Part Deux - Tour de Fleece 2010

Here tis, the end of the race. All in all, the challenge to myself was incredibly helpful and fulfilling as I really concentrated on my consistency and learned to chain ply (Navajo Ply) better. My last two skeins of two ply yarns also were more balanced they my two plies have been in the past. So little by slow, I am getting better at this still new to me pleasure. I have only be spinning with this wheel for little over a year.

There are a few stray pictures that need to be rounded up as yet to complete the collection of what I did spin-wise this month during the Tour de France. There are also 2 skeins of 80/20 merino/silk drying and therefore still setting twist that I need to photograph as well.

I also have started spinning some cinnamon alpaca. This may be the last alpaca I ever spin as it is the grubbiest fiber I have ever spun. Not as dirty as the last alpaca I spun back in the Fall, but full of vegetable matter (VM) and foxtails. It's going to take me ages to get it all out before I can spin it, if I continue to hand card it. Going to check into borrowing a drum carder tomorrow in hopes of speeding that process up.

#18 of 365 - My New Toy

A part of the Ren Scots tradition includes a Chinese Gift Exchange. Often there are hard fought battles in order to try and get the gift you most would like to have. I got lucky. This is the gift that I got and was able to hold onto as the only other likely suspect to snag it was unable to make it to the party. It is a hand-made and hand-painted drop spindle made by our Darla. I now have the start of a collection of spindles as I also have another one, made I believe, by Darla's husband, Mark, lang ago. It also came with some of the same fiber that I have for my other spindle. I might actually get some yardage then...

The DD and I went to see Sherlock Holmes again with her friend, Jess. We also saw it last week with my friend, Rebecca. We didn't mind seeing it again as we wanted to see more of the details that we missed the first time around. I still say the costuming was FABULOUS! Couldn't resist this photo op. Likely will not see the movie itself as remakes of Good British Movies are so few and far between, sadly.

The Birthday Surprise

The Birthday Girl, Erin and her Surprise, Leilani aka Mimi. Yesterday we had a very long adventure to celebrate the DD's birthday on the actual day of her birth. I very nearly didn't go as I had given up my ticket to Wicked for Eriy's cousin and I hadn't slept well the night before. So, I was grumpy and not so sure that I wanted to spend the whole day out of the house. In the end it was a good day had by all.

Anyhoo, we left the house at 5:30 am to drive to Boulder for breakfast with another birthday girl, Katte Beth (her's is on Monday) at the Boulder Tea House. Erin and I hit the WalMart in the Flat Irons before hand to finish up some grocery shopping in anticipation of potentially being snowed in. Mark, Darla and Aidan joined us as well as the surprise that wasn't, Leilani aka Mimi, who flew in the night before from CA and stayed at the Judd House until we all met up for breakfast.

After breakfast, I took the whole gang to Gypsy Wools also in Boulder, to look at and fondle fibery goodness. Darla found some bamboo and merino to spin together for socks. Aidan got a BIG foam mat for his needlefelting projects. I got some lovely lavender fiber to spin(think I will ply it with the silk/wool that I have going) and Katte got some yarns and patterns for a mitt and scarf set, that I am going to knit for her.













Then we headed into town for the Wicked Ticket Lottery sign-up. I gave up my ticket for Mimi, so she and Erin could see it together. Sadly, I didn't win a ticket in the lottery. That means I get to see Wicked in London next year. Sad for me, NOT! The gentleman with his back to us in the brown leather jacket in the waiting group is Don Stewart. We met this fellow conspirator while waiting in line to get in the lottery for tickets. He joined the three of us and we all entered for 2 tickets each. As we only needed the one for me we would give him the other and vice-versa. Don didn't win either, but he was going to try again last night and today as this is it. Wicked ends this evening and moves on to Cleveland...

Since the ticket lottery sign up started at 11:30am and the drawing was at Noon and the show didn't start until 2:00pm,we had time to kill. So, we hopped on the 16th Street Mall shuttle and went down to the Tattered Cover at 16th and Wynkoop in LoDo to peruse the books and be inside til the show started for the girls. We sat in the knitting/art/craft area on the second floor and rested the feetsie and looked at the books. The Joy of Sox which has two patterns by my friend, Gina House was on the shelf and it was the first time I got to really look this book over. I so want to add this book to my collection of knitting books. The girls left me at the Tattered Cover when it was time for the show and I pulled out my knitting (I had a pair of socks with me). I discovered a huge mistake and put them aside to peruse the magazines. My phone rang and it was Sheila checking to see if I had gotten a ticket. She also wanted me to know she and her friend, Sue were heading to The Lamb Shoppe for the afternoon stitch in. Since I was at loose ends, they very kindly came downtown and picked me up and took me with them. It was a very satisfactory way to spend the afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to the shop and my visit with Sheila and Sue.

