I am Still Here

No - I haven't flown the coop. Although the cold weather has set in - and Florida is sounding really good right now - I'm still here. It's just been terribly busy. Along with all the chores that have to be done to get ready for winter, I decided to
do a little spinning project for another Shetland
owner who had a terrible misfortune on holiday, and
lost her spinning bag, and shawl that she was working
on. I just happened to have some dark blue rovings
that were very close to the colour she was looking for,
so, I offered to spin them up for her, and in exchange, she is going to knit me a shawl for my Mother in
Law for Christmas.
I finally got it done on Sunday night, and mailed it out
Monday. I hope it is good enough for her to knit with. In the top picture, I spun 2 plies of wool with
a single gold strand of thread. In the second picture, I spun 2 plies of wool with a third ply of
multi coloured soy silk. The colourway is called Mermaid (by Louet). I was very pleased with this one - except my Victoria was a real pain during the plying - and kept seizing up, and causing the yarn to overtwist when it wouldn't draw it onto the bobbin. I'm going to have to do another test yarn to see if I can figure out what was going on.

Of course - right about the middle of last week, I
decided that I should come down with the Mother of
all Colds. I felt like I was going to die. Normally,
colds don't bother me all that much - one day, and
back on my feet. Not this time. Here we are a week later, and I still feel like I want to die. Part of that may be that I took "Buckley's" a few nights
ago, and it completely burned my throat raw.
As I was writhing on the floor in pain - it occurred to
me that I may possibly be allergic to something in the Buckley's. Never again. It's 3 days later, and my throat is still raw.

Other than all of this fun, I am trying to get ready for Christmas, and major surgery on
December 13th. As well - I am a potter, so I am trying to get ready for a show at one of our
local venues in a few weeks. Can you say - not quite enough hours in the day! I have a trip to
Kitchener planned for this Saturday to pick up some new pottery equipment - and then that's it for this year - I have to stay home and get some stuff done around here. I can see now that there are a lot of things that I planned for the barn that just aren't going to be happening this winter.
For my next post - I'm hoping to have a nice surprise (for me anyway). I am very excited.
Stay tuned.

Road Trip!

This past Saturday, my friend Barb and I took off on a day trip (we do this every so often). First stop was at the Hamilton Potters Sale. There are some very good artist's in this guild. I myself am a potter, and am seriously intimidated by most of the work I see at their show. In the first picture - you can see - a Raku Canada Goose by
Marlen Moggach. I had hoped to get one of her loons - but they were all sold out. This is a beautiful piece of art. For those of you that are unaware of Raku, it is a hit and miss way of firing the glazes, and due to the temperature extremes, a lot of pieces are usually lost.
The piece on the right is actually a small wall hanging. It is also raku, and is a background plaque, and on the front (in black) is all chinese words embossed on a piece of clay. In the raku
process - the black portion is left unglazed, and when it goes through the firing, the unglazed portions actually turn black from the smoke. You get some very interesting effects.

After leaving Hamilton, we travelled on to Glen Williams near Toronto, to view the "Women in Wood" show. It was also a pottery show, and was based on several Toronto area potters who built a wood fired kiln for glazing. Some very interesting pieces were on display.

From there, we stopped to visit my friend Cate, just outside Fergus, and we brought her a rooster. Bera (the rooster) had spent 7 hours in the back of the car - didn't make a peep. He's a very well travelled rooster. I'm going to miss him.

On to the next stop. We went to the Guelph and area Spinners Guild Sale. I didn't take any pictures. Lots of lovely spun, woven and knitted items.

Almost to the end of our journey - and we were getting tired by now. We headed into Elora, to the "Blown Away" Glass gallery. Where all the items are - you guessed it - blown glass, and
dichroic glass.

As you can see from the picture, I picked up 2
blown glass oil lamps. They are awesome.
My secret fetish is blown glass and millefiori glass. I have such a collection of artisan glass. I am going to give one to my Mom for Christmas, and keep one for myself as a Christmas gift. I just haven't decided which one yet, although I'm leaning towards the green one for me.

And then last, but not least - to the mill. Where I picked up
all of my rovings. Lots and lots of yummy, soft rovings.
I was so pleased. There were close to 26 pounds of Rovings. Wellington Fibres, just outside of Elora does a
wonderful job on my fleeces. They are so incredibly
soft, I can't wait to start spinning - but wait - I have to dye some of these first - Oh Jared!!!!!!! Are you busy!
Jared is a great young fella from the Kingston area - and he
has a way with the dyepot. Many of these rovings will be
making their way down to him to be dyed, and then coming
back to me for spinning. I can't wait. There are also several
spinners in the local area who are waiting to get their hands
on these rovings. I think I may be busy for a while.

