Crafter's Cupboard

Suprise!

2009-03-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

I've moved. Here's where to find me. Things still need to spiffed up some, but for the most part it's usable. ;) Hope to see you over there!

Drive By Post

2009-03-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to drop in and let you all know I'm alive. I'm currently working on something that should be a "surprise" for you all (no I'm not pregnant, thank the gods!) and that something is taking away time and energy from the blog. Also this is year end inventory for the workplace. And if that weren't enough to drive me batty we're completing our move into our new store the weekend after inventory is completed and throwing open the doors to the new facility. While I'm eagerly awaiting the day when this is all done and I can go back to being whatever it was I was before the madness of moving into a new building and expanding our retail space 4-5 times......I'm also terrified that I've forgotten something major and stressed out to the max. I'm also unsure what I will "be" when the move is complete other than "exhausted" and "spent" and "ready for the loony bin". So I've hit the level of stress where food is just fuel, what will be will be and really, it'll all be alright. So are we all on the same page? Yep. I'm a mess. lol

I am still spinning the Jacob as much as possible as the spinning is really keeping me sane right now. It's a small island of peace and tranquility in my life and I endeavour to spin each day so that I might make it through. I've also got this crazy notion that I might be able to spin up this whole fleece and then crochet it into an afghan before the deadline for entry into the State Fair here. It's completely insane of course, but it would slash down a whole list of 1St's for me. First full fleece spun, 1st long draw yarn, 1st sheep-to-completed project, 1st fair entry, etc. If I weren't such a chicken about having people judge my handwork, I just might make it. Hell, I've already decided who I'd like to gift the finished afghan to. HA! The yarn's not even done yet! What a dreamer. lol So anyway, in the way of update, I've finished the singles for the grey portion and have started spinning the white. I'll have to make a date with the carder soon though, as I'm working my way steadily through the white, have completed the copper mystery wool singles and have nothing carded "on board" for when I finish the white singles (probably next week.) As I plan on having two white singles to ply together this weekend when I switch over to the Jumbo flyer for plying the last of they grey and the plying of the copper, I think I should probably plan the next few fiber goals. I know I need to card up the mostly brown Jacob, but I'm longing for some color work, so I may have to throw some colors together in larger batches. Sounds like more color blending exercises. Yay! I'm looking forward to more Spring/Summer like colors!

Last but not least....I'm looking for your input. I'm being encouraged to joining Facebook. I'm against it much like the stereotypical old person is against all new technology. "You with your Facebook. You think your so smart!" I do not own, nor do I plan to own in the near future, a cell phone. I have a Myspace Acct but never use it because it's now blocked for security reasons at work, and my dial up at home just DOES NOT support it. I plan on deleting it as soon as I have a free Sunday to spend the day waiting for it to load so I can delete it. lol Satellite is outside our current budget for internet ("It costs what?!!! Do you know how much yarn/fiber I could buy every month for that?!!!!!) and DSL is not existent in the area we live in....eg... the sticks! So.....is it really worth my effort to sign up for Facebook or is it just like having Myspace.....ie...needs DSL or super fast connection to load the pages. Is it something I need to really be a cell phone user to get the optimal usage from? Should I bother? Let me know what youse think, k? I'm really wanting your opinion here.

OK and I truly apologise for the picture less posts. I'll make it up to you in a big way soon. I'm still in need of a camera to call my own, and I think I've found it. I just need to save up the money for it. Ugg. Yeah, I know. Anyhow. I'll steal the hubsters camera and take some pics soon. Promise.

If you don't hear from me in the next few weeks, just know I'm busy with work stuff and all free time is being spent on sanity enforcing endeavours. ;)

Love you all!

Misinterpretation?

2009-03-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

So today had it's particularly stressful and crap full moments at work that exceeded the normal Wednesday and towards the end of the day the husband called me and suggested dinner out at our usual haunt. I, of course, attributed this gesture as one of his more brilliant bouts of "channeling my psychic unhappiness" and agreed (well, duh...who hates to cook? Me!) and off we went. After we ate, and I vented and we made it home.....and he started doing something unusual.

He started unloading the dishwasher.

Now, to be fair to me I should describe his normal homecoming. It goes as follows......after slaving away all day to ensure that our financial needs are met and that kibble will surely flow into the bowls of our four-legged offspring on a daily basis he battles his way through the front door. (Lest you think I'm exaggerating this point, let me illuminate his entrance nightly for you with a few chosen phrases.
#1) 160 lb. dog. who "LOVES" his Pa!
#2) Pa is usually garbed in full motorcycle protective gear.
#3) 160 lb dog who "LOVES" to wrestle with his Pa!
#4) 160 lb do who stands between "anything" and the front door. (That's my boy! I do love him! Good guard dog! Get 'em big boy!)
You don't think that's a battle?!! Come visit "unannounced" and then we'll talk. VGB!
Anyway....after that battle, husband usually says a brief hello, gets something to drink and retreats to his computer for less threatening communications. Not necessarily in that order.

So for him to come home and directly start emptying the dishwasher was a bit surprising. I was stunned enough to just stand there and try to be helpful and not pull the martyr bit. It crossed my mind that maybe I was a bit more pitiful than I thought and maybe, just maybe, I should go lay down. Maybe today had been worse than even I, who had lived through it, had imagined. Had my brain, in some self preservation type maneuver, blocked out the pain of something that I had inadvertently disclosed over dinner?? Was it worse than I remembered? WOW! Should I make a more than normally strong drink?! Trying not to look too freaked out, I assisted in a less than convincing manner in the reloading of the dishwasher. I know this to be true because after confirming where the dishwasher detergent went and confirming how to turn it on (yes....he really uses it that infrequently! Crap I could change the oil on my car with less assistance!!!! Not complaining....appreciating the help...truely...really. Honest.) he started telling me of this discussion he had with a co-worker today. The one that involved the double sink load of dishes at home that didn't go away this week. You know, that there must be a "battle of wills" going on in our house hold 'cause I'd made mention of his inability to recognize a sink full of dirty dishes (only as "case in point" that some people do not see what's in front of them as he was complaining that he's the only one at work who refills the toilet paper [super ironic] or thinks to clean the bathroom [and all the wives will join me in rolling on floor in laughter from irony here] and that maybe, just maybe the other guys at work don't realize that it's an issue. OK. And do I need to point out that this discussion was on a Sunday and not necessarily this last Sunday and that today is Wednesday?!! Ya know?!!!) and that maybe he should give in and do the dishes before I really lose it...but wait....doing that first would delay dinner so maybe he should take me out to dinner first. Huh!!

Don't you just love it when the cosmos works in your favor and due to a "Misinterpretation" of a situation leads to not only you being taken out to dinner, but the dishes at home being done for you too?!!!!! (Deep sigh of happiness!)

Now for clarification. Monday is my day off whilst the husbeast is gone. Dishes were done on Monday.
DONE.
Cleared of the sink.
Washed, dried and put away.
Seriously.
Monday night's dishes were "left over" 'cause I was having a Day Off. (re: lots of spinning, even late into the night.) Tuesday night I went forth and gathered groceries. (As is my lot, being the gatherer in this "hunter"/"gatherer" pair.) Dinner was easy, paltry and really didn't require many dishes. I have NO IDEA where the extra dishes came from. I told the husband that the dishes in the dishwasher were last nights....but upon further reflection, that's not so. That load was the last one on Monday. So...Where the HECK did the DOUBLE sink load of dishes come from today?!!! It's only Wednesday and there's only two of us!!!!! I can account for two cereal bowls (one for Tucker and one for Don today. It was freezing and both needed oatmeal today.) and some small cutlery. Also for the sand which box from Mondays lunch and of course for Monday night's dinner. As for the others, I have NO IDEA! I think the cats are behind it. Or the dishes were hiding in other rooms. Who knows?! Because after loading the dishwasher tonight the husband still had a sink full (of our double sink) left over for tomorrow. I believe they breed overnight. I wish my sock yarn did.

On other happier thoughts......since I'm up and cannot sleep.

I've been reading The Yarn Harlot's books as of late and I do believe I've now read all of them. I came lately to that game, but I'm that way. I shy away from the intensively popular as the "obsessive fan love" drives me crazy and frankly makes me suspicious. It took me quite awhile to even read her blogs because I was just that (difficult) suspicious. It wasn't until I was knitting one day and thought "I bet Stephanie would know why that happened, " that I realized that I really liked her and thought of her and a real person and not some object of fan love. I then checked her books out of the library as I can not afford to buy them all and have a stash too. I figured she'd understand. Now that I've read (and enjoyed) them all, I've decided that there's at least one, if not two, that I must have for my Library. Ones that I'll go back to over and over again. Why? Because only one of these books has convinced me I need to knit gauge swatches. That's pretty powerful writing to convince me of that, let me tell ya. So that one at least I'll be buying. ;)

No knitting progress to report tonight. I spent my "knitting" time last night pre-drafting and then spinning. The good news is that as I was pre-drafting the "ugly burnt orange" fiber that was next on the spinning agenda, I asked the Husbeast what color he thought it was (don't know what possessed me, but thank goodness I did!) and he said....without thinking....."Copper".! YAY! Not ugly burnt pumpkin! Ironically that was the color I was going to ply with this teal/turquoise from how many weeks ago?!!! LOL!!! TOOO funny. Which means I can not be trusted in describing "pretty" colors or "true" colors. I'll have to take a consensus before posting from now on. lol I did manage to finish off the singles for the Mostly Gray Jacob last night and will hold them for plying until I have at least one other something to ply. I pre-drafted the Mostly White Jacob and the Now Fab Copper and will work on those alternately until finished and then will ply all three at once.

I still am working on the Jaywalkers (in cotton, I believe) and have decided after reading some Harlot, that the next socks I cast on will be Jaywalkers in wool and larger sock weight to see if that solves my recurrent problems. Also a HUGE shout out to Cindy who responded to my post on starting the Pomotomus socks. If you read that post you remember that I had picked a yarn for that pattern that was much smaller than the recommended but hadn't cast on because I was put off by #1) the charted pattern and #2) the fact that the yarn was smaller in diameter than suggested and that I needed to do some re figuring to make it work. Cindy pointed out in comments to "FIND ANOTHER YARN" for the project. THANK YOU CINDY! Sometimes it takes a good friend to state the obvious for me to do the right thing. You're completely right. Using the yarn I wanted to do the Pomotomus Socks is insanity in the least and really, I need to find a different pattern for that yarn, and a different yarn for that pattern. So I've shelved the idea of starting the Pomotomus socks as of this time. I'm going to find the right yarn first. (BTW Purple Pi is looking LOVELY!) As I'm a pretty monogamous knitter, this isn't a problem for me. I've got about a sock and a half before I need something else on the needles. Besides, the wheel is always an easy distraction from knitting for me. lol

Well, I'm off to try to sleep for a bit. It's late and I at least try every night, which is probably why I'm still functioning. I'm looking forward to later in the season when things in "work land" will lighten up and I'll be able to rest easier. I still take great comfort and peace in my crafts. Thank goodness I have them!! Peace to you all!

2009-03-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

Guess what? We had snow again Sunday and yet more today. Just after a nice warm stretch and as usual just when we all start thinking about gardening again. :) I had managed to side step the urge to garden, thinking that it wasn't time yet and that Winter was just not over yet. However I am wishing it would warm up just enough for more frequent motorcycle rides. I am missing that.

I have been filling my time with some spinning and knitting. I'm still knitting the same thing, but have finished off some yarn. Yesterday I was able to get the purple/black/gray thingy skein done. I'm still not sure I like it but I am sure I'll keep it. It intrigues me too much to get rid of it. In normal daylight it's got this purply black color, but every time I try to photograph it the pictures show a washed out gray/green. Wierd. It's super soft, supersquisy and I'll do something with it.

This is unknown fiber, and the dyeing was done way back when I was trying to get purple. Or was it black? Who now knows? lol I suspect I was going for black and was using the Wiltons dyes at the time. What I do know is that it's approximately 352 yards, 3.75 oz. and 14WPI. I was most excited that I remembered to dig out my WPI tool and use it. I know! Impressive, huh?

The pictures are dark as I had adjusted the camera down to a point where it would take a picture showing that there is acutally a pinky purple part in there and not washed out gray. I know, it's not the most stunning. (You can click on it for a more close up look if ya want though. It's better looking close up.)

I'm still working on the grey Jacob but should be done with the singles tonight. I've already plied up two skeins and this last bit should make three. (Love the jumbo flyer for plying!!!) I also dug out the mostly white Jacob last night as it occured to me that I was close to completing the fiber in my spinning basket. So next up with be the mostly white Jacob and a dull rusty pumpkin color. I know...sounds so exciting. ;) I forsee another day spent behind the carder making up goodies to spin.

Pretty soon I'll be doing some dyeing of the Corriedale top I bought and would love tips from others who have dyed top before. I have visions of it dyed and braided. lol I should have bought it dyed, me thinks. ;)

Well, waiting for Blogger to load my pictures due to my crappy slow dial up connection has made me grumpy, so I'm off to spin and regain some happy.

Bloggers not playing nicely........spell check isn't working......I give up. I hope the typ-o's aren't too bad.

Hey, Y'all!

2009-03-02T17:46:00.000-08:00

I'm leading with a positive for a change! I finished the Nutkin socks last weekend and have 3......yes three pictures of them to show you. As previously stated, I wasn't happy with how the colorway actually turned out as I was expecting deeper, more vivid colors but was happy with the yarn (as usual) and really loved the pattern! I used Knit Picks Essential Sock yarn in the Tuscany colorway and because I only did 6 pattern repeats before starting the heel, and needed only 5 pattern repeats for the foot I ended up only using just over one skein.

I can not state enough how much I loved this pattern! I was suprised how easily I memorized the pattern and how easily these socks knit up. The patterning on the socks themselves looks more difficult than the pattern really is, which is the genious of the pattern writing. They are wonderful looking and wonderful fitting. They feel so good on the feet. I immediately put them on as they came off the needles and yes, I wore them for two days straight. (In my defense, I was sick and at home, so I wasn't walking around stinking them up. Two days in a row was ok. Really. Honest.)

And why did no one tell me the joys of short row heels?!!! And the construction of the toe is sheer genious! I've never been so pleased with knitting, and so happy with a pattern in my life. My very short knitting life. WOW! My next step is to look up other patterns from this wonderful knitting designer....Beth LaPensee.....there must be more gems from this one out there!

The husband woke up with a head cold a couple of weeks ago and generously shared it with me. I spent a couple of days on the couch (finishing socks, playing with sticks and string, generally laying low....OH! How Abbie loved that!..etc.) and then spent what turned out to be the worst of it back at work. That's usually how it is with me, I totally misjudge when I should stay home, but in the end it worked out. I did spend a bit of time that I was home sick logging my yarn stash on Ravelry. I rarely use Ravelry as it's intended and I really plan on doing so in the future. Now that I have the majority of my stash on there, I think I'll be able to match up yarn with projects. It will also allow me to be able to "see" the stash at a glance when I'm "shopping" for yarn. I was really happy to see that most of the stash is my own handspun, although some of the quality of that handspun is a bit embarrasing and for others my photography skills don't do them justice. lol I am getting better though, and that's not just me trying to make myself feel better. Honest!

I'm still working on spinning up the "Mostly Gray Jacob" using the long draw. I took about a week off from spinning as with the head/chest cold it either hurt to draw out, or I was just too tired and uninspired to try. Today I spun a bit and it's moving nicely. I'm already looking forward to starting on the "Mostly White Jacob" that's already carded. The bulk of the fleece was "Mostly Brown Jacob" if I remember correctly. I've earmarked all of this fleece to become an afghan and will determine what pattern I use after spinning it up. The plan is to long draw spin the whole thing though so I end up with a nice fluffy soft yarn.

After finishing Nutkin, I pulled out the yarn from the frogged Jaywalker socks and cast on. I don't know what I was thinking. These socks have been rattling around in my brain and I keep thinking I need to get them done. The fact that I started them probably a million times, finished them once, wore them a few times, hated the fit and frogged them in a fit of knitting superiority should speak wonders at my mental abilities. It really bugged me that they sat in the sock drawer, never getting worn, because they just didn't fit. For the last few weeks it was really bothering me that the yarn was sitting on spools in the closet because I still hadn't reknit them. (It's a sickness, I tell ya.) So, being truely sick, with nothing on the needles and a pattern memorized from knitting it a million times, I cast on again. This time I cast on a needle size smaller than last time and all is going well. Umm....well.....I'm still not sure they're going to fit. I've gotten a few inches of the leg done and I'm not sure they'll stay up, but I won't be able to tell if they're acceptable until after the heel is done. I think I'm learning a lesson about the type of yarn used in a knitted article and the size of said yarn. Meaning not all sock yarns are the same. Oh.

Yeah.

And.

Cotton sock yarn behaves differently from wool sock yarn. You can laugh, but it took a head cold for me to realize that.

So right now I'm fighting off the impulse to cast on the Pomotomus socks using Brown Sheep Company's Wildfoote sock yarn in Forget Me Not. I'm fighing it because the yarn is smaller than the pattern calls for and I'm not up to the mental part of figuring out how that's going to affect the fit of the sock and what adjustments I'll have to make to make the socks fit me right. Also...this one's written in chart format and I......

Well......

I......ahem.

OK. I don't read charts. I know! What kind of knitter doesn't read charts?!! I prefer written out patterns. The chart is confusing me. And I've already tried it a couple of times. It's bad enough that I'm thinking of writing out the pattern myself. That's pretty desperate. lol Right now I knit away on Jaywalker and out of the corner of my eyes, contemplate the Pomotomus socks. The yarn is already in my knitting basket with the pattern.

Another thing I've been doing is reading up the Yarn Harlots books. I'm loving them! That's me, late to the party but happy to drink fast to catch up!

Well it's time for me to wrap this up and go comment (finally) on a few blogs I read and then knit for a bit. Talk to you soon!

First Ride of the Season

2009-02-16T17:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday dawned beautiful and sunny. After the husband and I had breakfast in town, we decided to gear up and go for a ride. It's the first ride of the season for me and much earlier than last years first ride. I haven't ridden in a couple of months and was itching to do so again. It's a good thing I layered on extra clothes though cause it was cold. No sooner were we out on the roads then the clouds rolled in. I had a great time though and have already discovered a whole list of things to get done for this years riding. One is to loose some fat as the warmer clothes made zipping the coat a little difficult! lol

One of the things I'd like to do is track how many miles I ride this year. This will be my second full year of riding and I'm curious to see how "far" I go. I'm currently looking for a widget for the blog to track it but in the mean time I'll just list it here.

Odometer reading before ride = 18913.
Ride length on 02/15 = 95 miles.

Off and running already!

Newest Family Addition

2009-02-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

Nope, It's not a puppy. It's better than a puppy.

It's my new Jumbo flyer (with four bobbins!) for the spinning wheel. I've been wanting one for a while now as I envisioned it making plying so much better. I saved up for a bit and managed to get it ordered from Pacific Wool and Fiber. I've never ordered anything from them before, but figured I'd give them a shot as they are at least on the same coast as me and their prices were very reasonable. I figured that if it went well I'd order from them in the future. I think it went well indeed. As I said, I ordered on 02/06 and the darling package showed up at my work on 02/10. I was one happy spinning girl! I spent time after work in the evenings staining/sealing it to match the wheel and madly spinning singles so I could try it out as soon as it was dried and assembled. Isn't it purty! (Oh! And I got a lb of Corriedale Top to try too! Can Not Wait!)

I took (way too many for a normal person) pictures of the flyer and bobbins before using it. Heck my wheel even got a cleaning and tune up in honor of the new parts! Anyway, this pictures shows how much larger that jumbo flyer is. The normal one is on the right side and the new Jumbo is on the left. I've since finished the singles and plied them on the Jumbo. While the take up on it feels different due I think to the weight of the much larger flyer and bobbins, everything was really very smooth and it was great to be able to fit two bobbins worth of yarn onto ONE bobbin! (There was still some left on one of the bobbins, but I write that off to my impatience at wanting to ply therefore there was more on one than the other.) I'm unsure of the yardage yet as I'm waiting to wash the skein with the rest of this batch, thus having a total yardage amount for the Mostly Gray Jacob.

I'm still practicing the long draw method and am trying to remember not to overextend my arms. I hold the fiber supply in my left hand and my instinct is to draw the fiber back well behind my back, rotating my swiveling rolly chair that I sit in. At the last guild meeting it was emphasized to me that I needed to learn a more ergonomic spinning method to insure that I wouldn't wear my joints and body out prematurely. Evidently this (admittedly older) wiser lady thinks I'm in better shape than I am, but I was very happy to take the tips from her as she's trying to instill in the rest of us healthier ways of doing our craft just to help keep us from having to stop crafting due to worn out joints, repetitive stress disorders, etc. All of it's much appreciated. I have horrible posture and am trying to learn to sit up straighter and that a long draw can be 12" and doesn't have to be 3 yards. ;) Duh, huh?

Another thing that was stressed in the long draw class was that fiber prep was key. I've heard that a hundred times if I've heard it once, but sometimes it takes just the right person to say something for it to sink in. I've always done my own fiber prep, only buying prepared roving on the rare occasion or receiving it as a special present once in awhile. The fiber I'm currently working with has all been carefully (snort) carded into nice fluffy batts and my usual habit is to leave it in batt form, tearing off a strip to spin from as I go along. It suddenly dawned on me the other night that I see some of the other ladies (that spin award quality yarns) stripping their batts and pre-drafting it before winding it into little balls to spin from. I've always skipped this step and dealt with the pre-drafting/drafting as I went. Something clicked in my brain this week and I sat down, stripped a couple of batts and then pre-drafted them, filling a bag with little ready-to-spin balls of roving. When the time came for me to spin, the spinning was much easier, much faster and much much much more even. Another DUH moment for me. lol. I'll still skip the step when I'm going for more of a thick/thin yarn, but right now I'm aiming for an even spun lofty yarn. Ahhhh, the joys of learning.

Anyway, this is one of the Mostly Gray Jacobs wool singles before plying. I think I'm getting better. We'll see. Tomorrow night is guild and I'm sure someone will comment if I've got it all goofed up. lol

Well I'm off to prep some more fiber for tomorrow nights meeting . The best part is I can do this and use Don's Shiatsu back massager at the same time! YAY! I'm still working on the second Nutkin sock. Not because it's been a problem, but because I've been spending so much time with the fiber prep and spinning. Not a bad problem, eh? I'm still completely loving this sock pattern and will post up pics and specs as soon as I'm done with them. This has been the best sock knitting experience I've had in ages. Maybe I'm ready to take on the elusive Jaywalkers again. Ermm...maybe not.

Ani-Mules and Stuff

2009-02-16T16:37:00.000-08:00

Last week the hubster thought I was having/or going to have a rough day and arranged for these to show up at my work. The day itself wasn't going too bad, but these sure made it better anyway! Gotta love getting flowers just because. ;)
Last month I brought home a new scratcher/toy for the cats to offset their loss of Bandit and to try to change Salem's nasty habit of shredding Don's recliner. It went over really well and Salem claimed it as his own. Abbie has to really assert herself, and she does, to get any use of it at all.
Thankfully this company makes "refills" for the scratcher portion of the toy as it took approximately 1 1/2 weeks for Salem to shred it enough to remove the center of it. We're currently on refill #3 and the "excitement" they have for it hasn't worn off. I can't wait to see their reaction to "Thing in a Bag" when I bring it home.
Here's a dark, but great pic of The Princess. You can just barely see her favorite toy next to her paw in the picture. We've taken to referring to the toy as her crack addiction as she's relentless with it.

And here's a pic of the boy. Look! He's too big to fit in the picture now! LOL. This was taken a week or two ago in one of his more cooperative moments. I just love that face!

Cody is still anti camera and since I don't always have one now it's hard to get current shots of him. I'll try to get one of him soon to post up. ;)

Fibery Stuff

2009-02-02T19:09:00.000-08:00

I've been away for a bit and thought I should check in and let you see what I've been up to. I'm still working away on the Nutkin sock, but have not been working on it much as I've had other stuff going on.

Last weekend I decided to clear off some bobbins that have been hanging around for I don't know how long with bits and bobs on them, waiting for just the right color to pair them off with. I gave in and just started to clean off bobbins. One was this turquoise, that I was convinced I was going to spin up two copper colored singles and make a three ply out of. I finally decided that the copper wasn't going to happen any time soon and that the turquoise would look dandy as a two ply....and would free up a bobbin. So, that's completed and measured in at approx 138yards.

I also finished up the brown/yellow/blue color blending exercise. I'm not happy with the colors but the spinning is better. I'm practicing the long draw spinning method and I think I made great improvement in just this skein alone. It's certainly got more loft than I normally produce. I can tell you the plying was much easier than it has been in the past. (I'm also getting better at plying from a center pull ball. No feet were used this time and that's a huge improvement!lol) I personally dislike this colorway, but Don likes it so it'll end up being something for him.....if I can stand to knit it up. ;) It is only 93 yards.

I also combined about 3 or 4 bobbins worth of test spinning, all from the same natural brown fleece that will later be worked into a full skein. There's lots of brown to be done up yet, but just combining them freed up more bobbins. I'm sure there will be more posts regarding this brown project. lol

After cleaning all that up, I looked at my basket full of empty bobbins and decided it was time to get a variety of fiber prepped for spinning. I dug out the red/black/gray and got that ready to work on. I don't recall how I carded them together last time to make the yarn for the gloves (should have taken notes!) and I really want to try to match it as closely as possible so this time I carded them separately and will have to do the combining during the spinning. We'll see how that works out. I don't need the gloves to be identical, but I'd like them to be close.

I also sorted out my dyed fiber from ages ago. You know the stuff, the results from dyeing experiments using the Wiltons icing dyes? I went at it with the thought that I'd card up what was possibly acceptable, and put aside the rest to be over dyed a different color. From that lot is this "orangey" color that was suppose to be the aforementioned copper. It's not what I was expecting and carded up really nice, if not my favorite color. Oh well, it will be good practice and someone will like it I suppose.

In the "To Be Carded" pile was this Jacob. I've already carded up the "mostly white" portion of this small fleece and besides this "mostly gray" batch I have a "mostly brown" batch to card up. I envision a small afghan made of granny squares all from this one fleece. We'll see. We'll see. There's lots of spinning still to be done. This came out light and fluffy though so it should be a real pleasure to spin up.

