The Work of Her Hands

2007-02-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

Well, The Work of Her Hands is moving. I have tried for a long time to make blogger work because I didn't want to move, and it is completely free, and it's where I started. However, I can hardly get a post done without having it take three or four days, and it is just too frustrating. So I have moved. I hope you'll join me, and don't forget to update your bookmarks, bloglines, or whatever it is you use to track the blogs you read. See you over there!

2007-01-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

I finished two more hats and booties for the Pregnancy Resource Center. I love the pale Easter like colors on the girls hat, although they don't look exactly right on my monitor. In real life, they are a pale sagey green, purple, pink and white. The colors on the boys hat I would have never thought of putting together, except Reagan recieved an outfit for Christmas that had those colors in it, and it's really cute. I knit all the stripes diffent widths, trying for a random mix, but acheiving that look is more difficult than you would think. I pray that the new families that recieve these things are blessed by them.

2007-01-23T10:58:00.000-08:00

Jan’s Baby Hat and Booties:

Baby Bee Sweet Delight Baby Yarn (comes in a huge variety of colors. I get it at Hobby Lobby) Used doubled throughout (I wind the yarn into balls and use the strand from the inside and outside of the ball)
I don’t know the exact amount of yarn I use. I can get 2 or three sets from one ball of yarn.
Size 7 needles. I use a 40-inch circular

I use the magic loop method of knitting in the round. You’ll have to adjust the instructions to fit your method of knitting in the round.

This hat is pretty basic for a rolled brim baby hat. If I haven’t written the instructions out clear enough, I am sure you can find better instructions somewhere else. This is a very rough set of instructions, because I basically just cast on and knit this one without a pattern. I tried to write it down though. I hope it’s helpful.

Cast on 60 stitches and join, being careful not to twist the stitches.
For a hat with a ribbed brim, work 1 and ½ inches of ribbing, then work straight until hat measures 5 inches from base of ribbing. If you want a rolled edge, you just knit straight. Eventually, the edge will roll up to the position it wants to be in. Knit until the piece of knitting measures 5 inches from the base of the rolled edge.

Decrease as follows:
Dec round 1: knit 4, knit 2 together all the way around.
Round 2, and all even rows until row 10, knit all stitches
Round 3: knit 3, knit 2 together. Repeat all the way around
Round 5: knit 2, knit 2 together, repeat all the way around
Round 7: knit 1, knit 2 together, repeat all the way around
Round 9, and all subsequent rows: knit 2 together
When you have 3 stitches left, work 1 cord for 1 inch if you want a little nub,
For 2 inches if you want a loop at the top
Work for 3 inches if you want a little knot on top.

Once you have worked the desired amount of I cord, pull thread through the all three stitches. If you just want the little nub, run the needle down through the I cord to the inside of the hat, and weave in the end securely. For the little loop, again run the darning needle down through the I cord to the inside, then bring your needle up close to the base of the beginning of the I cord, bend the end of the I cord down and secure it close to the base of the I cord.

For the knot, I use the end of the yarn to help me tie the knot, especially if I ended the I cord a little soon. Once I get the knot tied, I thread the ends of the yarn through the darning needle, and hiding the yarn in the I cord and knot, run it through to the inside, where I weave in the end securely.

You can add variety to this hat by choosing a knitting stitch and adjusting the number of stitches you cast on, or knitting in different color stripes. It is a very quick pattern, and I can get one of these done in a few hours, if I work on it diligently. It makes good travel knitting.

Baby Bootees
Same yarn as the hat, used doubled throughout.
This pattern also assumes you know something about short row heels.

Like I said earlier, I use the magic loop method of knitting in the round, and I knit from the toe up. I use a figure 8 cast on, using the cable of my 40-inch needle as waste yarn, instead of a second needle. After I cast on, it looks something like this.

I knit the stitches off the first needle, then slide the needles around (if you know magic loop, you know what I am talking about) and then knit the stitches that were cast on over the cable.

If you knit on two circular needles, Cat Bordhi does something very similar in her Baby Life Ring socks found here (this is a pdf file, by the way). I also think she explains it much more efficiently, so read hers first!

