Making Tweed Yarn

Remember this colorway of roving that I blended together, the Midnight in the Garden one?

Well, I've been itching to try my hand at making a tweed yarn. So, I got out the ghetto hand cards (Dog slicker brushes) and using this tutorial from David and this tutorial from Abby, got to blending the Midnight in the Garden roving.

I had so much fun doing this. I made a bazillion rolags and took them with me to the folks' place this past weekend. I got about half of it spun up and guess what? I made tweed singles! This was so cool. I had been scared to blend the roving, scared of losing all that beautiful color. But I didn't.

The mohair disappeared, but all spread out it makes the rolag look iridescent like the film on a bubble. In the singles, it gives it a surprising sheen if held in the light a certain way. The base of the singles is now a pretty charcoal gray and there are little bits of orange, turquoise, lime green, pink and dark blue scattered throughout. When plied, I should have a pretty heathery charcoal tweed to show off.

It turned out so much better than I expected:

Click to enlarge and see the pretty singles!

Check out all the little bits of fluff in the rolag behind the bobbin. It was almost impossible to get a good pic of the rolag, this was the best I could do. It's amazing how in dull light it looks like steel wool. Looks much better here.

As for the "W" tank top, I finished the first side. As for the second, I had completed about half of it when I realized that I had made a huge honkin' mistake in it and had to frog back to the first wedge and that's where it stands now. I'm hoping that I can make some inroads on that this weekend on the really long drive we have to FLA.

Aren't the colors beautiful?

Up to You Know Where...

I'm up to my eyeballs (or as my Dad would say, up to my butt in alligators) with goings on this week, so I apologize if there is little knitting or spinning wise.

Here's what's going on:

1. My cousin's wedding is this weekend and is approx. 10 hours away from me in Clearwater, FL. So I'm doing laundry from last weekend's trip, packing and pre-cooking so the children don't starve while their Dad keeps them. Dad doesn't cook. I don't think he even knows how to use a can opener.

2. The big children's consignment sale is coming up and all of the items (all 300 of them) I'm selling are due bright and early on Tuesday morning. Each item has to be on hangers, ironed, and tagged. Did I put this off until almost too late? Why, yes, I did.

3. The Eldest's birthday is on the 15th so I've been trying to party plan. It's going to be a combination of Pokemon and glow in the dark Monster Mini Golf. I'm very unprepared for this, but I did get the place booked today.

In My Knitting World:

I'm getting start-itis again. Every time I think about taking a trip I start spending oodles of time going through Ravelry and my stash to see what I can do. Forget that I already have two WIPs on the needles, okay? oh, and that the baby that one of them is for is due any second now. Ack!

SO. Please forgive me! I hope to have tons of FOs for you after the weekend. Keyword in that sentence is hope...

Labor Day Weekend Fun

I hope that you had fun over the weekend. For me, it was a great, restful holiday weekend.

We went to my Uncle's farm (to hand deliver the Wedding Stole to the bride's mother) and saw some "Houseys" to use the Youngest's term for horses. He's got a bunch of Arabians that are absolutely gorgeous. This is one of the "babies" he has:

They are all like great big dogs. If you go out into the pasture you'll be surrounded and each one of them will be competing for attention. It's really very cool. We fed them pears straight off the tree while we were out there. It made us very popular with the four footed crowd.

The kids also spent their time exhausting my parents dog. Here's pic of her in her favorite resting spot, on top of the back of the couch (she's weird):

And something really cool was waiting for me in the mail when I got home. Two patterns from White Lies Designs: the Easy Lace Jacket and the Madeline Shawl Jacket. I won these in a drawing from the Sexy Knitters Club for doing a Knit a long over there. Way cool!

I'll have an update on the W tank top and some spinning stuff done over the weekend as well for you tomorrow. See ya then!

Off again!

The kids and I are off on a three day weekend at the lake while Daddy goes out with his drinkin' buddies for a guys' weekend. He hasn't had one of those in years. He's so excited, it's kinda cute.

Have a safe and fun Labor Day! See ya Tuesday.