BORDER COLLIE FOR SALE

I have decided to sell our Border Collie. She is a lovely, lively active girl, and I just can't keep up the pace right now.
Keen-Eye Wisp needs more attention than I have time. I now travel a fair amount with my
job, and am away a lot on the weekends. I decided in all fairness, that she should be with someone who is willing to spend more time with her, or someone who has other dogs or border collies.
Wisp is 4 years old. She is not spayed, but her shots and heartworm medications are up to date.
She is started on the sheep. We have worked a great deal on driving the sheep this summer, and not much on gathering, so her gathering abilities are rusty. She was trained on whistles, so sometimes gets her verbal commands mixed up - but she tries hard. Once in a while, my ducks distract her, and she decides she would rather herd them than the sheep - but she still tries very hard. I would love to see her go to a home with another Border Collie to give her more confidence around the sheep - but she would also make a great house dog - flyball dog, or agility dog. She is crate trained very well.
Please - serious inquiries only. Please contact me either through my blog on the comments section - or by e-mail: tammyward@xcelco.on.ca

A Weekend Getaway

As promised in yesterday's blog, here are a couple of pictures of our weekend getaway on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend (October 7-8).

First of all, Kevin and I decided to go on an
Artist's studio tour called "Around the Sound"
The "Sound" means Owen Sound, and it is a beautiful little town that is set at the bottom of a sound up in the Bruce Peninsula here in Ontario.

We packed a picnic lunch - and made the 3 hour drive to Owen Sound. After touring several studios, we decided to make the 1 1/2 hour drive further up the Bruce Peninsula to Tobermory.

For those of you that don't know the area - the Bruce Peninsula is part of the Niagara Escarpment, carved out by Glaciers eons ago.

It is a huge tourist - summer spot. So we were
very lucky to get a room. We got the last room at a little inn called the Grandview. The top picture shows the view off of our balcony - out over "Little Tub Harbour". You can see the ferry that travels between Tobermory and Manatoulin Island in the background - and various smaller islands in the back. I should mention - the weather at home was 92 degrees that day - but up in Tobermory - it was only 80 degrees - so much nicer.

We proceeded down to Cragies for fish and chips. Craggies is a little "shack" at the waters edge,
with awesome fish and chips. It's almost impossible to get a seat during dinner - but we were later enough that we got in.

The next day, we journeyed over to "Big Tub Harbour" - which adjoins "Little Tub Harbour", and went to the lighthouse. The lighthouse is not a large structure - but is as pretty as any that you will ever see. Set out on the rocks - it makes for a beautiful picture. We spend about an hour wandering around , and then headed back home, stopping at several pottery studios along the way (did I mention that I am a potter)? We arrived home around 6 pm - to still hot, hot weather. Oh, how I would love to live up in the Bruce - but the winters are brutal.

Back to Reality

It's been a rough month. I've found the loss of my little baby boy Mew to be very devastating in my life. The tears continue to flow on a regular basis - I do want to thank everyone who offered such kind words - both on my blog and privately.

I know that I have to get back into the swing of things.

I have been busy this month, and that's part of the reason I haven't been blogging. Work for me, at this time of year is usually quite busy. I've signed up with the college and rejoined my local
potters group, and I'm going to join one of the local spinning guilds as weel. I have also been away every weekend to a different function, an arts tour, a weekend getaway to Tobermory - and more arts tours, and today, a trip to Carole Dailley's Farm, to see her sheep. I met up with my good friends Cate and Al DeSantis, who also have Shetland sheep. We had a wonderful lunch at their farm - then went out to visit with her sheep. I brought home 2 beautiful "Dorking" roosters from Cate's today - more about them in a few days. Then we took the lovely rolling hill drive over to Carole's place about 20 - 30 minutes away.

Carole held an "invitation only" open house today, to showcase the new farm and property. It is a beautiful 92 acres of rolling land near Brantford, Ontario. She had rovings, yarn, and blankets
all made from her lovely shetland fleeces.

Carole's new farm name is "Chassagne" Farm. The picture above, is of the ewes and small lambs in the main field. Sorry it's a bit distant - my close-up function on my camera made the pictures fuzzy for some reason today.
Off to the left is the ram pasture. Behind us are the beautiful brand new barns. I bought some
rovings (like I need more wool), and a great little tote bag. It was horribly cold - with a biting wind, but Carole had hot apple cider, coffee and cookies galore.

And - here come the rams - checking out the action. Some gorgeous looking fellas in this group. Again - sorry it's a bit fuzzy and distant - maybe because my hands were so numb. Stupid me - I forgot my mittens.



Around 4 pm, we said goodbye to Carole - and wished her well - hoping to someday go back and buy one of her beautiful lambs. Then, off on the long drive home - about 2 1/2 hours with the traffic. I am pooped.

