Knit-N-Spinnin' Kitten

Done!

2010-03-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

Done with the Olympics: I'm always a bit wistful at the end of the Winter Games because I enjoy them so much and always want to watch more than I can.

Done with Ravelympics: Whew, I'm relieved that I finished my little spinning and dyeing projects. I wasn't sure I'd make it, but I did and had a lot of fun being part of Ravelympics 2010. Maybe I'll be brave and try a slighter larger project next time.

Done with February: It was better than January, thanks to DS's birthday and the Olympics. Onward to the transitional month of March! Longer days, new projects, contemplation of gardening . . . all good.

Hope March brings you good things too!

I'm on the podium! THE SEQUEL

2010-02-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here's 2 skeins of handspun wool (spun a while back on handspindles) that I dyed with Kool-Aid for a Ravelympics entry in the Downhill Dyeing event. Fun!

I'm on the podium!

2010-02-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

Here's my medal for my first entry in the Flying Camel Spin event in the 2010 Ravelympics! I made a 2-ply bulky skein of Racka wool on my Roosterick Navajo spindle.

It's a lovely grey, and I'm happy with it although it was softer in the batt than it is now. Hmm . . . I'm also working on some creamy-colored wool on a drop spindle and waiting on 2 previously spun skeins to dry after being dyed with Kool-aid.

Let The Games Begin!

2010-02-12T08:09:00.002-07:00

Hurray! Today starts the Winter Olympics, my favorite sports event to watch. Also I am happy that tonight will also start the Ravelympics. I am on Team Spindlers and am excited to do some spinning and maybe some Kool-Aid dyeing. There are so many events that I wanted to do -- it was hard to pick. Are you doing it? If not, we all need a cheering section and you can monitor our progress on Ravelry.

I know what you mean about SOAR. I'm still going to try to save some money to go, but it will entirely depend on my family obligations and how much I've saved when it is time to register. Things should be much calmer around here by October, so at least I can go to the Market on the weekend if the classes don't work out.

EDITED TO ADD: My Ravelympics fiber you can see on my Ravelry stash. To follow Ravelympics in general, go to the Ravelympics 2010 group and check out the special Ravelympics tabs for events and live coverage!

Felted Hat BEFORE, and an Historic Day for Geology

2010-02-11T05:23:00.000-07:00

Here's my felted hat before knitting! It's a natural brown because it was the only feltable thing in my stash in the right thickness. That's OK because my plan is to weave a sweet hatband for it. And to felt it before that, of course.

And the Historic Day: I finally felt an earthquake! One of my very longtime geologist dreams. There was a 3.8 quake yesterday morning, epicenter approx. 45 miles NW of Chicago, enough to give southern Wisconsin a shake. I woke long enough to wonder why the strong wind outside seemed to make the bed move and then I dropped back to sleep. I remember hearing a rumble but am willing to concede that might have been a snow plow.

Cindy

A harbinger of spring?

2010-01-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

(pause while I try to think if I really know what harbinger means)

Yes, it's that time of year! Not the first robin (she'd be crazy to show up here in January), but the Spring issue of Rowan arrived yesterday! Something to warm the heart of the weary crafter.

Other things that also encourage: a new project (backstrap woven, in my case), time with family, the support of friends, reading, yoga, looking forward to the new issue of Knitcircus, a really good cuppa java. Hope you are finding these helpful as well.

On the gear side of things: I decided to sell my 16" loom and my Bond knitting machine. My plan is to eventually get a wider rigid heddle loom. In the meantime, I am happily exploring backstrap weaving and (of course) spinning and Ravelry and planning new knitting projects.

Cindy

On weaving and the weary mind

2010-01-06T13:42:00.000-07:00

Like many fiber admirers, I am curious about textiles of all kinds. I'd been curious about weaving for a while when I got my rigid heddle (RH) loom on ebay in 2008. I've made a few things on it: a scarf, some washcloths, a three-paneled blanket (my loom is 16" wide), and a few false starts. Weaving is fun, and the RH loom made it easy for me to get started and also get started on a library of rigid-heddle books ;) And I already have a list of projects in my mind that I'd like to make. It's a great way to work with cotton, which I love but dislike knitting with. Of course, it is great with my beloved wool as well.

I'd been enjoying Weavezine for a while when I noticed this article on backstrap weaving. Wow! I could have a 2nd loom for very little money and try some new things. So after reading the article a few times and watching the associated videos, I found myself at Home Depot with some bits of wood and a fiendish grin. I joined weavolution and its Backstrap Weaving group, which is populated by friendly and helpful crafters. I've been very much enjoying the Backstrap Weaving blog (Thank you Laverne!).

Here are my backstrap weavings to date and some of the books from which I have gleaned wisdom (I own these but have also made use of my excellent local library!):

(we interrupt this post for some cursing because even though this image is NOT rotated before I upload, apparently blogger thinks this is what I want) I apologize for any neck pain this may cause. Obviously I did not make the turtle but he is modeling a "karate belt" that I did make. That and the other orange strip were supposed to be new straps for one of my knitting bags but due to tension problems (the warp's, I think, not mine) I ended the second one early. Dear Son saw them laying next to the sewing machine and said what nice mini-scarves I'd made. So one went to him and the other to Dear Daughter. The larger strap with the green cords is a backstrap I wove (using an old T-shirt as a temporary backstrap).

Backstrap weaving is still used by numerous people around the world although it is not so well-known in North America unless you read Weavezine. It allows you to use a continuous warp that you can weave all the way to the edges with no waste from tying it onto the loom. It can be used for a variety of projects and for different types of color work, so its humble construction does not limit creativity in any way! I continue to be captivated by this technique even though I am not very good at it yet.

Arghh. I feel like I need Backstrap Weaving for Dummies. I thought it would be fun to learn a new fiber skill completely from scratch and a welcome distraction from the challenges of my life. I was having warp tension problems before Dear Hubby's health problems (which I will not be blogging about here) but apparently my being stressed is complicating things as well. Or maybe I can blame my warping board (loose peg?). I've had a lot more false starts than I did with my RH loom. It's easy to fine-tune warp tension on a RH loom because the warps are tied on in small groups. With a continous warp, it's got to be good from the get-go. I may try backstrap weaving with a non-continous warp to see if it goes better . . .

I've warped my RH loom for some more washcloths while I think about it.
Cindy

Happy New Year!

2010-01-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year, dear friend and any readers out there in cyberland! It's been a crazy week, one of the likes I hope to never see again, so I haven't composed my resolutions yet. Still, I've been reflecting back over the year and there's been a lot of great things in it (and even in this last week).

I gave our blog a bit of a new look for the new year; feel free to tweak or change it as always, Alene. Hope your parents' visit is going well. We may get some new readers once I start posting more about my weaving; the backstrap weaving group on weavolution is a delightfully curious group.

Bye for now, Cindy

Humble pie

2009-12-17T10:13:00.004-07:00

Yup, I'm eating it. I got about 60% through a well-known, knitter-friendly lace shawl pattern (I won't mention the designer because it is so NOT her fault), and then realized about half my lace motifs were unrecognizable. Rats. I was following the chart closely; my stitch counts were good mostly. Huh?

This is ironic because I loved helping customers troubleshoot their knitting projects at my yarn shop job, and I even did pretty well with complicated lace. I deeply admire the amazing lace I've seen. I thought that after 30 years of knitting I should be able to do some lace more complex than "yo, k2tog" across and feather and fan (which I adore for its loveliness and simplicity). I can't honestly blame it on my slippery needles or slippery yarn or (ahem) relaxed gauge. Methinks (since this is not my first try at lace over the last few months) that my head is just not in the lace game right now. Me thinks also I will retry this pattern on different needles and yarn one of these days . . .

Craftwise, I have mittens and spinning and weaving on the brain lately. I want to do some knitting in 2010 for Afghans for Afghans. Did you know that SOAR 2010 will be held in Wisconsin?? I think I'd better start saving now -- I might fall down a lot at the market ;) Any chance you can come? C.

Slack and then slack some more...

2009-12-01T08:45:00.006-07:00

Hi Cindy!

I've been a bad blogger and not really much to show for it. I've been doing some knitting and crocheting but nothing really to show for it, at least no pictures. I guess the uncertainty with work has me a bit on edge and I haven't really accomplished much. I started to set up an etsy store to sell some of my excess items but can't get to writing up descriptions and posting them.

We still have no news on the budget. The state legislature met in special session last month but couldn't decide anything. And they may or may not meet this month. The longer they push the decision the deeper the cuts are likely to go. I think my position will be okay since I'm the only one that does the job and I've been with the state a long time (17.5 years if you can believe it!) but the one thing I think the legislature decided on was suspending the personnel rules.

Anyways, enough downer talk. I started painting the bathroom over the weekend. My parents come out four weeks from today so I'd like to have it done by then. I've gotten the cabinet done so far, next on to the walls. We've had fish in there since we moved in, since before we moved in and it was time for a change. It was rather childish looking so it is time for a more grown-up feel. I'm going for a modern, SE Asian feel. The cabinet is a dark purple called Deep Aubergine. I didn't do a deep sanding on it so it was the stained brown to start and the purple over makes it almost a deep claret color. The inside is a bright green, quite a contrast but you only see it when the doors are open. The walls will be blue and cinnamon and the ceiling and door will be a taupe color. It sounds a little weird but it was a color grouping I picked from a layout in a paint suggestion booklet I picked up.

I'll end with a picture of the yarn I've picked out for a baby blanket for one of my friends at work. It will be a feather and fan pattern. They are expecting a girl in February and don't want to go the pink route. I'm dropping the green mix boucle and am adding a deep pink. I knit up a test swatch in the color order I'm going to use and showed it to the dad. He loved the colors and said they were exactly what they're thinking. In fact the wall color for the room is just slightly darker than the mustard color I choose. Gotta love Cascade 220 for their color choices!

Time to finish, Take Care, A

A good fibery day

2009-11-24T10:19:00.003-07:00

Last Thursday I got two goodies in the mail and finished my new project bag! It has a knit handle (originally intended as a scarf) and woven sides. It is made of my handspun; the purple is Kool-aid-dyed and the other colors are from plying with dyed roving. All the natural colors are from my first fleece.

I have no idea why my pictures have sidewaysed themselves . . .

How I'm doing on my fleece

2009-11-19T07:45:00.003-07:00

Sorry I am pictureless again ... blog slacker, that's me. Oh, and I changed the comments to not allow anonymous any more since it looks like a spammer found my last post.

So here's the story so far of my fleece:

1. Go to farm and spend idyllic hour or two with kids and farmer on an early spring day. Leave with glorious fleece in back and kids in love with farming.

2. Roughly sort fleece at home and wash it. Discover that a better job of sorting (by texture and amount of VM as well as by color) would have been helpful. Glad that most of fleece pretty clean and not grass-embedded.

3. Start carding and spinning long draw after becoming enamored with this video.

4. Spin up a bunch of wool, ply some of it with itself and some with dyed samples from the April Phat Fiber box. Love just looking at the yarn.

5. Notice that although I am enjoying fiber prep, I am not doing it very evenly. Find this discouraging since I was thinking I might get enough yarn of the same weight to make a sweater version of this Rowan pattern.

6. Decide to make a vest instead. Decide that next time I get a fleece, I will have it professionally processed so as to be more consistently prepared. Fiber prep most fun if it turns out the way you want. :P

7. Decide vest will be too warm too, and opt to make a bag so I can have some of my special fleece with me in all seasons. Start bag twice (first time took too much yarn, 2nd try way too big). Remember pretty bag pattern in Weaving Made Easy and make a version of that instead. Bag is almost done; pics once assembly finished!

8. Join Team Spindlers for the 2010 Ravelympics! This should be fun as well as give me a timeline for getting that last pound of fiber ready for spinning. Enjoy thinking about what that yarn will become.

When you have time, would enjoy having an update on your WIPs! Love, Cindy

Ahh, autumn

2009-09-22T08:08:00.002-07:00

Yep, my favorite season is here. I'm planning to get back to my neglected rigid heddle loom, which you may (or not) remember was an ebay purchase maybe a year and a half ago (or not, middle age memory block). It's been weird having no children at home during the school day but productive! I'm almost at the end of putting up tomatoes, and I've been doing a variety of household projects. I've also dipped into the archives of the Cast On and Weavecast podcasts.

I've made some time for crafts, too. And just this morning I was thinking I ought to have a local mill card the rest of my fleece for me. Feeling weary of my preparation "skills", I tossed the bag of remaining fleece on my kitchen scale. One pound. You have got to be kidding. Do you know how much space one pound of clean fleece can take up? Apparently a lot. I'm not going to ask a mill to put a measly pound on their giant carding machine. Time to get back at it!

Silk Fusion

2009-09-17T21:03:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Hope the kids are still enjoying the new school year. DH had two tests this week, both on Monday night so he spent much of last weekend studying. While he was busy I took a Silk Fusion at Tempe Yarn and Fiber on Saturday afternoon. Here is the store's account of the class along with a few more pictures. Do you remember the article from last year's Interweave Felt where they fused a stack of silk hankies to make a small purse? This is basically the same process except the fibers are teased apart and laid flat. They are then dried vertically to give them a better feel.

Here are the five panels I made. This was the first time the class has been offered and they scheduled it for 3 hours. It was a bit long. I had used up my first pack of silk fibers (the blues, purples, greens and reds) by the end of the first hour and picked out a second pack.

We used 18" square plastic trays to lay the fibers out on top of tulle. The first layer was laid down and then a second layer was placed at right angles. A second layer of tulle was put over the top. From there we wetted the entire packet with a dilute solution of Textile Medium (1 part medium to 4-5 of water). We worked the solution in and then flipped the packet over and made sure all the layers were thoroughly wet. We then squeezed out the excess and hung the fused silk out to dry.

Being a hot Arizona day the fibers quickly dried. I did have to touch up the Textile Medium on one of my squares as it was not completely fused, and I may do the others too this Saturday. I have enough of the gold and green silk, with a little red, that I can do another square before I need to get more fiber.

This last square is my favorite and was actually the first one I did. It reminds me of a peacock. I have it hanging up in my cubicle at work. It could use a pressing but still looks really nice. I need to come up with a design for a bag.

Take Care, A

Take 2

2009-09-07T06:45:00.003-07:00

Hello! Hope things are cooling off there, and that the start of fall is going well for you. We're in the midst of tomato harvest (yep, lots of the garden is slow because of our cool summer) and adjusting to school. My house is strangely quiet during the day now. I'm doing a lot of jobs around the house to celebrate (??) my "freedom." I still feel busy but my stress level is going down!

