Process...

I have been wanting to get back to handpainting roving and was shocked when I realized that it has been a year (!) since my last effort. I did do some natural dyeing this spring, but I wanted to get to that serendipitous feeling of painting rovings, playing with color and then seeing what happens when the now colored fibers are spun. Let me tell you it is always one surprise after another, especially when the colors don't turn out the way one thinks. Here, side by side, are the latest. Falkland fiber on the left, Merino Seacell on the right. Same color dyes, applied in different methods. With the Falkland I used longer lengths of color, with the Merino seacell shorter. It continues to delight the way the different fibers take the colors. All along I planned on plying the two together, to get a lace or fingering weight.

So here we see the transformation of the Falkland into a singles on the bobbin. A bit subdued, as color merged into color and yet the longer lengths of color are evident. I started out with approximately 4.5 oz of each fiber, and when I split each roving in half vertically I ended up with a 2 oz piece and a 2.5ish piece. The 2 oz. half of the Falkland got spun up first, then the Merino Seacell; as you see I still have the joy of spinning the other half of the roving, another skein to go.

As I watched colors blending in the plying I let my imagination follow their lead and I kept imaging a carved jade screen on an old chinese garden...I wonder if I can find a pattern that could bring that out, I do remember seeing something on Ravelry recently, oh if I can find it again!
If I counted correctly I was able to 4oo yds out of the 4 oz of fiber. Not quite lace, but it will do.

Pleasant Porch

After a bit of neglect in which we let bird feeders get down to nothing and the bird bath go dry, bird seed supply dwindle, we finally got into the feed store and DH got out in the yard and cleaned and topped up everything. One of the reasons was that we were becoming alarmed at the number of pigeons we were attracting; also alarmed when we noticed some Mississippi Kites hovering nearby watching and sometimes chasing and probably catching some of the smaller birds. Thankfully not within my range of vision!

Our plan worked, but the result was that we missed out seeing our smaller birds feeding too, and that was the whole point of having the feeders. One large hopper with a ring all around it for perching, two thinner tubes with six individual perches each and what we nicknamed the 'Deli', a cedar box with plexiglass sides and narrow perches on two sides, all suspended from a wrought iron pole with four arching hooks. Plenty of room, plenty of food.

It took a couple of days for them to catch on that food was back, but we have been rewarded big time with the return of families of cardinals and black capped chickadees and titmice and finches and sparrows and blackbirds, thrashers have even come into the yard, and, yes, doves and pigeons have returned. We also filled two hummingbird feeders and have enjoyed watching them feed, and enjoy the little noises they make.

Two days ago I was alerted by splishing and splashing sounds that someone was in the bird bath. When I went to my window I was surprised to see two or three little blue feathered birds with rusty bibs and bright white bottoms enjoying their bath. Rushing for Sibley's guide to Birds I discovered that I had finally seen Eastern Bluebirds. They are beautifully colored and fun to watch. I have been waiting for them to come back, but, alas, not yet.

However, when I went out to the porch to get a closer look at them, stupidly sans camera, I got another surprise. A red bellied woodpecker came down to the bath and gently sipped some water while I watched, and then got in to enjoy his own bath! I called out gently for my husband to come enjoy the fruit of his labor but by the time he got to the back porch 'Woody' was gone. He is one that has his home in some one of the big trees around here, so hopefully he will return one of these days. In the meantime we enjoy sitting out on our screened in porch in the shade of the trees whose leaves have yet to totally abandon them, enjoying my mother-in-law's plants and watching out for any other new (perhaps migrating) birdlife that wish to join the year round visitors to our yard.

the Dianna shawl

Dianna shawl is finished and fulfills my expressed desires of over a year ago when I finished spinning this yarn. I had said the colorway reminds me of autumn leaves and that perhaps I could find something with a leaf motif to show it off. Hah!
I was cruising through Ravelry when I came across the Dianna shawl in the favorites photos on the people page. What a great page that is! This is the Dianna shawl by Jane Araúj0 and is a free pattern. Isn't that amazing! Ravelry is one amazing feature after another because when I tried to start the pattern I kept getting stumped by the way it was written. Lo and behold a forum was available that helped clarify the author's point of view and made working the pattern so much easier and understandable. (Jane works her entrelac rectangles without turning the work so everything is done from the right side).




So, out came the yarn, which by the way is from Martie Moreno's Sunflower Too shop on etsy and is part of her Free Fall series of handpainted rovings. This was FF 128, Falkland top and I was able to get 678 yards out of 3.8 ounces, two ply, which I would consider definitely a lace weight.
It took me a while to finish it, having started it the end of July, it came off the needles and was blocked about two weeks ago, end of summer. Perfect timing. Here Marsha models for me at our knitting group at the Mockingbird Café.


