(image courtesy of Carol Julius)

If you are friends with Carole, you have probably read about their adventures up in our neck of the woods, but because Ken and I had such a nice time, I thought I would share it here as well, even if it was over a week ago.

Carole being the thoughtful person that she always is, brought up some lovely hostess gifts…she knows me well!  A beautiful bag made by JessaLu with my favorite sister bees all over it as well as a beeutiful tape measure….and some AMAZING tequila!
Thank you Carole and Dale!

Friday night we had dinner and drinks at our usual Friday night spot, The Moat.  There may have been a flight and a lemon drop involved. 😉

Saturday, we showed them some of our favorite spots, one of which is Cathedral Ledge.  Cathedral Ledge gives you a birds eye view of our beautiful valley and the mountain range to the west which is close to where Ashley lives and Hannah goes to school.
That lake that you see…..well, notice that green color?  The kids have always called it "Echo Pee Lake"..ha!  Needless to say it's not theirs or my favorite spot to swim in up here.

We spent the afternoon just relaxing in the sun eating some snacks, sipping on that delicious Tequila and playing one of our favorite games, Bananagrams.  A little down time before the concert that we were going to later in the day.

(image courtesy of Carol Julius)

It's easy to see that Kathy Mattea is a favorite of Dale's.  He was so happy to have a chance to chat and have his picture taken her.

While they have seen her numerous times it was our first time seeing her in person and she is a delightful entertainer.  I really enjoyed the show at our favorite place in the valley to hear music,
The Stone Mountain Arts Center or SMAC as it is known around here.  GREAT place!

Now while Dale was smitten with Kathy, I could not take my eyes off of this guitar all night long.  Look at the grain of that wood…it it not the most stunning piece of wood?  I LOVED it, so much so that after the show, I hopped up on the stage, with permission of course and took some pictures to savor the beauty.
From a distance I thought it was flame maple, but Kathy told me that it was a Hawaiian wood.
Stunning!

After a leisurely breakfast, we decided to travel south to visit the Smuttynose brewery for a tour.  Even though I have been down to the restaurant there a number of times it was the first time Ken and I had the opportunity to do the tour and it was not only informative, but fun.  There was a lot of tasting for the beer drinkers in the group 😉

Traveling down to Smuttynose gave us an opportunity to spend some time at the bar visiting with Courtney while she was working.  I know that Dale and Carole are two of her favorite friends of ours, so it was nice to spend time with her.

While I was sad to see them leave, I know that they will be back again soon!
A weekend with good friends is always a happy memory to tuck away…

There has been some creating and perfecting happening here at The Woolen Rabbit.
I spent the weekend dyeing orders and working on another bag while tweaking it.  I have one more prototype bag to make after this one and the tweaking will be the pocket.  I would rather the pocket to be an inside pocket and I want it to be zipperless because I hate struggling with a zipper especially when it decides to be difficult and your phone is ringing.  The pocket should be easily accessible to grab items such as your phone or keys with out struggling with a zipper.  Once I am happy with this function, it will be the bag that I will sell.

So…in the interim, I am selling these prototype bags which are very nice, but not what the final product will be.  They are being sold at a reduced price.  The only difference in the bags is one is slightly bigger and the bigger one will be the final size.
You can purchase these bags here.

There has also been some knitting going on as well but seriously how many picture can you take of a solid navy sweater to make it look more interesting than the last one..LOL.  It's almost finished and soon I will be taking lots of pictures!

What have you been creating this week?

22 years ago I married this man and for the last 22 years he has stood by my side as my partner and my friend.  He has supported all of my crazy endeavors with enthusiasm and has worked hard to create the spaces for me to create.
He is a good man!

Normally we try to do something special for our Anniversary, but this year, on this weekend the focus was finishing the never ending bathroom.  It's taken a long time and a few rooms have been done in between because of plumber delays, but it is a breath away from being finished.
Ken worked really hard getting all of this tiling finished this weekend.  So much more work tiling to the ceiling, even if it doesn't look like it.  God bless him, it was a ton of work, and but it's finished except for sealing the marble and grouting.
(next house…move in ready!)

