I'm back!

Well, I have not been so great at keeping you posted, have I?!!!

 

I have had the best week of my creative life in Haliburton.

My friend and I have both said that we will certainly make this kind of get-away an annual thing...maybe even twice a year...why not!

 

The Haliburton School of the Arts is an off site campus of the Fleming college located in the Haliburton Highlands.

The course took us from the art of felting to embellishing with embroidery, beads quilting and so much more.

The group was small and we all worked very hard and passionately on every piece we tackled. I left feeling so motivated, inspired and ready to create.

Then

REALITY CHECK!

 

I am watching over my two little grandchildren for the next 7 weeks because my daughter's maternity leave is over! When I come home at 5, I'm out of energy to start felting.

So, the ideas are simmering away in my head and as soon as school is done and daughter is on holidays and I am back in my studio, I'll be back at it in full force.

In the meantime I'm enjoying the wet kisses and hugs from the little ones.

 

But I can show you some pictures of a few things I made.

First day was to make landscape felted panel.

This picture shows the fibre layed out before wetting and felting stage.

 I did not continue to document the process...but this is what it looks like now.

A bit of embroidery has been added. More will be added, maybe some beads too.

This is not yet completed but you get the idea.

 

 

Just experimenting with colour and pencil roving...not too crazy about the colours and this piece does not speak to me at all....call it a learning piece.

 

A merino silk blend roving gives a wonderful effect. The silk seems to just float and create wisps of softness and texture. It does take more work to felt it so beware! 

I have no idea how this piece will be used but Maggie (the teacher) uses pieces like this and creates wonderful wall art and adds quilting and some needle felting.

 

Pieces of burlap make an interesting background to felt upon.

 

Night sky over water

 

Small rocks were placed between layers of wool. Once the piece was partically felted, the rocks were removed by cutting a small bit of felt and the felting and fulling continued.

 

I was on a night sky kind of mood all week and this piece also has dark sky, water and large moon. It's been tacked to a hand dyed piece of cotton and batting and will be quilted by machine one day.

Next time, I will share the scarves and vessels that I made.

 

Hollywood Legends

Since my last post, I was determined to find a shawl pattern to cast on

as soon as the socks were off the needles.

I was doing some 'window shopping' on the pattern page of Ravelry and

the Lana shawl caught my eye.

The designer is Paulina Popiolek, a favorite of mine.

I've knitted Cameo last summer from Paulina's designs.

Looking closer at Lana, I realized that it's part of a collection of three shawls named after Hollywood Legends. The two other shawls, Ida and Ava, are equally as beautiful.

The price is reduced if you buy all three of them during the month of May...so why not!

I could not have decided which one I prefered anyway.

So, (ahem), the socks are not done but Lana is on the needles.

 

 

The socks will get done along with the shawl.

 

The car is all packed up and I'm leaving shortly for a week of fun learning with Maggie Vanderweit.

Here is what her profile says on the school's website

Maggie Vanderweit

Haliburton School of The Arts

Maggie Vanderweit has been sewing since childhood and quilting for over 30 years. She operates her textile art business from her studio in Fergus. Her work is in private collections around the world, in public buildings in Ontario, and has been exhibited in galleries and museums across Canada. It includes original wall-hangings created with her own painted fabrics, silk fusion, felt, hand embroidery, beading and densely machine quilted surfaces. Maggie presents lectures and classes for guilds, schools, art colleges, shops, the CQA, including One of a Kind and national needlework shows. She sells her original textile art at major exhibitions and from her studio. Maggie is a member of Connections.

 www.stonethreads.ca

 

Socks

Sometimes life is like a raging river and all you can do is hang on
knowing and trusting that calm waters are ahead.
Thank goodness for knitting to help me get thru!
Just mindless knitting to keep my hands busy.

But before I show you those projects I must tell you about this one first.
Last week, my grand daughter told me all about losing the spring hat I had made her last year when she went to the store with her mother.
She was quite sad about it and asked if I could make her another.
To the stash I went to look for some coton yarn. Turns out I still had some of the yarn I had used last year and I decided to use it to make her a different hat.
I like to crochet spring and summer hats instead of knitting them. They just seems to be lighter.

Her only request was that the hat have a flower on it. The brim can be down or rolled up. It's quite cute on her. Details here.

