A glance back to April

Almost a month has flown past! A month filled with happenings, growth, sadness, walks, marveling at the blossoming of a small baby as well as fruit fruits and plants.

The Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival in mid-April was good. This much smaller venue was more relaxing with time to interact more with other vendors and attendees. Once again I taught a drop-spindling workshop – which turned out to be very enjoyable for me, and I believe for the 8 women who took the class. (Yikes, I still need to send a follow-up email to them.)
I had thought I’d gotten a picture of everyone but when I uploaded to the computer at home one of the pictures with the two other ladies was too blurry. What a fun, delightful group of women!
Saturday, during a lull in the Market, Ed walked around to see what other vendors had to offer. He came back all excited about a wheel that one vendor was selling. Urging me to go check it out (meaning, buy it!) I raced to the booth and saw it standing, the distaff wrapped with shocking bright fiber. The vendor’s mother had been home to Germany and came across an old man who wanted it to go to a good home. He had loving memories of his wife spinning with it.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a pretty wheel and works fairly decently considering that the wheel itself is a bit warped.  I’ve spun up some of the pink & green mohair that came with it. Ed has been intrigued by this style of wheel for some time and dreams of making one along these lines so he’d been on the lookout for one he could use for a model. It may be a long time before he can work one up, most of his free time these days has been devoted to tearing down an old shed he’d quickly put up years ago when he desperately needed a place to store lumber. He’ll be bringing in an old truck box which will be much more weather and animal proof. Perhaps not pretty but that’s the way of it these days. Then there’s yard work and soon a garden to tend.

The festival is a wonderful small show but my favorite part is the drive through the Gorge. Friday while driving east to the Festival we stopped about noon at Cascade Locks, a town 10 miles from Hood River, where the festival was held. This shot looking westward where we’d just driven through this incredible scenery. was taken from under  The Bridge of the Gods (the modern bridge really has nothing to do with the Native American history and legend of this old name place).

How can I post after almost a month’s absence without any pictures of sweet Violet?She was full of smiles when she came to visit last week, and modeling the Sweet Norwegian Baby Cap and Baby Yours sweater I knit for her (I bought the pattern several years ago but I’m sure it’s on Ravelry!).

Bapa Ed giving her a bottle, he loves holding and feeding his little Violet.The hospital where Aurora gave birth has a wonderful counseling service for nursing mothers; initially after birth she took Violet in twice a week and they helped her and baby get off to a success start with nursing. One sound advice was to pump milk to periodically bottle feed Violet (after she was two weeks old), not only does this ensure her milk was coming in adequately and that Violet was getting plenty but to  have handy for daddy and grandparents to be able to feed Violet when necessary.