Adventures in silk, part 1

So, one of my goals is to learn how to spin silk. Honestly one of my first questions was; who stood by a mulberry tree in Japan, saying " i wonder what this white thread is coming out of this worms butt, i think i will spin it and make a shirt." Seriously! I decided i wanted to spin silk from several different methods; cocoon, roving, and rods. Over the last several months i have acquired some silk. The roving i bought at the Shenandoah fiber festival in October from The Flock Bransonas www.bransonas.com Beautiful colors of blue, green and purple. It was a dream to spin, I probably shouldn't have started with it, i don't want to spin anything else!

New

Ah, nothing like getting something new. New year, new socks, new yarn...yes! Last March i made a list of 50 things to do before i'm fifty... i have completed 5...sad days. I am such a procrastinator. Now it's January and i have 12 weeks until my birthday. I can do this... yes?

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, just doesn't seem to cover it this week. I am so cold and very grateful for my little propane stove in my studio. I did a show earlier in the month, JMU artisans fair. Over half of the booths were jewelry. All in all i did remarkably well, which made my heart happy! I can't wait until January so i can get back to playing, (preparing for my girls right now). Warm thoughts!

Even the birds are recycling

Last week we had some fairly strong winds. Strong enough that a sizable branch came down from the maple in our front yard. My son, Kabob inspector general discovered a nest in amongst the leaves. We marveled at the workmanship that one of God's winged avians had so brilliantly constructed.



Upon closer look we discovered that the bird had haphazardly woven in a plastic bag. Maybe he was helping us recycle or maybe he was just trying to waterproof the nest

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Grandfather

During the early 1900's and through the Great Depression my grandfather, Fredrick McQueston was a machinist by trade. Later he became a farmer then when he moved to Arizona he became a lapidarist. I was fortunate to inherit so many of his beautiful gemstones, cabochons and jewelry. I recently dragged out the tub of earrings and pawed through the masses to find a few to show tomorrow night when i display at First Fridays, downtown Harrisonburg. Most of them were clip-on earrings so I updated them to pierced. Thank you grandpa for sharing your talent with us.

Two new necklaces!

I have a habit of not finishing projects for one reason or another; bored, not the right materials, design flaw, you name it. Last week i decided to grab a couple of necklaces i have been putting off finishing because i just couldn't come up the right chain to go with either one. Not bad if i do say so myself!

Penguins

"penguins don't have disposable thumbs"... really, does anyone? My teenagers make me laugh! I think that at almost 15 it is a good thing that our youngest daughter D is back in school. And what are disposable thumbs anywho?