Raspberries and cream

If I was to tell you that this was merely one of the good things that happened to me today you'd guess I'd had a pretty good time. And you'd be wrong because i had a fricking great time.

But wait. One has to approach these things in a logicial manner, plus provide something of a build up. I got the new rowan mag the other day and there were one or two things that caught my eye.


Yes, I know it's pompoms. But there's just something about it that makes me laugh! There were loads more like all the flower corsages and the button gloves and several jumpers. So a pom pom maker is obviously the next thing to be purchased.


Yesterday night I spun this silk and so naturally when I got up at 8am this morning the first thing I thought was 'I must boil some water and dye that with koolaid.' So that is what I did. I put the skein in the boiling water first then sprinkled the powder over the hank putting lots more on one side of the pan than the other.

It is now drying so I'll post a pic once it's done. So having done that you'd think I would sit back and have some breakfast. Maybe catch up on some reading. But no. I got out the old ball winder and wound up the silk tess gave me. Then I sat there and looked at it for a while. Come, join me in a moment's reflection.

My reasoning went thus - this is beautiful and so needs to be seen. It won't take much of a beating to ruin it. There's not enough to make a top out of. It's too floppy for a flower brooch. I know, I'll make a chain necklace like the scarf on the front of loop-d-loop. So here we are.

It is still a wip but I'm planning to finish it off for syon park tomorrow.

So then I was in waterbeach visiting Liz from Bradford fame. She's a dude. Her house is wonderful and frankly, I want it. Plus there were two cats. One was pedigree and could obviously tell with one flick of her tail that I was below her so hopped it. The other was nuts, but in a good way. So affectionate! I got some quality stroking in. Here she is

She is actually even prettier in real life. But I wasn't just there to be fed amazing food (this is where the raspberry meringues and cream come into things, following a gorgeous home-made quiche. Liz was teaching me the art of temari ball making. So off we went. I'm not going to go into all the steps because although it all went pretty smoothly it is rather involved. Not something for the train unless it was a very smooth journey. Suffice to say this is what we were aiming for.

This is the sputnik stage as Liz described it. All the pins are measured out and there are metallic ley-line type threads secured to it. I really enjoyed choosing all the colours and the best part is that there is huge stash potential without getting a huge stash as all the embroidery floss packs away quite small. Not that we didn't make quite a mess.

Amazingly the cats don't chase the threads at all and the cute one (pictured here - not really bringing out the great size of the fluffy wonder) left all the apparatus alone while making the odd attempt at scaling my lap. I really love cats. This one was an excellent cat too.

Anyway. Here is what I had done by the end of the afternoon....

Am I pleased with it? Are you joking? It's awesome! Even though I say so myself. And when I say that I'm talking about the whole temari genre rather than my little first attempt. I can see these making beautiful xmas tree decorations for mum and rob among others. 'The Temari book' is snug on my amazon wishlist.

I am so lucky with the people I have met online. I am off to syon park tomorrow to see tess, les and nik, all met through blogging. Oh my god, how could I have forgotten the big news though?

Pooch has agreed to the spinning wheel

Yeah baby. Pooch - I know you'll read this. You're really very lovely. xx