Frou's World

No Sheep In This Barn

2007-10-11T19:16:00.000-04:00

That’s right, There are no sheep in this barn. That’s because the people live in the barn.

The barn is on 12 acre farm in eastern Tennessee. It lays within the boundaries of the Cherokee National Forest. There is not much there except for a few other homes. Lots of chickens roaming the neighborhood, Some mountain people who are very attached to their ATV’s and this barn converted into a home.

The last 6 months have been spent in a constant state of movement. Moving from one house to another. Moving belongings from one storage unit to another. Moving people. Picking up leftovers. No rest for the wicked. No rest for the righteous either. No time to write. No time to take photos. No time to keep up with anything except a constant flow of boxes, homes, showings, cleaning carpets, cobbled-together meals with no dishes to serve the food on, and lots and lots of driving.

I stepped away from keeping up with events in order to just keep track of what passed before me each and every day. It seemed the list would never end.

Now I find myself in a state of temporary limbo. The children and the parents are already at the barn. I am staying in a borrowed home with my husband just waiting for march to come around in order to fully vest in my 401k.

There is now a light at the end of the tunnel though.

Two of those acres now belong to us. The rest of the pasture is available for our use. There is a fiber arts program at the local university that I intend to be enrolling in come the fall. Image that, a degree in string. I'm so there.

This means (yet another) return to blogging.

The posts will still be sporadic as I can really only post when I have Internet access. The places we are living in temporarily do not have phone or Internet access. Whenever I can get to the library or visit the barn, I'll post whatever I can and I'll save the blog entries as I go along.

I hope you will all bear with me as I come back to keeping track of life in general now that I have some time to breathe.

Yarn Pr0n Friday The Twelfth

2007-04-13T18:28:00.000-04:00

Handspun! Navajo ply! Merino-silk! Fleece Artist! YAY!!!!!!

WIP updates

2007-04-11T19:29:00.000-04:00

The Moderne Log cabin blanket for the impending work baby is out. I read some interesting info about corn fiber and it's relatively low melting point and became somewhat concerned. I'm not sure how that reflects on fire retardancy, but I'm not all that familiar with the fiber, and unknowns aren't such a good thing in this area of safety.Honestly. I'm not THAT worried about the baby spontaneously combusting causing her blanket to melt to her skin like baby shrink wrap. I just feel that with kids, especially other people's kids, it's better to be safe than sorry. My own kids? If their handknits melt to them permanently disfiguring them for life, they should just be damn grateful that mom knit them something.

Instead, I chose something soft and sweet in a fiber I know and trust. Enter the Infant's Fancy Silk Sock from Vintage Knits. I'm knitting them in Dale Baby Ull. I swear those needles get smaller every time I knit a round. next time I say I'm going to knit something on needles with more than a single zero anywhere in the needle size, someone smack me. They are lovely and delicate though.

Obviously the Wool Peddler shawl is complete, it is also fraught with errors and issues. I rushed the thing to be done for the retirement party then prayed hard that there would be no knitters in attendance. I was lucky in that there weren't. Or if there were, they had the decency to keep their traps shut. I also cut off one pattern repeat. I still have a few extra balls of the yarn. I'm thinking it may need to be frogged back to the beginning of the lace and reknit correctly if I am ever to be truly satisfied with it. Until such time, I will snuggle it regularly.

Onto the sweater for dad. My father is from Scottish stock. My father and uncle have traced their lineage as completely as they can. They are so proud. Dad even got a kilt in his clan's tartan. It's remarkably fun to tease him about his legs in his skirt, but really, I like that he's man enough to pull of the kilt.

Anyways, when I first took up knitting, I gave him a gift certificate for an aran sweater or a pair of kilt hose. He chose the sweater, and I've been mulling it over ever since. It's been about 15 months and after various false starts with swatching, finding the right yarn, and toying fruitlessly with a plan for designing it myself, it got back burnered. He has harassed me about it at every mention of yarn since the yarn was purchased. I can't make a single stitch on any other project around him without him mentioning how nice it would be to have a handknit aran. However, in a recent Knittyboard swap I got a couple back issues of IK. In the Fall 2003 issue, I found it. The perfect sweater. Everything dad asked for. Cable-y, turtlenecked, beautiful and comfy. The Byzantine Bazic is lovely. Unfortunately, I've only been able to work on it for two evenings thus far. The chart is uber tiny and my scanner is in the pooper right now. I've been waiting for my parents to leave town to get the chart properly scanned and enlarged. They leave tomorrow. So far, progress is slow, but at least it has been started.

Mom is trying to get me to have it done by fathers day. I can't possibly imagine what he would do with a turtleneck wool sweater in June, but maybe I will have it done by then, and he will shut the hell up about it finally. or he'll start bugging me for the kilt hose.

In the meantime something interesting has magically appeared on a set of my knitting needles. I picked up a copy of the new Favorite Socks book and next time I looked some long stashed Cascade Fixation jumped on the needles and began shaping themselves into the Flame Wave socks. I had nothing to do with this phenomenon whatsoever. (Okay, maybe I did, but it was merely a diversionary tactic to keep me amused until I could get the sweater chart resized.)

Just a tip for anyone who decides to make these in the larger size. The pattern calls for you to use a set of 4 dpns. The pattern fits perfectly with a set of five (the smaller size divides perfectly onto 4 needles). You get 2 pattern repeats on each needle instead of trying to move stitches back and forth on needles for your decreases. Why a clever knitter like Ann Budd couldn't have mentioned that for a brain dead knitter like me who didn't figure out how to divide 56 by 7 until halfway through the first pattern repeat is beyond me. Other than that, the pattern is easy, subtle and quite lovely. I'm totally digging this non-lacy pattern too. It's made me resolve to dig through the stitch dictionaries for similar yarnoverless patterns to make subtly patterned solid fabrics.

Yarn Pr0n Friday the Eleventh (With bonus window and Kitty pr0n!)

2007-04-05T21:14:00.000-04:00

Imagine if you will, a knitter who has recently offered (near) full disclosure on her blog regarding precisely how much yarn she owns in vivid and gory detail. Now imagine what happens next to that knitter.

Well? What did you come up with?

Naturally. She buys more yarn. Of course she couldn't help it, it was such an INCREDIBLE sale that she had to. Let's see what she picked:

It appears to Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk. She seems to have purchased some Green and Black to go with the pile of Purple she bought at a previous incredible sale which was certainly not enough to knit a lovely sweater ~~to be worn bra-less when no one is home~~ to take full advantage of the softness of this yarn. The knitter had tried to buy more matching yarn, but apparently the dyelots of this yarn are so vastly different, that she instead chose stripes. Luscious soft stripes of silky alpaca.

Something tells the knitter this should be knitted into something classic and, well, Debbie Bliss-ish, but she is seeing stripey raglan wear-with-the-beat-up-jeans comfort.

The knitter in question prefers to remain anonymous. Thank you for honoring her polite request.

You'll also be happy to know that the window install went on as scheduled. The weather was somewhat cooperative, and although it was a yucky overcast day, it did not flood as the meteorologist predicted. They are all filthy liars anyway. I don't know why I keep listening.

Luckily for my neighbors, this meant only one day of seeing my lunar behind out the window. They can thank Knittingnutter for the encouragement. The sounds of shock and horror from the rude neighbors who party too much were well worth the exposure on my part. They'll be too dazed for weeks to get loaded and ride up and down the street in a golf cart. I expect a thank you card from them for putting the blinds back up any minute now.

The windows are so wonderful. They are the super fancy kind that open to the inside so you can wash the insides, the screens move up and down to take advantage of both upper and lower windows. The best part is, the first time I looked out my windows I realized that the window installers also installed front and back yards around my house, and a whole neighborhood beyond that! My family claims that the yards and neighbors have always been there, and the windows are just clean. I don't believe a word of it. They are filthy liars just like the meteorologists.

Just for kicks, I decided to do the knit blog thing and toss up a picture of the worlds most anti-social cat. She hates people at large so much, that most people don't believe I have a cat until I show them the litter box. Sure, she'll come hog my side of the bed all night, but that is about the only time you'll ever see her if you are not me, hubby, or anyone who plays an integral part of her feeding. She also, apparently hates cameras. Of the 30 or so shots I got of her, this is the least craptastic.

Kitty is not amused in the slightest.

Coming soon, progress photos of the long awaited Sweater For Dad That I've Been Promising Him Since I Learned To Knit.

The Gods are mocking me

2007-04-03T22:59:00.000-04:00

The windows in my house are supposed to be replaced tomorrow for an impending sale now that the old flks are retiring. I spent the evening removing blinds and moving furniture.

Naturally, we are supposed to get thunderstorms all day tomorrow.

This means the window replacement will be rescheduled for who knows when.

The obvious question:

Start changing in the bathroom, or expose my entire neighborhood to the horror that is my incredibly pale and voluminous behind???

Sidenote: After taking stash pics for the FYS, I found more yarn. About 16 skeins more. I may need help.

FLASH YOUR STASH 2K7!

2007-03-31T22:25:00.000-04:00

All Handspun:

Random stash that hasn't made it into any semblance of organization yet. It lives in a big quilt bag.

Lotsa Sockotta

Cones and oddballs

BAGS O YARN

Mmm Wool

The pitiful little sock yarn stash

Alpaca!

Cottons and summer yarns

Mohairs and silks

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this next bit, but this is about full disclosure, right? The novelty yarn stash....

Aaaaaaaand I'm Spent.

Retirement.

2007-03-30T15:59:00.000-04:00

******YPF WILL BE DELAYED UNTIL SUNDAY FOR THE ANNUAL FLASH YOUR STASH EVENT!!******

In other news. My father retired yesterday after 33 years of slogging away on work for the federal government. He was given a huge retirement lunch at Legal Seafoods in Crystal City (Holy freaking yum. And I hate Seafood). My mother and I went with him. I got to visit with my fathers buddy Mike of whom I am very fond.

Dad was given a STACK of awards. Seriously, it took my parents, Mike and I to carry of the awards to the car. My mom was presented with a bouquet of the most gorgeous jungle roses. Dad seemed so overwhelmed the whole time. Retirement is such a huge thing. Just think about it, never working again. Dad summed it up simply.

"I fooled them long enough that they will now continue to pay me for the rest of my life."

Congratulations Dad. I love you!

Yes my knitterly friends, that is the (barely finished in time) Wool Peddler shawl wrapped around me. And yes, that is my Mother's Kiri shawl.

I'm Back!

2007-03-25T09:31:00.000-04:00

The wireless is up and works in every room of the house. Come to find out that all of the time we had been using a wireless connection, we had NEVER been using our own, despite our fervent belief to the contrary. My deepest apologies to whomever we were piggybacking onto in the neighborhood.

The install yesterday took up a major portion of our morning. There was no phone, no internet, nothing. We decided to be lazy. I spun, the kids watched Invader Zim dvd's and hubby just hung out with us. I swear the Verizon guy kept looking at me funny whenever he'd see me happily spinning away on my wheel. I was able to complete this:

3.5 oz of Ashland Bay Merino/tencel. Approximately 180 yards of sport-DK 2 ply. It was so easy too. There was no guessing or trying desperately to maintain a pace and keep the flyer moving. Oh my little Lendrum, how do I love thee. I'm seeing a lace scarf for someones Christmas present.

Naturally, since I was done with the Merino I moved on to this:

Fleece artist wool silk bought from Stitches East. There is only 2 ounces, and I was thinking of spinning a really fine 2 ply with it. Then I thought back to some recent threads on knittyboard about maintaining color repeats by navajo plying. So I'm spinning a bit thicker (and a bit more confidently. Something about drafting out only a very few fibers at a time still makes me incredibly nervous) , and will navajo ply it to make a lovely trim or some very small project.

I also went to the LYS Friday afternoon with my friend who is learning to knit and just completed her first scarf. (I suggested it, don't stone me, I know scarves are lousy first projects, but it was a skinny scarf with chunky luxury yarn. She got so confident 3 inches in that she started doing a garter/stockinette stitch pattern. I'm very proud of her. She's doing a Booga Bag next.) I picked up a ball of baby ull to make some baby socks for a coworker. (Don't drink the water where I work, I swear you'll end up pregnant) when I noticed something new on the sock yarn shelf.

Scarlet Fleece Totally Tubular in the Cottage Garden colorway. Oh how I wish there had been a second skein to make a pretty spring Kiri. Sadly, it was alone, and it is destined to become socks for me. I've been really happy though that my LYS seems to be bringing in more independent and smaller yarn distributors. Only a few at a time, but something is better than nothing. I really hope she continues to bring in small and local producers. I love my LYS, but she typically stocks yarn from the major companies. There is lots of good stuff in there. An excellent selection, but sometimes you just crave the unusual, and I'll enjoy supporting the LYS and getting unusual and unique yarns there. (I found out as we were checking out that there had been 2 skeins of this, but one of the employees took one to knit the store sample. Luckily she works when I work, so I won't be able to go into the shop, steal her skein and run away laughing maniacally.)

Computer Revolution My Arse

2007-03-21T21:48:00.000-04:00

The blog has been quiet this week. Computers are to blame. Fully to blame. Let's tell a little story.

Late last year my computer gave up the ghost. My son, who was abusing his computer, as in, taking pieces apart and leaving keyboards, mice and other bits strewn across his floor, lost his computer to me. My mother, Who bought him the computer felt this was unfair. I didn't. My dad, to save himself from mother-daughter strife gave me a computer he had built. It sat for a while until the boy got a bit more responsible. We recently found out that there was Fiber Optic service available in our area. This was wonderful news since our Internet speeds were patchy at best and our wireless connection even more so. We Put the boy's computer back, and set up the new computer. Now we can't get a connection at all.

I'm now posting from my laptop. Also new (to me at least, dad upgraded and gave me his castoff laptop.) I haven't been able to get a reliable connection.

Computers hate me I think.

I'm hoping to Keep the connection up to at least get a yarn porn post up tomorrow evening. With any luck the fiber optic service will work out the issues on Saturday. I apologize in advance if I miss YPF this week. It's not for a lack off effort, I assure you.

In knitting news, The Wool peddler shawl crawls on. those garter stitch rows just go on and on and on and on and on........

35 more ever increasing rows until I get to the lace pattern. I'm desperately trying to get it done before dad's retirement party on the 29th. I'm not holding my breath.

I also picked up Knitting Vintage Socks at the bookstore last night. It's taking all I have not to cast on for a pair of Gentleman's Shooting Socks. I'm trying to use it as a reward to myself for getting the shawl done. Maybe I'll bribe myself with a trip to the LYS.

I'm going to go lay down and knit now, while I can still move. We joined a gym this week. I went to the "Gentle Yoga" class tonight. If that was gentle, I'm terrified of the intermediate class. Utterly Terrified.

Yarn Pr0n Friday the Tenth

2007-03-15T20:38:00.000-04:00

And in honor of St Patrick's Day, I present you with 900 yard of gorgeous laceweight Irish Linen from DZined purchased at Stitches East.

Progress photos!

2007-03-13T19:46:00.000-04:00

I figured I should show some progress photos of the things I've been working on.

First is the Moderne Baby Blanket from Mason Dixon. I'm working this in SWTC's A-Maizing. It is sooo squishy, and machine washable. We are not NEARLY as far along with this as we should be. The miles of garter stitch makes me twitch a bit. I knit on it when I have to think about other things, like helping the boy with his homework. Hopefully there will be lots of homework between now and June when the baby is due.

The lace leaf pullover is off to the frog pond for a second time. I've started it twice. I've just never been really happy with it. I think it's time to Put the yarn away and look for another project for it.

Finally is a new project. The Wool Peddler Shawl from Folk shawls. I'm making this in Plymouth Yarns Suri Merino. Soooo soft. It's hard to keep knitting and not just stop to pet the yarn. This is going to be a really casual shawl for me to wear with jeans or toss around my shoulders when I'm reading in bed. All the garter stitch is daunting and boring, but I know I'll be rewarded with lace if I just stick with it.

It's starting to get warm out and about time to start thinking about a nice summer top. I'll be searching the stash for light summer yarns and searching the net for some cute summer top patterns. Any suggestions????

Finally, we get to see the reason why I get to buy yarn whenever I want. This is what Hubby brought home today.

He has a serious problem with records. The problem is, he just keeps bringing them home. There are several hundred in the house already and he just brought home this HUGE pile today. I will forgive him this batch for one reason though. he brought me an America's Top 40 4 record set meant for play on Armed Forces Radio, complete with cheesy military PSA's and Milli Vanilli. I'm 12 again. And Bon Jovi seriously rocks.