I also pulled out the dark mess I call Dragon. It was atrocious in the bag and got only marginally better after carding. I'm reserving judgment on this one until it's spun up. There is something about the light and dark colors that intrigues me. We'll see how long that lasts though as I started to spin it up last night and it's insisting on being a fine single, and I've lots of this colorway carded so that means it will be a long spinning process. Sigh. That's the spinning fates for you. I may have to alternate between spinning this and the Jacob, just to keep my sanity.

This last one I finished off last night before starting the Dragon fiber. It's the sky blue/purple/vermilion/slate blue color blending exercise. I really like this one and like the end product. I will confess to the fact that I completely mis-plied this one and had to redo it as I'd plied it in the wrong direction and it was trying to eat itself in distress. It was a good lesson though as I think I now know what I did wrong on that cable ply last year. :) I don't have a yardage measurement on this one as it's still drying.

Well that's all for now. I'm gonna finish eating dinner and then work on either the sock or the spinning, not sure which yet. ;)

Onward

2009-01-14T20:04:00.001-08:00

It's an odd night for me to be posting to the blog but I feel driven to. I felt bad about leaving such a sad, and frankly negative, blog post as the last on was as your last contact from me. I'd hate for any of you to be worried that I was holed up in a closet with a box of wine crying uncontrollably. Not the case at all. There's no room in my closets to fit this big ole bod, and the crying is completely controlled. Well, controlled in the sense that it's not in public and only really when I'm at home and some memory or another just gets to be too much. Anyhoo.... on with it.

On Sunday Don dug out the manual for his camera he got for Christmas (o7 not 08) and finally read it. He spent some time learning some of the advanced settings and was playing around with taking pictures to test stuff out. Here's one of the cats with their new scratcher with a built in ball toy ( and amazingly enough the couch is cleaned off too!) You can tell by the cat tunnel and the other cat toys in the pictures that we don't like our cats at all. Nope. Nothing for them to do here. lol

Right now there is nothing on the wheel but some old over twisted uninteresting white wool that is being untwisted to become some wonderful white ready to be dyed yarn. It's a process.....I'm not in the mood.....it's taking time. It sits.

But in the knitting world, I give you Nutkin designed by Beth LaPensee. I downloaded it from Knitzi.com thinking that one day I'd be able to knit it. Guess what? I can. I was shocked how simple this pattern is as it looks so much more difficult to me. I'm currently working the short row heel (my first, hey! can this heel be that simple? Really? Where the heck have I been?! This may be my new favorite heel for socks. I'll just have to finish it and see!) and thought I'd snap a pic to show progress. Please forgive the cat hair in the blanket under it, but it is Abbie's blanket after all. I only did six repeats of the leg pattern as I liked the length of the sock right there. The roll over cuff at the beginning was great and I can't wait to see if/how it holds up. I'm knitting it in Knit Picks Essential Tuscany Multi. I'll confess to being a bit unhappy with the colors in this yarn when it arrived as I was expecting it to be bolder colors, but then again, maybe I meant to order something else. Who knows. All I know is that this has a bit too much pinkishness for my taste....but I'll be wearing them anyway! So far it's been a quick knit and I'm really pleased with it. When I finish I'll post more pics to be sure.

I hope all is well with you all and in your world. Take care everyone. Yes, all three of you!

My Shadow

2009-01-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

In honor of our first wedding anniversary Don bought me a cute little toy Pomeranian. As he was a wolf sable with a tan mask, his litter name was "Bandit". Although we discussed many names for him, and although he's answered to many nick-names over the years, Bandit stuck.

I had never personally owned such a small dog and was delighted with him! I took him anywhere and everywhere I could and he quickly became my "shadow". Anywhere I went in the house, he followed. If we were in the other room watching TV and he wanted to eat, he'd bring a mouth full of dog food in the room and eat it there, making many trips in the process. If I had to go into the bathroom, he did too. That pattern never stopped his whole life. The last apartment we lived in was high above the street below. He would sit on the back of the couch and people watch during the day. When I would leave for work, I'd look up at the window and see him looking back at me. He'd be sitting there when I got home too.

I could sit here forever and tell you his little idiosyncrasies......like how he wet the bed every night for the first week or two of his life home with us, or his obsessive squeekie disorder, or his ability as a pup to leap at least twice his length to reach a sock toy hidden out of his reach, or his sneaky habit of stealing my coffee (and how long it took for me to realize it was him!), or his ability to eat a watermelon twice his size, or his warning yelp that he gave out anytime anyone got too close or scared him, or his uncanny way of staring at you until you got through your head what he wanted, and the pleased look he'd give you when you finally got it right. He had an uncanny ability to get his "Pa" to do what he wanted too. How about his snoring? Did I mention that? Or the fact that he always had to have the last work and would even wait till you were walking out of the room to bark at you......just to get the last word in.

Over the years we watched our baby become a "little man" and then a "little old man" and then a "grumpy old fart man". He was still a delight at each stage. Each stage brought a slew of changes as they always do and we adjusted to them. I remember when he could no longer jump up and down off the couch. It was such a shock. This, the dog that could leap so high in his youth had to now be helped on and off the couch. That was a tough adjustment as many times we'd forget and leave the room, stranding him on the couch. Around this time I noticed he was having trouble getting comfortable at night and as it was winter, I made him his own flannel blanket. He would spend a few minutes every night re-arranging his blanket before going to sleep. After I fluffed it out for him, of course.

On January 6Th, at the age of 16 1/2, his little body gave out and we had to help him cross over. Even though I've tried to prepare for this for the last few years as his body started to fail, and even though I've been through this before with other "children" of mine, I just was not prepared for the pain of it all. I'm still grieving and will probably grieve for a long time. Bandit was our first "baby" and has been such a huge part of our lives that we just don't know what to do without him. One of the hardest parts for me is that I've lost my shadow. I turn around and he's not there anymore. Oh, how that hurts.

There is a huge hole in the fabric of our lives. Each day we make our way around it and try to gather up a string to darn back into place. All of us are feeling it in a similar fashion, and dealing with it in different ways. Abbie wants to play more and is seeking us out. Salem at times gets unsettled and walks the house howling until I pick him up and cuddle him. Both are much more cuddly than normal. Tucker, being an outside dog is much insulated from this all. He's shown some confusion over my emotional state, but has been a good boy and given me much comfort lately. As for Cody, he's trying to adjust to this strange new world of being an only house dog. He's never experienced it before and I do believe he's been a bit confused. At times he runs and hides from me because he's had way too much attention, and at other times he seeks us out as is for approval. I'm seriously trying hard not to smother him as bad as I did the first few days and we're all seeking a balance. As for we humans? Well, we remember, we cry, we go to work and come home and we cry, we move on a bit and get a bit better, and then something reminds us and we cry again. Many tears are being shed, but we believe that's healthy and OK. It's helping us heal. One day we'll be able to remember and smile and laugh without the pain and tears we have right now.

One day.

Just not right now.

A Little of This...

2009-01-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

"I didn't do it. It was the cat. Honest."

I have a few things to post up here in a random fashion just to tidy up the loose ends and be nearly caught up for reals. I do have another (probably multi-part) post on our Christmas pressy to each other but it will wait until this ones' done.

First off I want to snivel in full whiny fashion that I can't just upload a stinking picture. Every post I've done lately with pictures has required me to go through extra steps* and really, I'm blog time impaired as it is. I don't need the extra steps. It's silly stupid hassles like this that keeps me away sometimes as I just don't have the patience or time and it's one of the reasons I still have the "other" phantom blog. I'll have to spend some of my extra (snort) time over there playing around and I will have to seriously think about moving permanently. I know, I know I keep threatening to move, but never do. I hate change. So I'll snivel a bit more.

Onwards! Up first is the first (left hand) red/black/grey glove. I'm happy with the fit and wish I had more of the yarn already completed so I could cast on the second glove. It looks a bit funky in the pictures and makes my fingers look overly long me thinks, but that's due to the nature of the finger construction. If you recall, I knit them with long fingers and open tips so that they would keep my fingers warm, but allow for grip inducing pull back.

Here they are with their tips pulled back to allow for grippage. Grippage. Heheheh. Sorry, just amusing myself. As I knit these up, I notated any changes I made as I was customizing them for a better fit. Overall these are larger and super comfy, if not as soft as the last pair. I'll have to clear the fiber off the wheel asap and get some more of this colorway blended and spun so I can complete the right hand.

Next up is Maria's purple skein. (Sorry for the blurry pic.) This one is a three ply and nice and squishy. It measures in at 158 yards and is a nice plump round yarn. Ya gotta love Navajo ply for making a nice round yarn! I've already started the Vermilion skein and hope to have them finished this weekend. As always, I'll post when I'm done. Or whenever.:)

Now I give you a picture of my back yard. It's only snowed a small amount in the last few days, but the rains come down and you'd think it would wash away the snow faster than it does. This is what we had in the back yard as of this afternoon.
And this is why I'll be sharing the truck with the hubster for another day or two. At least. Still lots of snow surrounding the car and with all the rainfall it's smooshy and slushy and icky and all those little girl words depicting icky.
Did you want proof that he loves this stuff? He really wanted to wrestle but when he realized I meant business he decided to settle for a belly rub. He's such a sucker for a belly rub.

*What extra steps, you ask? Well I have to first put some words in the body of the post. Then I have to hit save now. Then I have to return to the list of posts and click on edit post. Once that opens I can usually upload pictures to the post. Its not a whole lot of steps and if I were on DSL or satellite internet connection it probably wouldn't bother me as much. However, I am on dial up and each page refresh is a chance for carnage. ;) And yes, I'm reporting it to the powers that be at Blogger.

PMS-Parked Motorcycle Syndrome

2008-12-30T20:05:00.001-08:00

It ain't pretty. ;)

It's been nearly two weeks since he's ridden and he's holding up pretty well.

He's made a valiant effort to hide the symptoms, but sometimes they show in the weirdest ways.

Even his gloves are feeling it, me thinks!

The main roads are clear, it's just getting to them that's difficult. He's watching the weather forecasts and hoping for warmer weather.

Hang in there Don. The days are getting longer. Maybe they'll warm up too?

Love ya!

Cozy

2008-12-30T19:40:00.001-08:00

With the power outages we experienced in the last few weeks, and the snow on the ground, the animals inside have gotten a bit of cabin fever. My more civilized ones have taken to sleeping most of the time with intermittent play times to work off some steam. We'll discuss Salem later.

A week ago the power was out for nearly 12 hours. As I had done a bunch of baking the night previous it took most of that 12 hours for the house to cool off enough for me to consider breaking out the heaters. Luckily the power came on before that became a necessity. However, Abbie disliked the chilling of the house (for goodness sakes it was still 60+ in the house the brat!) and was looking for anywhere warm to curl up and sleep. As I was sorting stuff and doing general cleaning and getting in her way, she decided to curl up on the back of the couch. She was chilly enough to put up with (and enjoy even) having her blanket put on top of her.

Later, she curled up with her dog.

And Don snapped this one yesterday. She's too cute for words!

Knitting, Spinning and Such

2008-12-30T18:26:00.000-08:00

Oh what to blog next? In this mad dash to catch up, it's hard to decide what's next. Hmmmm....I'm thinking knitting!

Awhile back I noticed that there are holes in the bottom of my felted slippers. I have a pair of clog type slippers that I love dearly and I've been meaning to replace them with the felted clog slippers from Fiber Trends for the last couple of years. For one reason or another it's not been done, mainly because I doubted my ability and (snort) didn't think I had enough yarn in the stash to complete them. (rolling on the floor laughing. If you could see my fiber/yarn stash.....hehehehehe) Anyway, I noticed that not only did I wear out my felted fuzzy slippers, but my favorite slip on slippers are at deaths door as well. With snow on the ground and cold weather abounding, I decided to quickly knit up a pair of warm footsie covers out of a Wool Ease in a cranberry color. (They show lighter in color in the pics.) After completing Mom's shawl, I cast these on and whipped them out. They fit, well they were a bit large, but I wasn't giving in. They were mine. And warm. Even if I had to add a draw string to them to keep them on!

After completing them I decided to tackle the Fiber Trends Felted Clogs. They knitted up surprisingly quick and while Don was modeling the "before" picture for me, I had him model the Cranberry slipper as well. (Don's wearing the before felting clog and my foot is next to it for reference.)

Wouldn't you know it, the Cranberry slippers fit him perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. The cuff was cast off a little tight for him, but overall they fit fine. So I finished knitting up my felted clogs, then undid the cranberry slippers and recast off with a looser finish and removed the tie so he could wear them. He's now up 2 pairs of slippers to my one. And he wants a pair of felted clogs now that he's seen them finished. (Not that he's the slipper Nazi or anything. I am the one who offers after all. lol)

Here they are all done. Well basically done. They felted right down and very quickly I might add. I think Don had his doubts as to weather they would felt down that much, but I had faith. They are really warm and very cushy and all I hoped they would be. I wore them most of yesterday, but have tabled them until I can get the leather glued to the bottoms. I nearly did the splits on the lino last night and really, my body doesn't bend that way. So I'll try to get the leather on the soles (suede side down) either tonight or tomorrow. I have a couple more projects I want to complete before I start his. Maybe.

After completing the clogs, I was looking for something quick and easy to knit while we went to the cabin for the weekend (another post in the making) so I balled up two small skeins from the color blending exercises and decided to make some finger tip-less gloves. I grabbed the same pattern I used last winter and on Saturday cast on the red/black/grey while watching TV. I decided that this time I would experiment with the pattern some. I usually wear this type of glove when driving which is why I don't want a full fingered glove as it impairs my grip on things like the key, the gate latch, etc. However warm my brown pair are, I found myself wishing for a longer finger length, so I decided that this time I'd knit the fingers full length (past my finger tips) but not tie them off together as a closed tipped glove. This way I can pull them down to use my finger tips if needed, but have the warmth of a full fingered glove if wanted. I'll test them out and let you know how they work for me. If they don't, I've got enough length to take out the cast off and modify them if I want. I may not have enough yarn to complete the pair so I may have to blend and spin up a bit more to finish them. Good thing I wrote down the color ratios. They may not match perfectly, but they are only for me, so no biggie. I'll post pics as soon as they are semi complete.

I took a break from knitting yesterday to get some spinning done. I completed Maria's Gunmetal/Burgundy skein. It turned out to be 290 yards and a nice squishy yarn at that. Part of me hopes she hates it so I can keep it all to myself! hehehe I've already started on the purple she asked for and have one bobbin of singles completed. I'm pre-drafting the batts into roving so it would be more uniform with less concentration. It's going quickly and I think this and the vermilion will both be Navajo plied into a three ply. I'm not committed to that yet, but it's a strong gut feeling so it will probably end up being so. It's a good thing Maria's flexible, but if she hates them, I can always keep them. (Not that I'm trying to make something she hates, honest. It's just a nice safety net that I happen to like how they're coming out too. Honest. Really. Stop laughing.)

Well dinners almost done and I've got to get on with it. There are a couple of more posts in the plans, but I'm starting to wonder if it can all be done in one night. (grin) If not, I may be back tomorrow.

Me and Roo

2008-12-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

Tucker Roo that is.

Here is a rare occurrence in blog land. Pictures of me on the blog. I wanted to share this short story and the pictures with you but couldn't do it justice without keeping a few of me in there too. I hate to have my picture taken and am usually quick to delete them. However, these are of the Tucker boy too, and I just couldn't get rid of them. So sorry, you're stuck looking at me too. :) Focus on the dog and you'll get through it. ;)

Before we started shoveling snow I was trying to get Don to walk out in the front yard and see exactly how deep it was in the areas Tucker hadn't packed it down. Don was having none of that so I had to go out there and show him. Tucker hadn't been playing in these areas because it was so deep. He thought it was a great time to play and I figured with the snow that deep it wouldn't do much harm. It's rare when I get out and wrestle with him as he is so large and so powerful. "Mama is for cuddling, Daddy's for wrestling." That's what I tell him. We had so much fun though that I couldn't stop laughing!

And it begins.

He's always been mouthy.
That's a power slam headed my way.

It's like wrestling an elephant.

Making snow angels? Naw, getting kisses after I pinned him. lol
Trying to stand up after rubbing snow on his belly.

"Truce?" Naw, Lets play more!

I'm holding onto his fangs and trying to distract him so I can walk to the driveway.

It was lots of fun playing with him in the snow but I'm glad I don't have to do it all the time. This weather is his kind of weather and he's always "on" right now. It's either full bore play, or sleepy time. He sure is a lot (and I mean A LOT) of fun in this stuff!

Tucker and Snow

2008-12-30T17:02:00.001-08:00

The 19th of December marked Tuckers 2nd birthday. I know! It's hard for me to believe that he's two already. That really went fast. At his last weigh in he was 156.8 lbs, but that was before the cold weather (some single digit nights which are rare for us) prompted hot oatmeal in the morning and at night. It's something he really likes and has gotten quite attached to. I don't think it'll be fun to break him of it. ;) Anyway, it appears he's put on a few pounds since then, but he wears it well. For his birthday, I brought home a T-Rex stuffed toy that I had originally put aside at work for his Christmas pressy. It's about 18" tall and super tough. (I got him another toy for Christmas.) Monday while I was home cleaning out my craft closet (the power was out) I looked out the window to see him playing with it. I was able to snap these pics through the window before he realized what I was doing.

It pretty much says it all.

Evidently he liked his pressy! He's carried it around the yard and we keep bringing it back up to the house at night but it's none the worse for wear. That's a tough toy!

Well, that's far too many pictures for one post, so I'll wrap it up and start another. ;) It's feast or famine around here with now being FEAST time! The next one might take a bit as I have to steal pictures off Don's computer and Photoshop them first. ;) Bear with. I've a goal to get caught up tonight!

Finding the Blog Button

2008-12-30T16:18:00.000-08:00

It's been another gap in time since I've posted. At times lots has been going on, and at other times it's been blissfully serene and quiet. I'll admit to enjoying both and only really feeling guilty about not updating this during the serene times. Of course, during those times, I'm crafting away and can justify the blog silence by thinking, "I'm creating blog posts for the future." As I've used this excuse all year, and have never really gotten everything posted, I'll have to think of another excuse for next year. ;)

Awhile ago (and no, I can't really tell you exactly how long ago) it snowed. This caused the personal life to go into a bit of a holding pattern as the work life for both of us ramped up into high gear and we were really busy. Hubby works in the automotive parts field and I work in a farm/garden/hardware type store. A little snow around here doesn't change much but more than a little causes a frenzy of panic shopping like you wouldn't believe. All of it's for the good, and I truly believe that most people were doing what they should and could to prepare for the worst. It's not normal for our area of Western Washington to get deluged with snow for weeks on end this early in the season. That's more like January weather for us, if we get it at all. Well this time we got a whopper of a snow system in, and while I truly enjoyed it, it caused a mess for a lot of people I know. When this type of weather comes in, Don has to park the motorcycle and fire up Tuckers truck. When the snowfall is as deep as we had, my Saturn gets left in the driveway and we share the truck. Some days he takes me to work on his way in and then picks me up and other days I take him in on my way. (We work in opposite directions of each other, but ya do what ya gotta do. Even if it means sitting at work after the day is done and waiting on your ride.) I'm just thankful that we were always able to get out and get to work. My neighbor has been home from work for two weeks as of today and gets no pay if she doesn't go into work. Sucky!) So much of our personal life during the snow storms were spent getting each other to work, taking care of the animals, shoveling snow off of roofs that were potential danger points and just getting through. I still own up to loving the snowfall and thinking it beautiful. For the first week we also contended with the power going out pretty much every day, but thankfully that subsided (for now) and we're pretty prepared for that eventuality. For us, being on a well system, if the power goes out we also loose water. Thankfully we had some water stored and we were able to work through that hurdle without too many difficulties. It all went well. The only true hiccup with this storm system for us was that it messed up my plans for getting Christmas gifts and cards out. Thankfully my friends and family know I'm erratic at best with special day gifts and cards and not only do they understand (or pretend to) but they're pretty used to it. ;)

With the roads being so crappy even after the snow stopped falling, Christmas Eve with Mom was canceled, to be rescheduled when the hills to her house were safer, and Christmas with Don's parents was canceled to be rescheduled when the threat of getting stuck on their road passes. So Christmas Eve was a quiet affair with us at home. Me bathing dogs and cleaning carpets and doing basic household chores and Don taking a nap. ;) ( To be fair, he'd put in some grueling hours the week previous and I didn't begrudge him. I clean the carpets all the time so it's not a huge chore...just a must with the old dog living here.) We were invited to the neighbors for Christmas dinner and after a morning of knitting for me and another nap for Don we headed over. We all had a great time and agreed we needed to get together more often.

I am trying to upload pictures of the snow at this point but Blogger is having none of it. Just keeps saving my draft and not bringing up the "add a picture box." Hmmm.....do I still have my Wordpress account? I think at this point I'll save this and try to reopen it to add pictures.

Whaddya know! It worked. Ok, so here's some pictures from two weeks ago. ;)

This first one is of the icicle that formed in the downspout on my garden shed. The water normally drops from the down spout and hits a plastic planter with rocks in it below. (One day I hope to have water barrels at the bottom of this for watering in the garden area.) The icicles that formed on both the front and back of the shed are the largest we've ever had.

I took this picture during a break from shoveling snow. Don was cleaning off the deck covers and I was digging out a pathway around the gates and to the garbage cans. (Glamorous, I know. It was quite the workout though and I'm glad we did it as you'll find out why later.) I took a few pictures of the branches covered with snow before I started shaking the snow off all the trees. Last spring we lost a few branches off this tree due to a late snow. It's a good thing we did this work that Sunday as we got about another 8 inches that night.

This is the roof line of the front shed. This shed houses my motorcycle on one side, Dons on another, as well as housing a whole bunch of crap that needs to be gone through and disposed of. It's a summer project that I dream of completing but never get to. Something to do with the weather being too good to work in and much better for riding. VBG! I thought it was cool that you could see how much snow was building up on the lower roof line, and the icicles forming from the top roof line.

This one is of THE Pooch running at us in the snow. That blob of snow on the left is my car. There is a fair bit of snow on the ground and he's loving it!

OK that's it for this post. I've got a picture heavy post of Tucker in the snow planned for the next one, so it's time to wrap this one up. :) Read on.

Flying in the Face of Reality

2008-12-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

(mmmmmmm......lamp+couch=nap...mmmm)

Here follows a lesson about what happens when you have too much self confidence.

Let me start this with a bit of a preface. I finished the shawl for Mom. (Hopefully she is still unaware of it's existence.) It's safely tucked away in the closet where a certain furry kitty can't claim it for her own. When I set the goal of knitting it for Christmas, I gave myself the back up date of her birthday, just in case. That bought me another month to finish it and surprisingly I didn't need it. I completed it, I blocked it, I stashed it. All done, finito. No problem.

Where the problem starts is in the next project I decided to do. Our guild is having our annual holiday party this month with a pot luck dinner and a round robin gift exchange. I've participated in the past few years and it's lots of fun. This time I thought I'd take in a hand made item to put in the gift pile. After knitting the shawl, crochet sounded like a great change as I haven't done any in awhile and I decided to make a set of snowflake ornaments.

I've been wanting to make some of these for years and just never got around to it. I was even feeling confident when I had completed a set of six various sizes a week before the party. (I should have know there was going to be a problem right there.) I followed all the written instructions about making copies of the blocking pattern, covering it with plastic wrap, soaking the snowflakes in a zip lock bag overnight, etc. I even stayed up late one night pinning the darling things out until my fingers hurt just so they would have plenty of time to dry. When I awoke in the morning, after grabbing a cup of coffee, I went in to the craft area to check on them and wanted to cry. (Instead I swore like a sailor. Trust me, I was crying on the inside.)

See them in their glory? Not bad handwork, if I do say so myself. Too bad I didn't check and make sure that the pins I was using to block them were correct for this type of work. The two smallest ones (not pictured here) were fine. I used nice new blocking pins for those. Unfortunately I decided after doing those two that I wouldn't have enough pins and therefore dug out some older pins I had in my sewing supplies. All five of these have rust stains on them. Yep. Rust. Stains. (Still makes me want to swear!) I've spent several evenings using Iron Out in a crazy high concentration to get them clean. I had to admit defeat on four of these five and have since shelved them to be salvaged later, remembering that the goal is to have a hand crafted gift for Tuesday night.

Sunday found me crocheting four small snowflakes to make a set of 6 ornaments. It's not what I originally planned, but hey, at least it's handmade. (sorry for the crappy picture. I can't take a pic today to save my life.) So now I'm off to attach monofil for a hanger and plop them in a gift box. Hopefully guild won't be canceled tomorrow due to bad weather. (grin)

Reindeer Anyone?

2008-12-15T18:16:00.000-08:00

Tucker the Anatolian Reindeer!

Last year he did this so well and was so patient for the pictures. This year? He wasn't quite so thrilled with it. While this picture causes me many giggles, you can certainly see the desperation in his eyes. lol The whole "What the hell?!!!" expression just gets to me. hehehehehe

I have some more pictures to share of the big ole boy, just to get you all caught up. These were taken at the end of last month. Don took advantage of the good weather and did some maintenance on the motorcycles. As with anytime he's outside working, Tucker decided he had to help. He mostly lays around where Don is working, that is, until he decides Don should be done and playing with him. Then he's all over Dons feet, chewing on them , and trying to get him to play. Don was able to snap these pics before the play began. I would never dream of getting the camera this close to the ground anywhere near Tucker, but that is the magic that is "a man and his dog." He can get away with so much more than I. ;)

Here's our boy sitting nicely for the camera.

Guarding the motorcycles.

Posing all GQ.

"You sure you wanna mess with me?"

Sunning his belly.

There's much more to catch up on, but I'm finding it hard to make time to post. I've got a few more posts in the works and I'll try to get them done in the next few days. Busy schedule this week, so we'll see. ;)

Hope this finds everyone warm and cozy, safe and happy.

Victory Is Mine!

2008-12-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

"Victory is mine!"---Stewie Griffin

I know I've been away for a bit again, but I've been productive. The holiday snuck up on me and I managed to get the house cleaned up enough for Mom to come over for dinner. We had a great day and a simple meal, making more time for games and visiting. I love that about simple holidays. ;) The hardest part was not talking to her about this.....

The shawl is finished! I'm so excited I can't stand myself! Seriously. I do the happy dance a every time I think about it. Don's gonna be ready to sedate me by Christmas. Now I've to to figure out a shawl pin thingy for her. Even though it's wide enough for her to tie it should she choose, I'd like to provide a shawl pin for her to use as well. That's the next project.

