Time Flies…

I can’t believe I let the whole month of August fly by without a single blog post.  I have been busy, but looking back at the calendar, it was filled with appointments and other house stuff that kept me away from the fun stuff.  That will need a major correction.

So, here are the few things I did manage to finish.  This is a wall hanging woven with my hand spun yarn, mostly wool but there is a little alpaca blended in it.The little Hokett loom has had some action, the mug rug is almost finished. My knitting project is a triangle scarf with hand dyed alpaca yarn.  This is my go-to pattern when I can’t decide what to knit next. ( I don’t normally match my project bag with my yarn, but it does look good together.)

So, there you have it.  Hopefully, September will be more “fun” productive.  I have been in a spinning mood and will have some yarn to show soon.

See ya,

Sandy O’ at My Yellow Swing.

Summertime flowers

The crafty part of My Yellow Swing has been slow this summer.  Not absent, just slow.  I am working on an after-school kids weaving project for when school starts next month.  I have a little woven pouch pattern that I found on the Internet that can be done on a cardboard loom.  Along with the weaving, the kids will learn to knit an I-cord strap.My sheep tapestry is growing another row of sheep.  I understand sheep legs are not all that exciting.Last week, Pat and I ventured to Tucson and stopped at my LYS, Grandma’s Spinning Wheel where I found this.  I did not participate in Tour de Fleece, but I was inspired by many spinning blogs and knew I needed this roving.So, if you are not into flowers, you can click out now.  Here are my flowers around my house.  White roses….Red Lantana…My barrel cactus has some strange yellow things growing.But the neighbor’s barrel cactus has beautiful orange blooms.I have purple Mexican petunias.Yellow trumpet vines.The Vitex is starting it’s second bloom.Duffy is not impressed.So, everyone stay cool, stay safe, stop and smell the flowers.

See ya,

Sandy O’

Happy Fourth of July

I had planned to post a collection of red, white and blue weaving and knitting.  However, I have discovered that I have not used those three colors together in any of my projects.  I have a felted blue bag that I use for my small weaving projects.  There is a touch of red and  a little stripe of not-quite-white in the strap.I have a red mug rug woven on my Hokett loom.I have a white Feather and Fan scarf knitted with my hand spun alpaca yarn. I have a white dog with a red collar helping me with this post.  That’s about as patriotic as I can get today. (I could have put on a blue shirt, but that one is in the laundry and today is not laundry day.)I am still organizing my studio.  I found a neat way to store my hand spun yarn.  It’s a closet sweater hanging thingy.  I like to see the colors that I have on hand without pulling out tubs and boxes.  I have another weaving started on my Hokett loom.  This is some hand spun Navajo yarn I found in the bottom of a bargain bin at my LYS.I have another on my rigid heddle loom.  This is also hand spun yarn left over from my other weavings.  I am playing with different colors and textures for a small wall hanging.I made some bookmarks for special friends who have visited the Yarn Babes and Enlightenment Society this past month.And, last but not least, the sheep tapestry has grown another inch.That’s it.   Happy Fourth!

See ya,

Sandy O’

Father’s Day

This is the first Father’s Day that I won’t be able to call my dad and wish him a Happy Father’s Day.  But I will spend the day looking back at the great  memories I have of our good times together.  I have no pictures to share that accompany some of my best memories.   I won a college scholarship in a  tractor-pulling contest that my dad encouraged me to try.  When I made the only “Full Pull” in the student category, there was the biggest grin on my dad’s face.  When I was in the county Dairy Princess contest in 1971, my father and three other fathers dressed up in drag as beauty queens and paraded down Main Street.  Again, no picture, but I will NEVER forget that day.  And every time I would leave after a visit, he and my mother would stand in the front yard and watch me drive off until I was out of sight.

Pat’s father left us in 2003.  Dad O’Brien  welcomed me to his family when Pat and I married.  I heard stories about the strange pets he would bring home; a squirrel, a pig, a crow, and many stray dogs.  He served in New Guinea and the Philippines in World War II, and he talked about flying in towed gliders.  He and Mom O’Brien traveled on the Amtrak train from Chicago to Arizona once to visit us.  When asked about the scenery, he said  “I saw lots of junkyards and graveyards.” He was different from my father, but was a great father-in-law!

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads!  And missing all the Dads who are in our hearts.

See ya,

Sandy O’

News

This is my first bike ride from our NEW HOUSE.  Yes, that’s right!  Pat and I bought a new-to-us house in a 55+ gated community just 1 1/2 miles from our old house.  We had been looking for about a year and had almost given up finding one that suited our needs.  This one is near perfect, location is great, size is what we wanted and the smaller backyard  is Duffy approved.  So while I was still in Kentucky, we accepted an offer on our old house and  Pat started a whirlwind move.  One week after I got back, we were sleeping in the new house.  My “studio” is a work in progress, but I think I will have plenty of space to put my looms and yarn stash.  This was just a few things Pat was able to move while I was gone.  You can see my spinning wheel was one of the first things in the new house.  And I was able to get some spinning started.  This was some beautiful roving that I was lucky to win from Araignee’s Tangled Web give-away along with some wonderful soaps.  The soaps were used before any pictures were taken, but take my word, they were so pretty to look at and so good to smell.I have also got some knitting on the needles.  I found a nice skein of yarn at a shop in Kentucky and started a scarf.  It has some sparkle yarn and it’s super soft.I also started a tapestry weaving on my Hokett loom.  That’s it for now.

See ya,

Sandy O’ at My Yellow Swing

Visiting Kentucky

I am back in Kentucky with my family.  My mom is staying on the farm, so I came out to help my sisters get the fields and sheds a little easier to handle.  This was the scene of the first morning here.The grass and leaves are so green, I wish I had yarn in these colors.  Not much knitting  going on.  But I am getting lots of hugs from family and friends.  One of my projects here  is setting up a display of my Dad’s collection of antique farm tools at the local heritage center.  Photos later.

See ya,  Sandy O’

 

More Weaving

I have had the urge to weave lately.  No big projects are in the works, but I am trying out some patterns on my rigid heddle loom, sampling threads and yarns on my vintage Peacock loom and a little knitted shawl on the side.  I found a pick-up pattern to go along with the Brooks Bouquet pattern.  This is a gift for an aunt in Kentucky.Here is another scarf using 5/2 cotton and 8/2 Pearl cotton in variegated and solid colored yarns.  I am using my vintage Peacock loom.  It is amazing how well this simple little loom weaves.I gave a weaving demonstration at the after-school kids knitting and crochet club.  I set up my Schacht Flip loom for them to weave cotton mug rugs.  It is always fun to watch their faces when they see they can make things.  This was their finished project.  I will cut it apart for mug rugs for their teachers.And I did say I had some knitting to show.  It is a triangle shawl using Ash Hill Alpaca yarn in “Starlight”.  It has some sparkle in it but doesn’t show up in the photo.More to come at My Yellow Swing.

See ya,

Sandy