Jaywalkers complete!

2007-03-12T18:43:00.000-04:00

I finally finished the Jaywalkers. They have been OTN since November. I actually took them on the cruise with me. Believe me when I tell you, you will get no knitting done on a cruise. None. Not even any pictures with your sock posed tantalizingly on sandy beaches.

It just. won't. happen.

I knit these from Koigu on size 2 DPN's in the smallest size. they fit my ginormous feet like a hug, although they are a little bit less than stretchy when you put them on or take them off. I'm kind of digging the pooling too.

Yarn pr0n Friday the Ninth

2007-03-08T21:00:00.000-05:00

Really, is it possible to not adore malabrigo?

I Think Not.

The management would like to apologize to no pictures of spinning or fiber carding on the recently acquired toys. However the management recently decided that it would be a good idea to have a tetanus booster if it is to play with sharp objects and dirty sheep fluff. (The management tends to be clumsy.)

Who knew that a tetanus shot could make you feel like the day after a Lou Reed heroin bender?

The management is still a bit woozy and is going to have a bit of a lie down now. Hopefully we will be posting spinning pictures soon. Very soon.

It's Here! It's Here!

2007-03-05T22:05:00.000-05:00

The wheel and carder came in today. I promised myself that I would get home from work, have restraint and leave them in their boxes until I got some housework done.

Who am I kidding????

I put the new babies together instead. The Girl saw the plying head and immediately informed me the I needed to start spinning funky yarns to turn into garments for her.

What I find most interesting is that I tried the wheel before I bought it, however actually sitting and trying to spin on it is like relearning everything. Time to bring out the practice fiber again and make cat barf for a while. Once I finally get the hang of this wheel, there's a sampler pack of Spunky Eclectic's Almost Solids and a copy of Color in Spinning just waiting to be played with.

Yes, Virginia, there is knitting karma.

2007-03-02T23:26:00.000-05:00

I have been working on a pair of Fiber Trends felted clogs for my friend Beth's mother. Beth is the sweetest, dearest person I've met. She has a warped sense of humor and puts up with me. She is an incredibly good friend. Many years ago, Beth and I tried to learn to crochet. It was a failed experiment. We both suck at crochet.

When I began to knit, I offered to teach Beth and she passed. I never bothered her about it, and she always listened to my ramblings about yarn and fiber with interest and patience. She occasionally commissioned items (and paid handsomely, I might add), but never showed much interest though until I showed her those clogs. Yesterday I was instructed on our lunch break that I was to bring needles and yarn and teach her.

Today I went to work armed with a leftover ball of Lamb's Pride and a set of needles. I cast on for her, and showed her to knit. She caught on quick.

I cannot describe how incredibly proud I am.

As luck would have it, something screwy happened with the power in our building and we were stuck with no way to work all afternoon. So we passed the time chatting and knitting. I mentioned needing to drop by the yarn shop to pick up some needles. (I'm learning that entrelac is the one thing I can't stand on circs. Even when I knit backwards. it makes me want to stab something.) She said she'd join me there, and after several times through the shop to pet all the goodies, she selected a pair of bamboo straights and 2 skeins of Classic Elite Duchess in light pink to make herself a skinny scarf. As her official ~~pusher~~ teacher, I bought them for her. I cast on some stitches for her in the parking lot, and sent her to pick up a good "Learn to Knit" book from Borders.

I was so filled with the knitterly pride that I almost forgot the voicemail I received from my mother telling me to stop by her house. I remembered at the last minute, and what did she have waiting for me, but this:

It was very unusual. Usually she'll pick up a vintage pattern book or two. Maybe some yarn if she goes on vacation. Never whole knitting books. Especially knitting books that have been on my wish list. If that's not the knitting gods at work, I don't know what is.

Yarn pr0n Friday the Eighth

2007-03-01T19:47:00.000-05:00

This is how you know you have your hubby trained.

You send him on vacation with explicit instructions and a map to the LYS in the city he is visiting. Not only does he actually go, but he takes his buddies with him to pet the yarn. Then he brings home this:

Aracaunia Magallanes. 2 skeins. Yum.

So. Much. Stuff.

2007-02-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

Have you ever looked around your house and thought to yourself, "Where did all of this stuff come from anyways?"

I moved to Virginia 4.5 years ago with only what would fit in the back of a Grand Cherokee. I had some books, some clothes, photographs, a sewing machine, a couple heirloom jewelry boxes, a computer and a cat.

I know have enough junk to fill a 1500 sq foot house to the rafters. I have stuff I don't even recall acquiring. The sewing machines have multiplied. There is stuff stashed in every corner, drawer, shelf and even the attic. I know that my mother gave me a lot of it. I know I picked up a few things here and there at ikea or thrift shops, but honestly. Do I really NEED all of this crap?

Thus begins the great purge of 2007. We are going to have to move this year. Probably in the summer. My father is retiring and they will be selling this house. We will likely be moving into a townhouse or apartment for a while until we decide our next move. Not only will we not have room for all this stuff, but quite frankly, I'm not moving the crap.

I find it to be a bit disgusting as well. Is it truly necessary to have all of the stuff that we tend to have in our homes? Do I really need that fancy candle or kitchen gadget? The most thoroughly disturbing thing is stuff that there are more than one of sitting around unused. Or items never even removed from their boxes. I shudder to think of all the money spent on these things that could have better served us in a savings account or other investments.

I am hereby declaring a "stuff embargo" on our household.

No more senseless stuff. If we already have one, there is no need for two. If we don't have one, do we really, really need it? Sadly I'm going to be applying this to yarn and knitting stuff too. I did buy myself some nice treats recently, but this also means that maybe it's time to sell the other two wheels. Maybe it's time to downsize the other craft stashes to compensate. Also, if it hasn't been used in 6 months, it's out the door. Gone. Bye, bye. I've already started freecycling some things. Maybe we'll have a yard sale as soon as weather permits and apply the money to our savings, or towards good quality furnishings to replace the junk we've hodge-podged together now.

Viva la Purge!!!!!

This

2007-02-26T20:32:00.000-05:00

Is what hubby looks like when you buy him a new toy:

Note the twitching and drooling. He has been reduced to cretinism with joy.

This is the way the Girl looks when she has strep:

Pathetic.

This is the way the Boy looks all the time:

So so lost. Utterly dazed and confused.

This is how Bud looks when you point a camera at him:

He is currently displaying what I like to call the "do you have any cookies in your pocket face".

My family. Oh, how I love them. Oh, how I long for another cruise. Leaving Now.

If only I had a Time Machine

2007-02-25T09:08:00.000-05:00

I'd be able to fast forward life a few days to the day that the UPS man comes to visit me. I think If I'm home when he stops by, I may just kiss him.

He is bringing me a Lendrum Complete ST and a Strauch Petite drumcarder from Woodland Woolworks. Itcomes with a free order of anti-anxiety meds for hubby.

I went up to the Springwater Fiber Workshop in Alexandria yesterday to check one out. They have tons of wheels and things, but perhaps I caught them at an off time since the shelves all seemed to be pretty empty. I was given a 6 month order time for a Lendrum, so I went head and ordered from WWW instead. For some things, patience is not an option.

I'm so smart.

2007-02-23T21:09:00.000-05:00

And I have proof.

See? See what I did? I can entrelac! I am the Queen of Entrelac. And I want to entrelac the piss out of everything! Muahahahhahaha

I picked up a copy of the new IK and followed Eunny Jang's tutorial. After some false starts and confusion I got it figured out. Hubby loves it so much he requested a sweater and placemats. He loved it so much, he's asked for another round of knitting lessons.

Yes, you heard me right. He wants to try again to learn. Between the entrelac swatch, the sneaky way I got him to look at Kaffe Fasset's pattern library and a promise of two manly-hued skeins of Malabrigo, he's decided to try again. He tried once before with some awful acrylic yarn, and he did fairly well for a beginner. Better than I did for my first time, I'm sure.

I saved his first and only knitting attempt. I love it, despite his attempts to throw it away.

I can't wait for my yarn order to arrive.

Yarn Porn Friday and a visitor

2007-02-22T23:42:00.000-05:00

Todays yarn pr0n is brought to you by the letters N, O, R, and well. O.

A big ol' bowl of pretty wooly colors. Yum

We were also graced with a visit from my brother in law, Andrew. He's a cutie and is just engaged. We did our duty as the older and wiser ones to teach him the world's best coping mechanism for children. Beer. We met him for dinner tonight in Richmond, and I wish we could have spent more time with him. Last time I saw him he was the Girl's age and still a rotten little twerp. He's still a rotten little twerp, but in a much better way. I hope he's back soon. I forgot how much I liked the little poop.

Philadelphia

2007-02-21T10:11:00.000-05:00

4 am comes very, very early in the morning. That's when we left home to get to Philadelphia. The trip up was pretty uneventful and we missed the majority of all the traffic. We got to the hospital just fine and Trystan had his exam. We can't get him a new brace for his leg since the muscles are too tight to move his foot to a neutral position. We have to return in 3 months after working with him on muscle stretching exercises. if those don't work, we're onto more extreme treatment methods. I really hope the stretches and exercises work.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Philadelphia? I've heard all kinds of horrible things about it, and while it has it's problems, It is a great town. I've spent time there with friends who lived in the area and there is nothing like it I've ever experienced. Where else are you going to go and find buildings all over the place that look like this:

There is art, culture, bustling streets, open air markets, and oddly enough, smiling faces. People here are friendly in their gruff urban way. People here will actually smile at you on the street. Walk through a neighborhood in Philadelphia and it's equally likely you'll be pinned by an aging Italian man extolling the virtues of a strong marriage or be confronted by an artists studio pouring out of a garage. You can sit on your stoop in the evening and chat with the neighbors. Then you can walk to a corner hole in the wall restaurant where the food is like that your grandmother made, and it can be a year since you were there last and the staff still remember your name. I won't say that you can't find the typical urban filth. There are drugs, there are gangs, there is that lovely city stench. There is also an underlying current of community in everything. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is Brotherly Love as the city's motto states, but maybe just a love of your city. Pride in it. I love that.

After T's appointment I took hubby to Gennaro's on South Street for an authentic Philly Cheese Steak. The boy got a pizza burger.

Mmmmmmm. Pizza burger.

We also managed to hit not just one, but two yarn shops!

We stopped by Loop. This store is beautiful. The yarns are arranged by makers an colors against a white backdrop. It looks like a gallery, not a yarn shop. The fibers are luscious. Silks, cashmeres, alpacas, the softest wools. It was so gorgeous though I was a bit afraid to touch things. I know when I chose the yarns I wanted and had to dig a bit to find the skeins, the delightful shop girls came behind me to artfully rearrange for the missing skeins. Honestly, it was a bit overwhelming. I did score some delightful yarns though.

Schaefer Anne. The colors in this are to die for, and the subtle shifts in color are delicious. I foresee a shawl in this. It's just enough for a swallowtail. One of the girls in the shop showed me a sock she's been working on in Anne in a different colorway. It was so soft and silky feeling. Positively sinful.

I also picked up a skein of Malabrigo in Curacao and a skein of Silk Garden, which is not pictured here.

Love, love love these colors. an it's soooo soft.

Please note the matching skein of laceweight. I did not find that at Loop. We went further down South Street so I could show hubby around a bit, and after finally finding a parking spot we walked up and down the street. Hubby stumbled on a shop called Nangellini. For every carefully arranged cubby of yarn at loop, was an overflowing basket of fiber here. The owner, Nancy is an angel with her bright pink hair and her shop filled with art, bright skeins of yarn, finished objects and lots of comfy chairs covered in works in progress. Many of the yarns she stocks can be purchased online, and In fact I believe they were, (I spied some Elann.com yarns which solidiified my resolve to finally make an order from them) but it gave me a chance to feel and fondle fibers. I picked up 2 skeins of Handpainted yarn's Laceweight including the curacao pictured above (Scribble lace perhaps?) and a skein of K1C2's Paintbox.

After a time getting out of the city preparing for Mardi Gras, we left PA and stopped in Baltimore for a quick drive around. What a total contrast in cities. For those of you who love Baltimore, I apologize in advance, but that city reminds me of an aging beauty queen. Think Mrs. Havisham. We drove through the Inner harbor area and I guess made a wrong turn down a street 3 blocks from the Inner Harbor in which hubby made a quick U-turn when he saw 3 men begin to approach our vehicle with less than welcoming looks on their faces. During our quick escape from the area we saw these two billboards right next to each other. What does this say about the city?

The sign in the distance reads "How many women have to die before domestic abuse is considered a crime?"

A hard city indeed.

Moving along we stopped in Annapolis and went to a little record store where hubby scored some Tom waits, Lou Reed and Bright Eyes Records. Then home to collapse. Hubby and I both woke up feeling sick as dogs this morning. Today will be a day for relaxing and recovering before returning to the grind tomorrow.

Back from philly

2007-02-20T20:53:00.001-05:00

Very tired. Managed to find not one, but two yarn shops. Pics of the spoils and the city later. For now... must sleeeeeeeeeeeep.

Casual observation.

2007-02-19T19:52:00.000-05:00

Have you ever spent a day at home. Nowhere to really go. Just puttering around, cleaning house and what have you. The phone will remain silent all day. At the very moment that you become engaged in something, however, such as watching a movie, or turning a heel, or using the bathroom, the phone rings off the hook. Not just one or two calls either. Everyone you have ever met calls you. One right after the other. I’m sure if I could create a feasible explanation for this, scads of people would be willing to pay me large sums of money to give speeches about my theories. It would probably unlock the answers to other burning questions that plague humanity, such as “Where does that other sock go when it disappears from the dryer?”

I’ll be working on this tomorrow when we are driving to Philadelphia and back. At least 8 hours on the road. My son has an appointment at the Shriners Hospital to get a new leg brace and continue working on his treatment plan for getting him more mobile. My son has Cerebral Palsy as a result of being shaken as a baby. He has a left side hemiplegia and has difficulty walking and moving his left arm. He can move them, and for all accounts is a pretty normal little boy, but he would like to be able to walk and move his left arm more freely without the inevitable CP claw. He has been a patient at the hospital for a while, however his doctor began to work on research projects and getting him another appointment has been a real pain in the ass. I am grateful to the hospital though, they've done him a lot of good and their services are free to everyone regardless of income. In fact the only time my income was mentioned was when he went to his first appointment, and this was really just a survey. The drive is grueling, especially since we usually do it in one day, but it is so, so worth it.

I'm hoping we will have time to stop by after the appointment at Loop. Hubby is desperate for an authentic Philly Cheesesteak sandwich. We all have our priorities.

I am still alive. Sort of.

2007-02-18T14:52:00.000-05:00

I have been a bad, bad blogger. Time has run so short in the last few months, and blogging was the LAST thing I thought of each day as I passed out exhausted. It's been rough lately, But hubby and i had a good long talk last night and we both agreed that although our lives are hectic, we can't function anymore without taking time for ourselves.

It is time to come back to the blog.

I love to write. I always have. I was published years ago, and even given some awards for what I wrote. Very exciting, but as the years went on I realized that my time for it was nill, and when I was inspired, it was usually at a time where I could write nothing down. This blog is my writing outlet now. Time to dust off the old thesaurus and get things on track. it will probably also be the only journal I put more than two entries into before it finds the bottom of a pile of books.

So much has happened in the time I was gone that a detailed accounting of all the time would be a novel. I'll summarize.

-The chickens have all shuffled off this mortal coil. The first death occurred when Barbecue became egg bound and the egg broke inside of her. Peritonitis quickly ensued and hubby put her down. This was Halloween night. The neighborhood opossum decided the rest were a fantastic midnight snack, and despite the chickens having a secure area at night to roost, chickens are stupid, stupid creatures. I am still pained thinking about this. I adored my chickens. The dogs found the first chicken dead and cried and nosed her trying to get her to get up and play. Hubby assures me that when we finally find a place to settle that we will have more chickens.

-I went on a cruise with my dear friend Beth who is sadly blogless and a non-knitter. I've offered to teach her many times, she politely declines. Instead she commissions small projects for her family and pays handsomely for them. Back to the cruise. We went on a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise on Carnival cruise lines. I've never been to the Caribbean, and although we really didn't see much other than the typical tourist traps, I am dying to go again. You don't know luxury until you've had 7 days of people making your bed, food and drink available 24/7, and generally, nothing to do but what you feel like doing.

