Lunamoth

Feel free to steal this image and pass it on!

<– See that?  I got it from AutumnLeaves.  Thank you, Sherry!  I’m honoured that you thought of me (in the interests of full disclosure, I should mention here that Sherry and I have the same hair, but other than that, we are unrelated).

This award has a couple of rules: Tell the world seven things about myself, and pass the award on to seven other bloggers.

So, here we go with seven things about me:

1.  I like Ontario winters and by the time February comes around, I’m as tired of hearing people complain about the weather as they are of the snow.

2.  I once had more than a dozen cats (not all housecats, but they all looked to me for feeding and vet care, and yes, I had them all spayed or neutered).

3.  I almost never remember my dreams.

4.  I own ten pair of shoes and one pair of slippers.

5.  I love to watch and listen to the wind move over a field of tall grass.

6.  I think I finally know, now that I’m 52, what I want to do when I grow up, and it is the same thing I wanted when I was a child, but it got lost somewhere in the intervening years.

7.  I am almost incapable of following recipes without changing something.

Now, to pass this award along.  In no particular order, seven blogs I find interesting, inspiring and/or just plain fun to read:

1. MAOMA3 – Elizabeth is not just Oma to three grandkids, she keeps a watercolour journal with such cheery paintings, I can’t help but smile when I go to her blog (and she does watercolour, which I think is very brave!).

2. Jean Levert Hood – I love the passion and gutsy brushstrokes in her paintings, and she has just the most adorable ducklings that deserve an award all by themselves….

3. A Day Not Wasted – Lee’s blog is about pursuing one’s passions, and I find his positive attitude inspiring (he paints well, too, lol).

4. Life at the Stone Jug – Jami hasn’t updated her blog lately, but I enjoy her creative photographs and fibre art and writing, and I hope this award prods her into writing again.

5. Chris Knits in Niagara – Chris writes and shares marvellous knitting patterns — thank you, Chris!  Having written a few of my own, I’m wowed by her creativity and productivity.

6. Crafty Gardener knits, quilts, gardens, cooks, crochets, etc., etc., etc. — is that creative, or what?

7. Color Sweet Tooth — Even Steve’s luggage is an artistic marvel!  His buddy Grenouille has a certain Gallic charm, and finds himself in some odd places….

Thanks again, Sherry.  I’m eager to see your self-portrait, now that I know about the hair!

A shot to show Elisabeth's lovely garden

My friend Elisabeth raises llamas and alpacas and has their fibre processed into yummy knitting yarns.  She invited me out to play with a new llama/bamboo blend — how could I say no?

I’ve been trying out some bamboo/sheep yarns for socks and shawls and thought that an alpaca or llama blend would be a wonderful thing — all the luxury of the camelid fibre, and the silky sheen of the bamboo….  Elisabeth agreed and had an 80/20 llama/bamboo yarn made up, which we spent yesterday dyeing (the natural colour of the yarn, a light fawn, is great, too!).

Elisabeth has a commission for some navy blue yarn, so we made that, and then moved on to turkey red, and a multi-coloured red/purple/blue that she’ll be making into the Newfoundland mittens and mitten kits she sells.  I’m looking forward to seeing a finished pair of those mittens in this bamboo blend, hint hint Elisabeth.  We finished the day with a pot of green and I brought home a skein of that to make into a hat.

Still a bit damp, but soon to be a hat

Here’s a closeup of the yarn — it’s a lovely tweedy green with lots of shine from the bamboo (which doesn’t show up in the dim light I took this shot in, unfortunately).   As soon as it’s dry, I’m going to wind it into a ball and start working on that hat, which I’m already designing in my head.

At the end of the day, six skeins of laceweight alpaca in natural browns and fawn found their way into my bag — have I mentioned that Elisabeth is a really, really *good* friend?