So many hobbies!

Silk

All I've been doing the past week or so has been spinning silk hankies.  Lots of silk hankies.  This is the result.  This is a 3-ply yarn that I will finally be able to use to continue knitting my silk shirt.  After 4 ounces of silk hankies, I'm rather tired of spinning them.  I really hope I have enough yarn to finish the shirt.  I look forward to spinning other things.

My girlfriend and I picked blueberries this morning.  The cold front that's been hanging over the midwest meant that it was a cold 50F this morning and we were bundled up in thick sweat jackets with the hoods up.  I managed to pick a single bucket full before the cold of wet feet drove us back into the car and the heater.  Kroger has 5 lbs. boxes of blueberries on sale so I supplemented my picking with some Michigan berries picked by someone else.  Another friend and I have a date on Friday night to make some blueberry jam for her family.  Before then, however, I'll be making some for myself.  Well, to give away as presents this Christmas.

Speaking of jam, I'm also hoping to pick Concord grapes this September to make grape jelly, grape juice and possibly raisins.  Hmm, I may have to take the following Monday off so I can get all the grapes processed and canned.  I have to say, work seriously interferes with my play time.

Well, people, have a good week.  It's time for bed.

Results of our craft weekend

My sisters and I went up to northern Michigan during the long 4th of July weekend.  My parents have a cottage up there.  The goal was to spend the weekend working on our various craft projects.  Most of my time I spent spinning up the first half of the gorgeous angora/Merino batt I've been working on.

After I finished the bobbin above, I made a pair of pillowcases.  This time I bought a flat sheet and cut it up for the body of the pillowcase:

Having slept on those pillowcases the last two nights, I've learned that I need to use a percale sheet for the body of the cases.  Just any white sheet from K-Mart will still wrinkle when slept on and percale sheets won't.

I also gave my crock pot a workout.  First I made chicken taco meat (1 1/2 lbs. of  chicken, 1 1/2 packets of taco seasoning, one jar of salsa - cook on low for 6-8 hrs. - shred with two forks).  Simple and really, really tasty.  It will be going into my rotation of recipes.  Then I tried a new recipe:  Monkey Bread in the crock pot.  You use refrigerator biscuits instead of making up a batch of bread.  It took longer than the recipe called for and I ended up turning it from low to high but they were good,  I'd try it again but the recipe will need some tweaking.  And finally, I tried another new recipe, making bread in the crock pot.  I didn't care for the taste of the bread - I'd use a different recipe - but cooking it in the crock pot worked pretty well.  If you try it, you'll probably have to tweak the recipe - mine was waaaayy too wet to form a loaf - but if you follow the directions for the cooking, you'll have a pretty decent loaf of bread.  Hey, Fun with Crockpots really is fun... and tasty.

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.

Cabled

A cabled yarn is made by plying a 2-ply yarn back on itself.  It's a unique look very different from a 2-ply.  This will be very interesting knitted up.

That's all I have for tonight.  Saturday, I made a mistake on the shawl I'm working on and I haven't gone back to fix it yet.  The last couple of nights I had to run errands after work and by the time I got home, I was too tired to try and find the mistake.  I'll try and get to it by Thursday so I have something to blog about.

Finished UFO

This was Corriedale pencil roving from Crown Mountain Farms.  I plied this into a cabled yarn that's still waiting for a bath.  I'll have pictures Tuesday.

Not much to show for the weekend except this yarn and getting my taxes done.  Finally.  I really hate doing my taxes so naturally I leave it till the last minute.  Well, almost the last minute.  My Guild meeting is next weekend so this is when I have time to do them.  I'm in the clear for another year.

It was gray and drab most of the weekend.  We got some sun Sunday afternoon, which was nice, and the last that we'll see for the next week.  It's supposed to rain every day this week.  Rain does not make me happy.  Oy!  Hope your week is dry and sunny.

Finished yarn

I finished plyng Monday night. This yarn is finer than what I spun for heels and toes.

There's a little difference between the two colorwise.  Not quite as much as I was looking for, though.  I'm still toying with the idea of dyeing 6 oz. of roving for socks.  Perhaps dyeing the 2 ounces for the heels/toes a solid color instead of more concentrated drops of the green/turquoise/purple, or whatever colors I chose in the future.  I'm a bit disappointed I didn't hear from more of you.  I really do want to know what you think of my idea.

Plying

The rest of the sock

As I thought, this yarn is coming out lighter than the yarn for the heels and toes.  I'm almost done with the first 2 ounces on this bobbin.  I'm going to ply from two bobbins instead of from a center-pull ball like I usually do.  Four ounces of sock-weight singles in a center-pull ball would take ages to ply and it would be harder to put it down and take a break.

My guild has its monthly meeting on Saturday.  The same day as the spring Fiber Expo.  The girls and I, as soon as the guild meeting is over, will be heading off to the Expo.  None of us needs anything but we've all been cooped up over the winter and anything that gets us out and about is not to be missed.

Thanks to Gayle and Helen for leaving me comments on my roving idea.  I really could use all of your opinions and ideas.  

I'm starting to get excited about the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in May.  My friend Sheri has introduced me to Freezer Bag Cooking and I've printed a number of recipes that sound good.  What is Freezer Bag Cooking you ask?  You take your freeze-dried or dehydrated ingredients and add them to a quart-size freezer bag.  Then, at your campsite, you add boiling water and wait 10 minutes or so for the food to rehydrate/cook.  Mostly, these recipes were developed for backpackers who want their packs to be as light as they can get them.  I'm interested in good food that doesn't take a lot of work.  After a long day at a fiber festival, I'm hot, I'm tired and I don't want to work for my food.  The hard part for me will be picking just a few recipes to take with me.  I plan on trying them out before we leave for Maryland.  I don't want to get out there and find my dinner is terrible.  Personally, I'd rather eat out, in nice, clean air-conditioned restaurants but my camping partner would rather save that money for more fiber.  I can see her point which is why I'll be picking some recipes to try between now and May.  I can hardly wait!