Wildlife, Batts, and Getting Older

This is the third Gila monster that we have seen and the first this year. It is a lot smaller than the two I saw last year. It crawled across the arena and into the old duck pond area.

Among other wildlife sightings has been an old gray coyote. He was seen in our driveway last Friday morning and then Marc and I saw it sneak under the front fence on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, it is not possible to fence all of the way to the ground and an electric fence is just too dangerous to consider. This guy has been traveling on his own and is way too tame. I have gone back to creative spinning. I spun these two beaded yarns, while I was doing paperwork for the Pasadena Bead and Gem show which is July 28-31, 2011. I am looking forward to going and have already scheduled a hotel room in the same building, so I can teach evening classes and not have to worry about rushing from one place to another. Let me know, if you are going to be there and are interested in a class.

I am featuring batts this month. They are all on sale. In the two above, the shimmery colors are created by mohair locks randomly thrown onto the carder. The fronts and backs are never the same, since I get bored as I am feeding the carder. Felted they will look a lot like what you see. If they are spun, you will get a variegated yarn and the colors on the backside will pop out. Gives them the Impressionistic look.

This is a progression of batts that I have carded over the past few days. I started with the bottom one and then changed colors on each batt. I ran out of the green, so it became more peachy, added some reds, then an almost pure red (the back side has natural colored white Shetland in streaks,) and then a really thin batt that is mostly white with dashes of kid mohair in colors.

Those of you who know me or have been following my blog are aware that my Dad passed away in March. Both he and my mother died from heart disease, so I felt the best use of my insurance money was to invest in my health. I have diabetes that I have been controlling by diet and exercise. Stress has been causing me problems recently and I just could not force myself to go to the gym. It is two minutes away, but the hassles of getting changed to go and then the reek of the place was just a total turn off. I want to be able to exercise when I want and having the equipment here will make it more likely that I will. I can beat the post prandial desire to snooze with a few minutes of exercise so, if you don't see me in the shop, figure that I am here, if the shop says "open" and that I am putting in a few minutes. Call the house number (on a sign next to the door) and I will be there, or feel free to shop and then let me know that you are ready. My next investment will be some kind of bell that lets me know that someone has driven into the driveway!

Happy knitting, felting, weaving, etc. and don't forget your health.