Summer scarf

Here is the scarf I was talking about just finishing.

The pattern is located on Ravelry HERE as well as if you search Ravelry for Ete Chic!

I couldn't resist taking a picture with a jean jacket like the author of the pattern did.

It is why I made the scarf in the first place, it looks great with the jacket. :-)

The lacy edging was tricky for me at first but I wrote it down on a separate piece of paper in a larger print and this seemed to help me. I could see it! Imagine....

After a while I got the hang of it and it moved right along.

Bohemia

Didn't Meg do a good job spinning up my fiber?

I love how it barber-poled.

I am thinking of knitting a scarf in linen stitch soon.

I named this colorway Bohemia.

I have wonderful memories of visiting Prague and environs.

The regional folk costumes of Bohemia are very brightly colored 

with heavily embroidered flowers of all colors.

Kind of like this fiber. :-)

I just finished a scarf that was a free pattern from Pinterest/Ravelry.

I will share a picture soon of this scarf.

So much lovely wool in a hot week at this end of August.

I am clearly thinking of cooler weather. :-)

For the Love of Little Houses

I am over the MOON!!!

We have a little house in our back yard!

10 x 14 feet of wonderfulness.

We are all full of plans for the inside and the outside.

So much fun!

It gets a coat of paint in a couple of weeks....stay tuned to see what color! :-)

Flowers & Dots

A little project bag that I made for Meg.

A bag to keep a knitting project from getting tangled.

I had to make it with dots--I love dots!  :-)

Dyed in the Wool

Meg and I finally did it! 

We had been talking about it all spring and summer, maybe longer and we had collected up all the supplies needed to dye wool roving. 

We used Jaquard dyes, watched youtube videos and used a library book to try to figure out how to do it. 

I was exhausted the day we did it, there was so much to figure out. 

We had this soaking wet noodle of 4 oz. of wool fiber, trying to wrap it up in plastic wrap, with dye oozing out and mixing where we didn't want it to mix. Then trying to steam it in a water bath in the oven, unwrapping it when it was too hot to touch. 

We finally got it all stretched out in the sun to dry and I thought mine was too washed out. I had left too much water in it before I added dye. (you have to soak the fiber first) I still felt like that the next day, so I re-dyed the fiber. Meg was pretty sure I was going to felt it from all the handling and water baths, but I thought, well, than I will use the felted roving for another project. 

I am very happy to report however that it appears that I did not felt the fiber. 

Now, I have to wait for Meg to spin it up for me. Lucky I am that Meg has discovered a previously unknown talent for spinning--she is a whiz at it!!! She got a spinning wheel last fall and is a dab hand at spinning. I tried it and thought I had grown at least two more thumbs, I was so very clumsy. It is kind of like rubbing your tummy, patting your head and spinning at the same time.

Anyway.....

What will make I with this when it becomes yarn. 

OOOOOooooo I can hardly wait to see it!! 

Medieval Summer

Every summer, the girls and I have tried to have a project to work on. This year we decided to put on a Medieval Fest for the family. When the day came we set up in part of our back yard with tents, tables and fire. Emily was in charge of archery and hair. I made dresses for both the girls and myself and an execution's hood for J. Meg knit and spun. We had a ton of fun getting ready for it, though the girls dresses were *yikes* fitted. We made soap, bound notebooks and wrote with a nibbed pen and walnut ink.

I learned how to card weave, also known as tablet weaving. I made a loom from scrap lumber and used playing cards to hold the threads in a pattern. 

I didn't take any pictures that day, I wish I had because I made itty-bitty pies and we grilled sausages over the fire. We even had a trader's fair, where we had some of the things we had made. The few pictures we have at least include one of our plague victims that came. :-)

June.......

A little catch-up again...

We vacationed in northern Michigan in late June and even if it was a little warmer than usual up there we enjoyed getting away. The beach is a rock-strewn one near the Pt. Betsie lighthouse. 

It was kind of foggy on this early morning.

We liked Charlevoix where there are stone houses that were built by Earl Young. 

The curving roofs and huge rounded stones are an inspiration.

The knitting is a warm cowl for winter. I think the yarn is Jojoland. I love the barber-poling I am using the leftovers to make finger-less mitts. More details are on my Ravelry page soon. But you can probably figure out that my "soon" won't be very timely. It will get on there, tho!