Returning to real life after that is a horrible let down. When you get home at night you really expect to walk into your room and find a towel animal and a mint on your turned down bed. I tried to pay the children to do this for me. They were so bitter about not getting to go with me, that they declined my offer of cash, despite the huge amount of crap I brought back for them. Hubby just about fell over laughing when I suggested at 1 am that we call room service for champagne and cheesecake, then go dancing.

-The girl turned 12 (gods help us) and the boy turned 10. Nothing makes you feel older than your children having birthdays. Nothing.

On the upside, in eight years I can legally set them loose on the world and try picking up the (few) remaining pieces of my sanity.

-We had a FULL house for the holidays. We brought home 4 of the kids from Hubby's group home to spend the holidays with us, and my uncle came up to spend the holiday as well. I could often be found escaping to my mothers house, pouring a drink and mumbling under my breath about 6 children in the house. Christmas Eve hubby took them all caroling. None of them had ever done it, and none of the neighbors have ever had carolers. They were stopped at each house for photos. They came home and we each talked about Christmas traditions and made a CD of the kids singing carols and creating a Mad Lib Night Before Christmas. We took all of the kids to Midnight Mass while my mom and uncle hung back and did the Santa thing. We returned home at 2:30 am to 6 children with eyes bulging out of their heads with excitement and were up until at least 5 am unwrapping gifts. (I must add in here that I received many lovely knitterly gifts and am very proud of my family that they finally figured out that if they need to give me a gift it should involve either yarn or liquor.)

Seriously, the best part of the holidays was knowing that each of these kids had a safe, happy and healthy holiday. Each of them at some point thanked us for having them, and told us how much it meant to them to have such a holiday and feel like a family. Hearing this made any gifts given or received become completely secondary, and I finally really appreciated what the holiday was about first time in years.

-In knitting news I have whipped the arse of 2 techniques. Fair Isle and Lace. I've made multiple fair-isle hats, and I even managed a Kiri Shawl for my mother for her birthday. Now if I can just whip the arse of knitting my father his long overdue aran sweater, I'll be golden.

-All of my time since then has been spent trying desperately to keep the house in order, work full time, keep the bills paid, spend as much time as possible with hubby during his 100 hour work weeks and when there is time, knitting. We have some big decisions coming up. My parents are selling both of their houses (this includes the one we live in now) and moving to Tennessee come summer. It is time for us to move on, and we are not sure yet where or when we will be going. Just that we are going. This also means thinning our household out of all the crap we have acquired in the last 3 years. How we managed to get all this crap is completely beyond me, but we've done it and now it's time to get rid of it, and get down to the bare essentials of what we really need and is really important to us.

Now, to convince hubby that every bit of fiber and yarn in our home is really, truly vital.

Yarn pr0n Friday the Sixth

2006-10-27T00:04:00.000-04:00

YarnMonster Super Sock in the colorway Hyacinth. Gifted to me by my lovely and kind SP8.

This stuff is so soft and the colors so perfect that I'm having difficulty choosing just the right socks to make with it. Any suggestions?

Proof that we are old.

2006-10-25T18:58:00.000-04:00

I've been absent from the blog most of the week. I apologize. In my defense, I spent the entire weekend car shopping. I'd had a free vehicle lined up with a very generous person from my local freecycle, but she went on vacation right after the offer was made, and I was uncertain when she would return. Hubby and I decided to not wait any longer. We just couldn't. The car situation was becoming very stressful, and unfortunately my local public transportation sucks.

I'd like to start by expressing my intense hatred of car salesmen. I'm sure they are all nice people in regular life. but at work they are just slimey. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the weekend;

"What can I do to get you into this beauty today?"

"Will you need permission from your husband to buy this car?"

"See? It won't scratch when you hit something at the grocery store!"

"Well, I don't have anything in that price range, But this car is only $5000 more than you were looking to spend!"

"Oh, I don't know pricing, management handles all of that. They'd be happy to tell you what you can buy after you fill out a credit app. We wouldn't want you to get your heart set on a car just to find out that you can't afford it."

RAAAAAR!

I finally just gave up and went to a dealer that has a not so great reputation for customer service, and is looked at as a "last chance" type of place. Fine. Honestly since hubby and I have gotten back together we've had some difficulties. The credit ain't what it used to be. I went in, looked at their stock and looked at their pricing list online. It was fair. Not the greatest, but fair.

They "crunched numbers" (God, I hate that phrase. Hate it.) and gave me some options in my price range. One was a cheaper SUV, one was a current model year car, and one was minivan.

Let me preface this story by stating that I'm a die-hard Jeep owner. I love them. I work on my own jeeps and I've lifted 2 of the 3 jeeps I've owned and wheeled them in some pretty crazy places. I love having 4 wheel drive and being able to go places few others go. I've seen some of the most beautiful places in the world this way. Obviously this means that the options that were given to me were less than appealing.

I definitely did not want the car. It was essentially a stripped model and I'm not a "car" fan. No matter what they do to them, they are always cramped, they are hard as heck for my parents to get in and out of with their health issues, and good luck going to Ikea with a car. Also we need extra seating for when we are hosting the kids from Hubbies work.

The SUV was an el-cheapo. There are some people who live and die by this brand of vehicle, and I often see them sporting stickers of Calvin peeing on their competitors. I'm not a fan. My mom had the upscale version of the vehicle at one point. I'd never been carsick in an automobile before, but in that thing, I just wanted to puke up my lungs every time I rode in it.

This left the mini-van. There was no way I was going to buy it, but I figured I would look at it. I had them pull it out for me. We wandered over and they opened up the doors for me to get in. I scoffed and hitched my bag on my shoulder then stuck my head in the side door. The scales fell from my eyes.

"Oh my god," I thought, "This thing is nicer that my living room!"

The seats were plush and comfy. It was cleaner than an Obsessive-Compulsive's bathroom. There is a DVD system, climate zones, and get this.... good gas mileage.

I was in love. The dealer told me to go ahead and drive it up for hubby to see since he was at work and couldn't get away. So I did, and I pulled up to the house hubby works at and he said,

"It's really a minivan, isn't it? Not a crossover or anything. It's really a minivan. This is proof that we are old."

Well lots of paperwork and 2 trips to the dealer to get all the correct documentation and it's mine. I'm a minivan owner. My Jeep friends would laugh until their testicles fell off. That's fine. I'm the one who gets to go to my car at lunch, put my feet up, watch a movie and knit at lunch break.

Now your job, should you choose to accept it. I need a license plate. Vanity plates are more common in this state than fleas on a huntin' dawg. I'd like to choose a plate that expresses my lust for all things wooly and yarn related. It cannot be longer than 7 letters, but it can include a hyphen. It must also not already be an issued tag. You have one week. The winner will receive lovely yarn-y prize. Leave your suggestions in the comments and I'll pick my favorite and announce the winner next Wednesday evening.

Good Luck!

Yarn pr0n Friday the Fifth

2006-10-19T21:25:00.000-04:00

Today's Yarn pr0n Friday is dedicated to the world's most wonderful fiber:

Alpaca.

Cashmere is better you say? LIES!

If you were to offer me 10 pounds of cashmere and 10 pounds of alpaca, it would be the alpaca. Every time. I could just dive into this stuff. I'd sleep in huge alpaca bed every night if I could. Even in pictures my hand just wants to reach out and touch it's soft squishiness.

These yarns were also scored at the recent fiber festival. 2 Gigtanto hanks of naturally colored charcoal alpaca and a skein of Alpaca with a Twist lace weight.

The colors commemorate the black and blueness of my lovely mug. I'll spare you the pics for comparison. There was a miscommunication between the doctor and I. It was a really minor fracture in the zygomatic arch. I can't walk on it for at least 6 weeks.

I broke my face.

2006-10-18T17:32:00.000-04:00

Yes. That's right. I broke my face falling down the stairs. Stop laughing.

The doctor called today and while stifling her laughter let me know that I had a fractured Maxilla. It's probably nothing and will likely heal on it's own, but to be sure they want me to see an ENT tomorrow.

I thought falling down the stairs was bad enough. Breaking my face while doing it? that's just mortifying. I think I'm going to lie down for a bit.

One Skein SP update and Pics to make up for the Rotten YPF

2006-10-15T11:20:00.000-04:00

Well I'm still hurting. I think taking the Kids from Hubby's work out to King's Dominion yesterday didn't help things one little bit. I'm sore in places I didn't know I could be sore. Sadly, i didn't even ride the rides. I knit and waited. When I finally stumbled in last night around 12:30 from dropping off dad's truck I checked the mail. Inside was a big heavy squooshy package. I'm an incredible package ho, and I caught my second wind and ran inside to open it. When I dumped it all out on the bed I found this:

The package contained a big bag of Hershey's (which seems to be dwindling by the minute) Plymouth Turino Silk, Online Supersock, Furryarns 2 ply (the colorway is perfect!), and Blue Sky Cotton.

Not only was this package incredibly generous, but it was very cool in that all of these are things I've heard of and wanted to see and touch and play with, but can't get anywhere near me. The colors are gorgeous too. Thank you Gracie. I love it!

I also wanted to post pictures of some of the other stash enhancements of late. The first is a pic of the silky wool I picked up on my yarn binge last week. I love this stuff. It looks tweedy and rustic, it is soft, but it still has a definite texture, and it drapes like crazy even in the hank. Now to settle on a pattern.....

Finally, there is the latest Knitpicks order. Some deluded part of my brain has decided that it is time to try colorwork, and it forced me to order the Northern Lights Mittens pattern and yarn (with some color mods).

I've been working on the fair isle hat kit. The stitches look wonky and strange, but the actually knitting is getting easier each time I pick it up. I'm going to have to take it into the LYS to get some tips to fix the problems I'm having, which are entirely related to gauge. Once get those worked out, it will be time for the mittens.

Also, I have finished the hoodie. And have worn it almost every day this week only partially blocked. Embarrassing, yes, but excitement over an FO gets to my head sometimes. I'll get it blocked up and post pics soon. If I can stop wearing it.

Yarn pr0n Friday The Fourth

2006-10-12T22:15:00.000-04:00

And a deep apology for the quality of the pics. I did my best with the light I had.

This is the LL shepherd sock in Bittersweet that I picked up at the Fiber Fest. Yes, the colors are off, but again. I ran out of light. I spent my evening at the hospital instead of snapping pics of yarn. I blame it all on Diet Coke, and it's rather embarrassing, so try not to laugh too hard.

I got up this morning and groggily opened up my Diet Coke and took a big ol' swig. Then I choked. Right at the top of the stairs. I'm guessing I choked on it enough to lose consciousness because I woke up face down in the landing (we live in a split level). My first thought upon coming to was that I had fallen back asleep after I hit the snooze, the I though, "But this hurts, and sleeping usually doesn't hurt like this." Very disorienting. Hubby got home, checked me over for a concussion and any obvious breaks or emergency type injuries, then proceeded to laugh. Then all my coworkers laughed, and my parents, the kids, the doctor, nurses and radiologists. Sigh. I managed to bang up my face (nose especially, I has some good rug burn on it) and my back really well. Went to get x-rays tonight to get checked out. I seem to be OK, just sore. But I have good drugs.

I'm gonna go take some and pass out. And I'll avoid Diet Coke near stairs in the future.

You know you're a fiber junkie when:

2006-10-10T18:28:00.001-04:00

Your friend goes to North Carolina and brings you this as a gift (and you think it's really neat):

A cotton bouquet! Now. anyone have any idea how to process this stuff? I'd like to blend it with wool and make a neat little gift type thing for her.

I'm going to keep the seeds too and see if I can't get some growing next year.

VA Fall Fiber Fest

2006-10-08T09:21:00.000-04:00

Well things didn't exactly worked out as I'd hoped for the Fiber Festival, but it was still a remarkably lovely time. The sweater did not get done in time. I still have most of the sewing up to do. My mom did not get to come since we have a last minute visitor from out of town. I didn't manage to get a skein entered in the competition. I forgot the camera again, so hubby had to take camera phone pics (I apologize in advance for the quality of some of these.) That's all okay though. It was still absolutely wonderful. The entire place was a deluge of mud from the rainstorm we'd been having the last few days. When we pulled in we were asked if we had 4 wheel drive. Luckily I was in the rental and managed to talk them out of a Trailblazer (Jeep > *.Chevrolet) so we made it through the parking lot just fine, and I got to play in mud holes.

We tromped up to the vendors and everyone (but me of course) managed to ruin their pants and shoes within minutes of our arrival.

Unfortunately, due to the weather, a lot of the vendors bailed out. There were big empty spots in the tents. The vendors that were there though had some of the loveliest things and everyone was incredibly friendly. The kids had a good time working on a project in the kids tent and they each got a stuffed alpaca. The girl named hers Bob. An excellent alpaca name if I do say so myself.

This vendor had gorgeous clay spindle. I had intended to go back for one, and ended up so high on fiber fumes that I completely forgot. Next year I guess.

We did get invited to come take a tour of some alpaca farms at the end of the month. Hubby is suddenly very interested in running some kind of fiber business, which is what we've been talking about for a while. We'll definitely be checking into it. (He also wants a lathe and other woodworking equipment. I'm seeing a custom spinning wheel in my future, if I can stop spending his lathe money on fiber.) The vendors even gave us extra plastic bags for us to put our muddy shoes in and to cover the seats in the rental car with. The girls feet and pants were so nasty we ended up bagging them.

Hubby fell in love with a corriedale fleece from a sheep named Helen and a really handsome Rambouillet. Unfortunately I was out of cash at that point and there was no ATM. Instead he'll be coming with me to the MDSW next year and picking out a fleece for me to make him a sweater.

And finally, a picture of the haul clockwise from the top. 1360 yards of charcoal gray alpaca, 2 ounces of a gray/brown cashmere (hubby picked it), and 8 oz of Blue Face Leicester From Misty Mountain Farms. A set of combs and a base for them for blending ($60! Holy steal!) and 4 oz of bombyx silk from I See Spots. 2 skeins LL Shepherd Sock in Bittersweet and one ball of Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch from Carodan Family Farms. Two skeins each of hot pink and Lime green wool from Zeilingers for a scarf for Beth. In the center is a Skein of alpaca with a Twist Fino from Rivanna River Farms and a skein of spun silk lace weight from Woven Gems, Just enough for a Swallowtail Shawl.

Now if I can just resist the temptation to go back today.

Yarn pr0n Friday The Third

2006-10-05T22:22:00.000-04:00

Trendsetter Oceano in the Fire Fantasy Colorway. It begs to be drooled on by yarn pervs.

Another amazing deal I got on a sweaters worth of yarn. I got this a while ago. It is destined to be the Mandarin Faux Cardigan from IK. I need to get cracking on all these sweaters, but the current one is driving me insane. I'm one row and a bind off from one half of the button band being complete. Something tells me I'll be up till the wee hours of the morning tomorrow getting it all ready for Saturday.

Naturally with all of these sweaters worth of yarn laying around, the first thing I do is go to the yarn shop. I had my $50 gift Certificate from Hubby, and was $10 away from a $40 store credit. I got my license this morning and a rental car after that, and so in celebration, I went to blow my wad on fiber. I was hoping for alpaca, but my LYS was poorly stocked on it (tragedy). After much sitting on the floor flipping through books and guidance from my favorite LYS employees, I managed to pick out a fair-isle hat pattern and yarn, and a bag of Silky Wool in turquoise with a simple lacy cardigan pattern. (I'm reconsidering the pattern though. I think the silky wool wants something different.) Admittedly I went the teensiest bit over my $100 budget, but I'm OK with that.

Finally some good news

2006-10-02T20:11:00.000-04:00

Sorry. there are no pictures in this post. There is just some good news.

1. The sleeves are done on my hoodie, and I've begun the hood. It's looking good for this sweater to be done for this weekend.

2. The eggs are delicious. I highly recommend investing in chickens if you are able to.

3. I am FINALLY caught up at work.

4. I GOT MY LICENSE BACK!!!!!!!!! Well, it was temporarily reinstated at least. I got notice from the DMV that they are scheduling my appeal hearing (over the phone even, which means I won't have to take a day off work for it!) and until my hearing my license has been reinstated. I'll be going Friday to get it if I can get a few hours off in the morning. Then I have to do something about a car. but at least I'll have my license.

September has ended. The world is snapping back into order. Thank goodness.

Yarn pr0n Friday The second

2006-09-28T20:26:00.000-04:00

My newest acquisition. 13 skeins of Noro Kureyon in the "Deep Seas" colorway (purchased for an absolute steal). It will be a Rosedale once all the christmas knitting and the Cable Hoodie are complete.

