It's a Girl

Meet Lera Jeanne Basom:

Born August 28th

7 lbs, 5 oz

On a totally different topic; I spent my entire day yesterday canning 50 pound of green beans. I got 14 quarts and about 75 pints. That should last us a couple of years.

Promised Photos

Here are some photos from the Judith MacKenzie workshop.

This is the cochineal pot:
Cochineal is ground up dried bugs that is used to dye reds. I have a skein of yarn that came out of this pot that is a pretty pink with spots of peach. The peach spots came from limes. Judith cut up some limes in the pot and all the fiber close to them turned peach.

This is the indigo pot:

You all know indigo, it is what makes your jeans blue. When the pot got up to teperature it had this layer of scum on the surface. Judith put one drop of dish soap on it to create the hole where our yarn and fabric would be lowered into the pot through.

The indigo pot was really neat. We put white silk scarves in; when they first came out they were a pale greenish color, but the longer they were exposed to oxygen the darker blue they got. You controlled the darkness of the blue by leaving it in the pot longer. The items that were dipped in for just a couple of minutes ended up a faded blue jean color.

This is Judith after dropping in and taking out several items from the indigo pot:

When she realized that she didn't have any gloves with her she just went right in bare handed and said, "Well, it can't be helped." Her hands were a dark navy blue by the end of the day. She thought it would take about three or four days to wear off.

This is the room we were spinning in:

Pretty much the whole floor was covered with fiber and yarn, it was great fun.

Here is some of what I brought home:
The skein on the far left is one I painted. The pink one below came out of the cochineal pot. The two skeins that look black are actually navy blue from the indigo pot, as well as the scarf. The scarf was tied first and the diamonds were formed by tying garbanzo beans in it. It was all so much fun, I hope I can take the workshop again next year.

News alert:

Rocky is fishing this evening and just called to let me know that Chad just called to say that Aliya is at the hospital having the baby.

Whirlwind Summer

Wow! I made it through my first term back in college in over 20 years. I'm proud to tell you that I remember how to study to make good grades. The next three terms will be more difficult I'm told. Anatomy and Physiology require a lot of memory in order to learn the language, body parts, and body systems. For now I have four more weeks to catch up on house and farm work, and try to get some fun in.

The weekend after finals we attended Rocky's 30th class reunion. It was a casual event which was nice; and he enjoyed catching up with classmates.

Last week I was lucky enough to spend in a Judith MacKenzie workshop. Judith confided in us that she aspires to be the Julia Childs of spinning. We all assured her that in our minds she already is.

The workshop focused on color. We spent some time on carding, spinning, and plying techniques; and the rest of the time on dying techniques. (I do have photos to post, but I'm at work right now and the camera is at home.) We learned about some natural dyes that aren't too toxic to use: indigo, madder, cochineal, and lichens. A lot of natural dyes are toxic because of the mordants you have to use in order to get a permanent dye job. It was all very interesting. Judith is one of those people that you could never spend too much time with. She is very pleasant and is a wealth of knowledge.

Now I have to step back into my reality. Work yesterday and today. Tomorrow I get to go to the spinning guild, which I haven't done since June. This weekend is for canning beans. And Duck football starts soon after.