BACK TO DEL MAR!

The racing season at Del Mar is in total swing!  Opening Day was the smoothest ever!  All were excited to get it going!  Now we have 37 days of racing.  The season ends Sept 4th.  Happy Racing to all.  Just a few pictures of the beauty that surrounds us every day!

INDEPENDANCE DAY 2013!

Had a great 4th of July this year!  The holidays are so hard here all by ourselves.  I know my Mom and Ginger are here, but they don't really interact with us.  Ron doesn't care as much as I do, but after people leave he always says that was fun, I miss having people here.

Amy's daughter and I became friends after Amy passed away and I don't know if you call it friends, since I have known her since she was a little girl.  What I didn't know of her personally I knew her from stories Amy (her mother)  would tell me about her and her family.  I felt like I already knew them all because of Amy's stories.

Now I have gotten to know them all better and they came for the weekend.  Rick Wendy's husband and three of the four kids came to camp out and have a relaxing time.  The oldest daughter is married (Daphne) and even her husband flew in after getting off work on Friday.

Daphne is a ballerina and her husband Eric is helping her with a dance step.  Pretty interesting.
There was plenty of time to rest in the hammock.

We cook on the Bar-B-Que, mostly hotdogs and sausages.  I made potato salad and some great beans.  We had smore's and something they call campfire donuts.  Very good by the way.  and lots of long lingering conversations and lots of looking forward the future. 

Rick is training in Oxnard to go over to Afghanistan in Sept.  He will be there for almost a year.  I sure hope all that war stuff cools down.  I think America need a break from war.  This was the perfect time for all the kids that could come to spend time with their Dad.  They really made the most of it.

They went to Julian and had pie           

 

 

Another day they all went to the beach.  Daphne and Eric live in Arizona so the beach was a big attraction.  They all got wet and sandy and had a great time.

 

 

Two beautiful Sister at the Beach in San Diego.

Bethany and Hanna

Bethany, Daphne, Caleb and Hanna at the beach.

There was plenty of time for tree climbing too!  Caleb climbed the Oak tree that hasn't had any one climbing it in a long, long time.  Fun to watch!

 

I just have to share my favorite family portrait of Amy's family.  I still miss her so much.  There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of something I need to tell her, or ask her advice on.  She was the kind of friend that you could talk to about anything and know you were loved and understood and never judged.

Most of the time My blog is for my family so they can see what we are doing and what is going on in our lives.  This one is for me.

MY ROOM IS SHAPING UP!

We have been working on my room for close to three years.  I finally feel like it is done.  (except for the shower in the bathroom, but I don't care about that.)  I have most things organized and all my yarn up on shelves.  We put up a lot of extra shelves in case of what ever.   I love being in there because I am surrounded by all the things I love. 

My friend Tammy and I spent the morning Friday in my room warping for new projects.  It was really fun and I got to use my new piece of equipment.  It's called a warping mill and it is so much faster than a warping board.  Anyway I am ready to weave for the summer.  I just have to finish getting the warp on my loom.  Ron will help with that, but it is so hot right now we have to do it in the early morning.  Maybe tomorrow.

This is my warping mill.  It is used to measure warp.  This is the first time I have used it and it is very cool.  Makes measuring warp very fast and very easy.

Ron got all my shelves up and I have my yarn out where I can see it and be inspired.  This is my rainbow of yarn. 

This is where all the black and brown live.  Also all the cotton dishcloth yarn.  The door to the left is the bathroom.  I also have a kitchen area for dyeing and washing wool.

My rug looms and some of my favorite flags.  Also the shelves for baskets and other treasures.

Better view of baskets and treasures. 

view from the ladder.  First half

Last half. So beautiful.  At the end of the room is my kitchen area.  You can see the washer there for washing wool and doing some felting. 

Then there are the tubs of wool and roving and some handspun yarn.  Lots of exciting fiberie things.
I have more than I will ever use, but I keep trying to get caught up.  For having so much stuff, I actually know where most of my stuff is.  The tubs are labeled with a number or letter and I have a notebook to tell me what is in that tub. It works for me.

 

 

 

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?

     So glad you asked!  It grows great.  I only have a little garden this year.  Two half wine barrels infact

     Since I work all summer, I hate to sign Ron up to do one more thing for me so I didn't plant a real
garden this year. ( he doesn't eat veggies anyway so it's kinda not fair)  Sooooo I only planted stuff I really wanted.  Three plants to a barrel and it is doing really good.  I am enjoying this very much and have been planting flowers in my pots also.  But that is for another day.

      The first one is the cumber , zucchini , and Anaheim Chili.  They are doing good and already have stuff on them.

 

 

 

                                                                                                                          



This is the barrel with the tomatoes in it.  There are three, patio, little yellow pear shaped, and Mr Stripey, one I just wanted to try.  My favorite is the little yellow ones.  They never make it into the house, I usually eat them on the way.

This one has a cucumber, an Anaheim Chili, and a Zuccinni plant.  They are all doing really good.  The cucumber is flowering like crazy!

First cucumber.  Can't wait!

