Ain't that peculiar!

Peculiar as can be.

I have learned to knit without looking. So now I knit and watch TV or knit and read at the same time.
It's eerie.
I have not been spinning much. Fall weather went away last weekend and the desire to spin went with it. I have started knitting a double domed cap. White brim and dome 1. Still haven't figured out what the second one will be. Some random ideas in that direction: using the dishcloth patterns to put designs on your caps. 2 caps, two designs.

I want to knit a dragonfly baby blanket. But I have no baby to give it to.(Of course I still want one of my own, a boy to give it to.)

Speaking of more children, I had a dream (several) of being pregnant one more time. I'm still hoping, but a man in the making needs a man to make him. I'm surrounded by boys, guys and overgrown children. I have been dreaming of past males lately but those are more upsetting than informative.

Anyway I have figured out the gansey pattern I want to make. It has the intertwining trees pattern from lion brand on the tummy framed on top and bottom by bands of garter stitch. There are cables on either side of the chest and a set of stacked garter stitch diamonds in the center. The sleeves have diamond shaped cables running down the top to the elbow.
There are false seams, gussets, and welts, and the channel island cast on. It will be a nice creamy white and a beautiful sweater.(Now if I could just find a man to fit it.)

It's gonna be a long singlehood. I'm filing the papers next Thursday so technically my single hood hasn't even started. J however has started dating which is good for him. I am not taking that route again. This time I will let God choose.

Consistent heat

Over the course of my fiber life I have washed many a fleece. Different breeds and categories, longwools medium wools and fine wools. I always shied away from fine wools because I could never get the grease out. Longwools are easier mediums are not so much but still not impossible.
You see I was using the method that goes like this: hot water soap and sit. So many warnings about felting the fleece and not letting the water cool and the grease re deposit. The washer machine made plenty of hot water and could keep it hot for quite a while. Still I had a bit of trouble with my finer medium wools, I would have to wash them several times, rinse and dry them, only to have to wash them again later on. Worse I sometimes just spun the yarn in the grease.YUCK! I tried using more soap, less wool, less sitting times and hotter water to no avail.
So I tried washing some on the stove, (thank you Stephanie) with a fine wool. It turned out ok. By ok I mean it had as much grease left over after 2 washes as one of the medium wools after 1 wash. Ok, so why did that turn out better than the washer machine? I think it's because of the constant heat.

With constant heat the grease never has a chance to resettle. The water temp never cools down, if anything it will increase a bit over time. There is a chance for it to cool off when you drain it and refill the pot but this can be eliminated by a double pot system. (Two pots of water on the stove, one is washing while the other heats water to the same temp, ready for the next stage. When the second pot is in use, the first pot gets dumped, refilled, and heated.)
Some points to remember are that you still need to use enough soap, you may have to open the lock tips in that first wash while the water is still cool, and you can only do so much wool at a time even in a large stock pot. If you plan on dying the wool this a great method because you can go right from washing/rinsing to dying and only have to dry the wool once!

Just a tip.

MY 2007 VW Jetta

Ok, now I know most of you have seen my blue 2006 V Dub and it was a cool car. Plenty of room, cruise, horses, and safety. There were some soft interior features I didn't like and the stereo was not too hot but it accommodated the whole family comfortably. The seats adjusted, the trunk was deep and long and the seats came down if I needed more room. In fact I moved my stuff and furniture out of my house into my 2 bed apt using just the car.

Not 3 months ago I got a red 2007 with leather interior, sun roof, 6 CD changer, I- pod adapter, satellite radio, as well as all the previous cool stuff from the other car.( Did I mention plenty of horses?) SOMEone asked why I would get this car again when the published gas mileage was so bad. I get 30 MPG on my girl even though what they published was more like mid to high 20's. There is a road stability feature on the car that is kind of like cruise control, in that it keeps the car in the middle of the road in windy times but it sucks more gas! When you turn it off, it greatly improves the gas mileage.(Of course they don't tell you this but...ya know)

Now there are are some downsides to the car. My 2007 would make odd noises when it hit 60 mph for the first time, and if it was cold it was sluggish. My 2008 however doesn't do any of these things. The brakes do get a little grabby and noisy when they are wet. The maintenance can be a little pricey, almost 60.00 per oil change but it only needs 1-2 a year so that's really not an issue.

The biggest reason I got this car and keep getting them is the safety. Go to VW.com and look at the accidents people have walked away from with only a bruise. I have 2 (long legged) children who ride with me and every safety feature ever created is in that car. So there you go!

