Free Range Mama

around the house this morning

Trying to get back on the blogging bandwagon. I figured I’d start by sharing a few vignettes from around our house this morning. We’re kind of in holiday-hangover mode still, I’m afraid. You know how it is.

Z loves to write notes and letters, so we always have a bunch of them laying around. Today’s assortment includes a “Happy New Year” card for me featuring  a very menacing owl carrying off a mouse in it’s talons.

Fortunately the message inside is less scary.

A note to Alex’s friend Ryan from “Secret” – who is clearly Miss Z. I should probably be worried here, but I’m pretty sure it just says “Merry Christmas” inside.

A note found on the coffee table, which I’m fairly certain she intended for Alex.

Here she is, showing off her ukulele which never seems to be far from her hands, even though she hasn’t quite figured out how to play it yet.

In the kitchen we find Alex, who has been “down the rabbit hole” playing Skyrim for the last few days (in addition to having a yucky cold) and is taking a much needed refueling break. A little groggy looking, but quite contented.

Tiki is also a little tired looking. Though she did manage to rouse herself enough to bark half-heartedly at a deer.

We still have tons of candy left over form the Christmas stockings. This is the most interesting looking, though nobody seems to have been tempted to open it.

Downstairs we have the usual assortment of projects. Z is very insistent that I get this ornament she made fixed up in time to get it on the tree. Running out of time on that one.

The rest of the downstairs is dye-central. I got accepted as a vendor at Madrona Fiber Arts at the last minute (after being on the waitlist for *ahem* quite a while) so now I am working double time to build up enough inventory to fill my booth.

Also this weekend we had to do our final year-end inventory for the accountant, which was a bit daunting, plus I had to get my January fiber club installment dyed up, so I haven’t spent much time out of the studio.

dye party

Monday night, we had Z’s friends over to dye their own yarn for a weaving project they are working on. I decided to go with kool-aid dyeing just for the fruity-smelling, non-toxic fun of it.  I had a heck of a time finding all the appropriate colors, and never did manage to find a store that stocked the blue stuff, so I used regular food coloring as an add-in.  It was pretty amusing, actually - buying that much kool-aid at a store invites some suspicion… none of the checkers failed to ask me what I could possibly want with that much of the stuff.

The girls had a good time, and made some lovely yarns, that I hope they will be happy with.

If you’ve never dyed with Kool-aid, the procedure is very fun and simple, and a great project for kids.

Supplies:

• Undyed yarn (must be a protein fiber, like wool, but not cotton) in loosely-tied skeins.
• Kool-Aid packets (those little $.25 sleeves of color and flavoring). Food coloring and Easter egg dye will also work.
• Cups ( I used basic plastic ones)
• Water
• Plastic Wrap
• Vinegar (the regular white stuff)
• Dish Soap or something to wash it with.

 Instructions:

Pre-soak the yarn in plain water until it is fully saturated (at least 30 minutes)

Lay out a piece of plastic wrap on the table and then take some yarn from the pre-soak. Squeeze out the excess water, and then arrange it however you like on the plastic wrap, leaving some room around it on all sides.

For each color you want to use, partially fill a cup with warm water and empty the contents of the appropriate kool-aid packet into the cup. More dye = darker color, and more water = lighter color, so add powder or water as needed, and mix and blend as much as you like. When the color looks good, pour it directly on the yarn wherever you would like it to stay, trying to add just enough to soak through, but not create a puddle.

When you are happy with the yarn, dribble vinegar all over it, or spray it all over with a  spray bottle until you have a nice coating of acid all over the yarn, but again, not a puddle.

Lay another piece of plastic wrap over the top of the yarn and  fold the edges all around to get a nice, sealed packet. Steam the packet on the stove in a veggie steamer or something like it for at least 30 minutes or so, and then let it cool completely.  Wash it in the sink with a little soap and water, and then hang it up to dry. Easy peasy.

Yes, sometimes it comes in handy to have a dye kitchen in one’s house, though I did have to clean up every scrap of my regular dye stuff to make the space available. Usually all the surfaces are covered with gross stuff and debris from my work. Look mom (!), I even put my fibers away (sort of).