Fleece fun

Well, I played hooky with the knitting last night. Didn't pick it up once. However, I did play with other sheepy stuff.

I decided to go ahead and wash all the rest of the fleece from the fleece study that I'm doing. Every time I would open the cedar chest, it smelled like a farm. I really don't want all of my yarn and fiber smelling like the farm, so out it came.

This is what my dining room table looks like now.

And it stinks to high heaven. Smells like wet, stinky sheep fur. Yuck.

Here's what I've learned so far with the fleece study.

1. Most raw fleece is gross. It contains, poop, urine, dirt and various vegetable matter.
2. I used extremely hot water to help melt the grease off of it. That worked best for me. I've read all sorts of stuff about using cold or luke warm water, but the hot did the job. On most of these I had to do three washes and three rinses.
3. I don't like the power scour or fiber wash stuff. The one product that really worked to get the dirt and grease out? Dawn dishwashing detergent.
4. If you are doing a bunch of samples, have more than one lingerie bag handy (I did) so that you can do two at once. Takes forever with just one.
5. Be ready to shoo the cats off the table at least a hundred times. They are incredibly fascinated with wet sheep fur. The dogs prefer the disgusting poo filled fleece. Cats are definitely more intelligent than dogs and that's just more proof of it right there.

I've only spun up two of the fleeces in the study so far. As soon as the samples on the table are dry, they'll go into a labeled gal. size ziplock bag and will be put away until I can get around to carding or combing.

A card came in the study for each type of sample fleece. You are supposed to wash and clean the fleece, card it, spin it, knit a swatch from it and then attach the sample to the card. That's what you're supposed to do. I don't know that I'll do that.

I will spin it up and I will take notes on the cards. But I feel like swatching would be a waste of perfectly good yarn. I will probably use it in some small projects instead. I would rather do the work and have a product to show for all the work I've done. Does that make me a bad student? :)

Free at last, free at last, etc...

Oh Glorious Freedom! The freedom of having all the children in school (for at least 3 hours twice a week anyway.) You have no idea how great it feels.

The funny thing about it? Another mom, who happens to be my best buddy and has a kid in the same 2 year old class as The Youngest, hooked up with me to go play while the kids were in school. We dropped them off and then looked at each other as said, "Now what are we gonna do?" We were completely at a loss. Neither of us are used to having zero children hanging on us!

We opted for coffee and a pedicure. What fun! Caramel lattes, Massage chairs, Pretty toes and Adult conversation, who could ask for more?

As far as knitting goes, I have just a little more to go and I'll be finished with the first half of the W tank top. I'll have an in depth report on that tomorrow. For now, I'll leave you with the Youngest's first day of school pic. It's the only one that I was able to get, he's not one for standing still and smiling. Notice the lovely bruise above his right eye. A big brother, a ride-on bus, a beanbag and a plastic table were all involved. Don't ask. :)

Selfish Project!

After knitting lace for someone else for the past month and a half, I began a purely selfish project for myself:

I heart these colors

This is one quarter of the W sweater by Kristi Porter. I'm using the Debbie Mumm Traditions yarn in Heather Haze. This is knit sideways with tons of short rows. I love how this is striping, how the colors fade into each other. And, a bonus of sorts, how the stripes are vertical. Gotta love slimming vertical stripes.

There are two pieces to the tank. I'm about halfway finished with the front (or the back depending on which side I like better.)

I had to frog a portion of it. The pattern isn't quite clear on the short row stuff. If I had been paying attention and remembering how to do short rows on socks, I wouldn't have had to frog and start over. I forgot to pick up the wraps on the stitches and the wraps stuck out like a sore thumb because of it. Oops. So, after a few colorful words once I realized what had happened, it got ripped back and I began again, this time remembering to pick up the wraps. Can't I have just one project go without any mistakes made in it? Just once? Please?

It feels like I'm flying through this pattern. Of course, that could be because I've been immersed in lace weight yarn for the past month and a half too. Let's hear it for the instant gratification projects! Yay!

Ride like the wind Bullseye!