Here it is in it's painfully pinned out blocking form. You'll notice that I'm using the unconventional pattern cutting board as I needed to be able to block it on something that I can move out of range of the children. (Every time this was laid out flat, someone with claws was showing too much interest and even in this picture you can see The Vomiteer heading over in a curious fashion. I wasn't taking any chances!) Thankfully Don thought to mention this wonderful fold out cardboard thingy that I own, as I was shooting down options at an alarming rate. He's definitely the brains of the operation here. ;)

I was so excited to have finished the shawl that I jumped at the chance to freely spin yarn with no guilt. Yeah, that lasted all of 15 minutes, then I was back on the couch cleaning up knitting mess and working on the re-knit of the Jaywalker socks. I tried the one on and don't think it's feasible to continue it. I'm contemplating re-frogging (for the umpteenth time) and starting over with a bit looser gauge, maybe different needles, I don't know. Something is wrong with this sock though as it's way too tight. Ironic as I'm re knitting them due to them being way to loose. Whatever happens, I'll not re-frog without re-reading the last blog post on them to see what's what with them. ;)

I leave you with a bit of eye candy.

The boy. I noticed this weekend that his chest has broadened out some and he's starting to put on a bit more bulk. Don snapped a few really nice pictures of him so I'll share those when I'm done snagging them off his computer. He also got some really nice video of Tucker howling that I'll post here soon.

I hope that all is well with you guys and that these holidays are sweet for you all. I'll be back soon!

Dye Job

2008-11-24T16:00:00.000-08:00

As the seasons changed I was grateful for the colder, wetter weather that would allow me to spend more time with fiber, either spinning it or knitting with it, whatever. I was also looking forward to time with the recently reorganized beading supplies and semi organized craft closet. I managed to get a list together of all...and I do mean all...of my yarns. Turns out there's more of that then I thought, but not really an unreasonable amount. Most of it has a destination point in its future, so that's a good thing, not an obsessive compulsive collection thingy. All this is a good thing. Sadly, the weather has turned somewhat cooler and wetter, but not really approaching winter closed-into-the-house-never-see-the-light-of day crafting weather yet. Sadly? Why you ask? Because it's cold, too cold to ride a motorcycle in my opinion, but no so cold that you can't get chores done. It's wet, but only wet enough to be fall in WA St. and not so wet not to get chores done. See what I mean? I can't say...."I sat on the couch and knitted all day cause there was nothing else I could do. It was too cold/wet/snowy, etc." So the weather I was looking forward to hasn't come yet, but I am enjoying this dryer than normal (I don't care what anyone else says....60 in November in Washington State is DRY!) and just starting to feel like fall weather. I am getting a few things taken care of before the bad weather sets in. Things like cleaning out the shed and inventorying the freezer, cleaning out the pantry and cupboards, etc. I took advantage of the dry sunny day we had today and either fixed the leak in the cars sunroof or made it worse. I'm waiting for the next rainstorm to make a decision.

One of the "winter time" urges that's taken over is the baking/cooking urge. I profess on a daily basis that I cannot cook and do not like to do so. It's useful in some situations, but to the people that really matter (example, the husband) the facade is thin. He knows that I can, when inspired, cook. It's not really a "can't", or even a "don't wanna", it's more of a "hate to do the clean up" and a "really needs to be inspired." I'm not sure what happened about 3 weeks ago, but I got the inspiration and the urge and the clean up is not even bothering me. I think it started when I was grocery shopping. Let me preface this with an explanation. I do not handle our household budget anymore. About a year and a half ago, Don took over the "joyous" job of paying the household bills and what not. He's never set a budget for the grocery's but I try to keep our weekly amount down, as it's just the two of us. I have increasingly been trying to better our home menu and make the nutritional value count more so that we can still have our special Sunday breakfast out and eat what want when we go out for meals. About a month ago I grabbed the normal loaf of bread at the grocery store and gasped when I saw the price. I try to buy a higher fiber, lower calorie bread as the husband takes a sandwich everyday, I love bread and we both have some health issues. The price for decent healthy bread was insane. My first thought was of the supplies I had at home and could I make it myself cheaper. I did a bit (very little) research and decided I could. I dug out the bread maker and have since been making our bread. It took a bit to get it down to how many loaves we needed in a week, but I think I've finally gotten it down. I make a loaf every other week and two on the in between weeks. This may change as I've started making dinner rolls too. I've gotten a bit out of control though as I'm using the heck out of my bread machine right now. ;) Case in point? I've been craving Pizza but cannot justify $30 for a pizza to be delivered, and I've yet to find a frozen one that can be doctored to taste as good as our local delivery. Tonight? Right now I have Pizza dough in the bread maker and the fixing's ready to top it with. If this comes out right I may never order pizza again! (Thanks Barb!) This weekends baking included two batches of cinnamon rolls, one for each of the stores we work at, with some for us too. I was going to make cookies for Don's lunches, but he's got enough to get him to Thanksgiving, and I'll make more next weekend.

With all the holiday cooking and cleaning going on this weekend, I decided to take the plunge and do something about two of the floor rugs that I own. Most of my throw rugs are woven cotton and in blue tones. There are a few that were given to me by my mother in law years ago and they are now showing their age. They are still in good shape but with having animals and being outdoorsy types, they are stained beyond stain removal. I've had the thought that I could dye them a darker color and disguise the stains that way, still being able to use them. So, not having enough going on in the kitchen what with the bread baking and the cinnamon roll baking, I decided to dye the rugs on the stove. (Yeah, don't stop me now, I now know there is an easier and faster way when you're not dealing with wool! But I was in fiber dyeing mode, therefore the stove had to be involved!) So I filled my big dye pot, mixed a dye bathe from a new dye lot I bought at guild last week and off we went. We dyed for hours. For one cotton rug. In desperation, I checked online, read the manufacturers instructions and realized....crap! I could have done this faster in the washing machine! Oh! And that rug wasn't getting any bluer.

So I give you the rug I started with in pink. Here it is in the "soak it down stage." At this point I knew it was cotton and therefore could run water on it. See? See the water running on it? I had yet gotten to the point of saying, "Maybe dyeing cottons different from dyeing wool!" A Eureka moment to be sure. But alas, not to be had yet. This poor thing went into a specially prepared dye bath on the stove and was simmered for an hour. Amazingly enough it wouldn't take up anymore dye! It was at the point that Don mentioned the darn thing had been simmering for an hour that my mind clicked a chink over and I thought, "It's cotton. There's something different about cotton." So I turned off the stove and let it set, hoping it would exhaust the dye in the over night cool over.

During the late night laundry folding the brain turned over another half a crank and I remembered that cotton could be dyed in the washer, which meant that if it hadn't taken up dye on the stove after an hour, it wasn't taking up anymore of that color. At this point I put the other semi-white rug in the dye bath to soak up the dye. It came out dandy!

The original rug, however, was unacceptable. I just couldn't stand the color it came out. So this morning both were spun out in the washer. The add-in rug came out a fine baby blue and was dryed and immediately pressed to service.

The original rug was put back in the washer with some Rit dye and went through a cycle to come out a much better blue. I'm quite happy with the results. I've had the thought that my dingy white towels could be dyed to be "almost new" but I've been afraid to try. Both of these came out so well and will serve for many more years, so the old towels may be in for a dye job soon. It kind of tickles me to be able to custom dye my own linens to match my needs. It also tickles me no end to be able to "recycle" old linens and make them "new" again! This is an unexpected money saving outcome to the fiber arts I'm learning. It also makes me look at the linens at the second hand store differently. ;)

There have been other fiber pursuits as well. There's the ever present x-mas pressy that I'm working on. I'm happy to report that the body of the shawl is done and I am to start the boarder anytime. Just as soon as I figure out how to, I'll start it. I'm currently distracted by the thought of making a shawl pin as I was unable to find one I could afford or that I was willing to pay for. I may regret that. ;) I'm slowing working on Maria's skeins as well. I'm not working on them full bore, just when I cannot stand not to spin anymore so they are not progressing quickly yet, although I'm almost done with the gun metal blue. As soon as the above mentioned xmas pressy is finished, I'm sure I'll be spinning full time for awhile. This project monogamy is death I tell ya!

Today marked an unusual day in our household. It's the first annual storing of the riding gear. It appears it will only be happening in my world, as the hubby only stops riding for snow. It was a bit of a somber time none the less and was a bit ironic as the sun was shining today. It started with the gutting of my helmet, for washing. Next followed a complete washing of the helmet and removal of small bug guts. Small bugs, guts aplenty. Next step is the washing and re waterproofing of the jacket. That will have to wait until next weekend. I only have so much energy.

I'm definitely looking forward to "after holidays" when I am able to work on what I will, when I will and when the snow is in drifts on the ground so the motorcycle is not calling me to ride. ;) Of course at that time I'll have to deal with Hubby's P.M.S. Parked. Motorcycle. Syndrome. Ah, the trade offs we make.

Hope all is well with you and yours!

Sleepy

2008-11-17T11:39:00.001-08:00

I don't know why I'm so inclined to curl up and take a nap! lol

Abbie

Salem

Tucker---this one was taken through the window at night...so the quality leaves a lot to be desired.

Kinda cute how they all curl up, no?

PSA for "Wool" Washers

2008-11-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

I'm remembering back to when I received my first raw sheepie fleece and researched the various methods on washing it. I learned that my clothing washer would work nicely as it did not add water during the spin cycle and even better, it has an extra large capacity. I also learned that as we have a septic system I was not going to be able to let the wash and rinse water go into said septic system. No problem there, I have a "make it work for me" kind of hubby and he solved that issue for me. In all the "how to's" I read they said the same thing. "Place the fleece in mesh laundry bags." Well, I loaded up on those little lingerie bags and as I pulled my clean spun out fleece from the washer I loaded up the little baggies, then hung them out to dry. They certainly sped up the drying process as the air was able to circulate nicely through the smaller quantities.

In one of my washing trials I had washed a portion of the fleece in the little baggies, but was unhappy with the added rinses needed to completely clean the fleece as the baggies seemed to collect some of the dirt, so I gave that up and just soaked and spun out the fleece in the washer. I had been told this could cause issues but I'd never had any so just wrote those issues off to being a design difference in various washing machines. Well, I've been noticing that my clothing has not been spinning out as well at the finish of a wash cycle. This puts added strain on the dryer and as I do NOT want to replace those appliances (and not just because I'm a cheapo either. lol) I kinda keep an eye on things like this. Another clue something was amis was the clump of fur like stuff that came out from under the agitator after washing Tuckers blankets. Most of it was a light color, but there were some darkish colors that led me to feeling around under the agitator and I came up with a clump of what was defiantly brown alpaca.

So yesterday I mentioned to Don that I was going to have to take the agitator off and see what all was trapped down there. After he left for work this morning I did just that. (I don't recommend that you take apart your appliances unless you know what you're doing and are comfortable with it. I've got an overdeveloped sense of, "I should just be able to remove that bolt..." and like I stated above, Don's much the same. For some reason it always seems to work out for us. The trickiest part was finding the correct socket and extension combo that would work. As luck would have it they were basically on top of the tool pile so there must be an 11 mm nut on the motorcycle somewhere. ;)

Well gang, it's not pretty but here's what I found.

And here it is removed from the agitator column. It's basically a felted wool gasket/filter with another clump of alpaca hanging off of it as if for decoration. The main issue this was causing is that it was partially blocking the drains in the bottom of the tub and as you can imagine was slowing down the flow of water out it. (Pretty gross if you ask me!) It was also filtering and collecting some of the washer sludge so it stinks pretty good. I've since cleaned and reassembled the agitator and have run a load of mixed colors through it. At the end of the cycle they were spun out perfectly! Success!

In closing, it looks like I'll have to go back to using the little baggies to wash and rinse as well as dry the fiber. It's not work risking my large capacity washer to the fiber monster under the agitator.

Word!

2008-11-13T21:16:00.000-08:00

I know.....multiple posts in a week. Enough to knock your socks off. Or you off your chairs even. 'Tis something Cass posted that I thought to do myself. I don't much care for MeMe's, but this one struck me in it's simplicity.

Me.
Where is your mobile phone? don't own one
Where is your significant other? asleep
Your hair colour? some say blonde, some say red
Your mother? at home
Your father? gone
Your favourite thing? fiber
Your dream last night? too strange to put here
Your dream goal? to be independant financially, healthy and c.a.l.m. and at p.e.a.c.e.
The room you’re in? living room
Your hobby? anything fiber
Your fear? loss
Where do you want to be in 6 years? anywhere with Don
Where were you last night? in bed
What you’re not? in control
One of your wish-list items? jumbo flyer for the spinning wheel. (greedy, I know. ;) )
Where you grew up? Washington
The last thing you did? breathe
What are you wearing? all my clothes
Your TV? off
Your pets? alive and breathing thank goodness!
Your computer? buzzing along
Your mood? null
Missing someone? Dad
Your car? Leaking
Something you’re not wearing? halo
Favourite shop? mwa ha ha....any fiber shop or yarn shop around!
Your summer? glorious
Love someone? several....completely
Your favourite colour? jewel tone green
When is the last time you laughed? tonight
When is the last time you cried? also tonight
You

Your turn.

2008-11-11T22:13:00.000-08:00

Surprise! It' s an abnormal post in the middle of the week........and within a month of the last post. Hmmm....could it mean that blogging will take up a more "normal" pace? Who knows?

This last weekend was productive, and not just on the blog posting front. Two loaves of bread baked, three batches of applesauce done {(love the crock pot!) and probably a few left to do}, two batches of cookies mixed and baked, a pot of soup for the weeks lunches for me, and scores of cleaning. If I hadn't looked in the mirror I'd have thought I was June Cleaver or something! lol One of the other things I did accomplish was the knitting of the 250th row of Mom's shawl. I pretend blocked it by stretching it out to painful lengths and widths and then stabbing pins into the bed to hold it into shape so I could measure it. (Thank god I don't have a water bed anymore!) I made a rough measurement of 40" by 40" and then un-pinned it. After playing around with the measuring tape for a bit to see how that would work around my (admitably larger) shoulders, I caved..... in the direction of reason for a change. See, I'll be honest. I want this project done so I'm apt to say this suckers done before it is. I want to knit with LARGER yarn for a bit. Hell, sock yarn is larger at this point. I'm tired of lace knitting. Just for a bit, I'd like to knit with a nice chunky yarn. Maybe a hat even.
But.
I.
Can't.
I so want this holiday present to be completed and to be completed on time. ( Thanks for the suggestion Bonny, even if it did make me shudder violently when I read it. Yes. It did bring back memories. lol And although I understand those memories now, I'm not ready to replicate them. ;) ) So I'm on a monogamous project kick just for this holiday (which is why I don't usually do holiday knitting, but if you could see my bank balance you would understand why this needs to work, as I've already scaled back this persons present.lol.) and I cannot allow myself to work on any other knitted or crocheted or beaded project until this shawl is ready to wrap. In a box that is, which is assuming it's ready to wrap around a human. But the call to work on something different is very loud at this point. (spinning doesn't count!) As much as I want to work on something else, I just can not. Oh hell, I'm rambling again. O.K. So after quasi measuring the shawl and playing around with the tape measure as if it were a shawl itself, I determined that the shawl needs at least 30 more rows. (I actually settled on 25 more rows until I remembered the pattern was a 10 row repeat.....not so much compatible with 25 rows, therefore the 30.) I'll re-measure after that point and will determine if we go another 20 to a full 300 or if the boarder around will be enough. I've not had any responses to my plea for help with the boarder other than my sisters' asking if I referred to my mother as an elderly lady to her face. (Not helpful with the actual question, but forgiven as she's not a knitter.) And my response is, "ARE YOU KIDDING!???!!! Of course not!!! lol I don't have a clean corner to stick my nose in!" It was stated as such to invoke the pity of fellow knitters. Granted at her age she could be considered elderly by some.....but then.....well, we won't go there. I did locate ONE website today that may be a help in knitting the border, but in truth it only caused it gave me hope of finding a better site. Scary huh?

I'm slowly working on the issue of a shawl pin that really should be part of the gift as it's going to be a bit important in the wearing of a shawl and she doesn't have any yet. (shawls or pins..........forgive me, it's been a trying day.) I've tripped across a couple of online patterns I might be able to pull off, but the Guild is having one of their bi-annual sale meetings this month ( I will not buy Lincoln, I will not buy Lincoln!) and I can't promise that if I find a shawl pin I can buy faster, cheaper or easier than I can make that I won't buy it to finish of the gift. I wish I could afford to order a really nice one from one of my friends online, but it's not in the cards. I'm not too worried about it. I'm still hoping I can complete a beaded egg for her birthday in Feb. I'm thinking that I may need a break from knitting during vacation time at the end of December. Maybe I can get an egg done that week. We'll see. I'm hoping I don't come home with any more fiber from the meeting this month. ;)(I will not buy Lincoln, I will not buy Lincoln!) Last year I brought home a Jacobs fleece (free) and although I've washed it, it's not done in the carding department. I have to keep telling myself that I have enough fiber....I have enough fiber. My friend Julie sells Angora or Mohair un-dyed or dyed and I had the evil thought that I could buy some from her dyed for blending and have less work. "Shut up evil mind! I have some un-dyed in the shed! I could dye my own!" It's hard though, cause she has really pretty fiber......and a picker.....and a HUGE carding machine. You can justify a whole lot when you go vist her. ;)

Oh, the shed that the fiber is stored in, that's another topic all on it's own. lol The next non-rainy day off I get means the shed gets a turn out. About two
(I'm deathly afraid of spiders.) Unfortunately I didn't consider that hundreds of dead spider carcasses are more freaky than ONE live spider. Some of those are HUGE! I get super creeped out going out there now and it's worse in the dark. I would not be surprised to see an Aragog sized freaky out there when I go out there next. Therefore it requires full daylight and back up in the house. Just. In. Case. That also explains why there is so much applesauce in the freezer in the house waiting to go in the freezer in the shed. ;) It's dark when I get home now and who wants to take on possibly huge spiders in the shed, in the dark, just to free up freezer space?!

One of the things I did not get done this last weekend was washing my riding gear. Hopefully I'll find time next weekend. It's time to strip out the guts of the helmet (I wear a full face helmet) and wash them and wash/waterproof my jacket. Sadly I think it's late enough in the year that I won't be riding again until 2009, so it's time to put away the gear. For some of us riders this is a normal part of the cycle (no pun intended) of life. For freaks like Don, it's not time yet, and it's not that long a time. lol Don only stopped riding last year when there was ice on the roads or when it was actually snowing. So last year I think his off season was a total of three weeks and we were on vacation one of those weeks. ;) It's all good as the longer he gets the ride, the less PMS (Parked Motorcycle Syndrome) he gets. Trust me, it's no exaggeration, his PMS is worse than mine. Chocolate and wine will not help his. I do get concerned when the weather geeks are forecasting wind storms though. A car/truck provides more protection from the elements than an XJ. Just sayin. I will admit to missing riding though. There's just something about cruising around on a motorcycle. I'm looking forward to next years riding season.

There are some changes marked for the future. Not just in the personal life, but in the blog life as well. I no longer have the time I had in the past for blogging and to be honest, the thrust of my interests is swinging back to the even keel of craft life for me. That being said, there's less and less of animal life to comment on and more on the craft or season permitting, gardening side. Sadly many of my fur kids are "elderly" (and yes Bonny, I do say it to their faces. ;) ) and do not much more than sleep. Tucker being the exception, but even with him, he's matured. He's not with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and much of his work life is time I do not see. This is not a bad thing. It's his purpose. He was obtained to be a guard dog. It's his JOB, and believe me, he adores his job. ;) We do have personal time every day and he's quite the spoiled baby in many respects. It just that there are less and less cutie pictures to share as they are harder and harder to get. As I find opportunities, I'll post pics of him and as stories crop up, I'll share. But it's a bit dry in the "cute dog moments" right now. I'm sure when the snow starts to fall, there'll be plenty! All this leads up to the "It's not you, it's me"; moment where I confess that I'm ready to leave the "Dogs on Thursday" Group. I honestly can't remember when I did a Dog's on Thursday Post, and to be fair to the group I need to leave the rolls. I'm not a productive member. I've met many wonderful people and I may join up again in the future, but for now it's time for me to move on. I'll still keep tabs on my friends and lurk here and there to keep up with Tuckers online buddies. I wish you all the best.

OK it's late and I've got to get up early tomorrow. I think tomorrow's going to be a bit of a trying one again, Yippee for me, so I'm off to bed. Where's that anti-stress tea?! lol I think I'll be needing it tomorrow. I wish the best for you all!

Feeling Chatty Part 3-

2008-11-08T22:33:00.001-08:00

That'll learn ya!

See? You ask where I've been and you get a three part blog post. lol

On With the Fiber! In which I say "FINALLY!" and " Whew!"
Ok, a while back I started these "color blend" exercises in which I tried to blend colors I would not normally blend. Can I just say now I consider it a failure? If I can't stand to blend the fibers and resort to striping out the blend to spin it, is is really a color blend test? Does it matter? Does anyone care? Anyhow, here's the latest that I named Charleston Chew and immediately liked it better due to it's name. It had no name before it's photo shoot and I hated it, but upon naming it Charleston Chew (which it resembles) I was immediately overtaken with a comforting memory from childhood and liked it better. Not saying that if you claim it it's not yours cause to be honest it's repellent to me. Just saying that it's not "throw it on the bon fire repellent". K? It's one redeeming factor before naming was that it was a softer twist and a fluffier yarn than I've been spinning, so there's progress, no?

Holy Cats! it feels good to be speaking of the fiber again! It seems so long since I've typed a sentence about the fiberly goodness! Not that it's been neglected. Oh, I've been dyeing. I've been carding. I've been spinning. I've even been knitting.

When I show you what I've come up with for Maria, you will be so jealous you may well want to hunt her down. To be fair to her, as I love her dearly, I won't tell you any more of her. We'll just refer to her as "The Fair Maria" from now on. K? Well, "The Fair Maria" has commissioned three skeins of yarn from her minion (myself) . One to be a Burgundy/blue mix of my choosing, one to be of a vermilion and the final to be of a purple hue. All three are to be for the Princess Brooke and must be skin-worthy. I dyed and blended a soft wool/alpaca blend that I believe the Princess Brooke will be pleased with.
Here's the blue, which I've already started. It's the softest blend I've come up with so far and the color is pleasing. At the time of this post, I've completed one bobbin (approx. 1/2) of the blue. Once the blue is done, then I'll start the Burgundy. After completion of both colors, I will ply one color with the other to complete the yarn.

After that is the purple.

And the vermilion. Three skeins total.

If I'm able to fight off the call of this fiber, I'm working on Mom's shawl. It's the only knitting I'm allowing myself at this point. So far I'm at 140+ rows. Here's a picture of it holding down my new knitting basket. ;) At 250 rows, I'll stretch it out to approx blocking measurements and then make a determination from there. Do I go to 300 rows or not? That's remains to be seen. My mother is a small framed woman and I want her to be able to wear this. I'll probably be making this decision this weekend. (oh man I hope so, cause I need to figure out how to do the border around a triangle, cause you know?, it wasn't addressed in the book it was published in. And I quote, "Alternatively, you can finish the piece with a narrow knitted on boarder." Thanks. Thanks so much. From those of us new to this, how do I knit the freaking corners?!!! Before Christmas would be nice thank you very much! So anyone with any clues, it would be much appreciated if comment now. It could make a huge difference in a nice elderly lady's Christmas presents. Just sayin. ;)

Another "finished project" on the bobbins was the previously cabled yarn from HERE that became two separate yarns again in the last few months. I discovered that to make a cabled yarn you really had to intend that at the onset of spinning the singles, so I un-cabled this yarn, added twist to the two, two-plys and then set their twists, making two skeins of two ply yarn. Both beautiful and functional, but not one cable yarn. Therefore, the cable yarn is still on my to-do list, but these beauties are now functional yarns. ;) We're all happy with the results.

There have been other spinning feats, but I'll wait until I have yardage to post the pics. At least I'm somewhat up to date. ;)

Feeling Chatty Part 2

2008-11-08T21:40:00.001-08:00

Part Deux!

October 26, 2008.

5) I can be accurate about this date as I remember it very well. Not only was it the last date I rode my motorcycle this year (so far) but it was truly a WONDERFUL day! We started off at our usual Sunday haunt for breakfast, but as it was later than usual, and busier than usual we ended up sitting at the "bar" and got to see more of the "drama". They were so busy that our coffee showed up in Styrofoam take out cups! That has NEVER happened!! The whole breakfast time was so abnormally busy and entertaining that the hubster left an abnormally large tip to be divided between the two waitresses. They appreciated it and it totally underscored that we're "regulars" and understand the trade.

This was the last Sunday the the hubster "demanded" (snort-hiccup-laugh) that we ride the motorcycles as it was beautiful. Who was I to argue? Yes, I had at least 3 reasons to shoot him down, and I would have but I really wanted to get out for the day. And a glorious day it was! He had put all his fire power into the "We're riding today" campaign that he hadn't set he actual ride. I suggested a calm ride to the "fall corn maze of his choice" and won the round. For the past "I don't know how many" years, I've wanted to do a Fall corn maze and we both know several farmers that build them every year. The ironic part is that the one we went to was a customer to neither of us!!!! lol So I floated the idea over breakfast, and the deal was sealed! We ended up at "The Farm" in Snohomish, doing the Washington State Maze. What a hoot!

First stop was the bank for cash to get in the gates. While the hubster was inside, I watched the motorcycles and washed off our helmets. MAN! His was really dirty! You'd think he'd take time to wash that crud off!!!!

The first thing we saw at the farm were the giant pumpkins! WOW! I've seen stuff like this on TV but not in person!

Me, being a feed store employee, I had to see the animals, even if they weren't customers!

So here are the piggies.....

And the sheepies......(what kind of spinner would I be if I didn't take a sheepie pic?!)

OK, and this is where I realize that all the good pics are on the hubsters computer. Suffice it to say that the maze was laid out to resemble Washington State. We hit every city that meant anything to any family member and then went to any city on the map. It was wonderful amounts of fun, we spent the whole day there and we'll probably do it again!!! I'm so glad we did it finally this year! I hope we can do it next year with a group of friends.

6) Here's the Mom shawl progress pic at this point. Even though I'm the knitter, I can admit it looks no different really from the previous pic and the next. lol You'll just have to trust me that it's progressing.

7) On the 29th of October we carved pumpkins for the first time in years! We both chose our designs from online and they both came out grand. All I knew was that I wanted mine to be winking, DH came through for me in an utmost humorous fashion and I think they both were great! Mines on the left, his on the right.