I'm still here!

Sorry for the long delay but SO much has been going on. I'm still here, knitting spinning and ...several other things that don't need mentioning.
Safe to say I'm good!

Praying hands wash cloth/baby blanket- baby shower is on the 29th , baby is due in Aug and I'm at 2 ft.Guess which deadline I'm shooting for?

Spinning-spinning corridale wool on the Joy, along with occasional forays into Bunny fur.

Kids-fine, a bit bored with summer, but knitting up a storm, Quisha is making a felted bag and Heather is just knitting. Her stitches are coming along though.

Personal life- still interesting, moved into a 3 bed apt, lost my job, still going to church, knit night and singing in the choir. I have a wedding to go to this weekend and Habitat for humanity starts next weekend. Cool huh?

Movies- I got to see Golden compass, Bee movie, Enchanted, and will soon be seeing The water horse, 300, and my kids are seeing Kung fu panda and spending fathers day with their children. Me? I get A Day!

Well Happy Fathers Day everyone! Enjoy.

Photo Shoot

Hello, I finally got some photos up so I'll let them do the talking for me.

The sweater that is actually past this point. I put the ribbing on and now am NOT working on the sleeves.
What you get when you cross a witch and a pirate.

My car had a bald spot to cover, so it used the ice to do a comb over.
For those of you light on the budget, we had a X mas shrub and a crafty inclination.

Before the snow made the sky painful to look at, I caught this Nebraska version of Big Sky Country.

So that's all for now. Have a merry and be safe!

Book Book

All right, I have had enough of the book drivel! No I’m not talking about the issue going on with the bloggers who are becoming authors. I’m talking about the authors who write knitting side focus books. You know the ones like The Shop on Blossom Street, and my latest disappointment, The Killer Stitch. This one was a mystery with a strong knitting side bar.

I’ve never been one for mysteries in the first place. They all strike me as way to close to the romance novels but are off by a step. Yes there was knitting in there but they made it sound so hokey, and the way the characters were sucking down coffee and sweets, they must be more the size of cows. Lastly everyone was an alpaca rancher. There was one or two mention of cows and sheep, but that was all.(mind you this was Colorado.) Now this writer has written several books in the same vein and I won’t read any of them. I paid over 20.00 for the book in hardback and when I got though with it, I gave it away to anyone who wanted it. The mystery was not the subtle “lead you along dropping a few clues” kind. This was a” lead you in the wrong direction and then drop a character in out of nowhere and blame it on her” kind.
The next book I want to try is called 3 Bags Full. It is also a mystery, but it’s done from the point of view of the sheep.

One last book that I read that wasn’t worth it was Empress Orchid. It’s a large soft back and I was hoping it would be as interesting as Memoirs of a Geisha but I was sadly disappointed. Westerners Idea of what an Empress is, is different from an Easterners.
I was hoping for a Mulan but no such luck.

Now that I have a Nano at my disposal, I may sign up with Audible.com and branch out.
We’ll see. There’s always Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchett, the Harry Potter books, the Dune books, the Eragon series….

It's so hard to say goodbye

This week I have had to say good bye to quite a few things in my life. My kids went away the weekend of may 25th but my bunnies went away weekend before last and now I have to say good bye to my job and all the people whom I've come to know. This weekend I dropped the guard out of my life as well. That's a lot of good byes. I will be saying adios to the base and all military connections...again. But there are several upsides, I get to work in my garden and paint my house, my new job pays more money and is a positive environment, there will be no break in the paychecks and I will be able to take the house payment and pay the taxes. Now anyone who knows me or has been reading the blog for a while know that every year I wind up getting a new dog And then getting rid of it. TC was too loud, and too young, Prince was a pissing machine but I persist. This year we bought a 6 month old male Yorkie. Small quiet, already 1/2 way potty trained. Silky hair and content to be in his kennel or be in my lap or on the floor next to me. We named him Tucker. Now if Mommy would just get a clue, her training would go a lot smoother.

Knitting: I'm working a finish Job for one of my most faithful customers. The spring fling was finished last week, and a black shawl will be started the end of this month. I've had to alter my quotes. I had a nasty surprise on the spring fling piece. So now my base for a knitted garment will be 100.00.
Spinning: I lent out my drop spindles to a wood working friend so they can make some and now I have a class to teach next Tuesday at Jo-Ann's in Bellevue. I'm still working on the green merino from my father- in-law, only 1 oz left. My drop spindle has been eating up the grey wool/pink blue mohair /Angelina blend I bought from Iowa sheep and wool last year. I'd go this year but I'm broke. I still have some bunny and bunny- wool blend to spin/blend/spin. I can also send my fleeces off to the mills now for the great mill search project. 3 mills, 2 fleeces each.Their mission? Process the wool, process the alpaca, blend said alpaca with a fine short wool, merino, Rambouillet, Corridale ect.