The Youngest has discovered Toy Story 2. Notice the Woody doll on the back of the horse. :)

'Tis Done!

The Wedding Stole aka Baltic Sea Stole is finished! I'm so proud of this project. I hope the bride loves it as much as I do. I'd keep it, but I can't fit into my wedding dress anymore, won't even fit over my thighs. :)

Here's two shots I managed to get with all the poor weather that hurricane Fay has dumped on the Southeast. Please click to enlarge for a more intimate view!

Artsy Pose

Atop the table pose

Details: Baltic Sea Stole by Faina M. Letoutchaia
Needle Size: US 8
Yarn: Ovation by S. R. Kertzer, colorway: 2140, used 3.1 skeins
Beads: white pearl glass E beads purchased from the evil WalMart.
Made for: my cousin Emily's Wedding
Began: July 7, 2008
Completed: August 21, 2008

No Peeking! Exclamation points galore!

Guess what's finally off the needles? Go ahead, guess.

I'll give you some hints. It's beeeuuuttttiifullllll! It has beads! It's going to a wedding! It's currently very wet, prior to blocking!

But no peeking! Ok, just a little peek:

Real photo shoot pics will arrive on Monday! Have a great weekend!

Blocking Rods

I'm so close! Only 15 rows to go on the Wedding Stole and then blocking. Yeah!

I went to Home Depot today and bought 4, 1/8" x 36" brass rods today to use as blocking wires/rods. Should work perfectly on this stole. I also grabbed some galvanized picture hanging wire to use for blocking on stuff that requires something more flexible. We'll see how that does. All of this was way cheaper than buying a blocking wire kit online. I love hardware stores! But they do look at me funny when I tell them what I want their stuff for. Happens every time.

The Youngest starts pre-pre-pre K next week and he needs a backpack. So guess what we bought today and he won't take off now? Wore it all through the Home Depot trip. Sometimes you just have to pick your battles, ya know?

Last Evening

An event from last night:

Me: (peeling wall paper) "Oh look, the Youngest wants to help, how cute."
Youngest: (peeling wall paper) "Help!" (then runs away and comes back.)
Me: "What are you eating?"
Youngest: "Cheese"
Me: "What cheese?"
Youngest: (peeling wall paper) "Cheese" (then runs away)
Me: (panicking) "What cheese?" (Chases him down)
Youngest: "Yummy!"

Me: EWWWWW!!!!!

Caught the disgusting 2 year old eating soggy, 20 years dirty wall paper off the wall.

I just about threw up.

Can someone come up with a brilliant invention that makes children skip the 2nd year altogether? Please?

Brain Cell Challenged

I must be brain cell challenged. There's something in my little pea brain that crops up every once in a blue moon and says "You don't have enough stuff to do, you better take on a really big freakin' project."

Let's see, I've already got these on my plate now:

1. Wedding Shawl
2. Baby Sweater
3. The Youngest starting pre-pre-pre K
4. The Youngest (in general)
5. My best friend coming over tomorrow
6. Desperately needing to clean house (I'm definitely not the premiere house frau)
7. Guests coming over on Labor Day
8. Children's consignment Sale coming up mucho quick and need to get clothes ready to sell.
9. Wedding to attend on Sept. 6th
10. etc. etc. etc.

Yeah, I've got tons of time on my hands. So what did I start last night?

Getting rid of a 5 year old nightmare in the kitchen. No not one of the kids, remember they're two and seven (although that's not a bad idea), but this:

Hideous, frickin' WALLPAPER from hell!

Notice the three layers? The bottom layer was never primed and is stuck fast to the sheetrock. I won't be removing it, just priming and painting it. But I started steaming and peeling last night and this is where I stopped. I have since peeled a bit more.

Take a closer look.

The top level: Everyone over the age of 70 that has come into my kitchen has loved this one. Yes, it's colorful. But EWWWW! I once hung a Christmas wreath against it and it blended in. Nothing can be hung against this wall paper. It's like kitchen camouflage with a nasty 80's color scheme of colonial blue, seafoam green and a smidge of pinks and browns.

