A little late in posting this.......

 My Mother's Day gift came in the mail last week from my DD.  She mailed this along with her Father's Day gift to Dale.

 What an awesome card!  Nicole, you've got the award for 'Amazing Card Finder-er' ;)

 You can see the tissue paper was torn at the corner already in this picture.  It was at this point that I thought I better get the camera going.

 Every stitch was made by her hand.  Self taught. 

 There's a whole week of them!  Bright and sunny!

Also included was the second season of '"I Love Lucy."  I have had the first season for a couple years now, and absolutely enjoy it.  When I'm sewing I'll have it playing on the laptop, and it's amazing what a comedienne Lucy Ball was.  

Thank you Nino!  I'll think of you now when Lucy is playing and I'm drying dishes.

The first blooming thing in our pond......

This is an Iris that was split from a friends plant, and the thing was stuck in a pail and then jammed into the rocks in our pond, and it's growing! I have had a pond lily that I've been babying for a couple years now, and the thing still hasn't bloomed. I was told that I'm not fertilizing it enough so I remedied that and I'm hoping I'll see some blooms this year.

In the meantime DH and I are babysitting our grandkitty Monty.

I can't say that my two old girls (two female cats, 17 &18 yrs) are enjoying the experience, but they're dealing with it. To give them some peace at night Monty goes into one of the bedrooms where we've set up his own little bachelor pad.

I wish I had a bachelor pad to go to. Who knew keeping the peace was so exhausting. :)

My knitting has been going slow, but of course I love the close-ups so here is a couple pics of the Birch Leaf Socks and what I've done so far....

The front design.

The above picture shows the blue dye in this brown alpaca sock yarn. Whereas the picture below you would never know there was a speck of blue.

I'm loving this sort of cabled rib pattern on the back of the leg. It's meant to be used for just the cuff, but I'm wanting to carry it down the whole back of the leg before starting the heel flap. Very stretchy.

And finally .... I finished one slipper that will be felted and I'd love to do some needle felting on it after. Maybe a flower here and there. Gotta make the mate to it first.

Have a great weekend!!
P.S.: An after thought......Have a great and relaxing weekend! Monty sure knows how ;)

Finished Plying.......

The Icelandic is done. Some close-up shots. I can't get enough of the close-ups. Reading other blogs and seeing close-ups of spinning just makes me ;). Click to make them bigger.

A little bit closer now.....

7 wpi=#5 (Bulky/Heavy Worsted). Amount of fibre 11 oz./311g purchased from Paradise Fibers. After spinning, and washing the total yardage is: 187.4m/205yd, weight 11.9 0z/337g.

There is a discrepancy here because I never weighed the fibre before spinning. I checked my receipt and I ordered what they had left at that time and that was 11 oz. After processing into yarn you can see that I've weighed in with more than the 11 oz. Bonus!!

Before ordering this I never worked with Icelandic fibre and I have to say I was a bit shocked when it arrived in the mail. I opened that package, stuck my hand in the bag, and immediately knew that it was not anything that I'd be able to wear close to the skin except for socks or slippers. So the fibre has been sitting in my closet since July 2008, and I thought this is what I'm going to practice spinning some thick singles on. I tested the singles to see how strong they were by just trying to rip a piece off, and couldn't believe the strength this fibre has. I could totally see combining the Icelandic with some other fibre for sock yarn.

So I'm now testing gauge to knit some felted slippers. I'll post pictures later showing how it felts up.

Just a few pictures of the first Iris to ever bloom in my garden.

Previously I just seemed adept at killing them.

It looked like it was going to rain, so I came in to post these, and now it's sunny out. So I'm outside mowing the grass.....

Have a Great Weekend!!

I had a wonderful day with my Mom......

Which doesn't happen all that frequently as she lives over 303miles/487km from where I live.  It so happened that I had the day planned and she came into town and joined me in shopping for some material and fibre.

First stop was to Fabricland which had a sale on quilting fabric 'buy 1 metre get 3 free'.  So I added to the stash.

 I went to check on the discounted bin which was 50% off, and found some pretty yellow floral material which I'm hoping to make a top for the summer.  We'll see.  All good intentions pave the road to 'you know where'.

We met up with my sister Jackie and went for lunch after material shopping.  I couldn't eat lunch fast enough as the Hand Weavers, Spinners & Dyers of Alberta were holding their annual conference in Edmonton this past weekend, June 1-6.  That's where my Mom and I headed to next.  Unfortunately I don't know what I was thinking, but I didn't take one picture! UGH!  Thinking back to it now I was too busy looking at everything that it never occurred to me to get the camera out.  Not like Robin from For the Love of Fiber.  She blogged about her weekend going to 3! fiber festivals.  She takes some wonderful pictures.  

Anyway the following pictures are what was added to the fibre stash from the HWSDA 2010 Conference.

 Beautiful sock yarn from Twisted Sisters & Company Fibre Mill.  They carry beautiful alpaca rovings, but what caught my eye was this chocolate brown sock yarn with a tinge of blue through it.  70%Alpaca/15%Nylon/15% Merino.  It feels wonderful, it's very sturdy for sock yarn.  So I cast on that same evening for Birch Leaf Socks by Nancy Bush.  Pattern can be found in A Gathering of Lace, produced by Meg Swanson.  

The silk bag pictured below is from Studio Celeste.  I immediately knew that it would be perfect for carrying around a sock in progress.  Studio Celeste is in the midst of developing a website so there isn't a link I can send you to.  They have wonderful silk fibres, and imported wearables.  They're based in Lethbridge, Alberta Canada.

