Holy Crappa, I want me some Alpaca!

Anywhere with a sign like this means a good time! AND good freaking fiber I may add.

OK, in a nutshell, let's say that I now officially have a fiber stash. I did have a few balls of fluff, NOW I have a stash. Holy Crappa indeed. What fun! Teri, Cheri and I braved freezing rain, sleet and snow on Saturday to go to the MOPACA show at Hale Arena (next to Kemper with the American Royal stuff. Fun was had by all, corndogs were had by two of us, fiber went home with us all. There were vendors, fiber, knitting and crocheted exhibits and alpacas walking all over the place. It doesn't get much better than that. After spending most of the day there Sat, I heard that there was ANOTHER whole area with a few vendors that we missed on Sat. Sunday I snuck back out and was able to get a few photos without the driving sleet ruining my camera. yay! Oh, and a bit more fiber (2 bags full) came home with me then too.





I had such fun meeting the people (and sometimes the ACTUAL ALPACAS) that the fiber came from. There were farms with hundreds HUNDREDS of alpaca, farms with 5-8 alpaca. I got a kick out of one couple. The husband said they had 8 alpaca now, they were waiting for their kids to get out of high school to expand. Hmmmm, where have I heard of waiting to trade in kids for critters? Gotta get that farm, the kids off to college and then I can think about an alpaca....but they're herd animals, so I'd need 2 or 3. But you have to keep the males & females separate to monitor breeding, and you can't have one lonely male, so that's up to 5. Then you need a couple of superdogs to keep them safe..... Ah well. if the man can have cows, I can talk about alpacas. :) For now I'll just dream and spin a ton of alpaca fiber. I picked up a flyer about "Planting Alpaca Beans." I grabbed it, thinking, Oh we could plant this food for our critters down the road. Oh no. Alpaca beans is the terminology for Alpaca poo. Apparently the fluffy creatures produce a serious amount of beans. I think I'll stick to the fiber. There's less waste to deal with this way!



I have been in a knitting funk lately. Nothing sounded fun, not even starting a new project! So, I pulled out a few ufo's that have been waiting patiently for some attention. Finished these the other day. Yarn is Handmaiden with a little bit of cashmere in there and they're WARM and SOFT! Working to finish up another pair of tess superwash socks that have been sitting around for over 2 years now.

OH, there was YARN there too, did I forget to mention that? I found a new favorite hand-dying company and bought 3 balls of wool fiber PLUS two fingering weight skeins of gorgeousness. The first is going to become a pair of socks. OH the colors! The purple one has sterling silver throughout the yarn. Not sure how that will knit up, but it's SOFT and silvery and gorgeous. I'm thinking it's going to become a lacy scarf of some sort. Garter stitch will be involved! jwraco is amazing. Two women that know their yarn, their fiber, their dying and their spinning!

Well, we've got our farm baby, but now we've got no farm, baby!

First the happy news:
Meet Number 42. That's her eartag number and apparently her name. She's also referred to as "Hamburger Maker" instead of "Hamburger" as the boy-baby cows have been named in the past. We're hoping she grows strong and becomes a good mama cow like her momma is turning out to be. This is the first heifer calf we've gotten down at Jeff's friend's farm. I love saying things like "Oh, it's a girl-baby cow!" around the local ranchers. You can actually see them wince when I say "cows". They're apparently "cattle" or "heifer calves" or "steers" and "bulls". I even made one neighbor choke on his chaw when I called the bulls in his field "such pretty cows" last fall. His expression? Priceless.

Now the not-so-happy news:
We've got no farm. *sigh* I really REALLY liked this one. REALLY. Well, thanks to the wisdom of the US Government, we were originally given pre-approval on a big farm loan. Then we applied officially once the contract was awarded to us for our farm. Then they turned us down because they said we had too much money. The farm bureau suggested we add more detail to our expenses. So we did. Then we were turned down because we didn't have enough money. Sweet. We were able to get financing with a local farm co-op lender, but holy crap-a-moly, with the interest rate being almost 3 times the govt farm rate and a big down payment, it would have meant HUGE monthy payments and bye-bye to all of our savings. Each and every penny. Even with the rent from the resident Formerly-Amish now turned Bull Rider, it would have wiped us out.

When we looked at the big picture we realized this wasn't the absolute farm for us to sink our entire future into at this time. Even though the house was quaint, the land picturesque, the location not too close and not too far from a town, spring fed well & pond AND it's own graveyard and potential farm zombies.... not to mention the fact that hiking around on the land didn't cover every inch of my body with ticks and other creepy crawlies. Damn. Damn, Damn, Damn. I really wanted this place. We're still looking and not in any hurry. I'm sure the perfect place will appear when we're ready. Dammit.

