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I made the decision to move this blog over to Word Press. My hosting company has included a Word Press blog with my website package for years, but until now I've just been too lazy to set it up. But it's finally done, and I really like it. So come by and check it out!

Thanks,
-Tamara

Saturday my friend Cathy and I made the trek into Louisville to check out Baer Fabrics. It was supposed to be a happy visit to this huge 105 year old institution in downtown that is a legend in this city. The area theaters buy the fabric for their wardrobes from this place. It is our local version of NY's MOOD...big, old building filled to the rafters. I can remember my earliest visit with my mother when she needed to find the perfect taffeta for my aunt's wedding dress. She sewed a lot, a gift she learned from my grandmother, and whenever it was something extra special we would drive downtown to Baers. The old creepy elevators took the bravest souls to the upper floors where bolts of fabric were piled so high you couldn't walk....but now, the grand old lady is no more...
Unknowingly we arrived the day before they closed the door forever. The victim of this murderous economy and a pending foreclosure. It was so sad. Now all we have left is Hancocks, which is the equivalent of the Taco Bell of fabric stores. They don't even carry linen! What a loss. It just sucks. Almost everything was already gone when we got there, but we rummaged around and I managed to score this load of Japanese and German thread, big mixed bags of buttons, and some lace ends. I don't know what I'll use it all for yet...most likely it'll end up in yarns. It was a bittersweet day.

One of many reasons I love this month...fog in the morning. The October clouds like to hang just at the tops of the trees in the morning and they make everything look absolutely magical. Fairytale perfect. For about 3 minutes...then I remember I needed to go to work. Blah.

I finally updated the shop with new yarns! It's about time, huh? This yarn is Animalia. There are actually 3 skeins of it. It has a dark gray wool core that is wrapped with super soft llama. The spun skeins were then kettle dyed with a mix of golds and browns, so the result is a tiger effect. I love it. The wool came from our own sheep, Esme and the llama came from a local farm about 30 miles west of here. I really like how these came out, so I think I'll spin some more.

We sheared the three Wensleydales and one shetland (Lily) this fall. This is Tristan's raw fleece. It is lovely and I can't wait to wash them all. I did make the very tough decision to NOT put their coats back on. I haven't had any felting problems with the Icelandics, Jacobs or Shetlands but the Wensleydales wool is a problem. It grows like mohair in long Shirley Temple curls and the covers seem to push it against their bodies and keep the locks from hanging and growing into individual curls. It's still beautiful wool, but I'm going to take a chance and let them go through the winter without covers. Fingers crossed that I don't regret it later.

1. Major Home Construction - The master bathroom is under renovation and is a total disaster. I can see studs. But no more 1970's 'Austin Powers used to live here' wallpaper! Yeah!

2. The Children - The oldest child just returned to college, the youngest returned to high school...both sophomores. Thankfully, this was WAY less stressful than last year.

3. Uncontrolled Tech Addiction - We splurged and the whole family got iPhones. Since then we've been spending way too much time downloading many useless, but amusing apps from the Apple app store, and texting each other incessantly as if we've forgotten how to communicate with anything other than OMG, WTF!

4. Disgruntled Consumerism - Weeks and weeks have been wasted ordering things online that never arrived, break and have to be returned, or come in the wrong size, quantity, color...after 10 years of relatively uneventful internet shopping all the bad consumerism karma struck at once: August 2008 - The Year the Internet Shopper Died.  I think the demons have been exorcised for now though. Sears came through for me this week and renewed my hope that not all shopping carts on the web are evil.

5. New Job - Same company. Same cruddy military barracks building with exposed pipes and wet floors. But new position, new co-workers and new responsibilities, so I actually have to think about what I'm doing instead of just showing up and going through the zombie motions.

6. The Forge - The ongoing conversion of our outbuilding into a working blacksmith forge has been proceeding slowly but surely. Coal has been bought. A fire has been built. Steel has been hammered.

7. Uncontrolled Football Addiction - Football season just started and I over committed and joined two Fantasy Leagues. So instead of leisurely blogging about the relaxing joys of fiber, spinning and shepherding fat sheep, I am having to spend a considerable amount of mandatory time talking smack, and bribing male co-workers to do my bidding by holding key players for ransom (trades).

8. The 'Garden' - I planted one. Not sure why. It's way too needy. I can buy bigger, better vegetables from my neighbors at the farmers market for a lot cheaper than it cost for all that organic soil the weeds are growing in.

9. The New TDI - My 8 year old (almost 9), reliable, get you there no matter what, who needs an oil change, I sure wish crude was still $60 a barrel, Nissan truck was finally put out to pasture this week. I have been coveting a 'coming soon', but not soon enough, 2009 VW Jetta TDI with the latest, greatest "Clean Diesel" engine for the better part of a year. We finally pre-ordered the thing months ago when VW would finally take my check and conceded to put me on a long waiting list with a bunch of other overenthusiastic, environmentalist eco-snobs. Well, I FINALLY got the call early Saturday morning. It was like winning the damn lottery! We threw on some clothes, drove 70 miles to the dealer, tried not to look too overly excited, sealed the deal, slapped an Obama for President sticker on the back and then made the long drive back home while savoring the cool 40-50mpg it was getting. Dreams of filling it with KY grown bio-diesel have already commenced.

10. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST- SPINNING! - No. Really. I swear. Yarn is being made. Ask my children.

Homemade Creme Fraiche!
1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp sour cream
Put in a mason jar. Stir with a fork a bit to blend the sour cream into the heavy cream. Set somewhere warm. Partially cover it with something. Wait 24 hours. Thickens A LOT. Put in the refrigerator. Thickens EVEN MORE. Keeps for about 5 days.

At first I tried just setting it on the kitchen counter, but after 8 hours it still wasn't very thick in the air conditioning. So then I moved it out to the heat of our sweltering garage. The little dairy cultures must have loved our steamy humid Kentucky heat, because it immediately started setting up and within 5-6 hours it was yogurt thick. For a cover I just laid the jar lid on the top with a little gap for an air hole, but a piece of cloth would probably work too. Once thick, I screwed the lid on and put it in the refrigerator. After a few more hours in the fridge it was almost as thick as a tub of margarine.

It's not sweetened, so it does need some sugar if you want to put it on fruit or some other dessert. We just spread it on hot homemade biscuits with some plum jelly and it was awesome. Luckily, the teenage sons were here to devour most of it, because it probably has about 1,000,000,000 calories. Fun to make though. And easy.

A knitting mystery??? I saw this at Barnes & Noble. Haven't read it, so I don't know if it's any good...but what the hey, if it's just too hot to think about yarn in your lap, why not just READ about it! Says one of the main characters is the spinning instructor! Apparently she has a whole series of fiction for the fiberholic: http://www.maggiesefton.com/knitting.html  I love the one titled "Knit One, Kill Two"...or what about, "Dyer Consequences".  Too awesome.

Here's to farmers' markets. The only place you'll find carrots flaunting their 'goodness' to the world. Oh my.

Ok...last months temporary musical visit to China is over. Back to Scotland. I love me some kilts! These guys rock. We saw them live. Lots of banging drums, bag pipes, tattoos and bare knees. I'm fairly certain that I drive A LOT faster when this is in the CD player and turned up loud (which, of course, is the only way to listen to it).

I couldn't find them on iTunes or Amazon (I bought the CDs at their concert), but luckily they have their own site with a Listen Now! link. It seems to be a continuous stream, which is cool I guess, but kind of weird. It opened up as an Internet Radio station in my iTunes??

http://www.albannachmusic.com/