Now for the mindless knitting.

It all started with a pair of Burning stripes socks.
I had two balls of Zauberball waiting to be made into a pair of these socks.
But I ended up knitting more than one pair.
You see, the first two socks did not match very well. One was very dark while the other one was quite light. I don't have a problem with fraternal twin socks as long as they look like fraternal twins.
Hubby and I agreed that the first two socks were more like step-brothers ;-)
Since I had lots of yarn leftover, I decided to knit another pair. Turns out that sock 1 and 3 are perfect together and that sock 2 and 4 are perfect together. I'm much happier now! And I have two pair of socks that I love.

I know I will make this pattern again with regular sock yarn.

This lead to more sock knitting.
Just plain socks with self striping yarn.

Then on to another pair.
The heel I use is Cat Bordhi's Sweet Tomato Heel. It fits very well and I use it often now. You can find her tutorial on youtube.

When this pair is completed, I think I'm done with sock knitting for a while.
I need something else now.
Maybe a shawl or another cardigan, a light one for summer.

But before that, I'm off for a very special week.
I'm taking a week long felting course at the Haliburton school of the Arts.
Leaving on Sunday with a friend.

Migrating north

Winter is withdrawing it's hold on our land and spring is taking it's place.

Only a few snow patches are left here and there.

I've been enjoying the change this year.

This means that each day we notice that more and more birds are back from their winter in the south. We've seen the first robin the day before a snow storm last week. I wonder how do they stay warm if their nests aren't ready yet?

The Canada geese are also flying overhead and might stop overnight but they continue on the next day.

We've also seen one heron that will make it's home in a marsh close by.

But today, it was Frankie the llama that had a special visitor.

A sand crane landed in his pasture.

It's a little difficult to see but it's on Frankie's right hand side.

 

Our guess is the poor bird was exhausted from a long flight and just landed somewhere and decided to stay put for a rest.

Even with this huge thing following it around, the crane stayed and rested.

 

Frankie got so close one time, he actually got a chance to sniff this peculiar visitor.

The crane stayed less than an hour and then took off.

 

I've dyed the last bit of the Romney fleece I had purchased last year.

I plan on using some of it on some felting projects...more on this in another post!

 

 

I glanced out the window earlier this week to see Alicia and Tenellie snuggled together, side by side.

I thought this was a good time to stop being busy and just feel the beauty of such a simple sight.

It made me feel warm inside to see mom and son snuggled tight together just feeling the morning breeze and enjoying a quiet moment together.

 

To me, there is something very zen about this picture.

I will come back to it when I need to slow down my heartrate and remember to breathe.

 

I wish you quiet moments in your very busy day!



Rain clouds

We've had several days of rain lately. Lot's of rain for still being winter.

I feel so sad to see my wonderful white snow disappearing.

I feel so much joy every time I look out my windows and see the white landscape.

I enjoy every moment of winter.

It's like a good friend is leaving and I won't be seeing her for many many months.

The snow is now full of water and is very icy in some spots...warning to member of the family with recent hip replacement to stay clear!!

 

Water running down the driveway onto the road.

 

Making the roads soft and muddy.

We watched our young pup play in the puddle yesterday, splashing and trying to catch the droplets.

If only I could find such pleasure in this mess!!



 

 Heavy rain clouds don't allow much of the light to shine through.

But at the moment, the strong wind is blowing them away.

Maybe, just maybe, that means there will be no more rain this week??

 

The colour in the sky is so much like the colour of my finished Alcyone shawl.

 

A mixture of greys, whites and lavender.

 

For Christmas of 2011 my darling hubby walked into a yarn shop and purchased a lovely skein of yarn for me. It doesn't matter the kind of yarn nor the colour...just the fact that he walked into such unfamiliar territory (for him) made this gift such a treasure for me.

 

 

I found it difficult to complete this shawl because it required constant attention, lots of concentration, counting, checking of charts and written instructions...definitely not tv knitting.

But in the end, I'm very happy I did persevere.

The colours are difficult to capture but I think you see them best here.

Project info here

Spring Colours

Hubby went ice fishing last week with family for a good ol' boys fishing time!
I took advantage of this to spend time with my dye pots and catch up on a few neglected chores.

