Splendor in the Grass

Okay, it's about time I introduce you to the new ladies in my life.

Meet Sage.



Meet Isolde. (Isolde is too much woman for me so I'm sharing her with Lynn in Tucson, who sent me with money to Taos and said DON'T BRING ME A FLEECE. So I only brought her half. So there.)



Sage is a moorit CVM from Windy Hill Farm (no site). When they shear, they shear down the middle, then down the sides, so her fleece was shorn in half. In the top picture, one half is tips up, one half (the taupe) is cut ends up. I was just going to take pics and blog, but she was so pretty lying there, I had to play with her some. Currently, she's soaking in a hot bath. She was a dirty girl (she was wearing a coat, but still) so she's changed a bit after her wash down. The brown is still deep and chocolatey, but her tips have washed out almost white, and her undersides are a beautiful silvery taupe, with some cinnamon bits. All in all, she's one sexy sheep.

Isolde is a silver Corriedale from Gleason's Fine Woolies. (No, I do not have another silver corriedale fleece at home. I do not know what you are talking about.) She has amazing crimp, and while she wasn't skirted as well as Sage, she's reasonably clean too. I expect she'll lighten a bit when we wash her. Lynn couldn't resist and took a bit of her home last week from knit night (why yes, I do bring 12 pounds of greasy wool out to the bookshop, why do you ask?) and washed, carded and spun her up. From Lynn's description, I'm going to get lots of pleasure from Isolde too.

Taos was wonderful - my stepdaughter met us there and took the boys so I could spend the whole day with Angie. We visited every booth, ogled the sexy cowboy spinning yarn with his boots off, ate cinnamon pecans and smoothies and kibbees and green chile and had more lemon drop martinis than this woman will admit to. (Angie stuck with the margaritas.) I got to meet Wilson, who seemed nice, although a little dazed by all the wool fumes in the air, and Bug got to see a shearing demonstration, and pet angora rabbits and pick out his very own yarn for a hat. (Pic of that later, I'm due back to rinse Sage in a bit.)

End of July

I can hardly believe it. I guess that is one of the advantages of having no sense of time and being busy all the time. We are through what is usually the hottest part of the summer already, though of course, now that I've said that we'll probably have the hottest August, September and October on record.
DH doesn't seem to be getting much better, though he mostly isn't getting worse, either. He'd tried to turn down his oxygen (3l is the magic number that will allow him a portable battery unit instead of the monster unit and portable, though limited, tanks) but he was feeling pretty rotten so he cranked it back up and is doing better. The tanks are enough to get him around town for appointments, but no way are they sufficient to visit with family out of town, go to his job in Show Low about four hours away, or travel beyond the immediate vicinity, so we either need to find a bigger portable unit or he's just going to have to get better. We've all been struggling with depression and all that, and unfortunately for DH, I am not the kind, nurturing type. (no kidding, eh?) I'm more likely to tell him it's time to get off his lazy ass and get working at getting better. Alas, while I'm sure that approach has a time and place, I'm not always sure when that time and place is. (I'm also trying like hell to remember that the doc said we won't see the full effects of his meds for a few more months yet, so it's possible that he'll make further progress. I tend to think however he is now is how he'll be forever. I don't think this is the "in the moment" thing they talk about when describing the whole feeling of zen.)
Anyway, we are trying to go about with our lives as we can. Yesterday that meant shopping. Baseball glove shopping, to be exact. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a lefty-glove to fit a four year old? Anyway, as my brother pointed out, it's not like he has the strength and coordination to really catch with the mitt anyway, so I got a larger one that he'll grow into. In the meantime, he shoves his hand into it and I toss the ball, aiming for the glove. So far I'm accurate about 50% of the time. Then I chuck it across the yard and he chases after it, and after half an hour he's ready to crash. Tired children are (mostly) good children.



I did a brief bit of spinning for the Tour de Fleece, too. It was the cheater plan, because I'd spun most of a bobbin already long ago. The TdF gave me a little kick to get it moving again, though. I have roughly sport weight, 2ply, roughly 230yds of some rough stuff I dyed with one pink and one orange easter egg dye pellet.



I think I'll knit some stranded mittens with it.

When times get rough...

