1st Skein of the Polypay Lambs Roving is……… Done :)

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1st skein polypay lamb roving

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I finally finished this polypay skein!!!   It’s been a while since I started it.  I should have finished it long ago, but I was busy (and maybe a little lazy too).  The picture on the left is just wound from the spool to the pvp pipe niddy noddy.  There are some really pretty wooden niddy noddys but this one suffices :).  It is a 2 yard wrap so if my math is correct I spun 258 yards which should be plenty for the scarf I will be knitting.  It is a sport weight (about 18 wraps per inch).  The picture on the right is after I used the red (Crimson) Jacquard acid dye.  She chose the red dye and I have chosen to knit my Little Lace Cat’s Paw Scarf pattern because the teen I am knitting this for loves cats.  I think she will like the pattern. 🙂

 Soon I will start spinning the next skein  from the Ewe Polypay fleece my friend gave me, and will make a scarf for her to thank her for the fleece.   That way they will have one, fleece to finished scarf, from both fleeces :).  I will post a picture of the finished scarf when I have it done, hopefully this week, but as I always tell my children, no promises, only that I will try.

It Came, It Came!!!

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Unofficial Harry Potter Knits

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It came!  I indulged myself in a new knitting magazine.  I love Harry Potter and when I saw this book I was very excited.  It is called The Unofficial Harry Potter Knits.  After looking at it from cover to cover, I am very happy :).

Below I put a picture of  the inside part that shows the items it has, I hope that it will enlarge enough to get a look at them ;). 

Unoffical Harry Potter Knits – inside

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL? 2013!!!!

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Dallas Cowboys!!!

.OH MY, it’s that time again.  They have started preseason a bit early with exhibition games but I won’t complain!! 

The Cowboy’s played the Dolphins on Sunday, but because it was Sunday I missed it.  They won tho’, 24 to 20.  🙂  They are playing the Raiders tonight, and yes I am watching.  The Cowboys are my favorite NFL team and the Raiders are my favorite AFC team, so it’s a delima about who wins.  They don’t play each other very often, maybe once a year in preseason or if they happened to play against each other in the Super Bowl, I won’t hold my breath lol, but it’s fun watching this game. 😉 

School will be starting for all the kids in a few weeks and then Fall will be here.  Been a nice summer and altho’ there are lots of nice things I like about Fall (cooler weather, Football, my birthday :P), knowing that cold Winter will follow is not one of the things I look forward to (did I mention that I am not a Winter person?).  Winter is cold and baren (except for the grey snow after it’s been around a while) and around here it lasts forever.  OK it has one good thing,  it gives me one thing I look forward to every year very much, SPRING!!

My New Favorite Cookbook

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Ok I know I’ve been MIA from my blog for a little while.  Not sure why but last year was especially hard for me in regard to the 2nd anniversary of my son’s death .  I am feeling better and will try to be more diligent in blogging.

I hadn’t planned on posting a blog today but I found a cookbook I ordered last year sometime and realized it was a southern style cook book and might actually have a recipe for hush puppies, being a southern cookbook.  I had been looking for a recipe in the numerous books I already had and use often, but none of them had one.   It is the Southern Living Heirloom Recipe Cookbook.  Low and behold it has a hush puppy recipe.  The next page showed a Southern Cornbread recipe, this is when I realized I love this book.

My dad is from the deep south, my mom from the desert south west, that is important for the next memory.  My mom liked to make cornbread but she always put sugar in it.  My dad would tell her “that is not cornbread, that is cake”.  They don’t put sugar in cornbread in the south.  I have to say here that I never saw my parents fight, but this was a standing disagreement, lol.  Ok back to the book.  As I was reading the recipe (which does not include sugar), my memories, regarding my parents disagreement on how cornbread should be made, flooded back.  Then I saw the quote under the recipe by Mark Twain “The North thinks it knows how to make cornbread, but this is a gross superstition.  Perhaps no bread in the world is quite as good as Southern cornbread, and perhaps no bread in the world is quite as bad as the Northern imitation of it.”  At that point I burst out laughing, hahahaha.  I do love this book!!  It is filled not only with recipes but with much humor and memories from the author.