The Second Level: Polka Dotty but more bearable than the top layer.


Third Level: Leftover 70's paper. The house was built in 1980, but I guess they didn't feel like putting in brand spanking new 80's paper when they could get leftover 70's stuff from the oops bin at the local Wall Papers 'r Us.


I have a huge kitchen, but this is the biggest wall of the stuff. It's not going to be a quick project. I'm making Christmas the deadline for it, but if it isn't complete by then, who cares? It'll get done sometime. There's no way we could ever sell the house with wallpaper like this anyway. Yuck!

Swatching For Sanity

Most people (including myself) do swatches only out of basic necessity. I never thought I would see the day that I did a swatch to save my sanity. I've looked at lace and looked at lace and looked at more lace this weekend, until I really needed a serious break. But. Since there is a big deadline looming on the lacework, I could only take a small break, thus, the swatch.

I'm swatching for this tank top: W, by Kristi Porter. For the yarn, I decided to try Debbie Mumm Traditions. I've heard horror stories about this yarn. It is a core spun yarn with black as the core fiber. I'm not sure about the core fiber, it could be cotton.

So here's my review of this yarn so far. There are many complaints out there about the outside of the yarn bunching up and exposing the core fiber. I haven't seen it yet. This could be a complaint of tight knitters. I was very careful to keep a loose but comfy tension while I was knitting.



I do think though, that this will pill very easily. If you enlarge the above pic, you can see a bunch of fuzzies showing up already.

Look at the pic below. Aren't the colors fabulous?

It has long color runs similar to Noro, but it's waaaayyyy softer to the touch. So far I like it. I'm going to throw the swatch in the washer just for fun. The yarn is 75% acrylic, 23% wool and 2% "other fiber". I got gauge and now I want to experiment wit it some more. So, now, it's off to the washer and dryer. I'll report on it after it's done.

I'm also going to measure how long the color runs are and also the length of the transitions are between the runs. I would like to make a lizard ridge blanket, but I hate the feel of Noro. I want to spin my own Noro-esque yarns for the afghan. My problem is (and why I haven't done it yet), a certain little monkey stole my tape measure, or, as he calls it, the "push-it" (for the little button on the side that makes it draw up.) I'm going to have to turn the house upside down to find the "push-it".

Which monkey you ask? The monkey with the red blanket below. Look what they did to the couch cover, pillows and living room.

Monkey see, Monkey do.

Work progresses!

The Wedding Shawl is still growing. I know it's hard to tell from the pictures though. I'm averaging about half of one repeat in an evening. I probably won't make it to the 13th repeat, but I'm going to go as far as I can in the little time I have left.

Baltic Sea Stole

Here's a closeup of the lace pattern and beading:

Also, check out this little guy:

I found him at JoAnn Fabrics for just 89 cents. I thought he was too cute to pass up. They're running a huge sale getting rid of their summer stuff right now.

The Olympic Influence

The Youngest is an extremely willful, stubborn, over-active, independent child. I'm constantly mortified at his behavior. I've said many times that if I had had him first, I would never have had a second. I can definitively say that the Eldest is far easier to control and influence. A compliant child, if you will. The Youngest? Not ever.

However, there are the rare days in which the Youngest does something that I think is kinda cute.

This week, he's decided that he's the world's greatest gymnast. Not because he takes gym class, but because of the influence of Olympic television on young imaginative minds.

He saw a clip of some gymnasts on the parallel bars. He immediately raced over to the couch and coffee table, put one hand on each and swung his little legs out in front of him. Of course he then lost control, fell, and hit his head on the coffee table. He picked himself up and proceeded to try again. Nobody was going to tell him he couldn't do it.

Next he saw some men doing high diving. Seeing as how we have neither a pool in our living room nor a diving board, he made his own. A child's step stool and a big beanbag did the job. He even put his hands over his head, just like the diver's did before they (he) jumped.

I'm delighted at the creativity and imagination this child is showing lately. The eldest has always been a more logical and literal thinker. Nothing wrong with that, but I love to watch a child's imagination at work.

