A walk in the clouds!

If you would like to experience a little adventure, I recommend the suspended trails (sentiers suspendus in french) in the Forest of the Eagle (Forêt de l'aigle) situated in the Valley of the Gatineau in Maniwaki, Québec.

What a fun experience!

I went on this fall walk with three friends and just loved it. It turned out to be a 2 hour walk over a beautiful forest. It was raining a little bit but that did not take away from the beauty of the walk.

At times, we were well over 50 feet above the forest floor. We also crossed a river. If you look at the picture above, my friend is wearing a harness around her waist and you need to tie the other end to the red cable over her right shoulder. Should someone slip, this would allow you to get back on the board

Something I would love to do again.

Mosaic

Braided rug

My grandmothers used to make braided rugs with rags. Yours might have done them also. Since very little was wasted in those days, they would use remnants or old
sheets or clothing to make them. The braided rugs were durable, colourful and long lasting.

I started one of my own a while ago. I seem to work on it mostly in the winter and leave it when the weather warms up. It's not done yet but probably will be next winter.


I am doing my rug with old jeans and other denim clothing such as skirts or dresses. I cut the denim in stips using a rotary cutter. But I must say that the fabric is really rough on my cutter and on scissors as well. Eventhough the jeans have been washed numerous times they still have lots of sand still left in the fibers of the fabric. And that is the worse thing for sharp scissors or rotary blades.

I will use dark jeans, light one and some with stripes or other pattern.

I have these things that are used to fold over bias. I don't know what they're called but as you can see in the picture, I use them to fold over the jean fabric as I braid it. That way, all the edges are hidden.

I usually will make the braid about 1 meter long then start sewing. I use heavy thread doubled up and roll the edge of the braid on itself and sew it up.

As you can see, I try to blend the different blues. I am slowly making progress. I am making mine an oval shape. At first, I thought of making it at least 5' wide but I won't make it that big! Maybe 3' would be big enough. It will probably be placed in front of the wood stove.

It's getting quite heavy now and I need to place it on my table (and not on my lap) to work on it. So, for now, it's back in the laudry room closet. I will take it out again once the weather gets cold and the days are short.

Hopefully, by next winter, I will be telling you it's all done!

New colours

New happy colours out of the dye pot.

I love their brightness. 100% wool - 100g each

Now available in my shop.

Catching up

Work has me feeling like I am on a roller coaster! It's unbelievably busy. I have had to travel out of town for meetings or conferences every single week of April. I have hardly had any time in my office to tackle all the files on my desk. And it doesn't look like May will be any slower!

But I'm not complaining. I'm lucky to love my work and to still feel very passionate about it after almost 30 years.

I am now 9 mths away from my retirement date and slowly preparing for it. I'm very excited about that new chapter in my life.

Even though I haven't posted much, I have done some knitting at home but mostly in airports, airplanes and hotel rooms. A couple of weekends ago, I have taken out the dye pot.

Have a look at a basketfull of newly dyed yarns. I have been experimenting with Wilson food dyes.

This yarn was dyed with Black dye. That's right, even though you see lots of colour, only Black was used. You see, depending on how much heat and acid you add to your dye water, the colours that make up Black will seperate and do fun stuff with the yarn.

This yarn is also Black, but very little of it. It turned out to be a wonderful blend of greys, blues and lavenders. I love the softness of the colours.

For this Pink Panther yarn, I dyed the whole skein in light pink then squirted darker pink here and there. Nice girly colour. Might become a light cardigan for bébé O.

Green, aqua and yellow make a nice blend as well.

But this one is my favorite. The dye is called Copper and it's components also will separate and produce differents shades. Allthough I don't wear oranges and rusts, I do love how this turned out.

I can't keep all the yarn that I dye. I doubt that I would get to knit it all in this lifetime! So it will make it's way into my shop.

Wishing you a great weekend!