Lease Sticks for sale

Well, i guess I'll be offering the Lease Sticks sooner than i thought. After my first order (thanks Dave :), I decided there is no time than the present and to start listing them in my etsy shop. Anybody in need of a sett , don't hesitate to contact me I'll be making as many as i can this weekend.

more spun yarn for Dave's SoSC

I finally finished my first batch of the super wash merino "periwinkle blue".

I got four bobbins full of very fine singles:

I plied two bobbins into this very fine, fragile two ply.

The twist on the singles is not as much as i wanted but it will be OK for weft. It really is very soft.

I got 278 yards out of the two bobbins and should get about that much on the other two.

12-13 WPI.

Now of to spinning the dark denim...

OTHER people have cats/dogs...

Not us, oh no!

WE have a spoiled rotten chicken:

Tyson and hubster taking a break:

Hey, that's my spot..again.. :(

None of the dogs are allowed in the house but Tyson hangs out on the couch!

He doesn't know yet but by the time the weekend is through he will be outside.

Poop spots grow with the chick.

DIY lease sticks

Today i finally finished those home made lease sticks I've been wanting to make.

I used red cedar boards we had left over from panelling our living room. They re rough cut and have been laying out in the garage for a couple of years.

We cut several 35 inch pieces and ripped them into 1/4 inch thick 2 inch wide sticks.

I got all my tools together:

little hand sander, little saw, scissors, sandpaper(various weights), clamp, something small with rounded edges, pencil.

I cut one of the long sticks into two 15 inch pieces, clamped them down and sanded both sides until they where nice and smooth:

before & after :

then i marked the edges with whatever round something i can find:

and sanded them down:

then i marked the lines for the beveled edges (one long side and the ends):

sanded them down, hand sanded a little with the fine sand paper , rubbed them with lind seed oil and ... voila:

i did the two 15 inch and one 32 inch today before the rain made me quit.

I like them a lot. i might make some to put in my shop.

Speedy's first vacation (warning:lots of pics)

We went to our favorite camping spot on the Tennessee River Thursday for a long weekend of relaxation.We took the four wheeler and the boat (yes , we are rednecks and proud of it!)
Of course we had to take Speedy along, can't leave the baby home alone!
Oh, by the way, Speedy is now "Tyson" like in ..."we do chicken right."
Sorry, we do have a rather dark kind of humor.

Anywho, we got there Thursday afternoon, set up camp:


Yes, that is a school bus! We bought it three years ago and converted it into an RV, they are called Skoolies. It's a work in progress but this is what it looks like right now:

front (kitchenette):


back: table, bed :

there is still lots to be done(curtains,shelves,small bathroom,paint outside) but its usable for right now.

So, we settled down for some relaxing... until the family found out. All of a sudden we had a camp full of people.
As all good parents would, we fed them , entertained them and after awhile we where alone again.

We went fishing , John got lucky and caught a BIG catfish:


going to release the poor thing:




then we sat by the fire for a spell:



next day we went beach combing a little:

napped a lot, ate a lot(always tastes better grilled on an open fire).

enjoyed a beautiful sunset:


Next couple of days was a little rainy, not all the time but several showers a day with breaks of sunshine in between, so we never got to use the boat. You definitely do not want to be caught on the river in bad weather!
All in all it was a good weekend but I'm also glad to be back home.

more fiber carded

just spend a few minutes on the carder (had to get away from the wheel a while, my back felt like breaking in half).

I found some more superwash, supersoft merino in a soft, soft baby blue:

and then i took my bag of very bright leftovers from previous cardings and put them all together and got this crazy batt:

That should make a cool yarn!!! i think when i'm done with the periwinkle/denim (got two and a half bobbins so far) i'll spin this one next.

NOT a big help

Speedy has now graduated to secretary(not a very good one):






When i work on the PC it'll scamper up my leg and hop on to the table.From there it( we still don't know if hen or rooster, pleese don't let it be a rooster !)will piddle around on the keyboard,(thank goodness it's not heavy enough to compress the keys, yet) check out the mouse, peck here, peck there,poop here,poop there(man, it poops a lot!!).I'm constantly wiping off poop. Speedy is not allowed on my shoulder anymore for that reason. It's the lap with a towel under it.
It runs loose in the house most of the day but stays really close to us.If i leave the room in a hurry and it looses me it gets really upset, running around, calling (good lungs, very noisy).
Y'all should hear the noise it makes running across the kitchen floor with it's flat little feet! Too cute !
i really don't know what its going to do when we have to put it out(unfortunately chickens don't potty train).SPEEDY! not on my slippers !!!...

By the way, we don't know what happened to our owl chick.A few days after i took the last pictures i noticed that the mama didn't sit on the nest any more at all, i also could not see the chick peeking out anymore.Mama hung around for a few more days then disappeared. Sad!
I had really hoped it would make it!