2008 Fiber show: Hooking up with the Nebraska sheep and goat as well as the Nebraska extension office.

Well that's all for now, I still have photo's to take so I can publish a previously written post.
Don't forget to listen to your podcasts and support your local artists.
Toodles!

The Show Me post

The digital photo's of the show. The rest need to be developed.

The baby jacket The Spring Fling Job

The new additions to my garden this weekend. The lawn was just mowed last night.

I'll get a closer photo of the back bed later.

Plant one on me

This weekend started off with a sad but inevitable note. I sent Scotch to the Humane society this morning. I cannot afford to keep an animal that does nothing for me. The cages were then re distributed, and the whole basement cleaned. Next I took the girls to the Omaha Botanical Garden plant show and sale. We bought a membership and 3 plants I can't remember the name of, for the side garden. From there we came home and checked the flyer on the Military Appreciation Day at the Q-West Center. It started at 12 so we went through the old market farmers market before moseying down to the Q-West.
The kids saw a live bald eagle and got to go on a couple of those inflatable rides but when it came to the rock wall, there were too many complications and we just left. Un-discouraged, we went to Planet X on 84th and Center. We had a marvelous cheese pizza(A large and there were4 of us and we devoured it!) got to climb the rock wall as well as played a bunch of other games and earned some candy!

By then I was worn out and we came home. At 4, I took a trip to Springfield to look at the Sarpy County Fairgrounds for next years show. I'm sold. The buildings are heated and AC'ed, have bathrooms in them, one even has a kitchen, and there are barns for the animals. The price is higher than the VFW hall but not much so and we're getting a lot for it. I need to make a few contacts to get help paying for this but it should be do-able!

When I got back, I picked out spots for my new plants and planted them. I also did some weeding an noticed that the yellow rose I planted might not be dead after all. I fertilized it so we will see. On the plants for the front of the yard I may have to do something different. The shrubs I bought at Lowe's did not do so well in the downpour we had a couple of weeks ago. I thought if I gave them a chance to dry out they would survive, but no. I looked at a couple more rhoddies and many other plants today but to no avail. Does anyone know how to propagate rhoddies?

Anyway I need a shower and some dinner, so
Tune in next time when we have 3 new podcasts from our favorite people, more knitting spinning and planting to report, and a full belly!
Toodles!

Enough with the show already!

No not really, it was a blast though. Thank you everyone who came!
5 out of 7 vendors showed up and 3 out of 5 at least broke even. One of the ones that did came from south west MO and one of the ones that didn't was me. We had over 50 people show up. Some from Lincoln some from other states, like Iowa. People saw the signs or the magazine ad, or were told by friends(Ahem!) to come by.

Yes we are doing it again next year but on the third weekend of May and somewhere else. There will be a website, and later there will be photos.

Of course I bought stuff from everyone. I had my girls take classes, and we all had a great time.

Unfortunately we had a distant family member die on Mothers day. We will be going to her memorial Wed.

Work was almost non existent today, every event is another nail in the coffin. This week HR is in, telling us what options we have for the Great Closing. Tomorrow they will talk to us second class employees for an hour. The rest of the time is spent covering the . Permanent employees.
Moving On!

There has been much progress on the spring green shrug. I'm up to 9 inches and divide for the armholes section. The green Cashmere sweater is on hold till I come back from guard in June.

That's about all for now. I will show you what I bought and some pictures I took and what I sold and something I learned about selling yarn.
Listen to your podcasts folks and knit the night away.
Tooddles!

How many stitches is that?

If I ever become a pattern designer my company will be called Lazy Gauge Patterns.
I hate gauge. I have been working on the Baby surplice jacket and have just found after 7 inches of garter stitch that my gauge is way off! 4 st/ridges per inch instead of 5.5
Now I sat back and did some math: directions -cast on 140 stitches (25 inches), knit 2 rows, yarn over design for buttons, knit 4 ridges, next row begin shaping decreasing 2 per row every other row Down To 100 Stitches.
In my language it should say cast on 25 inches in your gauge (109 stitches) blah blah blah
Decrease 32 stitches (2 every other row. This takes 16 rows). your piece should measure roughly 5 inches. ( 6 if you include the increases for back shaping and then decrease them out as well.)
You now have 3-4 inches left to do arms. See was that so hard? Tell me how big the piece is at the different stages. I'll worry about My gauge you worry about yours.
OIY!
So now I can rip or continue knitting and wash it for shrinkage. It is unmercerised cotton.

