French Kisses in the Flowers with wine

I just new I wanted to spin this the moment I brought it out of the dye pot. I watched it lovingly while it dried and had discussions with myself about how wonderful it would be to spin those luscious colors, to the point of imagining each color as it flowed into the next, and what names it should be called. I have toyed with several and even though I have never been to Italy I can't help but think of Italian vineyards and wineries. Maybe I've just watched French Kiss one too many times. heehee. A true fellow fiber fanatic will understand. It's the weirdest thing. Hard to explain really. How you fall in love with a fiber. I love the yarn as well. I do have an intent but I can't say. I have found that once I say something, I have a harder time foll lowing through, for now though it will be lovingly stared at, fondled and sorry but not sold. Just another angle of the same yummyness...

When Seth and I were first married and having the girls ( yeah you guys ) We didn't have so very much in the way of money. HAHAHAHAHA... But that never stopped Daddy from bringing me flowers. I was home alone alot since he, being a fireman and gone 24hrs- home 24hrs, and up to my neck, literally in kids, I also watched other children for 14 years as a daycare provider( so I could be home with ours), would stop on the way home on the base and pick these huge and I mean HUGE bouquets of wild flowers for me. Well the other day while in Home Depot I found one of the flowers he used to pick for me. Its called a Sea Lavender. So I bought one and now its blooming!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!! Do you guys remember?????????? I always used to call them paper flowers because they seems really dry and do dry out well. ( I feel rambly today, OH WELL)

These are the prettiest light purple flowers. I have them sitting on the table on the back porch. They are called purple robe. Really delicate and attract the little hummers. When we first moved to Southern California I was a new wife and soon to be a new mother. Basically as I look back now I was pretty darn new at pretty darn much everything but had you asked me I'd a told you a completely different story. I remember it was the first time I had ever lived away from my "family " and I was basically lost down here. We lived in a rented duplex and I wanted to plant some flowers. Again NO MONEY go figure.... I went to some store... can't remember..... this lady, a nice Mexican lady, I wanted to hug,I missed my mom real bad, older,(probably younger then me now) told me to buy Portulaca... a succulent. She told me it would grow, no matter what. It would make pretty flowers, no matter what. and all I had to do was give it water. Well.......

I leave you with this... That lady was right.. I have always felt really smart cause for some reason when you say Portulaca its sounds .... smart... or ...cool... or at least like you know some horticultural thing( if you don't believe me try it, go to home depot and find it and say out loud to someone, hey theres some portulaca see how it makes you feel) pronounced- poor-two- locka

And see the beautiful flowers. I have always thought of that lady. Makes you wonder about angels. Beautiful strangers, beautiful flowers, beautiful memories... Blessings Sue

Sunday Reflections

Perspective - per.spek'tiv
The ability to evaluate information, situations and the like with respect to their meaningfulness or importance.

This has been an interesting day for me. Reflective, yes, a bit sad, yes, a lot happy. Perspective is a wonderful gift really. A new and exciting gift to be opened and enjoyed fresh each day. One that can be shared with friends and aquantences alike. Agreed upon, disagreed upon, taken completely apart and put back together, and put safely away until tomarrow. Enjoy yours, however suits you, LOUDLY, or softly, together or alone.
And always with Blessings, Sue

Morning Coffee

I'm not sure how we got this on here. We did it this morning, kinda of stressed. But I wanted to see if it would work and it did. Yeah!!!!! This little guy has his morning wake up juice with me every morning. He or she is pretty brazen and pretty much keeps all the other little hummers away from this particular feeder.
I wish I could have deleted the voices, as my daughter was telling me that I definitely know how to speak my mind, with lips the size of Manhattan (she's 14) I've been told worse hahahaha.And not to bad considering she could have referred to California. Manhattan???? What The Heck sometimes I don't even try to wonder where her mind is.
Gotta go. BBQ time... Blessings to all Sue

Awwww... A girl and her dog.

I thought I'd share this picture with you. This is a picture of true love. A adores this dog. and this dog (Lily) adores A. We took her in this last week to get her spayed and she weighed 38 lbs. A has marks on the wall for her height every month. She reads training books and walks her everyday. Its turning into a great relationship. Funny thing is that Lily thinks she is a weiner dog like her brouthers and sisters. Too funny. Spring fever is setting in. A and I went to Home Depot the other day and got a few flowers. We refilled the seed feeders and hummingbird feeders and the yard is buzzing with activity again. It has been over cast the last few days but thats ok. I like it. I am not ready for the hot, hot weather. I don't do well in it at all. Not much knitting going on. I am spinning alot. Its hard not to when I have so much beautiful fiber around. Still struggling with this darn web site. Actually I just havent wanted to sit at the computer the last few days. Oh well.

J is leaving for Maryland on Sunday and then it'll be really busy around hear changing rooms around for the business. Gotta go make dinner.