So, I cast on 6 stitches using the figure 8 cast on, basically. This gives me 12 stitches total when I start the toe, 6 on each side. I knit one round plain,
The next round goes knit 1, Make 1(using your favorite method of increasing without making a hole) knit 4, make 1, knit 1. Repeat once over the next 6 stitches. You now have a total of 8 stitches, each side for a total of 16 Knit plain until sock measures 2 inches from the beginning of the toe. Knit 8 stitches, the heel will be worked on the second set of 8 stitches. This would be a good way to learn to knit a short row heel, as it’s very tiny, and doesn’t take long. A larger heel such as those for an adult are worked the exact same way, just over more stitches. I just work mine knitting back and forth, so I don’t have to purl, but I have written the instructions with the assumption you are purling the wrong side rows.

Row 1: With yarn in the back, knit 7. Pass yarn to the front, slip the last stitch, and pass yarn to the back,
Row 2: Turn work. Slip first stitch, purl next 6 stitches, pass yarn to the back, slip next stitch, and pass yarn to the front.
Row 3turn work, with yarn in the back, slip first stitch, knit the next 5 stitches, pass yarn from back to the front, slip 2nd from last stitch, pass yarn from front to back,
Row 4 turn work with yarn in front, slip 2nd stitch, purl next 4 stitches, pass yarn from front to back, slip the next stitch, pass yarn from back to front
Row 5, turn work, and slip the now wrapped 2nd stitch to right hand needle. With yarn in back, knit the next 3 stitches. Pass yarn from back to front, slip third stitch from the end, pass yarn from front to back
Row 6, Turn work, with yarn in front, purl 2 pass yarn from front to back, slip third stitch. Pass yarn from back to front.
Row 7slip stitch just wrapped. With yarn in back, knit 2pass yarn from back to front slip third stitch. Pass yarn from front to back
Row 8 with yarn in front, slip stitch. (third stitch is now wrapped twice) purl 2. Pass yarn from front to back. Slip next stitch. Pass yarn from back to front.
Row 9: turn work with yarn in back slipstitch now wrapped twice. Knit next three stitches. Pass yarn from back to front. Slip next stitch. Pass yarn from front to back.
Row 10: Turn work. With yarn in front, slip next stitch. Purl next 4 stitches. Pass yarn from front to back. Slip next stitch. Pass yarn from back to front,
Row 11: Turn work. With yarn in back, slip next stitch. Knit 5 pass yarn from back to front slip next stitch. Pass yarn from front to back.
Row 12: Turn work. With yarn in front, slip next stitch. Purl next 6 stitches. Pass yarn from front to back, slip last stitch, pass yarn from back to front, turn work.
Row 13: With yarn in back, slip next stitch, knit next 7 stitches. Pick up two stitches in the small gap there between where the heel started and ended.
Row 14Turn the work slip the first picked up stitch to the right hand needle, then purl the next 9 stitches. Now, using purls, pick up two stitches in this gap.
Row 15: Turn work. Knit next twelve stitches off back of heel, then the 8 stitches for what is now the front of the leg.
Row 16: Next, do a left leaning decrease, knit 8, do a right leaning decrease, knit 8
Row 17: Knit every stitch.
Row 18 Do a left leaning decrease, knit 6, do a right leaning decrease, knit 8
You have now reduced back to the 16 stitches you need for the leg.

I usually knit straight for an inch, inch and a half, and then do 6 rows of 2 x 2 ribbing. This makes a nice little cuff on the bootie. Another option that I use is to do 2 rows of ribbing, and then 4-6 rows of straight knitting. This makes a little rolled cuff on the socks that is really cute with the rolled brim hat.

I know this is a very rough pattern, but I did my best. There are much better explinations of a short row heel and picking up stitches out there, if mine is too confusing. Just use a search engine and start looking. Obviously, I am not a pattern writer. Hope this helps someone out there.

Next time, pictures of lace, I promise!

2007-01-19T07:43:00.000-08:00

I just love blogger. I typed out a huge post last night, uploaded a bunch of pictures, and just when I went to hit publish, blogger went down for maintenance. So I'm trying again! (since I started this post, the power has gone out 4 times. It's a conspiracy, I tell ya!)

When the ice storm started on Saturday, I wasn't too concerned. I had heard about the destruction of the 2000 ice storm, but since we have lived in Oklahoma, we had never had an event like that. We had had some sleet, but sleet doesn't really hurt anything, it just piles up on the ground. Ice coats everything standing still, and it just gets thicker and thicker. I wasn't too scared until the trees started breaking. You would hear a crack like gunfire, and then the sound of a glass cabinet falling over breaking everything inside. It happened over and over. I stood on the porch maybe five minutes, and there was never a pause in the noise as tree after tree broke, the tops crashing to the ground. The tree that stands next to our garage was leaning over, it's top resting on the house, right over the car, so I went to move that and there was so much ice on the windsheild I couldn't scrap it off. I moved it hanging out the door looking behind me and managed to back into the half barrel that holds plants. That branch never broke, but another big branch on the same tree did, and we will probably lose the tree. It's the tree the kids have had a swing in since we moved here, it will be really sad to lose it.