Kureyon was never the softest yarns, but something about the colors always makes me drool.

The Girls Did It!!!!!!

2006-09-27T21:12:00.000-04:00

I found these beauties in a little nest in the backyard. Im not sure if they are all laying in one nest, or if one chicken did this all by her lonesome over the last few days, but we have eggs. They are sooo pretty too. They're a bit washed out in the photo, but they are more of a terracotta color with those lovely speckles.

I'm so proud of them.

The weekend of congestion

2006-09-25T14:48:00.000-04:00

Ugh. It was not the bubonic plague that the girl brought home. It was ~~quite obviously a rare and virulent form of ebola~~ bronchitis. I'm still miserable. Apparently it was so obvious to the doctor that they gave me steroids and a breathing treatment before I even left the office. I shudder to think what my desk at work looks like today, but I may not even be able to go back until Wednesday, so we'll try not to think about it too hard.

Other than frenzied knitting during periods in which the massive amounts of drugs in my system allowed it (I'm just past the armhole decreases on the right front of the hoodie. From there it's just 2 sleeves, a hood and a button band. With any luck it will be ready for the Fall Fiber Festival. There will be knittyheads in attendance and a new sweater will be just the identifying mark to wear to attract fellow knitters.) I watched the neighbor's adorable baby Jameela, who was also sick. Despite being sick though, I've never met a happier baby in all my life. EVER. She laughed more than smiled and at only 5 months, willingly put herself to sleep whenever tired. Even her (rare) crying is sweet. Plus, she is absolutely adorable.

Truly, truly a cupcake. How could anyone NOT love this baby? I'm also pleased to report that she reached for the knitting needles on her own. With that and having already been bestowed with a hand knit sweater from yours truly, she will most assuredly one day be a knitter.

Yarn pr0n Friday

2006-09-22T14:25:00.000-04:00

Kid Mohair Locks handspun courtesy of Fyberduck.

This is trophy yarn if there ever was one.

I'd blog more, but my lovely daughter managed to bring home what I can only guess would be the bubonic plague. After half a day at work I came home with a rotisserie chicken, ice cream, the new Spin Off and cold medicine.

I'm going back to bed to contemplate the possibilities of knitting and blogging from beyond the grave.

Who's the bitch now?

2006-09-21T17:57:00.000-04:00

I spied recently in the back of the latest IK an ad from Acorn Street for a Fiber Trends Spring Blossom shawl kit for a really good price. Naturally in my sudden and overwhelming lace lust I bought one. I got it started the other day and everything was going beautifully, but I noticed that to get my YO's right I was wrapping them deifferently between purl and knit stitches. if I YO'd before a knit stitch, I'd wrap the yarn from behind the right needle over the needle then back between the needles. When I YO'd before a purl stitch, I would bring the yarn between the needles the over and back behind the right needle. Now, I knit English, and I've always YO"D the first way I described. But when I realized I was having to do my YO's different, and they were coming out differently, I got suspicious. I checked out Knittinghelp.com.

Lo and behold, I've been wrapping my yarn wrong this whole time. Seriously, the entire time I've been knitting I've been doing it wrong. (This shouldn't be too amazing, since when I first started, I did all my knit stitches through the back loop for at least two months before figuring it out.) Now the center of the shawl looks like this:

If you click on the picture you'll see the difference more clearly. (And check out my mad MSPaint skillz, yo!) I've decided to take the cheater's way out and just continue on, but knitting correctly from here out. The idea of ripping back all of that (mistake-free! Well, except for the bad wrapping) work makes me queasy. I think I'll just refer to it as a "design feature" instead. Besides, it's a square shawl and I figure it'' be folded in half to be worn anyways. No one will notice, and I'll never tell.

This is my triumph, however. The left front of my sweater is now complete with the cable placed correctly. Sorry for the lousy picture, but It's really not that impressive yet anyways. Give it time.

Meet the Newest member of our Family

2006-09-17T11:01:00.000-04:00

This is Oz. She is a Goffin Cockatoo. Her turn-ons are peanuts, sitting on your shoulder, attacking circular needle cables while you knit, harassing the dogs, dancing to Jethro Tull, and self-mutilation. Her turn-offs are: Anything that keeps you from paying constant attention to her.

She belonged to my Aunt Diane, who sadly passed due to complications from breast cancer. My Uncle Mike, bless the man, did everything he could for Oz, but she began picking her chest, and now has a more or less permanent open wound on her chest (I chose not to post pictures of her chest as some might find it disturbing. I know I do.) and a lot of emotional issues from losing her owner. Mike brought Oz and his blue and gold macaw named BeeGee (this bird is an unmitigated ass. I kid you not.) up to stay with my mother. Now, I am not a bird person, but Oz is very special. She is a people too, just ask her. When everyone was about to give up on her, I suggested that mom bring her over to stay with us for a while. We're doing everything we can to help her out, and although she is still picking, we are finding more plumage on her every day. Even though she may never grow chest feathers back, we hope that one day she will be healed enough to be healthy. In the meantime, I will just hope that she doesn't get irritated enough with my knitting to bite through my circs while she's sitting on the couch with me.

And about knitting.

This is the left front of my Central Park Hoodie. Again. I got to within 1.5 inches of the neckline decreases when I realized that I had put the cables in the wrong place. ARRRRGH. So it ended up frogged back down to the ribbing and we're starting over. I can't tell you how much I hate frogging. All of the wasted work. It drives me nuts.

Which brings us to the next photo and a lesson on my lace should be worked from charts

This is the sum total of my angora scarf. 5 rows. That's it. Lace is railing at my suggestion of superiority over it. The reason? I have started and restarted the thing multiple times trying to do the lace from the text instructions, not the chart. I give in. I will try it from the chart this time. If that doesn't work, and I still can't manage this simple diamond lace pattern, my only choice will be to eat the yarn to hide the evidence of my miserable failure.

Here is what I'm currently spinning. Supposedly it it wool, but I tend to believe that it is a cloud. The bag was marked Cormo when I purchased it from Stony Mountain Fibers. Barbara claims that it came from her own flock. Don't get me wrong, there couldn't be a nice person, but it is clear to me that she is lying. She has somehow, through the use of black and terrible magic, forced clouds to land on earth and is selling them to be spun by her unsuspecting customers who become lulled and enchanted by the magic clouds. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I purchased 8 oz. I want to get a nice 2 ply fingering weight to make a shawl. I figure by the time I get done spinning all that, I might have some slightly less tenuous grip on lace than I do now. What I have on the bobbin there is lovely and uniform, but I don't think I have enough twist in it to manage a decent two-ply. Luckily it's just a tiny amount. The crimp in this stuff though calls for lots of twist so I think I'm going to have to pull out the stops and use the teeny little whorl (it's reportedly a 9:1, but I have my doubts) and try that out.

Any die-hard Cormo spinners out there have any suggestions???

The hits just keep on coming!

2006-09-12T18:29:00.000-04:00

I have been trying, for the past 24 hours, to figure out exactly what it is I did to piss the fates off this much. I haven't pinpointed it, but it could have something to do with the years between 16 and 23. This seems like an awfully late payback though.

I spent much of my day yesterday at the DMV. I discovered that they still do not make any sense at all. At least some things in the universe remain constant. Apparently despite being fully insured on my Jeep, I was still uninsured. I have an Oldsmobile that my father gave me. It became inoperable a few months back. We'd been using it as an extra "emergency" car when the engine finally blew. Since then I removed it from my insurance and have tried to find a charity that can use it. (I know there are a lot of "donate your car" charities, but typically I've found that most will just sell the car as salvage and take the money from that. I wanted a charity that could actually make use of the vehicle.) Well, apparently, because that car was uninsured, I have lost my license and will have to downgrade my insurance (from the ridiculously high amounts of coverage that I purchased to an SR-22 which covers just around state minimums) in accordance with state law and pay steep fines to get my license back. I'm currently appealing this, but it's the DMV. I see little hope in my appeal.

Also, the Jeep was totalled. I got a value on it today (less than what I owe, naturally) and went to get the rest of my things from it, only to find half of my things have gone missing. CD's (some are irreplaceable from our favorite local bands back home), a vintage pin, mini kleenex packs, my badge for work, and several others things gone. Just gone. Also I cannot purchase a new car now, until the whole license/insurance debacle is sorted out.

My friend who was in the car with me ended up in so much pain that she's been out of work the last few days. We're not sure when she'll be back. Luckily I'm feeling much better, but that doesn't make her feel any better.

I suppose this is one of those experiences that is supposed to make me grow as a person and have some miraculous outcome that makes me feel silly for having worried in the first place. Forgive me fates, for not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like I've lost my freedom and even though everyone that has seen where the accident happened agrees that there was nothing I could have done to prevent the accident other than not having been there, I can't stop feeling horrible about having hurt people. I suddenly realize why the people I talk to each day at work have that hollow sound in their voices, and often try to deny that they were in the wrong. The guilt is crushing. I will eventually work through it, I know that. Today though, I'm pretty miserable.

At least I've been getting a lot of knitting done. I'm so glad I took it up. It was about the only thing that kept me calm at the DMV, although security did keep a close watch on me while I was flashing around those threatening pointy sticks.

I've finished the back on the sweater and I'm to the armhole decreases on the left front. Those little pieces just fly, but I'm sure the button band will find a way to remind me again that I'm no super-knitter.

By the way, does anyone know how I should block this? Should I block individual pieces, or get everything put together first? Will blocking in pieces interfere with the picking up of live stitches later when I put on the hood? Also, since the hood is knitted on, won't I have to block it again once I finish the hood? Inquiring minds want to know. If anyone else knows, please, please clue me in.

One last thing. Since I upgraded to Beta, I've had some mention of comments not being accepted. From what I've found, you can comment, but as "someone else". Not as "anonymous" and not under your own sign in, you just have to type in your name, it should take it. if it doesn't, please email me froux2zj at verizon dot net.

Happy Birthday John

2006-09-10T13:14:00.000-04:00

Today is my wonderful husband's 30th birthday. For those of us unfamiliar with his particular family history, he is the first in a long line of first-born males in his family to make it to 30. Believe me when I say we have all been a bit worried about him this week. Luckily for him, I seem to have born the brunt of his bad karma. I don't mind though, If that's what it takes to keep this wonderful man in my life, I will happily suffer a crushing (forgive the pun) defeat like yesterdays on an annual basis.

In Honor of this most momentous birthday, I'll be posting lots of embarrassing pictures of him to my blog for lots of strangers to look at and giggle at in helpless amusement.

I met him when I was 15. We were in high school and I was the new girl. He greeted me with a hug that was essentially a means to feel me up. I greeted him with a full on face slap. How's that for the beginnings of a relationship?

So that you can all understand how truly dorky and weird we were in high school, here is a picture of us at prom during what I believe to be my sophomore (his Junior) year. Soooooo subversive. Ok, not really, but keep in mind that we often occupied our time speeding through the streets of Salt Lake City in his beat up Nissan listening to the Violent Femmes at levels of volume normally only found when a jet engine is working extra hard to keep a plane from spiraling out of a clear blue sky.

Then, we had this. See that little lump of a potato in his arms? That is our daughter. No, the girl does not look amused. I have never seen a man so completely smitten though, as he is with her.

This would be a picture at our first wedding. (Yes, I did say first, be patient, all will be explained.) One of our favorite pasttimes with each other has been finding ways to drive each other crazy. This particular photo shows him under the bad influence of his dear friend and ersatz mother, Shannon and about to smash cake in my face. (Now that I have found fiber, I have learned that I absolutely must forgive her as she spins.) The cake went up my nose. There were tears shed and an embarrassing tiff right there in front of both of our families. Shannon made up for it by providing us with amazing honeymoon accomplishment in her fairy tale backyard on a pile of creamy sheepskins. If you were to put either of us under a polygraph test today, we would both pass when we explained we saw what must surely have been sprites or fairies alighting and twinkling in that tree.

After a while, in an all too common for our age group realization that we just were not making it, We split up. I was pregnant with our son, and after much drama and tragedy, we each took a child and parted ways to raise them.

Since that day he has worked every day as hard as he can to make a wonderful life for our daughter. He raised her to be a stong, intelligent and capable, if flighty and occasionally annoying, young woman. His fathering is nothing short of a miracle.

Almost 2 years ago, I received a phone call. The girl was out to visit me for the summer when he called and asked if I would like to keep her for a while longer, and he would be out for christmas. That Christmas, after much discomfort and reassessment of boundaries (and a little liquor to bring down self-defense mechanisms) we found ourselves to still be as in love as that dorky couple on their way to Prom.

Our family has been put back together. He has worked his fingers to the bone and made sacrifices that most of us cannot even imagine in order to do this. He is supportive, kind and will lauigh at his own foibles, and make me laugh when pointing out mine to me. He stood by me and worried more when I had to go into the hospital than I did. He forever tells me how beautiful I am, and I always fail when trying to describe how beautiful I find him as well. He is an artist, a poet, a photographer, a lover of hand-knitted goods, a willing fiber fondler, an awesome cook, our breadwinner, and truly a force in the lives of all the people he associates with.

Thank you for all you have done, all you will do, and thank you for the beautiful children, the slightly exploded home, the hard work, and (I know it's cliche) all of the laughter and tears.

I love you with all of my heart. Happy Birthday.

Disaster

2006-09-09T20:00:00.000-04:00

This morning was the most gorgeous saturday that there's been for a while. Cool, sunny, and the kids and I were heading out for a fun day with our friend Beth. We stopped at the local farmers market for a treat and veggies for Hubby's birthday dinner tomorrow night and treats from Valentines Country Bakery, a local Mennonite bakery. Then off to Orange to meet Beth. The Orange Street Festival was today.

This thing was HUGE. It's a small town, and I didn't expect much but the whole thing snaked off onto side streets and was a good 8 blocks or so of vendors and local businesses. Even a few yard sales! The highlight was definitely the Alpaca Garden booth. They are local breeders and the had two of their adorable babies with them. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera this morning, or I would have pictures of them. They also brought fiber with them. I picked up 4.5 ounces of Devi's fluff. She is a new girl at the farm and her picture isn't on the website yet, but it is the lovliest cinnamon color with these gorgeous striations of silver.

Once we were done at the fair, we went back to Beth's and piled into my car to head to Harrisonburg to visit a few other farmers markets, one of which carries tons of fiber and yarn. That's when This happened.

We came around a blind curve in the road and went right into the back of that poor sidekick that was dead stopped in the road. I tried to brake, but I just couldn't stop in time. Luckily everyone seems to be ok for the most part. Unluckily, the DMV decided, rather arbitrarily that I didn't have insurance, when I do, in fact carry insurance. (I work for the Insurance company!! I am required to have insurance!) They suspended my license and failed to inform me, so there we were stuck, no car, no license. That's when the people from Blue Ridge Pottery found us. The accident happened right in front of their shop, and the boy in the car I hit works there. I have never met nicer people in my life. They took the kids into the shop to calm them down, brought us drinks and truffles. Made sure we were all okay. Helped us exchange info. Let us use the phone to make multiple panicked calls. Got pictures and were kind enough to burn a cd with the images for me. Then they let us hang out on their front porch in the cool breeze to calm down until my parents came out to get us, we were invited in to the shop, but I figured I'd just end up breaking something since the nerves finally kicked in. On top of it all, their pottery is absolutely gorgeous. While the Adrenaline was still running high, I bought hubby a lovely piece for his birthday. It's all wrapped up though, so I will get pictures of that later.

Come monday though, it 's going to be a fun day of sitting at the DMV getting this drivers license business handled then getting out to get a rental car. I'm hoping against hope that the Jeep can be fixed, but the airbags deployed, so who knows.

It's now time to go eat ice cream and knit and try not to think what a mess this all is. A few hours of denial will be good for my soul.

Oooooo Fancy Schmancy

2006-09-07T20:18:00.000-04:00

I upgraded to the Blogger Beta thingy. I am so glad. Now I can add things without trying to dredge up years forgotten HTML code and feeling like a dolt. This is truly Dolt Friendly.

Don't mind me, I'll be playing for a bit.

Regards,

The Dolt

What a jackass.