I had to restart my felted bag because it was using way more yarn than I thought it would. I decided to go with a single-strand of yarn rather than the double I was trying and use a simpler color pattern to get the most mileage out of my handspun. I'm now making Hermione's Magic Knitting Bag from the fun book Charmed Knits. I also started my first real lace project! It uses laceweight yarn but on size 6 needles (whew) and is from the All New Homespun Handknit; it's called the Prairie Scarf. I got the book on ebay and it came with some alpaca/silk laceweight (not handspun, but it'll be eons before I have the skill the spin enough consistent laceweight to make anything). I don't have pictures of those yet, but I did update my Ravelry projects page with pictures.

Bye for now, love, Cindy

Amazing Dress

2009-08-18T21:33:00.001-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Have you seen this dress? The article about it is here. The skirt is made from the washed locks of her sheep. Pretty Amazing!

More soon, including pictures of spinning.

A

Crafty progress

2009-08-11T09:49:00.004-07:00

Greetings from August in Wisconsin! It's the time of garden delights, visits to our great city pool, assorted get-ready-for-school plans and anxieties, and reflection on the speed of summer. Thanks so much for the birthday package!! The kids loved the toys and I am head over heels for the lovely alpaca fiber! The top pictures are a recycling WIP; that's a 100% cotton thrift store sweater that was not serged together, price $4.99. It has huge sleeves and is a baggy style. I'm unraveling it and expect enough yarn for a vest or short sleeve cardigan for me.

The other two pictures show what I'm doing with my fleece: a bag to felt. The colored bits are from other sources but the natural color is form the Jacob fleece. The spinning has been great, and I liked the fiber prep pretty well too. If I get a fleece again next year, I'm going to get it prepared at a mill because the prep does take a lot of time and I'm not getting as consistent results as I'd like. The felting will hide my inconsistencies and give me something I can use year-round. I haven't decided if I will get another fleece or if I will join a local fiber CSA (yup, found one!) or just buy from one of our great local fiber sources.

Hope all is well in AZ! Love, Cindy

Happy Birthday Harry Potter!

2009-07-31T05:27:00.005-07:00

And JKR also, who I see in the paper this morning is 44. A good age, don't you think? Even though I have to wait 8 days to find out . . .

Here's a picture from about 2 weeks ago of the family with our 2009 cherry harvest! I haven't done the promised spinning & knitting post yet but have been staying out of trouble with domestic duties, seeing the HP6 movie with DH (we l0ved it), following the Tour in the newspaper, going to the geology museum's quarry fossil hunt, babysitting neighbors' pets, and the like. Only 1 month until school starts and I am both very keen for it and sad to see the summer race by. How did you do on the Tour de Fleece?? Was it fun? I'm thinking we maybe should form a team some year. More soon, love, Cindy, almost 44

Spinnin' the Summer Away

2009-07-21T22:09:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Glad to hear your weather has been treating you better than us. We've been hanging at over 110 for the last 10 days and it is getting really old. This weekend we hunkered down inside the house, trying to keep cool. We couldn't even hardly get in the pool since it faces full west and is pretty bright. I went grocery shopping on Sunday and it was 110 in the garage. Bleck!

Here is the Mountain Colors Lodgegrass I've been working on the last week or so. It was 4 ounces and I've been spinning for about half an hour each evening, longer on the weekend.

Margi finally got up the courage to sit on my lap while I spin. She's been circling me for the last 2 weeks. Finally on Sunday she jumped up and thought she should help me draft, with her teeth. Or maybe she just wanted to taste it. Yum, fibery!
This isn't a great picture of the plied yarn. It is really dark in this picture. I'll wash this and the last bit of Bill the Lizard soon and have better pictures soon.

As I hinted in my comment the other day I've learned a new skill. It was inspired by this library book. I love the knit flowers but there are even more crochet flowers. So, over the weekend I fired up YouTube and found a How-to-Crochet video called The Art of Crochet. It is actually a whole series of videos that covers the basics plus patterns, flowers and granny squares.

Here is my first bit of experimentation. The cloth on the right is all single crochet although I didn't do the chain stitch at the start of each row so it is a bit misshapen. The one on the left is a combination of stitches and done all around the edge instead of back and forth. It was almost free-form doodling but not quite.

And here is my first completed piece, it is a bag done in the round with single, double and triple crochet stitches, or at least my unlearned interpretation of what I was watching and reading. The bottom is Sugar N' Cream in chocolate ombre. The upper part is a Bernat Organic Cotton in mixed greens. It is a great size for projects.

Hope you've enjoyed the pictures. I'm still waiting on that piece of raspberry tart, looks yummy! Are you headed out on vacation around your birthday? I've picked up something for your birthday and I want to make sure you're around when it arrives.

Stay Cool! A

Summer update, part 2

2009-07-21T05:18:00.003-07:00

Hi! Here's most of the handspun I've made so far this summer. The blue and purple are from a roving I got at the Sow's Ear. The greens are from samples out of the April Phat Fiber box. The grays, browns, and natural "whites" are from that lovely Jacob fleece.

I dithered a lot about what to make from my fleece. At first, I wanted a Kaffe Fassett vest but kept thinking that a multi-colored vest would be pretty hot to wear . . . not a bad thing in Wisconsin but toasty enough to limit its wearing to winter only. So I've opted to make a groovy Satchel instead. I'm going to knit a Kaffe multi-color pattern on the big blank space on the outside. This also has 2 great advantages: I can carry it with me everywhere I go year-round ;) and it hides the (ahem) many irregularities in my spinning from my learning to card and spin long draw.

We've been busy with the garden (doing amazing despite a cool dryish summer) and assorted family activities like going to the County Fair. Hope all is well there. How goes the TdF?? Love, Cindy

Summer update, part 1

2009-07-15T06:56:00.004-07:00

Hi Alene! Here's some of what I've been up to this summer. No, I'm not playing poker; those & the jar are for a Hogwarts-style points system for the kids. That's a raspberry dessert (yum!). I'll get together my spinning for a photo op as soon as a few skeins are dry. Hope your Tour is going well. May the Fleece be with you until my next posting, Cindy

p.s. I LOVE your Team's Oz-themed ravatar.

Here come the mountains!

2009-07-10T05:08:00.003-07:00

Yay for you, Alene, in the TdF! I'll be at your water stops to cheer you on, spinning on the sidelines. :) Thanks for your recent posts, and so sorry to hear of your loss. Loved the pictures from the Navajo Nation and also the felting; made me itching to start another project LOL!!

I'm spinning up my Jacob fleece and some dyed merino/tussah from my LYS. It's a great stress reliever, and a progress report will be coming soon to a blog near me & you. Love, Cindy

Tour de Fleece

2009-07-08T22:29:00.007-07:00

Hi Cindy!

As you know both the Tour de France and the Tour de Fleece began on Saturday. I've decided to take the plunge this year. I've joined the local team, Fred's Fiber Fiends from Tempe Yarn and Fiber. I love this Ravetar that one of the members created. What do you think?

Here is most of my fleece. My goal for the tour is to spin up as much of it as possible. I estimate that I have probably less than 5 pounds total. The only thing not show here is the fiber from the Mystery Spin Along from last fall. I've only spun two of those recipes so I'd like to finish that too.

Margi thought she'd check out the wheel. Of course the bobbin is off so she couldn't really spin all that much.

Here are two bobbins worth that I spun up on Monday and Tuesday nights. Tonight I plied them together.
The fleece was "Bill the Lizard" that I bought from Violet (of Lime & Violet's podcast). Half of the braid was green and half was purple. The first half of both I spun separately and then plied together. These I mixed the green and purple on each bobbin so I ended up with a mix of green sections, purple sections and combined sections. I really like how it plied together.

Here are all the hanks I've spun from the fleece. The top two are the earlier ones and I've washed them already so they've muted slightly. The bottom two are the new ones. There is still a portion on one bobbin that I'll either ply on itself or with a different single.

More soon, A

Time Flies

2009-06-29T08:38:00.010-07:00

Hi Cindy!

I'll start off with our sad news first. DH's grandma passed away on Friday. She'd been such a tough old gal, hanging on way longer than anyone really expected. There was nothing specifically wrong with her, her body just wound down to its end. The last 6 weeks were the toughest, walking along the edge of expecting her to pass at any time and then her rallying, repeatedly.
The picture above is from over 2.5 years ago when she was still rather spry although getting weaker. Although the last couple of months have been hard, we're glad she's at rest now and we can remember the happy times. Until her eyesight got too bad (macular degeneration) she used to spend long hours quilting.

My friend L got married earlier this month. As a thought for a shower gift I decided to try a nuno felt shawl. I bought a plain white chiffon scarf through Dharma Trading and dyed it a pale lavendar. Below it is laid out on a layer of bubble wrap. I then randomly covered it with bits of roving in various shades of purple and then some wisps of green dyed mohair locks. I wet it with soapy water and then covered it with old nylon curtains and rolled it up in matchstick bamboo placemats like a giant burrito.

After working it for quite a while, re-wetting it as necessary, I finally gave up. My arms were too tired to continue. Here is the finished item.

And here is a close up of it. I like how it looks but there are bits that aren't felted and I didn't feel comfortable about giving it as a gift. I'm not sure if it would do well as a shawl/scarf or if it should just be a wall hanging. As you can see the generic wool felted into the silk just fine but the mohair locks didn't do as well. I'm waiting for Margi to find it and lick it.

As I said above, my friend L got married earlier this month. She is Navajo and her parents live on the reservation in NE AZ. She planned the wedding to be on her grandmother's land on the Defiance Uplift. We drove up on Friday and took a scenic route up there. Instead of taking I-40 from Holbrook to the state line we went north on a little two lane road, past the west side of Petrified Forest, towards Keams Canyon. It was rugged and beautiful with little traffic. There is a series of old volcanic plugs along the road that have eroded into scenic buttes.

We stayed 2 nights in Window Rock, AZ, the capital of the Navajo Nation. This is the road out of Fort Defiance to L's grandma's place. More beautiful scenery (even if it is obscured by a bug smear).

And here is L being escorted in by her parents. The entire ceremony was a blend of a typical wedding ceremony with Navajo elements as well as Russian-Jewish traditions for the groom although no breaking of the glass and no chuppah.
The ceremony was in a lovely meadow with beautiful red rocks as a background. It was a very sunny and windy day. Early in the ceremony L's veil blew off and on of her aunts caught it. The unity candle ceremony didn't do so well as the candles kept blowing out. The minister they had went way beyond the non-secular ceremony they requested. They were only supposed to have a Navajo blessing but the cousin in charge of it went ahead with the entire Navajo wedding ceremony, complete with the blue corn mush. As one of our friends from work observed, of all the parts of the ceremony, the Navajo portion seemed the most binding.
Despite the sun, wind and delayed time schedule (they were over an hour late getting started) it was a beautiful wedding. I ended up with a pretty severe sun burn on my face and arms but the sting and color has faded and we're just left with the happy memories.

More soon, A

A real entry soon, I promise

2009-06-16T07:48:00.002-07:00

Hi Cindy,

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately. I could use the trip as an excuse but that was over 2 months ago. Mostly we've just been about work, school and family crises. DH finished up his A&P class last month and ended up 3rd or 4th in the class. He had a high enough grade that he didn't have to take the "final". Right after that his work kicked up a couple of notches and his grandmother moved closer to the end.

His work has been crazy for the last year with all the unemployment extensions and then there have been lawsuits added on top. He's never really been comfortable in this job and it has just gotten worse. Additionally in the middle of this his grandmother has been close to passing away a couple of times and he gets no sympathy from his boss. We've gotten calls 3 times in the last month from his mom that the end is in sight just to have her rally.

In the midst of all this I have been doing some knitting. Unfortunately, no pictures right now. I will write more in the next couple of days, I hope.

More soon, A

Catch-up blogging

2009-05-11T06:51:00.005-07:00

Hi Alene! Hope all is well there. I've been having a busy few months. It has not been without some time for crafts, however. Here is my washed fleece and a picture of the four color piles I've sorted it into. Since I'm planning a Kaffe Fassett project, strict color sorting isn't needed. Also here is my first skein from the dark pile. You can't easily see its unevenness because of the color. It was a useful sample because I've gotten more even in my rolag making and doing better at spinning woolen (thanks to some amazing YouTube videos).

Those are this spring's apple blossoms on our young tree. Ciao for now, Cindy

Daydreaming of lace

2009-04-22T04:46:00.002-07:00

Hi Alene, I've been daydreaming of lace lately. Why? The gorgeous Aeolian Shawl from the latest knitty. Beautiful, beautiful, and with an earthy name as well. I hope to make one someday.

More realistically at this point in my life, I should do something a bit less complex since I have almost no experience knitting lace. I'm leaning toward that Mason-Dixon Knitting beauty, Belinda. I also like the Spinner's Shawl. Both of these have the virtue of being done on medium-sized needles for a small-needle-wimp like me.

I've got my fleece all washed now. It looks even better and a lot less yellow (that wasn't pee; it was dirt stuck to lanolin, whew). Fluffy and crimpy and soft. Ahhh.
C

What I Did On Spring Break

2009-04-18T04:58:00.008-07:00

Last fall I chatted with Diana of Dreamfarm at our local farmer's market. As a long-time buyer of her family's excellent goat cheese and eggs, I was pleased to see yarn at her booth and bought a couple of skeins. Although the dairy goats and chickens are the mainstay of their farm, they also keep a small flock of Jacob sheep. They have wonderful spotted fleeces that she has made into yarn at a local mill. We made plans for me to get a raw fleece from her in the spring. I left the market that day feeling happy and a little dazed; my first fleece!! I didn't know until I asked her that I even wanted one! :)

So about 2 weeks ago, the kids and I went to pick up my fleece. It was a sunny but cool spring day, one of those days with a crisp blue sky. Diana gave us a farm tour. We got to pet the baby goats and the mama goats. We got to go inside a chicken shelter and adore the farm's big gentle dog! In fact, it was one of those days that make me wonder why I'm not a farmer myself. Diana emailed shortly after and said we'd narrowly missed the birth of twin goats.

I've been washing my fleece, a five-pounder from a ewe named Grace. She was pretty clean and almost all of her fleece is quite soft. I've gotten most of it washed, using the directions in the back of Start Spinning. I'm very happy with it and looking forward to spinning it. Hope all is well in AZ!

Quickie

2009-03-31T23:04:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy,

I should be headed off to bed but I haven't written yet this month and there is only 40 minutes left in it so I thought I'd post a few pictures.

