I finished the felted bag today! I decided to line it and use it as an oversized purse. Here it is in all it's stages... Starting the knitting...

Finished knitting...

Felted and embroidered...


The lining and magnetic catch installed. Note my pockets for miscellaneous. I even have one the size of a chequebook on the other side...


The white loop is to hold a key clasp for my keys.

All in all I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I thought it would be more the size of a tote bag when finished. But that was the size before felting. This will make a nice spring purse to haul things around in. It's big enough for a spindle and some wool too. A nice medium purse size.

My favourite time of year! Today a friend and I decorated our Christmas tree. Paul confessed he hated doing the lights on the tree...and I needed help doing them. So I commandeered a friend to help out. Once we started we had to finish! So it's done.


We also tripped up to a local restaurant for lunch today, and to a local bookstore for tickets to an upcoming Steve Bell concert. We had a great time chatting. It was her birthday celebration. Spent some time doing Bible study as well. My friend has interesting ideas about scripture and I love being able to find where she gets her ideas from. Sometimes she gets beyond what we're studying and has to backtrack her reasoning to it's source. I try to get her to stick to what we're actually reading though. But then...she's had Bible College and I haven't. So I suspect she's way out ahead of me in that department!

I've been spinning a lot. Yesterday I spent the whole day on the Victoria and the Joy spinning wheels. I like the Joy better. But I think I want to try a few others. I'm not sure I'm happy with the way the bobbin sits suspended in mid-air on one end. Seems to me it could get a bit wobbly...especially if one were spinning thick heavy yarns. I've put a call into my spinning sister-in-law for help. Looking forward to her return call.

I finished felting my bag I knit. Now I want to embroider on it a bit, line it, and attach a fastener to close it. Then it will be usable as an oversize purse.

Paul and I have a crisis in our kitchen. The tap officially spouts more water than the spout. I've taken to plugging the sink under the leaking tap to see how much water I catch in a day. It was about 1/4 to 1/3 a sink yesterday. We've been faucet shopping. One of the plumbers we called suggested a really expensive place in town...where the faucet sets I liked were $600-1000CAD!!! Needless to say we had issues with that.

I came home and did a quick Internet search. Found the same sets on-line for $300US. But Paul thought we should be able to do better locally without having to buy cheap quality. So we tripped over to Home Depot after work one night. We found a wonderful selection in the $200-400CAD range, which suits us fine. They all seem to be brass construction. At least what we can see. In fact, they seem to be the same company. However the faucet model names are different...hmmm... Still not sure the best way to handle this.

We've been thinking of doing a kitchen reno for some time. But the cost has been scaring us off. We thought we might be able to do it for $10,000CAD. But a friend across the street warned us her recent reno - same size kitchen - cost her $35,000CAD. She claimed it's not what you put in the kitchen or take out...it's what they find underneath everything in these old houses. She had to have old flooring ripped out, new electrical and plumbing done, and new drywall put over everything. She moved appliances and claims that costs money. I suggested to Paul we leave the appliances right where they are. He wants to add a dishwasher.

One of my friends basically told me how to go about the reno on our own. But I think I need to talk to someone who's actually done one. I know a young single mom at church who has done her own kitchen reno that I'd like to talk to. Big problem is getting Paul to buy into this. He wants to hire someone else to do it. Course that's been the problem...no one to do the work! We've had a terrible time lining up contractors this year for work. I've basically given up on them. Paul still wants to use them.

Want to see what I've been working on? Check out these funky afghan squares for a charity afghan. I've already knit six of various colour greens. We church ladies are trying to use up a huge bin of yarn. It's going fast on these squares! Still...someone has to sew them all together. I am feeling sorry for the lady doing it. I may just offer to help her...


When I was in Edmonton this summer I stopped at a yarn shop and picked up a kit for a felted bag by Fleece Artist. I'm finally knitting it up. It's 100% Merino wool and is so soft on the hands and easy to knit. I love it!


I decided we needed some dishcloths. Plus I thought I'd sell some in my on-line store at Etsy. So I've been knitting these up between times...


And...just in case I have more time! I've picked up a hooked rug I started years ago to work on and finish. Here it is...my latest version of my hollyhock rug. I anticipate doing a few more changes before I'm finished. I don't like the stark lines in the petals of the flowers...come to think of it the hooking of the flowers is kind of bugging me. Love the colours...just not the way it's hooked...


I took my rug to stitch-in to show the ladies the Deanne Fitzpatrick yarns. Also to the place I take spinning classes. They just happened to have a fleece sitting there that was perfect colours for my moose! They let me grab a 'handful'...I just took a bit... Yesterday I washed it. It's not as clean as I'd like it. But it's a lot better than it was!


And today I plied a boucle yarn I think will look neat dyed foliage colours for trees in rug hooking.


So that's what's keeping me busy these days! Oh...and binding that experimental quilt. Need to make a label for it and two other quilts before continuing on. Tomorrow...