We lost power early Saturday morning, about 3:30 am. Just as we were getting ready to head to my in-laws house, it came back on though, and went off and on all day as I rushed around trying to get clothes and things that we would need (my knitting!) packed up to go. Finally about 4 oclock, it went out again, and it didn't come back on until after dinner on Tuesday night. As I have said before, we were really blessed to be able to go to Chad and Judy's, they really made sure everyone was taken care of, we spent the whole time relatively comfortable.

It's amazing to me how the ice that caused so much destruction can at the same time be so beautiful. I wish I could have gone out and just walked around and taken pictures, but at the time it was pretty dangerous to be out there, and then it was so bitterly cold. We still have some ice today, but it is supposed to get warmer today and hopefully it will melt off some before the snow forcast for tommorrow (4-9 inches) gets here. I hope it does what forcast snow usually does around here, and never materializes at all.

So we got home late Wed. morning, and started cleaning house. I had a zillion loads of laundry to do, I got the kitchen cleaned and mopped, my room straightened out, the living room clean, when Reagan came to me and said, Mom, Look what Yoda did!

Well, on top of all the stress of the last 5 days, I cried. This was my first piece of Fair Isle work, Anne from She Ewe Knits helped me pick out the colors and figure out gauge and then posted a picture of the finished hat on her website. He also ate a piece of the ribbed brim, and the thumb of one glove. I was really upset that I was going to have to throw all that work away. It was too shredded to try to re knit the area and I don't have any of the yarn from that project left anyway.

So what I did was I used the closest matching yarn I could find and whip stitched the edges of the hole closed, and did the same on the chewed thumb. Then I threw them into a pillow case closed with a ponytail band and put them through a wash cycle.

I think they actually fit better now, since they were a little big to begin with, and you can hardly tell where the chewed areas were. So if you have a disaster with a knitted item, try to fix it somehow before you just give up on it, it might not be perfect, but if you have an attachment to something, anything is better than throwing it in the trash. My thoughts behind felting them were that even if they felted down too small, Reagan might still be able to wear them. I'm really glad they still fit me though!

I have had a request to post information on the baby hat and booties I have been knitting, and I promise to get that up the next time, as well as some pictures of my current project.

2007-01-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

Well, we have survived the Oklahoma Ice Storm of 2007. If you have seen Muskogee on the national news over the last couple of days, that's what it looked like here. We didn't have power from 3:00 on Saturday until Tuesday evening, we didn't have water for most of Tuesday, and the phones went on and off at will for most of that time. We are blessed in the fact that I have wonderful in-laws, who bought 2 generators when the one they had didn't work, who let all of us, plus Sean's sisters family come stay with them, as well as fed us and let the kids watch tons of cartoons. We fully recognize that compared to a lot of people in the area, we had it easy, so we aren't complaining. I have pictures, but the phone lines are so bad it isn't letting me upload them. Hopefully I will get to post pictures the next time.

I did get more knitting done during the storm, although I haven't got to take pictures of it yet. I finished another baby hat and booties, plus a toddler hat for a friend of my mom's, and I started a lace project I am really excited about. I had a request for the information for the hat and booties in the comments, and I promise, I will post it as soon as I can. However, I have a lot (a LOT) of laundry to do, and we need to get back to school, so it might be a day or two.

On an exciting note, they had the Weight Watchers meeting on Tuesday. I went, despite the fact that I hadn't had a shower and looked horrible, just so I could weigh in...Not having access to your own refridgerator for 3 days results in a loss of 2.6 lbs, LOL. That brings my total to -32.6 lbs since I started Weight Watchers.

2007-01-10T12:36:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days I have been working on another baby hat. Sean requested some time ago that I knit this lady he works with a hat for her baby, and I did. But, as you know, babies grow. She really wanted another one, but in navy blue, I guess to match his coat.

Have you ever tried to find navy blue baby yarn? It doesn't exist, at least not at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, which were the only two sources available to me since I needed to get it done by this weekend coming up.

I think the first hat was basically the same as the ones I have been knitting for the Pregnancy Resource Center, a rolled brim, plain stockinette, and an I cord loop, button or nub on the top. This one I did a little different. I knit in k2p2 rib for about an inch and a half, and then did a knit two, purl two, twist two, purl two rib. Knit for a while, till it seemed a little longer than necessary, and then did a series of decreases. And ended with the little I cord button.

