Life

Fiber Festival 2025

/ LDSVenus / 7 Comments

These first pictures are my son’s fiber stand, the 1st picture is most of it. The 2nd one is some printed alpaca coins (so cute!) on the part of the table that doesn’t show. The 3rd picture is a very large toy alpaca with alpaca fur that he uses as his mascot on his table so people will know he sells alpaca yarn (people love to pet it), you can see 3 alpaca rugs behind it. The last picture is a close up of the printed yarn bowls (cat, puppy and alpaca) he makes along with some of his alpaca fur stuffed animals and some dryer balls, the Chicken is in my Monday funny :P. And oh, the little round things hanging on the side of the yarn bin, are bird nesting balls. He puts his less useable alpaca fiber to stuff in them for the birds to use for their nests, not much gets wasted!! Hopefully clicking on the pictures will enlarge them.

This group is some of the pictures from the Fiber Festival of different vendors. The first one is my favorite goat’s milk soap and lotion maker, love her stuff!! There was so much yarn!! The 3rd picture is some wool needle felted pictures. I thought the Child’s sweater with the sheep was so cute. The 5th picture is of some beautiful batts made from Haunui Wool that comes from New Zealand, and oh my it’s so soft. I think he said New Zealand was the only place you could get that wool. I was going to buy the black batts with some colorful sari silk blended in at the top of the middle bin, but I waited too long and it was gone when I went to buy it. I will have to order it. The 6th picture was a friendly vendor who posed for a picture for me :). The next two pictures are a hand made and designed quilt from one of the 2 Guys Yarn Company and their card because the beautiful quilt deserved to have the creator known.

I did buy from 2 vendors, I didn’t get a picture loaded but I bought 2 lotions from the Lily’s soap and lotion vendor – two lotions, an almond & cherry fragrance and a lavender fragrance. Both are so good. The 1st picture above is of a miniature blending board that was so dang cute I couldn’t resist it, and the 2nd picture shows my attempt to make a mini batt and the rolag is in the 1st picture, LOL. Now I just need a little miniature spinning wheel to put in my craft room on the craft dresser with the miniature blending board. The business card is the vendor I bought this from and the creator is on the bag it came in. Those tines are sharp, I poked my thumb!!! The little brush looking thing is called a burnisher, it is used to comb the fiber deeper into the tines on the board and the two rods are used to roll the fiber up into a rolag. Would look so cute in a shadow box!!

We got a lot of rain today, heavy at times, and tomorrow (Wed) the rain turns into snow about 6am and snows until early afternoon. The weatherman said lots of straight line winds 30 to 40 mph with gusts over 60 later tonight and into tomorrow. Guess it can’t make up it’s mind. Feels like winter is fighting with spring for possession of the weather.

Hope everyone is fairing well. Be safe if you are in the way of this storm.

Update on the Baby Blanket & Frigid Temps.

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

The first picture is the Look for Happiness blanket (baby size). I am about 3/4’s finished. Getting excited to get this finished, even tho I am enjoying it, I have other things to get busy on!! The lightbulb markers you see running up the left side are counting 10 center patterns (four rows per pattern) because I need 39 and it is easier to keep track of how many I’ve knitted :). Nine center patterns left then the top border :). I will make this again!

The 2nd picture is our weather from yesterday afternoon to 3am this morning. We were almost as cold today, but starting tomorrow we will be a few degrees warmer and by Friday we will actually hit the lower to middle teens (without wind chill). I have stayed in my house yesterday and today, not my favorite thing getting out in way below 0 degrees weather. They are promising us lower 40’s on Sunday and Monday, impatiently waiting! Spring is getting closer even if it doesn’t feel like it :P.

Wednesday’s Snow!

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

This was a decent snow storm. It was about 6 or 7 inches. I took this Wed evening before it quit snowing because in the day it was so bright it was blinding!!! It was a dry snow so the wind blew it into drifts, and it does look pretty, but that will change as cars drive by then it will turn a brown color. I’m ready for Spring!

Yarn I Got for a Christmas Project

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

I wish they would quit changing things on WordPress, this took an hour to get the pictures almost where I wanted them because creating the one choice I usually use, made them way to big and very long with no way to make them smaller. Ugh!