...I do a little hooking on the side.
So, last time I said I was mostly monogamous. Less than 15 minutes after I hit Publish Post, I was getting out the yarn for not one, but TWO new projects. Sigh. (I hate to be pigeonholed.) For one, the yarn was the wrong size so I must swatch and math, and I have not done that yet. The other one, well...



My SIL saw a hat like this while we were in CA, and she so subtly suggested I make her one by saying, "You should make me a hat like that." I said, more or less, "No way." I couldn't get it out of my head, though, so I went to Ravelry and looked around for a pattern. You know, just in case, for later. Then I remembered I had some Classic Wool in the stash, so I got it out. You know, just in case, for later. Then I told y'all that I was a monogamous knitter, so my fickle little heart demanded that I start it immediately. Sigh.



The pattern was well-written, and I didn't change a thing, despite the fact that the brim took an act of faith. (It totally looks wrong while you're working it, but comes out okay in the end.)(ETA: if I were to make this again, and I might, I'd go up another hook size, but that's just cuz I'm a super-tight crocheter. Make of that what you will.)

The other thing I finished was my handspun. I estimate I got about 410-415 yds of 3-ply. It came out a bit thicker than I meant for, what with the blooming of the fiber, so I prolly could have done a 2-ply and been spot on. Still, it falls between STR lightweight and STR mediumweight (it's about 5.6oz), so I will still prolly use it for socks.



I'm pretty durn happy with it. Thanks, Blogless Lynn!

Oops, and for Cookie: sometimes you need purple cupcakes.

Turns out I'm not such a tramp after all.

I'm just a serial monogamist with ADD.
I can't knit on two projects in the same time period. I can't alternate in a day, or every other day, or whatever. I currently wish I could actively work on the PSC socks and Madli, but I can't. I can only knit on one thing, until forced by circumstance (too many people around to concentrate on lace, going out to stand in the unemployment line and lace is too big, finally quiet in the house so must work on lace, etc) to change to the other. I practice project monogamy. o.0 (I only just practice on a short scale. No way will I ever be the person who knits on one thing only until it's done. Those people are just weird.)
Anyway, I have knit a few more repeats on Madli. I'm up to 8 now, and still enjoying the pattern.

I CAN, however, be multi-craftasmic with abandon. In a stunning example of delayed gratification, restraint, and self control (given that it took me FOUR HOURS to remember the phrase "self control" - all I could think of was "self denial" - you can tell the concept isn't practiced much around here) I have finished one bobbin's worth of future sock yarn and have started the singles for the second bobbin's worth, rather than plying the first bobbin right away. This makes it harder for me to succumb to second-sockyarn-spinning-syndrome.



Of course, it's pretty easy to take some time to spin when my mornings look like this.



Yesterday during my morning spinning time, these two little guys kept me company:




(Look, the Evil Twin blankie in the wild! This photo is MUCH closer to actual color.)

The voices in my head say Hi.

I really don't have much else, but Stacey wondered about my radio silence and thought maybe it was because my man was home, but we can't have her thinking that. (Actually, it is partly due to that - I haven't done this many dishes since, well, before he left. How the man can use every pot, pan, utensil, dish, and flatware cooking two meals for 3 1/2 people I will never know. He thinks he's a tidy cook.)
No, I did spend what felt like ages in the unemployment office, only to find out it was really the welfare office and the unemployment office was next door with no waiting. I would have been really pissed if I'd waited that whole time to have my number called (there were 20+ people ahead of me and they managed to help about 10 an hour, based on what I'd heard yesterday) only to find out I was in the wrong place. Then when I went to the unemployment office (with the letter that said, "You must appear in person and bring this letter with you") the guy said, "Oh, that just meant your job service log in didn't match, but you coulda fixed that online."
o.0
And also, there seems to be a serious shortage of operators in the unemployment call center. That call took 35:01 minutes (seriously, how did I survive without a phone that told me how long I was on hold?), of which 3 minutes were spent with an actual person.
When I'm in this kind of pissy mood, I should not watch movies with sweeping views of the mountains, old crabby ranchers, Morgan Freeman, and down-on-their-luck women and kids. Seriously, I could just about kill myself, if I weren't so lazy. (And also, I think it might hurt, and I don't do pain much.)
And since I'm about to bore the rest of you (the one or two of you who've managed this far without clicking away in disgust) to death, I will spare you further rantings and give you instead, fiber and babies and little boys who are way too little to be riding bikes and who told them they were allowed to grow up so damn fast?