My mother came to spend a few days with me as well and that always means shopping. My mother is an avid shopper with much more stamina for malls than I've ever had.
If it wasn't for her, I think I would rarely set foot in the mall! 

 But it does us good to spend some time together.

I dyed lots of fibre and looking at the colours, the coming of spring must be having an effect on me because most of the tops are very springlike!!
Many of these will be listed in my Etsy shop over the next couple of weeks.

I also had some fun with lace weight yarns.
I stumbled upon a different way to dye my skeins and I quite like the effect.

 

And some sock weight yarn.

Some of these will go to the market with me this summer, others in my Etsy shop and to the LYS.

 

The alpaca fibre is getting longer and longer on the animals.
I keep looking at the girls we bred last summer and wonder if any of them are pregnant or if it's all that fibre making them look so round and chubby.

How I wish I had x-ray vision to see what is going on in those bellies.

But shearing time is not that far away...and that might give us a better idea once the fibre is off.

But look at Carmella's coat!
Full of hay, she loves to lie in it and obviously roll in it too!

You know who will be picking all of those little pieces of hay out? Yes, that would be MOI!

 

My mother suggested I go out there and brush her but I don't think that Carmella would be too keen on that idea.

I must get back to my Alcyone scarf and finish it soon. I also need to find myself a mindless knitting project for those times when concentration is out of the question!
I'm thinking a hat or fingerless mittens...

Lavender Strathcona and dog fun

It was such a wonderful day yesterday, so sunny and warm.

A perfect time to play with the dogs.

Who will get to it first and who will bring it back is always a toss up.

 

Sometimes, negociations will happen out on the field and everyone waits for a decision to be made so that the game can continue.



Thing is, they easily outlast me when we play like this...they could go on all day!

 

On the knitting front.  

The Strathcona scarf is all done. The lace pattern really makes it a fast knit.

Half way thru, by simply switching the order of the lace pattern, a point is created.

 Cute little feature that can be worn front or back.

 

It's a light and airy scarf, perfect for end-of-winter weather.
 

 



Pattern: Strathcona

Needles: 4.5mm

Yarn: Lonely Oak Alpaca (from Aurelia) hand dyed in lavender

 

This is the second item knitted from the Island e-book.

I plan on casting on the Rathtrevor mitts next.

Red

Red is a favorite colour of mine.
So when it was time to choose a colour for this next cardigan, I dyed my yarn in a bright red...called Vampire blood.

This is a worsted weight 100% merino yarn.
The same yarn used in my Thrummed mitten kits.
 

(Bjorne is such a sweet and gently boy. He's a great dog to walk with.)

The Lush cardigan is a test knit for tincanknits. A new design, part of their upcoming Spring 2013 collection Handmade in the UK.

 

 After knitting a lace panel, stitches are picked up on one edge for the body and sleeves while stitches are picked up on the opposite edge for the collar.

I do love a no-seam knit.

Spring is getting closer and I'll be happy to have this comfortable cardigan in my closet.

Fresh start

Now that the children are all grown up, we are reorganizing the house to better suit our own needs.**

This has pushed us to do more painting and we now have a freshly painted bedroom.

I will need to keep a single bed in this room for some of our visiting guests but I would also like to use the room as a store for my yarns, fibre and garments.
Yup, a Lonely Oak/Zenitude store opening soon eventually!

But back to the freshly painted room.

A daybed would be ideal, but I'm cheap and won't spend $500 for a new one. So the search is on for something suitable in the right price range.

I'm also looking for some shelving, maybe a entertainment unit would do, to store the inventory. 

I already have a wonderful table that will be great as a desk.



I'll let you know how we are progressing over the next few weeks months.

 

There is still some knitting going on.

The Strathcona scarf is  coming along.

I've modified the pattern a bit because I don't have a whole lot of yardage with this alpaca yarn.

The yarn is also a sport weight.

** About reorganizing the house to better suit OUR needs...that should probably be MY needs. Seems that I'm claiming most of the house for myself. The lower level is not a man cave in our house but it's my studio, dye room, tv room, storage room... And now this bedroom will also be all MINE!
But, hubby has the sheds and the garage to call his own...seems fair to me! :o)

Success!!

She likes it!

 

 YAY!

Mia is now recongnizing this rug as her own!

Now that I see this pic, it might be a tad small for her large feline size.