Meanderings of a Mermaid

Recently the talk of the Fiber Prep group on Ravelry is about "blending boards". It's like a drum carder, but without the drum. A flat surface covered in carding cloth. During the same week this was impressing many on Ravelry, hubby and I were in a thrift store where he spotted this! Naturally it had to come with me. (This model is not the same as what the current buzz is about.) So it is a heavy wooden box construction, with a separate handle that also has carding cloth on it. The manufacturer is Louet, a good name in spinning circles. A little vacuuming to clean out the remains from the previous owner and I was ready to roll. Here is the end on view, so you can see how the two sets of tines are proximal to one another. The batts in the back ground came off of an Ashford drum carder. And here is a view of the pegs on the handle which help to guide you in a straight path and you sweep away from yourself. In this image you can just see two wool locks ...

A little privacy please! This new "wall" began as a request for a little privacy on the back porch. Mornings in the pjs spent sitting out there, coffee in hand, watching the sunrise...ah..... My Dearest accommodated me and built this fabulous wall. A lick of paint was added to match that on the rest of the house (the few parts that aren't rock) and a thrift store painting, and look what a nice Mermaid's Grotto. Something needed to be done to try to block out some of the 14 overhead wires that could be seen while in the grotto. And thus a new mermaid came to live with us. I drew the image on some thick plywood, and My Dearest very aptly jigsawed it out. Isn't she lovely? Right now she is painted black to match along with window and door trim. She seems right at home over the seaside painting. Other crafty things happening, and there are lots of them.... Four yarns are coming together to make a sofa throw. Both the centre panel (background) and the border are d...

 Announcing the creation of a new fibre crafts guild in the Hill Country. The Mason Knitting and Spinning Guild. Okay, so that's a boring name....I am sure the new members will be able to come up with a jazzy title.  As with most guild groups the focus will be on education and also comaraderie. Probably we will focus primarily on knitting and spinning, but as demand changes, we will adapt. Teachers can be found amongst us all.  The group will start up on Nov 29 at the Seniors' Center in Mason Texas. All are welcome. For more info leave a comment here.

 Here are a couple of images taken this summer at camp. Above is a wild orchid called a Lady's Slipper. She is rare indeed. I called this photo Fog Island, although this small island really doesn't have a name. I took this snap while on a morning walk with my dogs. Unfortunately I had trouble with both digital cameras in the past seven months. My main camera died all of a sudden in the last days I was here in Texas. So off it went for repairs. I will be getting it back this week. At camp I used an older camera for awhile. Then it too died (not entirely though; works plugged in to electricity, so I left it at the recycle centre for someone else to enjoy, who has electricity). So I will have some images coming, pictures of our time at camp. And some new things to look forward to. Promise.

So sad to think about it but soon it is time to head to Home North. The house is displaying stacks of things that we'll be transporting north. The guest bedroom is one such mess. I'm not happy about a messy house, but with my protracted "two week shut down schedule" this is bound to happen. On the bright side, the wildflowers are stupendous this year. Wouldn't you agree?                                                               Hopefully I have made up for showing you the mess by offering up these flowers. Glorious, isn't it?

What do you see when you look out your kitchen window? Spring time means luscious fields of flowers around here. The fourth photo is off my front porch and the fifth photo is out the kitchen window. The other shots are steps away. And the peak of the flowers is yet to come in April!

Here are my two Kromski spinning wheels. The wheel on the left is the Minstrel model. I bought it new in November 2011. I have been spinning on it every day since then. The beauty on the right is the Polonaise, acquired used, just this week. On top of continuing to spin on the Minstrel, I have two bobbins full on the Polonaise already as well. I adore both these wheels. Instead of calling the wheels "this" and "that" I gave them names. The Minstrel I named "Stevie" for Stevie Ray Vaughn, my favourite blues musician and favourite guitarist. I'll be taking this wheel north to Canada, and so it will remind me of my southern home. Double Trouble with this double treadle , double drive. The Polonaise wheel then required a northern name, as it will be left in the south. After some careful thought I selected the name Sila, an Inuit word. In common everyday language it refers to the air, the weather, the sky. It also means "breath of life" and ...

 So where do I begin. I've been too busy having fun to sit down and get into the internet much. There's been lots of topaz prospecting (no luck), some teaching of knitting and lots of crafting. A little house renovation is going on too. Above is a used drum carder that I just bought and I'm splitting the cost of it with a friend. We will have joint custody, I will get to play with it in the winter,and GM will get to enjoy it all summer.  Pretty cool! (By the way it is used to prepare fibres for spinning).  On the needles #1: I am working up a test sample of the Ebony Jewelwing Bag, a free Ravelry pattern offered by Mary Scott Huff. As usual, I am using up stash for this. After the lightest green I will move to a white band and then the soft yellow. I intend to use this pattern in a free workshop on Beginner Fair Isle techniques that I am teaching March 17th.  Here's another view of the dragonfly pattern as I am working it up.  On the ne...

 Before we left camp in November 2011, there had been two lights snows. Autumn leaves were cloaked in white mantles. It wasn't cold and it wasn't stormy: an easy way to slide into winter. Here is the camp road under the first mantle of snow. We walked the dogs and left our footprints in the still of the morning. Everything is so pretty, etched in snow. Here is one of the two soapstone mermaids that I affixed to large boulders this past summer. One for sure is a Sedna image, because she is crying out in anguish after losing her fingers. In this image, the mermaid is sitting and waiting. I placed her on the rock, facing towards Texas, so she could know that we are on our way back. Not yet, but soon we will return to the place that anchors our soul to this existence.

 [The text wants to come it at the bottom today, so here it is]. We started off harmlessly enjoying the San Antonio Boat Show. Plush campers and dazzling wake boarding boats captivated us for hours. Towards the end of our visit there, an interesting feature of the kayaks offered by Hobie caught our eye. The pedal-powered drive mechanism is truly well designed. It mimics the work of a penguins wings as it flies underwater. (see the image where there are two turbo fins hanging down near the bow. You can see the pedals above the gunwales in the same image). A little more research at home and we were convinced to purchase such a cadillac of kayak fishing. We will go pick up our new fish catcher in the spring, in Canada... so stay tuned for lots of reviews and pictures. And here's a warning to those elusive bass monsters in our shallow bays. LOOK OUT, HERE I COME!