Acorn War XXIV 2013

Oh my the day started way too early for me! Norbert has an ear infection going again so he shakes his head. He woke up at 5:30am and was shaking his head. Since he also insists upon sleeping touching me, he woke me up. I didn't plan to get up until 7:30am. Yea, I should have just got up and gotten started because I never really got back to a good sleep.

I had planned to take three classes there in the Arts and Sciences area. Long-arm Cross Stitch, but that was cancelled due to instructor health issues. So was going to sit in the Household class, but Ana was running late and I wasn't really awake and so spaced out before realizing that she finally started it. Oh well! I think forgetting to put on my watch necklace and not wearing my phone on me meant I was not keeping track of time. Why was this important? Meant that when the Embroidery 2 class started, I didn't know because the same people were still there from earlier. The how to make a Period tent from modern materials class had started before I realized and so I've made arrangements to meet up with Cee Are at West War and get a copy of materials and chat.

I did get to feed little Rowan and enjoy baby snuggles:

Earl Ed has a spiffy new addition to his armor that I watched him assemble:

I meant to ask him at the end of the day how heavy it was to wear. It really was cool. Ignatius had the camera and saw the horses:

Isn't the mane amazing?!

He then went over to the archery area and caught a couple pictures of Edowain enjoying herself:

Gisela was a nice surprise for the day. She brought her family and hung out in our day shade and visited with us as well as friends. Hope to see them at more events. I even mentioned Revels, so we'll see. :-)

Checked in with Lisette at the Waterbearing station. She was busy hand sewing haversacks for largesse and making sure that the war field was getting water, oranges, pickles and pretzels. I sat and watched for a bit too:

Duke Tiernan look most fierce!

Well I may not have got any classes under my belt, but I did sit and use the dog brushes that Bobbie loaned me as hand cards to card my Icelandic lamb. I had given it to Stacey to put through her drum carder, but she thought it was felted. Some of it was kind of stuck together, but was able to put them through the brushes and straighten things out quite a bit. I think half of its done from the work I did. Now to spin it!

Washed fleece & great food

Today was a combination of washing the Icelandic fleece and cooking. It was a good day!

On the cooking front, I made this beef stew, with just a couple changes. No parsnips (didn't have any), Campbell's French Onion soup instead of the chicken broth. I also ended up using two bottle of the Black Butte Porter. This is the second beef recipe recently that called for some form of chocolate. This one works too.

The boys both gobbled up the stew and the Beer Bread I made to go along with it. I like it better than the Alton Brown version I last tried. This one is also good, kind of moist like a zucchini bread and you definitely want to do the extra sugar that someone in the reviews mentions.

I'd gotten some pudding mixes with the last grocery shopping trip so thought I'd take one of the graham cracker crusts and do a coconut cream pie, substituted a cup of coconut milk for regular milk, toasted some coconut flakes. On the box there was an idea of putting melted chocolate on the bottom of the crust then some whip cream with the toasted flakes. I didn't have whip cream so just did the chocolate on the bottom and put the flakes on top of the pie. Brandon likes it, William doesn't. The chocolate is too bitter for him, it called for bittersweet.

I have all of the fleece washed and drying on racks in my craft area. At first I tried picking out all of the little seeds (white and larger and really seed like, unlike some of those 'black grass heads' that were really fleas), grass and pine needles that I could see in the fleece. Okay, as I was putting clumps into the mesh bags, I'd pick out what I could. I figure I'm going to be going through the cleaned fleece to either put through a drum carder or use hand cards, so just get it clean.

On a tray:

Trying to show the lock structure before washing, I did pick the grass out!

Four out of six of the drying trays:

I finished the shawl up tonight. Used up all but the last six inches during the cast off. Tomorrow I'll wash it and block it out. Right now it seems more like a shawlette, so we'll see if blocking helps it be a smidge bigger.

Fiber Delight

I'm down to the last half an ounce of camel to be spun up. I could probably finish it tonight and then post it tomorrow, but I didn't want to wait, it's been long enough without a post. Tomorrow its my goal to get that finished up!

In my mail have come the following items, Corriedale-Finn-Rambouillet roving from Spinner's Hill via Dizzy sheep (I also have a couple of the Jewel silk caps coming to me - thanks Maxfun!) A 4 ounce braid. Then they only had 1 oz left of the grey of the same mix:


I got the drum carder from Duffy Wednesday night and so Thursday night I ran my washed OFFF alpaca through it and loved how it came out. Then ran the flea infested creamy-white stuff that I had picked the bodies out of. Still a few in there and it will just be a play yarn. Here's the batts that came out:
Top left is the tog and all that I have from the Icelandic fleece (just tooo scurffy for the carder - terribly sad because the thel is really soft); bottom left is the OFFF alpaca. The white is the flea-alpaca and the purple is the Jacob roving I got in the yarn crawl at Dublin Bay. It had been carded but was in the knotty bundle and really a mess. Looking forward to working with it now!

In the mail today - the 13 skeins of Berroco Love It! from Susan's destash sale. Two in a row, I really shouldn't look tomorrow!!! It's a pretty raspberry-ish color and looked really pink on her site and had me a bit concerned about getting it but figured worse case that I could have it over-dyed. Looking forward to making an adult sweater out of this!

Then at work I got to put my hands on some Malabrigo Sock and it's Violeta Africana and the pic doesn't really show the richness of the purple to its true color. Maybe a new pic with good daylight tomorrow may happen. I was able to justify it coming home with me because it was a small delivery of the sock yarn and there were only three purples and it just really should come home with me (the employee discount really helped with the justification too):


I have some Abstract Fiber Supersock in Dundee that I'm trying out a baby cardigan out of: Hope to finish this weekend along with the Simplicity sock and would like to get the Burnside Winter Twilight mitt done too. All are fun projects but ready to move on!

One more day to leave a comment and win the yarn!

Spinning, shearing, spring

One of the things I hadn't reported earlier was the home shearing that was done. I had decided that we were close enough to 'spring' that the dogs could go back to their non-winter coats. So trimming Norbert back into a more Scottie cut and Nessa into a modified Schnauzer cut. Nessa ended up a little shorter than planned but is looking good, well she's showing that we both need to get our butts out on the walking plan. ;^)

Norbert:

Norbert showing he doesn't like getting photographed with a tongue flick, but if you didn't know that you'd think he's dissing the camera:


Nessa:


If you've ever looked for a ball that you're dogs will love, look for a Cuz ball. They have feet and look odd but they have a tough rubber exterior and squeak.

I finished up on Wednesday spinning the first four ounce single of camel. It's deliciously soft and I've already started the second four ounces. There's more spinning on Saturday with the Portland Spinnerati at the Central Library. The camel:


In other shearing news I've been working the white alpaca and have 3.5 ounces. I'm going for a little more than one more ounce so that I can possibly ply it together with the apricot. Not fully decided on that plan of action though.

I've found out that my Icelandic fleece has something called 'scurf' - the dandruff that some may have noticed on the fleece. I've washed some of it and it cleans well and I think that a little work with the cat flicker and I can get it out and still let the fleece be usable. That's the hope anyway.

The bit of spring, my crocuses when they are shivering from the snow:

Couldn't resist taking pictures of the camel with them. ;^)