I didn’t tidy up Z’s workspace, as she’s such a prolific crafter that I can’t really stay ahead of her. I’m showing it anyway, since we’re touring the workroom. Cute new desk, no?

offf

After I got home from NZ I was delighted and somewhat terrified to discover that most of my wool inventory had sold while I was away. The terror part was largely because I only had 1 week to prepare for the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, a huge annual fiber show where I was planning to be a vendor, sharing a booth with the lovely Linda of Northwest Wools. So, 1 week, less a few days of drying time, meant I had to dye a ridiculous amount of fiber in 4 days… all while coming off some wicked jet lag. I am proud to say that I pulled it off, though not without some serious sleep deprivation. By the time the festival rolled around I was in a kind of zombie-like state, and only marginally functional as an actual human being. Fortunately my very helpful husband saw how useless I was, and agreed to come down and help out, though of course we had to come down separately so that we’d have room for all the gear.

I went down early on Friday morning so that I could run a few errands, set up the booth and get everything ready to go. The set-up went fine – we had the same space as last year, which we really like because it allows us a little bit of overflow room so our booth isn’t so crowded. Even though I was compounding tiredness with tiredness, I also couldn’t resist going out afterwards for Sushi and Gelato with a Portland friend, before heading back to the farm for a few hours of precious sleep. Yes, I know - I do this to myself. Dh and the kids rolled in at Midnight, so they weren’t a whole lot better off than I was. Saturday morning, I was up with the sun – pulling out of the driveway at 7:15, and getting to the fairgrounds an hour later. I let the rest of my crew sleep in – no sense in dragging crabby children out before they are ready. The weather had been the subject of much speculation, but it turned out to be a spectacular sunny day. The mood was awesome and the festival was packed – which made for great fun and lots of busy. Dh and the kids showed up in the late morning and Dh grabbed an apron and got to work checking out customers and helping out in the booth – giving me more time to relax and chat with fiber friends. The kids took off and went exploring – mostly watching the sheepdog trials and visiting with the animals. Fortunately, they took some pictures for me, because I really didn’t have much of a chance to get my camera out or even walk around the festival much,.  I barely even got pictures of my own booth.

Here’s one where you can see our resident fiber-dude in his apron..

Here’s Alex showing off how he’s now taller than his Grandma…

Most of the kids’ pictures looked like this…

And this…

and of course, this…

It looks like they managed to convince people to let them hold and pet the animals, I hope they didn’t hassle anyone too much. As an added bonus, Z’s best buddy showed up with her mom  so the kids had fun playing with her as well. Z and B also managed to purchase matching angora bunny toys:

Later in the afternoon (she was supposed to arrive earlier but had a harrowing adventure that cost her some time), we also had Symeon North, (author of Get Spun: The Step-by-Step Guide to Spinning Art Yarns) come by for a book signing and set up her table of gorgeous creations in our booth. No, she’s not in this picture, but this is her table…

It was fun to meet her, and she also stayed overnight at the farm with us, so we got to chat with her further over dinner, and again at the festival on Sunday.

Ah, Sunday. The second and final day of the show. The weather was not as kind to us. On the drive in, the fog was incredibly thick, casting a very eerie light over everything. The fog turned to drizzle, and by the time I had pulled into the fairgrounds, it was raining in earnest. The first few hours of the show was more of an exercise in keeping our stuff dry than really trying to sell anything… just maneuvering tarps this way and that, and moving a lot of stuff back into our cars just to get more dry space in the tent. I phoned Dh and told him not to bother coming – just to take the kids back home to Washington so we wouldn’t all have to huddle together under the tent all day. Around 1:00, however, the rain stopped, and things picked up again. I still ended up with a bit of wet wool, but nothing too bad. Of course I still hadn’t had any quality sleep by this time, and I doubt my slow-wittedness impressed any of our customers  as I was trying to tally up their purchases (very sloooooow and using a calculator for things a normal person could probably do in their head) but I muddled through as best I could on the numbers stuff, and of course enjoyed chatting with all the fab fiber folks. At the end of it all, we loaded out and I hit the road (in retrospect, probably in a somewhat unsafe condition to drive) pulling into my driveway at 11:00. Whew! It was nuts, but I’m already looking forward to next year.

i got interviewed!