(Click these for short videos of teh cute.) (ETA OMG turn off your volume for the Squeak one because OMG I SWEAR that is not my real voice.)







(Slippin Stripin sock the first, from this month's PSC, a seriously entertaining knit. Yes, that is laceweight, doubled.)


(Bobbin of hopefully 1/3 fingering weight singles, from the Birthday Batt that Blogless Lynn made me.)


(The rest of the first half of the Birthday Batt.)

Speaking of Blogless Lynn, see this article. That's my preferred LYS pictured, that's the woman who taught me to spin (Jill Holbrook, holding the lovely sweater), and that's Blogless Lynn in the back of the last photo. Woohoo!

Flowers for Joan, and other things.

ETA: I think Haloscan is down. (Either that, or they spontaneously decided to dump me.) That means no comments until ees feeksed. Ees feeksed! Ees no feekst again. It appears ees really feekst this time. YMMV.

Valentine's weekend we went to San Diego, and one day we hopped on the Coaster and went to Carlsbad to have lunch at our favorite restaurant. Bug was over. the. moon.



Cutest moment of the trip? When he said, "I am never ever ever getting off this train."

Squeak slept through the whole thing. SIL kept saying she was going to make a series of pictures of Squeak asleep in his carrier: Squeak on the train, Squeak on the beach, Squeak at Sea World, Squeak on the Midway...

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Look Joan, warm!


(Subtitled: "Sigh, fingerprints on THIS lens too.")

African daisies say warm to me, even before they're open for the day.

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I recently decided I need to eat better and cut out some of the sweets. I've spent the last couple of days eating every last cookie, candy, cake, ice cream and donut in the house so they won't be around when I start eating better. I think I'm ready now.

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My wool/dog hair blend handspun. First skein is about sport/DK weight, second skein is about aran. Apparently as time goes on, I tend to spin more bulky than when I started. o.0 (Click for embiggenation. The coin in those photos is an American quarter, btw.) The dog hair had a hidden issue, too - when I washed the yarn to set the twist, the kitchen stunk like wet dog for hours.



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I muscled in on some of Cookie's Joan-Along lace action. Joan sent me some lovely beads (I mentioned thinking about beads in passing to her, and they showed up on my doorstep. I think I'll tell her I've always been fond of Matt Damon and see what she can do.) I think I'll add them to the edging. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll replace every blinking nupp in the project with them. Or maybe not. It's hard for me to control my magpie tendencies when they get a-rollin'.

Lost. All lost.

My phone charger, the lid to my favorite pot, and several weeks. I got WAY more done around the house when I was working in the office than now.
But, in an effort to drag out my WIPs even longer than necessary, I started...
SPINNING!
Yes, Virginia, Elizabeth, there is a Santa Claus spinner here.

The fiber is something Big Alice sent me from Blue Moon, in (I believe) the Farmhouse colorway. I think it would be a lovely thing to spin, but mine is a little...used. (Rode hard and put away wet, actually.) It was the victim of a dog who didn't get to go on vacation and hence decided the rules were out the window, and the basket of fiber she'd ignored for years was now fair game. o.0 At the time, I didn't know which one it was, but now, given the color of the dog hairs happily entwined with the sheep hairs, I'm pretty sure I know the culprit.



She didn't actually ruin it - based on the condition of the fiber, the even distribution of the hairs, and what I saw her do with that one skein of acrylic, I think she spread it out and rolled around in it, so it's kinda matted.

It still spins pretty nicely, though. I imagine if Fluffy hadn't added her special touch, it would be fantastic.


Craptastic photo, bad background, pretty accurate color.

This is what I did much of yesterday:


Not shown: the beer on the table next to me, and the two-kiddie-crocs'-worth of sand that later ended up on the recliner. (Seriously, how can it not bother him to run around with a pound of sand in each shoe?)