We got new cell phones a couple of weeks ago. Mine is a pretty blue one that I want to protect so I made a couple of cozies. Guess which one is mine.
Two weeks ago DH went backpacking in Aravaipa Canyon with a couple of his buddies, one from Seattle and one from Dallas. It was the first trip they've done together in 14 years. Aravaipa Canyon is SE of Phoenix. I drove them down to the east end which is near Safford and picked them up two days later on the west end. Before I could pick them up though I had to call AAA for a jump, the truck battery had died.

Aravaipa is a perennial stream so they didn't need to carry water. There were plenty of frogs and fat squirrels to keep them company. They didn't see any rattlesnakes so it must have been a bit early for them.
The main part of the canyon is a Bureau of Land Management Wilderness area. You have to get a permit to hike there and they only let a limited number of people in each day. The Nature Conservacy has purchased ranches at both ends to help preserve the area.

This is my favorite picture. DH took it in one of the side canyons they hiked up to. Notice the columnar jointing in the canyon walls. Looks like a volcanic tuff to me. And notice how the smooth erosion of the walls is almost exactly the same height as the boulder in the distance. Imagine the force of the flash flood to move that!

I'll close this off and head to bed. DH is dropping me at the airport on his way to work. My flight leaves shortly after 10 and I should be to MKE by 3:30. I'll see you on Friday and may give you a call beforehand. Looking forward to seeing you! A

Love those natural fibers!!

2009-03-16T09:35:00.004-07:00

Hi Alene -- spread the word: it's the International Year of Natural Fibers !! Word is starting to get around. I've read about it on Spindlicity and on the Martha's Vineyard & Hudson Valley Fiber Farms blog. Of course, my love of things woolly is well known but I can't wait to learn more about and see what people do with other natural fibers this year too.

The picture is of fiber and yarn scraps, mostly wool but other natural fibers, too, that I carded together to spin for Ravelry's Spin Your Scraps contest. What's going on with natural fibers down there in the desert?? ;) C

Start 'em Young, Part 2

2009-03-13T11:31:00.002-07:00

DS spinning some pencil roving (no drafting required) -- any idea why it is underlining??

My service project

2009-03-02T05:31:00.002-07:00

Remember a few posts back when I talked about making mittens for the homeless? I still think it's a good idea, but when I saw the low off-season prices of mittens at the store (yes, it is insane but mittens & gloves go on sale in February here in tropical Wisconsin), I wondered if I wouldn't help more people by raising some money. I've been thinking about how to do it. So here's what I'm going to try: Spin up some fun yarn in Ravelry's Spin Your Scraps challenge and knit it up into a scarf; then I'll auction off the scarf to benefit a local charity that helps homeless people in my city. So in March I'll work on the spinning!

Check it out!

2009-02-21T11:18:00.002-07:00

New spinning books on the horizon: this summer and this fall (all about spindling!). Hurray!!

Crafter's block, plus goals update

2009-02-20T09:59:00.003-07:00

Hi! Glad you are emerging from the winter icks. We're doing all right here. DS wants to learn to spin on the wheel so may try that soon. DD thus far hasn't done more than twirl the spindle and treadle the (empty) wheel but I'm encouraged by her early interest.

I've been having crafter's block for a while now. It took me lots of tries to get a Shawl Ministry project to stick with; it's a lap robe using the Babette Blanket pattern but in less thrilling colors. I'm smitten with the brights but they need some projects with more subdued colors.

I started a few projects with lovely cotton, but as usual, it makes me sore if it's anything bigger than a tawashi. So I'm going to weave with it instead.

The Big Rectangle? Poor thing. First I realized I had enough yarn but not in enough colors (what gives, I always have too many colors in too small amounts) . . . so I decided to weave a rectangle shawl. But that was giving me something probably too heavy (when I know more about weaving, I'll be able to get around that, I imagine). I considered this sweater and still am, along with some other wraps: Mananita, Nina, and Belinda. The trick: I need to use stash because I'm getting my fleece at the end of April and suddenly that seems soon. Must make room.

I've been doing Navajo spindle spinning and loving it. Really all I want to do is spin a lot and knit and weave some . . . so that's another challenge for using up the stash. Hmm. I was very moved a few weeks ago by a story of a homeless person barehanded; I felt a strong urge to "whip" up a zillion mittens to cover all those cold hands. But I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to raise some money to help instead (I'm also always leery of repetitive strain injuries, so any project that involves me whipping out lots of something, well, doesn't usually happen).

Bye for now, C

Still Alive

2009-02-18T09:23:00.004-07:00

Hi Cindy,

After well over a week of being sick, followed by DH being sick, I'm finally almost back to normal. I caught a nasty bug last month, right after DH's birthday and ended up missing 4 days of work over 2 weeks and the cough hung on for quite a while afterwards. I went to Urgent Care the second day and it still hung on for over a week. It didn't go away until I went again and got antibiotics. That seem to kick it.

Surprisingly I didn't do much knitting during all my sick time home, just lots of sleeping and resting. I've started back at it the last week or so. Today will be the first day my friend and I go down to the gym again after both of us being sick.

As you may have seen on the news we have a very important visitor in town today. Actually he arrived yesterday afternoon. It is hard to seen in this picture but there is snow on top of Four Peaks in the background (near the tail of the plane). Pretty cool. He's speaking at Dobson High, a couple of miles from our house. We talked briefly about trying to get tickets but we would have had to get there Sunday night to stand in line until 10 am Monday. They had about 1000 people show up and only 500 tickets.

I've got a post coming about some wedding knitting/crafting I'm doing for a friend. She's getting married in June and I've made few things in prep for the shower.

More soon, A

Need help with a sweater?

2009-02-08T06:13:00.003-07:00

Try Farli's blocking service! (or perhaps she's ready to advise on button placement ?? )

Start 'em Young, Part 1

2009-02-08T06:11:00.001-07:00

DD trying out a spindle with a leader attached. :D

2009 and lots of goals

2009-01-31T10:03:00.007-07:00

Tee hee, so much for blogging the next day . . . hope all is well in AZ. We're doing well here. My niece L just had her 1st baby, a little boy (Dad's 3rd great-grand), so I'm thinking I need to whip out some kind of gift. I've been meaning to write about several things, so we'll see how my memory is right before lunch.

Do you make New Year's resolutions? I like the opportunity to reflect and set goals. So here are mine for the New Year (not in any special order):

1. Stick with my exer-stash goals as I make them in the Ravelry group Exer-stashers. Basically, have a program of regular exercise! In my case, also lose 10 pounds and get some cholesterol-busting eating habits.

2. Learn more about weaving. I am really liking the low-tech weaving I'm exploring with my rigid heddle loom and a homemade warp-weighted loom (more on that in a future entry). Remember the Big Rectangle? It was nothing but fun to work on but had the bad luck of being started right before I learned about my congregation's Shawl Ministry and got the bug to spin a fleece and also do more weaving . . . so long story short, the Big Rectangle is now a weaving project, loosely based on its knitted ancestor. Go ahead, say I told you so. :D

3. Continue my exploration of baking but not just with yeast breads that my family can't embrace. ahem.

4. Start saving for some of those big vacations we dream about here so that we don't have to rely on imaginary money.

5. Explore some of the Asian and Indian recipes in our cookbook collection ;) Also, in the fall, try to find a use for everything in the winter storage share, maybe even the turnips this time (gulp).

6. Make some mittens for homeless people in keeping with my desire to do something to be part of the "new age of responsibility."

That should give me plenty to work on besides all the other stuff of life. I'd better paint the bathroom pronto. love, Cindy

Before the kids wake up . . .

2009-01-15T05:21:00.004-07:00

I thought I'd toss a few pictures up and try to catch up on blogging! First, two pictures of he lovely Estonian lace socks DH bought for me from a charity fundraiser at his work: they really are from Estonia, cool, eh? I wear them in bed on chilly nights (like last night! It's about 15 below now, 6:30 am, and schools are closed cuz of wind chill danger).

Next is a HP-inspired hat I made for DS top-down so that it is the size I intended. Yay!

Also here is the lovely Faroe Island roving I got at the Sow's Ear as my first "exer-stashers" reward. I joined an exercise support group on Ravelry to support my New Year's resolution of very regular exercise and healthier eating, partly so that I can lose those last 5-10 pounds I've been wanting to get rid of but mostly because I need to lower my cholesterol some.

We took the kids to Cave of the Mounds a few days after Christmas, and we all loved it! It was the first visit there for the kids.

More soon (perhaps tomorrow cuz the wind chill warning lasts through midday Friday), C

Birthday Scarf

2009-01-08T22:18:00.004-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Last Saturday was my mom's birthday. I didn't get anything knit for her beforehand so I decided to try a wet felted scarf. I chose approximately an each ounce of cranberry and charcoal merino plus a mix of coopworth and the mystery wool I carded when I took my first spinning class. Probably about 4 ounces total.

I laid a vinyl tablecloth down and used bamboo place mats and old nylon curtains to lay the fiber on. The bottom layer I placed horizontally with the red and grey distinctly separated by white.

The middle layer was only the white, running vertically.

The top layer I mingled the red and grey more with the white between the layers. I then went down the entire mass and started working it over. I had a massage roller with with tiny plastic nibs all over to first work the fibers together. I then folded the nylon curtains over and rolled the mass in the bamboo place mats. I then rolled them back and forth several time, checking frequently.

After felting the layers together, fulling the full piece with hot water and rinsing, I soaked it in vinegar water to get the final bits of soap out before tossing in the dryer for about 15 minutes. This gave it the final bit of fulling before I hung it to dry. I worked on the piece for about 3 hours total and then it took another 2 days for it to finish drying.

I showed my friends at work and they were all impressed by it. It started about 6 feet long and probably 15 inches wided and ended up about 5 feet long and 12 inches wide. I wrapped it up yesterday and sent it off so it should only be about a week late. I used a Knit Picks catalog for the wrapping and for a bow, with a little bit of a Patternworks catalog.

I cut several knitting catalogs into strips last week and made a paper chain for my friend CG's cubicle. Her birthday was on Sunday. She took a picture of them before she took them down so I'll eithe post it here, along with the crown I knit her, or post it on my finished Ravelry projects. It was pretty fun.

Hope you are staying warm! More soon, A

When Good Projects Go Bad

2008-12-31T12:12:00.002-07:00

Hi Alene, and Happy New Year to you and yours. We had a nice Christmas with most of my family coming over on the 21st. DH's dad visited earlier this month so the gift extravaganza was spread out. As for me, I received yarny things from the family: the new Mason Dixon book, 2 skeins of wool yarn from a favorite farmer's market vendor, and the 2009 Spindlicity calendar! Thank you for my gift certificate; I look forward to spending it as soon as possible :D

I've recently had 2 projects go bad. First was a pair of mittens that I was improvising but they came out way too wide with a too narrow thumb and a too short cuff. Methinks I'll frog them and try again with a little less improvising. The 2nd one is the bedsocks I've been making for the Shawl Ministry. Here's a lesson to pass on: don't try turning the heel on a new sock architecture while watching Wall-E with the pattern book on your lap, no notes, a cuppa coffee on one side, and a 4-year-old asking "Why?" repeatedly on the other. Also it is not easy to make socks to fit an unknown pair of feet from a previously untried pattern. Well, duh.

Am contemplating my New Year's resolutions; post on that soon. Bye for now, love, Cindy

Year End, and a Beginning

2008-12-31T08:27:00.004-07:00

Hi Cindy,

Hope you had a Merry Christmas! We went up to DH's parents in Cottonwood. I got off at 12:30 last Wednesday and then headed to Scottsdale to pickup BIL. After trying to set up his new printer we headed back down to our house to pack the truck. DH didn't get off work until the regular time, 4:30. His bosses are scrooges. Traffic on the drive was pretty light. We got up there in less than 2 hours.

Christmas day was cold and rainy and we didn't hardly even go out of the house. DH's parents aren't in to the whole gift thing so we didn't really have gifts to open. We did get his brother an IPod Shuffle. He's really excited about it but his computer is so old and slow that he's coming down tomorrow to set it up. We had snow flurries on Friday which was a lot of fun. Actually it was more snow clumps, kinda like hail but out of snow. We went over to see DH's grandmother on Friday. She is 95 and still hanging on. She is very frail and doesn't get out of her room much but is still pretty with it mentally.

On Saturday was the big grand opening of the light rail in the valley. We've had to deal with the construction for the last 3 years. I've tracked down these pictures since I don't have any of my own. This first one is right outside my office.

The crowds for the grand opening were pretty ridiculous. They're giving free rides through today and it has been jam packed. They estimate 100,000 people rode on Saturday, 50K on Sunday and the last 2 days have been just as packed after the morning commute.

DH and I took the train into work yesterday. We have a bus that runs just down the street from us so we take that to downtown Tempe. From there we catch the train to Phoenix. DH has to transfer in downtown Phoenix but it goes right past my building with a stop less than a block away. Morning wasn't too bad but going home was jammed.

DH met me downtown and by the time he got on we were basically sardines. We did stop in on Mill in Tempe to have dinner before catching the bus back home. It takes slightly longer but once the tourists clear out it should be pretty nice. The train runs on street level and goes with traffic so they don't stop the cross-traffic when the train comes through.

Since it's been free the last several days everyone around the valley, plus all the visitors in for the holidays and the two bowl games, are trying it out. There were whole families riding it from one end to the other. The line is 20 miles long, the longest in the country to open at once. The ride is smooth and quicker than the bus line that previously paralleled it.

There were celebrations all along the route on Saturday and Tempe's ended with fireworks over the lake just after sunset. I'll keep you posted how it goes for commuting after all the tourists are gone.

Happy New Year!

A Quickie

2008-12-18T23:33:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Now that it's been over a month since I last posted I thought I'd throw up some pictures and then write something later. Here goes. First up, Salmon Carpacio plied.
Next: Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Here are two pictures of the wet-felted bag I did the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Not perfect but I like the flowing, organic nature of it.

A cowl I knit for Shinkai: The neck portion is the Birthday Cowl and the bottom portion is from Poinsettia (Knitty Winter 2008). It is from Malabrigo Worsted and the color is Red Pearl.

Finally a simple Ribbed Beanie for Sokai, Cascade 128 Tweed. Love it!

Merry Christmas if I don't write beforehand! A

Mystery Spin-Along

2008-11-16T21:21:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Love all the pictures you've been posting! You keep making up for my slacking. Thanks for the magazine subscription! Your card had gotten pushed between election flyers and I found it yesterday when I went through the mail. We tend to pick out the important stuff and let the flyers and junk mail pile up for a week or two, or three.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I am participating in a Mystery Spin-Along at Tempe Yarn and Fiber. Since the owners' daughter recently graduated from culinary school they decided to go with a food theme.

