Green everywhere

Are things greening up at our house too?

The green grass has brought the deer closer to the house. We had not seen them too much this winter.

Springtime also means asparagus.

Although these are not local asparagus, we enjoy eating them whenever we can since the season is so short.

Here is a wonderful recipe for

Roasted asparagus soup

Coarsely chop one bunch asparagus, one onion and 1 cup celery.



Toss with one tablespoon of olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and roast uncovered in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Do stir the veggies at least once.

Transfer the vegetables to a medium pot along with 1 tablespoon of flour.

Add 1 carton of chicken broth and stir. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook for 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Cool your soup and then use a stick blender, a blender or food processor to purée until smooth.

And voilà! a very green spring soup!

On the weekend I dyed this green yarn for myself.

I want to knit the Vitamin D after seeing it on a member of the knitters guild and at the LYS.

But then again, the Vodka lemonade looks real nice too.

But either way, this bunch is mine!

And last, but not least, I made a soap with a green top! This soap's fragrance is called Mountain Rain and smells so fresh!

 Can't wait to see what colour will show up next week!



Thankful

Certain days are just like that...simply perfect.

Nothing special happens but our hearts are light and joy can be felt in every cell of our bodies. Songs are constantly in our heads and our feet are dancing every step we take.

I try to be very conscious of those days and make reserves for the rainy days that are bound to come now and then.

Today was such a day.

I spent time with my yarns and dyes. I also made lots of soap...it smells good in the house. And I even baked.

A wonderful walk around our fields with the alpacas watching and following me.

 Coco and Fiona have grown so much over the winter. They are now 9 mths old.

I hope Coco keeps that curiousness as she matures.

I love these animals. They are calm and gentle.

A face everyone can love!

I'm so envious of those eyelashes.

Fiona

Fiona's mom, Alicia.

I love this shot.

Alpacas make the most of every day.

I'm so thankful for what they bring to my life.

On another note, I want to tell you about a new blog out in blogland. Dairy Free and Delicious is a cooking blog for those of us with dairy allergies.

Sara, the blog's author and cook by excellence, has posted several recipes that I will be trying in the next few weeks.

Tonight I made her Raspberry Lemon Cupcakes...mmm...delicious!

No icing on mine but the taste of raspberries with lemon and almond extract make the best tasting cupcakes ever!

I hope your weekend brought you joy!



Wild Sparkly Alpaca

No kidding! I heard about sparkly alpacas on Ellen!

I doubled plied Ginger's handspun cria fleece. It was given a bath in Eucalan no rinse delicate wash. The one I have is scented lavender oil. Smells sooo goood!

I thought I had spun thin enough for a fingering weight but it turns out that I have a DK weight. I have about 435 meters, 213 grams of sweet softness!

This WPI tool helped me identify the wraps per inch (wpi) and the number I got was 12. According to the chart that came with the kit, a DK weight has between 12 and 14 wpi.

I now have to decide if I will dye this yarn or knit it as is. I am not a big fan of browns but the natural colour might win me over. We'll see.

I see this skein as becoming a cuddly shawl.

Change of scenery

I have rarely seen snow disappear so fast...in a matter of days, it's almost all gone. The alpacas are once again exploring their pasture and looking happy to sun themselves.

Hubby is already talking about doing more fencing to add more pasture for the herd. If it's a dry spring, he might get started on post digging sooner than later.

I went over to my daughter's house to help her paint a mural on the walls of the nursery.

I love the woodland theme that she's going with.

We have a few more trees to paint and a few more coats of paint to add, but it's looking so good already.

There is some spring knitting getting done in a cotton / acrylic blend.

And what better way to enjoy this unexpected warm weather than to play outside on the deck.

More dyeing happenned.

This lot is a special order.

 On Fire

(Lollipop)

Bit of this and that

Sunny day...I'm sure everyone is talking about this wonderfuly warm day...spring is in the air.

But we also all know that we will surely have more snow before we can say winter is over.

We live in the north after all!

With hubby gone, I spent a lot of time working on a few projects.

More dyeing.

These are huge skeins of of silk/merino yarn. 8 ounces each.

I have 5 of them.

I will put some up for sale but I am looking for a large shawl project for myself.