 Four skeins of Studio Celeste's silk/nylon yarn.  I had a heck of a time picking these colours.  There were too many to choose from, but I'm hoping to incorporate some of these in a weaving project.

 Another booth which I had singled out was Homespun Haven, owner Sharon Wickstrom.  I've visited her shop at her home when I've been on holiday in Armstrong, B.C., Canada.  I've also caught up with her at other fibre festivals, but this is the first time that I really took a look at her weaving yarn.  So this time I picked up 1/2 lb of 2/8 Tencel in red, and blue.  Then 1/2 lb of 2/8 Bamboo in green and beige.  I'm hoping to design some sort of runner for a buffet cupboard with some of the colours that I've been gathering.  It's going to take me awhile to figure out how to combine several colours that compliment what's going on in the colour scheme of my living room.  So hopefully it won't take forever to figure that out.  Coordinating colours just seem to be an exercise in exasperation for me.

 Last but not least I finally cashed in on Knit Picks book sale last month.  Vogue Knitting Shawls and Wraps is a varied collection of 43 patterns.  Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush has been on my list for a long time now, and not only are there some great patterns, but some great information of the history of lace knitting in that region of the world.  Finally I'm really looking forward to doing some hand-dyeing, and the Teach Yourself Visually book really has it laid out well for the 

beginner dyer. 

 The dyeing bug bit me when I saw these jars.  

 Funny how these things start.

 The weekend started with this.......

My lilacs finally opened up to the little bit of sunshine we got on Friday.  It quickly turned to this Saturday early morning.......

 Sleet, mixed with a bit of hail.  All the planted pots were put in the garage, and what plants I have planted outside basically fended for themselves.  

 Construction is still ongoing down in the basement, but on Sunday I finally (Finally!!) got to put the jumbo sliding hook flyer on my Ashford Traveller double drive.

 I have some very sturdy Icelandic Top that no way can go against my shoulders or neck.  So I started spinning thick singles which I'll double ply and knit up for slippers which I'll felt for hopefully even more strength.

 Love the jumbo bobbins for spinning thicker singles.

Everything goes that much better when a venti decaf vanilla iced caffe latte is sitting at the ready.  Who else is addicted to this stuff???

 Can I bend your ear?.........

This was supper last night with some honey garlic wings.  Quick and easy.  

That's how suppers have been around here as we're still working on basement renovations, and working in the garden.  Unfortunately any progress with knitting has been done in the evenings before Dale and I crash for the night.  There are some days/weekends where we've been so busy that I can't fall asleep.  The kind of exhaustion that as a knitter I can't even concentrate on knitting.  Which is very unusual.  Slowly as we finally start seeing progress in construction/demolition of renovating, I'll be posting more pictures of fibre goodness.  ;)

So in the meantime when I should be writing new posts on this blog, I've gone and found more knitters/bloggers (Carole Knits, Seed Stitch, The Woolen Rabbit, Under The Tulip Tree) who love to knit/garden.  It's been inspiring reading all of them, and makes me envious how far ahead their growing season is than mine up here in the Canadian north.  

So for now all I've got are pic's of what's growing in my garden......

The Primula or Primrose are up in full glory.

This is a highchair that is as old as I am, probably older.  I painted it a Chelsea Blue and it's now a plant stand in the garden. 

I'm hoping to plant my climbing nasturtiums at the base of the highchair so they can grow up the legs, but the weather is still dicey and my seedlings haven't hardened up enough yet.

Some sweetpeas.  Hopefully they'll be easy to transplant.  It's still an experiment as I haven't grown sweetpeas for ages.

The pond is up and running for this year, and we're waiting for the weather to warm up a bit before transferring the goldfish and koi.  It's always exciting watching them being put in the pond for the first time of the season.  If darting around like maniacs constitutes fish being excited, well, they're pretty darn excited then.  Hopefully I'll remember to take a video this time.

TGIF and the snow is slowly melting.......

 We managed to get the pond cleaned out before the snow came at the beginning of the week.  My delphiniums are taking a hit, but I'm hoping the cold temperatures won't stunt their growth.

In the meantime I've still got the sewing bug. This material was discounted to something like buy 1 metre get 2 free. So I bought 3 metre's and hoped that would be enough for something. I didn't know what I was going to use it for at that time, but upon looking at the daisy lace pattern on it I loved how it looked as a tablecloth and seat covers.

So I traced the seats of my kitchen chairs and cut out the pattern. Hopefully after I get finished posting this I'll start sewing them up today.

After some fussing and fitting I got the jean jacket finished. Pattern by Burda #7812.

Closeup of the pocket flap lining, and buttons.

 

Noodles investigating what's on the floor? Can I eat it mama?

I've got a really cute video of Noodles eating some leftover rice pudding in a little cup (She LOVES rice pudding), but the video is taking it's sweet ass time loading. I will post it asap when it finishes processing.

Here's the video....She didn't eat the whole thing just what I leave her which is about a teaspoon.  Rice pudding is very sticky.  Have to go clean Noodles whiskers now :)

Have a great weekend everyone,
and Happy Mother's Day to all!!

The rain brought more than we bargained for.......Spring will be here hopefully, again, by the end of this weekend. Anna and Noodles were crying to get outside to chow down on some grass, but they walked away in disgust when I opened the screen door to show them the wonderful whiteness. Now they're trying to sleep away the weather.Well one good thing that comes from this is that our overseeding of the lawn will get a boost from this moisture. Hopefully the farmers are welcoming this. I don't know how this snowfall falls into the management of their fields.

No knitting pic's for today. Still trying to finish ufo's. Hopefully will have something to post soon!