For now, we've got Jeff's friend's farm to do our galavanting on. The fact that it is, in fact, infested with bazillions of seed ticks (I can't even type those words without getting chills and itching all over ICK!), has a crappy ass old trailer with NO BATHROOM as the only place to stay on it isn't supposed to depress me in the least. I'm supposed to think of that land as our land and just bring my spinning wheel and knitting along to "enjoy nature" and crap. Damn. Better start buying up the damn bug spray.

Martha Stewart's tv show on Monday is going to be her Yarn Show. I may have to head home early from work to see it. I just saw that you can watch old episodes on her site as well. I watched the show back in the good-ol-working-from-home days, but may have to watch a few online to get back into the creative spirit. I know it may not be politically correct, but I heart Martha Stewart. She's one of my two favorite prison biotches ever.


This is some beautiful yarn that came home from AZ with my dear friend Chery Knits and I think it wants to grow up to become Spring Forward Socks. Casting on this weekend!

Well, I guess not having our farm now means more time to figure out uses for the four HUGE tubs of old acrylic yarn. Cow cosies? OH, I mean Cattle Cosies or chicken coops or even bug-proof tents as suggested by Teri. Or maybe I'll just crochet a few more ripple afghans, while sighing deeply and only slightly cursing the farm bureau for sticking me back with the whole peeing behind trees and de-ticking myself each time we go to the country.


OK, you wanna know the really sad part? I had just bought myself a pattern for a real, live Little House On the Prairie sunbonnet. Seriously. The Bonnet by Amy Karol of king pod patterns. Come on, I can't be the only one that would wants to look a little like Ma when working out in my garden or tending to whatever critters we kept on our farm, right? I think I'll make it anyway.

Hard to believe, but I'm speechless...

Bought from Nikol at the Harveyville Project.
Stained, painted and assembled by my husband.

So worth the wait. Spins like buttah.

Notice the wheel is painted to match the couch? That means it has become a fixture in our living room.
Oh, I forgot, I'm speechless.

The dangers of Wear-Blocking

You've all heard of steam blocking and wet blocking, right? Basically lay out your finished knitted pieces and either steam them or wet them down and pin them to size to dry. Well, there's another kind of blocking entirely. It's called Wear Blocking. In this case, let's just assume that you were supposed to knit a scarf for your mother-in-law. Let's also assume you created this FABULOUS garter old shale lace scarf out of some socks that rock yarn.

Well, the scarf is fresh off the needles and the ends woven in. Before you put it into the tub of lukewarm water to soak, then roll into the towel and stomp to get the water out and lay it out, pinning to shape to dry, you stop and think. Wow. This scarf perfectly matches the shirt and jacket you're wearing that day. And hypothetically you may have a little event to attend that afternoon. The scarf would be the perfect little wowza to set off the outfit. Well, you decide to Wear Block the scarf a bit before Wet Blocking. It makes perfect sense. It'll give you an idea of how the scarf will look and how severly to block out the width. It's for the good of the scarf, after all.

After a few compliments you decide that said scarf actually sets off your eyes into this brilliant blue. Mother-in-law has green eyes (I think?) so of course this is not the perfect scarf for her. Also, it's early spring. Your MIL wouldn't be needing a scarf until fall or winter and it would be unkind to give her a scarf now and force her to store it until then. Your daughter decides she really likes said scarf and being a tween that you're trying to get bitten by the bug of knitting and wool yarn, it would be the good motherly thing to do to give it to her. The fact that this daughter only wears scarves and winter attire when it's 10 below zero and wears shorts throughout most of the winter season, leaving this scarf available for someone else to borrow doesn't factor into this decision at all.

This is of course entirely hypothetical. I will warn you, Wear Blocking will give you lots of good info on how it drapes, behaves and how severe to block knitted items. It will also make it really REALLY hard to give them away. Or maybe it's just me.

