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Don’t make underwear out of Lamb’s Pride
Posted on | June 19, 2009 | 10 Comments
Honestly, that’s the title of a thread on Ravelry. I had to share it.
Happy Friday, people! Have a great weekend!!!
and the knit goes on…
Posted on | June 17, 2009 | 13 Comments
Sorry. Lame title, I know.
I’ve recovered my love of the knit (but my mother’s second sock remains missing) by casting on for a new project – the Hedgerow Coat from IK Fall 2007.
I decided to start with a sleeve since I didn’t feel like swatching and continued to knit way past the point where it became apparent that this sleeve was going to be way, WAY too long for any normal-sized human being. I know I’m not the only one who knits on in denial. What I don’t know is WHY!
It’s 28 inches long. It will be frogged and I’m not sure I’ll reknit it. It served its purpose, however, it got me back knitting, so it was time well spent.
Since I was feeling the knit-love, I got busy and finished my Tilly scarf! (I just now noticed there’s an errata. I don’t think I’ll even look at it, as I really love the way this scarf turned out and it looks good enough to me!)
This might become a present or I may hoard it for myself. It’s unbelievably light; I will definitely buy more of this roving!
The spinning continues as well. This is black BFL from Gale’s Art in her Fruit Salad colorway. I wanted to spin this differently than I normally spin multicolored roving, so I split the roving in half lengthwise and spun from the end onto two bobbins, then plied them together, hoping the colors would line up in stripes. They pretty much did, although there is a little barber-poling and I also played with the joins a bit.
This is what I’m spinning now. I’m kicking myself for not using the lace flyer (WHY am I afraid of the lace flyer?!?!) but it’s still very fine and also, very slow to spin. I had dreams of finishing this before Saturday, but I still have 2 oz. to go and do not think that’s going to happen.
Why before Saturday? Because we’re headed to the beach! Funny, I did the same thing last year with trying to finish yarn before vacation! I plan to take my computer along to try and catch up with everyone’s blogs. If you haven’t had a comment from me recently, know that it isn’t by choice. My office has now blocked flickr and any “social networking” sites, including blogs on typepad, blogger, and wordpress. Sigh.
btw – if you have any ideas for good beach knitting, please share!
four years in the making
Posted on | June 11, 2009 | 21 Comments
We’ve been in our house almost four years and for four years, I’ve had foliage, but no gladiolas.
This year, we got a surprise. I did not plant this, and I think I appreciate its beauty even more because I did absolutely nothing to create it.
It was a gift that I wasn’t expecting, and I wanted to share it with my friends.
dizzy
Posted on | June 9, 2009 | 22 Comments
Sometimes life can be pretty rough, and when it is, I spin.
70% targhee, 30% angora, a little over 500 yards of three ply from an 8 oz. roving ball I got at the January Spin-In.
4 oz. of merino/silk from River’s Edge Weaving Studio, also purchased at the January Spin-In.
This is some wool I dyed quite awhile ago and finally got around to spinning up. Haven’t measured yardage, I almost kept it as singles and kinda wish I had.
I can’t really expand on the “life is rough” comment because sometimes you can’t put all your personal business out there on the internet. My third blogiversary came and went and rather than posting about it, I pondered over how well you can really know someone from a blog – there’s no way that bloggers tell everything there is to tell about what’s going on in their lives, and it all seems very two-dimensional to me at the moment.
Sorry to be so morose – I’m sure this will pass and life will return to normal soon. I haven’t knit a stitch since returning from vacation – everything I’m working on requires chart reading and I just haven’t had the patience or brainpower for that. The one simple project I had going, a pair of socks for my mother, is in limbo until I find the beginning of the second sock. Yes, it’s gone. Lost. AWOL. Last place I saw it was Chuck E. Cheese, in a ziploc with 2″ of cuff, 3″ of leg and a set of Crystal Palace DPNs. To make it even worse, the yarn store I bought the yarn from has now gone out of business.
I believe I’ll spin some more.
eta: Thanks to good friends’ suggestions – the sock yarn I’ve lost is Jojoland Melody, colorway 11. Let me know if you find it! Ha.
vacation: the good
Posted on | June 2, 2009 | 18 Comments
Wow! Thanks for the encouraging words, and thanks especially to those who shared your own vacation woe-stories! It certainly makes it easier to think that we did the right thing by throwing in the towel on our Frontier House vacation!
So…back to the story. We drove home Tuesday afternoon, ending a 34 hour round trip from Alabama to North Carolina. Whew! We gave the weather a couple of days to improve and headed out early Friday to the Foster Falls Campground in Sequatchie, Tennessee. It rained a little on the way, but by the time we got there, the rain had stopped and it was wonderfully cool.
We hiked to the Open Door in the Savage Gulf State Natual Area – lots of stairs – I did not climb them all!
We saw more big trees…
and overlooks…
We visited the waterfall at Foster Falls, and I did climb all of THESE stairs:
I agree, it doesn’t look much like stairs, it looks like a big ole pile of rocks!