Instead of being on a fiber diet, we're indulging in fiber and whipping up some food-inspired yarns. In our fiber pantry we received twelve different colors to mix and create our pallets for each recipe.

Our first recipe was Marinated Salmon Carpaccio. We received the recipe along with their suggested mixing proportions.

It was then up to us to blend the fibers however we wanted and then spin up the yarn. Some of the participants have drum carders or hand cards but I have neither. I fluffed first the fibers for the salmon and then the ingredients for the dressing and spun them separately.

Next I will ply the singles together. Unfortunately my wheel is being a little cantankerous and isn't wanting to take up on the ply. I think when we built it last year we got the drive band too long. I have the set screw all the way in and the drive band still has plenty of slack. I need to take the plunge and cut it to a better length. I'll tackle that tomorrow after work.

Recipe 2 is "Chilled Red Pepper Soup", Recipe 3 is "Pears with Avocado and Lime" and Recipe 4 is "Focaccia with Feta, Pesto Tomatoes and Olives". I have all the fibers separated out but I only have four bobbins so I don't have enough to have everything spun waiting to be plied.

Tomorrow we will get recipe 5 and I'm waiting to see what it will be. We have not yet had a main course or a beverage. And I was trying to imagine what dessert will be. I bet something with blueberries since we got a small piece of navy in the pantry.

On December 5 we will have a Show-and-Tell at the store to see how everybody's yarns turned out. I'll make sure to post a link to it when they have the pictures up. Some people are also posting in the "Fred Made Me Do It" group on Ravelry.

I will close this now. I have some pictures of knitting to post one day soon as well as more cute cat pictures and some of our orange tree. The fruit gets closer to ripe each day. Probably around Christmas it will be ready to pick.

Take Care, A

Out of control plying

2008-11-15T06:01:00.005-07:00

Hi! I really like November. I still love watching snow showers; it's quite pretty. True sweater weather with no need to rush to the shoveling :D

I got a bit of spinning done. I separated out the blue-green part of a Mountain Colors Targhee top and spun the singles from the fold on my wheel. That was fun! Then I wanted to ply it but do a better job than I usually do. Last time I plied I tried a DIY tensioned lazy kate and thought it worked great (cheap too!!). I didn't have quite the right size of basket available, so this time I wound it off on my nostepinne, stuck a size 15 straight knitting needle through the middle of the ball to help me keep the center under control, and plied from both ends of the ball with my largest drop spindle. It came out nicely and mostly under control! I'm going to find a proper size basket for the DIY kate and change my plying ways.

I finally put up a pic of DH's slipper socks on Ravelry. I wasn't really settling on a Shawl Ministry project but now think I'll do a throw but in strips, so I can carry it around easily and not worry about running out of yarn. Later, love, Cindy

Election Day

2008-11-04T05:26:00.002-07:00

Halloween weekend

2008-11-03T18:50:00.007-07:00

Hi! We're having a warm spell here; it was nice to trick-or-treat without winter coats. Since DST wasn't over, it was even a bit light when we started. The kids did get lots of candy.

No school on 30th or 31st for teachers' convention. DH took the 30th off. In the morning, we went to Schuster's Playtime Farm, a venture run by our high school classmate Ms. T. Click on the link about the family and you will see a familiar face. I didn't get a chance to visit with her because the farm was very busy due to the days off from school being so close to Halloween. Their farm is LOADS OF FUN with animals to pet, areas to play in, a kid-size maze with hay to jump in, and lots more. We'll do their big maze some time when the kids are a bit older. The kittens were probably the most popular with DH and DD but it'd be a tough call. :D

On the crafty front, I took a Needle Felted Animals class at the Sow and had a great time. My little bright zebra pales in comparison to the animals created by my classmates but I learned a lot, had big fun, and can't wait to do more. I also have this crazy idea that I'm going to buy a Jacob fleece in the spring from a local farmer I'm acquainted with (OK, it's more than an idea; I've verbally committed to go to the farm to pick it out while the sheep is still wearing it!!! Never worked with a raw fleece before so not sure how I know to pick a good one . . .) So I am going to be strict with myself about working only from stash until then! Only exception would be if I need yarn for Shawl Ministry project but I can probably use yarn donated for that purpose.

We've also been following the election closely. Turnout expected to be very high here. Whew, I'm glad election day is here. Bye for now, C

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T21:54:00.002-07:00

Ghoulish Greetings Cindy!

Did the kids get a good haul while out Trick-or-Treating? I was a Scrooge tonight and didn't even turn on the light.

Is fall is full swing? Not here. It was 93 degrees today and will probably be that tomorrow. Bleck! After that it should cool down into the 70's & 80's, finally down to "normal".

I got a call today from Tempe Yarn & Fiber. The fiber packets are ready to pick up and the first clue will come out a week from tomorrow.

Hope your November is Great!

More Soon, A

October Surprise!

2008-10-26T21:37:00.004-07:00

Surprise Cindy!

I'm actually writing a blog entry! Little did I know how prophetic the title of my last entry would be. In the last month I've become such a slacker in writing. Having my cousin stay with us for two weeks put me in a weird funk and even though he's been gone for about a month I haven't had the motivation to write.

I finally finished DH's sweater a couple of weeks ago. It took me seven months to finish it and I got it done about a month after the UFOlympics close up. I'm really happy with it. The yarn is heavier than called for in the pattern so I knit my gauge swatch and used that to calculate how many stitches I'd need for various parts of it. My only problem was that I didn't get the wrap stitch right on the purled short rows so I have a series of small holes where the wraps occur. I'll probably go back with some matching yarn and stitch those up so they don't show. There's 6 of them I believe so it's not too bad, and they're all on the right-had side.

Here is a charming wrist warmer pattern called Del Mar I found on Ravelry. The yarn is a lovely alpaca-silk blend that I got a Tuesday Morning earlier this summer. I call my version Foggy Morning as it looks like waves on a beach on a foggy day. I'm not sure if I'll keep them or if they'll be a Christmas present for either my mom or my MIL.

My final picture tonight is my version of the scarf on Ravelry called "October is For Spinners". It has a large spider knit in the center bottom. Her you can see four of the legs and the start of the body. Right now I have two strands of yarn held together but farther up I'll drop one of them and then start working on progressively larger needles to give it a drapey, cob-webby look about it. I'm excited about it.
I signed up a couple of weeks ago to do a Mystery Spin-along at Tempe Yarn. I haven't gotten the fiber yet but should in about a week or so. The actual spinning starts on November 8. We'll have 3 clues a week and will finish up the first week in December. A Meal is the theme for the spin-along since the store owners' daughter just finished culinary school. I'll try to post pictures as it progresses. At the end we will have a show-and-tell get together at the store to see what everyone has spun.

Part of the reason I've been slacking on posting the last month or so is that I've gotten caught up in the election. Each evening once DH has gone to bed I sit up and watch Countdown on MSNBC.com. I've gotten really addicted to it. I've also been reading a lot of Huffington Post and watching Daily Show and Colbert Report. Sometimes the fake-news shows are better than the real news. I am knitting a shawl out of Patons SWS in a blue and tan colorway that I hope to have done in time to wear on election day. If not, I will have it ready to wear on inauguration day.

We were up to visit DH's parents this weekend. They are doing okay although his dad has gotten pretty frail the last couple of months. He has PD and rheumatoid arthritis so he's been having more trouble getting around. He is only 73 and still has a very sharp mind but the body has lost it's vitality. DH's grandmother will be 96 at the beginning of March. She went through a bad spell for a while, was on hospice care for 15 months, but has recently started eating more and is getting a bit better. She was taken off hospice care last month and now her care-givers think she could hang on for a lot longer.

My parents have been doing pretty good. Last time I talked to them Dad thought he might retire at the end of the year. He will be 65 in March and still hasn't really got back all his energy after his surgeries this past spring. He is more than ready to quit working and take it easy. Mom will probably work another year until her 65th birthday. They would like to do the snowbird thing between down here and their lake place. It would be nice to have them down here some.

I guess I should finish this off and head to bed. More soon, take care, A

A Knifty project

2008-10-14T06:50:00.002-07:00

Hi Alene, how's it going? Here's a little scarf I made for the charity projects my LYS is collecting. I used a Knifty Knitter which is very similar to a gadget we had when I was a kid that I remember making scarves on. I still find it relaxing to wind the yarn around the pegs :) It's neat how many different ways there are to make knitting.

My congregation has started a shawl ministry to make comfort items for members who are in need. There is no production pressure, just opportunities for mindfulness, fellowship, and connection. I'm keen to participate.

Fall is here in earnest despite the hot & cold flipping of the weather. The colors are gorgeous. We had our first frost about 10 days ago. Have the temps in AZ mellowed yet? Ciao, Cindy

Late September update

2008-09-27T05:24:00.004-07:00

Hi Alene, how are things in AZ? We've had a long stretch of summer weather but I'm looking forward to sweatshirts (and dare I say it, sweaters) again soon. We are slowly getting in the groove of a new school year.

Here are a few crafty things: I'm making some chunky socks with handspun for DH to use as slippers. Toe up so I didn't have to swatch, just have him try them on now and then. I finished the little Shepherd's Rug I started at last year's WI Sheep & Wool Festival (hmm, I was sure I only rotated the 2nd photo . . .no time to fuss with it now). I bought a pattern booklet for gorgeous Christmas stockings (I'd link to the Dale of Norway website but it is always out of date) to make one of these days. I got back to work on The Project. And did you see this? I asked DH for one for Xmas. That sure sounds like I have hours of free time but most of these things have been done in short time periods or only for a short time! Bye for now, love, Cindy

It must be fall

2008-09-16T05:42:00.010-07:00

Signs of fall recently observed here:

*DD was flower girl to her oldest cousin (and godmother) on the first Saturday in September
*a squirrel tried to use our clothes reel as a tree (note the large green nut it is carrying)
*I got out my thick robe
*teeth are falling slowly, as are leaves
*the urge to spin cotton has been replaced by the urge to make felted wooly things
*I've been experimenting with making homemade bread
*large quanities of lovely wool have been pouring into the shop!!

I love this season! More soon, love, Cindy

Slacker, Extraoridnaire

2008-09-08T12:06:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Thanks for posting while I've been slacking. Work has been busy the last two weeks with lots of permits coming back for re-analysis at lower pumping rates. I haven't really felt like posting in the evening and haven't done much knitting in that time either, just a few little projects with quick gratification.

I did not finish DH's Cobblestone during the UFOlympics as I had hoped. I did get the arms attached and about an inch of the yoke completed before the olympic torch went out. I've got almost another 4 inches done in the interim and I'm almost to the second decrease round. I'm to the quicker part of the yoke and once I start back on it in the next few days I should be able to finish it fairly quickly.

The next project that I started, actually the one I worked on once the sleeves were done on the sweater but the body needed work, was a beret. I used about 1.8 balls of Lion Brand Landscapes in the Deep Sea colorway. I'm pretty happy with it although it may be come a christmas gift to either my mom or my MIL. I got 3 balls a few months back for $1.50 each at Big Lots. I'm considering either a narrow scarf or wrist warmers to match out of the remaining 1+ ball.

And finally, I made a pair of wrist warmers in the Del Mar pattern. The yarn is a lovely alpaca-silk blend called Llama Set in a light gray color. I called my interpretation Foggy Morning. I finished the knitting yesterday morning and wove in the ends although I have not crocheted around the thumb hole. I've only done a miniscule amout of crochet and I'm not sure if I'm up to it on this one. I've only got a few yards left and I'm not sure if there's enough for both.

Yesterday I started a pair of Dashing for DH to match the earflap hat I knit him earlier this summer. It is out of the SWTC Karaoke, a yarn that I'm really liking right now. I have about 3 more rounds before the first cable row, although there are only a total of 6 cables on each glove so I think I can handle it. I've done a cabled headband before so this isn't the very first.

I talked to my parents yesterday. They are doing well, getting stuff done at both their house and the cottage. Dad has been in to meet with Social Security. If he retires this month at 64.5 he'll make a modest amount but if he waits 6 months until his 65th birthday he'll get a couple of hundred more. I figured when he told me the difference, plus COL adjustment at the start of the year, that he'd wait it out. Nope, his target date for retirement is December 26, halfway between the two. It sounds like the deciding factor is his health. He's still not fully back on the breathing and it makes him tired quicker. He now has his 5 years in at Generac so that helps out his pension from them. If there's a retirement party for him in December or January I think that we will try to make it back there. DH wants to take Amtrack back there, he thinks its a romantic idea. Of course we have to get to Flagstaff to do it, it's more expensive, takes longer and could take extra long if it's snowy. I'll keep you posted as I hear.

I'd better close this but I promise I'll write more soon. Maybe I'll write about the camping trip although you've probably looked at the pictures already. Take Care, A

2 FOs and a challenge?

2008-09-05T08:28:00.004-07:00

Hi Alene, (I have no idea why my text is underlined so I am choosing to ignore it) here are 2 recent FOs: a baby blanket for my niece (goddaughter #2 is expecting her first in Feb.) and a pair of fingerless mitts form spindle-spun Corriedale.

The baby blanket (whew away went the underlining) I made on my Bond machine as a big piece of stockinette and then the textured stitches are hand-manipulated (off the machine in this case). I learned about this particular technique on Ravelry, and although it looks a little wonky to me, DH says it's nice and agrees it'll be a good size for an infant car seat.

The fingerless mitts are made with the same "pattern" that I use in my Spin and Knit Fingerless Mitts class. It's not much of a pattern, garter stitch worked sideways mostly. Easy and fun. I had a 2 inch piece of yarn left when I finished!

Now for the challenge: do you want to spin a little for Spin-Off's next Your Yarn feature? It's for spindle-spun yarn. We'd need to do a 5-yard piece and get it to them sometime in Dec., I think. Will need to look up the details. What do you think?
:) Cindy

A little of everything

2008-09-04T04:59:00.002-07:00

Hi Alene! Hope all is well in sunny AZ. It's raining today but the raspberries appreciate it. Third day of school already; the summer didn't seem too long. We had a great one despite the rough start of extreme rain and my appendectomy this spring. There's never enough time to do all the things we imagine, but we did a good number of them and had lots of fun together. The weather gave us a break by being cooler and less humid than typical, so that made a pleasant change. Because of the coolness and our late start to the garden, we still have tomatoes coming, so soon DH will be making salsa!

Still working here & there on the clear-out I started in January; things are looking better around here. Also thinking a lot about spinning and knitting and trying felting again (have had mixed results in the past). Have you seen this cool magazine from Interweave? I want to knit & felt some mittens (and maybe needle felt some sort of embellishment and maybe try some wet felting just cuz it looks amazing. The birthday book you sent is one I know I'll keep rereading.

