Handspun Friday - Batt Pack

After I've got my hand carders, I wanted to do some carding, so I ordered a Batt Pack from FatCatKnits Etsy store. It looked like a lot of fun. There were different fibers, 3oz-Falkland, BFL,Angelina, silk noils, Corriedale fleece, and black Merino.



I loaded my carder like this:



And  made Rolags:

 

I spun them into singles, and plied it with some orange lace weight yarn I had.


The pictures are a bit washed out from too much sunshine. It should be interesting to see how this knits up.



I've got 414yds of it. What to do with it though?
I kind of regret plying it with lace yarn. I just wanted to get more yardage out of it, and if I had chain plied it, who knows what I could have done with that, but now I wish I had chain plied it. Oh well.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

♥ ♥ ♥

Maggie's new sweater

When we first got Maggie she had a bladder infection and was always cold. We bought her a fleece jacket and she outgrew it fast, but loved wearing it, day and night.
She's lean, and doesn't have a thick coat, so it was no surprise to us, that she still loves to wear warm, cuddly things as it turns out.
The other day we found this sweater on sale (I couldn't even knit it myself for that money), and could not resist. The boys got some new toys, so everybody was happy.



At first there was a little confusion. What's going on?



Happy was not sure it's Maggie.




Maggie had to check herself.


It's all good!





The Brownie didn't care at all, as long as he could grab the new toys, and didn't have to share.





I love this dance move of hers:



And the tongue licking. She looks so girly in this picture.

Our Thanksgiving in food

We all have a lot to be thankful for. Today I'm focusing on food. There is beauty in everything.



butternut squash cut in half



one of the million neighborhood squirrls using our deck as its personal pantry, to store food, in this case an apple



Happy and Denny smelling the Rosemary bush. They often rub their faces in it. Can you find  Denny's nose?

This year we went with the stereotypical Thanskgiving Dinner. Turkey and pumpking pie!

Here's two turkey breasts. I don't like to do the whole turkey thing. This goes way faster.



Instead of mashed potatoes, we made a velvety butternut squash dish. As it says in the cook book, it's silky and sublime. I've made it twice so far, and will make it again and again, in the future. So good! The recipe for this dish is in the book "Well Fed" by Melissa Joulwan.


We also had some green asparagus.



And salmon.Mmmmm.



We made this huge dinner on purpose, so we could freeze some portions of everything for later.

I screwed up the pie. I've only made it once before. I forgot to add the maple syrup in the pumpkin mixture. The crust is gluten free, made with almond flour.



It was a real mess getting it out of the glass pan. Since there was no surgar in it, we just poured some maple syrup on top of it. Let me tell you, it looks awful on the plate, but it tasted so unbelievable good. I'd like to have another piece of it right now, or ten. But it's all gone. :o(






I hope all my Canadian friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!

♥ ♥ ♥

Stucco Part II

So, there I was with this caked yarn, and searching for a pattern I liked. It wasn't easy, but finally I found Stucco by Rose Beck. I already had it in my Ravelry Library, since I bought the ebook a while back.















Carding wool is a wonderful thing! Sorry about the flood of pictures. 
As it turned out, I didn't need the Black Shetland yarn for the edge at all. This was a very satisfying project for me. Even though the colored braid was Merino/Silk blend, the Black Shetland made this a little bit scratchy.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. Here in Canada it's the Thanksgiving weekend. Turkey and pumpkin pie are on the menu.

♥ ♥ ♥

Stucco project part I

Some time this year I've traded one set of hand carders for some fiber. One of the braids was this: Fiber Optic Yarns-80% Merino/20% Silk-4oz- Reef Gradient Arbitrary SAL (traded with Dave). It's colors are really electrifying. I do love color, that's obvious, but this one I wanted to tone down a little. And I wanted to hand card something.



I rummaged through my boxes of fiber, and found some Black Shetland: more like a dark brown.





Then I ripped the braid into chunks of all the different colors, and added the Black Shetland, hand carded them. Here's an example of the purple already done.

This is what I've got. ~ 486yds worsted weight yarn, spun semi-woolen.






Here's the yarn all caked up.



I didn't have a pattern in mind when I was started this project, but I knew that I wanted to knit a shawl with it. I also thought that it would not be enough to make a decent sized shawl, so I spun up the rest of the Black Sheltand for the border, for whatever I would do with it.



I love the look of undyed, spun fiber. I had 2.5oz left over and it yielded ~ 186yds.

Stucco part II coming on Friday!

♥

Random

It's too cold for me now to go swimming, but the pool is still open until October 16th, since the dogs are no wimps, when it comes to cold water. They still enjoy swimming, when the sun is shining during the day, and I open up the gate to the stairs. Denny has definitely learned to jump in, whenever he's hot, from the side, but still only from HIS certain spot.

Happy IS his name, if you know what I mean.



Wet, and happy, and tired.





It's not often you can see Denny moving at a fast pace like this.



And Maggie is like a Chipmunk on caffeine. She's always on the move. 



Some time ago I bought  myself this yarn bowl. Used it every day from the day I've got it, but about a month ago, I picked it up to move from the deck where I've been happily knitting, inside the house, when it broke in my hand, and cut my left pointy finger in the process. I was sad, and angry at the same time, since this bowl didn't last long. I love to use a yarn bowl, it's really handy.
So, after seeing a lovely one made from wood, I went and got myself this beauty.



I stuffed some fiber in it, so it wouldn't look so bare, but it's already in use now, holding my yarn for a cowl I'm knitting.



It was a pleasure to deal with Tim of  Twisted Timber Woodturning. The bowl is worked beautifully, and hopefully will last a lot longer then the first one.

And I did say this is a random post, because really, I have to show you these:



They are called "Bora Bora Fire Balls", the recipe is from the book Well Fed. I've tried many recipes from this book, they are ALL wonderful. They are a combination of savory and sweet. Made with ground pork, and crushed pineapples and rolled in toasted, shredded coconut. The fire comes from Cayenne pepper, and Jalapenos, used in the meat, the shredded coconut mixture, and in the sauce too.

I made these with my daughter, who gets me to try new recipes on her weekly visits. If it were just me, I would cook the same thing over and over, not wanting to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. But it's worth it, those balls were delicious, especially with the "sunshine sauce" also from this book.

Alright, that's it for today!

♥

Handspun Friday - Noah

I bought this fiber in 2010. I had to go looking in my files for a photo of the braid. I'm just glad there's some kind of order in my files, or I would have never found it, since I didn't even know what year I bought it.

Here it is: Noah dyed by FatCatKnits, a Merino/Bamboo blend, 8oz.





I've spun it earlier this year. I've seen others felt Merino/Bamboo blend handspun yarns on purpose, so this was my experiment. I wanted it to look "frosted".

Here's a photo of the yarn before I handled it roughly in hot/cold soapy water. It's all smooth and shiny.



Then I put some muscle into it, and agitated it for a long time, until I saw the bamboo coming to the surface.





I've got two skeins, a total of 266yds, 2-ply.


Now I've that out of my system. It's squishy yarn, great for a hat I think.

And of course there's a glimpse into Denny's attachment to me. When I'm sitting at my desk, he's often sleeping very close. I have to be careful not to hurt him. I've heard saying, that an umbilical coard would be too long for him and me.


Oh, and that's Maggie there too. She sometimes wants to be close to me too.

I'm wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

♥ ♥ ♥