Squeeky Wheel....

After reading Amy's blog for a very long time, now, and admiring all the wonderful cards she makes for her family, I whined that I wanted one. I got one! And as usual with Amy's cards, this one is very much me. When I joined the Air Force way back in '74, I was stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, AZ. I'd never been to a desert in my life. Culture shock. In 1979, after being married, had a child, I got orders for Anchorage, AK. So my little family and I headed North to Alaska. Three years later we headed for Texas. That was really culture shock. I'd never lived in the south. I grew up as a damn Yankee. I didn't even know that half the population (or more) of the United States went to church regularly on Wednesday nights!

After 18 months in Texas, due to my dad's health, we got a humanitarian reassignment back to the desert in 1983. And have been here ever since. I so totally understand the coyote in Amy's card! Thank You, Amy! You've told the story of much of my adult life in that picture! (BTW, the colors are much brighter on the original!)

Yesterday was a spinning day. Finished another bump of the Rambouilette. Three more to go. This will be wound off the bobbin, washed and blocked today.

We brushed the dog yesterday, my Youngest Son and I. Soooo much fluff. YS asked if I was going to save it and spin it. Which reminded me of the huge ball of spun dog I already had! The answer to him, btw, was, "No." I have enough to spin, and I don't anticipate the source of dog fluff to disappear any time soon.

Well, while reading blogs today, I read with joy, Allison's SpinDyeKnit blog. Allison's blog is so restful and comfortable to read. Like a cup of tea and a deep breath. She has a few free patterns on her blog, all with a story of how the design came about. I saw the Rabbit Tracks scarf and immediately thought of the spun dog fluff I have.... What a great long term project..... So, I may just have a new project to CO. It'll definitely be long term as lace and I are not very good friends and I can only take it in short doses. This is a very easy pattern so perhaps...

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This is just way too cool. Each panel of animation is knitted and there are over 700 of them. Watch to the very end, and you can see the numbers in the bottom center of the panel. The group is Tricot Machine. (F, turn the sound off and just watch the pictures. It's in French.)

I did the spinning thing again yesterday. Another skein of the Rambouillet. Finished up that ball of roving which means there are four more to spin. Then the white for contrast or something. I'm still leaning towards the EZ Rib Warmer.

Although if I spin today, it'll be something other than the Rambouillet. I'm tired of spinning it and want a change. I requires a lot of pre-drafting, sticks to itself and doesn't like to be drafted in general. (Drafting is the pulling the roving to make it loose so that the fibers slip easily into a straight line and twist nicely into a yarn. When fiber drafts easily, it's much easier to get into a rhythm and make nice uniform yarn. The Ramouillet I have just doesn't want to draft easily at all, and therefore creates what I call a rustic yarn.) What I'll spin, I have no idea. hmmmm maybe the alpaca or llama I got almost a year ago at the Renaissance Festival....

Knitting...let's see. Oh, worked on the Mickey Mouse Waterloose socks. I've got about 3.5 inches of the first leg done. And I worked on the F & F Comfort Shawl. I put several of my Denise cords together and found that it's about 4 feet across the top of the shawl and about 24 inches to the point. I'm aiming for 36 inches to the point. I had quit adding width to it for about 2.5 to 3 inches, but I think I'll start those increases again to add a bit more width. Yes, it kinda puts a jag in the edge, but...when I'm wearing it, it won't be noticeable, and I was thinking about adding an edging to it anyway. Time will tell.

There is been a discussion on one of the knitting lists that started over the never ending discussions about copyright. Story is told of one designer that went over the deep end and sues/ed people for using other than the yarn called for, for changing colors, etc. No pictures of finished items could be published anywhere including the knitter's blog, etc. Then ensued lots of discussion, gossip, etc.

In the midst of all this someone stated that most of the knitters in the US wanted to only follow patterns exactly as written using the same yarns, yadda yadda yadda. Bottom line s/he felt that most American knitters show no creativity and can't even figure out how to substitute yarn or even yarn color when doing a pattern.

