Cat's Fiber Adventures

Proof that Fiber Stuff still happens at Casa Cat. I've been carding the very first Romney fleece I ever bought to use as samples for my spindle class on Monday. The staple is really too long for a drum carder, but I prefer drum carded fleece for teaching. I'll also make up batts of a shorter, finer Romney fleece. I like to have a variety of fibers for each student to take home and work with...

So I'm not going to say what I paid. I left her house with two garden trash bags full of wool, wool blends and silk fabric. They were too heavy for me to carry alone. There's some really great stuff in there and I'll be showing it to you over the next few weeks as I start cutting! One piece is coat weight in a great taupe. There are two 1 meter lengths of genuine tartan. Yards and yards of...

And I'll be having another after work today. That's Stash Enhancement eXcursion for the Muggles. Yesterday after work I had a lovely visit with a former co-worker whose roommate is de-stashing her quilting fabric. She just wanted it gone, so I got first pick before it's all hauled to Goodwill. Score! C. collects only the good stuff, and some of it was in pretty large cuts. Since I was down to...

I finally made it in to Ravelry! It's been discussed on the lists, and I have to agree that it's an incredible Time Suck. I'm working today, so I won't be doing anything with it, but I'll be listing my stash and projects (I wonder if there's a way to print out the finished list...) and linking to my designs and poking around real soon. If you're on, my ID is catmccall, so "friend" me and I'll do...

Whew! All those tomatoes boiled down to this. 11 quarts of plain tomatoes, 5 pints of salsa and two batches of salsa in the fridge. Seems kinda anticlimactic, doesn't it? See the pumpkins in the background? I figure that while I have R's pressure canner on loan I might as well try something else new...Also, I have a few of those white squashes. How do I cook them? I've never tried...

Edited to add pictures... Made a quick dash into the local thrift shops today at lunch and found five vintage patterns. All are a size too small, but it will give me a chance to work on my pattern alteration skills. They also had a nice selection of metal cake pans and I walked away with a nice pair, as shiny as if they were new. Also picked up a few flower pots for the African violets that...

Edited to add a picture: I went to a meeting with some fiber women in the next town over last night and came away with three large bags of ripe tomatoes. Heirloom, organic tomatoes! It's at least 30 pounds, and I am so happy to have them. Tonight I'll process and can them, and I'll post some pics. Please excuse my lameness in having no photos - the light last night was bad and I was busy...