Spinning and Knitting Show & Tell

I don't do either, spin or knit but one of my good friends does and I was the fortunate recipient of a lovely hand spun and knit scarf for Christmas this year!  Kathleen stopped by this week for a visit and showed me a scarf she had knit using some lovely yarn she had spun on her wheel at home.  We have often gotten together through the years to sew, quilt, make booklets and mixed media fun.  She has always loved to knit and once she bought her first spinning wheel she was addicted!  I think she has bought maybe 4 or 5 wheels to date and is always looking out for another one.  I was like that with sewing machines for awhile.  I own too many!  I love my little Singer Featherweight and I'm using that one right now to finish sewing Ron's quilt.

While Kathleen was here I asked to take some pictures of the items she brought over to show me.  So here they are.  The lovely multicolored scarf was knit by Kathleen after she had spun the yarn.  The dark shawl/scarf was knit by a friend of hers but the yarn was spun by Kathleen.  She added some of her neighbor's alpaca fiber in the yarn as she was spinning it.  The yarn is thin ply and works into a beautiful lace like design.

Daughter's Birthday then Valentine's Day!

My daughter Karen's birthday was yesterday, the 12th.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!
I made strawberry cupcakes with pink frosting in honor of her day.  After she opened some presents, we ate some of the birthday cupcakes, delicious if I do say so myself!
Today I bought some beautiful large strawberries at Market Basket and melted some dipping chocolate.  Wow!  Fun and delicious.  These are for Valentine's Day but I HAD to try one before sharing.

I'm still working on my cousin's art quilt.  It was a busy few days so I didn't have much time to work on it.  Hope to get back to it Monday.  I also want to do some snow dyeing since I could use a few more yards of dyed fabric in several colors.  I can always use more!

I went to the Open House at Badger Brook Farm in Gilmanton yesterday.  They've done some renovations and moved things around a bit.  I bought a pattern and some lovely trims to use in my quiltlets.  If you love wool, hooking, knitting, penny rugs, this is the place to go.  It's on Rt. 107, Province Rd.

Today I'm off to work this afternoon, a little more snow is expected tonight in this area. 

Have a good week everyone!

February 8th Already!!

Wow, it seems like January flew by.  I don't mind the snow so much now that I'm semi-retired.  No need to go out everyday and pleanty of fun things to do here at home.  I'm working on a small art quilt for my cousin.  She had her 50th wedding anniversary and I want to ship it to her asap.  I tried a couple of designs but finally came to a decision.  Now I need to go machine quilt it and finish it up!  I've been reading some blogs and I think I'll try dyeing some paper towels!  I want to do more collage and the process for dyeing the towels sounds interesting.  I'll post some photos once I get to it!

Here a photo of the art quilt I've been working on for my cousin.  It doesn't look like this anymore because I've moved things around, but it gives you an idea. I used commercial cotton, photo transfers onto cotton and antique laces pieces.  The cupid and old valentine were scanned, resized and transferred.