Time to get going on our school morning routine, more soon, love, C

DS's DS case

2008-08-22T05:44:00.003-07:00

Hi Alene, when DS learned to knit 2 years ago, he first made a cute little Xmas ornament. Then he picked out his own yarn (for the record, green Cascade 220 superwash) and decided to make a scarf. Even with me giving him yarn to make stripes, that was a bit too much project for someone his age. So when he finally had enough dough to buy his Nintendo DS, I suggested his "scarf" was long enough to fold up & sew into a bag for it. He loved this idea and here it is! He did most of the knitting, helped make a twisted cord, and picked out the button. I put in a lining. Yay!!!
Thanks for picking up the slack; more entries in the works. C

UFOlympic Update

2008-08-18T14:21:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy!

While you've been off enjoying the cool green northwest I've been knitting away on my olympic challange.

When I last wrote I believe I was about a foot into the body of the Cobblestone Sweater for DH. Upon restart at the beginning of the games I completed a couple of more inches of the body before deciding to switch to knitting the sleeves.

Here is the first one:

I picked up an Addi Turbo circular to use on the upper portion of the sleeves and they seemed to fly by. The first sleeve took me much of last week, between work and everything. But the second one I finished in just over a day with a lot of time spent in front of the TV. Of course after a whole day spent knitting I was pretty stiff yesterday and only got a couple of rounds done on the body. The sleeves are actually the same length as the body as that is how DH wants it to fit. His arms are actually fairly short; I would have needed an extra 5 inches for the sleeves to fit me. Here are both sleeves complete next to the sweater body.

In closing, Margi is training to be a Draft Blocker. I think she's got the form down almost perfectly. Of course at 105 degrees she's keeping the cool air in rather than out. I'll let you know when the cold finally arrives if her form changes.

Hope you had a great trip and I'm looking forward to pictures soon!

Take care, A

Happy Birthday!

2008-08-08T08:36:00.005-07:00

Hi Cindy!
You beat me to the birthday punch. I wanted to write a post last night but we had another big storm and ended up not turning the computer on at all. I think we got over an inch at our house. Not quite as much as the big storm a couple of weeks ago but still a goodly amount. The street was flooded again. And the broken branch in the olive tree is now on the ground, although that may have happened in our small storm on Tuesday night.

Do you have anything special planned for today? Dinner out?

Our friends Fred and Penny got married in Seattle last weekend. We didn't get to go up there for the wedding but they're down here for a few days for a mini-honeymoon and we went out for dinner with them on Wednesday. It was great to see them, we don't get to often enough. Fred sang to Penny during the ceremony and one of his friends posted it on YouTube.

The Opening Ceremonies of the the Olympics are tonight which means that when I get home I can start knitting again on DH's Cobblestone Sweater which is my project for the UFOLympics. It will be a push to get it done in 16 days but I'm planning on spending as much free time as possible on it. Look for updates!

And finally, a sign I found, probably at Stuff On My Cat. I may have sent it to you already but it makes me laugh so I thought I'd post it too. Several of the people that work with DH love it too.

Happy Birthday!

Alene

The blog slacker on 8-8-08

2008-08-08T04:48:00.003-07:00

Hi, thanks so much for the fun birthday package! Yum to the chocolate ;) and the felting book is amazing!! My digital photos are in disarray again so no pics this time, but otherwise things are going well. Next week I will teach "Spin & Knit Fingerless Mitts" (first of 2 sessions) and "Beginning Knitting" (first of 3 sessions). I have some new design ideas, she adds, slyly laying a finger alongside her nose. DH says "hi." Let's see ... Fall Rowan magazine is here and awesome. DD was perfect for her first dentist visit (whew)! The garden is doing well despite bunnies that are sneaking through the fence; we believe we have now live-trapped them all and that they will like living in the park instead. DS has turned his knitting into a Nintendo DS case which needs a lining and I will post a pic of it soon. Bye for now, Cindy, age 43

Thank you Mr. Postman

2008-07-29T21:37:00.004-07:00

Hi Cindy,

I have been receiving some fun and informative stuff in the mail lately. Last Wednesday the latest copy of Craft arrived and they have a big section on weaving, including a small paper loom insert and directions to make your own portable loom. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

The next day KnitCircus #3 arrived. It looks so professional but I missed a book or item review by you. I guess you're too busy working on other things. ;) On Sunday I knit the Cycloswatch as a wrist cuff. I used a wonderful silk that I got at Knit1-Bead 2 in Jerome about a year and a half ago. If you and the family make it out here one of these days it is definitely one of the stores we will visit! I'm using a couple of beads for the closure but they're a little small so I've got to dig through my buttons to see if anything else works. I got the little charms at Big Lots a couple of months ago. They had containers of mixed beads for cheap and some of them were really nice.

On Friday the package you sent arrived. The DVD looks great and I can't wait to try it out. I'm going to preview it first and may make DH try it, he's looking for something to strengthen his legs for long duration sitting. Thank you also to your DS for the Louisa Harding pattern book. There are a couple of patterns in it that I may try one of these days and they are all really beautiful.

The most anticipated package came on Monday while I was home sick with a headache. I don't know if you got to browse the Interweave Damaged Book Sale a few weeks ago but I picked up a couple of the books that I've been wanting and one or two that I couldn't resist. I have one book that I ended up with a duplicate on. The cart function was a little slow and clunky and I some how got 2 of it in my cart. I think that it may become a birthday present soon. Can you guess which one and who the lucky recipient will be?

We didn't get any of the rain over the weekend from Hurricane Dolly. It all went to New Mexico instead and Ruid oso almost got washed away. In fact one person was washed away in the flooding.

I'll close this off and say "Good Night!" Take care, A

Guess what I did!

2008-07-23T08:19:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy,

After weeks of knitting items to contain or dry my long hair I went and did this on Saturday. The hair was starting to drive me crazy. It seemed like it was always in my face even if I had it back in a pony tail. And it was always in my way during yoga, not matter what I tried. I found a picture of me from some time in the mid-90's with my hair in a similar style and decided to take it in to show them. It turned out some what shorter than I might have wanted but it will grow so no harm done. I've tried some downward dog and it seems to stay out of my face pretty well. It is long enough that can put it in a scrunchy if I need to. The stylist cut it before perming and I would have had it bundled for Lock of Love but they only want un-dyed hair. That is the next question for me, to quit dying it and go natural or stay addicted to the bottle. There is quite a discussion thread on the Ravelry Vintage Bitches board about this subject.

There are two things that Margi loves: the camera and looking at herself in the mirror. Here she combines both.

It looks like we might get some rain this weekend from the hurricane hitting Texas/Mexico today. If we get a good storm I'm sure I'll have pictures.

Take care, A

(UFO)lympic Training

2008-07-17T22:36:00.006-07:00

Hi Cindy!

I was going through pictures earlier today looking for some from the Chiricahua Mountains. We've taken 3 trips down there over the years and are planning another camping trip in about a month. It is the 17th Anniversary of the first backpack trip DH and I took together. I had no luck finding any pictures but I did have a good time looking through the rest and came across this picture of a younger you when you visited and we went to the Grand Canyon. What a fun trip! Hopefully your family can come out to visit someday and we can take a similar trip. How about Zion or Bryce? The picture was only about 3 weeks after the aforementioned backpack trip.

I have decided that I will compete in the UFOlympics on Ravelry. Saturday is the last day to join the group and the last day to declare your chosen competition is next week Saturday. Training is allowed until that last day of declaration. I am going to work on the Cobblestone Sweater for DH. I started it several months ago and have worked on it occassionally since. I picked it up again this afternoon to do a little training and in the few hours I worked it tonight I finished another inch or two. I have about 8 inches done on the body with another 10 inches to go before it is time to start the sleeves. If I can get a good portion of the chest done before the rest period I stand a good chance of finishing. This is about the biggest item I've attempted. Wish me luck!

To finish off, here are two recent FO's. The first is a hair-drying hat I finished recently. You may recognize the yarn; it is the white cotton you sent for my birthday the first year I started knitting. I tripled the yarn and really love the texture of the hat. I need to add an additional button on the flap so I can tighten it so it will stay. I added the loop for hanging so it dries quickly when I'm done with it.

The second is a snood I made. It is in dark grey cotton ease (Lion Brand) using the same stitch pattern I've been stuck on for the last two months; YO-K2TOG one round, knit the next. It gives a great, simple lacy affect. CG at work thinks it looks a lot like crochet. What do you think?

Guess I'd better close this and head off to bed. Take care, more soon, A

Monsoon Madness

2008-07-14T15:27:00.004-07:00

Hi Cindy!

We had quite a monsoon storm yesterday afternoon, as you can see from the video below.

We had just taken the garbage out when the rain arrived. The deluge kept up for over an hour and the weather service estimates that Tempe, and locales adjacent, got approximately 2.4 inches. Much of the rest of the valley got less than an inch.

Our street was flooded up to my ankles when I walked out to the gutter. Hardy Drive, the bigger street at the end of our block, looked like it had turned into a raging river. A couple of cars drove down our street and turned around because they didn't dare cross the flood.

Our front yard flooded but that's not too uncommon. Our back yard also flooded and the pool came within an inch of overtopping. The bird bath is almost 2 inches deep and was overflowing in no time. The best part is that the temperature dropped at least 20 degrees as the storm moved in.

The rain came down so hard and so quickly that it over took the pumps along the low part of the Superstition Freeway near our house. ADOT ended up closing it in both directions for about 3 hours before they could get the water drained.

Many of our city parks have retention basins in them to collect the runoff from big storms. The picture below is Hanger Park, some where in Tempe. Nothing like paddling through the play area in your canoe! The picture above and below are ones that were sent in by readers at AzCentral.

No FO's today as the weather excited me too much. Did you see that the World's Oldest Blogger passed away over the weekend? She was 108 and had written her last blog entry about three weeks ago.

Take care, more soon! A

Take me out to the ball game

2008-07-13T05:20:00.003-07:00

Hi Alene, Here are some pictures from the July 9 Milwaukee Brewers Stitch & Pitch event at Miller Park (you don't know how many times I had to stop myself from saying County Stadium :D ). DS and I had a great time. First time to Miller Park for both of us. Colorado Rockies won 8-3. I knit on my "Big Rectangle," as I jokingly call my Sonoma Mtn. Wrap. DS brought his knitting but didn't do any. He liked when I showed it off however. ;)
Crafting away on new designs and things for fall classes, love, Cindy

Fireworks & FO's

2008-07-07T12:18:00.005-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Happy Belated 4th! It was hot, Hot, HOT here!

How goes the Tour d'Fleece? I thought about doing it but still am unhappy with the last couple of Tour d'Frances and am not ready to commit to something associated with it. I am, however, considering the Summer Knitting Olympics or perhaps the UFOlympics. I will probably do the latter and push to finish DH's sweater.

Here are a few pictures of the fireworks display in downtown Tempe. We sat on the median on Rio Salado Drive, just east of Mill Ave, so these pictures are 90 degrees from what we saw. The median was hot and uncomfortable but at least we could sit through them, not have to stand the entire time. The display started about 20 minutes late but ran for about 45 minutes and was quite a show.
(above & below: looking east along Tempe Town Lake)

Here is my MIL in the poncho I knit her for her birthday. The yarn was a merino-acrylic blend that I got at Tuesday Morning. It took around 3 full balls although I had to use parts of 4 balls. The first two had a regular transition between colors but the second two balls had a different color sequence so I had to piece the colors in. I have enough left over that I'm making her a neckwarmer that will button using the stitch pattern from Yarn Harlot's Simple 1 row scarf.

At my old position at the other state agency I didn't have to wear my ID badge or even carry it all the time. At my new place I don't have to really wear it but I do have an access card that gets me to my floor and I need to carry it all the time. I'd been ruminating on making a small bag to carry it in for quite a while rather than wearing the plastic holder all the time. Here is my creation. It is another yarn that I picked up at Tuesday Morning. It is basically the same pattern as the Soap Sock I've made a couple of times recently. I added the flap and I-cord neck strap to make it a little more useful. The only problem is that the yarn is actually pretty scratchy. It is a linen-acrylic-cotton blend. I added the small padded section to keep the scratchiness away from my neck. I used the green bead as a closure and then added the second bead for decoration. I've started another id bag in a ribbon yarn, although that may go to DH's co-worker.

More pictures soon of DH's hat and other FO's (I hope)

I love my loom

2008-06-25T06:40:00.004-07:00

Hi! Here's my little loom. It's a 16 inch Ashford rigid heddle loom. In this picture is my first project, a wool scarf for DH. The warp is gray millspun yarn, pretty thin, given to me years ago, made from local wool. The weft is my handspun, the same yarn as my Sugar on Snow is knitted from, spun from the Blueberry roving I got with the gift cert. from you! I gave the scarf to DH for his birthday. The loom is easy to warp and use. I bought it and several books with the money from selling my standard gauge knitting machine earlier this year. I got the loom slightly used on ebay. I picked a 16" because I pictured mostly small projects or ones that can be seamed and because it seemed like it would be an easy reach across. I'm back to strawberry freezing, designing, and other summer fun now, ciao, Cindy

117, or is it 151?

2008-06-20T08:58:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Welcome to this side of summer!

Hope you're staying comfortable. We, most definitely, are not. We've had a full week of "Extreme Heat" warnings and are likely to keep it up for a few more days. It felt extra hot yesterday when I walked out to the car at the end of the day. I was sure it had broken the record of 115. And on the way home the thermometer on the car said 117 so I was sure we'd broken the record. But no, the official temperature at the airport was only 112 for the day. We swam in the pool the other night at 9:30 and it was still warm out. The moon was full and it was a lot of fun although there was a slight breeze that made the skin cool when you got out.

Well, according to Blogger this should be Post #151. Hard to believe we've put out that many posts in just over a year. We have slowed down quite a bit in the last few months but we're still writing so that's a good thing.

As a close, here is an amazing picture of a male hummingbird sitting on the next. My friend Matt helps his wife out with field work on the weekends. She is working on a PhD in ecology and is mostly studying bats. While they were out last weekend they came across this little guy sitting on the nest. He let them take a few pictures of him and then flew around a little to also let them see the eggs below.

Well, I'd better close this up. I'm planning on writing about last week's WWKIP Day activity that I went to in Jerome. Check out Tempe Yarn for pictures from their Virtual KIP Event. I'm there.

Take care, A

Happy Blogiversary!