2006-09-06T19:26:00.000-04:00

No, really. I am. I start this whole blog thing and realize that I cannot seem to update it on a regular basis. Oh sure, I can read blogs. Other peoples of course, on a basis so regularly that I could probably tell you what color their underwear is. It seems, however, that I cannot manage to post regularly. Naturally it does not seem to help that I will spend time writing a blog entry nothing short of brilliant, and Blogger will decide to eat it. Naturally I have not saved said blog entry prior to posting, and in my disgust with the internet at large, I wander off for more than a week.

Well no more.

I am making a commitment to blog much more regularly from here on out. Alright, the few people who read this thing can stop laughing now. I will even save my entries prior to uploading, just in case Blogger is feeling finicky. This time I really mean it. Really.

So in honor of this commitment, I will treat you all with pictures of my current WIPs. You lucky devils.

This would be the back of a sweater. Not just any sweater, mind you, this is the Central Park Hoodie. I can't tell you how much I have loved this sweater since the moment I laid my eyes on it. I started it on Sunday. I am already 12.5 inches up the back. Yes, I know, this must seem painfully slow, but I am a painfully slow knitter. I'm actually quite impressed with my progress. Only 2 more inches before I can start the decreases for the arms. I decided to knit it in Tivoli Bainin Tweed. It is an apparently discontinued yarn. This is a sad, sad thing. I love it's rustic sheepiness. I love how the lanolin feels in this yarn. I just know it will bloom and be utterly lovely when it is blocked. I also adored the price. I purchased it from Jen at Busy Hands Yarn. Apparently she is going out of business, and I find this terribly sad as she is a doll. Do yourself a favor and go buy her out of something. I did. I feel much better for it.

Well Looky what we have here, If it isn't the angora. And what is that I also spy? Is that a Fiber Trends Pattern and a pair of Brittanys? Why yes, yes it is. Lace will be my bitch. I swear it utterly. With the completion of the Branching Out scarf, I feel ready to take on the world. Or at least another lace pattern. Wish me luck, because if I mess up this yarn. That's it. I'm positive I will never make yarn look quite like that again.

Last, but certainly not least. I finished the first of my handpainted traveling socks. They are knit on size 2 Susan bates DPNs out of some random thrift store wool that I dyed myself. I call the colorway, "Long Canyon" after a place by the same name in Moab, UT. (Look at that. I named a colorway. This is all a part of the master plan to finally commit to something in my life and eventually begin dyeing fibers and yarns for sale. Once I get this blogging thing in hand, that is.)

I typically knit on these during my lunch hour at work, or while waiting in line. If you've read my blog recently, you'll know that I've been in training classes a lot recently. The other girls have watched this sock from the beginning. None of them is a knitter. They have all mocked me for not starting the second sock yet. How the hell did they find out about Second Sock Syndrome????? (sigh)

Looks like I need to stop blathering and go spend some quality time with the ball winder.

My descent into idiocy

2006-08-30T20:15:00.000-04:00

It is school time again. Time for plays and recitals and endless stretches of homework.

Tonight while my family and I sat around the table eating dinner and helping the kids with their work I came to a stunning realization:

The older I get, the stupider I get.

It's amazing.

I used to be able to name every state capitol, and every state. I knew the capitals of all the Canadian provinces. I even knew a large portion of the world capitals.

I used to know long division, and what an interger was. I understood the Pythagorean theorem, and how to reduce a fraction.

Tonight I worked with my son on a Virginia geography worksheet. It asked where the Chesapeake Bay is located. My son, with expectant eyes waited patiently for help. My response, with a generally northerly wave of my hand, was, "Up near Maryland somewhere?"

The hubby who is a staunch "West Coaster" guffawed. He just could not believe that I could not geographically place the Chesapeake Bay. The man quizzed me on state capitals. He showed me how to reduce a fraction and how to express a remainder in long division in a decimal. THIS IS THE MAN WHO SPELLS OFFICE, 'OFFIC'!!!!!!!

It's embarrassing. It's tragic. Apparently, I need to go back to 4th grade.

Weekend Update!

2006-08-27T12:32:00.000-04:00

Finally! A day off! A whole full day. from the time I get up to the time I go to bed! I may wet myself from excitement. In celebration I will make a long blog post with pics. I will make baked ziti for dinner. I will do laundry. I will spend the evening spinning!

First and foremost.... The SP8 updates. I sent and received my last SP8 packages.

My sender has been not only thoughtful, and generous in her packages to me, but we share the same name, which automatically makes her a VERY cool chick. Check out her blog here. She also apparently works in a yarn shop. I absolutely COVET her job. Here are the contents of my final and very much appreciated package. There was much squealing and "TOUCH THIS!!" involved in the opening. Hubby got that look in his eye as though he were considering having me committed.

-There was a hand embroidered bag. How she knew I've been coveting a little bag that I can keep my traveling sock safe when I stuff it into the purse of doom, I have no idea. She must be psychic. There was also an extra unembellished bag which I will be embroidering myself once I settle on a pattern.

-There were not one but 2! bags of luscious handpainted roving from Capistrano Fiber Arts Studios (By Lori Lawson) purchased at The Yarn Tree. Ms. Lawson, whoever you are, Your eye for color is amazing, and secret pal, you have exquisite taste. On the right in the pic is a kid mohair/merino blend in the "Red Ginger" colorway. On the left is a merino/bombyx silk blend in the "Marrakech" colorway. Please note that the bags were ripped open immediately to be fondled.

Thanks again!

Now to my Sendee. That naughty, naughty girl found me out!!! hehehe. She just got the last package and I'm so excited that she has liked all that I've sent. She is an absolute doll, and adorable to boot! I'm so glad to have met such a strong and intelligent person through this swap. Her blog is here. Stop by and give her some Blog Love.

Now to some REAL excitement. A Finished Object! and a lace one no less. My very first successful lace project. Why does lace have to be so frustrating, yet so lovely and tempting to me. Oh how I love and hate thee, lace knitting.

Sorry for the not so great picture, but this is the Branching Out scarf from Knitty.com. It was knit in Peru DK Luxury yarn from AC Moore. It's a reasonably priced Merino/Alpaca/Silk blend and it is extraordinarily soft. If I recall it was about $5 a ball for 124 yards. I used 2 balls for this. It will soon be off to my Mother In Law for her birthday. Nothing says love like a wool scarf in August. I think I may be reblocking it though. I was half asleep last night when I blocked it and it looks a bit wonky in the photo now that I really look at it.

The real excitement in this scarf was when the Needle-Eating-Dog decided that my size 9 Bamboo Circulars looked really tasty with this scarf still on it. I came home to find the circs missing and the ball of yarn in tangles still attached to the scarf with dropped stitches. The tangle and dropped stitches took most of an evening to fix. NED still won't look me in the eye.

Fyberduck from Craftster.org recently was kind enough to host a Handspun Swap. My swap Partners were Fyberduck and Chipper. Here were my spoils:

A POUND of thick n Thin Handspun merino in the Vineyard colorway from spunky eclectic and an awesome red/with and blue skein with an accompanying Beaded skein from Chipper. I'm foreseeing a shrug and a funky felted bag to be made of these.

From Fyberduck, a skein of boucle made from kid mohair locks. It is gorgeous. So soft and light. I am totally inspired to dig in and wash up the pound of kid mohair that has been languishing in my stash. The second skein was some baby alpaca that hubby has claimed as a hat for himself. It is incredibly soft. It has reinforced my belief that someone needs to start producing alpaca underwear.

Finally a long overdue pic of my best handspun to date. 2 oz of Angora/silk/wool from Wild Meadow Angoras. I'd picked up 2 bats and the MDSW and finally got brave enough to spin them up. I ended up with close to 300 yds of lace/fingering weight.

I had originally thought to enter it in the skein contest at the Fall Fiber Festival. However, when I weighed it up it came to 2 oz exactly on my scale, and the contest minimum is 2 oz. I don't want to get disqualified because my scale is off by a tenth of an ounce or something, so now I am looking for a good lace stitch to make a scarf with it to enter into the Handspun knit item category. I will begin working on a new skein to enter into the skein contest.

First Day Of School

2006-08-23T07:25:00.000-04:00

Don't let the cuteness and sweetness fool you. Under that thin veil of innocence they are the devils beasts. The girl even has three heads and alternately breathes fire and ice.

I passed!

2006-08-22T23:21:00.000-04:00

Very tired. must drag self to bed. Kids start school tomorrow. Please... send cyanide!

Also.... I passed my final exam at work today. 99%

I am so damn good, God wishes he were me.

Pardon me while I slip into a coma.......

The Knit-Geek Questionnaire (unrelated to any swaps or secret pal exchanges)

2006-08-20T17:47:00.000-04:00

1. What's your worst habit relating to your knitting?

Startitis. Totally. I see a pattern in a book or magazine and I HAVE to make it. NOW. Then I end up with about a zillion ufo's laying around, and yarn and needles for 11ty billion more and not enough time or energy to do anything more than knit on my traveling sock.

2. In what specific ways does your knitting make you a better person?

I focus more. I'm able to apply more care to details since learning to knit. I've also taken up a long dead interest in math.

3. How might you or your life be different if you were suddenly unable to knit?

I've thought about this. I work in insurance claims. I hear of cases all the time where people are permanently disabled. If for some reason I had to stop playing with fiber because I was physically unable to do it I'd probably slowly go insane. Then I'd rediscover that the library has books that AREN'T fiber related and have a joygasm with reading all over again.

4. If money were no object, what one yarn, and what one tool or gadget would you run out and buy first?

The Yarn. Hand Maiden Sea Silk. I am intrigued and delighted by the idea of yarn from the sea. Especially one that will make me ache less. That is technology in action right there. I also love to support Nova Scotia in any way possible. I had the luxury of making a good friend from Nova Scotia who took me on several tours of the province. If I had to pick 2 dream place to live in the world, they would be Moab UT, or Nova Scotia. There is no beauty like these places.

Gadget?? Definitely a new spinning wheel. I've been drooling over an Ashford, but if money were truly no object, it would definitely be a Golding. Probably either the Habetrot or the Flock of the Shepherdess.

5. What knitting technique or project type are you most afraid of (if any)? What, specifically, do you fear will happen when you try it?

Lace. I fear lace. I am trying to conquer it, but it kicks my arse up one block and down the other. I don't know why, but I will follow the chart to utter perfection, and somewhere, somehow, I always either gain or lose a stitch somewhere.

6. Who is/are your knitting hero(es), and why?

Stephanie Pearl McPhee. Anyone who can have this much fun with yarn, and still make the same mistakes as the rest of us, and make fun of herself, and still have such a passion is nothing short of a Goddess.

7. Do you consider knitting, for you personally, a mostly social activity, or a mostly solitary activity?

I like to knit socially, but I seem to be short on social occasions in which to knit. I really need to get a really casual SnB started somewhere around here that is not at the LYS and not the once a month Library thing.

8. Is there a particular regional tradition in knitting that you feel strongly drawn toward (e.g., Fair Isle, Scandinavian, Celtic, Orenburg lace)? Any theories as to why it calls to you?

Celtic. I love Arans and Ganseys. I can trace my ancestry there, but then, I can also trace ancestry to even more interesting places. I don't have any sound theories, but it may have something to do with masses of graceful arching cables twining and dancing across vast expanses of moss stitch being quite possibly the most lovely thing I've ever seen.

9. If you were a yarn, which yarn would you be?

A funky thick n thin crazy colored, to die for soft handspun. Think Handpainted Yarns Lettuce Violet colorway. It's lovely. Nice to work with, soft on your hands but it has some crazy character.

10. Some statistics:

(a) How many years have passed since you FIRST learned to knit?

Less than one. I learned to knit last October.

(b) How many total years have you been actively, regularly knitting (i.e., they don't have to have been in a row)?

See above

(c) how many people have you taught to knit?

4. Both of my kids. and two of the kids my hubby works with. I've had adults ask for lessons, but none of them have come through.

(d) Roughly what percentage of your FOs do you give away (to anyone besides yourself, i.e., including your immediate family)

so far? 50%. I see things going downhill soon though.

11. How often do you KIP (knit in public)? i.e., once a week, once a month, etc. Where do you do it?

Daily. I keep a sock with me at all times for the inevitable waits in lines that seem to take up the majority of my life.

12. If a genie granted you one hour to stitch-n-bitch with any one knitter, living or dead, who would you choose and why?

Stephanie Pearl McPhee. Why? See Above. I'd even bring the beer.

13. What aspect or task in knitting makes you most impatient?

seaming and weaving in ends. For reasons that I feel are completely obvious.

14. What is it about knitting that never lets you get bored with it?

Creation. I love to make things. Beautiful and useful things are even better.

15. Describe how and where you most often do your knitting - where do you sit, what is going on around you, what tools do you use and how are they (dis)organized?

fave place is on the couch. I keep the tools for that project on my little sofa table. There is usually a movie or a cd on in the background. My family is around me bugging me (hmmmm I think maybe I just figured out my lace issues).

16. Which one person is the recipient of more of your knitting than any other?

So far... me. Everyone else has gotten something fairly equally though. Hey. it's my hobby.

17. What's the oddest thing about your knitting, or yourself as a knitter?

Knitting skipped a generation for me. My grandmother was a knitter. My mother had no interest at all. I had no real knitting influences in my life. I just knew I needed to do it.

18. What do you see yourself knitting - if anything - twenty years from now?

Probably the same aran sweater that I started for hubby months ago.

19. If you were stranded on a deserted island and could have only ONE SKEIN of yarn, which yarn would it be and what would you do with it?

Some Zephyr laceweight and the Peacock Feathers shawl pattern. If I'm on a deserted island, I'd have nothing better to do than work out my lace issues. Sure the yarn would get ratty after all the times it would be frogged, but who is going to comment? The palm trees?

20. If you were allowed to own only one knitting-related book, which would it be? (you'd be free to browse others, but you couldn't keep them)

Ann Budd's Handy Book of Knitting Patterns. It has just about all the basics covered including sweaters. That and some creativity would keep me knitting happily for years.

21. Is knitting the new yoga? Why or why not?

Ewwwww. No. That's like that saying "pink is the new black". No. Just No. Pink is pink. Black is black. Yoga makes me very very sore. Knitting is knitting.

22. What important thing are you trying to put off doing whenever you knit?

The laundry.

Quick! Someone get me a bucket!

2006-08-17T18:17:00.000-04:00

My brains are leaking out of my ears, and I certainly don't want to have to pay the cleaning bill. Brains on the carpet make a nasty stain.

So much has happened recently. It seems like time is just gone the moment you blink, and I'm sure feeling it today. I do believe I'll be passing out oooooooh just about the time this blog entry is done.

Whoever said kids aren't easy deserves the Understatement of the Eon award. Last week when finally getting home on friday from work for a peaceful evening I found that hubby let the kids take the dogs for a walk. they left around 4. I got home around 5. Not too unusual. There is an awesome nature path that encircles our neighborhood. Comes complete with beaver dam, protected wetland area, trees, random paths and lots of critters. This place screams for exploration and it circles our neighborhood perfectly so no mater where you wander through too, you can always get back to the subdivison. We assume the kids are there. At around 6, I drive through the neighborhood since they haven't shown up yet and we are getting a bit worried. Usually they are back within a couple hours, or they've gone to a friends house. This night though, they knew when dinner would be ready soon after I got home. Just a tidbit about my kids....... They will NOT miss a meal. You could plop them in the middle of the desert, and they will find their way to the nearest refrigerator. So I get back home and hubby and I eat, then put the kids dinner away for when they get home.

This is when we start to think that it's time to go looking for them. We head out to the nature path and find my daughters friend Nora's father out on the path too. His kids have also disappeared. We walk the length of the path on one side of the neighborhood. No kids, but Nora's father, Grizzly Adams Jr finds some fresh tracks. We turn around where the path reaches the point that it meets the new neighborhood behind ours. I take hubby to the other side of the path and drop him off to head home and see if they've shown up at home yet. As I pull onto the main road in our neighborhood, Grizzly waves me down to pull over. It's now 7:45 and we are about to call the police. But lo and behold, The kids have turned up. At the new Target. This means that our children have walked the dogs through our neighborhood, across the new neighborhood, through a large construction area, across a very busy highway, and up to the new Target where Nora's mother works.

Needless to say the adults were less than amused. The children are still grounded. They may stay that way until they are 40. That's only if I decide to be nice. On the upside, the dogs thought it was fabulous. A long walk, a ride in the car, and they got the kid's pork chops and pecan rice for dinner.