More later then....

Many Blessings til then and thanks to all for your comments, Sue

Ohhhh Baby Its been a longggg time......

Sorry it's been so long.. I didn't mean to stay away. I've been so darn sick In fact I'm on my second round of antibiotics and their not working. Sooooo I'm off to a nose and throat specialist tomorrow. Oh Well ........ I've still been very busy so enjoy! This is the violet/ ivy basket I planted about a month ago for my coffee table. I love it. It's not only still alive but flourishing. I love purple and green together.

This is the skein of yarn I plied up from the bobbins I showed you earlier. It turned out to be 326 yards. I was going to sell it but orange is A's favorite color so I promised her some fingerless gloves from this. It's very soft and squishy.

This is a bit of a "tutorial" or whatever for my non fibery friends and family. I wanted to share the process with you. The part you wont see is the sheep being born... sheared.... la la la.............

The wool coming into my possession.... ll la la la la.... Me dying the wool la la la the wool drying...

la la la and me carding the wool into batts on my drum carder.... Later I will show you the Later... by that I mean I will show you me dying wool and drum carding but for now we begin with the fiber being already blended into these soft fluffy little pillows of wonderful. Left to Right: Bright Scarlet with bits of silk noil , Shades of purple, violet, and scarlet blended with silk noil and Scarlet, yellow green with silk noil in green yellow and other mystery colors.

Hence the name of this blend........... Oriental Poppies ..........

Next step I broke each batt into 4 or 5 inch pieces and layed them into my little spinning tub. I counted them to see how many of each I had and them as randomly as any persnickety, princess and the pea type can, I spun them up.

( By the way this is my new Victoria wheel which I will be happy to ramble on and on about in another post) this is what the bobbin looked like about half full. The little bits yous see sticking out are the bits of silk noil. This is the nature of this type of yarn. It won't be a real smooth finish.

There are several ways of doing this next step. you can spin your single ply half and half onto two different bobbins and ply from them or you do what I have done here which is to wind your single ply off the bobbin into a center pull ball. Then you ply the yarn back onto itself by using the yarn from both ends making a 2 ply yarn. Notice the single ply while on the winder.

And here is the finished product. Flowing freely and artistically down my camera case.

Spilling into a soft and gentle pool at the bottom. (thought you'd like that Took, you know peace, groovy, far out and all that, hahaha... oh yeah rain bows too )

I am very happy with the way this yarn turned out. It is not as soft as I would have liked it to be but that is because the wool was not that soft to begin with. It was some that I had here that I couldn't remember where it came from making it perfect for this project. This one isn't for sale.





And here it is... The final product..... Oriental Poppies...... Skeined up and ready to look at. I will definitely be offering this fiber blend in my shop. Its pretty labor intensive to create but very well worth the effort when made with high quality fiber which I always use to sell.

I wanted to close with this stand by casserole. No matter how sick a mom can be or how tired or how you name it everyone else is still going to be hungry. I have always been very grateful to go to the cupboard and find the ingredients to make this stand by and am surprised to remember how dang good it is every darn time. Try it. Super good , Super easy. Throw together a salad and open a jar of peaches and your done.......

Chicken Casserole (Tuna)

1 can Chicken or Tuna drained

1 can Cream of Chicken or Mushroom soup

1/2 can milk or water

Grated cheese (I usually use cheddar)

Some kind of vegetable ( frozen corn, peas, brocc, canned corn not to much about a cup)
salt and pepper

macaroni or some kind of pasta ( a package)

Cook pasta, drain. Mix all other ingredients in a large bowl. Mix all this together. Cover with cheese. Bake at 350 just until its warmed through again or until the cheese on top melts.

Whats with the blue????

Blessings to you all, til later then..... Sue

Frog in a Pot......

There is a story that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water it will jump out right away, but if you put him into a pan of cold water and turn the heat on he won't realize until it's to late that the water is boiling. Well thats pretty much what happened to me this last week. I have allergies. All the time and worse at this time of year so when they progressed into a full blown sinus infection I didn't (wouldn't) realize it until I was just about down for the count. Thank God for Doctors and Antibiotics !!!!!!! I'm on the mend. Even though I have felt like absolute "you know what" all week (and made pretty much everyone around me feel that way too sorry!!!) I'VE BEEN VERY BUSY!!!!!

I got my entries for the up coming San Diego county fair done. whew!!!! I haven't ever entered anything before and decided this was the year. I'll let you know how I do. I entered a pair of my hand knitted socks that I designed the pattern for and some hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn. It should be fun. A also entered her My Little Pony collection in the Kids Best Collection Show. It'll be fun for her.

This is 4 oz. of Blue Face Leiciester handdyed by me in my 'Nasturtium' colorway. I'll show you what it looks like when I finish plying it. These are two bobbins, single ply on each. (remember IM NOT THE PHOTOGRAPHER)