HELLO 2012

Over the past couple of months, I have thought about blogging, but I got myself into a bit of a Winter hibernation mode -- sort of.  What has gotten in the way is "Summer" -- we have been having Summer weather in the middle of our Winter. My welcome to 2012 had to take a back seat for a while.  

So I have been going on a daily trek along the wonderful San Clemente beach trail -- thanks to the City of San Clemente for making this available. This takes at least two and half hours, so it kind of cut into my days.

The trail runs along the railroad tracks so it's very exciting when a train zooms past.

Today was so glorious.  Rumors are swirling that our weather is going to change very soon. Oh, no, low clouds developing -- rain, showers, snow in the forecast.  In the meantime, I am eeking every last drop out of this summertime weather.

There's something so peaceful about the beach in the middle of the Winter -- no crowds, just a few beachgoers, surfers and nature.

Last weekend.

We took a walk on the beach at Crystal Cove State Park just after Christmas.  A holiday tree on the beach -- I just love it!

And I was so excited one day to see that the lot where I park to take my daily walks had been "bombed" by an anonymous crocheter.  Had to capture this on film.  

Well, despite my "hibernation", I have been productive.  I have been spinning like crazy. Here's one of the many, many skeins I have spun  -- this is Blueface Leicester and Silk handpainted by me in "Bougainvillea" and "Vintage Merlot".

And I've been reading India Flint's book "Second Skin" and attempted her tube felted scarf on a piece of cardboard, but after stitching and felting, I couldn't bring myself to cut it diagonally -- I liked the long piece but it came out thicker than I had anticipated.  Don't know what I'm going to do with this, but I like it.  

And I have been knitting quite a bit, too.  Here is a shawl I knit using Miriam Felton's pattern for the "Adamas Shawl".  I used some Handmaiden Casbah which is a merino, cashmere yarn.  

This shawl might look awfully pretty with some of my handspun yarn.  

More New Mexico

Thought I would add a few more pictures of the trip Michelle and I took to New Mexico.  These are balls of churro yarn that I bought at the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center.  These were dyed with natural dyes by a local woman, Glenna Dean, who is from Abiquiu.  She used madder root, brazilwood, black walnuts, cottonwood catkins and cota (aka Navajo tea).  These were spun very thin and are used in the native Colcha embroidery.  I plan on using them for stitching and bought a book on Colcha.

This is Michelle adding some fringe to a beautiful felted piece she was working at our B&B in Chimayo.  She included a little Lincoln lamb pelt in the piece.  

While I did some decorative stitching on one of my eco print shawls.

One of our first stops as we pulled into Taos was a beautiful fabric store that we love -- Common Thread.  This is hands down one of the best fabric stores ever.  We bought loads of beautiful silks, cashmere and silk shawls, buttons and ribbons.   

 After spending the night in Santa Fe, our last day took us on a smaller road down through the old silver mining town of Madrid.  It is now a community of artists and is very quaint. Lots of little shops to wander around in.

Since we were on our way to the airport in Albuquerque, and loathed the idea of eating airport food, we stopped at wonderful little Mama Lisa's Cafe, all good freshly homemade food. And, of course, my last opportunity to have New Mexico enchiladas.  

We ate our lunch out on the front patio and enjoyed the pleasant weather.  

As we pulled out of Madrid and started our journey to Albuquerque, a few raindrops began falling and within about 15 minutes we were in a torrential rainstorm, driving through the mountains until we descended into to Albuquerque.  No more exploring -- we went straight to the airport, which turned out to be a wise choice.

I am now in the process of washing the next fleece we bought at the Taos Wool Festival.  This is another CVM/Wensleydale cross and it is jet black.  More pictures when it's done.

Blogging Again!

Deep into autumn -- travels over and shows done -- I'm ready to tackle blogging again.  Started out fall with a very relaxing trip to Northern New Mexico with my friend, Michelle.  This was our second year attending the Taos Wool Festival. It's hard not to go because we have such a great time. And we actually reserved rooms for next year. We started out with two nights at the Casa Escondida B&B in Chimayo, a very quaint weaving community about halfway between Santa Fe and Taos. We explored around the area, visited the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center, ate good food, drank wine and spent some relaxing days knitting and stitching on our deck and the front porch.

The view from our deck was spectacular and we had perfect weather.

Can you imagine a more idyllic spot? Night time brought a million stars and even the Milky Way. 

