SWAPATORIUM: Ski Masks

Please let me know if anyone wants one of these made for the holidays! I had no takers on the knitted guts even though I thought they were way fabulous!! But these gems??? Well, how can you say no??
http://swapatorium.blogspot.com/2004/12/ski-masks.html

Or I could make you something like the brown ski mask and throw in a couple strips of ultra teeth whitening strips maybe??

http://www.livejournal.com/community/craftgrrl/6936155.html

My eyes have been violated.....

More on the cat bed fiasco tomorrow.
Happy Samhein!!
Namaste!!

Nada Gets Busted!!

Today the landlady said she had to come down and oil the furnace. Oil the furnace?? I grew up with a father who OWNED his own heating company and I've lived in the north and have never heard of anyone OILING the furnace!!! OK, so I figure she wants to see how crappy we live or something.... So, we're talking about her cancer, her treatment, etc and who walks..no, RUNS right through the kitchen but NADA!! And we KNOW the landlady doesn't know we have a cat. She never asked about pets, there's nothing about pets in the lease, but we figured for all the information the old neighbors gave us about her poking around our house and looking in our windows when we were gone, she'd probably seen either Nada or Michi Magick!! So, she went partially ballistic over it and said she wouldn't make us get rid of Nada. I told her there was no way we'd EVER get rid of Nada. We'd move first. Now what's going to happen when she sees Michi Magick?? LOL I guess we'll tell her we're cat sitting...
Anyway, enjoy the pictures of the first snow! It was pretty exciting after not having seen snow for like 25 years! Now that Nada's been discovered, she can go outside (attended) and hunt for lizards! Wait til she finds out there aren't any in PA.....
Namaste!!!

New Yarn!!!

Here are some of my most recent Punk Rock, Hippie, Novelty yarns!! The Chakra piece and the white with little flowers (Garland) are both for sale on eBay under Michi_magick
http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=michi_magick

I must finish weeding the rose garden (The Nightmare Before Christmas garden) and get the roses banked for winter. I'm actually going to see SNOW!!
Namaste!!

Fall Bounty

Just some photos of lots of fall offerings given to us by family and neighbors. How about the huge sweet potato! We made a meal of it. The coin laying on it is a quarter! I love the beautiful colors in all these veggies. It's like eating a rainbow!
The casserole is from The Moosewood Cookbook. Luscious shells and cheese with cauliflower, bechemel sauce and lots of herbs. The BEST!!
Namaste!!

Fall in Smicksburg, PA

J and I drove out to Smicksburg for their Fall Festival a few weekends ago. I use to go there when I'd visit PA in the fall and attend the Sheep to Shawl competition at The Weaver. One year they paid me to photograph the event. It was WONDERFUL! But, The Weaver closed....So, I was expecting just a nice day in the woods with my Dear Husband! We started going in the little shops looking around and lo and behold, The Weaver was open under a different name! I bought 6 ounces of wonderful white roving of an unknown type. But, it's soft and spins beautifully! I asked about large hand carders and the woman offered me a slightly used pair from classes they teach there for $30. Well, I was all over that!! When she had to go ask the manager, the price jumped to $58!! For that I could buy a new pair! Oh well.. My shetland fleece is just going to have to wait or be carded with the little flicker brushes I have here...
But, it was a wonderful day with perfect weather! No sweating and misery like Florida craft shows..
The fall foliage photos are the mountain that I see from my front door. The fall leaves are phenomenal this year!
Namaste!

Yoga and Our Lady of Sitka

I started back to yoga classes last week and had completely forgotten how much I LOVE doing yoga even if I do feel like a wrung out rag the next day!! The Yogi was a wonderful young woman who had The Light radiating from her. I instantly attached to her and we had a great chat about massage and how much more East meets West is going on in this little mountain town. She hooked me up with the woman who's coordinating the Massage Awareness week, so hopefully I can get out and do some free massages! That would be most wonderful!
After the class I went with my mother to the Russian Orthodox church to see the icon, Our Lady of Sitka http://www.forcc.org/ladyofsitka.html Since this is a small mountain town, the church wasn't expecting that a lot of people would go see her or attend The Akathist Service for her. Well, surprise of surprises, when my mother and I finally found a place to park, the big ornate church had people waiting out both doors and out to the sidewalk! We found a place in line and slowly made our way through the nave and finally in through the large, ornate doors. As I stepped over the threshold, singing began that was unearthly! I couldn't tell where it was coming from!! I actually had to ask my mother if she was hearing it too, or were there angels singing?? The inside of the church (should read cathedral) was beautifully ornate with wonderful paintings of the apostles in triptychs above their portraits, the stations of the cross (guessing here.. I'm not Catholic) below that. Behind filigree white walls with golden edges at the front was a rotunda just like the European cathedrals that were used for the pilgrims to file around on their journey. An altar in the middle.The ceiling was vaulted with another rotunda of sorts and paintings of the sky and angels. The front was flanked with two large panels of The Virgin holding Jesus. As we made our way down the center aisle two by two, the priest announced that they were starting the Akathist Service and they wanted the multitude to continue to come to the front of the church to honor the icon. There was not an empty space in any pew. The smell of incense and burning wax, the ethereal singing from both the choir and the congregation and the powerful energy given off by the people in the church was intoxicating! The feelings of the paritioners was palpable. I've never felt an energy like that except when I was an escort for the Dalai Lama! When we finally made our way to the front of the church we could see the painting on an easel. It was surrounded by probably eight standing priests dressed in black. Looking very Russian or Eastern European. They were all singing. One priest sat on a low wooden chair. His back to us, facing the icon. We watched people kissing Mary and Jesus, touching the ground in front of the icon and crossing themselves. This being foreign to me, it only added to the mystery of it all. When I was alone with the artwork. I looked deep into the eyes of Mary. They say to look at their eyes. Mary's and Jesus'. That many healings have occurred by looking at them. I couldn't think of anything to put a miracle to, so I asked for a healing for my mother's hips and please bring closure to the Iraq mess if it was in the cards to do so... Oh, and maybe a little something for our landlady's breast cancer.. I'm not sure how I feel about miracles. But, it was a very notable experience that I'll carry with me right in the same pocket of my soul that carries the energy of the Dalai Lama!
Namaste!!