It's pretty cool to be able to whip something up without really needing a pattern, but I am beginning to need a challenge. Time to email mom about her sweater, and see if I can figure out what she'd like.

2007-01-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

I got a lot of knitting done over the weekend, despite a short bout with food induced illness.

The first thing I finished was Reagan's mitts. She loves them. She is wihtout doubt the easiest person I have to knit for, as she loves everything on my needles, gushes over it endlessly, and then, if the knit item is for her, doesn't take it off for days. Santa brought her fake fingernail polish for Christmas, and she insists on painting every finger a different color. I hope she outgrows that. She has also had an allergic reaction to the lip gloss he brought her. She looks awful.

I also got two hats and two pairs of booties finished for the Pregnancy Resource Center. I decided that babies probably did not need socks knit at 9 stitches to the inch, since they weren't going to be doing a lot of walking. I am knitting the booties toe up, with doubled yarn on size 7 needles. I can do a sock an hour, compared to at least 3 hours per sock before. That's going to really speed the knitting up.

So this week, I have to finish a baby hat for a friend of Sean's, start planning a sweater for my Mom,( who deserves a sweater more than anybody) knit a pair of fingerless mittens for Sean and maybe for me. Actually, I have a long list of things I'd like to knit for me, but I'm thinking I'll wait until summer to start, since I don't want to knit stuff to fit me now, because I'm pretty sure it won't fit next winter.

Well, it's back to school today. I'm so glad. We have been out of our schedule for so long it will be nice to get back into a normal routine.

2007-01-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

I am knitting about the fifth pair of fingerless gloves I have done since it turned cold. I knit a pair for Sarah, a pair for Jody, one for me (which I gave away before I ever wore) a pair for Mom, and now, a pair for Reagan. These are done in yarn I recycled from a sweater, and then dyed. I really love the way it turned out, but there were only two small balls of this, just enough to do one mitten per ball. I'll I have to knit me another pair, later.

I can't decide what I want to knit next. The mohair diagonal scarf has been put back on the back burner. I knit 10 rows, find a mistake, then have to rip it back and reknit. It's a one step forward, two steps back kind of thing that is absolutely driving me crazy. So I'm putting it up for now, and dragging out the Fair Isle slippers. I have some ideas about what to knit after that, but no concrete plans. I really want to knit something aran, but I don't know if I'll have enough yarn for that. I guess we'll wait and see.

As to weight loss goals, I have now lost 28.6 lbs. I earned my 10% goal keychain, and I am really thrilled about it. Still have a long way to go, but I know I'll get there eventually. I am wearing clothes two sizes smaller than when I started, so I know I'm smaller, but my head still doesn't believe it. Looking at myself, I don't see many changes.

I didn't make any resolutions this year. I'm going to knit and spin as much as I can, I'm going to try to be a better all around friend and relative, and I'm going to do more charity knitting this year. I'm just doing it, though, resolutions are too easy to break.

Happy New Year, everybody.

2006-12-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been trying to post an update for a long time, and blogger is giving me fits. If it doesn't clear up soon, I will be trying to find a new home or just giving up. I just don't have time to post when it takes me all day, running back and forth to the computer to get one post done.

Anyway, there has been a lot going on over here at my house. We went to visit my sister in VA, and while we were there we went to see the Smithsonian and the Washington Monument. We walked and Walked and walked.

We had a lot of fun at Jodis, and I am so glad I got to see her. Thank you for a wonderful trip Jodi. I'll never be able to say thank you enough.

I have been doing a lot of knitting and some spinning. I have knit a lot of fingerless mittens, and a set of fingerless gloves with mitten toppers for Sean. I've dones some felting, and unravled a lot of sweaters for the yarn. I just don't have time to post individual pictures of all these things, so a collage will have to do, and then hopefully we will have a return to regular blogging.

Then of course, there was Christmas. Now, everyone got pretty much what they wanted this year, including me. I got the Knit Picks Option set. My husband is a complete stinker, and told me repeatedly that he wasn't getting it for me, that he couldn't afford it, etc etc. Then in my stocking I got 2 sets of cables and he told me that the rest of the set was backordered. Then we went to the in-laws for dinner, and there was a package for me under their tree. It was the case and the rest of the set! I was thrilled, and I love it. I need some more pockets but other than that, it's perfect. Here are the fingerless mittens I knit for myself before Christmas, out of my own handspun, hand dyed wool. They are so soft and cushy.