Pattern: Old Shale Scarf with modifications of leaving out one repeat, using 1 sz larger needles and working in garter stitch lace
I love this pattern! I still have my 2nd red one on the needles. Will probably make the same thing for my MIL the 2nd time around. Pattern by Tiennie Knits, which means it's well written, fun and turns out beautiful. I've always had such good results on her patterns. It must be since she knits 4-8 of everything. :)
Yarn: Socks that Rock mediumweight, colorway Bella Coola


Also, finished up my crocheted afghan. Remember the craze going on about a year ago with all the knitters doing ripple afghans? I'm apparently just getting up to speed. I'm thinking I may start working my way through the tubs (yes, BIG tubs and many of them) full of acrylic yarn and get each of the kids their own afghans. Of course, that would be after I make another scarf for my mother-in-law.

How gorgeous is this? Function and Beauty. The perfect mix.

Best money I've spent. I commissioned a darning egg from SJS Woodworking, here's his SJS Woodworking Etsy Shop. I got this for under $30 and it's not only a GORGEOUS piece that I can leave sitting out near my knitting basket but also it made my job MUCH MUCH easier. This one is made of hard rock maple and walnut and he's buffed it with a wood wax finish. I dug my darning needle against this egg while fixing 8 pair of socks with 12 holes. You can't even tell I used it. It's still just beautiful. I highly recommend it. The woodworking genius is also a husband of a local knitter/spinner, so she's given much input and is involved in testing out the products to find what really works.

I know most people follow the Yarn Harlot's theory of darning socks as saying "Darn it!" and dropping the pair into the trash. Well, I thought about it. When I only had 2 pair with holes I really REALLY thought about it. I couldn't bring myself to do it, though as one pair was my monkey socks. I love my monkey socks. They're the only pair of lace socks I've made so far and they're koigu for cripes sake. I decided I'd just set them on a shelf in the basement where I would only look at them during laundry day and THINK about what to do with them.

This was a workable plan for some time, but as the number of socks on that shelf increased and the number in my sock drawer decreased I started to wonder if maybe there wasn't a better option. Time went on....and then there were three pair left. I was actually WEARING one of the last few at a spinsters meeting in Harveyville, KS. These were my first pair of socks that rock socks. Someone complimented me on them, so I pulled my foot out of my shoe and said "Oh! These are one of the last pairs I've got left without any holes!" and put my foot down onto the ground. I felt a very cold spot. Picked up the foot, and said "well, FUXX it" Yes. Another hole. It's a good thing "darning" was named long ago. I explained to the husband that women say "DARN IT" and laugh as they spend the weekend darning. I usually said something stronger, so told him I actually spent the whole weekend "Fuxxing". Apparently I'm not as funny to others as I am in my head because I laughed for at least 20 minutes on that one while he just walked away rolling his eyes.

Finding myself with only TWO pair of socks left was the deciding moment for me. I have no problem letting a well worn pair of socks go when they've given their all. BUT I happen to be quite hard on knitted socks. I occasionally quite often wear them w/out shoes while running out onto the rough cement driveway to grab something from the truck, have worn them sans shoes walking down the blacktop to the bottom of the hill and back to get a child. I have worn a pair while walking the length of the MN/St. Paul airport without shoes when the heels I was wearing bothered my toe. These socks hadn't given a lifetime of service, they'd been beaten and abused and had the bruises and holes to show it. The bottoms of the feet were holey before their time. The rest of the socks were just fine.

These were good socks that really wanted to still be worn. I don't actually TALK to my socks, but some things a knitter just knows. (OK sometimes I do actually talk to my socks, but they've never answered back so it's not at truly crazy levels yet). I owed these socks a better life. I have darned one pair of socks before without a darning egg. It was miserable. The lightbulb thing? First of all the needle scratching on the glass surface would just do me in. Second of all, I'm clumsy enough that we really don't want me wandering around with a lightbulb and needle. Can't you just imagine someone SITTING on it? Darning without the egg meant that my tension was all wonky and I either pulled too tight or not tight enough.

SO, I set aside some time this weekend and I darned. I darned and I darned and I darned some more. I tried both the weaving methods and the duplicate stitching methods. Being a lazy woman and having most of the holes on the bottom of my feet, I favored the weaving as it was faster and looked fine to me. On the toe holes I just unpicked the cast off edge or even snipped it off with scissors and reknit the toe. I got into a rhythm and really started cranking them out. I suddenly had a drawer full of beautiful happy socks again!




My monkey socks are back on my feet just in time for spring! I even walked to OTHER office buildings to take some photos, but really my building is set so that the pretty landscaping and indirect light is right in front. The other 2 nearest buildings had dark shadows and were unusuable. I timed it well and kineared my feet in front of the building between people coming outside and avoided the smoking crowd. If I got lucky there wasn't anyone looking out their windows watching the strange woman with her pants rolled up, standing next to the flower beds with her butt in the air taking pictures of her feet. Just call it my CYG (Crazy Yarn Girl) duty to keep the conversation at the water coolers and elevators going.

