A day of firsts!!

 This summer is just zooming on by and I haven't done all of the things that I wanted to, as usual.  DH and I have been doing some traveling.  Last week he took the week off and we spent it at the cabin.  In all of the years we have had the cabin we have never taken a week off in the summer to go up there.  It was great.  One day we went on the Hiwassee Railway Loop trip, it was a nice relaxing trip, unfortunately about a third of the way into the trip it started raining really hard, that made it  almost impossible to see any thing out of the windows. We are thinking about going back this fall, it would be beautiful then.  Two days we spent working around the cabin getting some things done that we keep putting off.  I did a lot of cleaning, all of the closets, cabinets, even moved all of the furniture and cleaned under and behind it.  We spent one day hiking in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.  If you have never been there you should definitely try to visit it.  The trees there are huge!  There are two trails there both are relatively short and very easy to walk on.  We took a picnic lunch and made a day out of it.


This week it has been back to the real world, DH is back at work and I am trying to cram in all of the things that I said I was going to do this summer.  One project was to dye the wool yarn that I bought a couple of months ago at the Mother Earth Fair.  I read different directions online and decided that it wouldn't be that hard to do.  I used three colors, magenta, sangria, and seabreeze, overall I like the way it turned out.  I would like the blue to show up a little more, but I'm happy with it.  Now just to find the perfect pattern.


Since I had all of the dyeing materials out, I decided to try dyeing some of the cotton velvet that I purchased.  I tried dyeing some silk velvet a couple of weeks ago and didn't really like the way that it came out.  Luckily I found some white cotton velvet at a local fabric shop, Gail K's.  I found out that I couldn't use the same dyes that I use on my wool, so before our vacation I ordered the correct dye and put it to the test today.  I tried three different colors, yellow, purple and red.  I am very pleased with the yellow and purple, the red isn't bad, but it could be a little darker.  Can't wait to should it to Pat and Leisa.



My last "new" project for the day was these cute little coin purses.  They are made completely from my hand dyed wools, velvets and silk.  They are so easy to make. I already have two more cut out and plan on making them for Christmas gifts.  I have to make one for myself, and will have to put a pig on it, of course.