So while it was a quiet passing of our Anniversary, we managed to enjoy a few glasses of Champagne.
We will celebrate the day with special friends who are coming up to visit us this weekend. 🙂

Pattern: Fern
Designer: Trinn Annelie
Yarn: The Woolen Rabbit ~ Frolic
Colorways: Daddy Steelbucks, Grasshopper and Au Naturale

It's been a while since I have posted a finished knitted project even though I have been diligently knitting.  I have been plowing through a sweater that I am loving, but this fetching hat in these beautiful colors distracted me a bit. It also had me creating again at the dye-pot to come up with a green that would work.
I have been wanting to give color knitting a try again after many years and this little hat was not only addicting but thoroughly enjoyable.

4 of my days are long ones now that I am working again, but I do spend my lunch break eating and knitting and this was my knitting project last month.  It's always a challenge to see how many rows I can crank out in 20 minutes…LOL.  I actually think I am getting more knitting accomplished now…go figure.

This hat has been finished for a little while and I am back to working on my sweater, but I thought it would be fun to share it with you.  Fern is a very well written pattern that comes in two sizes.  A fitting cap and more of a slouchy cap as shown here.
I think if I were to make it again, I would add more rows to make it a bit more slouchy.  All in all though, I really enjoyed knitting this hat!

  Life has settled into a nice balance of dyeing on my week-day off and winding/shipping on Saturday, which has afforded me the time for some new creating on Sundays when we are home.  It's nice to have new ideas floating around my head again instead of just trying to keep afloat.

I bought this machine some time ago wanting to try my hand at sewing leather.  It's an old machine that sometimes has a mind of it's own in how fast it wants to go, but it's been fun learning how to find it's rhythm.  I definitely have to pay attention when I am using her or I could find my finger sewn…yikes!

In making this bag I have learned a number of things, one of which has been setting double capped rivets  They are not only decorative, but they give the straps the are set in between the lining and the outside some stability.
You know me, I am all about the tools and I have found a die press to be such a nice way to set rivets.

This next tool was a tool of necessity.  I knew I wanted leather straps for my bags, but I just couldn't find them easily on the big wide world web, so I learned out to make my own from a side of leather using this simple but sharp little strap cutter.
I spent an entire 2 weeks cutting straps over the summer.  I have enough straps to last me into eternity…just sayin'

Normally, I fly through things and usually end up making mistakes that I have to backtrack to fix, but this time I forced myself to go slow as I was creating this pattern myself.  I took the time to carefully iron and sew the various stabilizers and I was painstakingly careful in my stitching as leather is expensive and you only get one shot at sewing it, because you can't erase those stitch holes in leather.

As a dyer of many colors when I am working with fabric that someone else has created, one of the things that I love most is putting colors that you would not necessarily expect to go together in a project.  I love the brightness of the lime green against the classic black and gray paisley.  It's a fun combination.

It was nice to have a semi lazy weekend at home to spend time creating new things.
I am pretty sure that there will be more of these bags in the near future. 😉

A few weeks ago… exactly 2 weeks ago, when I was out with the dogs for their first morning run, I was looking around the yard and noticed some fresh footprints in the new snow we had received the night before.  Curious about the prints, I set out to explore who had been enjoying the space we call our yard.

This snow came on the cusp of the crazy warm spell we have enjoyed over the last 2 weeks.  The last 2 winters have been so insanely cold up here in New England, it's been a nice reprieve to have this unusual warmth in March.
  I knew that with the forecast of warmer temperatures if I wanted to see the prints in the snow, I needed to start snapping the camera that morning.

The first footprints that you see are mine, in my fashionable morning gear…LOL. 
Pajamas, boots, down coat and mittens….a fashion statement for sure!

The first set of prints I saw were these.  Most likely a deer.  I have only ever seen a deer in my yard once and sadly it was an injured deer that needed to be put down by a fish and game warden.  It made the day a bit sadder, but thankfully the deer wasn't going to suffer any longer either.