BTW, he has also decided that the molding in the doorways of our house are really big trees that he wants to climb. He's thrown major tantrums because he can't manage to make it up to the ceiling, much less an inch off the ground. How do you explain why that one won't happen to a 2 year old?

*************************

I also had a dream last night. I dreamed that I bought some mascara and had to justify that purchase to my mother. I'm 38 years old, about to be 39. Why in the world would I feel like I have to justify the mascara that I bought to my Mom, who could care less anyway? Is my subconscious feeling guilty? Is my shawl not coming along fast enough?

I'll have a Wedding Shawl update for you tomorrow.

Great Videos on Carding and Spinning

Well, the Olympics might be great for the Wedding Shawl, but it's not so great for my wrists and forearms. I had to stop early last night to rest them. I was starting to get shooting pains in both which is not a good sign for my health and well-being. I did get in 11 rows though. Not bad even though it was frustrating knowing that I had 2 more hours of tv watching to do and couldn't knit through it. It's gotten so that I can't sit down to watch tv without my fingers getting twitchy from not having anything to do. Spinning was out of the question as well since it leads to the same problems. Oh well.


I've gotten to the point where I can card the Shetland Fleece. I don't use proper hand cards for two reasons: 1. I don't have any and 2. They're expensive. I do however, use these. They are the Extra Large size dog combs from Petsmart. They are curved and come with a nifty little come for cleaning them. They are smaller than most cards, but work just fine for making small rolags for spinning. They are also great for flicking your wool as well.



I wanted more detail about hand carding. I've taken a spinning class where I was taught how to do this, but it was a while ago and I've gotten to where I can't remember everything the lady taught me (old age you know.)

While I was hunting for info, I found some great Youtube videos on Handcarding wool and Spinning on a Wheel. They're done by an English lady named Sue Macniven and they pay great attention to detail. She's a great teacher. I wish I had seen some of these when I first got my wheel. I'll list them for you:

Wool Carding with Sue Mcniven
Wool Carding Part Two
Beginning Spinning Part One
Beginning Spinning Part Two

I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

Wedding Shawl progress and more Fleece Study

The Olympics have been good for the Wedding Shawl. It's forcing me to sit for 3.5 hours every night and work on this thing. When I stopped last night, my right hand felt like jelly. I could barely hold onto the needle. Ibuprofen is my new best friend.

I've put the knitting into overdrive. I've only got about two weeks left to work on it. I really wish I could work on this while the Youngest was awake and about.

Meanwhile, something that I can work on during the day is another fleece sample. This one is Shetland fleece. This time, I put it into a lingerie bag and immersed it (with absolutely no agitation or swirling) into really hot water with some Dawn dishwashing detergent to get the grease out. I left it for 15 minutes then put it into the sink next to it to rinse in hot water for a few minutes.

I then set it out onto a towel and rolled it up and smooshed it (gently) to get the water out. It's now hanging around on the back porch while it dries.

I think this time that I was successful. The last fleece I did had a bunch of felting through it and was a royal pain to card and spin.

Of course, this fleece sample was also much cleaner than the last one.

Fleece Study

I have joined a new Fleece Study. I plan on going to S.A.F.F. in October (on my birthday weekend) and I would like to purchase a fleece when I get there. The problem is, I have no clue what I'm doing when cleaning a fleece and I also don't know what kind I want. So, I joined the study.

It came with everything you see here (except for Widget the cat):

The box arrived damaged and I think one of the fleeces I was supposed to get fell out. I'll contact Linda and see if she can send it to me.

This is kinda spooky for me. I am an absolute newbie at this. I'm used to getting already prepared roving, not raw fleece that still has dirt, vegetable matter and poop in it. The smell isn't too bad. It reminds me of my granddad's farm. Of course if you're citified, you probably won't care for the smell.

I already started soaking one - the Columbia fleece. Right now it's doing an initial soak in some cool water and the water is becoming quite icky.




We'll see if I manage to get this thing clean or if I felt the bejeezus out of it.