On the work side... I've caught up in training, and I've found out which desk I will be taking over and to what Supervisor I have been assigned. I take my licensing test next week along with the final exam for training. I'm excited, but nervous. it is a LOT of work. I'm finally realizing why it is so common to hear of people in my position to work late. however, all the files I work will now be MINE. I have ownership of them, instead of how I previously work-shared with an entire department. One idiot could flush a months hard work down the toilet in the space of a 3 minute conversation. Now I'll be the only idiot to flush my files. Hurrah!!!!

Aaaaaaaand in fiber news. I'm getting ready to send out my last one skein SP package and SP8 package. They'll likely be going out saturday. I think I'll be holding off on multi shipment SP projects for a while. My partners have all been lovely, but it seems like the moment I make a commitment of some kind, that is the exact moment life blows up in my face.

Other fiber news:

-I am halfway through the cashmere Branching Out. I'm curently in the process of frogging back to find where I lost a stitch, and have already had to do that once, but lace still seems less daunting already. Pictures soon.

-I finally spun up my angora/silk/wool from the MDSW. I ended with 270 yards of fingering to lace weight yarn. I am in love. I may tell hubby that they angora has replaced him for cuddliness.

-We found a new fiber shop! It's a bit of a drive, but the owner fixed up mom's new wheel and I have spent ridiculous amounts of money there. She also has her own cormo sheep. I bought 8 oz of cormo roving and plan to spin some lace weight with it. It will be a shawl eventually. By the time I'm done spinning it, I'll finally be confident enough with lace that a shawl will be a possibility!

-I have bought entirely too much yarn and fiber recently. The yarn shop had a sale last week, and one of the local fiber shops is having a sidewalk sale this weekend. How can I possibly resist?

-Dad finally settled on apattern for his Aran Sweater and I have swatched one of the cables. We picked knitpicks Wool of the Andes Bare as his yarn. I only ordered one skein of it, worried about it being rough, but that stuff is incredibly soft. Dad felt it and said, "I love this wool". This is after feeling many options for yarn including Cascade, different merino's and even an alpaca blend. I'll be making my knitpicks order soon. Maybe I can sneak in a set of their interchangeable needles without hubby noticing. :)

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post. I hope to have some to post soon.

checking in.

2006-08-06T21:36:00.000-04:00

It's been crazy here!

I just got done filling in during my off hours at my husbands work. working 7 days a week sucks.

Will post more later. for now.... sleep.

New job

2006-07-24T18:41:00.000-04:00

I mentioned earlier in a post on my blog that I had been promoted.

After several delays, the last being a week, I started my training today. I woke up excited to be going to work for the first time in at least a year. Granted, I had to wait near 3 months to actually start the job, but that's ok. There was one training class ahead of mine. Then my class was delayed a week to meet with pay periods.

Or so I thought.

There were 4 people coming from my department into this class. There were others in the class, coming form other departments or hired off the street into the position (which is another rant entirely, and one I will not pursue here). The 4 of us had been informed of the final weeks delay and we were informed that the whole class was delayed. We arrived to work to find that the rest of the class had started last week and we were already that week behind in our coursework. Apparently my previous manager just couldn't give up the warm bodies in his department and decided to hold us back. He had tried to keep us back for 2 weeks when my trainer finally put his foot down and said no. This is the same manager who turned me down for another promotion because he asked me in the interview what hours I "preferred" to work. When I explained my preference I was turned down. Apparently the correct answer waste swear in blood on the spot that you pledged every single moment to the company and didn't want to breathe unless it was on work hours. Remember the boss from Office Space? Yeah. Imagine him shorter, fatter and Italian with fake blue contacts.

This might not seem like a big deal to the rest of the world, but when you consider that the training class requires state licensing and is taught in a 6 week college style course with bi-weekly quizzes, a final exam, licensing tests and a required grade at the end, you realize that one weeks lost work is a big deal. I spent every ounce of study time today trying to digest 6 chapters of study and catch up in a workbook that is completely self study. Thankfully my NEW manager approved us 5 hours of overtime and home study this week to let us catch up.

I was hoping to post knitting and spinning content today, for instance the angora/silk I just spun up, or the new sock yarn I just dyed, or the progress on my lace project, but instead I'm off to study.

RAAAAAR!!!!

Loooong weekend

2006-07-16T19:17:00.000-04:00

I took a long weekend this week so I could get the house back into some semblance of order. With Hubby's work hours being so long and so many, things have fallen by the wayside. I'm pleased to report though, that I can now walk into every room in the main floor without stepping on something or feeling queasy. Truly an accomplishment. Next weekend is also a long weekend as I start training for my new job the following week. We'll be tackling the basement of DOOM! Next will be the re-do on the boys room.

I did take a break yesterday to take the girl to a mountain bike race at the local YMCA. Hubby is a biking nut. He has taken this child on all sorts of rides and loves his bike like I love yarn. Back home he would take her to races in southern Utah. She's been out of the "off-road" saddle for a while, but I'm pleased to report that she won 2nd place in her age group. (the boy who won first REALLY should have raced in the next age group. The kid was BIG and at least 14, racing against the 9-12 year olds. The YMCA staff, though in their effort to make no child feel inferior and therefore lowering the bars for excellence in children yet again, let him race in that group anyways. But enough social commentary.) She stuck it out though and raced in the Advanced group too, she came in third (and last) but in her defense the other boys she raced against were 15 and 16 and she had just finished the intermediate race. A 9 minute mile after all that and in Virginia's lovely trademark "choke a water buffalo" humidity, I'd say she did an excellent job.

The boy amused himself on the playground and picking blackberries for me to eat in the woods. I sat, sweated, and tried desperately to work on clapotis, but the humidity made knitting miserable. How can anyone knit with WET yarn?????

I received a package this week from my One Skein Secret pal. The lovely girl sent not one, but TWO!!! skeins of Noro Silk Garden. I have been dying to try this stuff, but I could never justify it to myself when at the yarn shop. One Skein SP, I could just kiss you. I think I already have plans for it, but it depends on the outcome of a certain personal challenge that I'll tell you about in a minute.

In sad One Skein SP news though, I also received my pals package back in the mail. I have written to her and she did confirm her address, but I feel so terrible that not only did I send late, but that it ended up back here. I'll be trying to resend it this week with her July skein and an extra treat for being so patient.

ooooo! Remember the handspun that I dyed for a swap in my previous post?? The Delightful Purrl from Knittyboard has already woven it up into the prettiest scarf! Check out the results at her blog!

Now the personal challenge I was telling you about. I am going to learn lace if it kills me. (and it probably will.) I have started the Lace Leaf Pullover for Loop-d-Loop as a beginning. So far, I've only had to frog back to the ribbing on the first leaf twice. Sigh. I love lace SOOO much, why, oh why do I have to suck at it????

Here's the progress so far. Sad. I've subbed Berocco Xpress in red for the called-for yarn. The gauge is perfect and this stuff is way soft. It's discontinued, but I got just enough for this sweater in a swap.

Next up will be Branching Out. Everyone says this is the easiest intro to lace EVER. So I picked up some very soft generic luxury yarn from AC Moore to try it out with. I don't know who distributes this stuff but it's a merino/silk/alpaca blend, and it's inexpensive enough that I won't feel bad ruining it by continuous frogging if the experiment fails. It's also soft and fluffy enough to make a beautiful scarf for the Mother in Law if it all works out.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it, and blog posts will be much less interesting when I pluck out my eyeballs in frustration.

Progress made

2006-07-08T09:40:00.000-04:00

Funny how it works out, isn't it, that the one thing you have NO plans for is what you start with first? Consider for a moment my previous post where I discussed the 4 balls of trendsetter Taos that were just in a pretty colorway and I had to have them for that reason if no other. I'll be damned if they weren't the first 4 balls yanked out of the stash to be played with. Please witness the progress of my mini clapotis. I figure by this time it's a requirement for all knitters to make at least one of these babies, and the lovely variegated colors of this yarn with it's hint of sparkle needed to be showcased in some manner. That, and this is remarkably EASY. Even I can do it easy. This is my progress since the 3rd of July when I found the pattern printed out and wrapped up with a ball of recycled silk that I started the pattern on once and screwed the set-up rows utterly because I was trying to knit it at work in between calls. Hubby says he thinks I've just gotten faster at knitting. I say it's just because I only did half the increase rows (only 4 balls of this stuff requires the sizing to be altered). I also love the idea of it being worked up in a drapey cotton blend. When I saw this scarf it cried, cool spring days to me. Too warm for wool, but just right for cotton or silk.

Here is a close-up shot so you can see the lovely sparkley bits that are plied with the cotton blend that will make this clappy so light and shimmery. Thankfully, the sparkly bits appear to be non-itchy. Now, to find something to wear it with once completed.

In other news, the girls room has been painted, re-carpeted and light fixtures installed. The room hasn't been completely decorated, but it's in progress. I'm going to start a new duvet cover for her bed today and when mom gets back from Florida I can dig out all the little things we purchased for her room. In the mean time, please enjoy this lovely photo of the girl passed out in her new bed.

Initially she had been sleeping in this monstrosity of a hand-me-down Loft bed. It was tall, it was blue, it was ugly. We LIED (yes, we lie to our children, we like to think of it as a good foundation for dealing with dating later in life) to her and told her we were trashing the loft bed and she would have to wait a month for us to get the money together to buy her a regular bed, she'd just have to sleep on the floor. The odd bit, was that she was ok with it. She did seem please though to find out that we were kidding and Has been happily sleeping with the mutts in her new bed ever since. Her biggest complaint about the loft bed was her inability to have the mutts sleep with her. Why a person would want a large hairy bed hog asleep with them is beyond me, but she was never the most logical child on earth.

I think the mailman thinks I've lost it.

2006-07-03T20:42:00.000-04:00

There were 5. Yes, 5 packages in the mail for me today. All but one of them was yarn. Now, my regular mail person is also a knitter, and a complete delight. She is always excited to talk to me about new yarns or magazines, and Is very excited to learn to knit socks, but at the beginning of the summer, we found that she was going to be out for personal reasons for several months. Bummer. The new mail guy, I'm sure thinks I have a problem. Puh-lease. Yarn is NEVER a problem.

This is what was in the packages today. We'll start with yarn. Mmmmm yummy. Clockwise from the top. 15 Balls Trendsetter Oceano in the Fire Fantasy colorway. I'm envisioning a lovely cardigan or drapey top. Perhaps I can lay my hands on a copy of IK from spring 2004 I love the Mandarin Faux Cardigan.

Next are 4 balls of Trendsetter Taos in Desert Garden. This is the one yarn I have no plans for, but come on? Desert Garden? I NEED the desert. Therefore, the yarn purchase is justified.

Next are 7 balls of Adriafil Chic in Deep olive. This is for a Safari Cardigan for the girl from Knitters Magazine. It's acrylic, and was cheap, but perfect, shiny, and machine washable.

Next is a skein of Lornas Laces Shepherd Worsted in what other colorway than IRVING PARK!!!!!!!! I screamed when I opened this package. There were also 2 skeins of KPPPM. This is from the Lovely and generous and incredibly sweet Glindensmith from the knittyboard. I made her one little needle case, and she sent me lovliness I have been dying for, but have never bought. Oddly, I've purchase Koigu for 2 people, but never myself. I can't wait ti start playing wth this stuff. The LL is going to become the Cable Footies from One Skein.

Finally, there is a bag of Debbie Bliss Aram Tweed for the mission falls Kitt Shrug. I love Mission Falls patterns, and the yarn is nice, but I'm not thrilled with the price. Perhaps if they upped the yardage per skein it would be worth the purchase. Until then, it's sub city, and I love the yellow and blue flecks in this stuff.

The last Package Was a total surprise. I was actually picked TWICE for the June buirthday swap on craftster, and I didn't even realize. batfishgurl sent me a gorgeous apron and lots of yummy chocolate to munch on. Thanks so much!

Looks like I'll be spreading some crafty karma for next months birthday swap!

Mmm hand dyed handspun

2006-07-02T08:50:00.000-04:00

Gratuitous fiber shot. This yarn was spun then dyed for Purrl on knitty.com for a swap. I hope she likes it! This was my first dying experience with "real" dyes. I had bought procion at AC Moore before I realized that it was for cellulose fibers. A litte research told me that it could be used on wool, but I was really disappointed with the exhaust on these dyes when using wool. Essentially, it didn't exhaust. At all. I think I rinsed for a solid hour last night. We'll be sticking to acid dyes from now on I think!

Goodies, secret pal update, and what we've been up to this week

2006-07-01T18:03:00.000-04:00

I moved the girl out of her room last week and we began updating it. This picture may not look like much, but it is SUCH an improvement over what it was. The paint must have been original to the house, and was in that awful "swiss coffee" shade that just ends up looking like tar-stained walls in a heavy smokers house. Then my mother moved in, and though I love her dearly, she has a really thing for hanging shelves on every available wall to hold her oft-overflowing antique and everything else stash. We chose a soft peachy pink color. It's a split level and the girls windows are the smallest in the house so her room tends to be dark. We wanted to make it look warm and bright. Besides they use pink in mental institutions to impart a sense of well-being to the patients. I'm hoping it will work to stave off the oncoming teenage angst too. Next week, Carpet installation. woo hoo!

Hubby has also started work on a new coop for the girls. We got washed out so badly with all the rain last week, that the girl actually called me at work afraid the chickens were going to drown! Perhaps ducks would have been a better choice after all. Either way, this made it clear to us we had to get moving on a better shelter for them. I'll get some pics of it closer to completion. I think he'd feel self concious with his half completed project on the net for a bunch of "knitting women" to see.

Cotneyroo from Crafster chose me as a recipient for the june Birthday swap and sent me an awesome set of sushi potholders and the cuteest beaded stitch markers. I've been eyeing these on blogs all over the place and my wire twisting skills rank with my lace knitting skills. Somewhere in the neighborhood of "a blind quadraplegic could do a better job". I'll be sending her a little something from the stash as a thank you!

I have a serious confession to make, I went yarn crazy this week. I have been on a yarn diet for a couple months now and I went nutty. I have an order of debbie bliss aran tweed coming in from littleknits.com and an order of Debbie Bliss alpaca silk coming in from Roxyyarns.com. I also ordered some trendsetter yarns from a shop in arkansas that is clearing out their stock at 70% off, and an order of fiber and undyed sock yarn from alpacafleece.com. Jean is a really sweet lady and totally worked with me when my original choice of yarns was not available. I guess on the upside. I have plans for all of the yarn that I purchased.

Well then I realized that my one sein secret pal needed a little something-something, so off to the yarn shop I went. I found her a lovely skein of Koigu Kersti. I hope she likes it. she seems really difficult to buy for. I also picked up a ball of Opal Rainforest in Ladybug. A lot of the yarn websites have ben selling out it seems, and I figured I would snap it up while I could. I also got the new knit scene magazine. The central park cabled hoodie = love.

Then, just when I think I'm finally getting my yarn binge under control, what appears on my doorstep but a package from the lovliest secret pal in the world. I was nearly jumping out of my skin with excitement when I peeled back the many layers of tissue to find 2 skeins of handdyed sock yarn from Yarn monster in awesome colors and yummy japanese treats. Now I have to get this whole lace thing figured out, this yarn is tooooo special for plain old socks. If anyone has some suggestions let me know! It requires something really fancy. and the japanse treats were truly the best! I spent my formative years in South Korea, so those lovely funky packages of candy made me feel like a kid again. Thank you sooo much secret pal. Your packages have been such a special treat for me!

Better late then never

2006-06-24T09:26:00.000-04:00

Let's start this little entry with some chickens:

This is (clockwise from top) Barbecue, Swiss Chalet, and omelet. There are 4 chickens, but the 4th Wiley, whom hubby has claimed as his, was rather recalcitrant about the photo shoot. Come to think of it, she is recalcitrant about everything. If there were to be a chicken revolt, she'd be at the forefront waving a banner for chicken freedom and first arrest and dragged off in leg irons (chickens not having hands for handcuffs, of course) for trying to poop on the feet of the riot control police. Wiley and I don't get on well.

As for being better late than never. I believe I mentioned in my last post that hubby would be going back to work for the group home. He has, and not only did he go back, he went back at a raise and as the case manager. He also went back in the middle of a huge restructuring. and a move. They moved the home to a farm. (They plan to keep goats. Give me time, and I will whisper in the directors ear enough and they will make that angora goats, it will only be a matter of time before I convince them of the sheep and alpacas too!) Unfortunately for him and I , it also meant that he did not have a single day off from the time he started until this past Thursday. It also meant that for me, during the busiest time we have at work, that I have not only been putting in overtime, But upon my return home, I've been trying to hold together the house. To sum it up, it's been exhaustion city lately. No excuse, I admit, but it is the reason.