Another New Yarn

I have no idea why the last pictures ended up on my other blog... Aw well, let me try to put a picture of Autumn Equinox on here NOT using Picasa.. Maybe I need to check my settings there.
Autumn Equinox is Corridale super coils on Kool Aid dyed base yarn. I added orange and green glass beads at the beginnings and ends of the coils. Pretty colors together. I love doing the coils!!
Today's my birthday... hold your applause!! I got one of the best presents.... a letter in the mail that said my mammo was PERFECT!!
Today we're going out for a late lunch, then CHEESE CAKE with the family to celebrate my recent revolution around the sun! Tomorrow we're heading to Smicksburg to a fiber/craft show and to Silverbook Farm for some fibers!! Couldn't be a better weekend!

EBAY IS EVIL!!!

I made this great new novelty yarn yesterday!! I'm going to be sorry I'm selling them all, but my life belongs to evilbay... At any rate, it's 100% wool with handcarded white roving and Dragontails all plyed with metallic thread and REAL CRYSTALS!! I love the way the Dragontail blended with the wool! It can be seen at Michi_magick on evilbay along with my Autumn Equinox and some nifty hand lampworked stitch markers I made just because they're fun to make. OH, and my Asian kitty sachets to keep the moths out of the wool!! Enjoy the pictures! G and family made it Tyler, TX OK, but no word on the condition of their home or the business in Galveston yet.. LOVE you guys!!!
Namaste!! (Michi-Magick on ebay)

Hurricane Rita

I've been so worried about my son and his family and my sister on the TX gulf coast!! Finally today I spoke to G and they're leaving for Tyler, TX. Well, I suppose they're already on their way by now, or at least sitting in that great evacuation parkinglot, I-45, the gulf freeway! I remember people trying to leave for hurricane Alan in the early '80's sitting on 45 for 6 hours or more just to make it to Houston. I'm sending angels with all ya'll!!
Today I half finished my new novelty yarn and hope to have pictures tomorrow.. and an evilbay auction!! This one is Kool Aid dyed in sage and orange and has green super coils that are working out MUCH better than the crawdads! I plyed the green in an S instead of a Z which last time tended to make the coils open when they were plyed. This time I have very tight coils. The only thing I don't like is that the 'tail end' of them tend to be somewhat overspun. Well, that may all straighten itself out when it's put on the skein board. BEAUTIFUL NEW one that my DH made for me!! So much easier than a niddy noddy tho he has made some beautiful ones from palm tree wood when we lived in FL.
So, for your entertainment this evening, here are two pictures of chemtrails with a sylph that looks like an angel or a cross. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, do a google search for chemtrails. You might be amazed. And frightened!!
Namaste! And bless all you folks sitting in traffic trying to escape Rita, especially those I hold most near and dear!

Crawfish Pie

Here's Crawfish Pie finished!! I plyed it with rayon and 6mm (I think) black glass buttons. About every three long pulls (about a yard) I added a piece of roving about 2" x 4" and just let it ply on the sage green base. Then I plyed again with handspun, hand painted and handcarded pink roving every time I came to one of the pieces of pink roving I had added to the base color. At the beginning, end, inbetween, wherever I liked, I slid some beads up the rayon to add some eyes to the little critters. I think it's kind of cute, especially since I love crawdads!! YUMMY!! So, this was my first experimental piece that was actually at some points done with three fibers at one time. Sometimes I had a tangled up mess, sometimes I had to pull a big crawdad thru the oriface, sometimes I said swear words... bad ones. But, all in all it's kinda cute. Makes me chuckle a little when I look at it!
My blood pressure is high!! I NEVER have high bp! Doing some research on the net I find that two of the pain meds the physical therapist has me on cause high blood pressure and elevated pulse rate. Are they trying to kill me?? I HATE medicine!! Goodbye pain pills and muscle relaxants. I do love the little rush of Vicodin, but I don't like knowing my heart's working overtime!! Spinning is my meditation....
Namaste!!

Where Has My Blog Gone?

I think I have two blogs about fiber arts... I can't find my pictures of my latest ventures.. Ah well, that being what it is or isn't here are some of my latest things.

The reds are Kool-Aid dyed Coopsworth from Jihyrah (I think..) Farm. Very clean roving! The top yarn is plyed with rayon and Dragon's Tail silk noils.

The bottom is the same Kool-Aid dyed but plyed with mohair in a soft fawn color. Beautiful halo on this one!!

The white was just a fun piece about 20 yards long with white roving and eyelash yarn. Would make a great rune bag! All are on (or were on) evilbay under Maxinecoxfibers.

This evening I dyed two 100 yard skeins of wool. One I did a sage green with varying intensity that I want to do some pink coils on and the other is a green and orange that I plan on doing some flowers of some kind for a real novelty yarn! 100 yards of it should be enough do so something special!

Tomorrow J and I head off to the Mountain Craft Days! I'm hoping to hook up with some fiber folk there! Surely someone else in PA spins and weaves!

Namaste!