And, for those interested in my weight loss, I have lost a total of 25.something lbs. I'm down a couple of pants sizes, so I feel like I am doing pretty good, although I didn't do as well over Christmas as I had hoped. It was harder than I thought it was going to be. I am taking comfort in that fact that I did much better this year than I would have done in the past. I had a few cookies and some candy, but I didn't eat all the candy and all the cookies.

2006-11-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

Here it is. Admittedly not the best picture, and without any buttons, but done and blocked. I have to say that for a years worth of work, off and on, I am really, really pleased with how it turned out. Of course, the final outcome will be determined by wether MIL likes it or not. If she doesn't, I'm never knitting another thing for anybody, LOL.

I'm finished with the first of moms fingerless gloves for her birthday, but I have fallen in love with them. I hope I have enough yarn left over for a pair for myself when I get done with them. They don't seem to be using that much yarn, and I think they have turned out super cute.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the sweater,

2006-11-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

Well, the sweater is finished! As I type, it is drying for the last time. I still have to find suitable buttons, but other than that done! Pictures tommorrow, I guess.

In my ongoing search for the perfect knitting needle, I have found a replacement for my first love, the Addi Turbo. When I ordered the blocking wires from Knitpicks, I also ordered a set of size 4 tips, a set of 40"cables and end caps and a set of their size 0 32" circulars. Let me tell you, these come as close as I can tell to being the perfect knitting needles. First I using the size 4 tips on one cable to knit Mom's birthday present. They were great for that, I like that the purple cable is so soft and flexible and does NOT retain any kinks and curls that develop as I knit using the magic loop method. (and I didn't have to put them in hot water to ease the kinks from their packaging either) They have the perfect pointiness, and they are very well balanced. But, they didn't really shine for me until...

The time came to knit the button band on the Aran cardigan. The pattern called for a circular needle used to pick up the stitches on one side, then across the back and down the other side. So I put the end caps on the cable that I was using for mom's project, put the needle ends on the other cable, and off I went. Except soon, I realized that even on the 40 inch cable, all those stitches I was picking up were going to make it very difficult to knit back and forth on one needle. So, I took the needle off the end I wasn't using to pick up stitches, put an end cap on there, removed the end cap from the cable holding mom's project and removed the cable (it's wool...it's really not going anywhere, is it) put the other needle tip on one end, and used the two cables as flex needles.

It was magic. I am in love. I have requested needles for Christmas and my birthday. I am considering knitting everything on size 4 needles until I get more of these needles in different sizes. And I didn't even tell you about the little snag on one cable. I was going to call or email knitpicks about it, but then I discovered that I could use an emery board on it and you couldn't even tell there was a snag. I'm sold.

2006-11-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

The next time you see this sweater, it will be done, except maybe for the buttons. I have two more rows to go on the button band and the bind off row to knit. I have to weave in a few ends. I will have to either reblock it or steam the button bands into a flatter shape (they want to bend up at the moment) The bulk of the work is done though. I am so glad!

I am also working on a birthday present for my Mom, maybe I will have pictures of that the next time I sighn in.

2006-10-31T09:01:00.000-08:00

FINALLY! I have all the parts for the aran cardigan knit! Do you think it took me long enough?

I ordered blocking wires last night, so while I wait for them to arrive so I can get this blocked and start on the finishing, I'm going to have to knit something else. I haven't decided wether to complete another started project, so start a totally new one. I really just can't wait to get this sweater completed.

Other than that, there isn't too much going on around here. It's getting colder, and all my wool socks have come up missing. I can find 1 sock of three pairs. Since the pairs were all in the same place, I just don't know where they could be. I guess I am going to have to start knitting socks in earnest.

2006-10-30T12:26:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted in a while. Things are so hectic around here! Anyway, I am almost done with all the pieces of the Aran Cardigan. I am on the decreases at the top of the second sleeve! I will be so glad to be done with that part of it. Anyway, as soon as I get the pieces blocked and start putting it all together, I will post some pictures.

That's all going on fiber wise!

2006-10-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

This little fella was a gift to our family from a friend of my MIL's. He is a Welsh Corgi, and the smallest little ball of fluff! The kids took one look at the ears and named him Yoda. They usually go through about three names before one sticks though. I think we are in for a wild time, LOL.

next up, more about the sweater...

