up the idea of having my own house, either in the country or in the 'burbs.  This book holds basic info on gardening, keeping chickens and home skills, like soapmaking.  The writing is entertaining and very approachable.  It gives me ideas of what I want, and frankly, how much land I'm going to need as a bare minimum.  I still want an asparagus bed, a few fruit trees, a couple rhubarb plants, bees, a garden, some blueberry and raspberry bushes... hmm, the suburbs might now have enough land for me now that I think about it.  Oh, I have such dreams...

You would think, after so many Christmases with my dad under the kitchen sink, that I would know not to put too much down the garbage disposal.  Yeah, apparently not.  Thirteen and a half years in my condo and I've plugged the kitchen sink for the first time.  I tried plunging and that only got me soaked, and let me tell you, it was truly disgusting.  Then I tried Liquid Plummer.  Nothing.  And now I can't plunge because the darn stuff in sitting in my sink and I'd rather not burn myself.  <sigh>  I have an appointment with Roto Rooter tomorrow to have my drain snaked.  I really wish I would have watched when Dad did it so all those Christmases ago so I could do it myself now.

It's strawberry season and I'll be picking on Sunday.  We're supposed to have a sunny, warm weekend so the berries should be beautiful.  Sunday afternoon, I'll be making Strawberry jam.  Since it's also rhubarb season, I'm thinking of making Ginger Rhubarb jam, too.  So much jam, so few opportunities to eat it.  I always end up with far more jam than I can possibly eat.  Guess the family and friends will be getting jam for Christmas this year.

Spinning silk

I've got 3 ounces of silk hankies that I started spinning Saturday.  There's a woman in my Guild that spins silk and knits shirts/sweaters on the fly.  She starts with a drawing and then pretty much makes up the pattern as she goes along.  She's promised to teach me to do the same.  So, I started spinning the silk hankies, which is slow going.

If you're not careful, attenuating the silk can be very rough on your hands.  Silk is extremely strong and stretching out the hankies can hurt if your not careful.  It's going to take me a while to spin up those three ounces of hankies and even then, it probably won't be enough to finish the simple summer shirt I plan on knitting.

I have so many projects that I need/want to work on right now.  There just isn't enough time in the day.  There's the silk hankies to spin, a quilt design to sew, strawberries to pick, jam to make and berries to dry.  Not to mention a house to clean.  I love having lots of projects to keep me busy.

While relaxing after work yesterday, I saw a Ruby-throated hummingbird.  He was beautiful.  Galen just thought he looked tasty. 

Peonies and spinning

I just love this time of year!

Per my mom's request, here's a shot of my front garden, happily mulched and planted:

The potato boxes are now planted with black beans.  There won't be enough for more than a meal but I wanted to play a little.  The three pots next to the potato boxes have green beans.  The far raised bed holds the zucchini and the closer bed now has the 4 grape tomatoes, an Ugly tomato, the basil my sister gave me and 2 of the Sweet Chocolate peppers.  I need/want to pick up a bale of straw both to mulch the veggies beds and to feed the compost bin.  I really don't want to do any weeding this summer.

I did a little spinning last weekend but never got around to showing the pics:

I also started spinning some silk hankies over the weekend.  It's slow going because opening up the hankies is a bit tough on the hands.  Silk is an extremely strong fiber and the constant pulling on my fingers has left them pretty sore.  So, the spinning will be slow until I build up some calluses.  Pictures will be coming as soon as I have something to show

Fantastic!

As weekends go, this one was pretty great.  I finished mulching my front garden and planted my new peppers and zuchini:

The left one is the red pepper I bought on Thursday and the right is the purple pepper.  The Sweet Chocolate peppers and grape tomatoes are on the front porch in their little greenhouse hardening off until I can plant them.

During this past week, I made batts from a batt kit I bought on Etsy.  I've started spinning them but I'm not done spinning yet.

My neighbor has a purple poppy growing happily in the garden outside my livingroom window.  This morning, it bloomed:

Gorgeous!

And growing against the side of the house, a purple Clematis in full bloom:

While I took pictures and talked to my neighbor, Galen watched from his bench at the window:

When I wasn't working in the garden, I was spinning and watching movies.  I saw "Now You See Me" today and quite enjoyed it.  I also started watching Doctor Who from the beginning of Eccleston's Doctor.  Oh, and I ordered some Doctor Who cookie cutters off of Etsy:

I can't wait to make cookies with them.  For those of you who aren't Doctor Who fans, clockwise from the right are, a weeping angel, the TARDIS and a Dalek.  I'd explain all of them but it would take too much time.  Watch the show instead.  It'll be much more fun.