Cowl & Gloves

I may eventually felt the gloves a little to tighten then up, but boy is this set warm against the cold winds we’ve had.

Gloves

Won’t make excuses for how tired I look. I’m just going with the thought that pale is sexy.

Cowl & Gloves

Back of Cowl

Also…I am VERY geeked about my two Yule presents! The first one I used to take all these wonderful new photos. The other is in the photo below! A jumbo ball winder so that I don’t have to split my plyed skeins!

Jumbo Ball Winder

I got nearly all my roving stash from last year’s Fiber Festival spun. I have about 2 lbs of babydoll southdown left that I want to try my hand at dying, information pills and about 1/2 lb of the alpaca/mohair blend left. Here’s what I have hanging ready to be made into skeins:

And, of course, some close ups:

Teal mystery roving.

Chocolate Babydoll Southdown: (This is the second batch after I spun 2 lbs for Brian’s sweater.  This is slated for a hat/scarf/gloves project.  I love this because it’s a natural chocolate brown!)

Leicester multi-hued yarn:

And here’some roving, rolags, and finished projects!

This is the Romney & Corriedale that I made the hat from.

The shawl was knit from a purchase of alpaca/wool yarn. The black and multi striped bag on the bottom was made from yarn left by Chris when he moved out and left it here too long. I made a hat out of it as well that he got and promptly gave to his wife. Never leave yarn here, folks. It gets made into things! Brian’s sweater parts are in the bottom bin along with some cotton roving.

Today I am making a huge vat of chicken stock so that I can freeze it and to also make a nice Chicken Potato Leek soup tonight for dinner. Tomorrow is the 17th Annual Mt. Bruce Sheep & Wool Festival and a stop at an orchard so that Sunday will be for making and devouring an apple pie and lots of spinning!!

One of said loved ones is our friend Craig who just got a brand spankin’ new midi lathe. And he was kind enough to teach me how to turn a pen and even let me break in his new tools!

On Saturday, approved he handed me a piece of oak and set me up, showed me some basics and let me have at it for a while to get the feel for it. I started with a little trepidation, which vanished before I got it from a square to a round shape. I started playing with the tools and doing some beading. This was just way too much fun!

We started to refer to this as “The Beater” but I think what I’ll do is finish it up some and give it a nice wax coat then turn it into a paintbrush. It’s just a play piece, but it has such a nice feel to it and quite honestly, it has become a sentimental piece.

We also ran to Woodcrafters where I may have embarrassed myself a bit deeply inhaling the exotic woods and making noises about all the phenomenal tools and cool bits and…and…wow. Just like a kid in a candy store, I was. Unbeknownst to me, Craig picked up a pen kit for me and let me pick out some wood that I liked from his stock pile. Then he spent a couple of hours on Sunday teaching me how to turn the pen myself.

This is the finished product. It’s a zebra type wood with dark black stripes in a honey color wood. The style of the pen is European. It twists open and close.

This shows the blocks of wood that the pen was carved from and the wonderful dark striations.

I really am addicted already to this fascinating process. If I’m a very good girl, perhaps the birthday fairy will be good to me next month. I have no idea what I’m going to do in the meantime!!!