2006-10-09T08:37:00.000-07:00

There has been quite a bit of fiber activity lately, even if I didn't have the batteries to post pictures. However, new rechargeables have been purchased, and I have set of regular old batteries that will last me until the rechargeables are ready, so here we go...

I have another set of hat and baby socks ready for the pregnancy resource center. I have heard via the pastors wife that the director is just thrilled with the things I have already sent. I was worried she might need blankets or something else, but since the hat and socks fit the bill, I'm going to get back on track with knitting one set at least a week. I really like this set that I have just finished, I think the brown and baby blue go so well together. I think next I am going to make a striped set.

I have finished the first set of increases on the first sleeve of the cabled sweater. Now instead of increasing every 6 rows, I am increasing every 4. I am really eager to get to the top of the sleeve and see if I can get the saddle to work. I'm a little worried about it, but I think it's going to be fine. Other than that, I am spinning. I am plying some singles, and spinning the stuff I want to get done to sale. There is so much going on around here it is taking a lot longer than I had thought it would.

DH is off today, (His first day off from both school and work since the new school year started) and is spending this morning working on our stupid car. We are supposed to go out to dinner this evening while his dad watches the kids. I really hope that happens, we really need the time alone to decompress. Then, next week, he will have Thursday and Friday off and we are planning on doing something with the kids. I have no idea what.

Reagan had her birthday and I didn't post a picture of her and her cake. Better late than never, right?

All my kids are growing up so fast.

I did make a new blog to write about my weight watchers adventure. If you are interested in that, it is over here .

2006-10-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

The rechargeable batteries in my camera died. I seem to be having a hard time blogging without pictures to show you. I have been working on the first sleeve of the cabled sweater, and it is coming along so nicely. I will soon be done with the increases, and then it is on to the cap of the sleeve and the saddle for the shoulder. I'm excited about starting that, I think it's going to look nice.

In other news, we had a member from Church die last weekend. I don't know if you remember the couple I blogged about when I made the chocolate grooms cake less than two years ago? The male half of that couple, Rick, had a massive heart attack and died last Sunday morning. It was a very hard week, just left me feeling very sad, Donna has been so happy since she and Rick started dating, and I'm just worried for her. She is a woman with a lot of faith though, and I am sure that God will get her through this.

Also, I've finally faced the fact that I have to lose weight, so I am going to be joining Wieght Watchers this coming Tuesday. I'm excited about it, and worried I'll fail at the same time. I've done a lot of research into it though, and this is the first time I have ever started a diet and felt like I could actually do it. I guess we'll see. Instead of posting about that here, I think I might start a sister blog and post about that journey there.

Hopefully I will be able to post pictures soon.

2006-09-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

Recycling sweaters...

If you check the inside of a sweater, you can tell if it has been cut from a big peice of knitted material and the edges serged to keep it from unraveling, or if it was first knit as peices and then sewn together. If it was knit as peices, it is a candidate for unraveling. My other requirement is that it be made from natural fibers, although I probably wouldn't unravel a cotton sweater. I just don't like knitting with cotton that much.

So, I found four sweaters: the one I felted and three others...

The "picture" sweater was knit from two strands of shetland wool yarn held together. You can't see it in this picture, but it has blue and red and other fibers blended together in the dark yarn. So far, I have unraveled both sleeves. Just from the sleeves I got 80 yards of double stranded white, and 240 yards of the dark. This sweater is very slow going because before it can be unraveled, you have to pick out all the embroidery that was done on top of the knitting. I probably will not be unraveling the front, which has so much embroidery I would probably lose my mind trying to get it all off. Plans right now are to cut it into a square, back it with blue jean material, and make a holiday pillow out of the front and to unravel the back.

The cream colored yarn on the right is a combination of 55% silk, 33% nylon, 10%angora and 3% lambswool. It is absolutely the softest yarn! It has a lovely nubbly texture, the angora halo, and I am pretty sure if I decide to dye it, it will take dye beautifully. I have no idea how many yards I have, but I got over 200 yards on the first sleeve alone. I think this is what I am going to knit that smoke ring that I have been wanting to knit out of.

The red yarn has no sweater with it because I completely unraveled it on Wednesday night. It was just a plain knit pullover sweater, made from lambswool and angora. I got roughly 110 yards from each sleeve, and I forget how much from the back and front, I'll have to check later. This is probably going to be over dyed, the red is a little much for me. All in all, a good haul for sweaters that cost me 2 dollars each. It was really a lot of fun to "unknit" something for a change.

