Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Tuesdays are for embroidery

I've been cross-stitching a lot recently but not documenting it much. I hereby vow to share an embroidered snippet once a week. The image below contains foul language, so consider yourselves warned.

It's incomplete but not by much—I'm thinking about what small elements to add above and below what's there already, and I'll also want to line it with some matte black fabric to keep the silver on the back of the phone from showing through (as it does in the image). But it's getting close to done.

Which noise I am not sure

Monday, November 14, 2011

There were also hundreds of fluffy bunnies

Yesterday was the last day of the Royal Winter Fair, so we made the trip down to Toronto to witness the spectacle. I'd never been to an agricultural fair that didn't involve warehouse-sized rooms full of combines and wheat-braiding competitions, so this big-city Ontario version was novel for me.

We saw prize-winning apples!

Prizewinning apples

And inspected many fleeces (more on this subject anon)!

Coloured fleeces

We swooned over sweet sheepy faces!

Lounging

And marvelled at a row of giant butts!

Butts

At the end of the day we were rewarded with a lovely cow with silky ears! Her handlers had a fan set up next to her enclosure so her ear furnishings waved in the breeze.

The best-furnished ears

The fleece auction was surprisingly exhilarating; Mel and I had a lot of (quiet, intense) fun making a slow circuit through the auction room examining each one and making notes on our cheat sheet. We didn't get our best beloved but did get our second-favourite, a massive handsome grey Romney-looking fleece from Gillian Mullins in Stirling. Today I washed a few locks to see what the deal was, and they are sturdy and glossy and long. Also bought were a shiny longwool fleece¹ and a creamy white Icelandic fleece I want to knit about twenty mittens out of.² It should be enough to last me until next November.



¹ What, we were curious. It placed sixth in its category and I felt sorry for the poor darling because it's lovely really; I promised it I'd make it into something pretty.

² Another One That Got Away was a beautiful moorit Icelandic lamb fleece. Sigh.