I'd poo poo this except when I was deep in the cross stitch world, there was a designer that did the same thing. To the extent that she couldn't find a judge that would allow her in his/her courtroom. She sued someone who had one of her designs hanging in the back ground of a professional done family portrait. And there were stitchers that said, "Oh I love that design, but I don't like pink so I can't stitch it." "Is it legal to change colors on a published design??"

Anyway, do you always follow the pattern exactly as written? Do you substitute yarns, colors, stitch patterns? Do you use patterns as a suggestion or as law? See Poll on upper right corner of blog!

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Did you hear the one about the dyslexic devil worshiper who sold his soul to Santa?

Do you know how to darn a sock? I do.....now! Thanks to Turtlegirl finding and posting this!

Socks are done! Sorta....

I've finished up the Waterloose socks as far as I'm going to before taking them to Tennessee and having my DIL try them on. These are the first lace socks I've managed to do and with the amount of time frogging and reknitting I could have made two pair of plain vanilla socks. However, they are pretty, I like Opal sock yarn and I might be persuaded to make them again...someday....in the future....the far future.... And, yes, those are MY Winnie the Pooh flannel sheets and I love them! So there!


And the spinning wheel was whirring again yesterday. I have have a ball of roving to go and this bobbin will be full and I can wind it off, wash and block. While digging through my fiber stash I found two balls of white Rambouillet that I'll spin up, too. Then I'll definitely have enough to make something. What, only God knows.... Maybe EZ's Ribwarmer.... Joansie made one for her daughter last summer and it's been in the back of my mind ever since then. I like to stay warm in the winter, but really hate sleeves. Having short arms, even the ones that fit are still in my way. This might be the answer. Anyway, it'd be fun to knit myself something out of my handspun.

So....what's on my list to knit? I have a couple spring gifts I need to finish up. The chair arm cover for my Oldest Son's wheel chair, and I need to start a Fair Isle hat for Youngest Son. I'm going to take the pattern from these BMP socks and incorporate it into the hat. I should sit down and chart it out today.... And I have my own Mickey Mouse II socks to do..... Decisions, decisions, decisions.... And I need to start thinking about my "on the airplane"project as well as my "while I'm not holding my grandson" project(s)! :)

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Turn about is fair play. I awarded Jane at Panhandle Portals the You Make My Day Award. She's tagged me with the a book based game. The Rules: pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more, find page 123, find the first five sentences, post the next three sentences, and then tag five people.

The nearest book is Ghost by Alan Lightman. (Just started it, and haven't formed an opinion except that reading details of the embalming process during lunch was really a bit much.) Here are my three sentences: "We want you to be comfortable, David," she says. "It must be difficult for you being here by yourself. I really don't like traveling alone." And, let's see....who shall I tag? Hmmmmm.... Everyone! Everyone who reads this is tagged! Leave me a comment when you complete the assignment!

Okay, have y'all read about the Demon Mittens that are a portent of the end of the world? Really, some people need a life.

The yarn on the wheel goes round and round....

This is the mohair I've been spinning for the last couple of days. I decided to go ahead and wind it off, wash, and block yesterday. It's really pretty, has wonderful halo... It could make nice legs for socks...or a very pretty scarf. I need to finish spinning up the rest of it to see how much I have all together....

And I spun more of the Rambouillet. Probably half a bobbin. That was one ball of roving. I have five more balls to spin, so feasibly I could have these finished by this time next week, but.... I'm not going to set a deadline yet.

I had the whole evening to myself and decided I was going to finish the second Waterloose sock which was just at the end of the heel decreases. Well.... I did a stitch count and it was off by 8 sts. I thought I'd decreased too far. That wasn't it, I don't think. I am really not sure what it is, (except there is aYO at the end of the instep needle and I think...... ) but I ended up frogging it back to picking up the sts along the heel flap. OH well.... It's a good thing they only have to be to the finishing point next month before I go to TN.