2008-06-05T21:21:00.002-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Hard to believe it's been a year, and 148 previous posts, since we started our little conversation. It's been a lot of fun and good practice on writing, at least writing something other than memos for work. I've become more comfortable and accomplished with my knitting and have begun to design a few fledgling projects. I started spinning and, although I need much more practice, it is coming along nicely. In the next year I hope to have our Project flying along nicely and I may even muster the courage to start some colorwork, especially for some of the items for the Project. I recently taught one of my friends at work how to knit and she's threatening to teach me how to crochet. I'm not sure I'm up to that.

It's been long enough since I've posted that this is going to be a multi-themed post. Next topic, a picture of baby Jahmia. I had lunch a couple of weeks ago with Julie and Lytifa and she brought both girls along. Julie hadn't yet met Jahmia and we both got plenty of baby time.
She is just about 11 weeks old in the picture and is turning into quite the little chunk. She's a real sweety and her older sister is crazy for her.

Last week we went over to Hollywood again for a concert, REM this time. The National and Modest Mouse opened up. The whole show was really good and REM was awesome! No pictures of the show, they didn't allow the carry-ins like they did last year for the Decemberists show. We stayed just down the street again so we were able to walk to the show and not have to worry about parking. The next morning we walked around Hollywood a bit, looking for a diner to have breakfast at. We ended up a Mel's Drive-In on Highland, just south of Hollywood Blvd. It was pretty good.

Afterwards we drove up Mullholland Drive and then down Coldwater Canyon into Beverly Hills. The picture below is looking north into the San Fernando Valley. The MGM studio that burned on Sunday is probably somewhere over my left shoulder.
In Beverly Hills we turned back west and head out Sunset Blvd towards Pacific Palisades and then on down to the beach. We walked on the Will Rogers State Beach for a while and watched the waves crash. It was really relaxing but a bit cool. We weren't prepared for the beach either.
The little guy below kept heading for our feet. I think he was trying to hide from the gulls that were hanging out on the beach and looking for a bite to eat.

From there we headed a little south on Highway 1 and then up into Santa Monica. It is really pretty but the traffic was typical LA. We took Santa Monica Blvd east until we hit Wilshire, right near Rodeo Drive. The traffic was pretty heavy for a mile or two until we got out of Beverly Hills (again). Next stop, the La Brea Tar Pits. They are a series of tar seeps. The biggest one, shown below, was mined as a natural asphalt seep in the late 1800's. It has since filled up with skunky water. Every minute or so bubbles of gas, some times quite big, break through to the surface. The whole area smells like diesel. In the upper right corner of the picture you can see the Page Natural History Museum where they've collected and exhibit all the animal fossils that have oozed from the tar. We didn't actually go in the building. We walked around a little and then went into the LA County Museum of Art right next door. It is quite a big museum. We spent about 4 hours there and still didn't see it all. We're definitely headed back.

One final picture of a resin giant sloth on the north side of the property. I had to take the picture for Stu at work. He was "mauled" by a sloth a few years ago while helping to vaccinate it. He was relieved it wasn't this big. Okay, it's late and time for bed. More knitting content, hopefully tomorrow.

Take Care, A

The merry month of May ??

2008-06-02T04:38:00.004-07:00

Hi Alene, hope things are good in AZ. The month of May was not so merry here. It took me about 3 weeks to feel like myself after my "dependix" (as DD calls it) and by then, I was in the midst of a bad cold. Arrgh. Not so terrible in the scheme of the things but enough to throw the whole family off-stride. We hoped to be further on the garden, I hoped to have a bigger garage sale (we had a little one in mid-May as part of a whole neighborhood thing), and well, I'd hoped for a lot of things. Anyway, I'm glad for a new month because I am ready for a fresh start.

I did get a fair amount of reading and crafting done during my recovery and want to get pics of that up soon (I'm behind on figuring out my digital photos ;) Will be in touch soon about The Project as well (certainly not forgotten!!) Love, Cindy

You may be right, I may be crazy

2008-05-20T04:20:00.006-07:00

Well, despite the collective wisdom of you, me, and L, I am partway through the 2nd stripe of my Sonoma Mountain Wrap and loving it. [here's a link to a blog I found when I googled the wrap so you can see it close up] It's done in a 2-row slip stitch pattern that is easy and fun to do. If you look on ravelry, there are 3 in progress with pictures.

I am working the ends of the stripes in as I go because L also reminded me of the pain of doing them all at the end of a striped baby sweater she recently whipped out. A big rectangle with pretty stripes . . . I'm hoping it'll be a good project for mindful knitting because I've been wanting to get that meditating thing going!

Committed (or maybe I should be), Cindy

Pandora's box

2008-05-18T04:33:00.005-07:00

Hi, Alene, thanks for the care package of sweets. Chocolate is much more beloved to me since DD's birth so I kept the Dove bars & the magazine and shared the rest ;)

My recuperation gave me time to do something I've been avoiding: go over to YouTube to check out the spinning content. [remember, silk, the alleged reason for starting this blog ; clearly mine needs a lot more twist] Wow, there's some good stuff. I also looked into the Portuguese style of knitting which some say is easier on the body and have been experimenting with it. Fun!

I started a new sweater, knit about 1.5 inches, and frogged it even though it was looking fine and was a good pattern. I want to start a bigger project but just am not in a sweater mood. I am thinking about a Sonoma Mountain Wrap but am not sure if my stash has enough different colors . . . also friend L rightly wonders if a big rectangle won't be a bit boring after a while. More soon, I sincerely hope, love, Cindy

Get Well Soon!

2008-05-07T08:24:00.002-07:00

Hi Cindy!

I heard from your DH that you are under the weather. Hope you get feeling better soon! Here are a few snuggy kitteh pictures to make you feel better! Margi and Ted (Abby too!) send their healing vibe in you direction! Spend your resting time with some good fiber in your hands!

My co-work C made this knitting purse for me. She found the messenger bag some where and added the fabric to the flap and then added pockets to the inside. I'm sure she intended it as just a knitting bag but I've been using it as a full time purse. It's bigger than I normally use but holds my knitting, wallet, and a water bottle for when I go to yoga class.

And finally, a funny picture I found in the LOLcats group on Ravelry.

Feel better soon, A

The rest of the pictures

2008-04-30T19:08:00.005-07:00

Curse you, Blogger, for giving me a hassle when I was looking forward to a special post!

Knitting's rock star

2008-04-30T18:57:00.004-07:00

[argh, I've had all sorts of difficulties getting the pictures to stay in order etc. so I hope this works. It was going better earlier. what gives??]

Ah, Madison! What a place. Even though we had more of this stuff at about 3 o'clock on Monday . . .

I'm so glad our mid-sized city got on the tour for Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's latest book! Jaala did a great job reporting on her blog, so I'll just add to that. The lines that stuck with me were the one about carrying emergency knitting :D and of course, " our plan to take over the world continues apace." And the funny bit about the sheep & wool festival.

We're guessing that there were over 200 people in attendance, and it was great great fun. Especially for knitters like me who don't get out much ;) I didn't get home until 10:45! Oh, and the book is fun to read, too! I was so tired I felt hung over the next morning but I'd do it again in a minute!!

April has been really back & forth with weather, so we get outside whenever we can. Today, lots of gardening. A post soon on my finished vest and my next things. Cindy

I Spy

2008-04-29T20:35:00.002-07:00

Hi there,

I see from Jaala's post that you guys made it last night. Sounds fun, how I envy you. I've looked for you in the pictures from YH's post, even tried to line up with the picture from KnitCircus, but no such luck.

Out late on a weeknight? Such rebels! ;)

Pictures?

Oral Surgery and other distractions

2008-04-29T08:08:00.009-07:00

Hi Cindy,

Since we don't have snow banks melting or kids playing to post I thought I'd include a picture of our cholla blooming. It's got a couple of other blooms about to open although they're hard to see in the picture.

I've also included two shots of the cactus at the front of our house to show how much they've grown in about a year's time. You may remember the first picture from my last post of June last year. It is hard to see the difference on the large cactus in the center but you can really tell the difference by the two outer cactus. Both were well below the roofline but now they've grown up above it. The big rains we got November through January really made them happy. Of course we now haven't had any rain since mid-February and wildfires are starting to pop up.

I've been recovering from lots of dental fun and not knitting very much. You'd think I'd have lots of time for it, and I have, but I just haven't felt like it. The root canals actually weren't as bad as I feared. It took less time for both procedures than I spent waiting for the novacaine to kick in; I spent just about an hour in the chair. By contrast, the lengthening for the crown took longer. They actually wanted to do it for both teeth and had to start the crown prep first. After one of the regular dentists shaped both teeth for the crowns the periodontist decided that only one of the teeth actually needed the gum cut. I had planned to go back to work after all that fun but two hours in the dental chair and 5 shots of novacaine sent me home instead. I go back tomorrow to have the stitches removed and then it will be a couple of weeks before they can take the crown impressions. At least I have temporaries covering the teeth now.

Two final pictures before I close this up. The first is of our silly

Margi cat. All three cats have taken to drinking from the bamboo water. They love that the vase is the perfect height for them to stand or sit next to and drink from. Abby and Ted will only drink from it if it is high enough not to expose the marbles but Margi will stand there and try to move them around, exposing more water below. Just before I took this picture she stood patiently by while I brought more water in to fill it up so she could drink. She spent several minutes sampling the fresh water.

The final picture is the one project that I've actually made progress on. It is a bag for my yoga mats. I use them together in class and keep them rolled together so the bag is bigger in diameter than most yoga mat bag patters. I also started from the middle and worked out increasing until I got the diameter I thought I'd need and then started going up. Most other patterns have you knit the sides as a rectangle, seam them and then knit the end. This one has a shell pattern although it is difficult to see in the picture. The bottom (top in picture) is a cotton/acrylic yarn I got at Tuesday Morning. The blue portion is actually a ball of blue and a ball of tan held together. Both are hemp yarn that I got on clearance. I'll change to another cotton yarn, perhaps one of the cones you sent me for my birthday my first year knitting.

I guess I'd better close this up. I promise that I'll do better with posting in the next few weeks. The worst of the dental issues are over and my dad's doing better so I shouldn't have the distractions of the last 2 months.

Take Care, Alene

Earth Day

2008-04-22T04:41:00.005-07:00

Hi again, hope AZ is giving you a good spring. Here are a few pics from earlier this month (notice the snow piles lingering in the background:) . Earth Day continues to grow in meaning for me through the years. Starting when I was in grad school, I use the day to reflect on my commitment to our planet and what I can do better at. Seeing An Inconvenient Truth last year really focused my attention again and I'm really glad about that. I'm still committed to using up my stash, but the big thing for me this year (although not craft related) is to take shorter showers. If I can figure out other ways we can use less water, I'm going to try them.

I hear a sneeze upstairs so it's on to our before-school routine. Still keeping you & yours in my thoughts, love, Cindy, earth muffin

March pictures during April showers

2008-04-19T04:05:00.005-07:00

Hi Alene, what a difference a few weeks makes. [oops, weird formatting again] These pictures are from March and are in order :) DH's vest came out great and is a good and warm just the way it is. He opted to have me skip the "timbers" that were a big part of the original design (sorry, Philosopher's Wool) so now I have a bunch of skeins of black yarn to make something else! Darn;)

I'll be trying to catch up on my blogging too after some slacking due to getting some lessons ready for RE, having lots happening at home, school, & work, and the start of soccer, farmer's markets, and gardening! Yay! All good things except the water in one part of the basement; yes, now we are having lots of rain and need a new gutter on the front of the house.

I've been keeping your family in my thoughts and hope your dad is doing OK. I'm thinking ahead to Earth Day, so "see" you then. Love, Cindy

Making up for lost time

2008-04-11T08:33:00.005-07:00

Hi Cindy,

I'm going to talk about a few more health-related items so I'll throw in a picture of pretty yarn first to distract you. MMMM-yummy, soft Malabrigo, now I just need a pattern (shrug?).

More good news on the Dad-front this week. He had an oncologist appointment on Tuesday. Mayo Clinic confirmed that the spots removed were benign so definitely no chemo for him. He will need another PET scan in June and probably quarterly for the first year.

On Wednesday he saw the surgeon who feels that the issue with the one bypass is old and does not need repair at this time. No surgery right now unless it turns critical in the future. On the less-bright side, he is still on oxygen and likely to remain on it for a while. He sees a pulmonologist in a couple of weeks and then will probably be put on a steroid to help with breathing issues.

I'm due up for some fun of my own. I broke a tooth on Monday and now get to spend days in the dentist chair. The dentist was amazed by the break. It took off the outside back quarter of my right pre-molar and left the nerve exposed. And what was I doing to receive this joy? I was eating salad for lunch. After the fun of a full mouth x-ray series I got to find out just how much fun I'm in for. The same tooth on the left side is about to do the same thing so I get not one root canal (first one) but two. And they want to do both at the same time and perhaps start the crown build-up the same day. I also need the gum cut back at the broken tooth because it actually broke down below the gumline. The dentist was even talking about a filling for another tooth and a cleaning at the same time. He joked about me having to pack a lunch for the visit (as if I'll be able to eat for the rest of the day after all of that). All this is starting to sound like DH, his teeth problems have been much worse than mine for a long time. Be glad you have good teeth and keep the kids up on theirs, it will save them a world of trouble.

As a result of all of this I probably won't be able to join you for the Yarn Harlot's visit to your fair town. :(

I am planning on heading back that way in either May or June. It would be really nice to visit my parents and I want to help them get started on cleaning out the house. Dad is hoping to be able to return to work and work into the start of September at least. He'll have 5 years in there at that point and it will mean extra $$ in his retirement. He had planned on working another 2 years until Mom reached retirement age but it sounds like that has changed. If the breathing issue doesn't get better he will probably have to take a medical retirement.

Anyways, I'll finish with a few pictures from DH's sock. It is coming along nicely although I need to get back on it. I had a needle break a few weeks ago when I had it in my bag so now I'm down to 4 needles, not 5. I think it was the water bottle I had in my back that fell over and crunched the needle. A #2 bamboo needle just doesn't stand up to a liter bottle of water. CSI of the needle showed that it actually bent quite a bit before it gave way and snapped. Hard to say if it was gradual or if it was a quick fracture as the bottle fell over on it. I must have taken a corner to zippily on my way to work.

Take Care, more soon, A

P.S. There are some days when the formatting of blogger drives me crazy. I can't get the text to wrap around the pictures the way I like it and then it puts in extra returns or deletes some I've added. ARGHHHHH!