And we finally got some cooler evenings and mornings so I got to wear it last night and it felt wonderful. This one is a keeper! All the others have found new homes with caring people leaving me room to make more!

I am ready to order more dyes and do some more spinning. Other than some demonstrations I haven't done any spinning all summer. Now that Fall is here I hope to change that and get back to it. Also looking forward to seeing what Martie will come up with once her etsy shop is back up and running. She continues to amaze and inspire with her wonderful color sense!

In the meantime I am working on Cookie A's Clandestine socks. I really like them, so much so that I have already started the second sock. Yea! These will be for a special loved one and I hope she likes them as much as I do!

So, back to work...

I should be at the Mockingbird Cafe (left) this morning knitting and enjoying the rotating art hangings inspiring color combinations and more...however I am in a self imposed quarantine due to a flu-like cold. I am tempted to go anyway, but better to be safe... So I decided to post some pictures from my phone camera from a couple of months ago. Once more my friend Dilania's garden inspires with glimpses of color hidden in gorgeous leaves of greenery.

I wish I had a tenth of the knowledge she has about plants and their care. Her garden always has a surprise or two. (or three).

And one shot of a beautiful sunset. I missed the main blaze of color but still found these clouds so lovely, so pleasing.

One footnote, unrelated to the rest of this post: A while ago I posted some photos of a handspun yarn dyed with Spanish moss and turmeric. I am happy to report that I was working toward an entry for Spin-Off Magazine's Handspun Gallery of Natural Dyes for the Fall 2010 issue. While I didn't make the cut for the magazine my entry was chosen for the web page, so if you would like to see it you can go to http://www.spinoffmagazine.com/ and click on the Handspun Gallery of Natural Dyes and check out the details. It was fun to do and now I have the gorgeous yarn to play with. Hmmm.. what will it become?

Back at last...

Despite the silence I have been working away on Cookie A.'s Pomatomus socks and am happy to report that they feel as great on as they look. I took me awhile to get into enjoying the process on these as all knit stitches were knit tbl, but it was probably the first time I was really motivated to start the second sock right away.

I was able to finish these by the middle of August, and good thing, too, as I spent two weeks in an intensive Bible training course where I had absolutely no time to knit. But I did have a wonderful time and met people from all over, like Peru and Argentina, as well as the States.

Before heading off to school I found this shawl pattern on Ravelry, called Dianna, and find that it works beautifully with hand painted yarns. I am so looking forward to seeing what it looks like when finished and blocked.

I may have already mentioned the drop spindle class I taught at the Stitch Niche in Diamondhead. I was very pleased that almost every student was spinning quite well at the end of the class. A few of them are fired up to learn to spin on the wheel, so that will be taking place in the next week or so.

So many things to do!

Five o'clock in the morning remnants of Bonnie reached Bay St. Louis with flashes of lightning so bright you could 'see' the light through closed eyes, waiting for the boom of thunder that came much too quickly so you knew it was right on top of you and then listening as it faded away into the distance. The boats are already heading back out to the oil and reports have yet to come in on what further oil damage has been done due to the storm.

Feeling nostalgic. My sister visited us when we were living in Spain many moons ago and we re-visited 'our' castle, the castle at Manzanares el Real outside of Madrid. Beautiful place. Here we are peeking out of the huge main doors. I am missing Spain, California, and most of all family and friends in the San Diego area. Recent news, my sister's son will be heading off to university soon; my twin Peter's surfing dog Nani won first place in the Purina Dog Challenge large dog surfing division which will be aired sometime in August; my niece Alicia's daughter will be heading to kindergarden in September, although I don't know how, as it seems she was just born; my cousin Pam's son was married today in California, I am sure it must have been a lovely wedding.

As for me, I am still working on finishing the second sock of the Pomatomus (Cookie A's design). (previous post) It is coming along well, but I took a break to practice my spinning with a drop spindle for a class at a local yarn store. There were about fourteen students and all were amazingly quick at getting the idea and had yarn! on their spindles when they left after about four hours. One student in particular was spinning what I would consider consistent lace weight yarn. She must have learned before! That was last weekend and it took me a couple of days to recuperate from all the energy expended in practicing and worrying about what to say, which as it turned out was needless, or at least most of it was.

I want to get back to my handspun yarns and knit with them and do some more dyeing and spinning.

Glad that the tropical storm possibility fizzled out and hoping that oil can be controlled!