I miss my mom a lot, so many times I wish she was still around to talk to, I lost her to cancer in 2000.  I am thankful to have many memories of our lives as a family and to be able to see the love and humor that was a part of it. 🙂  You would love this cookbook, Dad :).

Memorial Day 2013

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Memorial 2012

For those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom!

I want to thank all those who are now serving or have served, in any of the branches of the Armed Services, for your love of freedom and for being willing to serve your country.  I give a special reverence to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, their lives, for what they loved, a free and safe country.  May we honor them in all we do and may we always keep this country free and safe.

(Tho’ Afghanistan wasn’t included on this older picture, please know they are included in this blog!!)

Yet Another Storm, More Snow and Wool!

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2013 Polypay Ewe Fleece

Spring 2013 Polypay Ewe Fleece Up Close

 

You might wonder what storms and snow have to do with wool.  I was given a Polypay fleece by a friend who owns a farm where along with growing corn, they also raise sheep for meat.  Just before spring they shear the ewes in preparation for lambing.  Last year my friend gave me a Polypay lambs fleece (1st shearing at a year old).  This year she gave me a fleece from one of her ewes.  I needed to skirt it (taking off the dirtiest parts and the short fibers)  so that I can send it to the fibermill I use, who will clean it and prepare it into spinnable roving.  Because there was a storm on the way, I had to bring it into my house.  For those of you who have not been around sheep, they are a bit pungent, but I don’t find the odor that bad, tho my poor neighbors might :P.  I did the first picking through for VM (vegetable matter ie: hay, straw, and sheep “stuff”) outside on Monday because I knew the snow was coming and wanted to get through that part before it snowed, it was cold, brrr.  But I needed to bring it in where I wasn’t rushed because I was too cold to work on it outside for more than an hr and these sheep are not coated so their fleece has a lot of  stuff other than wool in it.  I learned from the last fleece I sent in that I need to try and get all the shorter (2nd cuts) out because if I don’t the resulting roving is full of noils (small knots in the roving).  They are not preferable to me for spinning.  I will mail this fleece off on Monday to the mill and we will see how the roving turns out this time, it’s a learning process for me.  In the 2nd fleece picture you can see how nice and crimpy and springy Polypay fiber is :).  This fleece also has a lot of lanolin which seems to keep the fleece nice and soft.

Yet Another Storm and Snow

 

This started yesterday afternoon about 3:00 pm, so far we have a couple of inches of new snow, but it’s still spitting snowing.  I know spring is just around the corner, I know spring is just around the corner, I know spring is just around the corner……

*Update*  We got 5 inches of snow.

 

 

Another Storm & More Snow

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Late Feb Snow Storm

.This is what we got on that snow storm last Thursday.  They had predicted up to 8 inches of snow.  We got about 4 inches.  I’m not really complaining, I’m not really a snow person, but I know we need the moisture and the weatherman said it takes about 12″ of snow to make 1 inch of rain.

More snow is suppose to be on it’s way this coming week.  We will see what it brings.  Hope you all stay warm and safe!!

More Snow

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More Snow

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We had an ice storm last Saturday night and Sunday.  Then on Wednesday we had a snow storm.  This was the snow from that snow Storm.  It was such a nice warmer winter until late December, lol.  The last couple of weeks we have had temps with the wind chills into the minus 20’s.  But to be honest that is warmer than normal as well.  We get into the minus 30’s all the way down to minus 50 in December and January.  Not my favorite part of winter, can you tell?  But just 1 1/2 months and those warmer temps into the 20’s will be more of a reality.  So until then I will just keep telling my self, just 1 1/2 more months, just 1 1/2 more months, just 1 1/2 more months……

The master cylinder for the brakes on my car went out so I’m trying to get that repaired so I have my car back, hate when my car is down for repair.  But that little car needs something repaired every year, I just have a savings acct ready for when it happens.  Told my mechanic that eventually it would be a brand new car :).  It gets good gas mileage (especially when it’s not running) so I keep it  :P.

I’m working on some spinning and knitting, I’ll get pictures to post of those in the next week.