Waiting... Or why I've been such a Blog-slacker

2008-04-07T22:14:00.005-07:00

Hi Cindy,

Hope the spring has gotten off to a good start without too much snow recently. We've been pretty nice here but their predicting 90's by the weekend so the summer isn't too far behind.

I can't believe that its been over a month since I've sat down and written an entry. This last month has been all about the waiting. At least we've had good news about Dad's biopsy but you know that already. He has doctor appointments tomorrow and Wednesday so I'm hoping we'll have a date for the next surgery by the end of this week. He sounds much better since he's at home although he's still a bit breathy with the oxygen. I'm still hoping that I'll be able to join you when the Yarn Harlot comes to your fair town at the end of the month; I'm hoping the surgery will be right around that time, but not that day.

We are also waiting on DH's grandma. She had a bad fall a couple of weeks ago and was pretty much out of it for a week or two but is still hanging on. She turned 95 at the start of last month and hasn't given up yet. She has a hospice nurse that's been encouraging her to eat and regain her strength. At 95 her weight has probably dropped below her age so it is just a matter of waiting for her to be ready to go.

A couple of family members on my dad's side of the family have been having health issues. My cousin K in Fridley had a biopsy in February and then had one breast removed last month. She starts chemo this week. I knit her a orange fun-fur hat yesterday and sent it off along with a lacy cotton hat that I'd made recently. My cousin S is going to have a Hat Party for her soon and I'm hoping I'll be back there for it.

My dad's oldest living brother, Uncle Fred, went into the VA hospital on Easter Monday with congestive heart failure. He is over 80 and had a bypass several years ago. He's had several heart attacks through the years and one of these days it will be the end of him. Interesting fact about him, he was on the USS New Mexico at Pearl Harbor. He must have been only 17 or so at the time. My cousin K's dad took part in the D-Day invasion; my dad was only 2 months old at that time. Uncle Fred's wife just had knee replacement surgery. Every email or phone call from home is more of a health report than a conversation!

Other than that things here have been about the same. The weather has been nice, the citrus have bloomed and the rest of pollen season has hit. Normally I don't have allergy issues but they have hit me this year. I think the neighbor's "shaggy" pine has had a bumper season for pollen and has been making me miserable for about 2 weeks. It's getting better so hopefully it will be done soon.

I guess I'd better close this and get it posted. Take care and I'll let you know when I'll be back there. A

It's here!

2008-03-25T04:48:00.004-07:00

And I'm not talking spring. [Aside: We had lots of springish melting last week, followed by 6 fresh inches on Friday and snow showers on Sunday. 100 inches of snow for the season now. whew.] I'm talking about my loom! DH immediately requested a new valance for the bathroom window, which seems like a fine 1st project to me! Doesn't need to fit anyone ;) I think it'll take a while to get the hang of it. However, I'm working on a felted bag just now because I'm wanting a new purse, so the valance will need to wait a bit. My fish tank is coming along nicely too. Tawashi must be the world's quickest projects so I've squeezed in a few.

There's been a lot of sickness going around this month, so now everyone in good ol' WI is crazy for spring. We had our share of it and Saturday will be having a (rescheduled) birthday party for the kids. It is DD's actual bday and she can't be more excited. DS is back to school today after a week of sick followed by a week and a Monday of spring break. More soon, love, Cindy

Of Ravelry, moola, and spring

2008-03-12T03:58:00.002-07:00

Sorry for my pictureless state, Alene; it's been one of those (several) weeks. Lots new here. Around the house: furnace, cooktop, home equity loan. Teaching: knitting classes, volcano talk at 1st grade (it was fun, challenging, not sure I didn't bore them, and quite sure I left several trains of thought derailed . . .), RE at the meeting house (there I'm one of 4 teachers for DS's class).

Crafting is going well since there's no way to do gardening prep outside. I can't believe there's still going to be snow on the ground for spring break! It's next week. I love Ravelry. I've been flitting in and out of groups because there are SO many great ones. I've settled for now on not-too-high traffic ones I can keep up with and will actually read. I'm still doing the responsible stash thing. I sold one of my knitting machines after long contemplation. It is a great machine but I have barely used it since I started spinning. It used thinner yarns and I usually make medium to thick yarns, so I opted to stick with my Bond. I'm using the money to buy a small, slightly used rigid heddle loom and a bunch of books!

I hope to see you in April and would be thrilled if we could go to the Yarn Harlot's event together. If you want to stay over, we have a guest bed. I'll warn you it's near my wool . . . don't want all those "wool fumes" to make you want stash unbecoming to a desert-dweller. ;) Cindy

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

2008-03-07T07:52:00.006-07:00

Hi Cindy,

Okay, I stole that title from a Fannie Flagg novel but I figured it was good for talking about a new baby. The little recipient of all my knitting over the last 6 months made her appearance on March 5. After nearly two weeks worth of on-again-off-again labor Lytifa finally had her baby Wednesday night about 9 pm. I got the picture text on my phone just after 10. Her name is Jahmia Nyoko and she was 7 pounds-13 ounces.

Here she is with her mom and dad. Older sister Juraiya was at the hospital for much of the day on Wednesday while mom was in labor but she had to go home for a breathing treatment (she had asthma really badly and needs regular treatments). She hadn't been back to the hospital since to meet her new sister when I visited at lunch yesterday.

It is pretty amazing how light her skin is right now. While I was holding her and playing with her fingers I noticed that they were pretty much the same color as mine. I'd never known it before but Lytifa explained it to me a few years ago. The dark melanin isn't at the surface of a new-born. It takes a few days or weeks for the full color to develop. As you can see from her parents she will be fairly dark-skinned eventually but not right now.I took a long lunch yesterday to go out and visit-a verrrrry long lunch. It is about 30 miles from the office out to the hospital but it would have been even farther from home. I originally planned on staying less than an hour but ended up visiting for almost an hour and a half. I ended up holding Jahmia for most of that time too. It is amazing how holding a baby can give you a rush of endorphins. I'd been feeling pretty low that morning after hearing from my mom what was up with my dad but for at least an hour after holding Jahmia, and maybe even longer, I felt peaceful and happy.

I had better finish this off. I'll let you know when I get firm dates of flying back there. It will probably be late April. My folks want to spend some of the recovery time up at the cottage so we'll probably be there a few days after Dad gets out of the hospital. More soon, A

Ramblings

2008-03-04T08:14:00.006-07:00

Hi Cindy,

I'm going to post a few of the more interesting pictures on my computer throughout this post. First up to keep it cat and spinning related is a picture DH took last month. Teddy had been chillin' on the chair and Margi decided she wanted up on it too. Instead of running off like most cats would, Teddy just sat there with her. We've got another picture of them both posing, looking directly into the camera but it doesn't show the wheel as well. The chair is one I found in the alley about 4 years ago with one arm broken off. I took the other one off and painted it with the crackle finish and covered it with outdoor varnish. It sat on our patio for a couple of years until I decided it would make a great spinning chair. I recovered the seat with a felted sweater and used another piece to make the back rest. I love it and so do the cats.

I don't know when but I think that I will probably be headed back that way sometime in the next few months. I got a call from my folks on Sunday, one of those "We didn't want to alarm you until we knew more" phone calls. Hate those! The upshot is that two small spots have been found in my dad's lungs. He had a CT scan and a PET scan and in the next week or so he'll have a biopsy on them. The PET scan showed hot in the two spots and slightly in the nearby lymph nodes. I offered to head back for that but my folks didn't want me to spend the extra $ for a short notice flight. My cousin S has offered to go along and sit with Mom during the procedure.

I was to the doctor myself last week. I've had itching just above my knee (no rash) off and on for about 3 months. Additionally I've woken up about half a dozen times with the whole thigh burning and then the next moring it is numb like it is asleep. It's not debilitating, just very annoying. The doctor knew what it was immediately, meralgia paresthetica or a pinched nerve in the hip area. She offered 3 options: do nothing and it may resolve itself in a few months or years; see a neurologist; or try an antiseizure drug. I've opted for #3 so I've been trying to adjust to that for 5 days now, seem to be working I guess.

I've got a training class in a few minutes so I'll close this off with a word about the rest of the pictures. The house pictures are the same house from different sides. They were taken at Mineral Park, AZ, north of Kingman, in about 1998. Yes, that's me in the second one. The final picture is the remains of a smelter furnace at the Grand Gulch Mine. It is located north of the Grand Canyon in the AZ Strip area. We inventoried that area in 1996. It is located about 80 miles south of St. George, UT. We stayed in a BLM cabin for a week and had to carry extra gas along. We didn't see anyone the entire week we were there.

I'll let you know when I'm going to be back that way. I'd love to hangout with you a day like we did last year, hopefully it won't be quite so sad a trip back there though. Later, A

Life's persistent questions

2008-02-29T09:28:00.004-07:00

(with apologies to Guy Noir, private eye, and in no particular order)

How much ketchup does it take to make a vegetable serving?

How much ice is under that snow on the roof? (notice the ice on the orange cord)

Have I been neglecting my blog to spend more time on Ravelry??

Why are there always assorted socks all over my house? Are they fleeing the laundry chute or the children's feet?

Why does the printer ink always run out at an inconvenient time?

Is there anything as amazing as how gorgeous as the ice on the trees? And the startling shade of blue of the clear winter sky?

Where are we going to stack the snow next time?

We got 2 more inches overnight; why is no one surprised?

Why can't I got the posts to format the way I think they should?

Why are there big holes in my tawashi's petals?

Do you like my other work in progress?

Welcome Kitty Knits Blogtour!

2008-02-25T07:49:00.010-07:00

Hi Cindy!

How is the winter treating you this week? I see from the MKE Journal that you're expecting more snow later today. We had a little rain on Friday and it was a bit overcast yesterday but Saturday was a beautiful day. We worked in the yard all morning, attacking the weeds that have popped up under the last few weeks of occasional rain. We are now about half an inch above normal for this point of the year. Of course that won't last, the "rainy" season is about done and it's time for warm days watching spring training, if you're into that kind of thing.

Unfortunately the beautiful weather meant lots of yard work and little time for knitting. On the way to work on Thursday I started the Felted Cat Doorknob Toy from the new Kitty Knits: Projects for Cats and Their People book. I ended up stash-diving for the yarn I used for it. The purple is one of the first yarns I bought from the $3 bin at Fiber Factory. I had two skeins but ended up using only one. I had about 3 yards left at the end and used that for stuffing the head. The green is the same Moda Dea Fur Ever that I used as trim on Margi's sweater last fall. I still have a good chunk of it left so it's likely to show up here again.

For the body I ended up using 3 dpns and knitting in the round rather than doing I-cord. The 12 stitch I-cord just seemed a little bulky and the regular knitting in the round worked better. I followed the rest of the pattern as directed. Margi isn't too sure if she's excited by the whole thing. Once I got it sewn together she just looked at it. I hung it on the front door and she batted at it a little. I still need to felt it but it is pretty cute, don't you think?
Donna, the author of the book had two cats herself, so she knows what it takes to keep a cat entertained. Here she is posed with her cat Deedee, a handsome and frisky-looking kitteh if I ever saw one.

One of the other patterns in the book is a quick knit. I started, and finished the knitting portion during the Oscars last night, the Felted Catnip Toy. I made it out of the churro yarn I got down at the Phoenix Public Market. You remember, I wrote about it last September. The yarn has been isolated in plastic since it dried after the dyeing and no signs of critters chowing down on it so I think I've got that situation under control. The kool-aid dying has given it a lovely varigated pattern. I'm going to finish sewing it up and felt both items one of these evenings.

I had a couple of pictures of friends at work looking at the book and picking out patterns that might work for their critters but I forgot them on my other computer so I don't have them right now. I'll post them either later tonight or perhaps tomorrow. I made them pose for me so I'll definitely use them later.

Time to get to work. Take care and don't get stuck in a snow bank! I leave you with one last picture of Margi curled up with the new toy. A

P.S. 7:50 pm

Here are my friends at work whom I asked to pose with the book. Carrie has one cat at home but also fosters abandoned kittens.
Tracy had two cats of her own but took in a momma cat and her four babies last year. So far she's found a home for only one of them so now it looks like she has 6 cats. LuDean has just two cats and they love her new house with its upstairs and downstairs.L doesn't have any cats. She does have a giant lizard but I don't think he'd like anything hand knit; I don't think there a book out there Lizard Knits. They just don't seem to inspire knitting designs although I'm sure I could find a pattern for a knitted lizard.

The trouble with tribbles

2008-02-19T12:00:00.006-07:00

Hi Cindy,

The trouble is that you can't stop with just one. And they're so easy that multiples just pop up. It was one of the guy's that I worked with for a few months birthday over the weekend so they had cake for him on Friday. He is a big Trek/Star Wars/ LOTR's fan. I'd been thinking about making him a tribble for a while and figured this was a good excuse. I missed the actual party since we had to do a little field work. I talked to him later in the day on Friday and he'd already posted pictures on his MySpace page and sent them to his other geeky friends.

I had an awesome weekend with over 24 hours all to my lonesome. DH went up to his folks Saturday morning to visit them and his grandma who will turn 95 in 2 weeks. I stayed home because my uncle and cousin were arriving from KC. My cousin R is starting at a recording arts school next week. I didn't know what time they were going to get here or if they wanted to stay at my house before heading over to R's place that he's sharing with friends so I stayed home. They called at 7:30 Saturday to say that they were just leaving Flagstaff and wouldn't get to town until after 10 so they were just going to R's new place. I didn't see them until after noon on Sunday when I showed them around a little and helped them find a few things.

Rather than get antsy waiting for them to call I spent the entire time knitting and spinning. I started the Cobblestone Pullover from IK Fall 2007 for DH. It's coming along nicely.

I also spent several hours on Saturday and Sunday sitting at the spinning wheel. I finished off the daffodil merino blend and then plied it with the lavendar. Here are the two skeins drying in front of the bathroom mirror. The yellow shows up more in person although in the picture the lavendar is showing more, how odd. I don't have anything planned for them yet but it should be something for spring.

I also started on some green English mixed roving. It will be something for DH, I just don't know what yet. I'm thinking I'd like to ply it with some brown or gray but I don't know yet.

I haven't got the book sent off yet so it probably won't get there in time. Sorry I'm such a slacker!

Don't freeze while your standing in line to vote! Take care, A

Dispatch from the winter that won't quit

2008-02-18T05:46:00.007-07:00

But first, a picture of my birthday boy! Notice the lost tooth (first one, last month). He had a great day. Family party for both kids in March, still wavering (me, not him ;) about the friend party. And here's the cake: a chocolate eclair ring. Yum.