I've also sworn to my socks that I will no longer run outside without shoes. No longer wander airports or stairways without shoes and be extra gentle while washing them.

Think about darning a sock next time you're in the same situation. It's really not that hard, doesn't take much time and is a great feeling of accomplishment. Plus in today's world it's sure good to be frugal and make that sock yarn money last. Leave a comment, email or check out the links to get yourself a darning egg. I love that my fiber tools can be functional and a thing of beauty. Speaking of functional things of beauty......my spinning wheel is almost ready! Jeff's stained, painted, sealed and put together almost the whole thing. It's been hard to wait as he gave it many, many coats of stain and finish. Can't wait! Hope to have pictures soon of my new wheel!

Crazy Yarn Whisperer Skillz...we haz dem.

Yes, that is me wielding a CROCHET HOOK (while Teri slaved away trying to detangle enough for the hook to keep hooking! My first yarn adventures were hooking back when I was about 8 yrs old. My grandmother is an amazing crocheter. AMAZING crocheter. I'm a ripple crocheter. On a good day. And I have a habit of forgetting and then one side of the ripple grows wider and one smaller. Ah well. My crocheting grandma is in her late 80's and still going strong. She makes afghans that are works of art. I think the lowest one of her afghans have gone at an auction is $400. LOWEST. Seriously an amazing woman. This amazing woman is giving me a lot of her library of patterns as she downsizes to the retirement home she now lives in. I'm trying to honor her and her gifts to our family by reuniting with the hook. I'm so thankful that her hands are still going strong. Please let me be blessed with that gift as well. We really REALLY don't want to see me as a grumpy old lady NOT ABLE TO KNIT or crochet. It's the only thing that keeps me from losing my mind attacking random people in the street. OK, more like attacking those I share a home with. :) It just sounds less lock-her-up-in-a-white-jacket with the random people part.

ANYWAY. I pulled out some yarn from years and years ago. It was one of those mighty mighty skeins of old acrylic yarn. I mean OLD and I mean ACRYLIC. Not acrylic like today's soft and supple acrylic yarns. No. I mean SQUEAKY and pulling shards of plastic bits out of your fingers old acrylic yarn. Not only was it horrid and old, but apparently the last time I'd attempted to use this monster skein I'd frogged an afghan, wrapping it willy nilly around the outside of the skein. Not a problem with the Yarn Whisper around. BUT after the yarn whisperer did her whispering (and a bit of HOLY CRAP WHAT DID YOU DO TO THIS YARN WOMAN-ing) I was able to crochet enough for the 10 bands of off-white plastic between the colored strips. Teri's unraveling skills are truly amazing.

The next night, the matted up skein of plastic started calling to me. Husband was traveling, kids were in bed early reading books, I had an ENTIRE EVENING of unspoiled knitting time ahead of me. Time to finish the 2nd sleeve on my orange cardigan. Time to work on one of the two lacey scarves on the needles. Time to swatch for new projects and designs in my head. Well, what did I spend the entire evening AND until 3am doing? Pulling bits of this crap yarn and following tails until I got the whole damn thing straightened out. Now I love me some good unraveling of yarn. I actually ENJOY unpicking mohair sweaters. I'm strange that way. I have no problem spending good time saving good yarn. At 1:30am I actually told myself OUT LOUD, "Self, you are spending precious hours on something that MAYBE cost $3 FIFTEEN YEARS AGO! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? It was like an obsession. (Hard to imagine.....me obssessed, huh?) Let's just say that I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open today, but I have 3 big ass cakes of plastic just waiting for me to crochet away.

I think sticking a bobcat and three squirrels with a skein of yarn in a big bag would have done less damage than my frogging and re-wrapping a skein fifteen years ago did. It was an amazing nest of fuxxed up yarn. The smaller skein you see? That came out folded in THIRDS (?) from the guts of the big blob of yarn.

Also, anyone notice I'm wearing socks with NO HOLES IN THEM????? No, I didn't darn my socks yet. Those are one of my last pair left without holes. There will be darning this weekend. And apparently crocheting. It sure does go FAST.

OH, and I figured I'd better take a non-tree action shot of the beautiful orange scarf. Yes that picture was taken in the office building's bathroom but there were no witnesses to spread the CYG updates. I heart this scarf.


