Happy Holidays!!!!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Merry Christmas and New Year!

I didn't expect to get much this year as money seems to be tight all around the world, but I did get a Babe Double Treadle Production Spinning wheel (in black). It took me a while to get the hang of it, but I talked with the creator/builder of the Babe wheels and we figured out some things I might be doing that weren't in my best interest as a spinner. Thank goodness, it worked out.

I'm working on a crocheted afghan for my sister, Karen, made entirely of handspun yarn (white Icelandic, silver grey Icelandic, gray Ronaldsay, and black Icelandic) and it looks like it will turn out very nicely for her. In the black color, I'll be adding bobbles. She likes blue, so I may add some blue to it by using the Ikat dyeing technique so it's regular, but not to far out (not tie-dyed, for instance or spotted). I'll post a pic when I get it close to being done and before I dye it and one after I dye it.

I've sold most of my animals. All I have left are two Icelandic ewes (they'll be yearlings this summer--silver grey and white with moorit spots) and 4 alpacas (1 white Suri and a cinnamon, a rose grey, and a white Huacaya). That way, I'll still have a variety of colors and types. I process my own fiber and I still have a dozen fleeces from last year and the year before to finish up, then I'll be in spinning heaven. I like processing my own fleeces. I also buy fleeces locally or at any fairs and festivals, I go to so I can try out other wool types.

It's rather exciting if you enjoy playing with fiber and textiles. I have been doing this type of thing since I was 4 yo, so it's in my blood so to speak. No one in my family really did much when I lived at home and the only fiber art my mom did until all the kids were out of the house (1 boy and 5 girls) was sewing. I remember her sewing doll clothes for our Barbie dolls when I was small and as I was the eldest child, I got to help her. My Paternal Grandmother taught me how to embroider. My Maternal Step-Grandfather let me help him when he was doing woodworking, but only small stuff like gluing things together and playing with the scraps of wood (nailing them, gluing them, painting them), but I don't have access to a lathe so haven't developed that as much as I did working with cloth and fiber.

Later on, my mom did some quilting and embroidery, and when her eyes started failing, started making canvas stitched ornaments. She supplied the whole family back in WI as well as the neighbors. As I said, it's in my blood.

I like gardening also. My Dad loved gardening. He is in his 80's and still has a garden every year. That's in my blood as well. When I was 8 yo, after my dad took us to a friend's farm and I got to gather eggs and we road on a wagon pulled by horses, I decided I wanted to live on a farm, raise my own food, and have animals. But growing up during the 1960's, I remember all the news about the Hippies and the Back to the Land Movement. I read Diet for a Small Planet by Lappé and read most of Rodale's Books on cooking with healthy foods and read Prevention Magazine (Rodale is the publisher) religiously, I decided at some point that I wanted. It took until I was in my late early 40's before I lived in a home where I had actual land that I had an honest to goodness garden. Before that, I lived in apartments and I had container gardens, but I loved it when I had a garden I could actually plant things in the ground. I enjoyed it so much.

When we moved to Walla Walla, WA, that was when I had more land than I could imagine, so I began making flowerbeds, vegetable beds, herb gardens, and there were trees and raspberries already here in place, but we've planted more. When things actually start producing fruit and vegetables and flowers, I go crazy. Picking flowers every day to put in my vases is a real joy, but I'd like to plant a dozen roses so I can grow the hips to use for tea and to add to muffins. Rose hips when dried or frozen can be added to muffins in tiny bits and you get as much Vitamin C as you do from Cranberries or orange peel. They have several older types of roses that have enormous hips and are much easier to harvest than the modern roses with smaller hips. I like being able to grow plants, shrubs, and trees that no one grows around our area. We have a nice microclimate here so my family gets a chance to eat fruits and veggies no one can grow easily around here. This year, I'm buying 2 dwarf pomegranates that I can bring in the house in the fall before frost hits here so I can have my own pomegranates. I hate paying $1.50+/each for pomegranates in the stores. Even the dwarf ones get small pomegranates that you can eat...and you don't eat the outsides anyway--you eat the little red fruit on the inside.

So, let me know what you've been up to and what you're going to do with your gardens, hobbies, home, and your ideas. I think it would be great to talk and help one another.

Talk with you soon!

Hugz,
Fiber_diva