8) Hang in there my fiberly friends. The goodness is on the way. lol I'll post the next one as 8a)...yes...it's just that good. ;)

Feeling Chatty Part 1

2008-11-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

It's been nearly a month since my last post and as Cindy pointed out, "It's not motorcycle weather.", so I have not that excuse. Really, time just gets away from me. It's hard for me to believe that it's November 8th already! Someone mentioned to me today that loss of memory was one of the signs of aging, I just can't remember who. (ba dum bump! applause) Well anyway, I've decided that I'm just going to pick up where I left off last month and do a long rambling post and try to catch up to today. I may have to suddenly break if off to start another post, but that depends on how much blogger can take. ;)

To simplify I think I'll do a list and add photos as necessary.

The following has happened since the last post.....

O.K., I just went to "my photos" to see what's been going on in the last month and there is NO way that's all gonna fit in this post. I think we need to break this down by category or something or you all will be here forever. Yes. All three of you. And really, Cindy, I know you have stuff to do....lol So although there will be numbering....it may not mean anything other than as space makers.)

1) The GARDEN! ---Thankfully I've just re-read the last post and deleted the paragraph that I typed here to tell you how the garden went. Ya, I know you got that last post. So here are some pics.

Raised beds, cleaned out with the exception of one broccoli plant that I made an agreement with (it must produce or out it comes!) and seeded with a cover crop. Please ignore the untidy gravel pathway as much of the top left of the picture is strawberry plants that hopped the bed and are moving to my Mom's in the Spring. I couldn't bear to kill them and she's not ready for them yet, so they'll stay with me till then. ; ) It's not really a problem as there's a motorcycle (Virago) that needs to move sitting on that pathway too. lol

Here's the sunflower that didn't quite make it before the seasons changed. It was not planted by me, as I didn't plant any. One of the wild birds or rodents must have stashed it here.

The tires I decided not to seed with cover crop as I'm going to change out 1/2 their soil next spring before seeding. In this picture you can see the Lavender (that I've always wanted to grow but didn't get transplanted yet) and the Mints that should already be in the mint bed but that requires moving some other flowers first. My gardening life resembles a slide puzzle. "move piece a, slide piece b, move piece c into space vacated by piece a," etc.

And the bean/pea bed all cleaned out and ready to grow.

This is my pride and joy from that weekend. Just looking at this picture makes me smile. I've been wanting to clean out the area behind the shed and behind the lettuce bed and lay shavings since I built the lettuce round bed. It was always part of the plan. At things progressed, and there were more important things to do, that project fell by the wayside. Even though I knew it would save me time and effort, even though I knew it would mean eradicating a natural shelter for rodents, snails and slugs. Finally, this Autumn, when the ground was so moist that the natural weeds just peeled off like a blanket, I was able to complete this task. It was amazingly simple, but oh so satisfying! This is the spot I stash my extra fencing, my empty pots, my extra whatever. It will be so nice to not have to cut whatever-it-is-I-need out of the blackberry vines and weeds to be able to use it next spring. What a grand Spring surprise that will be because I promise you, after the winter snows, I'll forget I got that accomplished!

I've already made one resolution for next years garden. "I am only going to grow what we normally eat!", and I mean it. Even if it means three boxes of the same ole, same ole. It's ridiculous to grow food that we 1) don't normally eat (meaning, I'll buy it at the grocery) or that is 2) a royal PITA to store. ;) So next year will be a bit interesting with me trying to curb my "let's grow everything in the known universe" mentality! Come back and enjoy the ride!!! This means I should NOT be planting Turnips. Can you help me remember?

o.k. at this point in the evening, I'm working on the second coming of this post. My dial up connection has already failed once, deleting 2/3's of this post and I've just re-created it. If it fails again, I will be forced to give up and go to bed as I cannot be held accountable for my reaction to a post being eaten up by blogger twice in one evening due to dial up issues. I'm only noting this as the last time it crashed it posted my unfinished post and if you are reading this and it's wonky...that's why. k?

2) The next grouping of pictures were downloaded on the 26th. They included the 21st of October, which was the hubsters and mine 17th wedding anniversary. As we were wedded on our two year anniversary, it marked the 19th year we have spent together. I was completely floored to receive a flower arrangement delivered at work. I NEVER expected that, and was so wonderfully surprised that I was speechless for a bit. It truly effected me for days. I'm still floored. It was arranged differently from both sides and I loved it completely! As it happens, I had a guild meeting with some prior responsibilities that night and could not miss the meeting, so we had our usual guild night of deli oriental for dinner. I believe he had other plans, but made up for it later in the week.

Here's a shot of the other side! This beautiful arrangement lasted at least two weeks. I've yet to toss the dead heads as I'm waiting on the last of the bloomers. I hate to let something like that go!

3) Oh yeah, and I broke out this old friend from the cupboard. During grocery shopping one day I noticed that the price of "decent" bread was so high that I could make it myself at a significant savings. Yes, I own a bread machine and yes, the initial out go was more than a loaf of bread, but even making the two loaves a week required to meet our needs, we're saving money. I made that up the second week I made 7 grain bread. I think the bread tastes better, and I know what's going into it, so I know it's healthier. There have been a few mishaps like miss-calculations and all that is normal to a new routine. It must be sticking though as last Monday (My day off) I had a batch of bread going, the food dehydrator going, and a crock pot of soup going all while I carded fiber. Wow! What a wonderful and happily repeatable day!! If I could do that each day and stay home, I'd feel truly productive! ;) (Oh, what a dream!)

4) Oh, and last but not least for this post. Some time around here I loaded up His Royal Highness Tucker the 1st and we visited the "walk in clinic" to get an accurate weight. He wanted me to post his weight as I was guesstimating him a little heavy. He's only 156.8 lbs. NOT 160. I know, I know, but can you argue with this?

Love him dearly and can hardly believe he's almost 2!

Oh Crap!

2008-10-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

Before I get to the "Oh Crap!" portion of this post, let me rain a little happiness on you all. Well, the happiness for you spinners anyway. ;)

This would be, and is, another of my blending tests. So far it's a hit with everyone that's seen it. (Yes, all three of us. But really, that does make 100% satisfaction and if the politicians can get away with this, so can I!) This is the red/gray/blk sample on the wheel. I decided not to blend the batt a second time on the carder, but to strip off the colors from the batt and to spin the colors as individually as possible. (Yes, I know, it's kind of mucking up the "blended" batt tests if I don't blend the batt fully.....but, well......it didn't want to be blended. So sue me. I'll try to blend a mix of these colors later. Really. I will.) So here it is on the wheel and looking ever so lovely with it's separate color sections! ( And don't you just love the sheep peering up from the wheel at you?!!!)

After completing the single, I then wind it into a center pull ball and ply it back on itself, giving myself a two ply yarn and no left overs. This plying technique's name escapes me at this time (small voice in head says "Navajo" and large voice says "nope, you're wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong!!") I'll look it up later. The shot of whiskey in the tea says, "Keep typing and ignore all other voices." Sounds like good advice to me, so I'll continue on and hopefully look up the required info later. Back to they plying technique... Besides it's name escaping me it's a technique that I'm not overly proficient at. Hopefully by the time I'm through with these "tests" I'll be better at it and more comfortable with it. One of the downfalls of it is that I have to start and finish the plying in one sitting as my fingers on one hand are keeping the stuff from knotting up, it's important that I don't put the center pull ball down, but keep plying until done. Thank goodness I have no children and no one is likely to knock on the door, requiring me to stop the process.

OK, so now the happiness. Here's the finished skein! It is 1 oz Fire Engine Red, .5 oz Silver Grey and .5 oz Black ALPACA. (I havn't washed it yet to set the twist so I have no yardage info as of this time. Future post to be sure.) Yep, I cheated. I figured, why take perfectly good white wool and dye it black when I have absolutely fabulous black alpaca.....and I do mean BLACK Alpaca that is clean and super soft and would make nummy gloves. Ok. You caught me. The husband tried to claim this as his...to go with the red/black/grey sock yarn I dyed that he claimed.....but I beat him to it. 'Tis MINE! Mwaaaa haaa haaaa!!! I do believe I'll have a whole wardrobe of glovies for this winter!!!!

Which reminds me. Do you remember these? The first finger-tip less gloves I knit last winter. Well, it was Feb of this year which technically was last winter. Anyway if you remember, I typically wear these to drive the car in cold weather cause my hands are becoming cold weather wussies. A couple of weeks ago I got them out of the glove box on a particularly cold morning and as I was leaving for work the dufus pup managed to catch a fang on one of them and I was sure he tore the yarn and caused a run. There was much swearing and planning of his funeral as I headed to work. Driving down the country backroads is not conducive to checking hand knits for runs and broken yarn so it had to wait until I got to work. The "run" was so tight it took me quite a bit of time and two bent paper clips to clear it up and lucky for Tucker......the yarn was NOT broken. So...he lives. Anyway, this incident lead to them being lovingly washed (as they had not been properly washed at completion but had been hastily worn and then stored!) and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed again. I was getting worried due to the color coming off in the rinse water. The third rinse recieve a huge glug of vinegar and clear rinses followed. Oddly enough, they pretty much look like the above pictures so I don't know where the color came from. lol After they dried they were placed in a convienient spot awaiting frosty weather. Well, I must have been sensing the seasonal change cause they've been put to work this week for sure. Just this morning I was thinking that I couldn't wait to cast on for another pair! One for every day of the week would be nice! hehehe

The pooch is enjoying this very seasonable change in weather. He's very much a cool weather dog and loves to play in the rain and roll around in the frost. With the cooling temps he's wanting to play more and is begging for more attention in the evenings. As I was trying to unlock the door tonight he was nibbling on my ankles, which tickels no end, making it very difficult to get in the house, especially with my arms full! He's quite the ham when he wants attention to be sure! It's time to start shopping the second hand stores for new bedding blankets for him and to hastily put a roof on the dog house as he's finally decided to use it on occasion and of course it leaks from him climbing on it. Nice of him to wait until the end of Summer to make that determination! lol My mom came over last Monday and he rode in the car to pick her up. I think she was quite suprised to see how large he really is and now understands why we don't take him many places anymore. I do believe he out weighs her by at least 10 lbs! lol He was so happy to see her though and gave her many kisses in the car on the way home. She hasn't seen him in quite a while and I don't thinks she understood me when I said he took up the whole back seat of the car but she seemed delighted to see him. All went well, he showered her with kisses and made eyes at her through the living room window like the handsome flirt he is. I've gotten rid of some house plants and he can see more fully into the house now. He's a liken that!

I'm still working on Mom's shawl and yes it's still a "sshhhhh!" item. It's moving right along and I've just finished row 199. Placed marker for row 200 and I am ready to move on. Now for the "Oh Crap!" moment. Why? I ask you WhY? I've been a good knitter. I'm knitting this for someone else, with yarn I bought, for goodness sake, in the colors THEY like. This is NOT for me! So tell me....why is it that I reach this milestone of 200 rows.......with every other one growing two stitches......only to find a nasty mistake about 25 rows back?!!! This is a gift!!! Why?! Why?! Why?!!!
Why? Well, I'll tell you why. This happened because it's a holiday gift for someone special. It's because it's my FIRST true lace project of any size. It's because I was knitting along so splendidly fast that I could complete it before the actual date required! (I KNOW!!!! ShOCK!) It's because it causes me to stop and think about what's important to the receiver vs. what's important to me. It does irratiate me that there's going to be errors in this shawl, but there's a voice in the back of my head saying, "It's your first lace, your first shawl, cut yourself some slack!" (But then again, that could be the whiskey in my tea.) Part of me wants this to be P.E.R.F.E.C.T. Another part just want's it to be done. I'm trying to make sure that I balance the one with the other and not be such a perfectionist that it doesn't get completed, but not so lax that the quality is crap. I paused the knitting process on it to look over my options. I could riiiiip it back. (Aargh. Rip off skin instead please!) I could try the knitted lace "oopsie" fix that I've seen on a more talented bloggers site, but really, I know I'm not skilled enough for that yet, so no I can't. ( Sigh ) Or, I could knit on and realize that the reciever isn't going to care if there is a mistake in it. She'll see it as a sign of the hard work that went into making it. She'll recognize the love and the sweat and the tears and the frustration of learning a new skill to make something special for someone else. Hell, she may never even see the mistake if I don't goof up and show it to her myself! So, I knit on. Hopefully tomorrow will give me enough hours to start row 201 and I do think it'll be time for a pictorial update after that.

Today was day two in row for frost in the morning. That means "Good bye Garden" for me. As soon as I got home I was out in the garden harvesting up the last of the summer squash, beans and the tomatoes. It's been a rough gardening year to be sure and there have been many let downs. While I was picking tonight I was thinking about the fact that it's October and I'm harvesting still. Granted the squash were all dinky this year and the plants didn't produce much, but really....they produced right up until frost. That's something to be grateful about. The strawberries were wonderful and I've gotten some in the freezer as well as blackberries. The green beans did wonderful this year and I've been able to put some into the freezer, so that's saying something. There are turnips out there waiting to be harvested, and the carrot I picked as a test tonight was wonderful! So not all's a complete loss. ;) It was a bit sad to not have the garden fresh tomatos this year. The tomato plants did fine as I thought ahead and had them in a more sheltered spot this year, but the weather just did not warm up enough, long enough for them to ripen fully. I had several hit the deck (literally) before they were even ripe due to the weather conditions. So I stewed on the problem.(no pun inteded.) Did I mention I'm slow mentally sometimes? Well I am. I only lately discovered that I could dry the tomatoe, green ones and all, in the dehydrator. Wahoo! So tonight I harvested the last of the little beasties off the vines. It felt good to know they wouldn't go to waste. I can use them later in soups, stews and breads and have the added pleasure of knowing that they were survivors of the "rough" gardening year.Don't they look purty!?! I fully plan on harvesting all the food out of the beds and planting with a cover crop this year. This excludes the raspberry and strawberry beds of course, but the other planting beds need to be harvested and cover cropped asap. I didn't do this last year and I think that failure combined with the weird weather and possibly some over agressive weed management caused the partial crop failure this year. I got the last of the beans tonight, so that bed can be cleaned, turned and planted. I've just got to harvest the turnips, carrots and the left over broccoli and those beds can be done. The squash tires can be cleaned out and cover cropped as well.

I'm planning on setting down and making two plans for the yard for next season. One is the food/herb plan including when to start certain plants and herbs for next season. The other is an overall plan to reduce the amount of yardwork required to maintain a pleasant yardscape. (Large words for how to make the crappy yard work disappear so I can ride the motorcycle more next year without guilt!! lol) This plan will largely include removing plants and replacing them with bark and easier care periennials or shrubs. It will also (hopefully) include a Monthly To-Do list (weather permitting!). I'm hoping to take advantage of some of the "not-nice-for-riding-but-great-for-yardwork" weather but I'll be honest with you, that weather often looks just like "perfect spinning/knitting" weather and I get confused easily. Here's to keeping my fingers crossed that it works out! ;) There's always plenty to do and often times at this time of year, I'm more inclined to work inside than out. Oh well, it's not a contest and I don't have any kids to tell me I'm doing it wrong. Lol.

Well, I do have a lot of other stuff to talk to you about, but it's nearly midnight and I'm tired so I'll wind this down and head to bed. I'll try to get some more pics to post soon. I hope all is well with all of you and that you and yours have enough to see you through. I'll be back soon as this blog has been on my mind lately. More and more I think..."I should blog that!" lol That's a good sign I believe.

Classics Anyone?

2008-10-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

I finished a book from one of my favorite authors last night and tonight felt the need to start a new book. While tripping my way through my library I ran across a collected works of Robert Louis Stevenson that opens up with "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and includes others such as "The Bottle Imp" and "The Body Snatcher". It suddenly struck me that I had never read this "..Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" although I know the "gist" of the story. Who hasn't heard a rendition of it? It seemed suddenly to me though that I lacked something, not knowing the original story. And what of the other stories in the book? What other jewels are hidden there? Hmm....I think I must read the book and find out.

Then I got to thinking of other "stories' that I "basically knew the gist of" but had never read (or even saw the movie rendition of) and I was struck with one thought. How ignorant am I?! How lazy? I always thought of myself as "well read" but as I look at it in retrospect.....I'm not. I just read a lot. I know the basic line of Wuthering Heights as I've listened to and can sing along with Pat Benetar and have watched the old black and white movie at least once when I couldn't sleep at night. (Thank you Turner Classic Movies!) What a sad commentary on my literary knowledge is that?! Before you fillet me alive with how movies and songs leave out the best parts of a literary piece, let me plead with you that I know this, truly I do. How much of the Harry Potter saga has to be left on the cutting room floor in the interests of time and cinematography?! Trust me, I know. I've read the books so many times (as have many of you) that I almost gasp when there are missing parts. But I understand, I truly do. And what of the missing parts of the Lord of the Rings saga on film?!!!

So, as I was reading in the bath tonight I found it hard to concentrate as I was struck with the thought that maybe there where other stories that I was missing out on. Then I had a brilliant thought! "I'll ask the blogisphere!" So I ask you all as my friends. What books do you recommend? What would you consider an absolute can not miss out on "classic". For whatever reason. I promise that what ever you offer up I'll truly try to read. I guess it's safe to say that there are NO obvious answers, so please......post them up in the comments and I'll start a Must Read list. I'll even post it here if there is enough interest. ( Yes dear, that includes The Constitution.) I know that one that comes to mind is "Pride and Prejudice". I'm suppose to know what that's about and just cannot express it myself. So there. How's that for meeting "ignorance" face on?

Bloggage---Tucker!

2008-09-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

Ok so it's been a long time since you've had some eye candy.

I understand.

I do.

I see this handsome beast every day and yet sometimes I forget how stunning he can be and that some of you, ahem, only come here to see him.

So I give you.....

Tucker......

A month ago... Don was trying to rake up the front lawn after mowing. Keep in mind that Tucker loves long handled tools. And his Pa!

So I guess it's a good thing Don hadn't gotten the rake out yet, huh? lol

Then there are my new favorite pics of him.

Don captured this one before one of our rides. They were outside waiting for me and Tucker was peeking in the window at me. ;) I was tickled to see this pic as I've only seen this from the other side of the window. lol

This is after we got home. Isn't he a handsome boy?!

Ok, I hear him talking outside which means his Pa is home and it's time to cook dinner. I hope you all have a great week and I'll try to get back soon with more updates!

Working Through It-Fiber!

2008-09-29T16:32:00.002-07:00

The "Bloggage" that is.....I'm still working through it. Hang in there. Just pray this isn't permanent. ;) At least there's finally a post for what you're really here about. NO! Not Tucker...you'll have to wait for that.....this is a craft blog for goodness sakes!!!! It's suppose to be about my fiber and my crafty pursuits! I am more than the sum of my animals. Really, I am. Truly. Oh bother! Fine read this and then I'll post the pics of THE Dog that you're really here for. ppppbllllppptt!

First it's shawl update time! Yes, I'm still working away on Mom's shawl and yes it's still a surprise, so no telly on me yet k?! But, I'm currently on row 182 and it's progressing nicely. (I KNOW! I'm totally surprised I haven't given up on it myself!) I noticed a mistake last night and was able to drop back to fix it. After that, I noticed one about 75 rows back and um....I'm not skilled enough to fix it at this time so it stays in as a "design element". My mother has hand crafted for much of her life and will probably notice said mistake, but will be so tickled by the pressie that she will not mention it at all. She'll wait for me to tell on myself later. ;) hehehe. It's really nice to craft for someone like that. That said, I'm not done with the first ball of yarn yet and have two more. It appears that if I use all three then the shawl will be way to large for her smallish frame. I may make her a scarf/gloves out of the left overs. Her hands and mine are close in size so I'm sure I could fudge the gloves. I was going to pair the shawl with tickets to the local Nutcracker production for her X-Mass pressie so it may get better. ;)

Here you can see it's up to 20" from point up. That's not completely stretched out and I'm curious to see how big it will be when blocked. Unfortunately I'm using a different weight yarn and different needle sizes than are specified in the pattern, so I'm not sure how large the shawl will actually be. ;) Ah the mystery of ignorant knitting! lmao I'm still thrilled with the pattern and I'm thrilled with the yarn and the color progressions. Now I'm trying to find just the right shawl pin (that doesn't cost too much ) and hoping the blocking comes out well. ;) I did ask Cindy for pointers and she most obligingly sent me a quick response! THANK YOU!

In other fiber pursuits....remember back when I was dyeing up fiber batches for a color blending exercise? Well I finally got some time and put together 6 blends. (One of which was Dons suggestion and not shown here yet.) As they are only 2 oz each, they are spinning up quickly. I've completed two and decided to share those with you now instead of waiting until they are all done. I hadn't decided to do anything with the sample skeins, but had thought that they'd just be that, samples. However as I was spinning I began seeing a whole wardrobe of mittens for the coming winter. ;) Yeeeeaaahhhhh.....that's sounding wonderful! So anyhoo, I took a bunch of pics of one of the color blends as it went through the process so that I could share. I didn't do that with all the blends as to be honest it's a bit of a PITA.

This is color blend test #4 at the carder. I numbered them in the order that I planned them, but the numbering had nothing to do with the order in which I spun them. As I liked this color combo the best, it's the one I took pics of and documented through the whole process. Oh yeah, and the first I spun up. ;) Its a gun metal blue, burganday and silver.

Purty! Don't ya think?!!! (Say yes, it'll make me happy.) It was a delicious spin and I enjoyed it muchly! Started dreaming of fingerless mitts almost immediately.

I wound the completed single into a center pull ball so I could ply it on itself. Sorry for the slightly blurry pic.

And here it is all plied up! Love it!! Defiantly a blend I'll repeat!

This is Colorblend #5-not my favorite, but I could so see a pair of mitts out of it. Maybe my preferences are changing. I'm not an orange/red/yellow kind of person, but this one's growning on me.

hehehe! Right before I snapped this pic, I told Don it looked like I was carding Bozo the Clowns hair! So, as I work on these self imposed colorblending exercises, I'll share. I'm learning a bunch and trying to push my boundary's on color usage. You know, trying to get out of my usual usage box. So far I've been pleased. There are a couple I'm concerned about so they keep getting shuffled to the back of the queue which means they'll probably be the most stunning. lol Isn't that how it works?

Oh and the best news to come out of these exercises?

A commission.

Yes, a real commission.

One for money even.

Truly.

I know, I can't believe it myself.

And the best part?

This person only wants the completed yarn.

No.

Knitting.

Involved.

Can I hear a collective "OH YEAH!"?

Only the Fun Stuff!

So what you see here is the dyeing in progress for the "commission". ;)

Notice something new?

Why yes, it is a new dye pot! (The one on the right!) I ordered it through work at a discount so I'm super happy and will confess that when I receive it I was disappointed and though it was too small. I was even going to order a larger one. Then I put it into action and realized how perfect it truly is! So I'm a happy dyer now and no complaints!

Well the fiber for the commission has been dyed and just needs to be picked and then it can be carded and the spinning can begin. I'll just need to concentrate on spinning the yarn in a thickness that will work for the project that the customer wants. Oh! And I need to figure out a price for the skeins too! Wow! I'm still in shock on that one. ;)

So that's it for fiber for now. I'll update as things progress. And now for the DOG post. ;)

Diagnosis = A Bloggage!

2008-09-29T15:24:00.000-07:00

Well I've planned several different posts on different subjects and because of all the planning, I've a bloggage and cannot seem to post at all! At this point the condition is not serious, but the only way to remove the bloggage is to just post multiple rambling blog posts until all the updating is done and it's all out of my system. Evidently I've been having too much fun and that's what caused this condition. There's just too much to tell! I know, poor me huh?lol

So I'll just start posting pics and stories in no particular order until we get all caught up, k?! K! Sounds dandy to me! And really it's much less work than trying to sort it all out chronologically.

Right now my house smells absolutely nummy! I am currently making a batch of beef/elk jerky and the house smells like spices. (Apologies to my veggie friends, I'll share the wonderful herb/veg smells later!) I bought a food dehydrator this month and have been having a grand time dehydrating stuff. I've done bananas, a couple of different batches of jerky and even cantaloupe. This thing makes the house smell so good. I did some dehydrating a long time ago and forgot how good it makes everything smell. ;) This pic is from the first grouping I did and I think each batch gets better. The goal behind buying the dehydrator was to be able to dehydrate some veggies for soup mixes and herbs for teas and cooking. So far all I've done is fruit and jerky and we're loving it. ;) Part of the batch of bananas I did I sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and they are really nummy. I can completely see them re hydrating in a bowl of oatmeal on a snowy morning. NUM!

Here is proof that we have been complete slackers in the housekeeping department this summer! No really, this is just Don's recliner that he uses as a dumping ground when he gets home. (Mines just as bad. lol) We have plans to sit down and and re-evaluate our storage options for the both of us to make our small (but happy) home more usable for both of us. (Evidently we'll have to clean off the recliners to sit in first!) In the mean time, this is his staging ground for leaving home and his dumping ground when he gets here. I'd have to take a pic of our kitchen table to show you mine "staging ground". ;) lol. I actually took this picture to prove a point. There's a cat hidden in plain sight here......can you find him? Salem has such a dark coat that he blends into the shadows so well and I often don't notice when he's right there in front of me.

Can you see him now? Amazing what flash can do! Doesn't look comfy to me, but he seemed happy enough.

Seasons around here are often defined by what the animals are up to and how they are behaving. For example...this is the same position he was in when I left that morning. This was taken the same night after work. ;) In the Spring, Salem disappears all day and I have to call him in at night, often worrying when he doesn't show up before I fall asleep. During the Summer months I rarely see him. When Autumn hits, he's all over the house sleeping everywhere. It's as if he's not slept for two seasons! Lately he's even taken to cuddling with the Paw in bed and that's a rare thing to be sure as he's a Mommas boy to the core.

Abbie celebrates Autumn with a burst of outdoor time. It's as if she's aware that there will be many many days ahead full of rain and snow and cold and stuff that she generally finds icky. Today when I came in from grocery shopping I discovered her hovering over her latest catch. Yes.....a dragonfly. Oft times we find a "catch" in the house and don't know who brought it in, but this time it was obvious as she was still with it. (I removed it to the back deck in the hopes that as with many of the birds that enter the house it would come out of shock and fly away. Sadly as of this posting, it's still on my deck railing. It was truly beautiful with gold like detailing on it's wings! A wonderful alive piece of art.)

