It's been a little while since I have shared some of the projects I am working on, so I thought I would give you a peek at what's been happening here.

You remember these towels on the loom?  They are now finished and off the loom.  I will wet finish the fabric, weave in the loose ends, then cut and hem them.  I love the fresh spring colors.

I am also working on Romi's mystery shawl, using my Opal yarn.  I kept it scrunched up so that you can't see the design…and I am a bit behind, so it's no surprise for anyone who is working on it.
I have to say it took me a while to get used to Romi's charts, but with this being my second shawl designed by her, I have to say that I love them.
I can't wait to see how it finishes up!!

What have you been working on?

Now that the packages have all been mailed, I wanted to share our final yarn club mailing with you.  It was one of my favorite ones to put together because it was a darker fairytale….Maleficent.
She was always such a scary character to me as a child, then I saw the movie this summer and came away with such a different thought process of this Evil Mistress…..
I loved this movie!

We were so fortunate to have Romi Hill design this appropriately named pattern….Dark Wing
I love the lacey wing like look to this beautiful half circle shawl…a wing span.

Romi requested a black shade with touches of blue and teal which are the colors that come to mind when you think of Maleficent's magnificent cape.  The yarn she chose was Airy which is a beautiful single ply merino that blocks out beautifully and perfect for a shawl.
The color is named Blackthorn.

I wanted the gift for this last project to be a special one to close out a magical year of Fairytales and was so happy when Kam Baker of Everyday Peacocks agreed to create this pin for us.
I loved it enough to snag one for myself.
Thank you Kam!

One of my favorite parts of putting a club mailing together is creating a special card that embraces the entire package.  I spend a lot of time on this part of it and I think that this one has been my all time favorite of any that I have done over the yarn club years.

Thank you to all of you who joined along and I look forward to sharing another year visiting
"Once Upon A Time"

 

The winner of this give away package is Jo-Ann Coles, the 16th commenter chosen by
the random generator at random.com

Thank you ALL so very much for your fun and creative name choices.  I love so many of them and will tuck them aside for future purple colors that I create.  The name that I chose is "Huckleberry Pie" suggested by Jodi.

Now that I have a name, I will be dyeing some of this colorway up in different bases and get pictures up on my website.

I am finishing up the mailing of the last yarn club for 2014/2015 this weekend and will spend most of next week restocking the shop with some new bags.  It's been a little while since I have had some there, so it's time. 🙂
Speaking of the yarn club, I will be shutting down the new one tomorrow, so if you want to join along now is the time to do it. 🙂

~

…..on to Friday's Sparkle….

Yesterday was mine and Ken's 21st Anniversary. 
My husband is one of the kindest, most thoughtful, supportive men you will meet and I am so incredibly blessed to call him "My Man". 
Definitely a big sparkle in my week and in my life! 

Thank you all for participating and have a wonderful weekend!!

 

I posted a picture of this headband 2 weeks ago and mentioned that it was a brand new color that
I created for a friend who loves purple, and PURPLE it is with subtle almost black undertones.

I had also mentioned that I was going to run a contest to give this lovely shade a fun name….so here we go. 🙂

I will leave the comments on this page open until 9:00 am (EST) Friday and choose my favorite colorway name and in return, I will do a random drawing for this prize, which has another new colorway called "Beebop Blue" in Opal, one of my new bag designs and a bar of Baby Blue soap.

Good luck and thank you for your help!

Drops.
Water cleanses,
Gathers in the earth.
Tender. Invasive. Subtle.
Emerges a shining river.
When small, it is weak.
When great it tumbles mountains,
Rendering great clifs
Sand.
Deng Ming~Dao

I know I have been pretty quiet this week, but it has been mostly due to this week's Friday Sparkle.
So many consecutive days of amazingly warm and sunny weather!
My daily walk across the different bridges that cross the Swift river that just sparkles with new life as the winter snows are quickly melting into it.
So beautiful!! 
We have waited a long time for weather that has allowed us to enjoy the warmth.
~
I will be back however on Monday with a new contest that may include yarn…. 😉

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

It was just about 9 years ago when we brought this little sweetie here to our home.  It was clear from the very beginning that raising an English Setter puppy was a completely different game than raising a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy….

Right from the start it was a battle of wills of who was going to be the boss, but once she realized that I meant business, she learned to respect that……most of the time.

English setters are relatively easy to train as they are very intelligent, but they do have a very stubborn streak and they rarely forget if you have been harsh with them.  It took a while for Maggie to understand that she is not the alpha girl here, but her stubborn streak has always made me secretly smile.
When I call the dogs in from the yard, she frequently is perched on her favorite rock and looks at me..then purposely turns her head away letting me know that she will come in when she is good and ready.  Some days I will just smile and wait and other days, she knows when I mean business and pays attention.  A true red head for sure. 😉

2 weeks ago I gave Maggie a pre spring clip.  Normally I would have done it a bit sooner, but the winter here has been frigid so I left her coat on a bit longer than I usually do.  She had her last clip just before Christmas.  When I clipped her down this time, I felt a large lump by her groin and a few small ones around her mammary glands that were not there in December.  Needless to say she was immediately brought to the vet to be evaluated and was operated on a few days later.

I was sick with worry, but I knew that these lumps had only grown visible in the last 3 months, so I tried to stay hopeful…but one of those lumps was very big, so I was trying to be realistic as well, especially given that she will be nine years old next month. 😦

The vet called me yesterday and read the pathology results to me and they were good! 
The large lump if it had gone undetected much longer was heading in a malignant direction, but the report said that the Vet had removed the entire encapsulated group of tumors and they were all still benign, thankfully.  My vet told me that he was very surprised after removing and observing the tumors.  He felt that the result would not be favorable, but we both were relieved.

