Go State!

This is a big weekend for Michigan State hockey fans because the team is out in Colorado playing for the National Championship. They won last night and if they win tonight they move on to the Semifinals on April 10 in Denver.
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You may recognize these two darlings as my dear granddaughters. The pictures were taken last year when Michigan State won the NCAA National Championship in St. Louis, MO.
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And I'm sure you are asking why the kids were at that game...... Right? Well, their Dad is the hockey team physician, so, of course, goes to the games - and the whole family got to go.

Life could get a little sticky for their family because next week the girls will be staying here (YEA!) because their folks are taking high school students to Costa Rica. They will return April 10th when, should State win, Dr. Bob will fly to Denver instead of home to Michigan.

Sunday a.m. - just in case you care, MSU lost last night..... :-(

A Wallaby for Each

I finished the girls' hoodies and just couldn't wait until their birthdays, go gifted them as Easter presents. My friend Nancy made them matching scrunchies for their hair. (Have I mentioned that I really, really can't crochet. My fingers act like they have no memory at all. )
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Both sweaters turned out a little large, but I guess that's good 'cause they may get a couple years out of them. And both girls seemed to like them. The youngest at 6 years old, Elizabeth, decided that she needed to learn to knit yesterday. That lasted about 5 minutes and we moved to the spinning wheel at her request. We waited until Meredith, 8 years old, finished the roving that she was spinning, and put Elizabeth on. Actually, she did quite well and took home a little ball. In the past she had only wanted to "pedal"
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I have started a Wallaby sweater for the girls' mom, Nikki. Yesterday I asked her if she wanted a pouch and a hood. Yes, please. Guess I was kinda hoping that she would say no. But I'm still excited about doing this pattern. It works from the bottom ribbing up and I added stitches for Nikki's pouch last night (twice 'cause I just couldn't get it the way I liked).

Way back on March 25th I showed you a picture of Meredith (the perfect granddaughter) working at my loom. This is a picture of her finished pillow, all handspun alpaca. I have to admit that I did help her warp the loom, or maybe she helped me, anyway, we got it done together. She did the yarn selections and the actual weaving. I had Suzanne, the owner of SipNKnit, the yarn shop uptown, sew it into this lovely pillow for us.
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Take a close look at that necklace too. We wet felted some wool balls and strung them up. I think she likes to come to grandma's house.
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I asked the girls if they would like to go into the dime store in town. Of course, being mall kids, they had no idea where we were going. Youngest, Elizabeth, told grandpa that we were going to get diamonds. Get it? Dime store - Dime monds?
The dime store had a great sellection of Webkinz pets. I finally came across something the girls didn't have. We bought a pink horse and a Clydsdale horse. What a hit! I had to set up a time schedule for them to use the computer. If you aren't familiar with these critters, let me tell you about this virtual world of pets. When you purchase one (about $10) you get a number so that you can log in to http://www.webkinz.com/ and register your pet. Then the fun begins - the pet needs food and attention so you have to earn points to purchase food, clothes, furniture for its room, etc. Points are earned on a large selection of age appropriate games or school type questions. You can take your pet bowling, exercising, partying, any number of activities. I found absolutely nothing objectionable at this site and suggest that all grannys become as popular as I am by being the first to hook your little one up. Elizabeth is 5 but reading a little so we had to help her some, but Meredith, at 8, managed great.

I so ♥ this roving dyeing! And spinning it! OMG it's so much fun. I have a dozen 2 ounce bumps dyed up now for the Allegan show, but it's awfully hard not to sit right down and spin it up because I want to see what it looks like. I think the dyeing is linking into my watercolor passion which seems to be on hold right now. I do have a landscape with some sheep in it brewing in my head but probably won't wet up the watercolors until October after our alpaca show at Birch Run.
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The granddaughters are coming on Thursday to spend a couple of days. Lucky us! I'm thinking of asking Meredith if she would like to spin a skein of alpaca to enter into the skein competition at the alpaca show. They have a youth division and it would be fun for her - if she wants to.

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It's raining today! We so need it, and it's that nice gentle, all day, water the crops, type of rain. Thank you Mother Nature, Crop Goddess, Collective Energies, God or whoever provided this for us.

Sunday seems to be family day here and today was no exception. Daughter Nikki brought the two grand daughters up from Owosso to meet the sheep. Meredith (8) is on the left giving Danny some 'nilla cookies, and Elizabeth (5) is treating Jenny. The sheep are really husband's project (although I get the fleeces) and he wants to restrict their treats 'cause they are a little plump. But he is a total push over when the girls are around.

I'm just about finished with my Journey to a Shawl project and will be posting it soon. Lots of spinning going on because I have a custom order for Jessica in New York. She would like as much handspun of white Ariana as I can spin. Yippee! but I have to spin something else in between or it feels like work and I get cranky.

Passing On Addictions

I guess that my addictions and/or passions are both my love of animals and of fiber arts. My own three grown children are animal lovers, be it dogs, cats, birds, worms, wildlife, whatever, and this passion has filtered down to the two grandgirls. This is 5 year old Elizabeth resting on my good girl, Cassie, and 8 year old Meredith is holding up her first, just cut off the loom, weaving. She thinks her weaving wants to be a pillow. We used up a bunch of my not really nice alpaca handspun yarns for our first project.

I'm pretty optimistic that we may hook our little, always on the go, Elizabeth into our fiber fun. She spun a little yarn on my wheel for the first time yesterday. Before this she just wanted to pedal - FAST. She also wove a couple rows on Meredith's weaving.

I'm alternating spinning the yarn and knitting on my Faroese shawl pattern. I have made enough mistakes that I'm not entering it into the MIAF fiber arts contest this fall. I still am really enjoying the knitting on this so am already thinking ahead to what kind of yarn to spin for my next one. Maybe some of that alpaca/dyed silk that is being made into roving for me......