I’m Not A Deer Hat & Scarf

I thought I made a post last Fall about the hat that I knit for deer hunting season….but upon close inspection of past articles, nope, found nothing.

To back track a wee smidgeon, last Fall I went for a walk, around the first week of November, or whenever deer hunting season (with guns) starts in Ontario.  As I am walking down the road (my daily ritual), hunters in full gear on ATV’s whizzed by me with their guns strapped to the backracks.

Hmmm I thought, not a good place to be out walking with all these hunters around with nothing … Read more...

Atomic Sunrise & Goosebumps

I tried something new on the weekend and ended up with an Atomic Sunrise and Goosebumps.  No, those are not new cocktail ideas…although they could be, I will have to think on those a spell.

Anyway, back to my new adventures.  I have oodles of Wilton’s Food colouring gels in the kitchen not being used up since I don’t bake as much as I used to (lots of reasons, and hubby being one of them).  With closing the Northern Homestead for the winter, all my natural dye supplies are up there waiting for Spring to arrive and me with it.  … Read more...

The Great Avocado Dye Experiment!

Yesterday I posted a recipe using avocados, and in that recipe I said to save the pits and skins for later use.  I guess I *should* have been more specific, but I thought it would be interesting to see how many people would be wracking their brains wondering what the heck would you use them for.  I mean, they are inedible after all, and unless you are wanting to grow an avocado tree, why save the pit?

So here is what I do with them….

To one 500ml canning jar, I added 3 oz of chopped avocado pits. Combined 3/4 … Read more...

From Ewe To Me

With Love.

DSC04118Which is absolutely spot on.

Over a year in the making, I have finally completed a project that started with roving from sheep fleece, spun it into yarn, then wove it into a blanket.

This is my ‘practice’ blanket.  I have another one planned for the alpaca I am still spinning, but this was a test to see if my handspun can hold up to the high tension requirements of loom weaving.  It is comprised of rough, lumpy, bumpy yarn that were mostly spun a year ago, which I then spent last summer experimenting with natural dyes and … Read more...

2016 ~ The Year of the Wheel!

Happy New Year to everyone!  Yes, it has been awhile, but how many of you had the time to try and keep up a blog AND do all things Christmas-y?  Baking, cooking, shopping, wrapping, visiting, etc?

That is my defence and I am sticking to it.

I can also add spinning, knitting and weaving into the above as many of you who follow me on Facebook can attest to as I  regularly post pics of FO’s or WIP’s (Finished Objects or Work in Progress) to brighten the days of those cruising on FB.

Now that the holidays are fading in … Read more...

Alpaca Throw Blanket

I have a serious flaw.  I come up with crazy thoughts and ideas that cause me to spend days, weeks and even months doing something that results in an object I could have gone to the store and bought.  This time? I am making an alpaca throw blanket from scratch.  Way more fun than buying a made-in-China-piece-of-crap-knockoff.

Last Fall my lovely daughter and her husband visited an Alpaca farm just outside Niagara Falls and brought me back 2 alpaca fleeces.  As I was in the throes of Christmas prep, house renovations and purging/packing to move, the two fleeces were washed … Read more...

2015 Summer Vacation

*Hello*!

Can you see me waving?

DSC03461

No, not the loon (who seems to be waving) but me! 😉

Long time, no chat everyone!  Totally my fault though as the past year has been nothing short of controlled chaos (and I use that term loosely).  Last summer hubby and I started getting our house ready for sale, meaning de-cluttering, purging, building a new bathroom, gutting and renovating the original bathroom and sprucing up the property.  All that effort eventually paid off, even if it tried our patience (and bank account) as we sold promptly this past March in 3 days.

After … Read more...

Do You Hear Crickets Chirping?

It has been a crazy few months around the Southern Homestead.  So much to do in so little time that I have neglected one of the things I love to do most….write my daily adventures.  Hence the title of this post…the long time sound often used to denote nobody or nothing is around or listening.

Let’s see if I can catch y’all up here…

I spent almost every waking moment from January until 2 weeks ago purging, cleaning, primping and staging our home for sale.  I sewed new throw pillow covers for pretty much every room in the house (14 … Read more...

Dyeing With Marigold Flowers

This year I had an abundance…..no…an over-abundance of Marigold flowers around the Homestead.  They not only provide cheerful, sunny, colour to my garden landscape, but they are also perfect companion plants in vegetable gardens as their somewhat obnoxious smell wards off harmful insects, as well as luring the pollinators towards my veggie plants.

So what to do with this overabundance of flower heads? Well, you can’t eat them, but you can use them to dye yarn with.  Which makes sense since I have been spinning up a passel of yarn in the latest hobby craze to enter my life.

Dyeing … Read more...

From Sweaters To Soups To Spinning

It’s hard to believe how fast *summer* flew by.  By summer, I mean that bright yellow thing in the sky that was supposed to give us heat for oh…say about 3 months or so?

Not this year.  We had snippets of heat, but certainly not what we are used to.  Rainy too.  Good thing I have a home-made recipe for killing moss, because I need to use it on my hair to get rid of what’s now surely growing up on my head.

With Fall snapping at my heels, it is almost time to pull out the soup pot.  First … Read more...