Next were these prints?  I'm thinking that maybe they were racoon prints, but I could be wrong.  Definitely not a dog, but maybe a cat?  From the impression however a racoon is what instantly came to mind.
Any of you who know footprints, please jump in and let us know.

Lastly there were these prints.  Definitely an animal that waddles from how close together those footprints are.  My guess from the scents of this early Spring would be a skunk.  Ken has seen a number of them on his early morning walks and I have definitely been smelling their aromas when I am out with the dogs in the morning.
Hannah has always said that it's Spring when you can smell skunks.
She just may be right. 😉

It truly was a beautiful frosty morning! 
I am so thankful that I took the time to do a little discovering before the new snow melted.

So.. while I have been away there actually has been a lot of knitting going on.  One of the things I have had to work on since going back into the work force is time management, which has never been my strength.  At the top of my list of things to change was the amount of time I could get sucked into on the internet, literally hours could be easily lost.  Facebook, Pinterest, Etsy, etc….and in doing so I have found that I have more time to knit!  I even knit during my lunch hour now.  It has been good to get back at it, especially given that I need some new show samples.

This hat pattern is Winter's Fern and I love it!  Knit with 3 shades of my Frolic yarn, one of which is a new colorway that will go up on my website soon….Grasshopper.  Tomorrow I am going to have coffee with 2 of daughters…..perhaps I can persuade one of them to model it for me as I will finish it up tonight. 🙂

This week's Ten on Tuesday has pulled me out of hibernation………
"10 Favorite Things I Own That Are Made of Wood.
It's no secret that I love fine wood….indeed I do!
Here are a few of my favorite things…..

1.  First on the list is my beautiful spinning wheel that was custom built for my by Tom Livernois of McTavish Wheels.  It always makes me smile when I am spinning on this amazing collection of wood.

2.  My thick walnut Boos cutting board that Ken gave me for Christmas.  I keep this on my island in the kitchen.  It is always ready to be used.

3.  The beautiful flame maple rolling pin that I bought from a craftsman on Etsy…actually I purchased 2, the second one is scrumptious birdseye maple.  They double up as a great tool for pounding chicken in plastic bags.

4.  Our Cherry dinning room table…..it gets more beautiful with each year.

5. Our old Mahogany dining room table….it is the table that raised and fed my children as they grew.  Each one of those scratches and water rings held a story that will always be dear to my heart.  Structurally it just wore out, but it served us well.

6.  The freshly cut baseboard in our new bathroom…….there is nothing that I love more than the smell of freshly cut wood.  If I weren't so afraid of power tools because um….I am not good with sharp tools, I would probably love cutting wood with a chain saw.  Smells better than a new car!

7.  The beautiful birds-eye maple Purrington Angel Wings that I use on my loom when I am weaving.  The cost was a little bit more….but was there ever any question?

8.  Then there is this little purple heart seam ripper that recently joined the plastic ones in my sewing room….sigh. 

9.  The little salt and pepper cellar that lives next to my stove.  Always ready for a pinch of this or that to be tossed into the pot.

10.  …and lastly, this beautiful Corsetti Stamp that forged a friendship.  My love of beautiful wood and Adri Barr's love of Italian cooking with authentic tools.

I probably could go on and on….but I will end here.  Thank you Carole and Dale for an inspiring Ten on Tuesday!

Pattern:  Marklee
Designer:  Elisabeth Doherty
Yarn:  Woolen Rabbit Airy
Colorway:  Simply Plum

A while back I posted about Elizabeth Doherty's book here.  I have collaborated with Elizabeth over the last few years a few times and have always been so happy and humbled with what she has created with the yarns that I dye.

Airy was a yarn that I brought in not knowing how it would do as a single ply merino yarn, but Elizabeth has now shown me twice how nicely it works in the sweater patterns that she designs, both here with Marklee and

here as well with her Grass River Tunic.  I love her clean, classical lines that make for timeless sweaters.

I have been so blessed to work with so many talented designers over the years. 
These designs from Elizabeth are some of my favorites!