It's a new day, Sun in the sky and I'm feeling good

Syncronicity. Not possible at this stage of my life. I'm here, there, all over the map with some kind of attention asset disorder. Too many pretty things to attend to in life and not enough time. Looky here. I treated myself to this homegrown electric drum carder for Christmas.  I heard from a friend of a friend of an acquaintance that it was lolling about in a basement out in Madison County, NC, not all that far from the mountain house. The previous owner couldn't tell me much over the phone, just that it was "homemade" by the owner previous to her and that she had used it "quite a lot" for carding her homegrown alpaca fleece and it worked great. I took a chance and went to see it, which was difficult, given the amount of alpaca clogging up the works. There were at least two, two and a half alpacas in there. And enough VM to fertilize my garden for a year.

---

Still. I saw the potential and plonked down a couple hundred dollars and dragged her home for a bath. Vacuum, steel wool, oil, Murpheys, polish, tweezers and voila! What a great rescue carder! An older, basic Louet- sturdy and built to last. Someone took a lot of time and care building this fantastic enclosed case and slapped on an engine strong enough to run a car, along with several automotive quality belts. Hurrah! I LOVE this machine. 

---

As we were hauling So. Much. Stuff. to St. Petersburg I loaded up the carder (she needs a name!) and today, New Years Day, I spent a lovely relaxed morning out on the porch making batts for the Winter Retreat back in Asheville in 2 weeks. You coming? You signed up for classes? You want a discount coupon for some beautiful batts? Check in...

The reason I had time to drum card this morning was directly linked to getting this tiny winter studio organized. Rich helped out; we went to IKEA and got some much needed new storage. This is, after all, a tiny winter bungalow for us but it was amazing the difference once he assembled three 100.00 dressers. Yeah! IKEA. (Remind me to post the video where IKEA turns several hundred cats loose in one of their main stores for a night. Very funny and sweet.)

---

Now I at least know where everything is. I like this photo. Let's see. Abby and Daniel photos as tots. 100+ year old world globes. Field guides. Wool. Middle-aged pin cushion. Long horn steer pin cushion. birdhouse waiting to be finished. Newly carded batts. Hat made by a BFF out of yarn spun by a different BFF, both from BCMA. My USB powered mini fiber optic Christmas tree...yup. Feeling settled in.

---

That means it's time for...OPEN STUDIO FLORIDA! (Sorry, Paddy, Kit , Debra and Rebecca. Carpool- it's only 11 hours!)  Click for details and watch for an e-mail if you're registered here on the site. Can't wait to see you later this week!