Also possibly lost: my sanity. Yesterday whilst watching TV, a commercial for High School Musical 3 came on, and Bug instantly started dancing (which was strange because he was kinda reclining on a pillow on the couch). I am torn. If I buy HSM, 1, 2 or 3 (or otherwise own it or allow it in my house, thankyouverymuch peanut gallery) I will either kill myself, my family, or a group of random strangers on the street, just to make it stop. (Note to readers: No, I really won't.) If I don't, I won't get to see what might be the most hilarious toddler dance number ever, courtesy of my kid and his apparently uncontrollable twitching to that music. But seriously, I want to smack that Efron kid and that Tisdale girl (and kill myself that I even knew their names) whenever I see them. If I had to be in the house with a whole movie with them in it, it might be too hard to handle. The voices in my head might actually win...

Over and out.

Well, it's finished. The reason I hesitated to mention the idea that we were planning to move to California in the first place, several months ago. Friday we walked away from the deal and told the broker and the real estate agent we were no longer interested in the property. That's not entirely true - we were still interested in the property, but we weren't interested in jumping through any more (ever more shady) hoops, increasing fees and doubled closing costs, a monthly mortgage payment that was suddenly $500 more than they'd estimated, and my lack of job. Today was the last day of the extension for closing, and we told them that due to all of the above, we were no longer able to purchase the house.
The realtor and the broker were...unhappy. I am thanking my lucky stars that they had DH's cell phone number and not mine.
I was so thrilled to have the weight off my shoulders that I was bouncing off the walls all afternoon. I still think DH is sad about it, and to be honest, I am a little too, but it seems that when something is so painfully difficult, maybe it was never meant to be.
So, we're going to take the rest of the down payment and closing costs, finish paying off some debts, have a little fun, and finish what we'd started here at home. I think the thing I learned best from this whole exercise is what I was no longer willing to pay for. We downsized our life and our expenses quite a bit to finance this operation, and I'm not willing to let myself get back to where we were. I like living within my means. It's a new thing for me.

Part of the "have a little fun" was to go to the first Tucson wool festival. (Actually, there's been one at Withers' farm for several years, and that was today also, but this is the first time there's been a festival sponsored by the guild.)
I left my camera and my wallet (!) in the car whilst walking around, but after lunch (at the Cow Palace nearby, natch) I remedied the wallet situation and visited my new BFF, Ken. Check out my new pretties.





Orifice hook, lap bowl and supported spindle. I thought the supported style might allow me to spin finer stuff. (Like the baby camel that Lynn In Tucson is currently trying to convince me to blend with silk.) You know, once I learn how to use it.
And of course, the obligatory fiber-on-feet shot.

A new post to make the whining go away

Or at least not be the first entry on the page.

Oh, but first - whoever keeps finding my blog by searching for variations on "lusty grandmother videos" - whatever you're looking for, my blog ain't it. So sorry to have wasted your time.

So. Last night I was all whiny and weepy. I puttered around on the computer and whined to Cookie that she didn't blog to entertain me yesterday, and she responded with a nice rant that made me laugh, and a pat on the head because that's what you do when faced with mental people. I didn't want to watch TV, do laundry, clean the kitchen... WTF would I do with myself for a whole hour before bedtime? I'm sad to say that reading didn't even cross my mind, even though I owe Lene a book meme thing. (I also owe her socks. GAH.)
OH YEAH, I used to KNIT! Well, I didn't feel like knitting quite yet. It was too far to go out to the car like 20 whole feet away to get my knitting bag. I did, however, remember that I wasn't crazy about my handspun sock yarn, and had read that Etherknitter replied hers and liked it better. Hmmm, that sounded easy and brainless, so I did it.
(I would like to take this moment to say that even though everyone has told me I could use 3-in-1 oil, and didn't have to buy the expensive Ashford oil, I had to buy it anyway to get some other parts I needed that were only sold in kit form. That oil ROCKS. I hadn't touched my wheel in two months at least, and it still spun quite well without oiling.)
Anyway. I replied my sock yarn, and discovered there was now enough room on the bobbin to finish plying the last little bit of singles I couldn't fit when I first plied. I added them on, and discovered to my delight that the bobbins were fairly even. I'd split the roving by weight, but one bobbin looked fuller than the other. However, when I finally plied the last bits, I was left with



about three yards. Woo!

I wound it back onto my swift (soooooooo much better than a niddy noddy!)



Washed it, hung it to dry (which happened in about 10 minutes, thank you obscene heat and no humidity). I thinks I likes it.