Big thanks to Biz-ymama for featuring me on her blog! I probably sound pretty dull when talking about business and schedules and stuff – but I tried!  Working for yourself from home (with children) is certainly an interesting challenge, and I know the idea intrigues a lot of people who aspire to do it, but I don’t know if there is much I can say that hasn’t been said before.  In one sense, it’s like having two full-time jobs, but they are simultaneous, and neither of them really ever takes a break or can be completely set aside. In another sense it’s like having no job at all – just a full, busy life. 

The last few weeks have had me thinking a lot about the balance of it all. Spending so much more time out and about at the kids activities (largely due to Z’s new ice skating obsession)

have forced me to be more organized than ever before, and most days I have ended the day wondering how the heck I managed to pull it off – lol. I know that life ebbs and flows, though, so I just kind of ride these things out. Just another part of the adventure.

playing with dye

Had so much fun today – my friend Tara came over with her daughter to do some dyeing. They used some of my wool, and brought a bit of their stash, including some lovely locks, and some fun fibers like brown alpaca and a seacell blend. Of course I didn’t think to take pictures while they were here, but you can see a bit of the aftermath:

All of their wool came out beautifully.  I can’t recall the exact blend with the seacell, but she got really nice bright color, and it is so soft and luscious and begging to be spun up:

Here is the drying rack. Tara’s stuff is in the front, and K’s is in the back and on top. I am especially in love with the black to purple gradient one that K did, and I am already planning to steal her idea and do some for myself :)

Tara’s flame colorway on the end is also in danger of being swiped. The teal merino/cashmere is pretty sweet too.

I don’t know if this picture does the “Melvin” locks justice, but I love how they came out:

K is pretty young (12)  but she is already an accomplished spinner who is developing an admirable stash of fibers and yarns. I am always excited to see what she’s working on, and the mind boggles to think how much amazing stuff she’ll produce starting at such a young age.

While they were here, we had to bid farewell to Cocoa, the Chihuahua we have been babysitting for the last few days.

Z has had so much fun with her – especially taking her for walks which is something that she really can’t do with our huge dog.

Awwwwwwwwwwww.

have spinning wheel, will travel.

Great weekend, with not one but 2 spin-ins!

Saturday I drove a little bit south to meet up with the Eastside spinners guild – a fun group of people that seems to get bigger every week.  Many of us were at Madrona last weekend, so it was fun to catch up on all the classes and goodies everyone scored.

After that, I headed still further South – all the way to Oregon actually – and the drive was pretty pleasant in the gorgeous sunny weather. I met up with my friend Tracy in Northwest Portland, and went to Justa Pasta for dinner. It used to be my lunch place of choice many years ago when I worked in an office in the same building, but has changed quite a bit, starting with the fact that they now serve dinner. They used to be a wholesale place (it’s a somewhat industrial area) with a small take-out menu, but today they have expanded into a full restaurant. It still is a bit funky – you have to order at the counter before you sit down – but the pasta is as good as ever. They also had an amazing apple spice cake. Quite a treat!

Sunday was another spinning day – I met up with some of the Twisted Sisters for some spinning, food, fiber arts show-and-tell, and good conversation. 

I also passed on a few new fibers to Linda of Northwest Wools to add to her shop.

After that, it was North to Washington again.

I had originally planned to stay down there a few more days, but Dh had a work commitment on Monday, so it was up to me to get back home to watch the kids. We are also going to be pet-sitting for a Chihuahua puppy (Z is sooooooooo excited!) and I wanted to be back for that too. So, it was a short trip, but all fun stuff. I’ll be back down there again in a few weeks for the Portland Yarn Crawl where I will be doing an event at Northwest Wools.

feels springy

Gorgeous sunny day today! It kind of put me in a lazy mood, which is probably a good thing, since I’m still trying to recover from hurting my back last week, and I’m supposed to be resting.  I’m sick of lying down, though, so I decided to take a stroll around the house and take a few pics.

