that time of year

It's that time of year again-for my annual st. John's wort gathering. i make a beautiful ruby colored oil for my hubby's joint pain. he responds well to it.

i won't go into detail today as you can see last year's post here; which tells you all about how to make your own st. john's wort oil. it's very easy to do and beneficial too!

been doing some dyeing and lots of knitting. unfortunately no knitting pictures yet. here's a few dye updates. sock yarn!!!! everybody loves sock yarn-it's so versatile not only can you make socks but shawls, fingerless mittens, baby stuff- and so much more!

my FAVORITE is pictured below. i ended up selling it to rowan- an awesome dyer and maker of those fabulous batts everyone loves to spin!!! check her out! can't wait to see what she makes with it. i'm going to try and recreate it-unfortunately it was a mix of all sorts of dyes at the end of a dye session. we'll see if i can do it. i've been trying to think outside my usual box of colorways and made this skein-i call it 'homegrown tomatoes." what great wild pair of socks this would make!!!

i love the softness and coziness of this next skein-i'm thinking shawl here:

this next roving now belongs to the lucky Ms. Lucie- (another talented dyer and spinner) very good choice on her part. i've been drawn to these earthy browns with blues lately. must see it spun up lucie, okay? weird picture-kind of bleached out.

ugh! the kitchen is calling-need to finish some scrubbing. have a great week!

bluegrass & taxidermy forever!

whoa nellie- not all computer monitors are created equally-i hope you are seeing what i'm seeing. i recently redid my blog appearance-and i really like it. but then i saw it on a different computer and holy crap-my eyes balls nearly fried right out of their sockets! what i am seeing is a nice soft warm pond scum kind of yellow green. on the other computer my eyes met with an electric chartreuse-now i admit to liking chartreuse a lot but this was vibrating way too much.-i hope to gawd that you are not seeing my new blog this way. please let me know what background color you are seeing. i don't want to be held responsible for vision loss.

Well, as some of you know last weekend was the annual father's day bluegrass grass festival in town. i usually shy away from crowds but do venture out to this event. the best part of the festival is the parking lot scene. small jam groups form outside RVs and tents and the music is real. liam and i went on friday as his homestudy picking group was meeting up there for some jamming. here's liam with his new mandolin he got from the Darrell Johnston Lending Library.


during the kids jamming session two old-timers joined in- they were in their 80's and 90's.

i caught some video footage before my camera ran out of batteries!



if you want to see a longer video of them playing "bury me under the weeping willow" go to my youtube channel and check it out.

we had a good time but i was bummed the one band i did want to see i missed- G2, a bluegrass band from sweden. did anybody get to see them?

as you know of my obsession with taxidermy- this was the best thing i saw at the bluegrass fest- at someone's camp sight. a taxidermy chicken on a grill. can't beat that!

at least i'm not bored!

there is so much going on here at the wooly homestead i can't even manage a matching pair of socks.

am i losing it? well, maybe just a wee bit. to begin with, i got a new job at a local cafe. very nice that it is only 2 miles down the road- most folks have to commute to find work around here. it's been years since i've worked in a commercial kitchen. here's the evidence.

nothing like a nice oven burn to break myself back in. i have much to blog about but sadly not the time to do it. i have chicken stories, basket making and garden photos to share. i've been busy knitting, dyeing fiber and yarn for a couple of craft fairs later on this summer. plus i was commissioned to knit five baby sweaters!!! Dang- i better start busting some arse!!! hope my hands can handle it.

we did take some time last sunday to hike along the south fork of the yuba river.

the river was cold, fast and raging with all the snow melt. no swimming for us- even though the day was hot.

we've had so much spring rain that the wild flowers were still in bloom.

the sticky monkey flowers were prolific.


so were the 'woolydaisies." technically i think they are called wooly sunflowers-but i renamed them. they are one of my favorites.

the succulents always amaze me-the way they can grow out rock!

we came to the end of our trail and found some great rock art and a mother nursing her baby-so beautifully sweet right by the river.

i hope to catch up with everything real soon.

GO CELTICS~~~~

whose got a bigger head?

okay- i guess i've tortured you enough with the suspense. a couple weeks ago our fiber guild(the coolest guild EVAR!) had a spindle retreat or "camp" you might say. we gathered for a 3 day weekend at a nearby resort for camping and drop spindling. the guild has been on fire lately with the use of these ancient devices.

sara brought a gorgeous bag she wove many years ago- everyone gushed over it. turns out it was originally suppose to be a hat. but as you see.......

the hat just wasn't going to work for sara. so she turned it into a bag. in walks barbara sue-and wah-la

it fits!!! a regular "spinderella" i'd say.

unfortunately, i could only attend friday nite. but what a ball. we had a mexican potluck, lot's of spinning action and lots of rain!!! my camera batteries were nearly dead so my pictures got progressively worse as the evening wore on. i took many pics-but boy o boy-i won't post them. you know how your camera slows down when batteries start to fail. you all would totally hate me if i posted them. you look like a bunch of half lidded, opened mouth drooling.....well i better not go any further. it's not politically correct to use that word anymore. trust me. i was going to delete them but hey -you never know when you might need a good black mail photo.(insert evil laugh) here's a few that are safe to post. sorry they are so dark. amy had an amazing aray of spindles:


i was a rebel and refused to drop spindle. i hate it. i've tried it many many times. no pleasure what so ever. so why waste my time right? so i brought my wheel-"bozenna." she is a Kromski sonata from poland. i named her "bozenna" because it is the polish named for happy. my wheel make me happy. it is also a czech name for happy as well. i am part czech so i thought the named fit perfectly.

i was spinning a merino/silk blend from sweetgrass wool of montana.

many other guild members blogged about spindle camp and have great pictures. here's the list i know of so far. birdsong, sharon, heidi and amy. check their blogs out!