So, I got about three rounds done on the heel decreases, but I'm back on track, the count is correct and it's much better I discovered it then instead of at the toe!

My youngest grand daughter really, really hates to wear clothes. She spends most of her days in just a diaper. It's still cold here, especially the floors and she's barefoot. The house temperature varies between 64 and 68 degrees. There is no insulation or draft protection around the windows in old houses out here in the desert. IOW, the heat comes out of the heater and goes out the cracks around the windows. So we can't afford to run the heater to contribute to global warming outside the house. :::sigh::: Now, if one wears a layer or two of clothing, wool socks, and nice fulled slippers, it's livable in the house.

Anyway, she hates to wear clothes. Sometimes, she'll wear knit jammies. So momma bought her a new pair yesterday. So far so good.

I spin, I spun, I will spin

So, I did some spinning yesterday. I worked on the Rambouillet. One of the "things" about Rambouillet is that it has little balls of fiber in it. At least all the I have has been that way and a weaver/spinner/processor took one look at it and identified it because of them.

Anyway, it makes for a more rustic looking fiber (not that all my handspun doesn't look a bit rustic). I wasn't too sure I wanted to continue spinning out the full pound of it, so I quit a 56 gms, washed and blocked it. It really blocked out nicely, so I'm going to knit it up today (I so rarely knit up my own spun yarn...don't know why...) and see how it looks. I do like the look of not perfect yarn (not as drastic as thick and thin designer yarns) but the not so perfect handspun. Update tomorrow. Then I dug out some Mohair that I'd been gifted when my daughter bought a loom years ago. It was a private sale and this woman had more fiber than God. So this is 100% Angora goat of which the fiber is called mohair. (Angora fiber is from bunnies.) I dyed some of it with Kool Aid and Wiltons, so I'm doing a "self striping" thing. Several yards of a color that several more yards of white, then another color or two, then white.... You can see the halo on it already and it's not even washed yet. Have no clue what I'll do with this. I don't ply my yarn and spun singles are not really good for socks...just don't wear very well. But maybe for the leg of a house sock type thing.....
I worked on my F & F Comfort shawl last night while listening to my current upstairs audio book. Along with my upstairs knitting projects, I have my upstairs audio book. I re-listening to the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, Fiery Cross, and A Breath of Snow and Ashes. I'm almost done with Dragonfly in Amber. Now understand, I've read and listened to these books several times. I adore them. And I love the narrator for the unabridged audios-Davina Porter. She has such a wonderful voice. I often fall asleep listening to them.

And there is a promise of two more books. The next one, An Echo in the Bone is do out next year. I learned to knit, so I could knit socks because the male lead in the books, a big red heeded Scot, James Alexander Malcolm McKenzie Fraser, better known as Jamie, knits his own socks as does every Scot, man, woman and child, during that time period--mid 1700s. If you're any kind of a historical romance, time travel, just good reading fun type of person, check out these books. You'll love 'em!

We cleaned up another several pounds of lemons in the back yard yesterday. They are all frost damaged and falling like snowflakes when the wind comes through. I really need to take F up on his offer of his juicer and start juicing and freezing. Picked a couple of really pretty grapefruit and am looking forward to one for breakfast.

Weather is still cold at night. It's 30 degrees outside now and is supposed to get up to the mid 60s I think. Seems like we're having a colder winter, but I've not backed that up with research. It's probably true, though as it counteracts out incredibly hot summers. F keeps promising me the weather is going to start shifting back to the more comfortable average 85-90 summers, but.... I sure haven't seen it since the mid 1980s.

Agenda for today is knitting up that swatch from the Rambouillet and working on the Waterhouse socks. I really need to get those done as far as I'm going to do. Almost done with the heel decreases. Maybe some more spinning....