Here are 2 of the hens and Sunshine the rooster photographed from the deck. They always come running when I walk out there… just in case I decide to start throwing breadcrumbs.

Here’s the bobbin of my spinning wheel. This is my first time spinning the lovely BFL/Tussah Silk blend I bought a few weeks ago, and I absolutely love it. It spins like buttah! As you can see I also have my new Woolee Winder on my Julia, so I am getting that nice, tidy winding action. I wasn’t sure if I would like it – it does change the tension quite a bit, but I think I have gotten used to it now. I need to try plying again, though – the first time I tried to ply on it,  I got so frustrated that I gave up and switched wheels.

Here is a wider angle, so you can see what the fiber looks like – it’s a random “spot” roving I dyed last week.

Here’s an even wider angle so you can see the puppy dog eyes – awwwwwwww!

Here's a shot I took in the studio – that’s an alpaca roving waiting to be photographed for my shop. Yeah, I’ll get around to it (didn’t I say I was feeling lazy?), it just looked so pretty sitting there. 

The the lazy vibe must be contagious, because despite the sunshine, the kids have been chilling and playing computer games most of the day. Alex has recently discovered an online Wizard game (Wizard 101?) that is his current obsession.  He had fencing practice this afternoon, though, so I have my laptop back for the moment. He was kind of reluctant to leave at all, but when he found out it was sunny/dry enough to drive in the Jeep with the top off, he was sold.  Yes, I realize it’s only 50 degrees out, but we take what we can get.

madrona!

Saturday I went to the annual Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat in Tacoma. I didn’t sign up for any classes, and I was too much of a procrastinator to get a vendor booth, so I was there purely as a shopper and gawker.

I often wondered what a person would think walking into a scene like this if they were uninitiated in the ways of the fiber arts world… would we look like some sort of a strange cult?

The marketplace was amazing as usual. Here is the awesome Morgaine of Carolina Homespun at her booth – Sandy was very happy to pick up her new Lazy Kate from her.

Pam and Sandy at lunch in the restaurant. Another friend (Rene) from my spinning group was with us as well.

More marketplace. I didn’t do a whole lot of buying this year, as I have an insane amount of fiber in my house, but I can never resist getting a little something from Crown Mountain Farms so I picked up a little optim, seacell, and corn fiber to play around with. I don’t usually work with fiber reactive dyes (used for plant fibers) so either I’ll have to pick some up or just spin the corn in it’s undyed state, but in any case, I can’t wait to give it a try. I’m such a sucker for novelty.

trip to portland

I made a quick business trip to Portland over the weekend. Drove down Thursday, stayed overnight, and then spent the whole day Friday doin’ stuff.

First stop on Friday was picking up my wool order – lots of luscious fiber, including the usual huge quantities of BFL, but also some angora, cashmere, merino/tencel, yarn of various shapes and sizes, etc. As I was wandering around the warehouse, I also stumbled over a BFL/tussah blend (and had to have it!) and it is my new favorite thing. Dyed pics coming soon! Sandy was with me, and she picked up a little yarn for herself as well.

Next stop was Northwest Wools, where we dropped off a few more bins of wool to keep the shelves stocked. It’s always nice to see Linda (and her lovely shop), so we stayed and chatted a bit before heading around the corner for some shopping and Mexican food. Then it was back to the dome to drop of Sandy and take a breather before heading out again for beers and burgers in Northwest Portland with some good friends. I had a lovely time, but was probably out a bit late for someone who has 200 miles to drive in the morning. Pulled it off though, and even made it home in time to meet up with my spinning group and finish the yarn I had started on my trip.

high-fiber salads

I made these out of a raw fleece and some kid mohair locks I bought at OFFF, and I really like how they came out.  Basically, I kettle dyed a bunch of colors and tossed them together like a salad so they can be spun or carded together. I definitely want to do more of this – maybe with some more exotic fibers and other bits and pieces from my stash.