Tomorrow I will try to post again - maybe some pictures of my trip last weekend to Tobermory.

I think I'd better go lie down now -I kind of feel like a walking zombie - I've been on the road since 8 am this morning.

Rest In Peace my Sweet Baby Boy

Well - tonight is a very sad night in our house.
I came home from work tonight, to find that
my little Mew had passed away not long before.

Mew - who I fondly called "My Baby Boy" had
cardio myopathy - or a very irregular heartbeat.
He had suffered a saddle thrombosis on January
27th of this year - and was paralyzed in the hind end. Mew had an incredible will to live, and made a miraculous recovery and was able to walk and run almost like a normal cat again.
He was originally a barn cat - but after the thrombosis - he became a house cat. He never missed a beat - and was the cuddliest cat you would ever be likely to meet. This past few weeks, I knew he was not doing very well, so I spent as much time with him as possible.
With Cardio-myopathy - they are ticking time bombs. Thankfully this morning, I took some extra time to cuddle with him before going off to work. Even though it was not unexpected, his passing was still very traumatic. There will be a major empty spot in our lives without him.
Since he loved being with me so much, I've decided to have him cremated, and his urn will have a space on the livingroom shelf. I couldn't bear the thought of burying him outside - he wanted to be in the house with me so badly.

And so we say - Adieu my Little Baby Boy - for We will meet again. And my love for you shall
never diminish. Mew - 1999 to September 10, 2007.

Where to Begin?

It's been such a fun weekend - I don't know where to begin.
OK - let's start this way. In my previous post - I mentioned
one of our lambs - Lyra. She's a funny colour. It never
occurred to me to see if she might be Emsket.
Thanks Nancy! I think she's Emsket. What do you think. This picture was taken inside the barn - it's a pretty dismal day out here - but she looks grey to me. It's been several years since we've had an emsket lamb here. I keep forgetting that they start out black, then go kind
of brown - and then grey. It could be shaela as well - hard to tell at this point. But I would say
-definitely modified.

On to other things. Such exciting things (not that Lyra isn't exciting) - but - after several
weeks of waiting (and some dummy with a forktruck running over the first pallet) - my new
baby has finally arrived.

Yes - here she is - my new Louet Victoria. It's been a long and stressful trip from the factory - fraught with many pitfalls along the way - she even got lost - but she is finally here.
I can't wait to start spinning tonight - right after I get off this computer.

It's such a tiny and light little wheel, I'm looking forward to spending many hours in the future getting to know her.
This is so exciting (if only you could see me giggling like a silly little girl). I've been in spinning withdrawal all summer because I sold my other wheel in early July. I can now get out some of these great new fibers that I got this weekend at MFF (Michigan Fiber Fest) - and play!!!!!!

Which brings me to the rest of our fun weekend.


On Saturday, my Dear Husband (Kevin) - such a darling, took the day off of work, and drove me 3 1/2 hours to MFF in Allegan, Michigan. It was our first time there, so, we got lost on the way a few times (you really can't get there from here!), but we finally made it. The weather was beautiful, my camera batteries died, so I couldn't take any pictures - but it was great. Kevin very patiently wandered around to all the booths and exhibits with me for several hours (all you have to do is feed him every so often), and he even encouraged me to spend to my hearts content. The only time he objected was when I was going to buy a pottery mug - for my collection (I am a potter too by the way) - but, we had a great
time.

Here's some of the stuff I bought:

On the left is some alpaca blended with silk roving. On the right are Wensleydale sheep
locks - dyed and natural. These are great for felting.








In this picture, there is a silk cap at the top of the picture, then on the right hand side and at the bottom is a cashmere/silk dyed top. On the left hand side is a dyed soy silk top.

I just love these wild colour combinations, especially the pink and lime green at the bottom.





This picture here just has some of the extra goodies that I bought.
I couldn't resist the T-shirt that says
"GOT SHEEP", and there's a needle felting
book, a "Clover" needle felting mat. There's a pair of fingerless gloves (for my daughter for Christmas), a Diz, a sheep pin, and some lovely
sheep cards.

Lots of yummy little treasures.







And this last picture shows the rest of the fiber
samples that I purchased.
At the top of the picture is some Black Diamond
Bamboo fiber (it's very soft).

On the right is some Yak fiber in natural brown, also very soft.

At the bottom is some Soy Silk in a creamy white. This is surprisingly soft, and I can't wait to try it out.

And on the left, the light brown is baby camel
roving.

I can't wait to get playing with all of these great fibers, and play a bit more with my drum carder.

While I've been waiting for my wheel to arrive, I've been very busy out in the garage all summer - washing and picking fleeces (that's a blog for later in the week). So now, I have lots of great fiber, ready to be processed into rovings and batts.

Well - now it's time to fire up the wheel. I'll be back!