Geocaching and Ducks

Years ago Holly wrote on her blog about geocaching. It never left my mind. My daughter came up with this about a year ago. I talked about it with Holly and she came with the idea of sending a 'travel bug' to each other. She send me two from her place and I crocheted these ducks to send them to her. (Holly told me not to buy something expensive or very neat so I came up with these ducks) 

But, I have so many things I like to do and time flies. 

And these ducks kept staring at me from my dressoir all the time.........

They really wanted to travel the world.

Annemieke came with some help. She and her DH are very active geocachers. She helped me to find my first cache so I could send my ducks on their way to their new home. 

Their journey started in Cruquius. 

The pink one went to Katwijk and is now in someone's hand to travel to ??? I don't know yet. 

But the yellow duck is arrived in Oregon with some help from a friend!! Isn't that fantastic. It travelled 6256 miles, visited Nevada, Idaho to Oregon. 

Please read more about this at  Holly's blog. (click) She has a nice blog with amazing pictures of Oregon. 

Lucy

Friendship

Yes!!!!! I have completed my quilt of friendship.  (click)

It was so fun to make. I will definitely make a strippy quilt again. It's easy to sew with a great result. 

Don't you think a quilt like this in solids would be great? (I have a lot of solids in my stash)

But first I have another quilt top waiting to be quilted.  And this quilt is ready for use. The weather is grey and it is getting colder outside. 

Lucy

Next part of my spinning experience

Well the next part of my spinning experience isn't what I was hoping for :-/

I wound up the yarn from the spindle onto a plastic lid. I made it wet it and let it dry. Then I found out that for plying you have to do it directly from the spindle.

Ok I have now a 1 ply Icelandic wool. 

The yarn feels soft before spinning and while spinning. Only after moisten it feels a little coarse .... 

I've read about a nøstepinne on which you can wind the yarn into a nice ball..

Because I don't have a nøstepinne I searched for something similar what I have.

This should work. 

Next problem was that I didn't have something like a yarn swift and the yarn came of the plastic lid and everything tied together.  After minutes.... almost hours I decided to break the yarn so I have at least a small ball..

and the other part? That went into the garbage.

Spinning is learning.

Lucy

Spindle

 After a little practicing with my spindle of 34 years old I found to that it is too heavy to spin a nice thin thread. (50 gr.) The thread broke often and the little hook on top too. So time to search for what I need. 

A friend gave me a tip for this site: www.spintollen.nl

They sell wonderful spindles 

And so it happens and this one came home. It is a gentle small spindle of 23 gr. 

Perfect to spin a nice thin thread.

The blue thread is sock yarn for 2,5 mm needles. 

 The wool I'm spinning is from a light grey Icelandic sheep.

I can tell you I'm hooked and I feel a new addiction coming :-) 

Lucy

ps. and for the quilters who read my blog... Yes I'm still quilting too. I hope to have a finish soon.