My wheel arrived! It's still sitting in this sad state until it gets stained, painted and put together. Can't wait to get
spinning!

CYG Strikes Again....

I love when I get on the elevator at a prime smoke-break time. At each floor more smokers got on and the gossip gets better and better. (Oh, and the largest population of the smoke-breakers? Is from an office that does some work with the American Cancer Association. Absolutely NO IRONY there, huh?) The smoking group always has the best conversations to overhear EVER! Well, today's topic was the most recent sighting of CYG. "Who's CYG?" one asked. "Crazy Yarn Girl" replied 3 others.

Oh. (Thinking to myself that this is a small office building to have TWO Crazy Yarn Girls, so I quietly shoved the yarn tails were hanging outside the mail bag I was carrying.) Come on, doesn't everyone carry emergency knitting projects for elevator trips to the lobby? Our elevators often shudder, shake and shimmy. Other elevator conversation is often about how loud the "elevator crickets" are squeaking that day. I'm not getting stuck in one without some yarn and needles.

Well, as the floors went down, the gossip got better. Apparently CYG was spotted taking pictures of scarves hanging IN TREES! While standing IN THE SNOW! "Can you believe it?" The Stall Knitting Incident was mentioned as the door opened and the laughter followed the group out the back door. Thank God I got out of there before the the Bathroom Dancing Incident was brought up.

Between all of this they talked about how could someone like crocheting that much? I was quite proud of myself for not screaming IT'S KNITTING PEOPLE! Though I do crochet, it's mostly afghans and even I would draw the line at hanging an afghan in a tree outside my office building. Scarves, hats and socks, YES. Afghans, NO.

Can you blame me? The lighting? Fabulous. The trees? Gorgeous. The snow? Makes for a natural light box just waiting for a yarny goodness photo shoot. I do actually use the side of the building that no one ever walks by and wait until no one's outside watching before arranging my knitted objects. Apparently those WITH WINDOWS (no frustration there for this little window-less office-less one, huh?) get to sit watching OUTSIDE them to see deer frolicking in the woods and CYG frolicking among the trees.

Pattern: my own Magical Malabrigo Scarf, which shows off the handspun yarn just beautifully.
Yarn: the very same handspun that looked like my grandma's crocheted toilet cover in the sweater recently. It's much happier as a scarf. It's gorgeous.




I mean, come on, how much cooler are those shots than the usual laying-on-the-carpet shot?


And since the blue handspun scarf, in Yarn Harlot's One Row Handspun Scarf didn't want to get left out of the fun, here's the shots of it as well.



And to show off both my newly spun fibers and the newly acquired niddy noddy.


And finally an action shot of the husband's Xmas Eve sweater.


Wheel watch continues. It was supposed to be delivered TODAY by ups, but hasn't made it yet. The countdown goes on...

I BOUGHT A WHEEL!!!!!

I decided on the Ashford Kiwi, purchased it from Nikol at the Harveyville Project and am now stalking the UPS tracking site, which only tells me "in transit" and "on time". *sigh* PLUS I'll have to wait until Hubby gets the pieces stained and put together. Plus I've spun up all my fiber, so there will need to be a bit of fiber purchasing made as well! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

For now, I'm trying to knit up all the yarn I've spun so far on the begged, borrowed and rented wheels I've tried out. I've decided the orange yarn I made is really ugly yarn. Not in the cake, it's GORGEOUS in the cake. Just knitted up it's fugly as heck. I've just finished a scarf that I think helps it be the best it can be. I'll get pics soon. It's not as horrid as it was in sweater form, thank goodness! I've still got 3 balls of this left over, it may just sit on a shelf as it is looking pretty. We'll see.


I've also got 4 skeins of this stuff, not sure on yardage, just got a niddy noddy so will skein it up on that and measure it out. I spun it thicker, it's a light chunky weight and SOFT as cloud farts. I totally stole that phrase from Teri, who thought it was a bit icky so changed to something more appropriate....or was it soft as angel farts? Can't remember. Either way it's SOFT, man! I've got no idea what this bit of lovely will become, guess it depends on how much I've got. Maybe a hat and cowl or a bunch of cowls? Maybe I'll just walk around with it wrapped around my neck as is.