After the girls picked me up, we headed home to the Springs in the snow storm. We had planned hand built pizzas for the supper, so we stopped to pick up the fixings at the Whole Foods after we got Pan's supper at the Pet'sMart. We were smart to stop even at the lateish hour as this is what we woke up to...

Wyoming Celtic Festival, again

Darla at the Wheel








Jenna at the Ceidhl


Some of the Rocky Mountain Scottish Atheletes at the Ceidhl.


















Seven Nations on the Festival Stage






Furry Murray McDogal waiting for his family to come home from the supper.

Painted Banners and Over-Skirts

or Why I Ended Up in Bed all Weekend

I refuse to submit to the fact that I just don't have the strength and stamina that I think I should have or used to have. After cancer in 2001 and West Nile Virus(WNV)in 2003, I seem to have lost about 30% of my strength. My immune system was still compromised from chemo when I contracted the WNV. I have to push myself fairly hard to get things finished in a timely manner. Unfortunately, no one know what a good lead time is. All last week, I hammered away on painting these canvases. Of course the weather refused to cooperate, no painting out of doors, heavy moisture in the air, etc. Even with acrylics, things took forever to dry.



This was the most challenging one and some of its detail shots.









This is the one that sank me.




I was suppose to spend the weekend in costume at the Heritage Days at Fort Lupton, CO with our Katte Beth and our Spinning Mistress, Darla from the Ren Scots but I couldn't get out of bed on Saturday morning as I had had a relapse of the WNV as a result of being too tired and was running a low grade fever. That and the fog that socked in my truck so badly, that I couldn't see it from my front door and its 15 feet away, maybe. I looked at the traffic cameras from here to Fort Lupton as well and it was pea soup all the way. High speed, winding highways, bad conditions, not my idea of a fun trip. The fog also lasted all day Saturday and the temperature didn't get over 50 degrees. So, discretion being the better part of being a chicken, I stayed home. It's just as well, as I didn't get out of bed for any appreciable amount of time until mid morning on Monday. My daughter, Erin took good care of me, bringing me real food to consume instead of a handful of crackers, LOL.

I was given the band of Seminole Patch Piecing forever ago in a de-stash swap. I always knew it was going to be a hem band on a skirt or something. It was blue tho and I don't do much in the way of blue in my various costuming pieces. Then, I found my Folkwear Prairie Dress pattern and decided I wanted to make the dress again and I found a blue/cream calico print for a dollar a yard (the length of dress I wanted to make take 5 + yards). I will wear this dress with the keyhole pocket apron over in warm weather and I will wear the patch work over-skirt over it in cool/cold weather. Part of the reason I wanted to make it again is so that I can wear it when I hang out with my friend, Katte Beth when we are at Fort Lupton.

I decided to make this over-skirt on Tuesday to wear on Saturday as well as finishing the painting of the banners. (I thought the break to sew would ease the impatience for the paint to dry, HAH). I also did my regular life stuff of knitting with friends, meeting friends for coffee, going to the library, cooking, laundry, re-arranging the furniture in my bedroom, packing for the weekend, yadda, yadda, yadda and so forth. Sadly, it all proved to be too much.

Here's the detail of the over skirt I also referred to in the title.

Here's what the Prairie Dress looks like with the keyhole pocket apron.









Then, the worse happened late yesterday afternoon, I broke a molar! So, I am currently in a fog of pain and percocet til I can get into a dentist this afternoon. I will then proceed to give them all my money to either fix it or yank it. More to be revealed, sigh. Therefore, the monotone brown banner, above , is again on hold as I can't think enough to paint it. This post alone has taken me over 2 hours of stopping/starting and spell check to write. However, a couple of my regular readers pinged me and wanted to know what was up. So here, tis!

It Was A Day of Errands for Art's Sake

Sub-titled: I Made Candied Ginger Cheesecake with Ginger Roo Crust and Drove My Daughter Crazy with the Aroma.

It's 27 April, guess what was on the ground this morning? Yes, that's right, SNOW, again!



I thought that I wouldn't get my all errands done due to the snow but it was gone by the time I was ready to leave the house. I met my friend Anita for coffee at the Perk and we also ran into Miriam and her husband, who want to buy a knitted felted purse from me for their daughter, woot!

I then went and got the transparencies done at the copy store to finish the decals that I am painting for the Colorado Medieval Festival's new banners (http://www.medievalworld.us/cmf). I have a pile of gessoed canvas waiting to be painted with the designs. At least I only have the painting part to do, someone else is making the big banners. Yeah for me in not speaking up to do them as well (nevermind, I DO NOT have the space for that).

I also made a stop at the art store to get large sheets of drawing paper (20 x 24) and some new coloured pencils for my sketchbox. I also picked up a 12 x 12 stretched canvas, since painting has been whispering in my ear lately and I want to try out something ala my friend Anne's artwork. (http://elmilagrostudio.blogspot.com)

I then ran to the library to read the article in the Gazette about our former priest (on the front page no less and him facing possible indictment) and the letter to the editor from one of our parishioners in response to an earlier article. After that, I hit the ATM to make a deposit. Sigh, no envelopes at the machine, had to go into the bank, on a Monday no less. I was that glad I had the Belletrix Stocking I am knitting with me to work on while in line. I must say, DO NOT be hasty in putting away size one DPNs, as I poked one right through my painted canvas purse and into the leg of my jeans. Ouchers, @#$$@^%$!

This weekend, I am going to the 2nd Annual Fort Lupton, CO Heritage Fair (link is way out of date, but here tis: http://www.lasr.net/). I always carry my sketchbox with me when I am traveling. As, I like to make little sketches of where I am visiting as a record of my visit. This was something that my Mum encouraged me to do as a child and I have continued it into adulthood. I sure wish I had some of those earlier books today. Oh well, wouldas, shouldas, couldas, will kill ya.

I am also taking my new spinning wheel with me (this wheel needs a name in the worst way). Katte Beth, Darla and I will be there as part of the Women's Craft demo team from the Ft. Lupton group and the Ren Scots (http://renscots.org). Spin Mistress, Darla is going to help get me started spinning again. I am really looking forward to that. I am taking the two new skeins of Dragonfly handspun (which seem to want to be a pair of wristlets/fingerless gloves) with me in case I do get to doing some knitting. I've got my tatting supplies packed as well.

As for the cheesecake, currently, our house smells gingerly divine. The Daughter O'Mine, Erin brought a few packages of Ginger Roos home from Las Vegas last year. Sadly, we didn't eat one of the packages soon enough and the cookies got HARD. I mean they went from squishy little rounds to round little rocks.

We both love Ginger Roos and hate like heck to waste them. Since we do not have a Trader Joe's close enough to run out and get them from we treasure the ones we do get(nearest TJs is Santa Fe, NM). The Daughter O'Mine decided to ask Peabody the Culinary One whether we could make bread pudding from the stale ones. (http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com) Peabody's response was likely not, but they could work well crushed and made into a base crust for a cheesecake. The DD and I had went Aha! Yum, cheesecake! This was a couple of weeks ago and the idea of the cheesecake has been perking in the back of our minds since them and the cookies have been getting even staler.

Last Saturday, The DD and I went grocery shopping as we decided wanted to make pizza from scratch for the supper that evening. While there, we actually remembered to pick up that extra needed brick of cream cheese for making the cheesecake with. Then we remembered the reason we hadn't made it before was that we didn't have one of these... It's a Springform Pan and a necessary pan to have to make cheesecake in. As cheese cake has a crumb crust and no crust up the side. The side of a Springform snaps loose and is removed, leaving the cake intact on the pan bottom for serving.

Since we were shopping at the Evil Empire Store, we hied ourselves over to the cookware department and looked at Springforms. We decided to get ourselves the 3 pack in graduated sizes. As I also make my Black Bun (Traditional Scottish Cake) in Springforms, we could justify the expense and the weight. Erin considers this every time she makes a purchase these days, as she has either to send it to the UK when she goes or leave with me.

Since today's weather was so grim and I certainly didn't mind heating up the kitchen cooking a cheesecake, I decided to make it today. I used the blender to grind up the cookies, used the microwave to soften everything else and I chopped candied ginger into small bits. I spread the crust in the pan, mixed and poured in the cream cheese mixture into the pan, wrapped the pan in toweling (a trick I learned from a bakery in NJ to get the cake to cook evenly with as little cracking as possible) and then proceeded to torture Erin with the lovely gingery scent of baking cheesecake. The torture brought on by the fact that it is suppose to cool in the fridge overnight before nomming on. All of which means she can't eat it tonight, bwwaaahahaha.. Here's the picture of the cheesecake just out of the oven with its toweling collar. Can't you just imagine the lovely aroma wafting through the house?