Birthday Girl Goes Skiing - Warning, Lots of Pictures

So, once again, I'm behind. But I did want to get some photos up from last weekends birthday trip to Stowe...


Friday, after school, Bella blowing out her candles (it's been a cupcake sort of year, I guess, but that's what she wanted!).

Ernesto joined us for the first two days! Here's Conall, hanging out with Tio Ernesto.

Bella getting ready to hit the slopes. Conall holding onto Percy and chewing his coat. Oy.

About ready to go over to the Inspiration chair lift...

Nice job, guys! (They're the two in orange, in the middle of the picture.)

Home again. Conall *really* wants a helmet of his own...

I will post soon about the shibori projects I've been working on!

Happy Birthday!

Little Man Conall turned two last week.

Or, not so little Little Man, that is (with Papi, here) - 92%ile height and 80%ile weight at his checkup this week - he's a big one, just like his sister. (Please, please, please, don't play football when you're bigger! Play soccer, or swim, like your Papi, please!!)

She really wanted to help him blow out those candles... He got a couple more Thomas the Tank Engine books and engines and some Play-Doh stuff; a nice, calm birthday after a pretty crazy Christmas this year.

And he wouldn't eat the cupcakes, funny man. He loves chocolate, so I thought he'd eat them, but he'd just take a tiny little nibble from the bottom of a cupcake and then put it back on the plate. Ah well, more for Ms. B that way!

Happy Birthday to Me

Hey, it's my birthday! We won't talk about how old I am. :)

I got a nice early birthday present last night - a lovely customer bought two of my scarves! The Un Poco Caliente full-size scarf, and the spring green and yellow scarflette (sorry, Mum, I know you loved that one).

I'm also in the midst of experimenting with differential shrinkage. First, I tried a doubleweave scarf (two layers of cloth, basically) woven with 18/2 merino wool and Bambu 7 (inspired by the similar double-weave scarf in The Best of Weavers: Fabrics That Go Bump), just as a starting point. I fulled it - the idea being that the wool yarn shrinks, the bamboo yarn doesn't, and you end up with ruffles - and it came out pretty good! A bit too heavy, in the end, for my taste.

So, then I tried just a normal plain weave scarf, instead of doubleweave, still using the 18/2 merino wool (sett very loosely) and Tencel as the non-shrinking fiber. This came out much better!

Here is is before wet finishing:



And, here it is after wet finishing (sent it through the wash twice, actually):



It's kind of hard to see, but not only did the Tencel get all nice and pucker-y, but the white merino at the edges have a nice little scallop to them as well. Neato!

It's too short (it shrank by about 50% in length) and too fat (didn't shrink as much width-wise, which makes sense, I used white Tencel as the weft), so I'm trying again with different colors, but I'm completely tickled! How fun!

Phew, What a Week

What a week, crazy. It turns out that my camera *didn't* die - it was just being flaky. Figured this out after I ordered the new one, of course! LOL But that's just as well, if the old one is starting to get wonky, I really do need a reliable camera...

But, in the end, it was good that the old one was still working - the new one didn't arrive until Wednesday, but Tuesday was...

Mr. Conall's first birthday! He was kind of like - why are you giving me this round thing with fire on top? He got the idea, but then flung more of the cupcake around the kitchen than he actually ate (probably just as well).

Lucky guy also went to the doctor on Wednesday morning and got two shots. He's really good about them (doesn't fuss much at all), but it does usually wipe him out. Wow, he actually napped! For anybody who cares - he's now 31 1/2" tall (92nd %ile) and weighs 26 pounds (88th %ile). He's a big guy, just like his sister has always been (tall, but she's lower on the weight scale).

And then my new little camera arrived on Wednesday! It's so cute! Love it so far, but haven't had much chance to use it.



Hi Madeline-cat!

Haven't had much time to weave. I'm experimenting with some rya knots on a little scarflette and I'm just not sure whether I like them or not. I'm still kind of uncoordinated in making them, so they're pretty time-consuming. Not sure whether they're neat or just goofy. Also have no idea how they'll react to finishing/washing. We'll see! I'll post pictures when it's done, either way.