Escaping Suburbia

Taking inspiration from Erica’s great photos of her fiber stash from Black Sheep Gathering last weekend, I snapped a few shots of my own haul. This was my first time visiting the annual festival and I only went for the vendors (and to see the sheep!), but there are workshops, fleece judging (& sale!) and a sheep-to-shawl contest.

Anyway, on to my new pretties:

From Crown Mountain Farms, 4 oz. of alpaca/tussah silk (70/30) in “fawn”. I’ve already started spinning this one and am attempting lace for the first time. This stuff is like wispy clouds… I think I’m wearing as much as I’m spinning.

Also from Crown Mountain Farms, 4 oz. of green cotton. The color in the above photo doesn’t do this justice.

Here we have 4.2 oz. of merino/tussah silk (80/20) from Dicentra Designs — one of my local faves! The colorway on this is called “Bouquet”.

I don’t remember which vendor had these mohair batts. I picked up these two to use in blending with other fibers using my drum carder. A pink and a lilac!

From New Hue Handspuns, 2 oz. of Bunny Patch Fibers merino/angora (80/20) in the colorway “Joseph’s Coat”. They really sold me by having knitted samples of all their fibers. Glad to find another nice local (Portland) seller!

Last but not least, 4 oz. of bamboo/wool (50/50) from Creatively Dyed.

All in all, it was a really nice day and I’m definitely going to go back next year!

We’ve started doing a little bit to the kitchen to get it ready for the changes we want to make. Step one was tearing out the false ceiling:

Step two was tearing out these cabinets:

So, now it feels much more open from the kitchen through to the dining room and beyond into the living room:

All the photos can be clicked to see larger images with more detail. Including our slightly sloppy counter tops & dining room table!

The plan is to get a new stove, and put that in the breakfast nook. In here, on the left side behind the curved wall… that’s where the fridge is now:

In that photo above, the floor-to-ceiling cabinet will be coming out too. That’s another false wall between the kitchen and the dining room. The fridge will be moved over to the wall that is to the right of the current stove. The unit where the stove is now will come out, and we’ll probably put in an island, so there will be kitchen entrances on both sides of that.

We’re going to get some metal cabinetry to put down in the basement to store food, keeping only the day-to-day items upstairs. We’re considering open shelving for everything else, but we have to plan that carefully now that we have these two cats.

And that’s been our Saturday!

Hey, baby.

I put a little chicken update over on my other blog, please check it out!

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!