I finished fixing the shawl. I'm not incredibly pleased with how it turned out. The tension is way too loose now and it's uneven. I'm hoping that careful blocking will alleviate the problem somewhat. Either way, I'm moving on. I'm already pushing my schedule out the window as it is. Sigh. At least it's a little better better.



I'm planning on going ice skating on Sunday, something that I haven't done in years and the hubby and the Eldest never have. It's a Cub Scout event at a local rink. I'll let you know if I break anything. :)

Have a great weekend!

When Knitting Goes Wrong - a Tutorial

Sometimes I'll be chugging along with my knitting thinking "Man, am I hot tonight! Just look how well this is going." and then I'll look down at my work and say "Oh no."

Yes, that's what happened last night. The edges of the wedding shawl are supposed to be seed stitch. That's where you work k,p,k,p on a row all the way across, then turn your work and then do p,k,p,k all the way across.

Sometime in the evening my seed stitch turned into a rib stitch. I don't have a clue how or when. But it affects a ton of rows that I was not willing to pull out and re-knit. So what was I to do? My first instinct was to fix it a row at a time by dropping the stitch down to where it was correct and then take a crochet hook and fix it. Yeah, well, that didn't work so well. The mohair kept grabbing onto anything and everything for dear life, so I had to find a different strategy.

The mohair was still difficult, but this method went much smoother for me:

1. I isolated the problem and gave it a good look over. As you can see from the pic below, the problem is a small square from the first stitch on the left to the marker and then down to the crochet hook. I ran a small crochet hook through one leg of the stitches that were correct, as a lifeline of sorts.

Once the evaluation of the problem was over, I decided to drop all the problem stitches off the needles. Yes, this is scary, but not as scary as taking the whole project off all of the needles and frogging back your lace. I don't like frogging lace. It's far too easy to never find your place again. You can see where I began:

Note that from the hook on down is seed stitch and from the hook on up is ribbing.

2. Continue pulling out the stitches until you get to the live stitches on your hook. You don't have to use a crochet hook for this part, it's just what I had handy. You could use other needles, cables, a stick, whatever is near you. When you get to the live stitches the problem should look like so:


3. Now you need the hook. I put all the live stitches but one on a holder and grabbed the loop with the hook.

4. Moving up, the stitches should alternate between knit and purl. Remember this is seed stitch. (This process works just as well for fixing other problems in stockinette, garter or rib, you just have to know what the next stitch up should look like.)

For the knit stitches, You put your hook through the loop from the front of your work. Then grab the first line of yarn above it and pull it through the loop, basically making a crochet chain.

Note that the lines are all long horizontal loops. Keep these horizontal and in order. You're going to move up from the loop using the lines of yarn as you go.


5. When you get to a stitch that needs to be purled, you have to go through the back of the work (loop) like shown below to grab the next line of yarn and pull it through.

Continue steps 4 and 5 until your loop is back up to your cable. Put it on the cable and then begin the whole process again by taking the next loop off the holder and start at step number 3.

I'm not finished with correcting the problem. I can't get a certain two year old to leave me alone long enough to fix it since he woke up from his nap. It won't take long. If I can just get a good solid 15 minutes I can be back chugging along. I'll have a progress report for you tomorrow.

I hope this mini tutorial will help others who have similar problems!

10 Things You Didn't Know About Me

I saw this a while back and thought that now would be a good time to do this since the progress on my current WIP is going so slow. :)

1. Graduate of Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. War Eagle! Got a nice expensive degree in business/computers that I now use to play mind games with two children under eight in order to manipulate them into simulating normal sane and acceptable social behavior.

2. Met the hubby on a blind date setup by a mutual friend - don't badmouth blind dates, they occasionally work.

3. I'm a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Bookworm and wannabe Sci-Fi/Fantasy Author.

4. I want to have a small Alpaca Farm someday.

5. I loathe English Peas, Cherries and anything Cherry flavored. I do however, like to use cherry kool-aid to dye with. I just try to ignore the cherry smelling stench.

6. I've begun to secretly dislike two year olds, but you probably already guessed that one.

7. I'm a Genealogy/History geek - my minor in college was European history and I'm the genealogist for three different sides of the family.

