Reed Bingham camping trip

Last weekend we traveled to Reed Bingham State Park to join some friends. We enjoyed our time with our friends, but the trip was one of those ‘good news, bad news’ things.

Good News: CS, Dix, BD made it, Pantless and the Amazing Erma stopped by on Saturday evening to join us for dinner.  Bad News: Bama had car trouble and had to cancel.

Good News: Dinner at the Catfish House was fun and delicious.  Bad News: Loooong wait time for a table while seated outside on the porch, in the heat, with the bugs.

Good News: The park is nice. It has big camping sites and and lots to do. You can  fish, swim, play miniature golf, hike,  rent kayaks and boats or bikes .  Bad News: It was in the mid 90’s most of the time, with humidity also very high, except when it was storming.

Good News: No mosquitoes  Bad News: Every gnat on the planet was in the park this weekend.

Good News: The swimming area was lovely, water temp perfect.  Bad News: A gator decided he liked the lovely swimming area with perfect water temperature.

Good News : The storms lowered the temperature and humidity for a little bit.  Bad News: The storms knocked out the power for a few hours– and one of the big rigs lost its awning to the storm.(all of us were fine, thankfully)            

 

That gives you an idea of how things went. I’d love to go back to Reed Bingham, but not during June, July, or August. From now on, we head north during the summer months, not south! 

Here are some photos of our adventures:         

Some of the gang kayaking down a nearby  river   (and yes, they encountered an alligator along the way)                             

Gator country

The storm produced some flooding – then we had  4” of water to bail out of that kayak!

We remember

and we give thanks for your sacrifice. God Bless each of you, and your families.

And now for something I’d never thought I’d do…..

One thing leads to another. First, I learned to knit, then I learned to spin. When DS1 found me spinning, making my own yarn, he teased me that he expected to come home and find sheep grazing in the back yard, as the next logical step was to raise my own fiber.  hmmmmmmm. No, that’s not the next step, but I did take a half step and bought some fleeces. A farmer/sheepherder in Kentucky was willing to sell her fleece by the pound instead of by the complete fleece. So, I bought a pound each of Lincoln and Icelandic wool and a pound of Alpaca! Now this stuff is straight off the animal, vegetable matter and all. The dog loves all those good sheepy smells and tried to get into the box that the fleece came in.   
These are the fleeces, just out of the box, center bottom is the Lincoln, top right is Icelandic, top left is the Alpaca.  Since the fleece is right off the animal, it has to be ‘scoured’ (fiber speak for washed) to remove the debris and the lanolin.  First, you make a hot solution of water and detergent, put the fleece in, careful not  to agitate. It looks like this before the bath – tan, long and curly.  It looks like the middle picture while it soaks and the dirt and ‘grease’ are lifted to the surface. Look at the color of that water!

Once it has been washed and rinsed several times, it gets laid out to dry. Even after washing, little Mac was trying to get at it! (double click on photo to enlarge)


It took much longer to dry than I expected.  Then it was time to comb the locks. Please, don’t ever try to use a wool comb to comb your hair!  Wool combs are much more suited to Freddy Kruger or Edward Scissorhands. These are wool combs:
These are wool combs in action :
   The result of the combing is this delightful cream-colored puff of fiber that spins into this yarn:

Can you believe that this  poofy white cloud came from this dirty mess of curls? Talk about a transformation!!

Meet Elspeth

    My very own spinning wheel!  I found an ad on Ravelry for a used wheel and am quite happy to have it in my home, using it.  Unfortunately, Elspeth met with an accident shortly after she came to live in our house. Someone who shall remain nameless tripped and fell…right onto Elspeth. She was unhurt except for the rather fragile and (to me) inadequate little piece that holds the skein winder atop the wheel. That little piece broke. Never fear, DS1 came up with a fix that now makes Elspeth into a bionic wheel. I’m petty sure that with her metal replacement parts (something we have in common) she won’t lose her skein winder again.

Some of my first attempts at spinning. The brownish and the turquoise are Blue Face Leicester, the others are Merino. I’m keeping a notebook on the different types of fiber that I spin, trying to keep track of  the differences and characteristics of each. I never gave it any thought before, but there must be as many different sheep breeds as there are dog breeds, and each produces its own unique wool. Some wools aren’t desirable for use in garments but might be ok for weaving or for use in rugs.  My first fiber purchases were guided by availability and color. I love color. But I have bought some fiber from different sheep as part of a monthly Ravelry study, and these are in their natural colors. The one that I am currently spinning is Black Welsh Mountain, and I am enjoying it immensely. Here is the first bobbin as well as some of the roving which I have predrafted. That ‘hank of hair on the right, after being spun on Elspeth, becomes that yarn. That deep black/brown color is natural. I’m hoping to have enough to make a peasant style shawl.

Day tripping

MOTH and I took a day trip to Calloway Gardens in Pine Mountain, GA.  It was a lovely day, perfect weather, and you can’t ask for a prettier place.  I hope you enjoy some of the pictures that we took.         Here he is, walking on the Rhododendron Trail and some of the other outdoor plants.


Aside from acres of outdoor gardens, Calloway Gardens has a butterfly house.That large moth-looking butterfly is probably bigger than my fist! and some of the  butterflies were actually a beautiful shade of blue, I wish I could have captured one with its wings open, but you can get just a hint of what they looked like here.

There are also indoor gardens of various types.
     

Getting sidetracked…..

Haven’t had anything to show as I have been sidetracked, or perhaps hi-jacked.  My granddaughter has a social studies project, you know the one- the child has to pick a country, then make a report, prepare a dish and wear a costume of the national dress of that country.  Anyway, she has been researching diligently for her report on Honduras , but she asked me for help in making a costume.  Fair enough, here it is:

Easter Blessings...