Anyway, my mind is un-fogged and I can think straight again and knitting on the blanket again, I’ll put a picture up of my progress in a few days or a week. I was very sick for 3 weeks in Jan, with some ugly respiratory virus’, RSV and influenza A, not at the same time (thank goodness!) but as I was almost over one I got sick with the other, very nasty critters.

The first picture is from some extra cold air that came down from Canada in Jan. Yes that is frost on the inside of the metal plate on my sliding glass door inside my apt. If I’d get some heavy thermal drapes that might not happen or if it did, I wouldn’t see it :P. I’m not a cold weather girl, but here I am anyway. sigh.

The second picture is the yarn I ordered before Christmas but didn’t get to start the Christmas gifts I wanted to do, partly because I was sick with a cold (this has been an ugly winter for getting sick for everyone I know!!) and wasn’t up to it. But now I can tell you what I got them for. I bought some patterns from Arne & Carlos and the Christmas tree decorations with the knitting Christmas ball color work ornaments was one of them. I will need to buy more of this yarn as I go. There are 24 ornaments in this pattern for $7, but just before Christmas they are 1/2 off. I’m really not into color work, but these aren’t very big and maybe I’ll decide I like it better than I did years ago. I haven’t started working on any yet, they will still be gifts, but I have a blanket and a couple of hats and a pair of fingerless mitts to finish first. All this sick stuff reset my brain and now that I feel human again, my knitting mojo is back. But this year I will have a little less time to knit because the new calling I now have in my church is much busier than the calling I had before. Especially while I figure out what I’m doing and get use to it!!! Having a little anxiety over the change and that is normal for me with change :P, but the knitting should help with that!

Nativity Celebration

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

This is instead of my Monday Funny this week. If you click each picture it enlarges it.

I went to volunteer at the Nativity Celebration that the local stake of my Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) sponsors here every year. I only took picture of a fraction of all the Nativity sets, that people brought in from all over our stake (a stake is just an area that so many wards and branches are in, a ward is a certain number of people and up that meet in a building and branches are less people than a ward) off topic :P. I was told people brought in 997 Nativity sets to show, not all were members of our church and we loved having them participate, all were welcome (they take their Nativity sets home on Saturday after it closes.) We only asked the visitors to bring in a can of food for the food bank we chose. We had different choirs and bands and orchestras from different schools and Church choirs that came in to perform on Friday and Saturday. Member of our Church made refreshments too, no charge for the refreshments (hot apple cider and cookies, etc). It was fun. I wish the picture could be enlarged of the bottom left, it had roads and stairs to look realistic, so nice.

I was only there on Friday afternoon because I had to help Saturday on the alpaca farm. This Saturday will be his Christmas celebration with the alpacas. He will have some of the alpacas with costume reindeer antlers, refreshments and Santa for the kids to have pictures with (that one is a family member and they charge for the pictures) but like normal no charge for feeding the alpacas up close and personal, and chickens and peafowl, and he hopes they will buy something from his farm store to help with the cost of feed, processing the fiber into yarn, etc. I’ll try to remember to get pictures! Last year people were standing in line from the small pasture where the alpacas are, to the end of his driveway (which is about 6 car lengths). This year he got a very big connect 4 game the kids can play while standing in line to get into the pasture with the alpacas because he can only let so many people into the pasture at a time. It’s to keep the kids busy so their parents don’t go crazy, lol, hope that works out :P.

Fall Surprise Knitting Box & Hats

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

I got my 3rd and final Fall Surprise Knitting Box from Twice Sheared Sheep. I don’t think anyone who gets this box follows me so I wouldn’t be giving anything away in case some haven’t gotten theirs yet. Lots of goodies! I forgot to put the bear tin back in the box for a picture of the full box, so I added it to the other things I took out to get a better picture of. I love the wolves mug, will serve many hot chocolate drinks! The mini skeins are a dk weight. Not sure what I will make with those, will have to think on it, they are soft :). There is a huge hat pom in there too! Will give the bag to my grand daughter M for her crochet, she is trying to learn. Love the counting stitch marker with the tree of life on it, it matches the progress keeper I made with a charm I received with one of my other fiber purchases. I’ll try to get a picture of that eventually, I keep forgetting (what else is new). The mushroom stitch markers I will use for progresss keepers :). I do love the bear tin for stitch markers and the very cute hedgehog tape measure. The card in there (took a picture of front and back) shows what is in the box and tells a little about them. She will be taking orders for the boxes again in Jan I think.

