Archive | Spinning

Spinning and How Much Drama can Just One Day Hold?

By Linda on May 23, 2012 in Spinning, WIP Wednesday, yarn along

I have finished my wool and tussah silk hand spun, I am very happy with it and it’s going to be a Winter scarf. I really love wearing scarves in Autumn and Winter and the fact that they are hand knitted makes me feel so happy to wear them.

It has been rather an interesting day so far, hence the title of this blog post. It actually started last night when we had no hot water to bath with. That was still fine and then this morning the geyser started to leak. It was later confirmed that it had burst in 3 places and would have to be replaced. Thank goodness we are still under warranty with the geyser company! They are going to install another one with no cost to us tomorrow. We do have another small solar geyser, so as long as we stagger the bath times we should all have hot water. Caiden has gastric flu, but seems to be feeling a little better now.

Later in the day I was taking the girls to their art lesson and our car overheated, I made it to a service station and when we tried to start the car again, the battery was flat??? The owner of the service station was so helpful and managed to charge the battery enough for me to make it back home and now we are off to buy a new battery.

Phew, it has been a day all right, but I am so grateful for all the wonderful and helpful people that have appeared throughout the day. At one point, I remember smiling to myself and thinking, maby it’s time to slow down, forget the panic and see all the goodness that surrounds me…

Thank you so much to everyone who responded to my blog post yesterday about simplifying our life, I have really enjoyed reading all your messages and I am still busy responding to each one:) You have all given me plenty to think about.

How has your day been so far?

Creative Friday

By Linda on May 18, 2012 in Crafts, Creative Friday, Spinning

Welcome to Creative Friday,

Thank you so much to everyone who visits this space!

Please feel free to post your links to anything you have created and would like to share, it can be a recipe, sewing tutorial, knitting tutorial, felting, crochet, crafts, art, spinning, weaving, working with fibre, photography, poetry…etc…

I also love to hear from you, so if you have a moment, please leave a comment:) Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful talent with us! Just add the name of your blog to the widget and then add your blog link with the http:// at the beginning of your link address:) I have added a Creative Friday button on the sidebar of my blog, please feel free to add it to your blog for Creative Friday and link it to http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/ so others can find this space and share their creativity too:)

1. I have started a Creative Friday Flickr Group where you can post your beautiful photos that you link to each Creative Friday.
2. If you would be so kind as to link back to Natural Suburbia in your blog post that would be lovely:)

Have a wonderful weekend dear friends,
Linda

WIP Wednesday

By Linda on May 9, 2012 in Book, Gardening, Knitting, Spinning, WIP Wednesday

I chose a new roving to spin up today from my stash, this is a Merino and Tussah Silk roving from the lovely Juno Fibre Arts. Her colours are so intense and rich and the added silk makes the spinning oh, so luxurious!
This will probably also be a cowl. Our autumn has been extremely mild so far, quite strange actually because usually by this time of year it’s freezing here. I am still walking around in my jeans and T-shirts, only adding a thin extra layer later in the evenings. So, I’m not complaining:)

The hippo pattern for my book is well underway and should be finished by tomorrow, it’s all so close now, very exciting!
(PS The stitch markers are from Jenna and Erin’s little Etsy shop called Magpies Aerie.)

Caiden and Kye discovered some beautiful visitors in our garden…

Hope your week is filled with fibre and fun!
Linda

Pretoria Botanical Gardens

By Linda on May 1, 2012 in Family, Gardening, Knitting, South Africa, Spinning

Today we went on a quick road trip to the Pretoria Botanical Gardens. This is a Waterfall we passed on the way up the ‘koppie’, I used Instagram to take the shot. It took us about 45 minutes to drive there. My Tea Leaves cardigan came along and I knitted a few rows in the car. I am busy with the front and sides section, so it’s just plain stocking stitch of close on 300 stitches per row. This can become a little monotonous with so many stitches, so every little row counts, right, whether sitting in the car or under the oak tree knitting…

I have also started a new cowl project, I saw it over on Ginny’s blog, the Circumnavigate Cowl, I loved it and spun up some Camel silk yarn for the project, (so soft!!) ok, I am going way off topic here, I’m supposed to be posting about our day trip, but you know how it goes when one mentions knitting, spinning and yarn all at once, the brain begins to focus on all things fibre related….
I will be writing more on this tomorrow though! 🙂

Now back to the gardens, (ahem…)

This photo was taken at quite a distance and I was really nervous that this little Dassie (Hyrax) would dart away into the bush, so the camera was shaking ever so slightly, hence the ‘not too great shot’ ! But there he is anyway, he is called a Dassie and I read on the information plate that his closest relative is the elephant! His skull bones look very similar to that of the elephant and he has thick pads on his feet. His feet also have a suction cup shape to enable him to climb up steep surfaces and the last fact I learned was that they do not actually drink water but obtain water in the grasses that they eat.