We had campfires both nights and great weather and even the roosters at the neighboring farm didn’t dampen our spirits! It was a wonderful end to our vacation and I already can’t wait to go back! There was even KNITTING!
This is the handspun Buffalo Robe roving I posted recently, and a really good start on the Tilly scarf from A Fine Fleece. Great pattern, great yarn, I am deeply in love with this scarf!
I think this is my favorite picture. He’s growing up so fast!
Thanks for bearing with me and my stories! btw - my office has blocked flickr as a “personal and social networking site” so I’ll have to start reading blogs at home so I can see the pictures! Can’t see anything on Ravelry, either. I imagine my productivity is going to increase tenfold!
Frontier House
Posted on | June 1, 2009 | 28 Comments
Recently I mentioned that I was about to embark on my own version of Frontier House, and that little adventure began last Monday.
Memorial Day morning, SB, the boy and I drove to Swan Cabin near the Joyce Kilmer Wilderness area in North Carolina. We knew the forecast was for 50% chance of rain for the first two days, but we were optimistic and excited to be spending a week in the woods, away from cell phones and television and, of course, work!
Despite exhaustive research, we had not read anything about the road to the cabin. I use the term “road” loosely. The road quickly went from blacktop to gravel, and when we turned off (and up) the cabin road, it became a deeply-rutted narrow gravel/dirt road, with steep drop offs on one side (waterfall!) and muddy hillside on the other. We were driving a Civic Hybrid.
We bottomed out once and had spinning tires but made it to the cabin, unloaded the car and relaxed for a couple of hours before it began to rain.
No problem, we thought, we can’t have a campfire tonight, but we’ll have one tomorrow night. We explored the cabin and I noticed quite a few mouse droppings in the loft upstairs. I had pretty much expected that – if you stay in a cabin built in 1931 in the middle of the woods, you have to expect a few visitors.
We did not expect the bats.
Around 4:30 in the morning (after a fretful night of wild storms, squeaky floors, mice scrambling overhead and actually waking up and finding a mouse dropping on my pillow, SB whispered to me that something was flying overhead. And then they all came. I wasn’t actually counting, because it’s difficult to count flying bats when you’re hunkered down with your sleeping bag pulled up over your head to protect your hair (wives’ tale or not, I wasn’t taking any chances!), but for the next half hour, I watched probably 30 bats fly into the cabin, circle around the loft overhead and then settle down – somewhere. It was kinda freaky. I could hear their high-pitched calls, it was like I was in the middle of a nature show.
There are no bats in this picture of the loft. I love you guys, but not enough to get out of my sleeping bag and fetch my camera with bats flying overhead!
I got up shortly thereafter, sleep no longer being an option, sat on the porch and read and thought about spending the rest of the week cohabitating with mice, bats and lord knows what else was going to show up. The sky threatened rain, and it had stormed all night. SB got up and we discussed the very real potential that if it rained a lot over the next few days, we would be stranded at the cabin, wouldn’t be able to drive to the hiking trails we’d planned to hike, couldn’t have a campfire (the boy was mostly depending on roasting hot dogs for his dinner) and could cause very real damage to the car if the road got worse with the rain. I struggled with feeling like a quitter and worry over a potentially dangerous situation. I tried to call the ranger station but the signal was too weak to hold my call. I could access the internet, however, so I looked up the forecast for Robbinsville, NC, and learned that it was 70% chance of rain for the next two days and nights, with some periods of heavy rain (up to an inch per hour). That pretty much sealed the deal. We packed the car and began the treacherous trip down the hill, which was actually a bit easier than going up. The sun came out and mocked us – called us big sissies.
We ate breakfast in town and discussed our options. Renting another cabin or a hotel room (with paved-road access) was the obvious solution, except for the forecasted rain. If we couldn’t hike, and we were stuck in a cabin or hotel room, we might as well go home! So, that’s what we decided to do – go home, regroup, check forecasts for other destinations and try to salvage what was left of our vacation. Before we left, we hiked the two-mile Joyce Kilmer Memorial Loop, which was lovely.
Many of the trees in the area are over 400 years old and 100+ feet high.
My family likes big trees.
We ended the vacation on a good note, but this post is long enough, so I’ll come back tomorrow and tell you how we finished out the week!
hooping
Posted on | May 20, 2009 | 19 Comments
I have a new obsession.
It’s a 42″ collapsible hula hoop from Spirit Hoops and it’s taken hold of me in a way that I never would have imagined. I woke up at 2:30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep because I was thinking of hooping. I’ve practiced in the back yard for 30 minutes before work the past two mornings. Yes, I’ve given up sleep for hoop practice. It’s that serious.
And it’s this video’s fault (I’m sorry, I tried to embed the video and couldn’t get it to work!). Doesn’t she make it look easy? And fun?!?! Well, fun it is, easy it isn’t. But I’m hoping that with lots of practice, I’ll be able to hoop too. When I got my hoop on Monday, I averaged 3-6 rotations before it crashed – now I can do 10-12 rotations. More occasionally, but the average is still pretty low.