I will need to be diligent in watching for any new ones, but today she is ok and on the mend.
I want to thank all of my facebook friends for their support, prayers and friendship.

A true Friday Sparkle!!

It's been a while since I have played with some still life shots and lightroom presets, so I thought I would give it a go with a new finished headband.  I love the dreamy look the preset gives to this picture…so soft.

This headband is going to a good friend in Texas and purple is her favorite color, so I came up with a new shade of purple just for her.  It is actually a vibrant purple as seen in this picture, but I had fun playing around with different presets on this dreary, snowy day, to create some photo art.

I need to come up with a name for this colorway now…hmmm. 
Perhaps I will run a contest next week. 🙂

I did have the afternoon free today and I spent it behind the loom.  So far so good, the towels are weaving up nicely.  Every time I look at this sunny yellow cloth it makes me smile.
It makes me think of Spring and Daffodils. 

It will be a little while before any daffodils show their happy faces here, but my sedum buds are popping up, so I know that Spring will be here soon in spite of the 3 inches of snow we received here last night.

It's been a very long winter for those of us in New England, but it looks like we are going to be gifted with some beautiful, warmish days next week.  w00t!

 

Our Easter weekend was a smaller and quieter one than in past years, but it was very enjoyable!
Ashley traveled home without Brian as he was camping with friends, but she brought Hannah, who is in school the next town over, so it was good to have the both of them home.

Stacey and Jeff brought their little cutie to dinner and as you can see, Ashely just ate him up.
Those curls that are growing now that he has hair just slays me!  I think he is going to end up with a full head of ringlets.  Such a little ham…all you have to say is "Are you cute?"..and this is the face that you get…LOL!

It was also nice to spend time with my parents and an older dear family friend.  Life passes by so quickly and every day spent with family is precious, isn't it?

I did manage to squeeze in some time behind the loom and a little knitting time with something purple that I will share with you on Wednesday. 🙂

I hope that you had an enjoyable Holiday weekend as well!

 

Today's Ten on Tuesday's subject is 10 favorite sandwiches.  The two things that make me gain weight most are wine and bread, so I don't eat sandwiches often these days with summer looming ahead, but the links on Carole's page have some inspiring sandwiches…go take a look.

Today I thought I would talk a little about what I did this weekend.  Remember when I shared with you that I had ordered and brought a new loom home?  Well sadly it has sat in my studio unused.  There has been so much bathroom construction material in my shop that I was very uninspired.
It's strange.  I am ADD to the nth, but I really, really need my work space to be clean and orderly otherwise I have a hard time focusing on the work at hand.  So there it sat, all new and shiny…and undressed. 

Finally some of the construction material has moved out of my space and when the first day of Spring rolled around and I took all of the winter decorations down, I became inspired to weave again.
A few days of sun and a cleaner space was all it took, so out came the weaving books and I searched my weaving cupboard for some cotton thread for much needed dishtowels. This thread made me think of sunshine, which is perfect!  I decided to weave towels that I have successfully woven a few times in the past, as a gentle re-entry into weaving again with something familiar.

It's been a while since I have dressed a loom, so I went back and forth, do I dress the loom front 2 back, or back 2 front?

Ken had built me a trapeze which is a wonderful set up for dressing a loom back 2 front with proper tension for someone warping the loom alone, but it is buried under a stack of wood neatly along the wall.

However, after watching Madelyn Van der Hoogt's loom on dressing front 2 back, I thought I would give it a try again.  I know it's not a perfect video, but personally I do love holding the cross in my hand as I thread the reed comfortably at my kitchen table.  I also love threading the heddles,there is a quiet rhythm to it especially on a sunny day with some good music on.

  I have learned over the years that it's all a process and now I take my time and enjoy each step.  With almost 400 epi, I spent one afternoon threading the reed and 2 afternoons threading the heddles as I was dyeing yarn in my studio.

Next comes the part that I dread most….winding the warp onto the back beam because this can make or break even the best of intentions.  After making the commitment to dressing the loom front 2 back I decided to invest in a set of Angel Wings, which adds tension as you wind the warp onto the back beam and I will use slats instead of paper.  It's good to be familiar with both warping methods as each has it's place, but it's always nerve wracking for me.  The Angel Wings will be here Thursday, so I will beam the warp on Friday.  I'll let you all know how it goes.

As a side note, I want to say that the customer service from the folks at Purrington Looms is outstanding!

I know, it really doesn't look very sparkly does it?  What it does signify however is that the plumber has finally made it to our house after almost 4 months of waiting on him.

This Rinnai hot water heater has replaced the old tank hot water heater that had started leaking around Christmas time, which meant we had to shut the hot water valve off after every shower or dishwasher run and only use cold water to keep the pressure off the tank trying to prevent a full blow-out.  Washing your hands or your face in ice cold water sucks, just sayin'.

He will be back on Monday (hopefully) to finish the plumbing for the washer and dryer's new home and we will push to get all of the structure work done quickly to get him back to get the tub, toilet and sink plumbed before summer when I know he takes breaks.
He's a very good plumber, knows what he is doing and does it not only right, but neatly. However he is just close enough to retiring and not as hungry for work as when he was younger.
Sadly there are not that many good plumbers up here either.

So my Sparkle this Friday is having on demand hot water and NO leaky hot water tank!
It's the little things sometimes. 🙂

Have a wonderful weekend!!