So now that the explanations are over, let's do some gratuitous fiber shots.

First lovely shot Is the beautiful knitting journal I received for my birthday from my Secret Pal. It came with some awesome designer chocolate, and unfortunately it was a bit melty when I received it, so I firmed it up, and It didn't even make it to picture taking time. It was delicious though, I can assure you. She really is the sweetest, She also recently sent me a lovely postcard saying hi that I keep with me in my ever-present novel that I carry with me for times when I'm idle and don't want to knit. Thank you again Secret pal, you really are the best, and thanks for your patience with the blog of emptiness for the last month.

Next up are the treats that my mom brought me back from Washington. She went out for my Uncle's wedding and stayed for two weeks. I have to say, she is getting better at choosing yarns for me. They are all lovely, but eventually I will break her of the novelty yarn habit, there were, however, two lovely chocolate brown skeins of cascade 220. They Kona Bay is nifty too, very soft. I never even knew they made yarns. I've lusted after their asian print quilting fabrics for years though. I'll have to find something neat to make with them. Maybe use them as trim for a couple cardigans?

Finally, a sample of the roving that I hand dyed for my secret pal. She just got herself a spindle and I love to enable people, so after a quick and dirty questioning, she should be receiving 3 balls of hand dyed roving in blue and berry colors for her spinning enjoyment.

Whew. Well it's time to get back to playing catch-up on the house, and still manage to get in a bit of time in the craft room.

Big Changes and birthday update from my Secret Pal!

2006-06-02T08:49:00.000-04:00

So much has happened in the last week or two that I haven't had even a moment to sit down and write about it.

First a little background. Hubby and I are from Utah. (me in a slightly more roundabout way than him) I moved to VA to come help out with my parents, hubby joined me later after 8 (yes you read that right) years of divorce. I guess we finally grew up enough to be together. (yes, we are morons, thanks for asking).

Anyways, VA is not the home of our dreams. In fact where we live we can only afford because my parents gave us their old house and bought another. We pay the mortgage on their first home. Without this house we'd heave to rent an overpriced apartment or try to figure out how to buy a teeny townhome for a half million.

Dad gave us the news earlier in the year, he is retiring on March 31, 2007 and he and mom are moving to East Tennessee near my godmother. My uncle is coming up to join them. Although hubby and I would LOVE to move there, the economy is very depressed so jobs would be difficult if not impossible to find. My uncle and parents will have their retirement income and mom and dad will have the income from the sale of their homes to buy another house with.

Originally our plan was to move to another location of my company, probably Buffalo New York. Then I saw a few of the listings that my parents were looking at in TN. 4 acres, working farm. 17 acres, perfect for farming. etc.

They are buying acreage! Or at least looking at it. When I told the folks that we could not move to TN they seemed disappointed, but they understood the reasons. When I looked at the listings I jokingly told my mother that we would just move down and work their acreage for them. Our ultimate goal is to own a farm anyways. Mom reacted a little differently than I expected.

"Is that what it would take to get you down there with us?"

I tell her perhaps, and I will run it past hubby. After much deliberation we decide that if the folks get acreage we will find a way to farm it for them. But on the other hand, if the can't find decent acreage, we'll still have to go to buffalo, or we may look for a co-of homesteading type are and get some land there. Either way of course, this means some big changes at home. We've started to thin out our crap, tried to figure out ways to save money and last but not least, my birthday present from hubby.

4 Welsummer Chickens. YAY! I get fresh eggs this summer when they start laying!!!!!!! They are so sweet, we named them omelet, Wiley (the fast runner, like Roadrunner!), Barbecue, and Chalet (after Swiss Chalet, for those of you who aren't familiar, it is a Canadian restaurant chain with the Best. Chicken. Ever.)

I'll admit, we know very little about farming, but we are willing to learn. hubby even struck up a deal with a local alpaca farmto trade labor for learning. This also means though that we will need to be saving up a lot of money to get rid of old debts and get us through the first couple of years. Hubby has decided to quit working at the hotel where he made a pittance salary, and go back to the group home where he was making really good money, but worked longer hours. On the upside, the group home is moving to a working goat farm, and we will be able to learn a lot from that too. Besides that I miss the boys.

We have checked out so many library books on self sufficiency and homesteading that I'm sure we are on a government list somewhere but we've been learning more and more. And I can't wait to give it a start!

In knitting news...

Well, Honestly I haven't knit much at all. I knitted my drag queen yarn from a previous post into a lovely but still in progress scarf. I'm just dead on inspiration for knitting lately I guess. I've been spinning a mot. But even my results with spinning have been less than satisfactory lately. I guess with everything else going on, my heart just hasn't been in it.

My Secret pal though, wa so lovely! Not only did she send me an ecard, I got a package in the mail containing a knitting journal and designer chocolate! The chocolates are even wrapped with Knitting ribbon! I will hopefully have pics up soon.

Thank you Secret Pal!!!!!!!!!

Well, off to scour more fleece.

This weeks spinning!

2006-05-19T15:16:00.000-04:00

Drag Queen. 68 yards of a mix of everything! I bought the roving at MDSW from puckerbrush farms. It was labeled "Party in a box" I opened the bag to show hubby and he informed me that it looked like a drag queen. THis may become the only scarf I can see myself wearing.

As yet unnamed, but my first skein over 100yds!!!! Woot! Brown sheep mill ends dyed with wilton.

Tequila Sunrise Mill ends dyed with Wilton

Polar express. This is spun from some roving I picked up at Limerick Fibers in Gordonsville. It's called "beast" and is aptly named. It's pretty rough, and have lots of vegetable matter, but it makes a lovely rustic skein.

Canyonlands. Unfortunately the camera didn't pick up the lovely orangey hues that remind me of canyonlands at sunset. again, mill ends with wilton dye.

Short update

2006-05-16T20:56:00.000-04:00

What a week! I managed to get a promotion. Hubby got an art show. We fixed the fountain in the backyard and I found another Fiber shop nearby! mmmmm fiber. drool.

I'll be posting a longer update in the next day or so. FOr now it's off to work around the house. I'm playing hooky from work tomorrow so I can clean up the house and then I can spend the rest of the weekend spinning and knitting. :)

This is why you don't give men gas powered tools

2006-05-11T09:15:00.000-04:00

This would be the elbow from the pipe on our sump pump. Hubby demolished it while tilling the backyard to put in grass seed. Last night we had our own water garden in the backyard with the pump creating a lovely fountain of brown water every 2 minutes. Hubby tried to convince me that the break had become a "design feature" in the yard.

I don't think so.

This ended in a late night trip to Lowes to buy a new elbow for the pipe. Oddly enough, this ended in a yarn related situation. I conned hubby into buying a hunk of PVC and joiner bits to make me a niddy noddy.

HA! I love turning hardware store trips into fiber related trips.

These are pictures of my strawberry and roma tomato plants. I planted the strawberries myself. While this may not seem like much of a feat to most people. Anyone who knows me knows about my black thumb. I can kill anything green. I've killed cactus, lucky bamboo, assorted houseplants, garden plants and I could probably lay waste to entire fields of silk floral arrangements just by my proximity.

I've made a resolution to change this. We know have a garden at our house, one at my mom's and flowers in the front yard. THEY WILL NOT DIE DAMMIT!!!!! Even if I have to sacrifice my first-born (or God-Forbid, my yarn) to make them live, I will do it! I WILL HAVE FRESH VEGGIES THIS YEAR!!!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

ahem.

Gratuitous fiber shot. I spun this last night while enjoying the sounds of Old Faithful in the backyard. It's a wool/silk/mohair blend that I got as a bonus when I bought roving from Carol at the Sheep Shed Studio. I love getting roving for so cheap to play with. And I don't feel as bad when I ruin this with my abysmal spinning skills. So far I have 67 yards of it, and I still have a little bit more left to spin. Hubby says that it should be a hat for him. We'll see about that.

Quick post of the new stash!

2006-05-07T09:07:00.000-04:00

The destashing went well, and although I still have some leftovers, I was able to take the money to the Marylan Sheep and Wool festival and Pick myself up a few goodies:

I picked up a large selection of different fibers. Wool, silk, alpaca, superwash, angelina, firestar, organic cotton, Linen and angora.

My mother, bless her heart, also brought home 2 of these babies:

One for her, and one for me. I've already started spinning on it, although it was tough to get started having never used a wheel before, but once I got it started I was ready to burn the drop spindles for firewood.

More to come later, but I have to run to work now...... I wonder if I could put the wheel under my desk???

stupid thunderstorms.

2006-05-05T16:50:00.000-04:00

Halfway into Planting flowers the sky opened up and started dumping. I hope the new flowers don't get drowned. Mother nature is such a bitch.

Cheap Spring gardening.

2006-05-05T11:51:00.000-04:00

It's amazing what you can find if you look. We've been putting in garden this week. Melon and veggie garden in the back. Replanting some grass and a wildflower garden. In the the front we've had these 2 sad little planter spots in front of the house that have been empty for years. Being poor, I haven't had the money to buy plants to put into it, and plants are so expensve! $1.47 for a single pansy? I think not.

Anyways, I go to lowes last night for some citrnella oil and they have two huge racks of flowers selling for $.10 each. I got 2 flats of pansies, 3 of snapdragons and 4 of verbena for $4. We also got 6 boxes of plant food for $4 because the boxes broke open. all the little packets were there. There was also dandelion-cide for $1, again the bag broke open. We ended up with enough leftoever for a bird feeder and a bat house! YAY! I'm going to get the flowers planted this afternoon, and hopefully gets some pics snapped of them. Granted there are a few sad looking plants in there, but there are so many good ones it's sad to see them just tossed aside.

SP8 Questionnaire

2006-05-03T20:26:00.000-04:00

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? I love pretty much all natural fibers. I don't mind synthetic blends, but i prefer them to be soft.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? Haha. A drawer. I have fabric to make myself a needle case or two, but do I do it?? Nooooooooo.

3. How long have you been knitting? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? Only since November, But I'm adventurous enough to be an intermediate knitter. Lace and Fair Isle are my only uncharted territory.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? yes

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.) Clean or spicy smells. I'm not much for the fancy schmancy flowery stuff.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Oh yes. Any thing chocolate. I'd eat chocolate covered cyanide without thinking twice.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I sew, mostly costumes. Halloween and Renn Faire type stuff. I just got a wheel and I've been spinning up a storm on it. I love my wheel. is it legal to marry a spinning wheel???

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like most everything. Lately I've been listening to Dave Matthews, Imogen Heap and FrouFrou, Modest Mouse, but I really do like Everything. I especially like swing and big band music. Glenn Miller rocks my socks.

9. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand? What is there about color to dislike? I love pretty much all colors. I prefer vibrant colors though. Pastels are pretty, but I don't use them too much.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I have 2 rotten children and a rotten husband. I also have 2 rotten dogs and one rotten cat. Will trade any or all for yarn. :)

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? No. Sadly. I do wear fingerless gloves though!

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? Lately I've been on a sock kick. My favorite project to knit though, was a anthropologie capelet for myself. I love little coverup type sweaters.

13. What are you knitting right now? Tragically hideous socks for a friends mother. Honestly, why don't people ask me to knit pretty things?

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? Yes. Very much, yes.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? Circs and DPN's. I have bamboo and some birch. I love addi's but only have one set so far.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? I have a yarn winder. No swift yet. Eventually I'll talk the rotten hubby into making me one. Hopefully before the children put us in a nursing home.

17. How did you learn to knit? Got laid up on a couch for 3 months after surgery. Bought a copy of Stitch N Bitch and some needles and went to it.

18. How old is your oldest UFO? 6 months. I haven't been knitting for long. It's a wrap sweater that I started in Lion Brand homespun before I realized how evil Homespun is.

19. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas and Halloween.

20. Is there anything that you collect? 40's 50's and 60's barware and kitsch. I was born a few decades too late.

21. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I'm dying for some of the pretty yarns I keep seeing. Lorna's Laces in the Irving Park colorway. Mmm I love that. I'd love dome of that crazy handspun I've been seeing everywhere too. I'm trying to expand my collection of addi's, and I'm looking for a good cropped 3/4 sleeve cardi pattern in worsted weight that is pretty but simple. I don't have any magazine subscriptions, I usually just buy them as the come out, but I'm considering an IK sub.

22. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? Lace. I love lace, but I get confused. And lace-weight yarn strikes the fear of God into my heart.

23. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? yes! and I wear a womens 9.5

24. When is your birthday? 06/01

Yarn Heaven!

2006-04-29T20:22:00.000-04:00

Mom and I ventured out to Warrenton today for a pre wool festival fiber fix. We went to My Favorite Yarn.

OMG! Tons of great yarn and fiber at decent prices. Lots of sales and they carried fiber, looms and spinning wheels in addition to yarn! I helped myself to a skein of Louet kid mohair for $5! I also got some dyed locks and yarn bras. I had to put a rein on myself so I'd still have money for the festival. They even sold handspun. Their own store brand in plain white worsted was only $5 for 180 yds! They even had the spinning wheel that I want on sale. It's too bad they are an hour away. Perhaps I should be more loyal to my own LYS, but I WISH my yarn shop had sales this good and fiber to boot.

Mom picked up a small lap loom to play with, and I'm trying to convince her that I need a wheel so that I can spin yarn for her to weave. It hasn't worked so far, but let's hope for the best come birthday time. :D

Why I hate doctor's offices

2006-04-21T23:48:00.000-04:00

Thursday I went in for a CT scan for some issues I've been having since my surgery. My appointment was at 12:40. I left the dying workshop early (it was wonderful BTW, but more about that later) and arrived at the imaging office at 12:20. According to the nurse at my doctors office I just had to pick up and drink the barium solution and show up. So I drank the hideous chemicals and went. When I check in, I find out that the doctors office never sent my prescription over. No prescription, No CT scan. Easy enough, the office can fax it over, except they close for lunch

from 12 until 2.

Honestly, who in this country gets a 2 hour lunch? With the obvious exception of my doctors office, NO ONE! One of the receptionists suggest that I go across the street to the office to see if someone is there. I jaunt over to find the doors locked, so I knock. As I'm peering desperately through the glass door I see a nurse. Now I know she can hear me knocking, but she just walks off. RAAAAARRR!!! Back to the imaging office. The very nice and very pregnant receptionist asks me who my doctor is and groans at the response. She is a patient there too. We swap stories briefly about the wonderful doctors and the TERRIBLE office staff. She tells me to try to hang on. They'll try the back office line, and they'll have the answering service fax something in to them to get the scrip.

I'm getting nauseous now. I haven't eaten and the barium and I don't get along well. I sit in the waiting area knitting. Have a pleasant conversation with a crocheter. 1:40 rolls around. I know the barium is passing through my system and they won't be able to do the scan. No word from the doctors office. I go back to receptionist to reschedule. As I'm standing there, a very pleasant radiologist comes running out. She tells me that if I can wait a few more minutes, the office manager is paging the doctor personally on my behalf. They can give me just one small additional cup of barium in lemonade and still take the scan. I agree and sit back down. Another 10 minutes. I feel like shit. The radiologist comes back out and tells me the the office managers wife is also a patient at my doctors office, they were there the day before and the office was open at this time, maybe they'll be open now.

Sure enough when I get to the office, the doors are open and they are admitting patients BUT THE PHONES ARE OFF. They've apparently been sitting there for the past 45 minutes with the phones off and ignoring the urgent faxes from the answering service. The nurse I talk to says that she'll get the prescription for me, then wanders away to talk to someone else. Another nurse comes up and asks what I need, I tell her I'm looking for my prescription. She opens the drawer they are kept in, and looks through, comes back and says they don't have it. WTF???? I tell her that their office MADE the appointment for me, there better be an order for it. She looks again and it's the TOP THING IN THE DRAWER!!!!

I stifle the urge to pin her down, pour a gallon of barium down her throat then jump on her head for several hours, grab the order and run down to the imaging lab. They rush me back and I drink not one small cup, but 2 large cups of barium, then they put in my IV for the contrast solution. They rush me into the scanning room and get my scan done. Once the contrast agent hits my system I start to feel like a truck has hit me. I go home and the headache hits, then the horrendous gastric effects. Hubby looked at me pathetically wallowing in misery on the bad and said "you're stinky". Sigh. I still have a headache today. Utter misery, and all because my doctors office staff SUCKS. I wonder what my doctor (who I simply adore) would say if I told him that I was firing him because of his front office staff. I may just do that.