This Saturday I am looking at picking up another knitting Job. This one is a rush to be done before June 1. The Yarn came in for my other job and a friend at my Tuesday night knit club at Mangelsons has the Purl book I need and will let me borrow it.

Lastly the job thing- I went on the interview yesterday, it went fine. I have one Friday with another company where I'm interviewing for 2 positions.
Gotta go...

Large and in charge..of Chaos

Well as usual here we are, it's raining and I haven't posted for a bit so lets get the usual update out of the way.
Green cashmere sweater-need to call customer up and get a fit done.

Baby surplice Jacket-gauge is 5 stitches /4 ridges in garter stitch so I think this is gonna be bigger than I planned. Still not up to the sleeves yet but happily knitting away.

Baby jacket out of my head- needs 3 more inches of fabric across the chest. Will have to pick up the edges and knit out some more.

Spinning- yeah, haven't been on that yet.

Fiber show-driving me up a wall. I wonder if people realize I have spent 800.00 of my own money on this and will be spending another 300.00 when they want to do things like cancel on me and can't understand why I'm a little upset!

Job search- for that one who wants to know, Interview tomorrow at 4, headhunter agency has referred my resume to 5 different firms with 1 response. No call from Mutual but my inside friend told me not to worry, the government doesn't have the patent on SLOW! Applied for 2 Gov't Auditing positions this week.

All right now I had pictures but the camera and the computer are having a fight..Stop that! Put that USB cord down Right NOW! Sorry where was I? Oh yeah,
So today I am home taking care of some loose ends, bunnies, cleaning, guard stuff (did I tell you they put me in charge? What were they thinking?).

My 14 year old turned 15 this Friday, the whole family came over to celebrate..That girl earned the same in one day, that I do working. Yes that's a lot. Then she spent the next day with her mom and blew 1/2 of it clothes shopping at the mall. Go figure. Happy birthday kiddo! I got her flowers.

Quisha had her eye exam, looks like she will take after her father. She doesn't need glasses and probably won't. (One of the good things about that pairing)

The Munchkin is in and out of trouble at school. Typical end of the year stuff. Can't really blame her. Her birthday will be just after I come back from KS. I will get her something...

Oh I have another Knit Job. This one is out of Sally Melville's The Knitting Experience 2: Purl
Its called the Not Knit Round Scarf. If anyone has this book could I borrow it?
The yarn is cotton twist ordered from the Yarn Market. Looks like a simple job.

Well That's all. I gotta go finish the rest of those loose ends and lunch too.
Hey have you ever vacuumed UNDER your couch? Whoa!

Toodles!

Have you been good this year?

I would say sure! Wouldn't you? Merry Christmas /Happy Channaka, Kwanzza / Blessed Yule

You know me I'm not much on sentiment.

Have you seen these?

http://www.stick-and-stone.com/Spindles/spindles.html

and this?

http://www.spindlicity.com/winter2006/index.shtml

or this?

http://www.etsy.com/


Yeah, that's kept me busy for the last two days. Now it's your turn..
Toodles!

Life goes on..

This post is a mix of good and bad.
The good is like Heathers concert, she was one of the last violinists left playing as the concert went on. That means she was one of the two most talented in her grade and below.
Bad like I forgot to take photos, I'm sorry.
Good like I think we found a house we will actually buy, in our price range, elligible for the grant assistance and with enough room for us all.(2 bathrooms) The bad is it's still in S Omaha, but that also means the kids get to continue going to their Magnet schools.
Good like everyone is healthy and happy, bad like at 730-830 this morning Riley gave birth to two giant stilborn fetus'. I spent the morning in a funk crying on and off. She spent the day confused as to where they were and only stopped pulling wool around 5 pm. I had to hold her and pet her for a while this evening for both our comforts.

Good in that while waiting for my cars oil change I got a lot of knitting done, bad in that it wasn't on my customers project.
Good in that I contacted my secret pal today, and I also tried spinning today. Bad in that Icouldn't get into it. I tried Border Lester, Alpaca and Angora. It might just need to be a plain wool day. I'll try the silk tomorrow and if that doesn't work then I've got plenty of wool.

That's all for now,
Toodles!