8. I'm an internet addict. I admit it. Now I'm waiting for my 12 step program to commence once I find it through Google.

9. I often order stuff over the internet and hide the evidence so I don't get the third degree from the hubby.

10. I'm actually quite shy when meeting other people (though most people don't think so because I can talk a good game) and I have a hard time making long term friends because of it. Doesn't mean I don't have confidence, I'm definitely not a wall flower, just been burned by supposedly "close" friends too many times. Now you have to earn my trust the hard way. :)


There.


I've confessed. It's supposed to be good for my soul right?

Lace Update

See this mess? Not my fault. My mom caused this. I showed her how much fun the hackle is today, and she agreed! See the two yellow bird nests of roving towards the bottom left of the pic, right next to the hackle? Yep, she made those. I'm so proud. :)



I promised an update on the Wedding Stole that I'm working on. It continues to grow. I'm still worried that it won't get done in time. The good thing is that even if I don't get in all 13 repeats of the pattern, I can block the heck out of it and it'll stretch to the appropriate size. It's killing me that I can't work on this more during the day. It is just about impossible to work on this while the Youngest is on the loose.

I really like how the beading is turning out. I had to create a different beading diagram from the one that I was given. Not because anything was wrong with it, but because I screwed it up. However, I think I like the way the beads are going now even better. You can see how the pearl beads accentuate the waves on the stole.

The wedding is going to be a seaside one which is why I chose this pattern. I love the waves in it. The lace pattern resembles the shape of the flower appliques on the brides wedding dress.


I think I may make myself one of these in a heavier weight yarn one day. This is going to be gorgeous.

I'm just a third rate citizen

First off, I have a post milestone. It's post number 301! Yeah!


And speaking of posts, I sort of went postal on the family yesterday. They were looking at me like I had horns growing out of my head.

Moms always seem to be the third rate citizen. All of the family comes first, then Mom. At least, that's the way it seems to me.

The hubby always has "important" things to do. The Mom? Nah, she just sits around eating bonbons and filing her nails all day right? God forbid if she wants to go to the grocery store occasionally without "baggage."

The children must always come first. They must be fed, watered, diapered, played with and put to bed (sometimes several times a night). All of this occurs over and over again ad nauseam. Then don't forget the temper tantrums, potty training, whining, schooling, etc that must occur between each of the aforementioned items.

The hubby made the mistake of going all "Woe is Me" about his lot in life while talking about how I did nothing. I work far harder at home than I ever did while I was a Manager at the Georgia Lottery. Much.

Is he on call 24/7 with his job? no. Can he leave his job when his day is done? yes. Can I? nope. Does he have to put up with whiny terrible behavior from his co-workers? Occasionally. Me? Hourly.

So. There I was, reading the riot act to the family and how things were going to be, dammit. Everything got really, really quiet and everyone's eyes were huge. I left the house at 2pm, got back around 5:30 (after having threatened to never return) and had the house to myself. Why? Because right before I left I told him if he and the kids should get hungry he could call his mother. And he did. They didn't get back 'til around 8:00pm. Pure Bliss.

I'm better today. I'll be even more better when school starts this Thursday. That'll be one down. On the 25th I'm going to be downright giddy. The Youngest will start his two year old Pre-Pre-Pre K class. Two down and 3 whole hours to myself twice a week. Ahh. It's the little things in life that count. really. :)



Today, the Youngest had his first gymnastics class. It was downright hysterical. There were 5 two year olds in the class and at any moment, one would take off like a rocket to disrupts someone else's class because what the big kids were doing looked a whole lot more fun that what they were doing. You could never really predict which one would take off when either. Too funny!

Sorry for the poor pics. All I had was my cell phone and I was too far away.



Okay. I'm done venting, I'm going back to wedding shawl hell now. I'll give an update on that tomorrow. See ya!

Caught Me Red Handed

Important Note to Self: When deciding to experiment with Red food coloring and roving, it would perhaps be best if one chose to wear gloves.


