Meanderings of a Mermaid

 A quick lesson on steeking is shown here. This is becoming a knitted baby girl sweater. Because I was working in the Fair Isle method, I did not want to have to work back and forth; preferring to work in the round. I should explain too that this sweater will have a boat neck. The scissors mark the spot where I will be eventually inserting a sleeve.  Here is it from the inside. There are other kinds of steeks, but this is called cut steeks .  The key to good steeking is to use a fine zig zag stitch on your sewing machine. Sew a narrow set of parallel lines, the same length as the depth of the sleeve at the top..  I ran three lines of machine stitching, for added insurance that nothing will run.  As seen from the good side.  Here you can see the width of the sleeve at the top in comparison to the lines of stitching.  And here we go. The squeamish may want to leave the room. Cut slowly and do not go over any of your stitch lines. If y...

More joyous colour. Sunset, sunrise, the cycles of the forest.

 I received a request to post some "fall colours' photos here. These are all from our property or right beside. I deliberately stayed away from the usual shots of reds and oranges. Take a look at the other things happening around here.

Hello Friends; This spring and summer has been quite rainy and it's meant a fair bit of time is spent in the studio. I love it! A lot is getting done and new hobbies are being added to the retenue, much to Mr's chagrin.  So here is one of the second pair of Lithuanian socks I knit up this summer. Both are knit and all the ends are now darned in. I do need to block them though. They are for Mr, which might explain why they are like skis.   This quilt top was in a box of things I inherited from my late husband's mother. I am finishing this quilt now, and learning to quilt as I go along. It will be a surprise gift for her daughter, who loves purple. Close up of my first attempts at hand quilting. I am having fun with it for sure. I think I will only quilt the pink and the purple pieces. This is a picture of the pattern I followed to make the blue booties below. They went together surprisingly quickly, but of course, being for a baby they are tiny and the sea...

Hello Dear Friends: the long silence does not mean that I have floated away like so many unfortunate Canadians due to flooding. I am here, just busy being a crafty hermit. First off, I have a new wheel! Yes. And no, I do not need another wheel. That's not the point. It is a tool, and like most tools, there are specialty ones. And that's what this is. This is a Canadian Production Wheel, probably made by Mr. L.S. Laurence of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, between 1830-1850. Isn't it lovely? This wheel has a grand 30.5" diameter wheel and is designed to spin a very thin wool, very fast, hence the "production" name. I cleaned and conditioned the wood, made two temporary pegs and put leather shims in at the axle, and it spins like a dream. My resulting singles are very fine indeed. The only fibre I have here in any quantity is a neppy Polwarth. It spins up nicely on this wheel but has lumps. There are way too many nepps to stop and remove them. This fibre was bou...

 So today was the day. The calendar was wide open and no commitments. So I leapt into this project with all my fins flapping. The Rambouillet fleece needs to be washed to remove the lanolin and the suint. Suint is sheep's sweat. And a lot of other dirt still needs to come out. So the top picture is where we left off after the skirting and manual picking. This was very time consuming.  Wash Number One. All throughout I am using nine lingerie bags to contain the fibers. The detergent of choice is the blue Dawn dish detergent (do not use the type with enzymes!). I cranked up the hot water tank to 160 deg F and am doing this in the tub. For each step the time is set for twenty minutes. Enough for the lanolin to dissolve and for grit to fall to the bottom, but not enough time for the water to cool and the lanolin to re-deposit onto the wool. First water quite murky.  Wash Number Two is noticeably cleaner. Between washes I am gently pressing out as much water as ...