The next stop on our adventure was The Old Taos Guesthouse in Taos, of course.  I have stayed here many times and Tim and Leslie, the owners, make this a more than special play to stay. One night, we even had a "camp fire" in the fire pit out back with many of the guests sitting around chatting and enjoying a glass of wine.

A nice cup of tea and knitting in the afternoon with a view out over Taos.

Onto the Taos Wool Festival for much shopping and visiting with people we have met along the way.  We bought fleeces at Black Pines Sheep booth.

We also bought fleeces from one of my favorite booths at the wool festival -- The Rocky Mountain Natural Colored Sheep Breeders -- three that we couldn't resist -- a cocoa brown, variegated gray and a black one.  We split those between us.  

The wool show is outside on the grass at Kit Carson Park in the heart of Taos.  

After four days in Taos and serious damage to our pocketbooks, we spent a night in Santa Fe -- much more commercial/touristy atmosphere than in the little town of Taos, but it was still fun and we had great New Mexican food.  Oh, I do miss those enchiladas.  

This week, I finally found time to start processing the fleeces I bought in Taos.  This one is a CVM/Wensleydale cross, and believe it or not, this fleece has all of these fabulous colors in it.  I can hardly wait to start spinning it so that I can knit with it.

Now that I actually posted something on my blog -- yes, I'm going to try to keep this up on a regular basis.  Fingers are crossed!

Taos Sweater Finished!

Last October, my friend Michelle and I purchased a chocolate brown fleece at the Taos Wool Festival.  It was a CVM/cotswold/corriedale fleece. When I returned home, I washed, carded and spun my half into yarn with the idea of knitting a sweater to enter in the fiber arts show at Taos this year.  I also spun white cormo wool/silk and merino/angora yarns so that I could dye them in pastel colors to use in the sweater.  Over the weekend, I finished my project and I am very pleased with the outcome.  I saw Michelle today and asked her to model it for me.  

That's it for today.

Sunday Fun

Last week I got an email from Robina Koenig of Tumble Creek Farm up in the Pacific Northwest letting me know that her Fall shearing was done and she had some fleeces up for sale.  I had seen Robina's fiber at Black Sheep Gathering in June and asked to be on her email list.  I immediately opted for a small two-pound BFL lamb fleece.  It arrived yesterday so quickly.  Gorgeous little fleece, to say the least.

I kept looking at that fleece and knew there was no way I was going to be able to sleep unless I soaked a part of that fleece overnight, so that I could wash it today.  Here's the fleece drying out in the sun.  Very yummy.  Can't wait to spin it.

MORE BUNDLES UNVEILED

The other day, my friend Margie came over for a playdate and we made nuno felt with the idea of eco printing the pieces we made.  After a morning of feltmaking and lunch, we were off to forage along the local San Juan creek area.  We found some wonderful plant materials, one of which was a downed branch of eucalyptus, which had been laying in the middle of a field, hot sun mostly likely beating on it for at least a few weeks.  It was so dried up, we were skeptical but we collected some of the dried leafy branches as an experiment.  I still had a big pot of the golden liquid from the rabbit brush a few days before, so we used that dye bath as the liquid in our new dyepot.  After hours of simmering and then cooling down overnight, we had some very successful results.

These are the bundles fresh out of the dyepot.

My felted pieces drying.

And these are my eco prints on nuno felt. Some of the strongest rusty oranges, we obtained from the dried up eucalyptus branches.

Margie's bundles had to sit for a couple of days unwrapped and she got some very intense prints -- could be that the extra time in the bundle helped. A silk blouse.

 Her nuno felted pieces.

Margie also brought some plant materials from her garden:  sunflower leaves, avocado leaves, amaranth, and a few sunflowers.

Needless to say, we were pretty happy with our day of experimenting. 


And I have been making progress on a sweater I started knitting in January. This is my own design.

I purchased a small fleece at the Taos Wool Festival last October from Sheepfeathers Farm of Lafayette, CO.  This was a dark chocolate CVM/Cotswold/Corriedale cross which I processed and spun. The other handspuns are fibers I bought and spun from Toots Le Blanc and from Foxfire Fibers and then dyed in various pastel colors to go with the brown fleece. 

I am hoping to finish this sweater so I can wear it this year at the Taos Wool  Festival.  One sleeve and the collar to go.

On a Sunday, a dyepot of mullein is simmering on the barby.