In other news, I finished the fronts for the aran cardigan last night!! Yeah! Then, after laying out the fronts, I discovered that I had made a huge mistake. I shaped the wrong sides of the fronts, so the cables were not going to meet up at the shoulders. For a moment, I debated cutting up the whole sweater into teeny tiny peices of fluff. Then I decided that instead, I will just knit saddles for the top of each arm, and hopefully the break at the top of the arm will trick the eye into not noticing the mistake. I am just too sick of this sweater to consider ripping the fronts back and starting again. Besides, I've always wanted to knit a sweater with saddles at the top of the shoulder, it'll be fun, right?

After receiving the latest issure of SpinOff in the mail, I had to drag out the knitting machine and try my hand at knitting up blanks and dyeing them. Let me tell you, it is much easier to dye a knitted blank than to wind yarn into a huge skein and then dye it for self striping yarn. I was really pleased with the colors in this, but I need a much bigger workspace to really get into this. A large peice of foam insulation would be great, I think. Anyway, I am planning on doing more of this in the future, in better colors, and hope to have some for sale, as soon as the programmer extroidenaire finishes her website or I figure out Etsy, whichever comes first, LOL.

2006-09-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

Just a Note.......

When you are talking to a new acquaintance, it is not a good idea to refer to a recent sod purchase from a mutual acquaintance as "buying grass" This definitely raises eyebrows at the Christian homeschool co-op. Many assurances that you meant the grass that grows in the lawn absolutely not the grass you smoke will follow.

2006-09-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

We ran to town Tuesday night and stopped at the local thrift store. Sean and chad were looking for jeans, but I was looking for sweaters! I found 4 that looked like they would be able to be taken apart for the yarn. When I got home, I realized it would probably be better to felt the Fair Isle sweater that I found, even thought it was 100% Shetland wool. All the ends were cut and it would never have unraveled right.

So I got up Wednesday morning and threw it in the washing machine. It was a Men's medium sweater, and by the time it was done felting it was about three times as thick and sized about a girls small, LOL. After it dried I cut it up and made a bag, using this pattern from Alterknits. Mine did not look as good as the ones in the pattern. I think because the felt was thicker, and had lost all of it's "curl". I still need to do a little work to it and then maybe it will look better.

So then I decided to try something else. I had a little girls sweater here that had felted, and I cut out 2 peices from it, and 2 from the sleeves of the fair isle sweater to make this bag. It's still far from perfect, my sewing was as crooked as all get out and it's hard to pick stitches out of felt. So I'm going to try to get Sean to go back to the thrift stores tonight to see if I can find more.

As for the other three sweaters, they have been mostly reduced to lovely skeins of yarn! More on that next time.

2006-09-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well, no pictures today. I just wanted to get a post up. I have been working some special projects that I hope to have up for sale soon. More on that when it's closer to happening I guess.

My evenings lately, at least when Sean is home , have been spent playing games with the kids. When Sean was working evenings, we didn't get to do a lot of that, since we were starting school during the day when he was home, and busy all weekend getting stuff done. But now that he is home in the evenings, after school is over and we have some time, we have been turning the tv off most nights and play games. We have been having so much fun. We have been buying a game a week, and I've learned some things....

First of all, the price of a game in no way reflects how much fun it is going to be to play. Uno and Dominoes have turned out to be our favorites, with Yahtzee and Skipbo running a close third and fourth. The Family Cranium game, while still under $10.00, wasn't as much fun as the others.

Also, the less complicated the game is, the more the kids will enjoy it. It might have to do with the fact that the first four games require you to build a certain set of skills to play the game succesfully, and you use that one set of skills throughout the game. Family Cranium moves from one activity to another fairly quickly, requiring you to scuplt with modeling clay, draw, hum or whistle, etc. There is a lot of activity,using completely different sets of skills, all which have to be done to beat a timer. You never know which activity you are going to have to do, either. Maybe it's just better played earlier in the day or on the weekends when excited kids don't have to go to bed right after the game is done.

I have a list of games that I am eager to add to our collection. One I remember my grandpa loved called Triominoes, and a few that I have heard about either on line or in magazines. One is called Cathedral, and is a building strategy game, and another is Pass the Pigs, recommended to me by my friend Karen years ago. Mybe now we will finally get around to trying that one out. I also want to teach the kids to play Rummy, something we always enjoyed playing growing up. Oh, and Othello. Although only two people can play at a time, that game is so much fun, is so simple, and yet is so easy to lose!

So what about you? Are there any games that your family loves that you think we should try out? If so, leave me a note in the comments!