And, I've apparently caught something from the lovely Tiennie who always knits 4-8 of every project in every color of the rainbow. Probably fitting, since it's her pattern! I'm now working on BOTH my 2nd AND 3rd scarves in the Old Shale Scarf (ravelry link) pattern. I loved the red one (Vatican Pie colorway, baby) that I gave my sister in law so much, I've got about half-way through with mine. THEN I need to make a scarf for my mother in law also, so am making one that's thinner (only one full repeat with a half repeat on each side) out of some Socks that Rock. I'm also knitting my scarves in the garter version of the old shale pattern, basically the same, just with no purls. This pattern is unbelievably quick and fun. I'd highly recommend it. Who'd have thought sock yarn scarves would go so fast? I've got a sudden urge to knit 6 hats now for all the family....



Wow. I've gone from a knitter with ONE or maybe TWO scarves for five years to one that'll have one for every day of the month. AND it's almost SPRING for cripe's sake. I think I was so scarred from the first year I knit of making 28 (YES TWENTY-FREAKING-EIGHT) furry scarves. not that there's anything wrong with furry scarves, my eyeballs itch just thinking about all that fun fur. woah. I just got chills. Yes, I realize I have a problem. I'm ok with that. Just don't make me knit anything hairy, ok?

Felted Knee Pads and Calcium Pills

Well, I felted the wild & crazy thing. I thought I would felt it, fold it and make it into a purse with 2 pockets. HOLY CRAPAMOLY that thing felted THICK and HEAVY! It must weigh 5 lbs. There is no way you could haul that thing around and call it a purse. I've found a new thing for it to be. I am apparently in need of knee pads, elbow pads and probably big toe pads. I don't know how I'm going to make it as an old lady. I fall down ALL the time now. If these bones get brittle, they're gonna be snapping like twigs unless I outfit myself with some serious padding or become spontaneously graceful. Just in case, I'm adding calcium pills to my morning routine.

Yesterday I took a trip (quite literally) to the local grocery store. Only needing a few groceries, I used one of those short carts. On the way out, enjoying the sunshine, I was not paying very close attention to the cart. (Seriously, who does? How hard is it to PUSH a SHOPPING CART anyway?) Well, said cart's front wheels hit a divot in between the sidewalk and parking lot. I ran into the cart HARD, cart flipped over and pretty much took me with it. (Don't know why I grabbed onto a flipping object to try to get my balance.) SO, dented cans are rolling along the parking lot, I'm laying on my face STILL holding the handle of the cart and people are just WALKING BY me. One old man did turn his head to me with a strange expression on his face. I thought he'd at least ask if I was ok, or OFFER TO HELP ME OUT. No, all he did was say "wow," and not with much enthusiasm either. Cripes. It wasn't just a little losing-one's-balance-stumble, this was a spectacular flip and fall and I was actually LAYING on the GROUND with the breath knocked out of me. I must have been on the ground for over a minute. Two young stockboys finally ran outside to help gather both me and the groceries and I took my dented canned goods, dented milk jug and dented knees, elbows and toes home.

I'm used to falling down, I do it all the time...roller skating, ice skating, icy parking lots, normal dry sidewalks, stairs in my own house, etc. The only strange thing was that I bruised both below AND above my kneecaps. How do you do that? I must have really crammed myself into that cart before the flip. wow.

Other than creating new bruises, I ended up getting busy at my knitting and spinning projects as well last night...


Plied two extra large bobbins of purple heaven from fiber bought at the Yarn Barn. I've got another 2 lg bobbins' full yet to spin and have to return my rented wheel on Sunday, so will hopefully crank the rest out this weekend.


Plied the final bobbin of wool from Daisy the sheep that Teri brought home for me from the Wamego shop.


Sewed up and refelted the accidentally-felted sleeveless sweater into a cute little bag, knitted and felted an icord handle to boot. I'll probably give this to my cousin's little girl. It's adorable. Not nearly as adorable as the original sweater, but ah well.


Frogged BY HAND the tubey sweater I knitted long, long ago. I also hand-wound all the funky pinkish yarn into skeins, soaked them and hung to dry.

I also made 4" square swatches of both the daisy spun yarn (from an earlier spun & wound skein) and the grey frogged yarn above. I don't think I've ever in my life knit an entire 4" square swatch. I'm totally a swatch cheat and usually only make my swatches about 4" wide by 1" long. I also wet and blocked said swatches. I've never done either of those things before.


My goals for the weekend are to finish spinning & ply the rest of my purple fiber and to darn a crapload of socks. My sock drawer has recently gotten quite empty. I'm down to maybe 3 pairs without holes. If I put it off any longer there won't be any socks left to wear!

