The poncho

For P.'s birthday this year (our birthdays are 4 days apart and we are both Aries so we have to celebrate each year) I knit her this poncho. Doesn't she look great in it? Ah but she had a head :)

The yarn is an acrylic that I picked up along with the pattern on the yarn label. Two rectangles sewed together. I needed something fast, fun, stylish and washable and this was it. I think it worked out. I want one for winter (hint hint P.).

P. is learning to knit. Ironically, a month before her birthday I mentioned I was starting to make her present. She said she was making mine too. And surprise she knit me this fabulous scarf! It is just the colours I love, I was very pleased.

For our birthdays we met at a lodge at Lac Des Roches in the mountains between 100 Mile House and Kamloops. The idea was that we would each drive half way and spend the Easter long weekend, and yes the husbands, who are also good buds, were coming along too. Great idea, but it was not spring there yet! Yikes. SNOW! In mid April. Not my cup of tea being from the coast.

The other problem was that the lodge, where we were paying $200 a night during off season, was disgustingly dirty. Awful! And I have been a housekeeper in hotels and lodges, so I know what should be passable. This was not. Not to mention that we arrived at 5 pm, 50 kms from the nearest store to find that we couldn't drink the water. I think that the lodge owner should have mentioned this, yes? But perhaps I am picky.

Ah well, we hunkered down in the company of good friends, and drank the last of the tequila brought back from Arizona. And made our own fun!

There ya go. Knitting, tequila, and friends all in one post. Very nice!

First attempt spinning with hemp

One of my friends is obsessed with hemp. She did her master's thesis on it she is so obsessed. And being a kind and generous soul, my wardrobe, and that of the dogs' is filled with hemp items. T-shirts, bag, shawl, collar (that is the dogs).

I have been on the look out for some hemp to spin up and make her some nifty socks out of. There are places that sell spun hemp, but I just have not got around to ordering because it requires phoning which is all too much work these days, if I can't order online.

BUT. Yesterday in Duncan, where the honey and I will possibly be moving, I insisted that we stop at the Loom in Whippletree Junction. What a place! Filled to the ceiling with yarn, and in a back corner bags and bags of wonderful spinning fibre! Mom and I walked in to hear a young man thanking the woman for the hemp. Ha! Too cooool! So I had to buy 200 grams.

It is hemp noil, not at all link the fibrous brown rope like string you so often see. I have never spun cotton, but that is what it looks like- cotton.

Now the only problem is that I did not get the required mordant to dye the hemp with natural dyes- I need iron and I only have alum. If the hemp gets spun before I get the iron I may dye the yarn with the commercial dyes, but since my friend is a natural kind of person this just seems wrong. I guess I better get to Granville Island before we move and pick up the iron from Maiwa!

And, darn, but I am currently spinnning a lovely merino roving I dyed with logwood, so I can't start the hemp right away. I need more bobbins but they are in storage. Forces me to finish though, which Georgia Nicols, astrologer extraordinaire in Victoria says, is the problem with us Aries!

Speaking of not finishing, the move to Duncan is now up in the air. Seems the problem is that this almost-PhD is getting picky about working conditions. Life satisfaction vs earning money. Oh crap. Sacrificed my sanity for getting this disseration out, and now kinda was hoping for a job that made it all worth it. Picky picky.

And speaking of disseration, since the honey is out golfing I was supposed to be finishing Chapter 3 instead of spinning and blogging, so I had better get back to it!