 

Future cucumber.  It is so fun to watch them grow.  I only have one plant, so probably no pickles this year, but I will have cucumbers  for my salad.  That makes me happy.

SPINNING FOR THE TOUR DE FLEECE!

This is the first time I have ever participated in the Tour de Fleece.  You spin every day during the Tour de France and put pictures of your spinning as often as you can.  I have no problem spinning everyday. 

Starting Day 1  this is Colonia Wool in Color Burgundy from Ashland Bay.
I have two pounds of this and hope to make it into something

Day 2  Still working on the Burgundy.

Day 3 Started on some of Kelly's "Rocket Man"  He is BFL spun from the locks.

Day 4 Had to ply some yarn to free up my bobbins because I keep wanting to spin something else.  Either get tired of the color, or just want to change

 

 

 More Rocket Man and then the plied yarn.

Day 5 & 6 I worked on some of the roving Tammy dyed.  Very nice and a change of pace.

Day 7  Had to work at the races today so I spun on my Turkish drop spindle between phone calls and then at lunch.  A great change of pace.  This will be "mutt yarn"  all different fibers spun one after the other then plied together into yarn.  Always turns out great!

 Day 8 Been spinning on the roving that Tammy dyed.  Can't wait to see what the yarn finally looks like.  Her's was beautiful!

 

 

Day 9 did more spinning on the Tammy fiber, then plied it, washed it and vole.....A beautiful skien of yarn.

 

Day 10 is a rest day, then back to work!!!

 

 I've been spinning more on the locks I got from Kelly

 

Then it was on to the red Moreno I got from Loraine Powell.  I bought this about a year ago and spun one color of red, then lost the other pound.  Found it last week so I have been spinning that for the last 5 days.

Started with my knee getting iced, but I can still spin while icing knee.  Not my best day.

 

Making progress by day three.

Finished a whole pound of Red Moreno tonight.  Day 5 for this.  I can't believe I fit a whole pound on one bobbin.  This is way cool.  I have the other red spun up and can ply it together tomorrow.  I have a really cute jacket I want to knit with this. 

To be continued.  Only four days left I think.

Fiber Dance Festival.

So much going on this weekend.  I was very busy all week getting ready for this event.  Tammy, Carol-Gay and I had a booth at the Festival.  We have all our yarn, knitted articles,  roving, and some of my fleeces to sale. 

This is our booth.  Lots going on here.

I sold one of my spinning wheels and a couple of fleeces so I can get a new electric spinning wheel.

 

These are some hats I have made that was for sale.  Don't really expect to sell them now.  They do better in the fall.

 

My friends doing a Back to Back practice.  I can't spin right now because of my knee, sure miss doing that.

 

Me, Tammy , and Carol-Gay holding Carol-Gay's critters.  I have the sheep and they have angora goats.  Really sweet.

This was such a fun weekend.  The next time we do this is in October.  Looking forward to that.
 

SPINNING FOR THE SHEEP TO SHAWL

This Father's day we had two teams to spin and weave a shawl at the San Diego County Fair.  I always love doing this.  This year I didn't enter the spinning contest ( I do so poorly under pressure) so I had a very relaxed time.  Some of my friends and I have been working on spinning the warp for this project for over a month.  That was probably my favorite part.  We met every Tuesday at one of the Girls houses (Kelly's ) and made plans, spun on the yarn and had lunch together (thanks again to Kelly) 

Until I got my new electric spinner I was in a blue funk about spinning.  Most of the time I was in so much pain I couldn't even concentrate on knitting.  But with my new miniSpinner I am in heaven.  I can spin all day or into the night.  Happy Girl!!! 

This is all my gear set up ready to go at the Sheep to Shawl.  I got this wonderful case that was really made for ice skaters to carry their Ice skates in and they can sit on top to put on and take off their skates.  It works perfect for my minSpinner as a table and of course as a carrying case.  It has awesome wheels that light up as it roles.  Ron bought me a new chair to match and I got the bag at the grocery store to match.  I'm all decked out and even got a battery for the spinner so I can spin anywhere I go.  It also has attachments to spin in the car or motor home or boat.  Great fun for me and I just keep making more yarn.

We had two teams this year so it was double fun.  We had two looms on stage and our plyer was on stage.  The rest of us spinners were on the floor in front so we could spin and answere questions people had about what we were doing.  This is always a great out reach to the public about spinning and all fiber arts.  It advertises our spinning class, but also lets people know we are out there.  You'de be surprised how many people don't know there are spinners in San Diego.  You wouldn't think we would need wool things, but it's everywhere. 

 

This is our loom right before we got started.  It was already warped and ready to weave on.

 

 

Here you can see the beautiful warp.  It was such a fun project.  The white in the middle was mostly my Isabell.  She is a Columbia sheep.  The colors on the edges are mostly Tammy's sheep and Aunt Cocoa, Beth and Murphy.  We all donated what we had to do this project.  It was such fun.

This is the Shawl we wove with our handspun.  It turned out so beautiful.

I really love weaving.  Totally different than knitting or crocheting.  It makes fabric.  I just warp my table loom for dishtowels so will be weaving while working this summer.  I still can't use my big loom because of my knee.  Oh well, that's another story!