Have a good weekend everyone! I'm going to just try not to fall down. :)

Patriotic Knitting, Farm Babies and a seriously ugly wip

One of my friends at work is the father of a marine that recently graduated from the USMC boot camp. He's getting some training and then will most likely head out to Afghanistan within the next few months. I loved the opportunity to join the ranks of people that have knitted for the armed forces throughout history. The Marine Corps is very specific about the gauge and quality of yarn used for these patterns. If you don't know a marine personally, feel free to knit some and send to the USMC Museum which will send the helmet liners along to men and women that will greatly appreciate them.

You need to use 100% wool. As EZ used to say, wool is warm even when wet and will also not cause any harm if there's live sparks or fire near the helmet liner. I used washable Mission Falls. Marines prefer desert tan colors, but black will work also. These are modeled by me, so I'm sure they'll look much more official on a real marine. Marines rock. The pattern was well written and fun to knit as well.
USMC Museum info and USMC Helmetliner Pattern

OK, now for those asking (hello Chery) there will be NO FARM BABIES!!! I must apologize to my friends here in KC as they've heard this story at least 42 times. You know, I still laugh till I cry each time I think about it. I can't believe I didn't blog about the Farm Babies Incident....

Mexico, Oct 2008. My hubby and I got to go to Cabos San Lucas for a holiday/training session for the hubby's company. (My company does training in Minneapolis in the WINTER, I heart my hubby's company!) One night while there I saw the man at the most drunk level I've ever seen him. The man has a few beers here and there, but rarely gets to a level of stupidity like when he relaxed in Mexico. The man was drunk as a skunk, but with style. Part-way through the night, he came up with this great idea.......

J: Baby, we should have a BABY, baby!
ME: WHAT? (spewing out drink, choking and falling off barstool...good thing there was a lot of sand to cushion the fall)
J: We need a baby! We should have a baby. Let's make one tonight, RIGHT NOW!
ME: WHAT? NO!.... (much unintelligible reasoning followed)

I'd distract the man, we'd head over to yet another bar for yet more fruity and rum filled concoctions and it'd come up again....

J: BABY, we need a BABY!
ME: Do you remember our kids? OUR FOUR CHILDREN? How we're outnumbered? FOUR CHILDREN! (I was physically shaking the man now)

Time would go on. Again it would come back..

J: We need a baby. We NEED a baby. Our baby. It'd be so wonderful to have one together, baby.
ME: What about our farm, honey? We're supposed to move to a farm after our FOUR CHILDREN leave the house for college, remember? the FARM! Dang, can't have a baby. See?
J: Silence. Pondering expression on his face.....
J: Baby, it could be our FARM BABY, BABY!
The rest of the night, he would just look at me, smile and say "our Farm Baby, Baby!"

Let's just say that I made doubly sure to take that little orange BC pill each day while there. The next day Jeff felt like hell and had absolutely NO MEMORY of the whole FARM BABY idea. To this day he thinks I made it up. I found a few of his coworkers to tell him he was, in fact, rambling on about some farm baby.

OK, it's totally lame here in type, but in person, I can totally mimic his words and expression. It's wet-your-pants kind of funny. TO THIS DAY all I have to do is say "farm baby" and I laugh till I cry while he walks away rolling his eyes.

The only farm babies that will join our lives will be of the cow/sheep/chicken persuasion. Holy crap. Another child? Now? wow.


OK, I don't know WHAT the hell this thing will become. All I know is that I like it. I really, REALLY like it. It was this idea hatched in my brain back in yarn school 08. It didn't QUITE turn out how I expected it to, but I'm ok with that. I spun up some thick & thin singles, dyed it in apparently horrificly jarring colors and it's going to be felted. It may or may not turn into a felted bag. Or maybe I'll find an old black or grey sweater at good will, felt it and use this as accent material to sew up a felted bag? Or I may just pull it out at knitting functions just to see the knitters go "WOW!" and jump back. Nothing freaks out a knitter working on a perfectly normal sweater like a spectacularly fugly mix of colors swung out before their eyes. You know it's spectacular when your knitting friends have to fan their faces to get the vision to clear. Wow, indeed. When asked "WHY?" last night I said, "Well, I'm trying to learn to live with color." (I usually dress in black, white, tan, boring colors) I was told "Maybe you should learn to RUN AWAY from the colors!" Who knows what it will become? Maybe it'll get a bit muted when felted.

