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Pretty amazing.  From 1950, but sounds like it could be today.

Weekend Dyeing Fun!

Since I am client training this week away from home, I knew I had to get some crafty goodness under my belt to get me through the week!  Saturday I decided to use the day to get some wool dyed in preparation for a couple of art fairs I'm going to do in the next couple of months.  I grabbed a large turkey roaster, a large bag of ice and lots of Cushing Dye packs and got to work!  The idea for ice dyeing came from one of my most favorite blogs, Primitive Spirit.  Karen Kahle is a well-known fiber artist, and I just LOVE pretty much everything she does!  (I may be a little stalker-ish....don't judge)!

So once I got all the supplies together, I got started.  The color recipes I used are at home, so I'll add them to this post later, but have lots of pics to share!  Let me know what you think.

After soaking a yard of taupe wool in lukewarm water with a few drops of Dawn and vinegar, I plopped it into the roaster with about 1/2" of water in the bottom.

I then added a layer of ice and began sprinkling the different dye colors onto the ice.  Be careful with this step, and you might want to wear a dust mask.

Put the top on and turn the roaster to 300 degrees for a little over an hour or until the ice has melted.  I took the wool out of the roaster and put it into a strainer (used ONLY for dyeing) then gave it a spin in the washer and hung it out to dry. Repeat the process four times with different colors, and Here's the results!  Can't wait to use these colors in a rug as soon as I get back from my work trip!

Our garden is producing gangbusters, so last Wednesday I got to work making bread and butter pickles, but with honey instead of sugar.

 Getting the cukes ready!

Yummy pickles!!

So now I'm in Springfield, MO to do some training for one of our new clients, but come the weekend, I'll be back home crafting and canning!  I can't wait!!

Giving Bloglovin' a shot!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Not quite sure what this is about, but since I've got to kick this blog into high gear, let's see what happens!

Imposter Vegetables...or the Summer Squash that never was!

So, a quick garden story.....

Hubby bought me a greenhouse for my birthday last year.  I was so excited!  As soon as it got above freezing, I started planting seeds!  I had visions of vegetables and flowers in every square inch of my yard and all planted by my own two hands!  Well, reality and hotter temps set in, and while I had planted most of the seedlings I had started, a few were left, tomatoes, three kinds of squash, and some herbs were still waiting.  One day I forgot to open the vent and door to the greenhouse, and it got above 100 degrees and burned the plants.  Sad, but not down for the count, I went to a local garden store and bought eight tomato plants, eight summer squash plants, and eight zucchini plants.  Now each was well marked and I was careful to put them in separate raised beds and label them.

Fast forward to last night between thunder storms, I am outside with Winston, and while he's taking care of business, I am checking out the summer squash.  As I'm moving leaves, I realize that I have several squash ready to pick, but their not yellow, their green!  As in green like zucchini!  After checking a few other things out, I realize that I now have sixteen zucchini plants!!  Along with the six-one gallon freezer bags full of shredded zucchini from the garden last year!! 

The picture below show the Zucchini Armageddon coming to my house VERY soon!!  The beds are marked!

So, needless to say, anybody living close to me ever need zucchini....I'm your gal!

Busy Spring and Summer!

Our Spring and Summer has been so busy!  Started with a wonderful vacation to the Outer Banks with our friends Jim and Carolyn, continued with garden planting, training Winston (ongoing), and lots of crafting!  I think this post would be better with lots of pics and less words, so please, enjoy!

Winston's first boat ride!

Another first boat ride pic

Bottle Gourd plants

One of our garden markers.  Pretty cool what you can do on a budget!

Green bean plants

Greenhouse

Peach tree.

Pickling Cukes

Sideyard/garden entrance

Raised beds.  Romaine lettuce, broccoli, collards, tomatoes, summer squash, and zucchini.

Sunflowers and pepper plants.

What A Day....Already!

So today started out like any other day.  Drag myself out of bed, take Winston out for his morning constitutional

This is Winston gazing longingly at our neighbor's yard hoping beyond hope that his girlfriend, Rosie was outside as well.  Rosie is a couple of years older than Winston....quite the cougar..er, dog!

Headed back inside, got ready for work, told Aaron and Winston bye and drove off.  Well, drove about halfway there and had to pull over because of a flat!  Panicked call to Aaron and my knight in shining armor showed up and not only changed my tire, he took my car to Joe's Tires and had them all replaced!  I'm a lucky gal! lol

So, I did check out "the farm" as Aaron calls our greenhouse, and there's green everywhere!  Here's a few pics of the seedlings as well as my make-do plant identifier.

My seedling list.  The yarns correspond with the same yarns in each little pot.  Hey, it works!

Not much happening in the last two trays, but I bet by this weekend, there will be green here too!  So far I've planted broccoli, green beans, snap peas, kale, Big Boy tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, Romaine lettuce, salad cukes, pickling cukes, brussels sprouts, bottle gourds, beets, sunflowers, sweet peppers, and hot peppers.  I might have missed a couple, but I'm so excited about our garden!  We are going to do some rearranging of the garden, but here's how it looks now.  The newest addition is the Tibetan prayer flags I hung up a couple of days ago.  I love the pop of color they add!!

Hey...there's Winston!!

This is our greenhouse, and I can't tell you how much fun it is!

Tonight is a meeting of  The All-American Valley General Store Fiber Arts Group, and I'm heading there after work!  There's a great group of ladies who spin, knit, crochet, and rug hook (that would be me), and just chat.  I'll try to get some pictures to post tomorrow.

Looking for Spring!

So for my birthday last year, we added a greenhouse to our little suburban garden!  While hubby has been playing with trying to grow veggies over the winter, I moved his experiments out and started some flats of broccoli, brussel sprouts, green beans, beets, and quite a few herbs.  Fingers crossed they all come up, and my garden is a huge success!!