Osborn Fiber Studio

Family

This month was about a lot of things, but it was mostly about this:

My mom finally made it up to visit. It was so good for all of us to spend the last two weeks with her. She arrived the day after Valentine’s, and left yesterday. We’re all a little devastated, but she gave us lots and lots of love, and left us with some hope for loving each other a little better.

Stringbean turned 9:

And Sisko had a run-in with a truck. That was a week ago, and mercifully it looks like he really is going to be OK, but we’ll have a vet look at him next month.

Here’s what I’ve been making this month.

Knitting

Secret projects continue apace, but I took a break from them while Mom was here, and cast on something I’d been looking forward to: Weel Riggit in handspun.

This will probably take a while, since I can only work on it here and there, but it feels good to have swatching done and a good start on the body. The cormo/alpaca blends I made feel pretty fantastic to work with.

Spinning

Winters are for spinning! And I’ve been doing a lot. Right now, a day on which I don’t spend at least an hour at the wheel just doesn’t feel like a day. So I’m making some good progress.

I put the finishing touches on this 1-lb Gotland spin. I think I got a pretty good match for my original yarn from four years ago, what do you think?

Put them together, and I should have enough for a pullover? I hope!

I’ve spun sock yarn for three pairs of socks. Phoenix Rising Superwash BFL, and a 2-ply and 3-ply that I dyed myself. It’s piling up a bit, but I’m telling myself that I’ll knit lots of socks in May. Another thing that happened this month is that we planned our vacation, which will be a little different this year.

Three pairs done, and another pair nearly. Shall I ply it up today? Only laundry will tell.

Additionally, I finished the big qiviut project I started last month. I spent over two weeks in January just picking through three pounds of qiviut, and two weeks in February just cleaning it. Many small batches, many hot washes.

I’ve given a good bit of it away now, but I still have a good 700 grams left for myself. I’ve a grand plan for lots of blending and sampling. In another season. The unpleasant part is done, so whenever I get back to it, it’ll be pure fun!

Weaving

I did not get myself to the loom very much this month, but I did pick away (get it?) at this two-heddle plain-weave scarf. Early this morning I wove the footer, and cut it off the loom before lunch. I love how the pooling looks.

There were the usual tension issues, and some selvedge wobbliness. It was difficult to keep the thing square on the loom; I have to figure out what’s going on there. We’ll see after finishing whether it’s good enough to offer for sale.

My goal for March is to get the other two-heddle pooling warp on the loom; I don’t expect to get very far on it.

Sewing

Similarly, I didn’t get very far in my sewing. I did manage to finish the garden path stars before Mom got here, and we did the layout during her visit.

Though as you may notice, the square above has a rather significant mistake. Don’t worry, it’s only on two of them; I’ll fix it as soon as I can find where my seam ripper went. For this month, I would like to finish the cloth masks I started back in December, and make Any Progress At All on Dooner’s quilt. I did tell her I’d have it done for her birthday, so I can’t ignore it much longer.

Cake & Cooking

Double chocolate cake was delicious.

And so was the rainbow cat-icorn cake, which we will finish and/or give away today. I learned so much. I’m having so much fun being a beginner at cake decorating. It’s one of those disciplines where it doesn’t matter how much head knowledge or study you have, you just have to do it lots to get excellent results. That’s OK with me. More cake!

Recreational cake-ing will take a break for a while, because of Lent, but we do make exceptions for birthdays – of which we have two during this penitential season. Stay tuned for Mini-Mighty’s theme…

Church

I’ve been preaching a couple times a month, which has been good. We did a short series on the fruits of the Spirit. We’re going into Lent now. I’ve purged the house of the couple of things we’re giving up. I’m taking “Fat Tuesday” pretty seriously today, though I’ll regret it tomorrow when I get the shakes. I’m preaching at Ash Wednesday, including a children’s sermon.

It’s been a challenge for people, I think, that we’re still not allowed to sing in church, but we’ve started doing responsive psalms instead. I love the psalms, and doing them responsibly brings me back to my early Anglican days. I hope our congregation can learn to love them a little too, though singing is so important in this context.

Slowly, ideas for children’s discipleship are coming together. There’s a lot of discerning still to do. But it’s actually getting somewhere, because God is answering some big prayers. There might be some making of related stuff, and if that’s the case, maybe I’ll share about it here… for now, say a prayer for me and the team God is raising up to disciple kids and families in our town.

Are you getting into Lent mode? What is marking time for you these days? No matter what you observe, congratulations for making it through February!