Such a pretty bloom

How do you selfless giving-away-of-the-knitting people do it? I knit this for my sister in law. I dearly love her and know she will enjoy this. I am not even a lover of the color red as accessories for myself, but I totally want to KEEP it. A little voice inside my head keeps saying, "MINE! MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!" So, I will do the right thing, since I already showed her the scarf in progress, and she'll be wondering if I show up to family events wearing said scarf. Going to give it to her tomorrow.

I actually still have almost enough of the yarn to make another one for myself. Going to cast on tonight.
Pattern: Tiennie's Old Shale Scarf
Yarn: Collinette Jitterbug in Vatican Pie colorway. Yes, vatican pie. I know, I giggle each time I think about it.
Needles: sz 7's
Modifications: Knit in garter stitch instead of stockinette. I love garter stitch and it will help as I don't think the sister in law will block it if she washes it again.






OH, and we're in the process of buying a farm! 91 acres, a tiny farmhouse, a few outbuildings (one of which would make a fabulous dye lab/craft home), a spring-fed pond and well. It's about 10 miles south of Garnett, KS. NO, I won't be moving there any time soon. We're hoping to move after the youngest 2 go to college, about 10 yrs from now. YES, we'll be spending lots of weekends and summer get-aways there. YES, I'm totally excited and YES I'm also buying major amounts of bug spray. I'm also going to wear my hot orange Mexican Cowgirl hat every time I go down there. SO. FREAKING. EXCITED!

Thoughts of wooly animals grazing on the hills have entered my daydreams, but I'll have to get over my issues in dealing with things that poo. I'm just now getting used to the children, you know. Animals? Yeah. Someone has to feed them, water them, clean them, clean AFTER them, give them medicine, keep things from EATING THEM and clean up the poo. I'm proud of the fact that most of the 4 children now mostly take care of themselves in that area and am not sure if I want to start all that up again as soon as we send the last ones out of the house. I think I'll just read the blogs of those with animals for now.

Joey on one of his inventions at the lake this weekend. A make-shift zipline. Rope, a hill, a hook and a handle from some water-skiing equipment. And the bad mom of the year award goes to..........ME! Seriously? There's a beer bottle right in the corner of the picture. Yes, he's zip lining down a rope (that at least a tree trimmer tied the knots in) over chunks of wood and cement blocks in the winter while his mom's downing a coors light. Boy, motherhood doesn't get much better than that, does it? Cripes almighty. I do actually feed, nurture and look after the children now and again. No worries.

Your White Trash is Showing....

I apologize for the last wimpy entry. I was outnumbered, half deaf and quite overwhelmed. Scary White Trash Mama came out about an hour after the last post. OH yeah. YELLING Scary White Trash Mama, who is definitely NOT afraid of 9 yr old boys. Damn I do love her. Let's just say by 10:30pm all boys were either in beds on the floor or couches in the big tv/fireplace room. They all realized it was in their best interest not to upset the system. Or to upset the Mama. Lights were out, voices were at a whisper. Calmness reigned. I let them watch cartoons and as long as children stayed in their proper beds and voices didn't get loud enough for me to hear them upstairs, they could stay up as long as they wanted. They were all out cold by 11:30. Slept till at least 7am! The next morning they were totally behaved, normally squirrely boys. They played video games, legos, race cars and said "please" and "thank-you" at breakfast. I even overheard the boys comparing notes on how this was the "best sleepover EVER" so apparently I didn't scar them for life. I was able to sit and spin all morning with a smile on my face. Scary White Trash Mama rocks! I do love my alter ego's.

Note to self: The next time each mother jokingly (or totally serious in one case) gives me permission to beat upon her children, I need to ask if I can give them a little bit of benadryl instead. :) OK, OK, I'm totally kidding now. It is a pretty thought, though. It's really a miracle anyone ever comes to our house, isn't it?

Ok, this is totally a summer project for me. A table top at a local bar & grill had a design all made of BEER BOTTLECAPS! How cool would a table of Mike's Hard Limeade bottlecaps be? How much fun would it be to GET all those bottlecaps? I see many very, VERY easy knitting projects ahead for me this summer. Friends don't let friends knit drunk, and all that. right?


My poor-woman's niddy noddy. The key to it is to insert an old-time long, skinny metal knitting needle or tunisian crochet hook inside the bobbin and then the winding takes MUCH less time and effort. Of course, I didn't hit upon that little idea until the 10th bobbin I wound. Yes, I have a real niddy noddy in the plans for hubby to make for me and I have friends that have some I could borrow, I just was ready to skein up some yarn at 1:30am. What's a girl to do? It worked fabulously.