Happily for Abbie the elusive "knitting bug" has been observed in the home again. It's another sign of Autumn that she truly enjoys. It's certainly one that will carry her through Winter. I'm sure we'll have many more photographic moments of her and the "knitting bug".

Well at this point I'm going to close this post. I'm hoping to get two more posts done and a dog groomed before Don gets home and dinner has to be made. :) I know....talk about setting the bar high! ;) Just want to let you all know I appreciate you checking in on this silly little blog and reading it when I post. I do think of blogging all the time, but "somethings" just been getting in the way. I'm hoping I've worked out what it is and can get back into a regular habit. Was there really a time when I blogged twice a week?! Man! That seem unreal!

Technical Difficulties

2008-09-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

Due to "technical" and not so "technical" difficulites I've been lax on the blogging. Sorry bout that. I'm checking in from work to let you all know that yes, we're all alive and well and I'll be back soon. With crafty stuff even. With pictures even! WOW! I know!!

WOW! What a weekend!

2008-08-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

It was a good thing I posted that picture of the shawl earlier. As I thought, I had been doing my yarn overs completely wrong and as I predicted, I ripped the whole (pitifully small) thing out and started over. I did a complete section of the pattern correctly as a practice run before ripping out though and this second try is all the better for it. I was able to catch back up to where I was in one evening and now it truly looks like the picture in the pattern. All this pleases me to no end as I've never been able to knit an actual lace pattern and have it even resemble the pattern picture. lol To top it off, I'm really using Lace Weight yarn even! (An yes, I'm using a life line!) So here's a new (crappy) progress pic and the specs for the pattern. Remember, this is a gift for my Mom, so if you know her and have contact with her, no telling, k?!

The yarn is Knit Picks Gossamer (100% Merino Wool) in the Red Hat colorway. Pattern is the Garter Lace Triangle Shawl from the book Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls. When completed this will be a true milestone for me, 1st lace and 1st knitted shawl. To say I'm enjoying it right now is a bit of an understatement, however a little voice keeps whispering to me that every other row is adding two stitches, making every other row longer and longer and maybe, just maybe there will come a time when one row will feel like an eternity. ;) The happy knitter side of my brain keeps telling the whisperer to shut up and we'll deal with that when we get there. Maybe with wine, maybe with rum. We'll see. lol

Well the hubby has all of the coming week off and we decided to make the most of it that we can. I have Sunday/Mondays off and with Monday being a holiday, I'm given Tuesday as my day off this week. It didn't take much asking to get my boss to let me to have Wednesday off so that the hubby and I could take a road trip. With Autumn fast approaching and the weather here turning quickly, my motorcycle riding season is rapidly drawing to a close. We had plans this year to take longer and longer rides together to build up to an overnight visit to some family on the eastern side of the state. Time flew by this summer, and we've certainly had some beautiful rides, but it's now or never for that overnight trip. So tomorrow afternoon we head out to cross the pass and visit one of my sisters and her family for the night. Tuesday morning we'll head over to Don's sisters house (a few hours from my sisters house) to spend time with her family and spend the night there. Wednesday we'll head home. Both of us are looking forward to the trip immensely, but both of us are knowing that Wednesday will be a L.O.N.G day of riding with many stops to stretch out. I'm pretty sure our fanny's will be sore by Thursday. ;) That doesn't quell the excitement though. lol

As if all the riding planned for Mon-Wed wasn't enough, Don had planned a ride with some of his friends from work for Sunday. An all day ride. :) I was more than happy to ride along to get some seat time in and see how I'd do on a longer ride. The weather wasn't as gloriously sunny as I'd hoped, but it also wasn't miserably hot. The sun was out for most of the day, and we only got rained on a little bit, while we were on the way home. The true thunder and lightening storm didn't hit until we were well home and inside for the day. Perfect timing and a perfectly wonderful day!

The four of us started the day off meeting up at our local diner for breakfast. Our goal for the ride was to make it as far as Diablo, Washington, located approximately 3 hours NE of here on the North Cascades Hwy. One of the requirements of the ride was to stop at Newhalem, Washington, to poke around and look at the Hydro Electric power station there. The whole "city" is set up as a working tourist spot. I put "city" in quotes for the simple fact that almost every sign there was logo'd with Seattle City Light as I do believe they own the whole darn area. lol It's a fully functioning power supplier, but due to the history and beauty of the area, coupled with the sheer awe inspiring human machinery it's quite the interesting tourist stop. There are walking interpretive trails all over the area. We have far more pictures than I can share here in this one post, but this will give you an idea of our day. I'll post more pics later.

Here are the Don, Jim and Ken at Rockport, one of our stretch stops. This whole area is beautiful to drive through, and riding on a motorcycle through here is even better!

This is a gazebo that was built in Newhalem. It was made from recycled parts from electrical power stations. It's quite enchanting to stand inside it.

Here's the Powerhouse....from the parking area. There is a suspension bridge foot path that you take across the river. All around the backside of that building are beautiful pathways and gardens. Don and I both took numerous pictures there and I'll share some with you later on.

Just around the corner from the power house is this bridge. I don't remember the distance to the bottom of the gorge, but it's quite a ways down. I snapped this pic of Don as it reminded me of Tucker when he drops something off the side of the deck. lol Rut-rowe!
And this is my new desktop pic on my computer. That's the hubster on a suspension bridge that takes you over to a wonderful looking set of trails that I hope we can explore some day. What a wonderful reminder of a wonderful day!

Well I best be off to bed. I have some packing to do in the a.m. before we head off to the fairgrounds for a few hours. My spinning guild is doing a sheep to shawl demo at the state fair tomorrow and I promised to help. I'll be leaving it a bit early so we can head out on our trip at a decent time. The neighbor lady kindly agreed to dog/cat sit and I'm utterly grateful to her. This will be the first time we've left Tucker home alone for more than just a short over-nighter so I'm a bit nervous. She's got access to huge quantities of treats for him, so hopefully all will be well.

"What do you mean you're going on a trip without me?"

"Why can't I come too? There better be lots of treats in this for me!"

I'll post up as soon as I'm recovered from the trip and am able. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that this weeks as much fun for you as it promises to be for me!

Why this Weekend Sucked and Didn't Suck Alternately.

2008-08-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

AKA....Knowing how to make the best of what ya got!

Well lets see, where do I start? Last week the Boss was on vacation and that always makes for a long week. That being said, by closing time on Saturday I was well ready for 1) a glass of wine. 2) a place to put my feet up and 3) a day off! So after the dinner chores were done, easily enough as the hubster is not a picky eater anymore (and was exhausted himself from having fun all day. ;) ) I sat down with my wheel and my fiber and spun on the white sticky mess that I brought back from Julies. Notice how when I brought it home a few posts back it was a large bag of spinnable wonderfulness and now its a "white sticky mess"?! After spinning up 2.5 singles of this stuff, aiming for a three ply, my hands were hurting from working with it and it was a bear to spin. Not what I'm used to at all. lol. It did give me something to work on on Saturday night though. I did consider knitting, but the Mojo was not to be found.

Sunday is normally a day that the hubster and I enjoy together. We get up, go out to breakfast, go for a wonderful ride together, etc, etc. Yeah. Sunday dawned gloomy. Not riding weather. Secretly my heart was happy as I had plans for a gloomy, wet, rainy day. We went to breakfast and discussed the fact that he wanted to go shopping after breakfast. Yep, you read that right. HE wanted to go SHOPPING. Weird I know! It turned out that he needed to get a couple of pairs of khaki pants for work (stupid new dress code to be enforced) and was wanting to pick up a GPS unit, such as a Garmon or a TomTom. As he had worked 6 days a week, three weeks in a row, one of which was over 65 hrs. I figured he could buy what he darned well pleased. ;) Besides, he does our finances and knows what we have money wise, not I. lol All that being said we ate our breakfast and headed off to the bowels of hell, aka. Wally World, aka. Walmart. Now I am known to shop there occasionally, but I absolutely hate it there. I HATE large crowds and crowded shopping venues. I will not go into the minor details of our trip that piled on and on to cause me to become a mean tempered, swearing she-devil by the time we left there but suffice it to say it had something to do with non-English speaking customer service reps(huge pet peeve here), being allowed to carry $40 worth of merchandise around the store, but having to pick up my $14 bottle of perfume at a special register and really I just don't do well in large warehouse type stores with lots of people so all these little things probably aren't anything at all but stress reaction. Call it over stimulation. Call it too much caffeine. Call it what you want. I call it the Bowels of Hell. Anyway, we escaped without injury (causing or receiving), legal fees and with his pants, my perfume and the TomTom.

Our trip home was quick and uneventful other than when we "confused" the TomTom. As we where headed home, I tore it out of it's package, plugged it in, did a fast-fix-it-the-way-you-want-later set up and plugged in our home addy for it to "lead us home" to test it. Well it did dandy and like all new parents we said, "WOW!" and "Look at that!" and "I can't believe it just did that!" That is until we decided to take a detour, off the map, to get videos on the way home. Then we had the whole parent of a teenager moment. You know, where you sit and giggle and say, "It'll never figure out what we did now!" But sadly, it did. Yep, our TomTom is smarter than us. Sad. But wait! Isn't that why we bought the blasted thing?!! Yessirebob! So this is a good thing!

Well we get home and it's fixing to pour rain like you wouldn't believe and I'm thinking "YEAH!!!! I'm throwing some laundry in the wash, setting up some dye pots and sitting down to spin me some yarn!" And thus I did. I give you proof!

This is Scarlett and Gun Metal dyeing up nicely. I've just this week ordered me a new SS stock pot through work (at a discount) to be my replacement dye pot for the one on the left. That pot is aged enough that occasionally stuff like fiber gets caught on the bottom of it. Not a good thing in my book.

So here's Miss Scarlett dyeing up with a flash photo. Yep another red. I'm not sure why I bought 3 red dyes, but it's a color that will get used a lot here, so that's all good.

Here is my new love! Gun Metal. For some reason I was completely expecting it to be a grayish color. Yes I did get the color sample page, but this on the page looked different to me. I was absolutely awestruck at it's beauty. I even had to get the hubster to confirm for me that it was a Gun Metal Blue.....not grey! WOO HOO! I'm so liking this color that I've already built in my head a couple of fantasy colorways to blend this into. I just need to write them down before I forget them!

So while the laundry was landry-ing and the fiber was dyeing, I was spinning up the white stuff that sucks and watching a movie with the hubster. I finished the singles while the first movie was playing and plied during the second movie. I did manage to get the yarn washed during the third (while I started to spin the Brown-Julie's-machine-carded-beautifully-and-it's-not-sticky-at-all-cause-it-was-cleaned-properly) but took no pics if it yet. I will when I dye it.

When we first sat down to watch the movie, Abbie kept trying to get me to sit down and knit. She pestered and cajoled. She climbed up and rubbed against my legs. Finally she gave in and climbed into the wool basket and inside the bag of wool. We've got several pictures of this, from several angles. lol

All in all Sunday wasn't too bad. The rain sucked in the respect that there are not too many more weekends for us to take day long rides this year. However, I really, really needed a wet dreary weekend to spend playing with the fiber again!

I have Mondays off now, so they officially count as weekend for me. Monday I decided that I was going to go to deliver the skeins of Alpaca I spun to the owners of Squire Creek Ranch. I phoned and left a message to see if they would be home. I then spent the morning on chores and such. I decided it was time to wash some fleece that have been soaking. How long do you soak yours? Well I don't usually wait this long but this one had time to sprout!

Kinda scary actually. This one was a small amount of leg/neck fleece from an alpaca and had been soaking as it was pretty dirty. It's almost done washing out now and I'll show you it all done up. (The picture quality is really bad. Sorry for that) I've seriously never sprouted a fleece before. lol

Part of Monday's "chores" was dyeing some more fleece. I determined that the bag of nasty sticky fleece would be re washed and then dyed. I wasn't spinning anymore greasy sticky white fleece. An wow! What a wonderful decision that was!

This is chestnut. Wonderful warm brown!

And Sky Blue. Woo Hoo!

And here's Salmon!

One of the wonderful things about this experiment is that I'm getting such vivid beautiful colors with a specified measured amount of dye. I know I can adjust these colors by adjusting the amount of dye used. It's truly exciting for me as I'm not just seeing each color, but the potential for each color as well!

While I was waiting for these colors to dye up I decided to sit down with Abbie and knit a bit. I wasn't in the mood to knit on a sock so I decided to wind up a skein of Red Hat yarn I bought for Mom and cast on. I know it's safe to talk about it here as she doesn't have Internet yet and no one who reads this will tell her about it. I bought a few skeins of Red Hat yarn from Knit Picks last year with the intention of making her a shawl or wrap out of it for Christmas. Well life and time got away from me and it didn't get done. Now I'm planning for this Christmas, or if not, her birthday is in February. So yesterday I picked up a simple lace shawl pattern, wound up the yarn and cast on. The knitting Mojo was back!

I give you a pic of the first attempt at three repeats as I'm pretty sure I'll be ripping this out to restart. I think I'm doing my yarn overs incorrectly in the lace sections and that's giving me a "different" look. It would be alright if I were consistent about it because then we could call it a "pattern modification" and I could just continue it through the whole thing. Unfortunately I think I'm doing them differently each lace section, so it just looks odd. lol Oh well. At least I can see definate lace sections, however odd they look lol I'll look up how to do the YO's again and practice a few more repeats before I rip back and restart. I'm finding it soothing to knit with the lace weight on small needles and the lace pattern isn't driving me insane. It in itself is soothing. This is a MAJOR improvement from last year when I couldn't even cast on in lace weight. VBG. I'll most certainly be posting on this again and at that time will give the pattern details. I just wanted to say..."But look....it's lace!! I CAN!"

At this point in lace making I had to set it aside to deliver the yarn. It's approximately 1.5 hrs from my house to the Ranch, so the plan was to drive up, drop of said yarn and head to the grocery store on the way home. I arrived at he Ranch with no problems. Handed over the yarn and thanked them again for the gift of the fiber. Spent a few minutes looking at the group of nearby Alpaca and then got in the car to head out. Only. The. Car. Wouldn't. Start. It was dead. No clicky clicky. No turn over. No radio. Nutin! Not even enough juice to move my automatic seat belt. I hadn't even been there 10 minutes!!! I was so embarrassed! They kindly hooked me up to a charger after I checked everything I could think to check including fluid levels. lol After about 30 minutes it still wouldn't start, even on a quick start setting. We ended up borrowing jumper cables (yes I own some, they were in the truck!) and jumping the car. Did I say how embarrassed I was?! Needless to say I drove straight home. No stops. Ironically it died in the driveway just after crossing the threshold. I had to push it about 3 inches to get the gates closed so Tucker could get off his tether. Wow! I should have tied him to the front and let him pull it! lmao. I figured it was the alternator and called the hubster who brought one home with him, but within 3 minutes he figured out it was the battery. He replaced said battery today for me (I drove the truck as it was raining for a bit and I still had groceries to get!) and I should be good to go tomorrow. What a stressful ride though! I spent that hour and a half on the way home figuring on how I could buy a new car and then what fencing I'd have to do to keep Tucker from climbing on said new car! Good thing this one's fixed. Now I don't have to do that extra fencing. lol

Ok and at this point, you've read this far in hopes of finding a pic of Tucker. This weekend he was NOT so helpful in the taking of pictures and I've got nothing for ya. Sorry. I do have a story about him that I'll try to post soon....with some pics and I've got another post on a hike/ride we did last weekend. I'll try to get all this done this week as we've got a big weekend planned for next weekend.

I hope all is well with you and yours. If the current weather is anything to go by, I'll have more time to post soon. :( But at least this will get back to a craft type blog again. lol

ok, ok, not really and ect.

2008-08-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

So the last post was titled " for Cindy", and really, it was written as if just to her and in honor of her. But honestly, that didn't mean you couldn't all read it if you wanted! It wasn't intended as a snub to anyone, honestly! lol

Here's some eye candy to make up for it. ;) Here are some more pics of the dyeing experiments.

This one is Silver Grey and Fire Red. Love them both and keep picturing them blended with Black Alpaca. NUM! They both picked out beautifully!

Please excuse the un-picked-ness of these two...lol I still haven't built my picker yet. Yes...still doing it by hand!

This one is Ochre. Not bad...not bad. I'm starting to see it blended (in my mind) with a couple of other color possibilities. That's a good sign. lol It seems I have to visualize it first before I can act sometime. Troublesome for following formulas, let me tell ya! Laid next to the Spruce, this one started to sparkle, we'll see where it ends up.

Then there is Vermilion. I have to admit to being a bit disappointed. It reminded me of overcooked cherries. But then I realized that was because I'm not a Pink fan....and this one leans toward pink in real life. So once I realized that and got. over. it. I starting thinking of color pairings for it and Wow! I've got more fiber to dye now! lol I love it just for that fact alone. lol

This is all taking me way longer than I wanted but a change in weather caused it to be way to humid to have nearly boiling water in this little house. Now it's cool and damp outside and I'm swamped with work. Figures, huh! lol All that coupled with the fact that I have to hand pick the stuff means it's taking ages. I'm a bit "picky" while I'm picking and I'm trying to make sure that the extra junk gets out before I card. I'm anxious to card this stuff, but know that's gonna be an all day thing, so I'll just plod along on the picking for now. (MAN! I can't wait until I get the picker built.....this will go so much faster!! lol)

Guild was last night and it was our laid-back-pot-luck-before-fair meeting. Lots of food was brought and the business meeting was scheduled around eating. Gotta love priorities! One of the gals sitting in front of me had some Optim she was spinning super fine and I was delighted to handle it and see what I thought of it. While I enjoy preparing my own fiber, I do find commercial prepared fiber delightful. I guess it's the "plug n play"-ness of it. Open pretty package, lightly fluff fiber, spin away. Completed yarn! Wow, no fuss, no muss. If I had more of the ready I probably would spend some of it on professionally prepped fibers. ;) Handling that small "braid" of fiber sure made me want to order today. lol

One of the best parts of last nights meeting was that a fairly new spinner in our group got a special one on one lesson. She's a newer spinner (less than 3 months) and had purchased a Fricke wheel. When she found out that Curt was at the meeting (yes, he's a member) she sought him out to let him know how pleased she was with her purchase. Later in the evening he was watching her spin on the wheel and before she knew it he was sitting next to her, explaining how the wheel was designed to work, how each of the adjustments worked and how they would affect her spinning and how to care for the wheel. In a short time she was spinning what she wanted.....and was fairly twitching from excitement! Not everyone gets a lesson from the designer of his/her wheel! It was such a joy to watch the interaction and the enthusiasm from both of them. It was definitely a WOW moment. lol

Ok, no cute poochie picts today. He's enjoying the rain a little too much and not very photogenic today. Soon, I hope! I am enjoying the rainy days this week and am starting to get my knitting head back. lol Probably means more heat coming on soon. ;)

TTFN!

PS. Someone asked me to expand on the carding machine at Julies. All I know is that it's a Patrick Greene model and that we'll be having another carding day soon. ;) I'll try to get more pics then and more info! Promise!

For Cindy

2008-08-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

Hey you! I miss you too! I finally caught up reading on your blog and decided that I'd post here so you'd have something to read. Not much is going on here other than the normal stuff that keeps me away from the computer. I've only been doing enough yard work to get veggies to grow in the garden. No weeds have been eradicated from my flower beds, and to be honest, I'm completely re-thinking our landscaping. I think I'll change it so that it's so low maintenance that it's not funny. I will make my neighbor jealous with the beauty of my yard vs. the lack of time spent in it! They will say, "Dang her! She's off to have fun with that husband of hers again!!! How is she able to have such a stunning yard and spend so much time away from it?!!! How is it he's only got to mow it occasionally, while we are slaves to our mowers twice weekly?!!! Why she is a cleaver cleaver girl! " Yes, I plan to really irritate the neighbors next year! As for this year? Well they're probably irritated about the weeds and lack of mowing, but with Tucker out there guarding the gate, who's really gonna complain? ;) Love that dog! By the way, only two groupings of my squash turned out to be minis....the rest are coming in normal length. I tell ya, I was happy to see that the other night!!! Unfortunately I snagged some zucs from a friend so now we'll have squash coming out our ears. What the hell?! What's summer without squash coming our our ears! Oh well! And! I picked our first full sized cucumber of the year yesterday!

On the fiber front, there's been a bit of a stall. We were having these beautiful HOT HOT days and they were great for drying fiber outside. Dyeing was not a problem cause the extra humidity didn't matter and evaporated off quickly. Well, in true Northwest fashion, the cloud coverage came in, the heat stayed and we had HUMIDITY. WOW. I thought about it, but decided that I could be reasonably locked up in a nut house for dyeing fiber in that kind of humidity. So....while I finished a few more colors, pictures have not been taken yet for you to view and I do have a few more colors to dye. I'll confess to loving every minute of picking the dyed fiber apart as it's so bright, shiny and wonderful!!!! Did I mention I have solid WHITE on the wheel right now? No? Well, I do....and I've almost completed a third bobbin full which means plying is right around the corner, and then a washing, then a dyeing!!! WOO HOO! Yes, I'll take pics and yes I'll post asap. Man do I hate spinning white! Boreing!

A sad thing happened Monday. Let me back up and lead into this properly. Last week was so dry and hot. Really it was. Even the pooch Tucker hated it. He gets a bit grumpy when it's that dry and hot. Is Grover the same way? Everything was dusty and watering the garden was a must. Every. Day. Sunday morning it was hot and muggy and we were sweating at 8 am outside. This is the Pacific Northwest. We're not used to heat. So anyway. After setting the pooch up for the day with cool water, cool pool, cool sleepy spots, etc we disappeared for the day on the motorcycles. (I'll post on that another time.) Monday morning I got up and started the sprinklers in the garden to insure that everything got watered. It was overcast, but muggy and warm and I just wanted to make sure everything had water. As soon as I shut off the sprinklers it started to rain. Just a drop or two, but it was rain. Within a half an hour it was raining like it only does in Washington. Tucker was as happy as a clam out there running around, chasing bugs, playing in the rain! lol He's totally a Washington dog! The sad part? Well, it's only mid August, and I had the though that pretty soon I'd "get" to spend more time inside knitting and spinning. Isn't it a bit early to be wishing for winter?!!! lol It's been raining off and on since then. As I'm sitting here, I'm listening to the rain. Ya know, I kinda missed it. I'd forgotten how soothing it was to listen to. lol We even had thunder the other night! lol Silly of me, but late summer storms have this effect on me. I find myself looking for that knitting project I put down, and planning the next. ;) Abbie is really wishing the weather would turn to the horrid for awhile. She's only had one day of decent knitting/lap time in the last 3 months. She's not thrilled that it could be another two before things settle down. Soon, I tell her, soon.

So I have a myriad of projects I want to work on and never enough time in the day/week. I guess that's a good thing, cause I can't imagine what I'd do if I ever completed the "to do" list. ;) Hang in there girl. Here's hoping that the end of summer finds all well with you and a full knitting basket to keep you busy through the winter months!

Sorry I don't post more often, but that will improve as the weather dwindles! We've taken a bunch of pictures of rides and will post on those soon. Also I have big plans for dyeing and blending experiments to post here.:)

Thanks for the feed back on the blog layout. Every time I check it from work I'm surprised by the new layout. lol. I think I may just keep it here for awhile and not move, I like it that much. Still not sure, but I'll let you know.

Love you bunches. Kiss Grover on the soft black top of his nose for me. Hug the mum for me and have her hug you back....of course, from me. Your package will be delayed as I've come up with a fab idea to include in it and can not wait to complete it for you!!!!! Good thing you're not holding your breath!

Love you again!

A

P.S. Hopefully I'll be posting again soon!

2008-08-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

I harvested veg from our garden yesterday. It was sad. Evidently I bought mini squash plants when I bought the replacements for the seeds the birds kept eating. I'm sure they'll be tasty, and they are very cute, but they really are not going to go very far! I was feeling that the garden is pretty much a bust this year until I went out today to take care of some stuff. I was surprised to see some bush beans I planted actually coming up! If they do well, and the climbing ones do well, we'll at least have beans in the freezer. It's about time to replant lettuce and spinach for fall. Maybe our fall crops will be better. ;)

Here's a pic of Abbie on the prowl. She's looking for her favorite grocery sack to sleep on. I moved them out of her sight so I could get them loaded back into the car. She wasn't happy with me at all. She was even less thrilled with the hairball remedy squirted between her toes. Evidently the new food they're eating isn't doing the full trick. At least today she started taking the sticky stuff off my hands so I don't have to wrestle with her anymore.

I leave you with a pic of the worlds cutest dog. He was pretty sure that day that he needed to go for a ride. We didn't go that day, but we did go last Thursday. I'll come back and tell you all about it later. Gotta get dinner on the plate! ;) Take care all!

Dyeing!

2008-08-11T17:41:00.000-07:00

So first up, before the fiber fun....you may have noticed I changed my template. I've been thinking about changing blog platforms and last night I set up a blog on another platform to see if it really would be that much better. I stayed up way too late and pretty much got it set up, including importing history from here. I'm still undecided. That is probably because it's all new there and I have to learn how to use it, and here, I know how to make happen what I want to happen. For the most part that is. Of course after I went to the bother to set that one up, I had the thought that maybe I was just sick of my Blogger layout and maybe it's time to try a new layout. DUH! Should have thought of that first, but there it is....that's the way my brain works. I'm not listing the other blog address here yet and won't if I don't stick with it. I may just spruce up this place. :)

Now for the fun.

It's long been my goal to get organized enough to be able to spend time dyeing fiber and making my own custom blends for spinning. I'm finally making headway in the washing of Alpaca and spent some quality time on Sunday vac packing clean alpaca so that it could be stored away in the shed for future fiber blends. After I finished that I ran across some of that nasty sticky Border Leicester that I took to Julie's for carding last month. I had every intention of taking it back out to the shed to re-box it, but before I knew it the package was open and it was in the pot of hot water on the stove after a squirt of dish soap was added to the water. I told my self I was just checking to see if the stuff was going to wash out clean or not. That was until the dye ended up in the pot...then I had to admit I was dying fiber. ;) Last night I dyed up approximately 4 oz of each of these colors: Burgundy, Spruce, Purple, Sapphire Blue. Here's my results after dyeing today.

This morning I washed more fiber to be able to dye this afternoon. Today's colors are:

Emerald and Yellow.

Right now I have Silver Gray and Fire Red on the stove a cooking away.