In the never ending quest for a roving in my favorite color, I headed to the Wilton's food coloring in the cabinet and picked out the color Red Red. I don't know about the roving yet as it's still on the burner, but fingers color nicely. I know I'll be the envy of all when they see the luscious red that my fingers have now become.

Dye from the Garden

My Mom has spent the whole summer canning food from the garden. Hours and hours in front of a hot stove with two pressure canners is not my cup of tea. She, on the other hand, thinks I'm crazy for spending so much time knitting and spinning, but to each his or her own right?

Besides getting free food for the winter that she throws my way, another off shoot of the project is pulp that I can render for making dye. She made jam from some blue berries and I got the pulp.

I started the rendering last night:


Just dumped the berry pulp in the pot and added some water to it. I boiled it for about 20 minutes and then strained it off into a glass bowl. I would have used plastic ones, but I really didn't want the bowls turning blue, ya know?

I'm going to freeze it until I have time to experiment with it. Neat huh?

While we're on the subject of canning and growing garden-y things, check this Lima bean (in the South we call it a Butter Bean) plant out. This plant, when it came home from school in May, had only two leaves. Now does it not only have more leaves, it has a bloom! My Mom thinks it'll only be a false pregnancy, but who knows? We might have a miraculous Butter Bean conception!


Now on to things yarny:

Progress is sloooooowwwllllyyy being made on the Baltic Sea Stole. See?


If I pick up another project that has a deadline, would someone please shoot me? At this point, the bride will be having her 50th wedding anniversary before this is complete.

I got busted by the fiber cop.

Yesterday the Eldest learned to ride a bike! Just one month before his 8th birthday. Yeah!

He also, a little later, had his first bike crash and got this lovely memento of the event:

His first, (but not last) bike injury!

Ouch! As he crashed, the handlebars scraped his ribs and he came screaming over to me with huge tears in his eyes. Hopefully this won't keep him from getting back on the bike. It's hard being seven, isn't it?

I spent the whole weekend being a big bully by making him get on the bike that he was so scared of falling off of in order to teach him how to ride the stupid thing. We celebrated his learning by taking a trip to the store and buying him the Transformer I promised if he learned how to do it by yesterday evening. This is a child that learns better if he has a goal to shoot for and the Transformer was it.

***

I also got busted by the fiber cop (husband) while I was away. I had ordered more fiber from the Sheep Shed Studio and was hoping that it would come in by Friday so it could be squirreled away with no one being the wiser. No such luck. The box came in on Monday and I had to fess up that I had placed another order. Oops.

In the box was a grab bag and some black/white roving. I plan on dyeing up most of it, but not this:

Click for detail.

This is the most fantastic oatmeal colored roving that I've seen. It was part of the grab bag. I'm keeping it "as is." There's 14.4 ounces of it. Hopefully I'll have enough when I'm done to make a small sweater out of it, at least a tank top. Love it.

EZ complaint

I would like to state to the world now, that I am not enamoured of Elizabeth Zimmerman's patterns. Please don't throw rocks my way before you hear why.

I was working on the February Baby Sweater today. I got to the part where I had finished the sleeves and then stumbled on a little part that says: knitting up 4 x 7. Anybody had trouble there? Yeah. I thought so. It can't be just me.

I agree that she was a genius and a prodigy and years ahead of her time. I'll give you that. However, she kinda sucked at patterns for those that need a bit more explaining. Why didn't she just say "Pick up and knit 7 sts. on each side of the two sleeves (28 sts. total)"? I figured it out after much internet research, but really, would plain knitting english have hurt her when writing the pattern?

Roxie, the 10 month old puppy, had a milestone today. She had her first appointment at the beauty shop. It was kind of a shock. She went in looking like a ratty little puppy and came out looking like a mature Chinese Crested dog is supposed to. The fur on her face had silvered underneath the moppy stuff that we were used to looking at.

Roxie feels glamorous now

I'm up at the lake until late tomorrow night and my camera batteries have gone caput. So if I miss tomorrow, you'll know that I'm traveling back home and have nothing to show you anyway, huh?

I did get a pic of a boy who wants to go fishing though: