Spinning Monday 1st day of Summer

It may be, officially, the first day of summer here in Oz but our weather in Silver Creek has been super! Some sun, some storms bringing the ever desired rain, a little wind and just cool enough to make woolly-working enjoyable. That means freezing for the queenslanders but lovely for the victorians. I never complain about the cool/cold in earnest as it just means you can knit and spin a lot more comfortably.

I am spinning some fibre to make a birthday and Christmas gift for a special person in my son's life. The fibre is the most divine blend of merino, cashmere and silk and I will be seeking more I can assure you from the boys at 1st Edition Fibre and Yarn. I have a trip planned for next week to take my mother-in-law who is visiting from Qld, I hope I can talk her into getting some also, she will be the envy of all those banana-benders!

I hope you can see for yourself how divinely this has spun up. It has a softish grey tone, but is very neutral in colour and oh so soft!!! I'm so delighted with how it has turned out.

Fran was busy spinning this lovely variegated fibre. As a newish spinner she should be so pleased as it is coming out a treat indeed.

We had a vase of my lovely yellow Friesia roses, the smell is just divine and I keep stopping to smell them as I go past. And a birthday cake for Pam.

This is Ann's new wheel. It is a traditional Ashford, but spins much better than the wheel she is currently trying to use. As a beginning spinner it is so hard to struggle with a wheel which would frustrate even the most experienced of us. We wish her happy spinning on this wheel and watch this space to see her progress.

Oh I adore cashmere and silk...

This is one of the many things I have been up to while the blogging has been sparse.

I wanted to make a birthday/Christmas (they are close together) gift for someone special in my son's life and thought alpaca would be nice. But while I was digging in the stash for some to spin, I came across 2 x 100gm bags of merino/cashmere/silk blend in this natural soft greyey white colour, from the wonderful boys at 1st Edition Fibre and Yarns at Euroa. It was perfect for the person I had in mind. So I got started...

and what a dream to spin! It was on the bobbins in no time...

and plied as quickly, drool, drool

and the only mishap was with a niddy noddy coming apart and making balling up a problem

and voila! ready to knit for the next blog.

Friday 28th November Patchwork

Only a small group today. Anne was stitching

and Pam was knitting

and enjoying her birthday cake! Happy birthday Pam!

Peonies

I was weeding today after the rain. It was impossible to weed last summer when there was no rain as our ground without moisture is just rock hard so we have much more than our fair share of weeds again and I desperately need to weed each time it rains as the weeds are out of control. I checked out my peonies (through the tall grass weeds) and they are just magnificent, breathtakingly beautiful! When we were in Canada in July the boys got fed up with me rushing off to look at peonies and admire them everywhere we went, I couldn't believe how many there were. They were prolific in the markets and supermarkets and florists. But not better than these....

At the top of the picture where the petals are standing up I discovered a neighbourhood of about 40 earwigs. They must have pressed the petals down and made a really large space in there.

FfGatBQCwip cont'd with peacock!

Maree was stitching shells after finishing her washer.

The washer sat nicely with the reds of my puffs.

This washer is for a swap.

And when I got home the magpie baby was hungry and I threw out some bread but the peacocks were watching and ran to get the bread. This boy was displaying his tail while he gobbled the pieces of bread. I made sure the maggie got some also.

FfGatBQCwip cont'd

Shannah was appliqueing.

Yelena was cutting and stitching.

Anne was sewing down binding.

FfGatBQCwip!

Friday 21st November 2008
Everybody seems to have abbreviations in their language now, although if you knew anyone in the Army 30 years ago, they were doing it then on a daily basis. Far be it for we country yokels not to be up with the fashion, so here is our FfGatBQCwip! (Friday friendship Group at Beechworth Quilters' Cottage works-in-progress).

Kerry was stitching.

Pam was crocheting around blankets made from 'longest scarf' squares.

Denise was selecting fabric,

and working in triangles (or are they flying geese?).