These are all Jacquard dyes and they are some of the colors I ordered a couple of months ago. I as a bit intimidated to try them but they are SO MUCH EASIER to use than what I was doing before. The procedure is almost exactly the same. The only difference is that I do not have to dissolve the gel coloring before mixing it with the water in the dye pot. I was shocked at how fast and easy it really was. I will use up what I have in my back stock, but I believe all future dye purchases will be powders. ;) I'm just so excited to get solid results that I can use for color blending on the carder. Each color is only 4 oz so that will give me enough to play with the blends. My mind's already ahead of me and planning what colors to put together!

I'm still spinning up the white singles that were carded at Julies fiber mill. It's a bit slow going as it's soooo sticky and white is always a trial for me to spin, however I did finish the second bobbin today and started a third. Once this one's completed I'll be plying!!!! So I'm getting there. At least I'll have something to spin at guild.

Why?

2008-08-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

Just to prove I can!

HEY! Mom's spinning again!

So I sat down this week to start spinning. Why? Because I suddenly had loads of lush fluffy ready to spin fiber in the house and ya know, it calls to you and tells you to dust off the wheel and take off the nasty llama that's full of veggie matter and really is going to be a bear to spin and start on some really wonderful soft fluffy if sticky with a bit too much lanolin left in it Border Leicester. White even. And we all know how I LOVE to spin white. ;) I'm a bobbin and a half into it, and am not even feeling any color withdrawals. Yet. So far, It's spinning up fairly smooth and even and fine enough that I'm considering a three ply ....and yes, I'm dreaming of colors to dye it. lol I've got a lot of time to consider colors looking at the size of this bag.

I started spinning this up the day before I attended a funeral. I find spinning to be a comforting habit and it really helped reduce the stress of the pre-funeral and the post funeral nerves. (Man do I hate funerals!) It's been a comfort all week. I've noticed on other blogs that other spinners call it calming, stress breaking, relaxing, meditative....many of us don't even try to dissect the reason it is. We just accept it for what it is, and are grateful. I've noticed lately that I've had a bit of a bitter and hard edge developing. (understatement) I'm feeling it softening in areas and honestly feel that it's due to the reconnection to my fiber arts and the fiber community. They are both so stress relieving and grounding. I don't think the realistic side of me is going away so there will always be a bit of a jaded edge, but the bitter seems to be fading. Sadly, I'm starting to look forward to fall. That's just not completely right! I should be enjoying to the full the rest of Summer. I think it's a combination of the funeral and the last week of mostly rain that we've had. Anyway, here it is in all it's in-progress-singles-glories. At the time of this post I have filled 1.5 bobbins and am aiming for 3 bobbins for a three ply. WOO.....we'll see how that turns out! BTW, I bought a WPI gauge and no longer have an excuse for leaving this spec out of my reports. aaargh! I'm planning on plying it up after I fill three bobbins and not waiting until I complete the bag....in... like.....2010. lol. 3 bobbins plied together should get me about 150-200 yds at the current thickness being spun. Maybe more even. So for me, that's a skein in the making and woo hooo, lets move on. ;) COLOR TIME!**

"Really, Put down the camera!"
More importantly, as far as Abbie is concerned, is that I sat down for the first time in ages and knit for a bit. What I'm working on is not important. It's the re-knit of the Jaywalker socks in the same yarn as last year. I'm hoping to complete these sometime in my lifetime and move on to another yarn in another color using another pattern. Hope springs eternal, so I hear. All Abbie cared about was that I was sedentary, playing with sticks and string again. LAP TIME!!!

I'm madly vac pacing alpaca that's been washed. Last count I needed to pack up 5 more bags full and still had an unreasonable amount out in the shed to wash. I know I may sound paranoid, but really, I haven't picked up this years yet. Could the fleece be breeding in the shed? I keep them in separate bags, in separate boxed even! And really....isn't it a bit scary to have that much?! Ah well. Maybe I'll be reckless in my dyeing this winter and come out with some FAB colorworks. (Snort!) You may start seeing custom dyed carded 100% alpaca for sale from this site. lol I did bring home 4 more rolls of vac pack bags. I need to get the box of vac packed out to the shed tomorrow though as Abbie has filed a formal complaint with the Paw that her table has too much stuff on it. :)

"Really, clean off the damn table, already!"

Ok, I'm tired and ready for bed. Time to sign off and get to it. I will try to update again soon, but if the sun comes out tomorrow, I'm on the motorcycle for a much needed ride!

**I'm sure to have a dyeing day soon as I talked to my friend with the fiber mill and she's willing for us to learn how to make batts on her machine. So! I'm planning on making two color blending groups. One is a deep navy blue, teal blue and a golden yellow. Another is reminiscent of a sunset. To get these results, I'm going to have to do some solid color dyeing to be able to do the blending on the carder. YEAH! I'll try to take pics and post. I PROMISE!

This was suppose to post last night, but for some reason was sent to the draft file. I expect it was operator error. ;)

The Kids!

2008-07-29T09:02:00.001-07:00

After a recent grocery shopping trip we discovered that Abbie has a "thing" for the reusable sacks. She curls up on them, wherever you lay them. Usually they are taken right back out to the car, but I missed one and she latched onto it quickly. The next chance I had, I took it back from her and there the pouting began. When I came home from work that night this is what I found. Don said she looked really upset that her comfy spot was gone, so he put her blanket out for her. And yes, this is my kitchen table. Talk about spoiled!

Here's a shot of Salem laying in the shade.

Then something caught his eye!

Last but not least....

Cody was probably under the bed or behind the toilet during this photo shoot. Bandit? He was probably sleeping somewhere. lol

Fiber Fun Finally!

2008-07-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

I've not knitted in so long that Abbie is now stalking me through the house. Also, I had to re-read the Jaywalker pattern last night when I picked it up as I couldn't remember where I was or what to do. lol. Pretty ironic considering how many times I've knit this sock. And I do mean this exact sock. Same yarn, same foot....hopefully this time, right size. ;) Thank goodness I still remember how to knit!

Well I've changed days off so now I have two in a row. All stand and say Woo hoo at the same time. Thank you! It's fab! Really it is. I've worked split days off long enough now that I'm sick of it. hehe. So now I'm catching up on stuff and things are starting to fall into place and I'm getting caught up on lots of stuff. Relaxing mainly. lol

Last Monday I caught up with a fiber friend who is setting up a fiber processing mill. We planned on a few hours of play to give her practice with her machines and give me some processed fiber. I was unaware up to that point that some of these set ups need more than one person to run. It must be frustrating to have the equipment and not always have the extra humans to run it. So yes! I volunteered!!!! And I will again! I came away with LOTS of clean fluffy fiber ready to spin and a definite reason to own a wool picker of my own.

I had already decided I wanted a wool picker and had ordered/received the plans for one, but I had not realized how truly wonderful this tool is. Its a HUGE time saver. So last Monday I took with me fiber I vacuum packed in 2006 to see if it is truly a viable method of fiber storage. Upon opening the 8oz of Border Leicester, I realized that it still had too much lanolin in it. Next time, I'll make sure it's cleaner. However, there were no bugs and no other problems! However you would need to pick the wool to make it card able, and some of it is not as clean as I would make it now. ;)

Here's a picture of some of the teeth on the picker.

So here it is in it's 4 oz vac packed glory!! I have to say it comes out of the package in pretty much the same shape it's in the package. Flat...... really flat.

Here's the laundry basket with this packet picked into it! WOW! It really fluffed up!!! This tool is going to take sooooo much work out of my life. Julie watched this fiber fluff up and said, "If you're gonna vac pac, you HAVE to have a picker!" We were both surprised how much this stuff fluffed up!

Here's the carder. I know, drool huh?

And the fiber coming out of the orifice on the carder.(mine all mine!)

Here's a shot of the carded roving going into the tub. (side shot...sorry. I was in a hurry as I was manning this end and if you don't watch it, it goes completely crazy for some unknown reason.)

This was so slick! Even with my sticky grabby not wanting to work nicely wool, it was still slick.

After this we ran my cleaner unknown brown through and it was much better.

Then we ran Julies color blend, really clean project through and it was to die for! I almost stole it!!! I have got to get some color blending projects together!!! I didn't get any pictures of this completed, but it was beautiful!

So I left with a better understanding of how pickers work and how larger commercial carder work and why wool has to be ultra clean going through them lol . Also I came home with 2lbs of (sticky) white roving and about 1 lb of brown roving. Ready to spin. I learned so much that day and it was all low key and fun. Just my style. lol Next time I'm taking colors to blend! She also loaned me her cd that has the plans for her picker on it so I could compare it to mine. Awesome tool. Can't say it enough! Thanks a bunch Julie!

Another thing I came home with was two Alpaca fleece, washed and dried ready to go. Julie wanted to try her hand at washing Alpaca, and I'm looking to have mine washed away from home as it's taking too much of my time up. So for a one on one exchange, she washed two of mine. The other mill that I've arranged to wash and dry for me is gonna charge me $4.00 a lb. which is not bad at all. During Summer months I'm still working through washing what I have from last year, but I have more coming from this years shearing and when it gets later in the fall I'll start paying to have it done. I want to focus on dyeing an blending this year. This means that I need to not spend so much time washing;) As I'm not paying for the fleece, I'm not complaining about the washing costs. lol

Yesterday I vac packed two Alpaca Fleece, and that's about all I can handle in a day. It's tedious to weigh it up and vac pac it, but it was nice to be able to reuse some of the bags that were hanging around here. Unfortunately, I have about 6 more fleece ready to vac pac as I've been washing off and on all summer and no bags left. lol. I'll be buying more bags next week.

I don't know if I posted on it, but I did receive something like 17 of the Jacquard Acid Dyes that I ordered and I'm quite excited for the cold weather to start so I can play with the colors...lol It's a cold weather hobby of mine, so I can't take the time right now. I just look at them on the shelf and say, "OOoh pretty!". lol

Today I finally sat down and started spinning some of the white Border Leicester that was carded at Julies last week. I wish is was cleaner as it's pretty sticky with lanolin, so I'll rewash and dye before carding more. Great lesson for sure. It does spin up like a dream though so I'm not to unhappy. I keep thinking of socks as I spin, so maybe this will end up on the sock dyeing board. Wouldn't that make an interesting forward to this post. lol Maybe I can dye with the Jacqard dyes even!

Just want you to know that I miss you all even though I'm not around much and that I think of my online buddies all the time! The weather will change eventually and we'll be wishing we were busier sooner than we'd like, me thinks. I'm saving some of my nice weather stories to tell you then! ;) Love you all, even though I don't stay in touch!

Creating Blog Fodder

2008-07-07T00:15:00.000-07:00

Time sure does fly! I was feeling bad about my recent inability to post to the blog and read other blogs. Then I realized that he very things that were keeping me from reading and posting where things that you may like to read about. And really, I've been having a busy, happy time. ;)

The hubby and I played hooky and took a day ride across the pass to Leavenworth for lunch. This ride was as therapeutic as it was fun. We spent the whole day on the motorcycles and I was able to cross many "firsts" off my list. Such as, "highest speed", "longest ride", "first time on major highway", "first time over pass", "first time skipping work to ride", "first day long ride with hubster", ect. hehe This trip marked the first ride I've been on for pure pleasure. It's the first time I've really enjoyed being on the motorcycle for the ride and not for the "learning to ride" process. There were moments when I was scared nearly stiff...but at the end of the ride I was completely exhilarated. At the completion of this day on the bike, I could completely understand how people can pack up and vacation on a motorcycle! I'm not sure, but I think the hubby picked up on my changed attitude towards the motorcycles. I respect the machine as a thing that can take me down completely if I allow it; however, I understand it's also a thing I can enjoy and relax with. It's a respect thing. I did complain to him that the wind buffeting me at highway speeds was a bit painful and very much muscle fatiguing. In response, he's since installed a smallish windshield and after testing, it's very satisfactory! It was such a wonderful and beautiful day and one simple trip that I'll remember for a long time.

The next long ride we went on was with an online riding buddy of Don's. (His name is Jeff.) I've never been on I-5 ( a multi-lane highway) and that that time we didn't have the windshield on my motorcycle. We met at the Safeway in Smokey Point and because one of the routes north was closed for road construction we ended up on I-5.(Another first crossed off the list!) We let Jeff lead, as he's been this route before. (The day was HOT and beautiful and a perfect day for riding.) We went north on I-5 for two exits (not that far really) and then took the back roads up to the old Skagit Hwy, and then East out toward Darrington, then we crossed the Mountain Loop Highway ending up on our side of that pass.

Here is a shot of the three of our bikes together during one of our stretch breaks.

The beauty of this trip was that it was opening weekend for the Mountain Loop Highway. We live off this highway. This mountain pass closes yearly, when the snow is too deep for the roads to be cleared. (There is quite a portion of this pass that is dirt road and is absolutely beautiful!) A few years ago we had such severe weather in that pass area that it was unsure weather it would ever be opened again.

Some groups of people were pushing to have it turned into a wilderness/wildlife protection area. It was very iffy for a few years as to weather we'd get our road back. I have to say as a resident on "the Loop" that I really wanted that road to be re-opened. It's not open year round, but it is our only other route to "civilization" in a major disaster...God forbid. Most of the people who where promoting it to be a wildlife refuge don't live up here and don't live with the "what if" scenarios we do. Granted, that's the last route I want to have to take if there's a disaster, but I'm glad the road is there if I need it. So a huge celebration was planned for the cities on either side of the pass for opening weekend. I was excited to cross this pass, as it has been years since I've been across it and the husbeast crossed it on Friday and had the nerve to show me pictures of his day ride while I was at work. AARRGH! The tease!

We were concerned that I would have issues on the gravel portion of the road, but these were dispelled quickly. At the first turn off, which came too quickly for me, the hubster pulled off to see how I was doing and to take pics. At this point I expressed our need for dirt bikes. Jeff pointed out that dual sport bikes don't need to be towed to the destination and since that statement, I'm convinced that we need a pair of dual sport motorcycles. While I was concerned about my traction on the cruiser and while I was mindful of not "dropping" the bike, I had the urge the whole 20+ miles to goose it in corners! The dust! The gravel! The adrenaline! I'm afraid the hubsters gonna have to add onto the "garage" to make room for another pair of motorcycles in the near future. ;) And yes, here, I will admit that I made him promise to not collect the damn things! It was such a hoot though and really so much fun!

When we reached the pavement again, I had Don snap a picture of me to show how dusty and dirty I got being the last in line.

And he's not as bad having been the first in line. lol

Once we got home I gave the motorcycle a bath, including the bags and washed all my gear as well. It needed it! Here it is all cleaned up.

I'm trying to ride as much as possible. Sometimes the weather gets in the way as I won't ride in a downpour. However, I am more willing to ride with a "possiblity" of rain. I used to balk at riding if I saw a cloud in the sky, now I'm looking to see if I can out ride the rain clouds. I havn't heard any complaints from the hubby yet, so I must not be completely crazy yet. The strawberries are doing great this year! I've been trying to keep up the house and yard work. The weeding has taken a back seat to the veggie garden and house work. Also, I've hit a groove on washing the alpaca fleece from last year. This is completely ironic as I've determined that I can afford to pay for washing /drying of the alpaca since I am paying nothing for it. Oh well, I'll keep working at my current pace and if I'm lucky enough to get more and do not have time, I'll pay for washing. Currently I have two for washing at a friends place that is setting up a processing mill. These will be her first Alpaca to wash/dry and in a couple of weeks I'll take some wool over to her place and "play" with her and her huge carder.

I've not done any spinning or knitting in the last two to three weeks, but am ok with that. It's a seasonal thing and I've only got so many hours in the week. I've realized that I cannot do everything, every day and that it's ok for me to indulge in my seasonal happiness right now. There will be plenty of rainy, wet, cold days in my future. I can enjoy the warm, dry ones now. ;)
I've ordered some of the Jacquard dyes from Knit Picks and they should be showing up soon. I'm planning some massive dyeing sessions to try them out and also to use up some of my old dye solutions. I'd like to get a bunch of stuff dyed up so I can play with color blending this winter. That is the plan so we'll see what happens. lol Once again I didn't give into the weaving urge, so I'm thinking I'm not ready yet. When I'm ready, I won't be able to resist. And I'll have room in the house. I hope. ;) I'm still in the de-clutter stage. I'm hoping to use some of the good days this summer to get some organizing done.
One last one for you. Salem picks the weirdest places to sleep sometimes! Doesn't this look like we dropped the recliner on him?!

Cody

2008-07-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

Cody is my psychic dog. He reads my mind, but only really tunes into two thoughts that I have. "I think I'll give Cody a bath," and "I'm going to take a picture of Cody, " will garner the same results each time. Cody will calmly get up and walk away to find somewhere to hide. I know I've mentioned this before and I've just been waiting for the right moment to be able to prove it. lol His favorite hiding/sleeping spot is next to or behind the toilet. This picture was snapped and once he saw the camera he moved to here....

Yes, he's under the bed. lol. See why I don't have any good pictures of him? This is also why you will not see him posted much on the blog.

So, imagine how he felt when we combined his two least favorite things. A bath and Pictures!!!

Poor Cody!

Tucker

2008-07-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

It's definitely difficult to get decent and interesting pics of the pooch now. If

I'm outside and not working on something he assumes I'm there to play with him and then he's right up in my face. Being a large dog, this usually means I end up with pictures like this one.

The type that make his feet look small and his nose look abnormally large. lol

This being the case I decided to take advantage of the hubby's mowing of the lawn a while back. Tucker is very much infatuated with anything that has wheels and he's very much Don's dog if Don is around. Normally Don had to tie Tucker up in the driveway if he wants to mow the lawn; however, this time the pooch was on his best behavior and was able to be free. He spent the time wisely trying to distract Don away from the task at hand.

Here he is scooping up Monkey to take over to Don in the hopes he'll stop and play.

And now he just follows him everywhere hoping to wear him down. hehehe

UH OH! He's noticed me taking pictures!

There's my handsome boy.

Hey Y'all!

2008-06-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, is it bad when you log into your feed reader and you have 1671 posts to read to catch up? For those not in the know, that's 1671 blog posts that have been made by other blog list friends that I've NOT read yet. I'm a bit behind. And that's after catching up on Cass and Franklin and betting waylaid by Stephanie. ( Hang in there Cindy and Donna , I'm headed there soon! Ha Cindy! I did see you changed blog addresses..although I'm still not caught up on your blog yet!) I'm thinking of getting a pair of sweats with that printed on the butt. Instead of "juicy" or "grumpy" or whatever you normally see on the teenagers butts theses days, mine would say "A Bit Behind". The men would all think, "That's not a bit!" But I bet the women would get it. Heck, I've got enough room to rent out advertising space back there. HEY!!!!! An at home job!!! No, wait, I'd have to go out to make it "advertising"....I wonder if craft stores and yarn shops would count? Hmmm.....

I've got nothing special for you guys this time. Seriously. No purty pictures, no completed projects, no amazing Tucker feats. Nutin. Bupkiss. Zippo. What I do have, finally, is time to post. Isn't that hilarious?! I find it freaking funny to be truthful. It's an accurate indicator of my life. When I have the time, I have no material, and when I have the material I have no time. lol

In the knitting world.....I'm currently working on the re-knit of my Jaywalker socks. I have concerns on the fit (as usual) but am slogging through for a bit longer before I make any decisions. The concerns I had the last 10 times led me to a really baggy sock that ended up in the toe of my shoes, therefore a pair of socks that never left the sock drawer. It's slow going as I just can't seem to get my groove going for knitting anything at this time. (I'll explain later.) I'm also working on a knitted cover for my Swifter wet jet. It's a franken-pattern, so I'm not sure it'll come out O.K. but if it works out, I'll post my mods to the pattern here. If it works out, I'm planning on knitting it a few times to make sure I have clean ones at all times. I have indoor/outdoor critters and my floors get trashed faster than you'd believe. I really like my wet jet, but I'm hating the disposable part of it. I'm getting so I hate the disposable life we seem to live lately and I'm trying to change some of my habits. I read on another blog ages ago that it may be possible to refill the bottles with my own cleaner solution and then she mentioned that she knits washable covers for her wet jet and that got me going on mine. It's slow going because I'm just not into knitting right now, but I'll get there. I'm trying to simplify my life in some areas (cleaning to be sure. lol) and using simpler cleaning solutions is one of the ways. I did invest in the much mocked Shark steam cleaner and I LOVE IT. So don't mock me in the comments! It's the first time my stove top has been this clean since it was brand new. The idea came from using my steam mop that I adore and use as a deep cleaner on the floors about once a month. (I use the wet jet in between.) I love the cleaning power of steam and I love the fact that there are no harsh fumes or chemicals that I have to worry about my furry ones being exposed to. I'm not a super freak about these things, but trying to trace what makes my old dog vomit and crap uncontrollably sometimes has brought the cleaners I use under review. So anyway, I love my steam Shark and won't hear any bad words about it. O.K.? lol Oh, how did this go from knitting to cleaning? Sigh. O.K. So to wind up "knitting"....I'm not knitting much, it's not that interesting....so no pictures. My needles still click occasionally, but not enough to satisfy Abbie.

On the Wheel.....Nothing. Much like my pictures, bupkiss. Nada. After completing the Mermaid (which I love and so no, none of you can have it but thanks for the pleasant comments!), the wheel and all spindles have lain stagnant, just waiting for some fiber inspiration. I have a ball of llama roving that's all ready to spin, given to me by a customer who is a former spinner, poor dear. I have an embarrassing wealth of fiber, but no inspiration. It's all due to paper......I'll explain later. Truthfully, on the spinning front, I've missed the last couple of guild meetings and they really keep the fire lit under my wheel. So that's part of the problem. The other part is that in the back of my mind is this half baked, partially formed idea of some color blending I'd like do on the drum carder, which will involve dyeing some fiber I'm sure, and don't you know I have just the right number of bobbins free to spin up this as yet un-dyed, un-blended fiber on right now. So part of the universe is balanced in favor of spinning. I just need to balance the other parts and get on with it. lol It's the way I work. In spurts and fits and chugs. There are always these dry periods as I start a zillion projects and work on a bazillion ideas and then wham, bam, I look like Superman finishing 3 projects at once. lol It's all smoke and mirrors. But you all know that, don't ya? lol So no fiber fun at this point. I'll keep ya posted though when it starts up. k?

OK, the yard looks like a jungle in all areas except the garden. Normally I'd be overjoyed to not have to weed so much, but really, this is ridiculous. It's rained so much and been so cold, that all I have coming up in the garden is my early spring crops. It's almost JULY for goodness sakes! If only slugs, snails and weeds were a cash crop right now! I guess I shouldn't complain though as so many in other areas of the country are suffering floods and much worse. It just sickens me to see what is happening this year though as so many I know are counting on their veggie crops to see them through. I'm already looking at contingency plans for obtaining veg to put up either in the freezer or canning or drying just in case my crops don't come through. The weather is warming up, but it's still wet and I just don't know what to expect. In fact we saw storm clouds in the sky tonight like no other we've seen before. It was weird enough that Don went out and took some pics. I'll try to get them posted soon if they are any good. Come on, it's Washington. We see lot's of clouds. If he took pics, then they should be interesting. lol I just hope they came out.

The only thing that I've really been productive in lately has been in the scrap booking department. I've been printing pictures for the scrap books and cleaning files off my computer. I have this great fear that my computer will crash, taking with it all of the pictures on it. It's a real fear. If it were to happen today, I'd lose the last year plus a month or two in photos. So, I've been madly printing pics and archiving them on hard disc and cleaning off my computer. I've also been printing copies of stuff for my mom that maybe should have been printed a year ago. Ahem. Yes. I'm a bit behind. So anyhoo, since I've been printing the pictures, I've been putting page kits together for scrap booking. That led to actual scrap booking last Sunday while I watched TV and that turned into a three day affair after work. lol. So needless to say, that's another reason I've not been knitting or spinning. ;) I did, however, finally buy my Cricut this week I've only waited a year + to finally take the plunge. I've not been obsessively cutting out paper on it though as I'm waiting for a few cartridges to come into the Walmart nearest me for pick up. Once those show up, you may not see me for a good long time. lol

Other than all that nuthin, I've just been trying to take care of the husbeast, the pooches, the kitties and the home. Right now the home's sufferin, but I'm hoping to put it back on track tomorrow. Husbeast had oral surgery a week ago last Wednesday and somehow that threw me off schedule. I don't know how really, but it was at that time that I became distracted from my cleaning schedule and then I had to run errands on my day off and then it was sunny and "really, shouldn't I ride when it's sunny as who knows when that will happen again." happened, and now a storms a brewin and I'm hoping it's gone by the time the house works done tomorrow so I can go for a decent ride tomorrow. I tell you, this being a responsible adult is really screwing with my motorcycle riding time. ;)

Don't You Love Me?

2008-06-08T20:01:00.001-07:00

"Are you coming out to cuddle?"

"Maybe to give me kisses?"

"To rub my belly?"

"Fine then, at least bring me a treat!"

Shut Up and Skate-My Version.*

2008-06-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Mom mentioned to me that the oldest niece was going to be in Port Orchard and that she was thinking of arranging for DART to take her to see her as a surprise. Now DART is a great service to disabled or Senior persons who either don't or can't drive. However, we've had DART "forget" us at the fairgrounds in the same county, so no way was I going to let her take that system to go 3 counties away. (They have to change rigs at each county line, picture that if you will. ;) ) Figuring we'd have to drive to Port Orchard to find my mother anyway, we decided to make a day trip of it. (Well, we wanted to see the kid ourselves and the whole Mom excuse worked in our favor.lol) Don's become quite the picture taker in the last year so I have a few (oh, about 90) pics and some video (um, yeah...7 mini vids. lol). I'm trying to keep this to a minimum. Those related can have pics emailed if they ask. Or a disc mailed if they ask nicely. (hint, hint, hehe)

So here we are leaving the Edmonds Ferry Terminal. It was timed nicely with us being one of the last three cars allowed on. Way to go Hubster! There are not other pictures of the drive as I was busily knitting on my Jaywalkers (yes again) and he was trying to tune out the constant conversation. I'm not sure why he can completely tune me out, but hasn't perfected tuning out Mom yet. Go figure. So once we get to the designated spot in Port Orchard we determined the "kid" wasn't there and went to eat. By the time we had eaten and made it back she had arrived with her buddies.

See? Proof it's hereditary.

This one is of Jess and her friend Shorty. And yes, we did surprise her. Most of her friends knew we were coming, but they never let on to her.