Anyways, they dying workshop was fabulous and everyone was so friendly, although sadly, I can't remember anyone's name now after my trauma. We did shaving cream dying. I got some great results on the muslin I brought in, and I saw some awesome work on a couple of silk scarves. I can't wait to go to the sit and spin in May!!! Hopefully I'll have saved up some money to have a wheel by then. There are also spinning classes. And their workshop is fabulous. Spinning wheels, looms, carders, Fiber, and a little giftshop. It's inside LibertyTown and it's very inspiring being around so much art and workshops. While we were dying, other people came out to see what we were doing and joined in!

Well I'm off to bed to hopefully sleep off the rest of this headache. I'll try to get pictures of my shaving cream dyed fabric up tomorrow.

Destash time at Casa de Frou

2006-04-19T21:57:00.000-04:00

Help me destash myself and save up for a spinning wheel! All Yarns are now for sale on eBay.

Destash Sale!

4 balls Bernat BlingBling in sassy Sparkle (blue, pink, green and purple)

2 balls Crystal Palace deco ribbon 1 in black and white stripes, one in navy.

8 balls Moda Dea Fur-Ever 4 in blue and 4 in lime.

6 balls Moda Dea ChiChi in sahara

12 balls Moda Dea Kickx 2 in Fever, 4 in Amazing, 6 in Lucky

3 balls Pierre Cardin 21 (bulky Boule 100% wool) 2 in maroon, 1 in green.

3 1/2 skeins Red Heart Grape Ivy

3 skeins Lion Brand Homespun 2 in Edwardian, one in Corinthian.

Spinning Happiness at Knit Night

2006-04-18T22:00:00.000-04:00

I've started attending Knit Night the the LYS and tonight I met a member of the local spinners guild!!! Apprently there is a really nice studio in town and I was invited to a dying workshop on thursday morning! Sooo exciting. Maybe now I won;t have to go all the way to alexandria to try out some wheels!

They are doing marbling at the workshop this week, I think I may just take some good muslin to try it on. I have some really pretty heavy weight satin, but I'm sure I won't be able to dye all of it there, and I don't want to screw up good fabric.

I took my latest knitting project with me tonight and I had a lot of fun with it. Hubby wants ugly socks. They are to be red and olive green. Red tops, heels and toes, everything else in green. The knitters I sat with tonight all agreed that they are going to be hideous. He will be very pleased.

I also read the Yarnaholics thread at Craftster last night. I was inspired to begin cataloguing my stash. The results are tragic. Looks like a stash sale may be starting up soon. I need to get rid of some of these oodles of novelty and acrylic yarns and start purchasing more of the quality yarns in smaller batches. I'll be drawing up a list soon, and hopefully i can sell enough to make a good dent in the stash.

2006-04-15T23:27:00.000-04:00

I am a sucker. I just signed up for this. The lure of trading yarn to strangers is better than sex.

yummy.

OMFG!

2006-04-15T14:15:00.000-04:00

I REALLY love my hubby. I was heading out this morning to get Easter treats for our kids, and the boy we mentor who has been spending the week with us. On the way out the door, he told me to stop by the sporting goods store and grab him a gift card. WTF? Can't you just use the debit card like a normal person? Then he explains.

He went to the LYS and got me a $50 gift certificate. "We need Easter presents too." he said.

Best. Husband. Ever.

Another attempt at handspun

2006-04-15T08:37:00.000-04:00

I few months ago I picked up a babe handspindle off ebay. So far my attempts have been abysmal at best.

The first, Which I shall call "Salt and Pepper" is made with some mystery wool which came with my spindle. It was very soft, but also very overspun. Oddly though it's relatively smooth.

The second, Called, "The Ed Sullivan Show" (black white and pink, how very 50's" Is a miserable little skein of wool blended with pink dyed cotton. It's raggy and again, overspun. For some reason I love it, but I'm afraid to knit anything with it for fear it will fall apart.

The third are two skeins called "PlayDoh Ice Cream". The colors are lovely but the turned out very loosley twisted and scratchy. I bought the roving from ebay from someone who recommended it for felting. Probably not the best choice for spinning, WHen I set the twist though, it seemed to firm the yarn up. I also spun one color at a time and blended the two colors as I joined a new one. I'm hoping it will stripe. I know this yarn is dextined to become a small felted bag though, from it's scritchiness.

My 4th attempt is andean plied. I just spun the wool in the natural color. I have some berries that my kids picked for me last summer that managed to stain every child in the neighborhood a lovely purply-magenta color. I have no idea what the berries are, I'm sure they are poisonous, but I'm going to attempt dying the wool with these. If it works out well I will be doing a major mystery berry harvest this summer. As for the yarn itself, It's inconsistent and unbalanced, although setting the twist seemed to really help the balance issues. I still have a few overspun places and a few underspun places, but I'm hoping the plying will hold everything together.

Overall, I'm pretty frustrated with drop spindling. perhaps it's my spindle. I bought a different spindle recently at the Yorktown Victory Center gift shop. It requires me using a half hitch to tie on my yarn, and I just haven't been wanted to be bothered by tying knots every time I store the yarn, Especially since I prefer to keep a long length of pre drafted roving twisted around my left arm as I spin. I can just see the knots tht will ensue. Poor hubby will come in to find me in a tangle of wool fiber.

Hopefully I can get up to springwater sometime soon to test out some wheels. I'm really hoping for one for my birthday. (Please, Please fiber Goddess, inspire my family members!) Using a wheel seems to make much more sense to me than a spindle. Hubby is convinced that he can build me one. Oddly, he is fascinated by spinning, but he thinks knitting is garbage (I did teach him how to knit, though). He'll sit and watch me spinning for hours. I've told him that I want one good commercial wheel, and he can have unlimited time studying it so he can try building one. I'm so generous.

Alrighty kids

2006-04-02T09:15:00.000-04:00

Here is a LOOOOOOONG overdue update to the bloggy thingy. Things have been insane around here and blogging has unfortunately been the last thing on my mind. My favorite uncle came up to see us, I haven't seen him since I was my daughters age. We spent a wonderful week together catching up, and he left his dog for me to take care of for a month or so until he gets resettled in his new house. ~~Doofus~~ Rufus is an Amreican bull mix and so loveable. He is a big-time cuddle dog and will sit in any lap available if given an opportunity. He also brought an unexpected treasure to me. He brought a sweater the my grandmother had knitted him when he was in high school. It's not in the best shape, or the manliest color. (teal green mohair? I think granny was a bit tipsy when she chose the yarn) it is, however, an example of grandmas excellent cable work. It's also simple enough a pattern that I intend to remake a MUCH manlier version for my uncle for xmas.

I'm about two thirds done with the hubby's aran, but I started to get bored with it and refuse to look at it until I complete another small project. I'd originally chosed the Yarn over steek vest from loop-d-loop by Teva Durham but it same out badly. Well, I don't know if it was the shirt, or just me being insanely fat from hormone replacement. Instead, I started on socks (feet don't get fat!). I already frogged the Regia socks due to an incredibly bad pattern, so I started over with a pair made from Opal Rainforest in Chameleon to match my blue and lime green chucks.

One down, one to go. I am in LOVE with handknit socks. I put this on my foot last night and never found anything comfier in my life. I can't wait to get the next one done.

Also, Hubby and I decided to sitch our bedroom and the craft room. The craft room had gotten so crowded and junky that it was unuseable. The room that it was in is the smallest bedroom in the house. I was worried about making it our bedroom, but it is excellent as a bedroom. Quieter since it is further from the street, cozier, and better light during the day. It has more restful energy too. Maybe that's why I almost fell asleep at the sewing machine one day. The new craft room is ginormous. I've almost got everything organized and put away, and it looks like I'll even have room for an easychair for knitting. I'm so excited! My sewing machine thinks I've abandoned it, and I'm sure that the serger has long since plotted to break needles and snap thread in retaliation for my long absence. I'll post pics when it's completed.

well look what we have here

2006-03-28T21:49:00.000-05:00

Oh, my poor sad little blog. how have I neglected thee!

THings have been so crazy lately. I feel like I get only a few short moments to get on the computer and I check my email then run off to do something else. We are switching the craft room into the master bedroom this weekend. Maybe after that there will be more time to blog. Perhaps I'll even be able to get to my sewing machine!

YAY!

Until this weekend.....

What kind of knitter are you?

2006-02-12T23:34:00.000-05:00

I took the what kind of knitter test at Quizilla. This is what I came up with:

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting

and do it all the time. While finishing a

piece is the plan, you still love the

process, and can't imagine a day going by

without giving some time to your yarn.

Packing for vacation involves leaving ample

space for the stash and supplies. It can be

hard to tell where the yarn ends and you

begin.
http://marniemaclean.com

What Kind of Knitter Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

What. The. Fuck.

I am certainly no guru. I'm practically a beginner! This quiz is clearly flawed. It does, however, make me aspire to greatness. Check back in about 20 years, I'll let know know if I've acquired "Guru" status. Frankly, I'm sure I'll still be trying to figure out what went wrong on my mothers stupid shawl.

word cloud

2006-02-12T08:49:00.000-05:00

Almost Forgot!!!

2006-02-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

I love my hubby. I truly, truly do.

"Why?" you ask.

Is it his sweet face, his gentle words, or his thoughtful gestures? How about how tall he is, or his wonderful eyes, or the fact that he cooks MUCH better than I do???

No. None of these.

It's because he tells me it's okay to buy yarn.

Ok, part of the order was for a sweater he has been bugging me to make him. That's okay though. I still get guilt-free yarn. I took advantage of Smiley's yarn sale. I got enough wool blend for his sweater, sock yarn for Dad's kilt hose, and some thick and quick chenille for a mothers day cardigan for mom. Sure mothers day is in may, and she won't be able to wear the damn thing until October, but that's not the point. The point is, I get yarn.

I love my hubby.

I even love him just slightly more than I love yarn.

SNOW!!!!!

2006-02-11T22:45:00.000-05:00

YAY! It is snowing and soooooo pretty. of course this also means that the entire population of Virginia and Maryland has decided to get in their cars and drive into ditches. It's a little known law in both states that as soon as you see a single snowflake, you must immediately begin driving 10-15 miles ABOVE the speed limit and steer for the nearest immobile, solid object. Typically this occurs after the driver of said vehicle runs to their nearest grocery store to stock up on bread, milk, eggs, and toilet paper. This makes absolute perfect sense since naturally the person doesn't want to run out of the staples after the blizzard conditions that "occasional flurries" might cause.

Or maybe I'm just jaded.

Anyways, knitting update:

Due to technical difficulties, I ditched Sonnet at the last minute and cast on for Very Tall from Knitty. Cheap Yarn, awesome socks, relatively doable guage. I must truly be insane. I've wanted these since I first laid eyes on them. I have the perfect skirt to wear them with. I don't think I could possibly finish them in 16 days, but dammit, I'll try. Hopefully work will be quiet tomorrow. All the people will be scared to come out of their houses and into the snow and I can sit quietly at my cube and knit my socks. I manage to knit almost all of the regia sock in my previous post in one sunday shift, so here's to hoping that this sunday works out well too.

Slackerville!

2006-02-09T08:32:00.000-05:00

Time to update this thing! I've been back to work for almost a month now. Things are starting to come together financially. Since we had a bit extra this payday I went and got myself some presents.

First was some Regia sock yarn. I've made baby socks with worsted weight, but I wanted people size socks. I started the first one with a pattern I found on the net that was none too clear. Also I only had 4 dpns in the right size, I really need 4. Personally I think the sock is a mess at the moment. I'm going to go out and get a set of 5 dpns and rip back to before I turned the heel.

Next was some Moda Dea Ticker Tape. I love this colorway, it reminds me of southern Utah just before sunset. It's going to be for the yarn over steek vest from Loop D Loop, and at 2.69 a ball, I just couldn't pass it up. I love sales!

And finally, I had to buy a ball of Moda Dea Wild. There was only one ball there, for which I am very sad. I may have to try a few other Michaels and see if the still have it on sale. This particular colorway looks and feels like it was spun from shorn Muppets. i simply MUST have something knitted in muppet fur.

I've currently got a few items in progress, one of them being the aforementioned sock. The other being a Feather and Fan comfort shawl for my mother. I hate that shawl. I put it up the other day after realizing that i completely screwed up about 6 rows back and now have to rip them out. On top of it my mother picked an acrylic yarn whose plies like to split like a cheerleader at homecoming. RAAAR!

I've finished my anthropologie capelet, but I've been terribly lazy about blocking it. I made it a bit larger than the original and I added some rows to the body and the sleeves. I went for double stranded Patons Classic Merino in Chestnut. Bulky brown yarn is damn near impossible to find in my local stores.

I also finished a bag for a swap and placed an order for my first yummys from Handpaintedyarn.com. Sadly it won't be shipped until the 14th. I can't wait to get my hands on it. Now to figure out what to do with a couple thousand yards of laceweight yarn. I'm thinking of being boring and going for Clapotis. Funny it seems like I've done alot more than that lately, but that's all I can think of. Oh well, time for coffee and to give hubby a boot to the head to get him out of bed.

knitting olympics!

2006-01-17T23:00:00.000-05:00

Yay! I'm in the Knitting Olympics! God bless Yarn Harlot for making us all that much crazier with knitting stress.

I've decided to do Sonnet from Knitty.com

Sure, sure, it's not THAT difficult, but working full time and chasing kids is going to be eating so much of my time soon that managing a sweater in 16 days is going to kick my ass!

I have 9 skeins of funky vintage red heart bulky in a bizarre teal color. I know, acrylic is icky, but I'm broke, and this stuff is way softer than any red heart you'd find in a store nowadays. I also think I'm going to try doing the seed stitch version. Garter stitch kind of bugs me, and I need to get better at producing seed stitch in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe this will give me the motivation I need to learn continental knitting.

Bright side

2006-01-16T16:58:00.000-05:00

Ok, I went to go start cleaning and my previous post was so depressing that I had to stop so I could post SOMETHING positive.

I started on Julsey723's Anthropologie Inspired capelet. KAL found Here.

I'm doing it using LoisGriffinWannabe's original modifications using a double strand of Patons Classic Merino in Chestnut. I've separated out the sleeves and Have been working on the bottom. I'm trying to decide now if I want to make it a full size cardigan. I know I want longer sleeves. My chubby arms don't look good in those little sleeves right now.

I'll be posting pics soon of the WIP. For now, back to cleaning.

Holy slackerness, Batman!

2006-01-16T16:10:00.000-05:00

I haven't been on here for a while, clearly showing my blogging dedication.

It's been crazy around here lately. I finally went back to work, albeit part-time for now. We've totally spring cleaned the house (With the exception of our bedroom and the sewing room). John's been working insane hours. My daughters best friend is moving to California, so there have been lots of get-togethers, and frankly, I'm exhausted. And broke.

Very Broke.

Did I mention that I'm broke?

Being out of work for 2 months has killed us financially. I know It will get better, but when you are at the bottom, it's hard seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. My dear friend Beth took me out to lunch last week and as a late Christmas gift bought me 2 lovely pairs of very retro pumps. I felt absolutely terrible about it. I hate being poor. I felt so bad coming home with new shoes when I know that the rest of the fam needs them more, but i don't have the money for them.

Granted, it's a temporary setback. It's not like we're starving. it's just that I'm poor like I was many years ago. struggling single mom on her own, with a VERY modest income. it's become a case in the last 2 months of paying a bill or buying groceries. I hate that feeling.

Now that I've whined, I'm going to stfu and go do something productive. I'm going to clean and cook. Maybe I can't pay the bills right now, but I don't have to live in a hovel.

3 posts in

2006-01-06T09:52:00.000-05:00

total insomnia. not a picture or an interesting thing posted yet. Dammit. I resolve this weekend to post pictures of my current projects and link my blog out, or shall I forever be doomed to whiney blog hell.

Ugh....

2006-01-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

sooooooooooo tired. Sleep deprivation is so not me. I can't even take a nap today because they are doing utility work in my neighborhood! Oh well. Looks like I'll be on the sofa for the afternoon watching movies and working on the Mr.Dangly monkey I'm knitting for my son's birthday.

I think I'll have to get some pics together and work on this thing a bit more. fancy schmancy it up and stuff.

Ha!

2006-01-03T22:20:00.000-05:00

Hmmmm. First blog entry. I feel pressured. Hell, I'm not even sure why I'm starting one, but it seems like the thing to do, so here goes.