welcome 2010

we had a grand daytime new years eve gathering at rowan's studio. us gals gathered for a productive day of picking, spinning, carding, knitting and of course eating. i was very excited to finally do something with my over felted dyed fleeces that have just been taking up space in my closet. in fact, this fiber is so old it comes from the days when i used to process the dirty fleeces myself! trust me-that was a long time ago!!!

rowan had an ancient torture device called a picker that worked wonders on my clumps of felted fiber! this is one bad ass machine! leather gloves are a must!

check out those sharp nails! oops! better get my gloves on!

the top part swings back and forth like a pendulum. couldn't help but have poe-esque visions. thank god my boobs don't hang THAT low!
the picked fiber just fall out of the picker in the back.


look at all the fluffy cloud like fiber----ready for use! much better than pillow stuffing as i had planned.

looks like a maxfield parish sky! now i could have spun it from the puffs but i really wanted to try out rowan's electric carder! yeeha! the machine of my dreams!

this carder rocks more than homebrew! i got about 8oz. of dreamy ready to spin batts!

impressive. here are rowan, lucie and birdsong gathered around the woodstove. rhodi is busy using the carder at this moment-got a great(hahahahaha) picture but i think i will save it for black mail purposes. we got a lot done with much laughter. ended our afternoon with a new year's count down-pretending we lived in norway.

back at the homestead we had another gift opening forenza(is that a word? sounds cool) belated holiday gifts are the best. anne and my mom know what i like and always send me fiber!!!(they haven't seen my closet-heheheh! shhhhh!) i will post more photos later-but i already started a vest from some yarn that anne sent:

it will be a quick knit as it's knitted on size #10 needles. this is rowan chunky colourscape-yum!

thank you mom and anne!! Happy new year everyone-i hope 2010 is all that you wish and hope it to be!!!

i hope you ate your black eyed peas! i made a crock pot version with home grown greens-the addition of 3 whole cloves really made them yummy!