Then there is the pic of the stash for the trip. Theirs, not ours. lol

This one looks like Mom is picking what she wants out of the stash. lol

Can you tell we're related? Oh, and the guy at the right hand side of the picture had his hair cut like Wolverine from the X-Men. It was cool, but he was no Hugh Jackman.

Did I forget to mention why the "kid" drove up with her friends from Oregon? Oh yeah, well seems they're all part of a Roller Derby team called the Rockin Roulettes and there was a bout in Port Orchard for them that night. Jessie's not a member of the team yet, but her girlfriend is and Jess is friends with them all.

Here they are at the call out at the beginning of the bout.

And another shot of part of the team.

Jessie's girlfriend "Scrambled Legs" aka Draven. We had a blast at the bout. Just reading everyones derby name, looking at the costumes and generally laughing our butts off, let alone the fun cheering on the girls! It's definitely a spectator sport. Everyone was getting into it and even Mom said she had a great time.

Towards the end of the first half of their bout, Scrambled Legz took an elbow to the face (an illegal move, btw.). Just before the beginning of their second half, the EMT's decided she needed to go to the hospital as she was still nauseous and a bit dizzy. We had already decided we were going to have to cut out early so we could catch the ferry in time; so we left just as Jess was taking her to the hospital. We called her when we got home to find out that she had a CT scan to make sure she was ok. This can be a dangerous sport. A follow up call the next morning advised us she was fine, but I'm sure she had a head ache.

So here's the sunset shot from the ferry.

Ok, since then we've become a bit Roller derby obsessed. There are a few teams in the area and we went last night to a bout at Edmonds C.C. to watch the Jet City Rollergirls bout it out. What a hoot! To make it even better, two players that skated with the Rockin Roulettes where there on the Axles of Annihilation team. It was cool to see familiar faces again! I'm sure we'll be at another bout next month. ;)

* The asterisk in the title is an idicator that the hubster used this title for a blog post as well. However, it should be noted that the title was taken from the stamp they inked our hands with at the door, and my post is better so neener, neener neener. VBG

Edited to correct spelling and derby team info.

Go For A Ride?

2008-06-08T18:18:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day weekend found us with two days off in a row together. The first day I spent working in the yard playing catch-up out there. With the weather we've had, I barley made a dent in the to-do list but by the end of the day I felt good about what was accomplished.

Day two found us completing only what we had to. Hubby was set to help me in the yard, but I just couldn't get into it. I found myself starting projects and then standing around like a teenager waiting for an adult to tell her what to do, mentally drifting off. After realizing it, I decided to bag the yard work for the weekend. I confessed as much to the hubster and he had a quick suggestion. His plan? Grab something to eat and head up to Lake Cavanaugh off of Hwy 9 and have a pic nic lunch. The plan worked great. It was a wonderful ride to a place I've never been and the weather wasn't crappy. Only hiccup in the plan was that the public boat launch there is just that. A boat launch. No park, no tables, nutt-n. lol. So we just parked it in the grass next to the motorcycles and ate there. ;) Worked fine.

On the way back the hubster took off and left me in his dust. Turned out he just wanted to get a few pics of me riding down the road. Looking at these, it occurs to me that I look much like a burnt marshmallow bombing down the road. VBG! lol I guess I'll have to hit the diet harder and get some more exercise. hehe

Mermaid, FO Socks and the Obligatory Tucker Shots.

2008-06-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

Here's the Mermaid all plied up. Neither picture is completely accurate in the color department but at least you can see some of the green, teal and purple in this one. Mermaid ended up being 7 1/4 oz and approx 408 yards. I'm quite happy with it, even though it's not my normal color scheme so I think I'll put it away for a "ME" project. ;)

This is a pretty good picture of Mermaid. OOOO! Bright and pretty! I was amazed at how large the skein looked when completed. Right now I don't have anything on the wheel or on a drop spindle and nothing in line either. I can't quite decide what I want to work on fiber wise right now. Inspiration will come soon, I'm sure.

I finally finished my Monkey socks a few weeks ago and to be honest, had to take them off my feet to get pics of them. :) I'll be using this brand of yarn again as it's super comfy and machine washable too! Glad I've got some in my stash. hehe I've cast on for a re-knit of my Jaywalker socks and am working away on them slowly. So no progress pics at this time for those and I'm not sure I will post progress photos of them as they've been knit to death with that particular yarn.
Ok, and the obligatory Tucker picture since we all know you only come to see the beastie anyway. lol. When I get home at night he sits next to the car waiting for his treat. Usually he has his nose pressed to the glass and if I can get a shot of that I'll share it with you. For now, you'll just have to live with this.

Hello Dear Friends!

2008-05-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

Let's just bypass the usual "I know I haven't been around in awhile.......here are my reasons......please forgive me....." and get on with the greetings! I was going to title this "Hello Old Friends" but some people I know are getting uptight about their ages and would take the "old" to mean age and not length of time that we've known one another. So, being ever PC (snort!) I changed it.

I have no wonderful pics to show you. To be honest, I just ran out and snapped a few of the dog, bikes and the garden to have something to put on here. I haven't really been doing anything worth photographing lately, so no good ones to share. ;) The husband, however, has been taking pics like a mad man lately as he's been out on rides as much as possible. I've been teasing him that I'm going to have to make him a "honey-do list" for his weekends off just to make sure chores get done. VBG. To be honest, we've had some really great weather this last week, and I don't blame him for using the time to get in some great rides. I rode to work a couple of times this week, and I think I've worked the kinks out of the "helmet hair" issues. I will admit freely that I much prefer riding his bike to mine, and am actively campaigning for a switcheroo. I'll even give up the green paint job if that's what it takes!!! Otherwise I foresee some $$$ going into making "my" bike feel like his.

Today we went out to breakfast, as per usual for Sunday morning. During breakfast we decided to go out to Snohomish to take a look at the Classic Motorcycle show they were having there. (Snohomish is great for stuff like this.)We were on our motorcycles and whenever we go for a ride together, I prefer that he leads. That way I don't feel like he's being held up by me and besides that, he knows all the roads pretty well. Having grown up in the area, I can find my way home from most of the back roads between here and Snohomish, so I wasn't too worried should we get separated. Don decided on the really twisted round about scenic route between GF and Snohomish so it took us three times longer to get to the show than it normally would. No complaints...the ride was beautiful! Once we got into the show area, it was obvious something was going on. There were motorcycles E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.! I've never ridden in much traffic, nor in a large group, so it was interesting for me, to say the least. We were lucky enough to find some parking spots down a side road close enough to walk into the show. The show was much larger than either one of us expected. We had planned on spending an hour looking around, but to see everything, we would have had to spend at least three times that amount of time. So...we kept to the main drag of the show, and didn't see everything, but Don snapped a huge number of pics. We did see some really cool bikes and WOW, the people watching! It never fails to amaze me what people will do/say/wear in public. lol After we were done with the show, Don led me home via Monroe. Those in the know, will understand that's not the most direct route...but it's a beautiful ride. All told, I put over 70 miles on the bike today. I know that doesn't seem like much, but when you consider I don't usually ride that much, it seems like a lot for me. Just for comparison...Don put over 150 on a ride this weekend, by himself. lol Talk about buns of steel! heheh

So I'm still working on the fab Monkey socks. I haven't been knitting much since I cut my finger. Finger is pretty much healed up, thanks very much. Just a little scab left. I've been amazed at the regeneration of skin cells in that area. I was expecting to have a dent in that part of my finger, but it looks like it will look pretty normal once the scabs gone. Yeah! So, not much knitting or spinning going on, but lots of cleaning. Ironically, and sadly, I couldn't do the fun stuff injured, but could slap on a glove and clean. Sucky, sucky, sucky! Oh well. It's nice to have some clean areas of the house for a change. ;) I'll get the Monkey Sock done and the Mermaid fiber spun up soon enough.

One of the great results from all the cleaning has been the number of items I've been able to find new homes for. YIPPEE! I'm part of the Freecycle system in our county, and when I've got stuff I want to get rid of, I list it on there to give it away free and then it goes to a new home. If no one's interested, I take it to the second hand store. I've offloaded so much stuff in the last month, it's been amazing! I'm trying to de-clutter the whole house to make it easier to clean and maintain. That, combined with getting the yard put together in an easy maintenance way will free up more time for us to have some fun. Right now, it's the work phase, but I can see the fun times phase not far off. ;) I've started going through my craft supplies and resources to weed out what I really don't need. This could take awhile. lol Anyway, that is part of the reason I've not been knitting. I've been using my knitting/spinning time to sort through some stuff. I'll get it done, and then have more time to play.

OK! So after the bike show and the ride we came home to work on chores. I was able to get some more seeds planted and the area around the tires weeded and cleaned up. We decided to cover the gravel in that area with shavings this year to see if that changes the growth on the plants there.

This picture shows the pathway that the tomato plants are going to go on, once it's cleaned up. ;) From this pic you can see the strawberry plants that have jumped ship into the pathway. Later this year, I'll build a new strawberry bed and move them there.

OK, that's pretty much all for now. Oh! Yes, Tucker is on a tie out cable in that first picture. Before you rant at me for tieing him up, consider this. He has a "thing" for the lawn mower. He's disabled it a few times and likes to "attack" it. Don was mowing the lawn. It's much safer for Tucker to be tied out when Don is mowing the lawn. ;) Usually the beastie is running free as he's a much more effective theft deterrent when he's running around. ;) Thanks for caring!

The Post--Some Gorey Parts

2008-05-04T18:13:00.000-07:00

I intended to post last Sunday night but for reasons I'll explain later, I didn't get around to it. First I give you a pic of the first Mermaid single. I'm working on the second off and on. It's coming out pretty nice and I'm excited to see how the complete yarn turns out. The picture is blurry, but you get an idea of what the colors are.

And now a picture of Tucker wrestling with his new Monkey Stick. This is his third so far and he really loves this toy more than anything.

And just to be weird, here's a picture of a piece of Tucker's food. (penny for size reference.) He eats Royal Canin Giant Breed Dog food and loves it. I imagine the kibble size is to help prevent "gulping" of food, which very large dogs are prone to. Tucker's never really been a gulper and chews up his food really well regardless of size. The picture though is to give you an idea of what the Stellar Jay had to deal with when it tried to steal Tucker's food. While it was amusing for me to watch, I had to feel bad for the poor thing. With it's beak wide open trying to fly off with this hunk of food. It dropped it several times before disappearing with it. lol

OK this next part has some slightly gory pictures in it so if your timid at all, scroll past them to the last two. (Yes Maria, I mean you!)

The weather here has been a bit erratic to say the least, but from what I'm reading on other blogs and in the news I don't really have much to complain about. Last Sunday was going to be iffy weather wise, so after our usual breakfast in town we hustled home to get our lawns mowed. I'm trying to rejuvenate the smaller back yard and wanted to get some seed tossed down to fill in the bare spots. While Don mowed the front yard I moved into the veggie garden to start getting the beds weeded, with plans on planting seeds during the week. I usually have seeds planted by then, after all it was the end of April. But with the late snows and bad weather falling on my days off, last Sunday was the first day I was able to get out to the garden. I managed to get the lettuce circle, the long bed and the carrot bed cleaned out. The bulk of the time was spent on the carrot bed as I had let carrots over-winter in it and had to finish harvesting them out. I finished this up just as the rain started falling again and headed into the house to clean carrots.

Yep, I had a sink full to clean up before prepping them for the freezer. It was wonderful to smell fresh carrots so early in the year! They scrubbed up pretty fast and with the aggressive bristles on the brush I was using I didn't have to peel any of them before slicing. I have a mandolin slicer that I used to make carrot rounds and then I vacuum pack them for deep freezing. While I was slicing up the last handful of carrots, the carrot popped off of the slicer and I cut my finger. To me, it was a deep cut and pretty gory. It took nearly an hour to get it to stop bleeding and hurt pretty bad. It was a good thing I had Don to help me, to be sure, and he doesn't "do" blood. ;)

I snapped these two pics on Monday after work to document what it looked like. I discovered then how hard it is to take a picture of your own right hand, left handed, when you're right handed to begin with. So sorry for the blurriness, but you get the idea of how much and how deep the cut is. I can only think how lucky I was not to have it be my finger tip. It's been bad enough, but at least I can type.

This is a pic Don took today. It's healing up nicely, even if it's still pretty painful. I can certainly tell when I've done too much with my hands. It pretty much put a stop to knitting and spinning. I did try to knit some, but it was awkward and slow not using my index finger and when I did use my index finger I'd end up stabbing the cut with a needle or something equally stupid like that. So not much progress there.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you, here's what my garden and lawn looked like Wednesday morning. Yep, more snow. I think that's quite enough now, don't you? Let's get on with warmer weather!

Garden
Lawn

DOT-VICTORY! Oh And A Little Fiber.

2008-04-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

*I know, a DOT post actually on Thursday! Before you die of shock, read on!
Dogs On Thursday-VICTORY!

I once stated on this blog that it's near impossible to get a photo of Cody, our "middle child". Since I blogged that, I determined to test that theory and see if maybe I was exaggerating it for humor sake. Well, I wasn't exaggerating at all. I've tried off and on to get quick candid shots of him and all I can say is, he's my dog. I hate having my picture taken and so does he. I was finally able to get a couple of decent shots of his front end tonight; however, every time he figured out the camera was out, on and pointed at him he would casually walk out of the room, through the next room and down the hallway. He's pretty adamant about not having his picture taken. I do love me a challenge. ;) (The next time the bathroom is clean and he's hiding behind the toilet, I'll snap one just to prove I'm not kidding!)

So first off here's Cody waiting in line at the "soup kitchen" we call Bandit's dinner. Bandit, having no teeth, eats special food and is watched over carefully so that other, teeth bearing, animals do not eat his dinner. (Yes the cats are included in this as they are bigger than him and sometimes willing to take his food. This ritual is performed at breakfast too. Yes, I have to prepare breakfast and dinner for him. Sad, I know.) Cody lives in hope that Bandit will walk away and that we will not notice him stealing the left overs. When this ritual started, Cody used to keep a few feet away. As you can see here, he's right up on him, next in line.

This one was taken as he's making his get away. I got another shot later of his rear end as he retreated, but the pic was to dark to see anything. lol. Every time he came in the room I'd turn on the camera and point it at him. Every time I did, he'd just turn around and walk away. Too funny!

This final one was taken by the hubster. Props to him for proving that Cody notices nothing while he's clearing the flavor of left overs out of Bandit's dish. ;)

On a completely fibrey note, I do save the undercoat from Cody when I groom him and plan on spinning it up some time. I've got a bit saved up, not sure how much exactly, but it's beautiful stuff and he puts out a beautiful coat of fluff. Pretty ironic considering how much he hates to be groomed.

Fiber!

Last night was our Spring Sale at Valley Spinners Guild. Historically the Spring Sale is not as large as the Fall one due to a large show that's going on down in Puyallup. (I'm going to get to that one eventually!) Most of the non-member vendors end up going to the south show, leaving a nearly member only vendor group. This years showing was pretty good though and there was lots of books, magazines and fiber to be had. I had a small bit of cash in my pocket last night, just in case. ;) Having spent the day "on the road", I hadn't taken my wheel with me this time. I think it's the first time I've shown up without spinning to work on in the whole time I've been a member. Many others bring knitting or crochet when they're not in a spinning mood, so I wasn't completely out of place with only having my sock to work on. Anyway, I walked through the vendor booths several times and couldn't settle on anything I had to have, but found myself at the same booth at the beginning and end of each walk through. The gal manning the booth was one I met on my first night at the guild and although she's not able to be there every month, I enjoy her when she is. I had looked at the natural colored fiber at the booth next to her, and the dyed super wash from across the way. Both were either alluring or within my budget for the night, but nether were speaking to me. Odd, because both were what I normally would buy. Amy's booth however kept calling to me. She had bright purple and "citrus" colors. Bright orange, yellow, neon green, neon teal, bright melon and pink and blends of them all. There was also a "ocean" blend that had teal, neon green, blue and purple. Absolutely beautiful! By the time I found myself in the purchasing mood, I was looking at "Mermaid" and trying to decide if I was buying a solid neon to go with it. Now wait a minute! I don't do neon anything. All of these colors were just way too bright for my normal palette. I think it was all explained perfectly when Amy asked me if I had a question and without thinking I answered, "No, I'm just mentally talking myself out of my comfort zone." I really wanted that Mermaid. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it spun up, but I wanted to spin it. lol. So, for $7.90, 7.9 oz of Mermaid blend came home with me. I started spinning it tonight and it's going altogether too fast. I'm calling it color therapy. Maybe it's the snow that fell at the end of last month and the fact that they're talking snow for this weekend. Maybe it's the rain that's fallen all week. Maybe it's the fact that the garden is not planted and it's the middle of April. I don't know. But this little bag of fiber spoke Spring to me. I'm so ready for Spring. I had to bring a little home with me!

I'm hoping to get some time in with the drum carder soon. I've dyed up some different colors in the hopes of creating blended batts similar to this and I've checked out the Deb Menz book to get some pointers on color blending but I'd love some pointers if you have some. I think I'll take stock of the colors I have already dyed and see if there are some obvious choices I've missed. Lord knows I've got plenty of white in the shed. lol. When I get around to that project I'll be careful to take pics and share that as I (hope) think some of you may be interested. Failure can be amusing some times.

I'm hoping to get up to the Alpaca Ranch this weekend to drop off the yarn I've spun for them. With the elevation they are at, I've been waiting for the weather to be decent at the same time that they are free for a visit.;) There's a possibility that I'll be picking up more Alpaca Fleece at that time too. OOOOO! Anticipation. lol If so, I've a couple of friends I'd like to share with. If it works out and the weather cooperates, I'll be doing quite a bit of Alpaca washing soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Cuteness!

2008-04-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

"ZZZZZZZZZZ"

"Momma, can you make me a bed out of this fleece?"

"Can you see me now?:"

"I love my matching blanket and pillows"
"You rub my belly?"

Cody was left out of this post only because he refused to be photographed and I refuse to post a picture of him hiding behind my toilet. ;)

House Cleaning and YARN!!!

2008-04-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

I scheduled last Saturday off, giving me a rare two day weekend. I had hoped to go have some fun, but instead spent part of the weekend getting some chores caught up. I'm in the "lets get rid of the clutter" phase of the spring cleaning. I'm finding all the stuff we've gathered over the years is starting to get on my nerves. OK, honestly, it got on my nerves awhile ago but I've been in denial for awhile. ;) I have no desire to move to a bigger house but I'm trying to adopt a new attitude to the items I've got. I'm calling it the "If We Were Moving Would We Pack This Crap Up and Take It With Us" philosophy. If I can't say yes, it's going. Now I just need to get the hubby on board. ;) I'm chipping away at the common areas little by little and have taken a few loads to the second hand store. I have a few items that I think I can sell and I've put them aside for that purpose. I'm not a "let's-have-a-garage-sale" type of person. I love going to them, but not having them.:) The hard part is sorting through things that we both use. Sorting kitchen gadgets is one thing, he'll never notice something gone that he doesn't use. Movies, games, toys and tools are another altogether. Those will take a meeting of the minds and somehow I never think to bring up the subject when the hubster is around. I'd love to have a dumpster delivered and just chuck it all, but I feel that I should make an effort to re purpose as much of it as possible.

Gobble-de-gook and housework aside, I spent an enormous amount of time this last weekend working with fiber and yarn. A week or two ago I started un-plying my one and only cable plied yarn. I had read the latest article in Spin Off and decided I could fix the mess that was a skein of beautiful but unusable yarn. Um, yeah, un-plying is a pain in the butt, and I'll think twice before doing it again. It felt like it was going to take forever to complete it. DH helped me finish it on Saturday and I now have two two plied yarns to deal with. I'm unsure at this point if I'm going to take it back to singles to fix it and cable ply it again, or if I'm going to do something different with it. I'm rather liking the yarns un-cabled. I'll think on it.

After finishing up the un-plying, I put a skein of Knit Picks Bare (100%Merino-440 yards) on the swift and balled it up. Then I spent some quality time with the sock dyeing board, warping it in prep for dyeing. I really thought it was going to take longer than it did to wind it out and was surprised that I was ready to dye it in no time. No, I didn't think to take pictures of this process, but I promise I will next time. Once it was done I couldn't wait to dye it, so off I went. I used Rit Dye in Scarlet and Black and I'll confess right now that I did not figure the dye ratios out at all, but just glugged and glugged into two separate containers and off I went. (I did soak the skein in vinegar laced water for over an hour before dyeing.) I did remember to wear gloves while mixing and applying the dye. :) I wrapped the skein in plastic wrap and steamed it in the microwave. When it was all done, I unwrapped it and started rinsing it. Because the dye was way too concentrated, it didn't exhaust in the steam setting, and really never would. It was that over concentrated. And no, I didn't think to wear gloves for the rinsing process, so therefore ended up with pink hands! DUH! But wow! The skein came out great! So great that I've promised hubby that I'll make another for him. I'm keeping this one all for me! It is his colors though, and does match his riding gear, so I'll try to replicate it for him. Here it is on the sock dyeing board......in the snow. (UGH!)

And here it is skeined.

Another thing I was able to do was clean off 4 bobbins for the wheel. One had the left over Navajo plied silk on it. It's a tiny amount and I'm not pleased with it. I was even less pleased with it when I washed it to set the twist and the yellow washed out leaving it red, blue and white again. I guess I didn't use the wrong soap last time. ;) The other three bobbins had gray fiber on it. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out and I'm stashing it for something special.

Yeah, I know, it's not the best picture. But I'll deal with it. It's really hard to photograph gray yarn in gray weather. ;) The specs for this skein are as follows: 3 ply, 4 oz, 70% Superwash Merino/30% Alpaca, approx 236.5 yards.

The only problem with all this productiveness is that now the wheel is bare, the spinning basket is empty and I'm at a loss. I pulled out a ball of brown llama that was gifted to me, but I'm not feeling the pull for it yet. Maybe I need to dig deeper. I've got PLENTY of fiber stash, just not all of it is carded and I'm not sure I'm up to carding some right now. (I may have to though!) I do have some colors dyed up for a color blending experiment. I just need to pick through them and prep them for carding. I could dig down and see if there's any washed alpaca that's carded. hmmm....I'll see.

The other thing I finished off was the hubsters new slippers. He's been wearing them this last week while I waited for the leather to show up at work. I had planned on stitching a leather sole onto the bottoms of them but when I got out the awl to practice I realised that it was completely impractical for the application. So I whipped out some glue and glued them on. It's an experiment and if it works out, I do it again on my next pair. It's only been a couple of days, but he does have more traction now. Hopefully they last longer than the last pair.

I've got one more cute picture post to do and then it's back to knitting. I've started two different sock patterns with two different yarn types and neither are turning out the way I planned and neither seem to fit so far. So....I'm trying the thicker yarn on smaller needles and the thinner yarn on larger needles all in a hope of obtaining gauge. HA! Obtaining gauge! AS IF!

Blah, Blah, Blah!

2008-04-09T15:01:00.000-07:00

So Wednesday April 2 dawned beautiful and sunny. Look at that sky! With a lawn to clean up, flower beds to straighten out, pruning to be done; not to mention a veggie garden to get in, you'd think I spent all day outside working. Right? Until you see this.

Yep. I still had snow. Due to the lovely freeze on Monday night, my snow hung around for the better part of a week. I think the last of it disappeared this last weekend. Due to the rains. It's rained pretty much the whole last week. ;)

At least the weather doesn't mess with Tucker's plans.

I spent the day playing around with fiber and doing some chores. The cabin fever thing is starting to set in, but not as bad as it should be. I'm pretty content playing with sticks and strings and spinning up fiber. :) Probably because I know that I'll be toiling away in the yard soon enough.

On another note. I haven't been riding my motorcycle much due to the weather. Oh, and the fact that the hubster is still working on it some. He rides it pretty much any day that there's not ice and snow and keeps working the kinks out of it. It's becoming a household joke that he's really just looking for reasons to keep it to himself.;) Not that he doesn't have his own. lol I know that soon he'll work all the kinks out, and the weather will improve so it'll be more enjoyable for me to ride too.

Really?

2008-04-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

Evidently I've gotten over feeling guilty if I don't post regularly to the blog. ;) It's been weeks since I have and I've got a lot to catch up on. There's been "stuff" going on and I've been somewhat busy, but the main reason for the bloglessness started with a general feeling of "meh" whenever I'd think about posting. I don't like to post in that frame of mind cause my snarky grumpy side shows too much and then I'd feel I should delete the post. So why bother? Pair that up with my general inclination to hibernate in my own "happy place" every once in awhile and you get a state of no blog posting. Doesn't mean I haven't been checking in on all your blogs and keeping them read up. Does mean I haven't been commenting though. I did miss sending out some important birthday cards/gifts the middle of last month though, so I'll be fixing that up soon.

So let me take you back a couple of weeks to the last week of March. The end of March is the end of our fiscal year at work, meaning our annual inventory. This year it was decided that the auditors would be in our store on Sunday the 30th, so we all worked a bit late on Saturday the 29th to insure our part of the counting process was done. That left the boss and I with the auditors on Sunday. All of it went exceptionally well and we were out of there faster than we expected. Yeah! The only down side was that on Friday the 28th we woke up to this.

And I don't mean the cute pooch on the deck....look past that. See the white stuff?!!! What the???!!!! I figured it would melt off by noon and we went to work. This is what it looked like when we left on Saturday.

Yep. Very pretty. Tucker loved it. Not only did it not go away during the day, but we had more fall that night. Sunday morning dawned, we got up and decided to head into town for breakfast before I went to work for inventory. While it's not normal to have snow like this at this time of year, it is normal for us to have snow and for it not to be snowing just down the road. We were surprised that it was still snowing in town and kept piling up the whole time we ate. By the time we were done eating, hubby decided he'd just go into work with me and play on the computer in the office while we were working with the auditors.

When we got home, we were greeted by this.

Yep, he wanted to play. I managed to get out of the way and take some pics of the two of them.

Monday it snowed some more and then, joy of joys, froze solid. Yep. Dandy. And here I thought I was going to be able to maybe mow the lawn and toss down some fertilizer. HA!

2008-03-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

Mom's new knitting needles came in and her motorcycle is almost done. You may not see her for awhile. I think I'll just take a snooze.

Tucker

Stuff

2008-03-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today I resolved to catch up on a few things I've let slide. I made my to-do list this morning, so I wouldn't spend the whole day in fiberly pursuits. Did I complete it? Well looking at the list I certainly was able to cross off the fiberly items. lol. I took a stab at getting some chores done, but even though it wasn't raining I could not get motiviated to work outside. So no yard chores done yet. I'll have to get on them Sunday afternoon. I did get some indoor stuff done though. I wasn't a complete lay about. hehe.