One sock's worth, about 225 yds/55g. Heavy fingering on average, though the yarn itself varies from DK to cobweb. Heh. Brown sheep roving (I think), dyed by me using Wilton's royal blue and black. (I intentionally did it all wrong so the dye would break, which gave me the nifty purple.) I have yet to spin the singles for the other sock's worth.

Fluffy thought the whole process was boring. She couldn't even be bothered to hold up her head to watch.



And now, a random photo of a gecko belly.

I think I spilled some bleach

Cuz everything in my house is pale.

First, there is the cancer-fundraiser wash cloth for Ryan.



Not a terribly flattering photo of my little knit, but it's good enough. Since I took that picture I wove in the ends and washed it.

Next, there is this.



Sock Madness round 4 has a dyeing option at the end, so I needed some dyeable yarn. I *had* to make sure I had enough - two pounds oughta do it, don't you think?
But wait, what's that off to the side? The slightly darker, definitely crappier yarn? Why, it's handspun!



Ungodly overplied, poorly done, but done by me. Aimed for fingering, ended up with worsted.

Then there's this. I am a closet hooker.



Don't ask me why, but I got a wild hair to crochet tiny lace angels. Whatever.

A random assortment

The weather is cooling down a little, but it's still not cool. (High 90s for the week.) The mornings and evenings are lovely, but the days are still pretty brutal, especially after the comparatively lovely weather in Montana. I spent all this past weekend in the house, knitting and spinning and letting the house go all feral on me. As a result of the heat and the mess, I am exhausted. (Have you ever noticed that when your house is messy, you feel more tired and restless?)
I knit on my eyelet sweater (from the Classic Elite City Park collection) all day Sunday. I ripped what I'd started and restarted in a different size - my gauge was such that the extra stitches allowed me to knit their largest size as written, though I am making a few modifications as I go along. Most notably, I'll need to increase the armscyes and the length of the sleeves. I still love this pattern and this yarn.



Note: that's not a goldfish crumb, it's the model from the book, showing through one of the eyelets...

I am the worstest most awful sockpal ever. Nancy sent me TWO beautiful pairs of socks just hours before we left for Montana - a cotton blend, cuffed lime green pair, and a pair of anklets in Regia Bamboo, in a colorway I actually have in my stash. I left them behind because we were already packed, and the cleaning lady put them "away". I haven't been able to figure out where "away" is yet, and I think I'm going to have to leave her a note when she comes back. I've looked everywhere I can think to look, and so far, no such luck. (I have this deep fear that I actually took them to Montana and they got lost during the suitcase search.) I could just kill myself - I want to wear them! They fit perfectly and are such great colors and snuggly yarn. Of course, the Lord of the Flies set that is my living room isn't helping matters. I suck bigtime. (That's why there have been no pictures. GAH!)

ETA: I found them! Apparently, the knitting goddess just wanted me to publicly admit that I'm the kind of bonehead who misplaces handknit socks before she ever wears them. I am a loser, and I admit it. Here they are!



Thanks again, Nancy! You can bet these will go straight to my hand-knit socks drawer.

I have always heard that spinning is easiest with good fiber prep. I thought I had good fiber, and had someone show me how to predraft, but I think I still wasn't doing it right. I hoarded my good fibers until I could spin something worthy of them, but I was using crappy stuff that made things harder. I got frustrated, and didn't want to spin at all. I dug out my Grafton batt the other day, and WOW. It's not perfect by a long stretch, but geez - that stuff practically drafts itself. I also moved my wheel to the carpet, which makes the skittering effect go away, and I spent a pleasant hour or so spinning my little heart out. It was great, when The Bug wasn't trying to grab the footman or make the wheel spin the other direction.



Who, me?

Fiberific

That's me, today.

In the last little while I won two blog contests - one from Pretending to Farm, and one from Trailing Yarn.


Desert Sunset roving from Carmela the Shetland Sheep


Snap roving from Yarn Witch

Then I spun my first ever yarn! Yippee!


Bad bad 2-ply

And now here's an artsy shot.

Up close and personal.

I started to catalog all my yarn and fiber for my eventual Ravelry invite. Oh boy I can't wait!
The Bug is overwhelmed by all the fiber.