Month: March 2020

Mother Nature’s Joke

Most of last week felt like spring. It looked like spring with daffodils, crocuses, snow drops, pussy willow all in bloom. With scrub beginning to leaf out, signs of swelling buds on the trees and bushes around the house and on our walks.

This morning when I awoke, it was 41 degrees f, the sun was shining, the sky was blue. Two and a half hours later, it was doing this…

If the temperature hadn’t hovered near 38 degrees all day, we would have 6 inches of snow, but instead, the ground would get coated, the sun would break through and it would melt, then it would snow again, repeat over and over.

This was much later in the afternoon after several snow bursts and melts. The birds clinging to the feeders as the wind howled. As it got dark and the temperature fell, the snow accumulated. It looks like about 3″ on the ground. The wind driven snow has blown all the way across the 8′ wide covered front porch, right over to the front door.

Tomorrow is clearer, no precipitation expected, but still fairly cold, but by Sunday, we are back in the mid 60’s.

Stop already Mom, we got your joke.

Success

After returning from the fiber retreat on Sunday, I dedicated most of my at home craft time to finish weaving the scarf that I warped last week. I had spun a beautiful skein of fingering weight Romeldale CVM roving that I had purchased from my friend and local shepherd at Sunrise Valley Farm, Gail Groot. It was soft and even, but not enough to do an entire scarf. An online friend, Ellen Sakornbut, of Fiber Curios on Etsy has some lovely fingering weight mill spun yarn of 60% Shetland Lamb and 40% baby Alpaca that coordinated beautifully with the CVM.

After the above photo was taken, I repaired the lead row, I had failed to shift the shed after inserting the spacer, so I pulled that one and pushed the next one up firmly. The loom was warped with both yarns and the weft weave alternated the two yarns in 8″ long blocks.

Tonight I cut it from the loom, it is 5’8″ long plus 4″ fringe on each end. It is slightly more than 7″ wide.

After the fringe was twisted, this photo was taken before it was soaked and laid out to block and dry overnight.

It is soft with the beautiful yarns. I hope it finds a home with someone who will love it and enjoy it.

Fun times, Fun folks

I left early Thursday morning in light snow to travel west to my weekend retreat. These retreats are to quote a friend who was there, are like family reunions but with people who aren’t related. This one was smaller and I got to know a few folks who were only names and faces at the other larger ones. Because this retreat was in Jonesborough, TN, many of the folks that attend these events live there, or within an hour of there, so we had a variety of drop ins for a morning or afternoon, and the organizer couple, plus 4 or 5 that were there most of the weekend. We had real snow, a few inches worth on Friday and it was beautiful, and warm enough that it didn’t stay on the roads for more than an hour.

We had dyeing lessons, fleece scouring lessons, machine carding reminders, knitting, weaving, socializing.

Today when I left for home, it was sunny and mid 50s. My car stayed parked at the B & B where 3 of us stayed all weekend. It was only a few blocks walk to the event location. When I got ready to move my frosted over car this morning to the site so I could pack up my wheel and basket of fiber, I noticed a very low tire. Before I packed up, I pulled out the little compressor that runs on the car battery and reinflated the tire, but it took so long that the compressor drained the battery enough that the car wouldn’t start. I got jumped, loaded and headed for home around 1 p.m. It is just about a 3 hour trip if uneventful. There was a wicked accident just after I got back into Virginia. A large pickup truck looked like King Kong had grabbed the front and back bumpers and twisted it and a flat bed tow truck was way up the embankment skewered by a tree. That had brought traffic to a very slow stop and go roll and added some travel time.

Looking at my weekend’s production, it looks like I spent more time socializing than spinning or knitting.

There was too much good food, too much junk food, lots of laughs, hugs, and fun. I am renewed, restored, and ready to return to routine. I so appreciate my love being willing to stay and critter sit so I can do this a couple times a year.