I finally finished the Ugly Socks today. (Such called due to thier coloring, not thier patterning.) They were only knit once (thank goodness!), fit perfectly and the second one has the best two grafting on it I've ever done. Oh yes...and the stripes even lined up easily. The first time. Scary! Unfortunately I still have about half the skein left. Ugg.

I finally took the time to update Ravelry today with my projects. I'm hoping I get better about updating it, as I find it is a really useful tool. Now I just need to get the My Folia site updated.

Next on the needles is a new pair of slippers for the Hubster as he's flat worn his through. I'm also going to cast on a pair of socks for a dear friend. Oh! And I'm ready to dive into some lace.....so we'll see. I still have a blanket for Abbie I'm working on too.

Well I'm off to eat dinner and prep for tomorrow. AKA more spinning or knitting. ;)

Dogs, Gardening and Motorcycles

2008-03-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

"It's a frame up!"

Here's a mugshot of the culprit.

It seems the pooch is turning into an intrepid gardener with a love of "weeding" and roses. First thing this morning I went out and restrung the electric fence along the flower bed edging part of our yard. It now extends to the end of the flower bed and protects this rose that he's almost dug up. He's also "pruned" it back severely. I'll be lucky if it lives. Normally I have my rose pruning done in February, but one thing has led to another and I'm behind on that. If you look closely you'll see the chewed off ends. The only cane to survive Tucker pruning is on the other side of the fence. There are a few other places that show his masterful weeding, hence the extension of the electric wire. He's well aware of how the wire feels, so I don't expect he'll be testing it soon. This is why he can't get into the veggie garden. ;)

"Are you sure I can't come in?"

After reconnecting the fence, I spent some quality time trimming Cody and Bandit's toenails and trimming the hair on their feet. It was too cold for a bath so maybe Wednesday. We snapped this pic of the sleeping Bandit. Boy was he tired! Cody, of course, was long gone. ;)

Don had the weekend off and spent most of it working on the motorcycles. He has another clear coat of paint to go onto my gas tank, but was able to get the carbs back on and all tuned in. It's back to purring and just needs the rest of the cosmetics done before I ride again. Chrome cleaning is coming on soon, but I'm not even going to start that until he's all done. ;) He did take mine for a ride last night (with his gas tank on) and agreed with me that the seat sucks. lol The way it's shaped, I slide forward onto the gas tank constantly or backwards if I'm going up a steep hill. I'm not sure if I'm going to modify the one I have, or look into buying a new one. They can be quite expensive, so I'll think on it. I think the only other thing I want done to it is to have the shocks adjusted down so I don't feel like I'm so high in the air. We'll see about that though. So here's a pic of my bike, in the sun, with it's new dark green coat of paint. Looking good!

Well, it's off to make dinner and get ready for the next week. I'm expecting a package this week and I'll try to post on that as soon as it arrives!

Fiber, Yarn and Knitting

2008-03-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've posted. I can't believe how fast the time is going already. Guess that's just a sign of age. lol My mind is racing with all the things I want to get done this year and I find myself writing lists all the time. I can't really say that I haven't had time to blog, it just seems I've lost the inclination. I've spent my blogging time catching up on reading other peoples blogs and it feels good to catch up with old friends.

I finished up the silk/alpaca skein and am not sure exactly how I feel about it. I'm not completely in love with it, but don't really dislike it either. I'm a bit perplexed by it I guess. This is the first time I've felt so ambivalent about something I've created. It's approx 142 yards, 3.75 oz. Two of the three plies are black alpaca and the third is the silk from the silk cap experience. The only thing I can think of to use it for at this point is gloves, so I'll let it marinate in the stash for awhile and then decide. I have decided that I'm going to dye and spin another silk cap before I determine if I'm selling the rest. The dislike I felt for it at the begging of spinning could very well be lack of experience. The second half of the spinning went really well, so I think I should give it another shot before deciding on the fate of the rest of the silk stash.

Right now I have the grey super wash on the wheel. It's not exciting to look at so there's no pic. It's spinning up beautifully and will hopefully make a nice sock yarn. I'm not sure yet if I'll leave it as is, or wind it on the sock dyeing board and dye part of it. After this I plan on doing some color blending work, but I'm going to do some research on it first. I'm ok at picking colors to go together, but the really awe inspiring batts I see usually have color combos I'd never thought to put together. So I'm striving to step out of my comfort level on picking colors. When I do the blending, I'll take pics and show what I did. (Good blog fodder.)

I've gotten in some good knitting time and have actually finished this sock already and am about a quarter through the second. No pictures of the finished sock yet, but I'll snap one when they are both done. I'm loving the pattern and hating the yarn. The yarn itself it nice to work with, but the colors are not "me". Sadly I think I'll have some left over after I'm done with this pair. As for the sock itself, it fits beautifully and I only had to knit it once. Ironic considering I don't like the colors. That's the way it goes though. I will probably buy more of the yarn (it's Knit Picks) and do some sock yarn dyeing this summer. I like how the self striping came out and I'd like to use the sock dyeing board again.

Today I spent some time picking through the last sheep fleece from the back deck. It's at the top of my "to do" list as it's days are numbered out there. It's spent enough time out there anyway. I almost threw it away but am glad I didn't. As I was picking through it, I was amazed at how nice the lock structure is, and how curly some of them are. I have no idea of the breed of this one as it was a "dirty freebie" but I can see it carding up to a nice batt. I think it's my last sheepie fleece to wash. After this one it's all alpaca. My goal is to get all of the dirty stash washed, dried and packaged asap. If the weather comes in warm soon, I'll dry outside again. Anyway, I've heard others talk about putting the fleece in a soaking bucket for a few days before actually washing it and thought I'd try that out. I didn't get even half of it picked through before my back said "STOP", but what was picked out is now on the back deck soaking. I plan on starting the washing stage Wednesday. It's mostly a brown and grey fleece, so I won't be able to visibly see a cleaner difference, but I should be able to tell in the washing experience. If I have any lighter fleeces stashes somewhere, I'll try it with one of those to see if there is a visible difference.

Well that's it for the fiber post update. I've another post to put together, so I'll be back soon!

Dogs on Thursday

2008-02-21T06:40:00.000-08:00

"Anyone out there ready to play with me?"

"You.You can play with me."

"You're not going anywhere!"

"Nope, that's not snow. That's the guts to my pillow!"

Hello again!

2008-02-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

"When are you going to finish my blanket Mama?"

Well I guess it's time for me to come clean. The post titled Motorcycle ICU posted last Sunday may have given the wrong impression. See...it was a bit of a joke for the hubster who was (rightfully) out on a grand ride with some new friends. I thought I'd have a little fun with him by posting that, and I did. He got a few chuckles out of it and shared it with his buddies. Truth be told, even if my bike were ready to ride at this time you would still have found me at home. lol. For a few good reasons too. It's still way to cold for me out there in rider land (even though it was a gorgeous day!) and I'm not really ready to be hitting the highways, or riding a ferry on a motorcycle yet. I'm strickly fair weather and back roads. He's well aware of that and encourages me to ride at my level, although me thinks he's dreaming of the day we hit the long rides together. ;) Besides that, Sunday was the first true indicator that Spring is just around the corner. The Daytona 500! I couldn't miss that!!!! Yes, I'll put it in writing. I'm a Nascar junkie. Not that I won't miss a few races later in the season for the purposes of gardening or whatnot, but the first race of the season...you betcha I watched!

So I dug out the much malined Silk Cap that I've been avoiding eye contact with for the past month or so, and decided if Junior could keep it in the top 10 then I could certainly try to draft this stuff out and get it spun up. I did manage to get it done and am not completely pleased with it. I think it's just Beginners Boggle with the stuff and will give one more cap a dyeing and trying out before I sell the rest off. ;) Gotta be fair about it before I decide for sure. So here it is completed on the bobbin. Sorry for the lack of focus, but you get the idea on the colors. There's more yellow hiding below that red and blue. The plan is to make a three ply using this single of silk and two singles of black alpaca. I already have one single of the alpaca done (today) and am working on the second. It'll be my first three ply (I think). More to come.

Last week I was catching up on Kristi's blog and ran across her post about Folia. The idea is the same as Ravelry, only for gardeners. Of course I jumped right in and signed up. Much like Ravelry I havn't updated it one bit....but the intention is there. ;) This could be a great tool for me and I thank Kristi muchly for passing the tid bit on. I'll get around to posting the side bar button for it later.

Oh, and if you get a chance, check out The Knitting Mama blog. This gal is a member of the same guild I belong to and is just the neatest person. She always has something wonderful to show at the meetings and is always working on something! The kids are adorable too!

Well I'm off to cook (burn) dinner, so I leave you with a picture of Deception Pass that hubby took on the ride Sunday.

Nice Matters Award

2008-02-20T15:40:00.000-08:00

Waaaaaay back on January 29th Cindy at KnitWonPurlToo honored me with the Nice Matters Award. During that time I was experiencing some internet connection issues and was tied up with family matters and away from the blog more than not so I missed out on reading about it right away. Once I caught up (somewhat) on my blog reading I was shocked to be so honored. At my best, I'm an erratic blogger and really never expected that something like this would be sent my direction. I've since been trying to figure out how I was going to pass this honor on, as I read and enjoy so very many blogs (dial-up willing) and to narrow the masses down to only 7 seemed like an insurmountable task. What I've decided to do is pass the award onto the 7 (or so) bloggers that I check on first thing. The fact that I start with these probably means something, but in reality I read and enjoy so many blogs that I'm already sorry for not listing you all!

So every morning (dial-up willing) I grab a cup o' coffee and start off with...

Cindy at KnitWonPurlToo--well duh! I've got to check out what Tuckers alter ego is doing waaaay over there! Cindy has quickly become a great friend and "Auntie" to our Tucker and with every post I'm reminded how much she and I are alike, even though the miles separate us.

Then it's over to Cass at Shut Up, I'm Counting. I don't know if I've ever even commented on her blog, but I read (AKA lurk) like a junkie. She never fails to give me a giggle and her knitting is completely inspiring.

After Cass, I skip over to Franklin at The Panopticon. The combination between wit, skill and overwhelming talent is addicting. The man can write. The man can draw. More importantly...that man can knit! As if his writing weren't enough, the comments left there is usually a kick too. I've been known to read some of these posts and comments out loud to the DH.

Then I stop in at Donna's over at Knittinggal. It's essential to check on Oliver and see what Donna is up to. She always has the best pictures on her blog and she's so creative. It's always great to hear from her and compare notes on our pooches too! Oliver is Tucker's other blog buddy. ;) (If we ever get Oliver, Tucker and Grover together....watch out! lol)

The next stop is over at Taueret. I stumbled across her blog when I first joined up on the Spindlers list and immediately thought she was the other half of "me" in my crafting life. Even though we are a half a world away from each other we seem to try the same things at roughly the same time. (With the exception of weaving, which I am still steadfastly ignoring and avoiding at this point. She however weaves wonderfully!) She also does great book reviews!

While I'm down under at Taueret's I head over to Donyale's blog Indulging my Inner Knitter. There's always a good story, usually a giggle, great fiber being shown and wonderful knitting too!

And then there is my spinning idol. Abi at Abiknits. I first "met" Abi on the
Spindlers yahoo list and she was very helpful by giving me tips on my first silk spinning. She spins up the most gorgeous stuff, and then knits it into sweaters from patterns of her own making. I'm in awe of that!

Ok, now I'm going to sneak another one on here to. I can't leave out Sidney! She's over at As The Yarn Turns and was one of the first people to ever...ever...comment on my blog. Add to that the coffee, the critters and her spinning/knitting and you'll understand why I drop by regularly.

I could really go on forever as there are probably close to 150 bloggers listed on my Feedreader. I don't have nearly enough time to read everyone every day, but it's nice to be able to "drop" in and catch up with someone via his or her blog. Every one of you has inspired me in one way or another or just plain made me laugh. I feel fortunate to be able to "know" you all and I thank you for that. I can only apologize that I lurk so much, and comment so little. ;)

I was going to post a pic of the award on here but Blogger seems to be rejecting photo's at this time. I'll take that as a hint that I need to spin or knit and get off line. If I think of it later, I'll edit this and add it then. I'll have to wait to do my other posts too as they have pics to go with them. Ah well. Such is life

Motorcycle ICU

2008-02-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

It's a beautiful sunny Sunday. Not a cloud above and 55 degress. It's what should be known as our "fake spring" that happens every year. Next week it'll probably snow. Today, however, everyone is out stretching thier winter weary legs and those with the fever are out in their yards trying to get a jump on the season. Still others are out enjoying the weather. Others like my hubby. He's out on a 3-4 hr motorcycle ride with a group of "local" riders that are headed over to Whidbey Island via Stanwood, Oak Harbor, ect. Why am I not going along?

Well let me tell ya a little story...

The darling man decided at the end of my riding season (aka when it gets wet and cold and I say no way to riding the bike!) that he would rebuild my carbs, and repaint my bike on the "off" season. (He knows no off season and rides whenever it's not snowy or icy.) The only parts being repainted were the gas tank and trim. As the frame is black and in good condition, we opted to leave it as is. He "hot tanked" my gas tank to get the inside clean and then stripped all the wax and paint off the trim and tank. He then spent a good amount of time fixing the few dings and dents in the tank. Now it's paint time. I've been reminding him that the sun is going to come out again soon and that I'll be wanting to ride. HINT HINT HINT. Before he left this morning on his ride...in the sun.....having fun.....I took these pictures to show you my dear Motorcyle still in the ICU. This my dears is why I am at home and he is off on a ride. It's so sad when someone you love is confined to the hospital.

Dogs on Thursday...Actually on Thursday!

2008-02-14T15:21:00.000-08:00

I Know!!!! I'm suprised too! It's a fluke thing as I had today off instead of yesturday. So since I had nothing going on today (except housework) I decided it was time to take Tucker for a ride. He hasn't been visiting in ages and I thought I'd get an acurate weight on him from the vet. He was game for a trip, so in the car we went and off to Arlington we drove. I take the back roads as much as possible, and Tucker loves to hang his head out the window. This he did nearly the whole time we were driving to town. He was very interested in all the horses we passed and wanted to stop and play, but he had to be denied. I have to admit, the cows along the way just didn't interest him at all.

Tucker was well behaved at the vets office and weighed in at 144.3 lbs. A bit more than I estimated but doing dandy. Considering a year ago he weighed in at 22 lbs, we've come a long way baby! After getting an weight on him, we drove over to the store so he could check in with the gang. He was so exicted that he started to talk and make whiney noises at the end of the block. He knew where he was and couldn't wait to get in and say hello. After visiting there, we went to a groomers shop so the owners could get a look at him. They have never groomed him before, and there's a strong possibility that they won't ever but we wanted to stop in and say "hi" anyway. They have a great shop and we got the grand tour. They let thier shop dog out to play with Tucker and we all visited for a bit. The owners are nice people and more than willing to groom the big guy, but Tucker is so bath shy that I'm not sure I'm willing to put them through that. ;) At the end of that visit, it was clear that Tucker was visited out and wanted to go home, so home we went.

After my last posting for DOT, it occured to me that I rarely post any pics of my other fur babies. It's shocking to me that people out there only know Tucker and not Bandit or Cody....or the cats for that matter. I've thought about it and really I guess it's because it's so hard to get decent pics of the other pooches. Bandit has gotten so old, that often his pics come out looking pathetic or sad, so I don't put them here. Occasionally I get a good one, and when I do I'll post it here. As for Cody, he's camera shy. I've got several pics of his rear end as he's walking away from the camera, but head on shots are hard to come by. Want proof? This one is from May of last year!

So I'll work on getting better pics of the darlings and even things out some between the doggies.

Knitting Content

2008-02-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

Last week I finished up my finger tip less gloves. I didn't bother to wash them but put them into use the very next day! They fit, they're very warm, and they're fabulous! I'm quite pleased with myself over these....inordinatly so. I'm already planning on making another pair or two out of some small quantities of yarn I've got laying about. In truth this project was probably the least painful and easiest thing I've learned in ages. And that says a lot considering I'm notorious for mis-reading patterns, leaving rows out, miscalculating guage, ect. I seem to be on a bit of a roll in my knitting right now, but I'll admit that I've not tried anything complicated and everything I've attempted thus far has already been done by more accomplished knitters. That being said....I'm still pretty proud. lol

I cast on for a pair of socks this week in an effort to use up the yarn I dyed last year at this time. The yarn was part of the supplies provided for our Sock Dyeing class put on by my spinning guild last year. The colors are not my favorite and the story of the dyeing is here if you're interested. The pattern I chose is the Yukon Leaves pattern by Lela Conrad and calls for size US1 needles. As I don't have these in circular, I cast on and worked using my DPNS. I completed the 2" cuff and worked through one repeat of the pattern and decided to try it on. Don had already expressed his disbelief it would fit and low and behold, he was correct. It would have made a great glove though. lol So I ripped it out and cast back on using my size 3 dpns then transfered it over to my cable needles. I'm about half way through the first pattern repeat and we'll see how it goes from here on out. It would be unusual for me to not have to tear it out a few more times, so I'm not holding my breath. I believe my issues are related to my inability to swatch. ;) Do ya think?! The pattern itself has been easy for me to read and understand. If this works out, I'll have knitted "l*c*" for the first time. (I'm afraid to say the word itself but I think you can figure it out. lol.)

As for other projects, I still need to finish off the green felted bag. I also need to fix/replace Don's slippers. He handed one off to me today to show me the two holes in the bottem of one. I'm not happy with how they've worn for him and I think the next pair will have a thicker sole to them. I'm thinking on how I may be able to fix them. I'm not convinced that I can though. I'm also thinking on a larger project, but am not sold on the idea yet, so I'll hold off spilling it here.

Dogs on Sunday Because I Can't Keep to a Normal Schedule!

2008-02-03T20:16:00.001-08:00

Thought I'd post a quickie dog post and give you all some eye-candy. This is the best pic of Bandit I've gotten in a long time. Due to the old dog eyes, most pictures come out now showing him with red glowing evil eyes. This one's not too bad though an shows he does something other than sleep. Even if it is just to re-postion himself to take a nap. lol

Then there's the goofball in extreme. A couple of weeks ago, Tucker snuck in the house when Don went out to warm up his vehicle. I was brushing my teeth at the time and didn't know what was going on when I heard the cats growling and hissing. I came down the hallway to find Tucker backed into the corner by two very unhappy cats. The poor dear looked absolutely mortified that the cats were talking to him that way! Don came into the house and called and called him, bu t the big guy wasn't moving for anything. Not until he felt the safety of the Pa holding his collar and not until he saw the front door was open did he feel safe to escape. I don't think he'll be sneaking in for awhile. lol

This is how I found the big goofball this afternoon. Just laying around taking a nap. Looks pretty abused, no? ;)

Progress

2008-02-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy time around here and I'm only just now getting to the posting o' blog that I've been meaning to do for awhile. I fully intended to spend today relaxing (spinning) and finishing up a project (knitting) but that was not to be. I spent the day in true house wife glamour. Cleaning. Am I the only one who didn't know you could take apart the inside of the dishwasher and clean it? Or that it could possibly need to be done? Maybe it's because the darn thing didn't come with a manual. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) Lately I've noticed an odor from inside the dishwasher if it's not run on a daily basis. I've tried running a couple of "cleaner" washes through it, but it just didn't go away. So today I did another one of those "cleaner" washes using CLR thinking that my work. Nope. Not to be. Then I vaguely remembered watching an episode of "How Clean is Your House" where Aggie was explaining to the home owner that she needed to take the filter out of the bottom of the dishwasher and clean it every so often. I thought at the time that maybe that was just a design feature of the European models, but today it came to mind again. I discovered that mine too can be dismantled and cleaned. I will not describe what I found in there.....but I don't think this things EVER been cleaned. (It came to us second hand.) Not that there's anything wrong with that.....I just discovered it could be cleaned myself. Who'd a thunk? I did spend a good amount of time clearing it of all the gunk and garbage and scrubbing it clean. So glamourous, I know. But hey...no more odor.

What else have I been up to lately? Mostly slogging around getting work done.
But I choose to remember the fun stuff. Like last week when I decided that I needed to clean off a few bobbins that had been resting for a while. I had been waiting for the "perfect" single to come along to ply with these and finally just decided to ply them on themselves. I've not plied from a center pull ball before so it was high time I did. It went suprisingly well, with little or no tangling. (Well, I've done it now. Next time they'll tangle like crazy!) So I give you the terrible pink which I care for not. Structurally, it's a nice yarn. Soft, springy and not glaringly bright. It's obviously a two ply and approximately 161 yds and 100% wool. It really isn't a bad yarn. I'm just not a "pink" person.

This one is a natural grey wool, and approximately 111 yards. In person, it's a muted grey and will stay in my stash for some small project or another, but in the pictures of it, it's showing silver. Pretty nice stuff too. The fiber was a gimme from a friend that was trying to encourage me to spin a couple of years ago. Little did she know that I needed NO encouragement at all. Can't seem to stop the habit now. lol

Here's my first completed glove ever. And yes, it's not suppose to have fingertips.;) I had a pair of wool gloves (without the finger tips) for quite a few years and I ususally wear them to drive when it's really cold out. Tucker thought they were tasty and now they don't do the job of keeping out the cold anymore. (I may have enough left of them to fix them, but I'm unsure.) I decided to dive in and knit myself a pair using the yarn created from the fiber Cindy sent me. I searched all over for just the perfect pattern as I needed the fingers in them, but no tips, wanted a plain ole stitch, no cables,ect and needed to be able to use my size 3 circ needle from Knit Picks as I don't seem to want to knit with anything else right now. ( I really need that Options needle set!) Anyhoo, many of you gave me great leads to some fabulous patterns, and now that I'm understanding glove construction a bit more, I'll definately be diving into more. The whole finger construction really intimated me, but wow! So easy! I was really suprised. I'm working on the second one every chance I can so soon they'll be working gloves!

The final work in progress is the green felted bag. You'll probably remember that this is my first bag project (but not my last) and is made from my handspun. I used THIS pattern. It didn't felt down as small as I was expecting but that turned out to be a good thing. It's probably due to my handspun. I fully intend to line this one probably with the fabric it's laying on. I'm not completely committed to that though, so it's waiting in the wings to be finished.

Well, I think that's about all in craft land right now. I'm going to wrap this one up so I can take care of a couple shorter (I know, I know!) posts and get the dinner done. Maybe I'll get some knitting in tonight before bed. Hmmm...maybe the laundry will fold itself so that can happen.

Hello There! I'm back!

2008-01-20T19:21:00.000-08:00

You know you're too far behind on up blogging when you have to upload all the pictures you're planning to use before composing the actual post! I'm erratic at posting at best. Life gets in motion, and I get swept along with it. Not altogether unwillingly! I'm going to try to be as brief as possible as I've got a new project on the needles that is moving along screamingly, and I'd like to watch another program on TV while I work on it tonight. ;)

First! The Jaywalkers are done! I finished the second one up on Thursday without the due pomp and circumstance they deserved due to being overtired. (Sorry guys.... I'll wear you with pride this week!) The second sock went much quicker and without any noticeable errors. Amazing what happens when you read a pattern huh? I love this pattern and will defiantly be making more of these!

Next on the needles is a felted bag I snagged off of Ravelry. I'm not sure of the name right now and will post that with a link later. The really important part is that this bag is being made from some of the very first yarn I ever spun. Pre-wheel even! I'm terribly excited about using something of my own creation and am having fun as the yarn goes by seeing the differences in my spinning. This bag is intended to be for me and I plan on lining it and possibly embellishing it. Not sure what, but I've a hankering to complete a "girlie" bag. (Not my style, so I'm not sure what that's about!)

And last but not least I give you Tucker. The Hubster went for a motorcycle ride today and when I went looking for Tucker he was laying across the driveway waiting for him. Too cute!

Thanks again Cindy!

2008-01-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday night I succumbed to the calling of a new fiber in the house. As I posted a few back, Cindy sent me a braid of mystery fiber, named appropriately "Fall Multi". I was suppose to be working on my last Jaywalker sock, but after a few rounds I gave into the siren call of a new fiber experience. (I've wanted to buy some of the fiber braid before, but could never fit it in my budget, nor could I justify it with the abundance of fiber I have in nearly every nook and cranny of our home.) Anyhoo, as I sat on the couch watching I don't remember what, I undid the braid and pulled the roving into strips. Very thin strips. It was kinda therapeutic and before I knew it, I was spinning it up on the wheel. I couldn't believe how easily the fiber spun up to just the right size!

(Sorry for the icky pic.) By Sunday evening I had the whole 2 oz spun up and Monday I plied it up. I'm really quite pleased with how it came out and thought I'd stash it for a bit to decide what to make of it. Tucker solved that problem quickly. One morning this week, Don brought in one of my fingerless gloves that Tucker had managed to sneak out of the car. (When it's cold, I wear these to drive.) It's wasn't a complete disaster, but really is very ventilated now.

So now the plan is to knit a pair of fingertip-less gloves out of it. I'm on the hunt for the perfect, plain knit, free pattern so I can attempt my first glove. Whoo hoo! Always looking for new stuff to start! I then had the thought of using some of the Lily Alpaca with it that Cindy sent in the same package. I'm not sure though. Is it just me? Does this not quite match up? (meaning I can keep the Alpaca for a more special project, huh? huh?Huh?!) The light for this pic is actual sunlight...no joking....so the colors are a bit more true. Any thoughts anyone? Any tips? Let me know...I do appreciate it!

Ok and now the specs:

The band on the fiber braid said....

Fountain Gap Fiber, 2 oz Fall Multi

Wheel spun-2 ply-ap 207 yds.

This was probably the quickest most pleasant spin I've had in ages!

Thanks again Cindy!!!!!

Skein Completed!

2008-01-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

Evidently she thought this was comfortable. :)

Here are the specs:

4.5 oz Merino/Silk--(Laps purchased from Yarn or a Tale and when she tells ya they spin up beautifully...she ain't kiddin!)

Dyed with Rit Dye-Drk Green--stove top method.

There are actually two skeins (as I couldn't fit the whole shebang on one bobbin) of two ply, approximating 555 yards.

Not bad, not bad. I was hoping to make a shawl/wrap for myself out of this, so we'll see if I can find an appropriate beginner level lace knitting pattern that I like.