Last night I went to a hoop fitness class and practiced with a 3 lb. water hoop, which was MUCH easier than my 1 lb. hoop. It travels more slowly across the body, which gives your brain enough time to understand the movements needed to keep the hoop going. I also learned to halo, which is when you move the hoop above your head, circling around your palm and across the back of your hand.
It’s an easy trick to learn, but hard on the hands. I need to practice with my left hand next, and give this bruise time to heal. Hooping is a great workout, it’s low impact and my abs and lower back are really sore, but not so much that I want to stop. If I ever get really good at it, I’ll make a video and show you guys what I’ve learned! In the meantime, there are some great videos in the Hooping for Knitterly and Crafty Types flickr group. Those girls are inspiring, I don’t know how they learned so quickly!
Now the shocker: I haven’t knit or spun in two days.
finishing things
Posted on | May 18, 2009 | 18 Comments
One of the best things about spinning is that when your yarn is spun and the twist is set, it’s finished! Yes, it will eventually become something else, but just creating a skein of yarn counts as finishing a project, at least in my book.
This is the yarn that was on the bobbin I posted recently. It turned out well considering how many neps were in the roving. I really like the way the colors came out! I need to do some more dyeing.
This is a fabulous tweedy blend I got at the January Spin-In. 500 yards from 4 ounces! It’s soooo soft, too. It’s Buffalo Robe from Three Bags Full and it was a lot of fun to spin. The sample tied to the bag had a good amount of twist which made a sproingy yarn and I tried my best to duplicate that when I spun it. I’m pretty happy with it!
Lastly, this is some domestic wool top that I dyed for sale when I demonstrated spinning almost two years ago. It didn’t sell, and I’m trying to spin down some of my stash that’s been hanging out the longest, so now I have yarn. Close to 300 yards of it. No idea what it will be.
Oh yeah, and I finished another sweater! No pics though, because it rained almost all weekend. Soon!
Mack was not happy with my skein-winding session, although I was at the table FIRST! Bossy kitty.
actual knitting!
Posted on | May 13, 2009 | 22 Comments
My Ariosa Cardi is finished!
SB and I sat out on the back deck last night and I hunkered down and got that sucker finished! My t-shirt says “normal people scare me,” in case you’re wondering, and yes, I do wear it in public.
My photographer left this morning before I could rope him into a backyard photo shoot, so for now all I have is this craptastic mirror shot:
I’m wearing it today! Hurrah! If it’s not raining tonight, I’ll get some better pictures and THEN I’ll count it as an FO.
In other knitting news, I have finished one sleeve of the Abstract Jacket and barely started the second sleeve.
I simply haven’t had the time or attention span to read charts right now, and so this sweater has to wait. Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion that it might end up frogged, which isn’t great incentive to work on it further.
My mindless sweater project, that I haven’t shown you yet, is actually almost finished!
It’s the Lion Neck Cardigan from Custom Knits, knit in Ella Rae Shibu, a discontinued silk/rayon yarn I bought from Little Knits for a song last year.
The silk is crunchy, it’s unforgiving, and it turns my fingers black, but man oh man, I love it! The swatch took quite a few rinses to get all the black dye out, but it’s soft and well…silky, and has fabulous drape that I’m hoping will make this a sweater I wear all the time!
My goal is to get both these sweaters finished in the next couple of weeks because we’re going on vacation and I am a firm believer that a road trip requires the casting on of a new project!
Where are we going on vacation? Let’s just say that we’re creating our own version of Frontier House. I’ll expand on that later.
Happy Wednesday! Happy knitting!
fiber guild picnic
Posted on | May 11, 2009 | 15 Comments
This Saturday was our fiber guild’s annual picnic out at Pia and George’s farm. This year we had double the number of attendees as last year!
There were people we hadn’t seen since last year, but the conversations picked right back up.
There were people working on projects, of course.
bobbin lace butterfly
Boutis in progress. This was really interesting – if you’re unfamiliar with boutis, it’s a form of quilting similar to Trapunto where two pieces of fabric are placed together, the design is outlined on one piece of fabric, lines of the design are hand-stitched, and pieces of yarn or cotton fiber are inserted between each line to create a raised design. It was lovely and looking around on the internet has peaked my interest even more! It would be a great project to work on when it’s too hot for a lapful of wool.
Of course, one of the best parts of going to Pia’s is visiting the sheep.
Pia had a couple of bottle-fed lambs this year and while the adult sheep ran from us, the little lambs were very friendly!
I wanted to take this one home with us.
Look at that wee little tail!
BAAA!!! BAAA!!! The boy perfected his sheep call. Can you believe how big he’s gotten? I can’t. I won’t be able to get by posting pictures without his permission for much longer.
I love Pia’s place. Everywhere you look is scenic tranquility.
Oh, and I finished the sleeves on my Arisoa cardi Friday night! Now if I can find the time to wash, block and seam, my April sweater will be done! Nevermind that it’s May. Hush! ;o)