Absent

You may have noticed I've not been around for a while!  No excuses, BUT . . . over the last three months we have been rather busy - not too busy to blog, just too busy to do anything to blog about!  We finished odd bits and pieces in our new kitchen, the old kitchen was completely knocked out (all the units and cupboards were concrete block), had the old kitchen/sitting room replastered, painted the whole lot, stained all wood, put in a new floor in the new dining area (old kitchen), cleaned and polished the old tiled floor in the sitting area, put a new shower into the guest's toilet room, removed an old shower from the guest bedroom, and made two complete new bedrooms (new floors, paint, etc). You get the picture?  Well, all this had to be finished by 2nd May, and was - just!

So, what happened on 2nd May?  Eric and I had a huge party to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary (which was actually 5th May, but that was a Tuesday, and who wants a party on a Tuesday?).  We had guests coming out of our ears!  Three of Eric's sons arrived with wives/partners - unfortunately Matthew and Rona couldn't come with Brody (grandson) - a friend arrived from Germany (he had to sleep in the camper van as there was no room in the house), my sister slept in the lounge, another friend that we hadn't seen for 23 years came from Holland (he was farmed out to our neighbours), as were Eric's brother and sister-in-law, his nephew and girlfriend.  More friends filled the local b + b.  On the day of the party we had over 70 people, and a friend came and made a huge paella. Fabulous day.  I've included a few photos for you to see - note the size of the paella pan!

Tents being erected in the garden

Paella man arrives

Patrick and his Paella

Easier exit from bedroom than stairs!

Little inserted note : you see that room with the balcony - that's going to be my new craft room!  Can't wait to get that up and running!

Of course there was music :-

and kilts :-

The girls :-

and, of course, there's always one who has one too many!

So, that's probably the biggest party we'll have until our 40th (if we live that long!) - good job too, we were completely exhausted at the end of it.

Now we're having a bit of time off from working, which means more time for hobbies! Spinning wheels await!

Spinning Progress - Waste Not Want Not

Gosh, almost a month since I last posted - where is this year going?  It's not that I haven't had anything to show you; there's been lots of spinning around here.  I just haven't actually managed to finish anything!  Well, except for these :-

This was the order that Tammy received for 600g of hand-spun alpaca (I volunteered to do half of it).  I've tried and tried to get rid of the blue sheen on this photograph, but looks like it's here to stay.  The true colour may be more apparent on the next photo.

This is from Jorrocks - it's mainly dark grey with a slight brownish tinge here and there. Tammy designed the labels - I just cut them out!  I don't have photographs of her half of the order, but let's hope the recipients are happy with what we've done.

Well, that's it for finished items, but I have started preparing this for spinning :-

This is the green cotton I grew last year.  It doesn't look very green at the moment, but once it's spun and boiled, I have every confidence that it will indeed be green!  You can see a bit of green on the cotton bolls at the left of the photo.  So, unfinished project!

A few weeks ago I put in an order to World of Wool using some of the gift vouchers one of my wicked stepsons sent for Christmas (OK, not so wicked this time!!).  I ordered 500g of botany lap waste (one of my favourite products from WoW because it's always a surprise what you get in there).  I also sent for 500g of scoured Polwarth fleece.  Must admit, for the first time ever, I was less than pleased with this item.

It's not felted, but it's not in what I would call "good order" either.  It's full of clumpy bits that have to be pulled apart and I had a bit of a problem knowing how to prepare this for spinning.  I tried carding, but that wasn't very satisfactory.  What did amaze me was the amount of nepps in this fleece.  Because of those I decided the best way was to get out my combs and have a go.  The combing took quite a while because there was so much waste in there - just look at the nepps in the waste (on the right) :-

I ended up with half spinnable fibre and half waste - which isn't a good ratio in my books.

Mind you, the finished fleece is gorgeous and I look forward to spinning it, but I do wish I hadn't bought 500g of the stuff!  Life's too short.  Lesson learned though - don't buy pre-scoured fleece.  I prefer to spin "in the grease" anyway.

I have to say at this point, I did contact World of Wool and they were quite willing to give me a refund for this if I sent it back.  However, after checking up on postage rates from France to the UK, this was going to cost almost as much as I paid for the fleece, so I decided to keep it and just work on it in idle moments.  It'll get done eventually.  And those nepps will be thrown into leftover dyes and then included in textured yarns - waste- (if you'll pardon the pun!) not-want-not!

Finally, back to the Botany Lap Waste.  As usual, I was pretty pleased with what was in the bag, and fished out all my favourite textures and colours

Look at that sparkly amazingness.  I'm pretty sure there's nothing natural in that bit, but who cares, I love it!

First I spun each colour in sequence to give a stripy effect - two bobbins of this.  Then I took the fibre that was left, added in a few more shades, and blended it on my drum carder :-

That's my nifty milk bottle top diz I'm using there.  Ended up with seven of these luscious balls of fluffiness :-

Which were spun (bobbin on the left)

and plied together to make a pretty nice skein of yarn.  I was a bit worried it was going to turn into clown barf with all those colours, but I think I like it.