The first picture is of hats that I knit every year. I use I love this Yarn Print (it comes in various colors) by Hobby Lobby. I like the striping effect it gives on hats. This year they are going to a family of children who lost their mom (3 boys and a girl). I thought they might appreciate new hats for winter. Hope they will like them. For this pattern I use worsted weight yarn, and cast on 89 stitches (for small and medium adults), knitting in the round, doing a 2X2 rib (the extra stitch at the last is knitted with the first stitch to make a good join in the round. I use a 16″ circular needle, my favorite is the Karbonz, it’s carbon with a metal like tip so It’s light weight. I use size 5 needle because I knit a little looser with my knitting style (continental combined) but the pattern calls for a size 6. The 2X2 rib makes it pretty stretchy. You can use less stitches for children, or a lighter weight yarn adjusting your needle size, for a smaller hat, just make sure it’s an odd number of stitches.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the weather before winter gets here. We are still going between fall and summer weather and I wish the first frost would come early, my allergies are so NOT FUN, even my antihistamine is not doing the trick this year, and I’ve tried several, sigh.

Lots of Flowers & Alpaca

/ LDSVenus / 14 Comments

My braided hibiscus tree occasionally goes crazy with flowers. Love the flowers! Every so often I have to spray it for aphids with a soapy water with a few drops of cedar wood oil (one of my doTERRA oils). The soapy water kills the aphids and cedar wood oil smell keeps them off for a while.

The alpacas in the next picture are enjoying the splash pad on a hot day. My son bought it for them last year. They love it, as soon as he drags it out and sets it up they are in it like any kid, lol. Occasionally one will lay down in it and hog it up. Tisk, tisk tisk. Sometimes he brings out a sprinkler instead, but there are some that stand on top of the sprinkler and hog it up, lol. They much prefer our winters which are often -20’s to -30’s without the windchill. Their coats are so dense that snow doesn’t melt on their backs, and rain doesn’t soak in! But, they spend a lot of time in the barn too, they always have access to get into or out of the barn. They love playing in the snow. He has large fans going 24/7 in the barn in the summer so they can stay comfortable when the heat is too hot to be outside.

Hope you all are staying cool, we are very humid and hot. Sweltering is what the weatherman said. Tomorrow they said with the humidity factor we will be around 101F.

RAGBRAI 2024 – There’s Still Hope!

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

For those of you not familiar with RAGBRIA, it stands for Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It’s a non competitive 434 mile bicycle tour across the state of Iowa from west to east. This is the 51st year for this. So instead of spinning to the ride across France this year I will spin to the ride across Iowa, so all is not lost with my spinning. I planned on starting today which is the first day of RAGBRAI, however I noticed my the plied string I use as my drive band, is very frayed and being held by two of the small strings, so I will go get more string tomorrow and fix the drive band and start tomorrow. Always something isn’t it, I’ll call it a flat tire on day one.

Tour de Fleece FO

/ LDSVenus / 14 Comments

I had a hard time fitting my spinning time in this year and properly participating with the Tour de Fleece, but I will keep spinning to get some skeins done that I had planned on spinning for that. I hate that life gets in the way sometimes with my knitting and spinning, which are my way to relax and get away from our chaotic world. I did finish this skein of yarn that I started spinning last September, see my Spinning a Tweed Yarn for more information on the fiber :P. This is 4 ozs and about 150 yards, it is a bulky yarn. It’s really hard to spin a thiner yarn with a fiber with lots of thicker viscose bits. I did go ahead and just do a 2 ply because a chain ply makes a 3 ply yarn and I knew it was already going to be thick and thin and bulky, so I decided the 2 ply would be better. I think the colors turned out nice and looking more like a speckled yarn because of the bits of tweed color :). This will be given to my Ophthalmologist at my next visit for her 18 month old daughter. Should make a nice bulky hat for her, lol should knit up really fast, and yes we do get very cold in the winter here :). She did my eye surgeries in Dec and is a knitter, so this is why I chose to spin a skein of yarn for her. If I had realized how thick the viscose bits for the tweedy look were, I would have chosen a different fiber to spin for a sport weight yarn for a little one.

I have been enjoying the cooler temps, but this will be short lived as we start ticking up to the upper 80’s by next week end and August, which is only about a week away, is our hottest month. Last year my daughter got married in August, on the hottest day of the year, outside, and with the heat index it was 118 F. ugh.