                                            Wishing everyone a very Happy and Blessed Easter

 
Adorable lamb and bunny photo courtesy of Barbara Parry of http://www.sheepgal.com

Lady Anne’s first outing of 2010

We have just returned from our first camping trip of the year. We went to McKinney Campground with a friend and had a very relaxing extended weekend. It was raining off and on the day we arrived, but we were able to set up  between rain showers. The first day was dismal, as you can see in the photos. (double click on photos to enlarge)

Saturday was glorious  but extremely windy. We did sit out for several hours while sipping hot chocolate, and we took walks. We also were bundled up against the penetrating wind coming off of the lake.

Friday we put up the awning, that night I awoke to sounds that sounded like someone was thumping on our cargo doors. I thought we were being burgled! Turns out it was the wind grabbing the awning, lifting and dropping parts of it.  I was able to secure it (probably it hadn’t been properly tightened when we put it up) without any problems or damage. We put the awning down when with the assistance of our friend when it became obvious that the wind was only getting stronger; we needed all three of us to handle it under those circumstances. Last night , even though the awning was down, the winds off the lake rocked the RV so strongly that it woke me up again, I once or twice I was afraid we would tip over…..yeah, it was dark and I’m a chicken!

Do I really need another obsession?

Of course I don’t. Will that stop me? Hmmmmm……jury is still out on that one. But it isn’t my fault at all. Nope, not at all. 

It’s all JudyL’s fault. She started it .  I’ve always had a thing for any sort of fiber work. I’ve done embroidery. crewel, needlepoint, garment sewing, quilting, temari and back in college, I knitted my first project, an afghan. A while back Judy posted on her blog that she had knit a pair of socks.  Hey, that sounded interesting, I thought I might want to give that a try. I consulted an acquaintance that is a knitter, told her I had knitted once, 30+ years ago, did she think I could learn to make socks? She said that it was too difficult.    You KNOW what that means! I promptly bought a instructional dvd/yarn/needle kit for making socks- 2 at a time. I am on my third pair (they take me a long time because they get put down for long periods while I pursue other obsessions interests) and while I can’t claim to be an accomplished sock knitter, I am able to (and do) wear the ones that I have finished. So you see, Judy started it!

I do love reading Judy’s blog, she does so many interesting things and has a way of telling a story that makes even the mundane a hoot. And she tries so many different things. In that respect I think we are kindred spirits, if I lived four lifetimes I couldn’t try all the things that capture my interest and imagination. Judy not only quilts, lectures and writes quilting books, she now raises chickens, makes her own cheese and bakes her own bread from flour she mills herself. So, you see, Judy is to blame.

I have started knitting things other than socks. And, in the spirit of trying new things, from scratch, I took a few lessons how to use this:

 

Yep, a spinning wheel….to make my own yarn. Under my instructor’s guidance, I spun and plied some roving. It wasn’t too bad for a first effort, but it was rather irregular. It is one of those things that you say you were going for ‘novelty’ yarn and wanted it to have different thicknessess. “I meant it to be this way”.

I purchased more roving, this time pencil roving and on my own spun it up. This was much more regular and uniform-not perfect, but much improved. This morning I finished spinning it and also plied it. The pencil roving was wonderful to work with, and the colors…….ooooooh, how I love intense color. The roving went from an yellowy-orange and deep lavender to a hot pink and dark purple.

Here it is while being spun:

 

I’m enjoying this. Of course, the sensible part of me (which can be found on the fingernail of my left pinkie finger) is telling me that to justify doing this I would have to knit a whole lot more. Added to that, spinning wheels tend to be expensive. So, along with researching fibers and techniques, I have also been collecting instructions for making your own spinning wheel—you know—so you can really do it from scratch……….

#1DS is now hiding, as he is the one that gets recruited to help me with all the ‘crazy mom projects’. In Momspeak, ‘help’ translates to ‘do’.

So, you see, it is really all Judy’s fault.    ………..(psssst, hey Judy, thanks!)

Is it time for design wall Monday again??

Well, the same  thing is on my design wall as the last time I posted – no changes, no progress. 

Why?? Well, the last time the grandchildren were here, #1DS came up stairs and asked “Mom, can you fix this?”

You see, on weekends when he is the custodial parent, the kids use some old quilts to sleep with.  This one is older than I am, which makes it about the age of Wilma Flintstone’s grandmother.  It was made by my grandmother’s sister and given to my mom sometime before I was born. It has served at least 4 generations admirably, bringing warmth and comfort and sweet dreams. I think it is time to retire the old dear, the fabric is just disintegrating with age and wear. It’s nice to know my kids think I can work miracles, fix anything, but it is time to reveal the ugly truth to them. They’re grownups, they can handle it – there are some things even mom can’t fix!

So, what this all means is that I went up to the pile of finished tops, picked one out, stuck in on the machine and got it quilted. Today I hope to get the binding on so that it is ready when they come again on Friday  for the weekend.  I also picked out another top to do quickly, as the other old quilt being used is also on its last legs. That one we picked up at a yard sale.

Neither of these tops is a favorite, quite the opposite. One was an experiment in technique and the other was a lovely JudyL design that I executed poorly.

What happened was that while I was making the HSTs, I was merrily trimming them to exact size and was interrupted and didn’t get back to the project for a few days. When I was able to resume, I completely forgot about the trimming……you can guess what happened. I couldn’t figure out why I was having such trouble getting things to fit, all of a sudden. I fought all the way through the borders before the light dawned. By then, I figured the heck with it, I’ll use it for picnics or something. So now they will keep the grands warm and snuggly, and it won’t matter if the children make tents out of it, or play tug of war, or spill something.

That is why no progress on the design wall. Well, that and the fact that I have been taking lessons and practicing my latest great obsession………….come back soon to see what that is…………