Again, another unfinished project, but it does make life more interesting having lots going on!

Our 125th Birthday!!

Yep, that's right - we have 125 years between us (sorry to disappoint you if you thought it was just one birthday, I very much doubt either of us will reach that age!)

It all started on 10th March when I had my 60th birthday.  Eric took me out for lunch and the weather was so nice we were able to sit outside.

Then, in the evening, we had a band rehearsal to go to.  The plan was we'd just have a quick meal and then get down to some playing . . . except, when we got there, the house was full of people!!  Eric and our friends had organised a surprise birthday party for me. This was my first real grown up party!

The fairy lights were all set up, but not turned on when we arrived - might have given the game away otherwise.

They'd really gone overboard with the decorations and balloons.

Some of the guests

and the hostess with the most-ess :-

I'll get you back Angela when you reach the big Six Ohhhh!

As usual, the host (on the right) had plenty to say for himself.

I had a fabulous evening, and really didn't have a clue that anything was going on. Needless to say, we didn't get much any playing done!

Dopey picture time - think I was a bit overwhelmed with the whole thing :-

I think this is my best side :-

Sadly, I didn't get a photo of the two birthday cakes Katharine had made for me.  One was covered in grated white chocolate, and the other with plain and both had candles. Unfortunately, when I came to blow out the candles, all the chocolate blew all over the table and guests.  Hmmm, maybe a light breeze would have been better, not a raging gale!

Two days later we set off on our holidays.  We'd had this trip planned for a while so Eric could meet his grandson for the first time.  And, lo and behold, there were more birthday celebrations organised.  His four sons, wives and partners had rented a house up in the Highlands of Scotland, about 10 miles away from Aviemore.

The first night we arrived, we had more presents, a fabulous meal, and another cake. They could have softened the blow with the sparklers on top, but no, they had to rub it in that we were 125!

Burned-out sparklers just visible!

It was an incredibly good cake though - Banoffee pie, lovely!!

It was a double celebration for Eric, being both 65 (on 19th March) and a Grandad!

I'll leave you with a pic of the wee boy himself :-

Where's the "Awwwww" button?

Totally worn out with all the festivities!

Special Delivery!

OK, get ready to Aaaawwwww!!!  Here's what arrived yesterday evening :-

These two belong to Rob and Tammy, our neighbours.  They've gone back to the UK for a short visit (4 days, 3 nights) and asked if we would look after them.  They were both rejected by their mothers and are having to be hand-fed.

The problem with them being rejected by their mother is that they didn't get that first feed from her and so haven't received the vital colostrum that provides the boost to their immunity. Apparently, they will be very prone to infection.  In fact, the smaller of the two isn't as lively as the other one and Rob doesn't really expect her to survive.  This morning, when we let them out of their pen, she could hardly walk.  She's walking very stiffly, as though she's arthritic.

The next problem is, how will the other one cope on it's own if she dies.  Normally, it wouldn't be a problem because she'd be with the herd and the other lambs.

Wicked stepson no. 4 is calling us soon (he's the vet) and I'll mention it to him.  But really, there's not much he can do from that distance.  Just got to keep our fingers crossed.

Elephant-itis

WOW - almost 2 weeks since I last posted.  But I haven't been idle.  Eric's first grandson is due to arrive on the planet at the end of January (not long now), so I've been busy making his blanket.  I wasn't planning to post photos on here until it was ready as I didn't want to spoil the surprise.  I don't think they look on my blog very often though, and anyway I wanted to show you how I was getting on.

The spinning is taking me some time because I'm spinning fairly fine and then Navajo plying (3-ply), so everything I've spun reduces to a third when I ply it.  I wanted to do it this way because you finish up with a more "rounded" yarn than a simple 2-ply would be.

The fleece I'm using is from Maco Merinos and looks like this before processing :-

I'm spinning this without washing it first because, unlike a lot of spinners nowadays, I actually like spinning "in the grease", i.e. the lanolin is still present.  I'm separating this fleece into it's individual locks and flick carding the ends so it looks like this :-

How fluffy is that, eh?

Then I'm making rolags from that (sorry, no photos, but I'm sure you've seen them before on here!).

Spinning in progress :-

and finally, the knitting . . .

The knitting is only a quarter of the way through, so I need to get my skates on.  So far I've used one complete ball of the white, and then I ran out.  I've almost finished spinning the second ball, but estimate that I'll need at least another two after that.  Somehow, I don't think this is going to be finished in time for the birth, unless she crosses her legs!

One of my Christmas presents arrived just in time to start this blanket.  I've been hankering after some new knitting needles for quite a while, but held off because they are quite expensive.  Then I received two Amazon vouchers from two of the wicked stepsons (Thanks Dan and Matthew) and thought, what better way to use them than this, especially as the blanket is for Matthew's child.

Ta da!!

So, that's it for now.  I'll keep you informed with progress, but I'm unlikely to be doing any other projects until this is finished.