You probably heard we've broken our all-time record for most snow in one winter; we've already had over 80 inches and it is snowing again right now! Good thing I like winter. Good thing we had a bit of a thaw in January or it would be hard to find the front door . . . We all would have happily skipped the inch or so of freezing rain yesterday. Maybe the pic is too small: it's the ice on the clothes line (we were a bit optimistic in late November about hanging the wash out a few more times). We had no power for about 6 hours yesterday and had the dubious pleasure of shoveling water out of the garage. Who knew there was that low spot right under the garage door ?? After about the 3rd time of shoveling, the temp finally dropped enough that the snowbanks stopped melting and the rain mostly turned to snow which is better behaved!

Happily I got a lot of sewing up done on DH's vest; detailed post on that when it becomes a FO. Before that though, probably a post on our home improvement efforts for the year!

Also I'm trying to think up some new classes to teach at my LYS. Any suggestions? Love, C

OMG!

2008-02-16T17:21:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy!

Did you see this? Specifically what's happening on April 28! I expect pictures and a full post. She is awesome and you will totally have a good time.

How was DS's birthday? Big party and all? I'm looking forward to pictures of his smiling face.

Take Care, A

Feeling the tawashi love

2008-02-14T13:18:00.002-07:00

Hi Alene! Well, somehow I've got all 3 of my WIPs to that middle stage. So of course, all I can think about is tawashi and washcloths and mittens and holiday ornaments (and my aquarium project but that's another thing). I'm thinking cotton for a face scrubby and a ballband washcloth. I even picked up some acrylic yarn at my local Savers store (hey, it's recycling, right?) for dish-scrubbing tawashi and bought a tawashi pattern book online the other day from OkinawaOtter's Etsy store (there are other etsy stores with patterns, too, that I want to check out sometime). I have lots of nice wool bits for cute ornaments and mittens, don't got me started . . . :D Cindy

What Kind of Yarn are You?

2008-02-13T11:23:00.003-07:00

Hi Cindy,

I found this "What Kind of Yarn are You?" Quiz page today while I was looking at the other stops on the Blog Tour.

I am:

The results say:

You are Dishcloth Cotton.

You are a very hard worker, most at home when you're at home. You are thrifty and seemingly born to clean.

You are considered to be a Plain Jane, but you are too practical to notice.

35804 other people got this result!

This quiz has been taken 170624 times.

27% of people had this result.

I don't know, does this sound like me? Can't I be cashmere? At least I'm not fun fur or acrylic!

Take care, A

Coming Soon: Blog Tour!

2008-02-12T08:01:00.001-07:00

Hi Cindy,

Look what arrived in the mail yesterday. I scanned it quickly last night and hope to study it in depth over lunch today. I'm going to pick my project and will try to send it off to you on Thursday. I have a couple of books and some other stuff to send you too, including some citrus, so it's time to send it off.

As I emailed you the other day we're first up on the 25th. I'll write my entry the night before and post it first thing that morning so it's up all day. If you get a chance to post something that's great but if you're too busy with the kids and real life I've got us covered. The rest of the schedule (with links) is located at Donna's Blog.

The brief listing is:

February
25 Alene & Cindy @ Knit-N-Spinnin' Kitten blog
26 Carol Metzger @ Carol's Experiments in Textiles
27 Carol Sulcoski @ Go Knit In Your Hat
28 Prudence @ KnitMe
29 Karen & Pearl @ Pearl the Diabetic Cat: A Journey in Patience

March
1 Deborah Robson @ The Independent Stitch
2 Bella Turek @ Knitsabella Knits
3 Eileen Dobek @ Purling Kitty: A day in the life of a wannabe knitter.
4 Laiane @ It's Furious Balancing
5 Kozy Kitty @ Crazy Cat Lady's Musings
6 Rebecca @ Wanderings
7 Michelle @ Turtle Lover Knits
8 Leanne Dyck @ Designer's Note
9 Mitchypoo @ Knitting and Losing
10 Stacy Elmer @ this that and the other
11 Jadielady @ Jadielady's Thoughts
12 Denise B. @ Nana and the Cats
13 Tracy Philpot @ tracylovesdevons
14 HRH Dani @ Queen of Socks
15 Ladylungdoc @ Purl This!
16 Kim @ Knit-Tea Kitty
17 Theresa Walunas @ The Keyboard Biologist Knits
18 Turtlegirl76 @ Turtlegirl's Bloggy Thing

The baby shower for Lytifa was on Sunday. Today she hits 36 weeks and she's really ready to have the baby. Here she is opening my box of knitted goodies. The pink furry booties were a big hit. I don't have a close-up picture handy here but you can see them on my finished projects page over at Ravelry. Below is the bib and burp cloth set from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book. I love the patterns and I really love the yarn. It is a super soft and smooshy cotton. The washcloth is an increase miter and I used the ends of both balls held together. I love how it turned out.

I also did the cake for the shower. I don't do cakes very often but this one turned out great. I had one of the girls there ask me to do a cake for her sister-inlaw's shower. It's very flattering but I'm not interested in doing cakes all the time.

I'd best close this. I'm taking off on Thursday. My cousin is moving to AZ this weekend and I want to have the house clean before they get here. Maybe I'll be able to write more then. In the meantime, stay warm and don't get buried by snow. And wish your DS a Happy Birthday from us because the card probably won't get there on time. Take Care, Love, A

The follies of February

2008-02-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

Hello Alene! Here's what we've been up to: school, family stuff, work, shoveling snow, getting estimates on a new furnace (ours is starting to slowly fail), going to niece L's wedding, selling DH's old car (neighbor brought over a friend who fixes old cars), and groaning to discover the garage door spring broke! Yikes.

Please send massage therapist, herbal tea, and Introductory Inuit language text. Love, Cindy

Fiber Finds

2008-02-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

Hi Cindy!

We are having our own bit of weather right now. It was cold and threatening rain yesterday so they had to close the roof for the Super Bowl. Today it is still cold and threatening rain. To quote an infamous prez, Bring it On! More rain sounds wonderful.

I planned to write this yesterday during the big game (that we tried to ignore) but DH spent all afternoon playing with his new recorder and trying to get it to talk to the computer.

What I was going to write about was this lovely roving I picked up last week at Tempe Yarn and Fiber. It is some very lovely cinnamon colored alpaca from a cute doe named Reba McIntyre. She lives on the Alpacazona Farm in southern AZ. Margi was excited by the lovely "wild" smell of the roving and wanted to eat it up. I can't wait to try spinning this one, it is so soft and pretty although it still has some vm in it (mostly just leaves from a palo verde tree).

The other thing I picked up was a small packet of soy silk. It's small but the fiber was packed in there. Margi wasn't as interested in this one.

I'll finish this up now and write more later about the finished projects from the weekend. I was feeling icky on Saturday so mostly I spent the day knitting and got quite a bit completed. Maybe I'll have all the baby knitting done by the shower on Sunday.

Take care, A

In progress

2008-02-01T12:54:00.001-07:00

Stash Airing

2008-01-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

Hi Cindy!

I love the snowy pictures. They almost make me miss it until I realize just how cold it is there. Then I remember why I live here where it is sunny (most of the time) and warm (too much of the time). This week has been an exception to both of those. Sunday it rained all day, we had probably over an inch at our house and parts of the valley saw over 2 inches.

A lot of that rain is directed into the normally dry Indian Bend Wash in Scottsdaly and heads down stream to the Tempe Town Lake and on down the Salt River. Good for (naturally) recharging the aquifer. Unfortunately for some people roads go through Indian Bend Wash. Inattentive people have a tendancy to drive around barricades blocking it, thinking the water isn't that deep and they can get through. A flooded car is not uncommon and we see them every time it rains.

DH had another zazenkai this last Saturday so I had the whole day to my self. I spent it going through my stash, photographing most of it, and picking out the worst of the acrylic to send off for charity knitting at Tempe Yarn and Fiber. I ended up taking in two paper bags worth. It gave my stash a little breathing room. Over the next few weeks you'll see the pictures of the stash remains making their way onto my Ravelry page. Actually a few already have along with a couple of projects I also knit up over the weekend.

I love big bulky yarn for little projects like baby hats. This one is a version of the umbilical hat although I didn't knit the umbilical long and knot it. The yarn is just a little too bulky for that. Instead I just looped it back and stitched it down. It is pretty cute. The yarn is Big Baby by Muench Yarns. I've used this yarn before, in fact my friend Ash and I used it to knit our first project. For a baby shower gift for another friend we each knit squares (10 each) and then I joined them into a blanket. That was just over 2 years ago.

I also had two balls of the yarn in another color way and decided to knit them up into a small security blanket. I have to work in the ends yet on both pieces but they'll be all finished off in the next week or so. The baby shower is just 10 days off so it's time to make sure everything is done. I've started a pair of booties and finished the first one already. It's another stash project and I'll have pictures of it soon. It feels great to be working through the stash although I could knit just from it for a long time and not have to buy new yarn.

I'll have another post soon about the two interesting fibers I picked up the other day when I dropped off the charity yarn. I had gift checks to spend and they finally burned a hole in my wallet!

Take care, Stay warm and dry! Love, A

Behind on blogging

2008-01-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

Hi! Hope 2008 has been good to you so far. Here's a pic from one of those cold days with crystal blue skies. To be balanced, I should run out and take a picture of this morning: gray sky, 46F, mucky snow with brown grass exposed. More subzero on its way.

Things are going pretty well here. I'm declaring this year the year of clearing out at our house. We've been here since 1999 and some things haven't moved since we moved in. Now I want that space for other stuff, so look out ebay, goodwill, freecycle, etc! This is a good time of year for it.

I got an aquarium off craigslist and plan to set it up over the next few months with live plants, a new thing for me. I'd like to get into gardening more, having some herbs and maybe a lemon tree in the house but I'm not sure where we'd put them where they would be safe from feline "help."

DS lost his 1st tooth on Sunday, a long-awaited event. We went skating on Saturday: 1st time for DD, DH on his boots. I'm loving Ravelry and narrowly escaped signing up for the gardening equivalent (I'd be out of time for actual hobbies then :) Spinning is going well and the knitting too. Even dabbling in a bit of crochet on my freeform vest. Here are a couple of things I picked up in December for the vest.

Two nieces, the oldest and youngest on my side of the family, are getting married this year, one in Feb and one in Sept. My little sister's baby is adorable and will be one on Feb 16!

I feel like I've forgotten several things in my rush to catch up. Pictures of WIPs soon I hope. Love, Cindy

Update

2008-01-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

Hi Cindy!

I've been a big ol' slacker on the blogging side of things lately. Mom sent me an email this morning of a citrus festival along the Italy-France border. I found this picture the most interesting of the bunch--a spinning wheel decorated with citrus! Pretty good sized too, those palm trees in the background are up to the second story of the building behind. Just think what size needles you'd need to knit something spun on this wheel!

Knitting-wise I've mostly been working on small projects that I can finish up in a day or two. I don't have a lot of attention for more. And it's been relatively cold so I only feel like sitting under a blanket with a warm cat on top of me. I did finish a bib over the weekend (no picture) and knit an i-cord necklace that I still want to felt. I'll post a picture of that when it's done.

Last week one of DH's coworkers had a birthday and he wanted to get her something. He found a candy cane air freshner that smelled really yummy and I knit a little gift bag to put it in. The yarn is a mohair(?) boucle that I got a partial ball of in a bag from Goodwill. It is a mix of pink, pale green, tan and a touch of lavendar. The ties are just a couple of lengths of Lion Brand Suede left from the hats I made for the twins during the first Knitting Olympics. It took me all day Sunday to knit it up since I was using size 4 needles and getting distracted by other things. I hope she liked it (he says she did) and that maybe she can find another use for it. It's hard to say with gifty knitting.

I was a bit disappointed with the outcome of Sunday's game. I even watched it which doesn't happen hardly ever. The disappointment came because my parents were going to come out for a visit if the outcome had been better. Not that they'd go to the game here but it would have been fun to have them out here with all the other cheeseheads. Same thing happened last time the Superbowl was here. This time it is on the other side of the valley from us.

In parting I leave you with a picture of a snuggy warm cat. She's decided that she really likes the space heaters we use and will plant herself right next to it if she can. She sits there for a while and then turns around so the other side gets toasty too. Barring that she'll burrow herself into or under a blanket. That's what she's done here. It's a good thing we don't live somewhere it get's really cold. Of course with her short hair she feels it easier than the others. And it's been running in the mid 60's in our house too. Brrrr!

Take care and stay warm! Love, A

Zooming!

2008-01-18T05:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, January is zooming by. It's been such a snowy winter that we've been sledding and shovelling a lot but not skating yet. I've been spinning some, working on my gloves a little, working on my freeform vest (that's working up fast--blog post on that soon), playing on Ravelry, and planning my new aquarium. It'll be a used aquarium when I get it, which might be off craigslist this weekend. I've had fun looking there and on the local Freecycle list. Of course there's the usual family, home, and work responsibilities! ;) LOL, Sometimes I feel like I only tank about my hobbies!

The photo is of our backyard yesterday as we got another 3 inches. It's not piled up as much as it was because of the big melt we had at the beginning of the month.

The top from Susan's Spinning Bunny is excellent. I'm having another try at spinning singles. More on that soon too, love, Cindy

What I've Been Up To

2008-01-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Cindy,

I saw the bad weather that blew through there yesterday. Yikes! Thunderstorms and tornadoes in January, what's up with that? We had a goodly amount of rain yesterday, around half an inch, and today is back to sunny. Did you see the bus accident in Utah? It was headed from Telluride back to Phoenix and most of the people were from around town. Three of the kids that died were from one high school. How sad.

Here is my latest completed item. It took me just over an hour to complete. It is a single mini-mitten. Since we don't have much use for mittens here I thought I'd try a mini one to see how it went. It passes the Margi chew test, fits in her mouth just perfectly. Actually it is the perfect size for my thumb drive to fit in for carrying back and forth between work.

As you probably figured out I got my Ravelry invite on Saturday, just before we were due to leave for Ben's surprise 60th birthday. I ended up spending much of Sunday on it and have started to catalog my stash although I'm sure that will take weeks.

Here is a picture of Ben with his birthday cake. He played college football for Michigan State (hence the green football helmet) and then one year for the Washington Redskins, the year that Lomabardi coached them. Unfortunately for him he was drafted into the Marines that year and ended up in Viet Nam. He was wounded pretty badly there and has full disability because of it. He was one of my good bosses at MI and there were only 2 of them in the 14 years I was there.

I start my yoga class tonight. It is a Yoga Basics class which is good since it's been about 9 years since I took a formal class and did yoga regularly. I'll let you know tomorrow how sore I am from it.

Take care, stay warm and dry! A