I just love days like this! I had a wonderful relaxing day. Paul was home this morning. So we took the opportunity to run some errands. My kitchen strainer finally gave up the ghost after 29 years. Well, actually it's been going for some time. The wire basket part has been slowly working it's way off the metal rim for a number of years. It was squished beyond redemption. Paul finally looked at it as he was doing dishes and asked if we had to keep it. I said no. I didn't realize a new one cost $10CAD! Wow! I didn't know they'd gone up that much in price! But 29 years is a long time. I don't think I paid $5 for that one.

We also picked up another ink cartridge for the computer, burlap to wrap a shrub in the yard for winter, and a snow shovel. To make this trip more frugal I decided to try and purchase items in one store as much as possible. And only drive to the area of town closest to us that would cover all the bases. So in one hour we had everything and were home again. The ink cartridge was $18CAD. The burlap was $10. The snow shovel was $15. Not bad. We like Canadian Tire and Office Depot!

I've been busy today watching more Dr. Grant Mullen DVDs and "Simple Living" DVDs. While watching them I knit or spin. I finished a total of 6 8" squares for a charity afghan the last few days. I'm taking a break now to do other things.

I also spent time spinning some Coopworth wool on my large drop spindle (35 gm). I decided to set up a spinning notebook to keep track of everything I do. Our spinning instructor keeps mentioning this. So I thought I'd give it a try.

At first I thought I'd have to buy a sketchbook or something. But I determined I was not going to spend money on this! So I searched the house and decided it might be time to sort through some of my household binders. Whenever I find information on anything, or take notes on a book or something, I put them in binders by subject. Well some subjects have more notes than others. I found a binder with a couple pages of notes from one book...that's it (kind of a waste of a binder!). So I took the notes out, determined they were outdated and could be tossed, then found some paper for my binder and VOILA! a spinning notebook! I spent some time making notes on all the yarns I've spun to date and putting samples in the notebook. Makes sense to keep everything organized like this.

A friend came over and we quilted this evening. I finished making all the brown potholders I had. They are the remains of a quilt border from the experimental quilt. It is a quilt-as-you-go technique that had me machine quilting the pieces before sewing them onto the quilt. It was very slow and laborious. And these borders were just one too many. So I cut them up into potholders. I tested them on a hot cast iron frypan and as a hot pad on the table. They work great! So I've kept a few for myself.

I also started sewing the final border on the sampler quilt. I will be glad to have that particular quilt top finished. I am not happy with it. But it's okay I guess. Too many people with too different ideas working on it. Next time I think I'll do all the colour planning myself.

I made some Caramel Sauce today to serve over blueberry muffins. It's a real treat here. I make whole wheat banana blueberry muffins fat-free and sugar-free. This recipe comes from my little sister in PEI, and in its original form is served over blueberry cake.

Caramel Sauce

1 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. butter
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. water
2 tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. vanilla flavouring

Melt the butter and add everything else. Bring to boil and simmer till thickened. Serve over the muffin!

Enjoy!

While I was in the Maritimes I took the opportunity to pick up some yarns I couldn't buy locally.

One of those yarns was Mission Falls wool.


I am planning on using it to knit mittens for sale from the pattern booklet "Smitten" by Mags Kandis.

Another batch of yarn I couldn't resist was this...well...we think it's McAusland wool...not sure...that I picked up in Pictou, NS. It is hand dyed by a local lady who runs a business called Cobweb Woolies.  It's going to be turned into men's hats.


I picked it up at the local craft/gift store...which had some pretty cool things in it. Paul picked up a couple of CDs of local musicians.

And, last but not least, the Belfast Mini-Mills in Belfast, PEI. I don't know about the lady running the place. I was going to buy qiviut roving to hand spin. But she told me it wasn't good for that. So instead I bought the yarn. When I came home and talked to my spinning friends they just laughed and said she had told me an outright lie. They had all spun qiviut with a drop spindle and had it turn out just fine! In fact, another lady (who owns a yarn store I might add) had been down east trying to buy qiviut from this lady and she told her the same thing...it's not good for drop spindling.

I know from listening to the proprietor discuss things with another customer, that she doesn't think much of drop spindling. But to lie to your customers?! Frankly, if it weren't for the fact she carried such neat exotic fibres I wouldn't go back. At any rate if you want qiviut roving, stick to your guns with this woman. Could be she simply had a bad experience with drop spindling. Course, they do sell mini mills! LOL! Maybe it's part of her sales pitch for them!

I finished spinning, plying, washing and skeining my first homemade yarn in 29 years! Here's the finished results...

Each skein is roughly 40 grams...which means I have enough to make a hat and possibly mitts as well! I'll use the white for the cuffs and ribbing. It's pretty wild stuff! Definitely varied in thickness. I have no idea what needles to knit it on...time to try soon enough.

I'm pretty excited about this! I am already spinning some Merino. It will make a very fine yarn. I have no idea what I'll knit with it. I don't do lace knitting...but I may have to by the time I'm through!

Alright... here we go... This is what I did on my summer vacation (well...fall vacation!)...