And more sock yarn in various shades

Bulky yarn, lots of it!

And I knitted a bit. Tiny little hat in hand dyed bulky yarn. I love the mix of colours.

I also tackled the sideboard in the kitchen. I recently bought it and it needs some tender loving care. I can tell that it had been previously painted in red and once in cream.

I am not a big fan of wood, I like to paint everything...so you can see where I'm going with this?

One coat of white and a few more to go.

I will be staining the top in a dark walnut.

Time to sit down with a beer and take a breather!

With next week being the March break, I will be spending some time with my daughter...she's off for the week.

We are planning on doing a mural on the walls of the baby's room.

Only 10 more weeks before the birth of our little grandson...exciting!

Hope your weekend was a good one.

I need one of those

How was your weekend?

I had a very productive weekend!

The dyepot was full all weekend...

From lace weight to super bulky yarns.

On Friday, I test knitted these cute little fingerless mitts for Masi Knits.

Olivia was quite interested in my own fingerless mitts and I know she'll love to have a pair of her own!

Pattern: ASL fingerless mitts

Rav project page

Last week, Olivia left with one of my cowls! She went into my drawer and picked one and asked if she could wear it to go home. Of course, I agreed knowing right away I had to make her one in her size.

Off I went searching for a child size cowl and found a very nice pattern on Ravelry (I love Ravelry!).

As you can see, I have lots of pink yarn and this was made in pink also.

I can't wait to see how it fits her.

Pattern: Hearwarmer

Ravelry project page

And I also had a bit of time to card and spin more of Ginger's cria fiber.

This is the second batch of carded fiber.

I plan on making a 2 ply yarn once I'm done spinning the singles

and using it to knit a shawl.

It's amazing what you can get done when the man of the house is not around!

And he's going ice fishing again next weekend.

YAHOO!!!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it

Wonderful saturday to be inside!

The weather network mentioned we would get some snow last night and all day today...but Mother Nature really outdid herself this time!

Lots of white stuff accompanied by a fierce northerly wind.

Seems that by the time it's all done, we will have close to 30cm! That's 12 inches !

I think that we have allready reached 30 cm and it's still falling!

The birds are still able to fly around in these condition and get to the birdfeeder.

Those birds are pretty smart to be able to get out and about on such a blistery day!

Even the seeds that were blown to the ground were not ignored.

Twelve year old Bailey thought this was too good to be true.

 You can see how much of a grey day we are having...these pictures were taken at 2 pm this afternoon.

With snow up to her chest, she thought she should check to see what was under all the white stuff!?!

I intended to sit and watch a few movies all day but the satellite was not working for a few hours this afternoon.

Well then, I'll take a drive to the library and pick a few DVDs before I get any more snowed in.

I felt so smart to think of this...I rarely borrow DVDs from the library. And they have a good selection.

So I got ready, shoveled some of the snow in front of the garage door and got in my vehicule. 

Did I mention to you that I am solo this weekend? Hubby is gone fishing 'up north'. The area where he's gone will be getting much more snow, so he might need an extra day to get back out!

But I have a 4-wheel drive SUV so I can go anywhere, anytime!

See the SUV between the posts? It's kinda sitting crooked in front of the garage, isn't?



Well, I'm sure it's better to leave your vehicule out of the garage during a snowstorm and park it diagonally in front of the garage door.

I'm sure there will be less snow in front of the garage because of it.

So smart of me!

I will tell hubby that I'm not struck in the snow drift, I wanted to sweep the garage floor for him.

Sh**, I never even made it out of the drive way...stupid 4-wheel drive!

I could not get out on my side, I had to crawl over on the passenger side because the snow too high. After lots of shovelling and doing my best to move the vehicule, I gave up.

Quality time

Last week, our grand daughter spent a few days with us because she was too sick to go to the daycare. This week, the daycare provider was too sick to take any of the children!

So we've spent lots of quality time with bébé O.

I know, she's too old to be called a baby especially when she refers to herself as a 'grande fille' (big girl).

She is such a joy to have around, so talkative and observant.

When we cooked muffins, she wanted to participate.

And of course, help clean up!

Now, how about a warm apple muffin?

Added a few yarns to my Etsy shop this week, very little time to spend with my yarns...where did February go?