Also, I just wanted everyone to know that after visiting the eye doctor last Friday, we got the all clear on Reagan's eye. Her vision is back to 20/20, and the eye looks clear. We have to continue using the eye ointment we have until it is gone, but other than that, she won't need any further treatment. Things really could have been so much worse, it's just an answered prayer that it healed without any of the scarring that the doctor was afraid of.

2006-09-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, I don't know if these pictures of baby hats and booties are boring, but there is such a drought of finished objects on this blog that I plan to continue posting them until someone says, "Hey, Jan, enough of the baby stuff already."

It is such a great feeling to actually get something done around here, you just can't imagine. I mean let's face it, there is not much of my life that is ever going to be finished. Laundry? Always going to be there. Dishes? Someone is always eating something. Sweeping and mopping. Nothing about three kids and two dogs suggests in anyway I am ever going to finish sweeping and mopping. Homeschooling? Well, someday it will be done, but not for at least another 10 or 11 years. Until I reach Heaven, I won't be done trying to live a life more pleasing to Christ since I fail so miserably at that every day.

So while a baby hat and socks set isn't much, it's finished! Let's enjoy it, okay?

2006-09-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

Chad and I had to catch the sheep on Tuesday so we could measure them for new sheep coats. I have been wanting to take a peek under those coats for quite a while, just to see what was going on under there. People who keep sheep for their wool use sheep coats to keep dirt and debris (burrs, hat, twigs, leaves, poop) out of the sheeps wool. Not having to deal with all that stuff makes it easier to process the wool once the sheep is sheared in the spring.

Once we had caught Tootles and measured his coat so we could get the next biggest size up, we pulled the coat back a little to reveal what lay under neath. To say I was happy with the results is an understatement. These sheep were sheared last Febuary, and their coats were awful, full of burrs and just really hard to clean. Tootles coat now is really clean, long, and pretty.

Ivy's coat was just as nice, I can't wait to shear next spring.

We made a trip to the emergency room Tuesday night. The kids were outside playing, Chad was swinging a stick, and Reagan stepped up behind him and he caught her in the eye. At first it seemed like there was no damage besides a small scratch on her eyelid, but as the evening wore on, she kept complaining about pain, so we decided to take her in. We went to the hospital Sean is working at, and were seen fairly quickly. They put some drops in her eye and then looked in her eye with a black light. She had a fairly large cut across the middle of her eye, right over the iris and pupil. I could see it from across the room. It's amazing how all the worst case scenarios can instantly flit across your mind. After a trip to the eye doctor yesterday morning, we are on the look out for a couple of things. We know what to watch out for, and are giving her the right medicines. We are also praying, because it's the most important thing we can do at this point. Really, we are so blessed it wasn't much worse, the opthamologist was surprised the stick didn't go right through her eye.

(Update: Well, it's Friday morning, and Reagan's eye is already better. Not as red, doesn't hurt as much, she can open it more. We still have at least a months worth of treatment to go through, but she's much better today.)

If you haven't been able to post a comment to my blog, it's because I switched to the Blogger Beta. I didn't see on there before I switched that I was not going to be able to get comments except for others who are also in the blogger beta. So that sucks. I hope that they get that feature working soon, I miss hearing from you! I'm putting up an email link, if you feel you have something to say

2006-09-05T07:53:00.000-07:00

Weekend Wrap Up

I tried something a little different with the knitting for the Pregnancy Resource Center this week. This is the shell scallop edging from Knitting on the Edge, on 66 stitches. (Again, using Baby Bee Delight) I think if I did it again, I would not do the ribbing, just the scalloped edge and then straight on to the stockinette stitch. I made the socks to match, and you will have to trust me that they look okay on a little foot. I used Reagan's newborn sized baby doll to test them on and they're pretty cute.

Next up is the swatch from the batt I talked about in the last post.

and finally,

I'm almost finished with the fronts of the Aran Cardigan!! Yeah! I'll finish them tonight and then start the sleeves.

2006-08-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get this post right since Thursday, but blogger and I were having a slight power struggle. For the most part, blogger kicked my heiny. Anyway, here it is now, in a greatly modified and shortened version.

After being less than pleased with my first attempt at the color way I have been working on, I went back to the drawing board this morning. I started by laying out all the colors I plan on using. I want the apple green to dominate, so I used more of that. I am also using a small amount of an alpaca/mohair mix that I dyed at the same time as I dyed the wool. The Mohair/Alpace will give the finished yarn some texture.

Striping the riving on the carder didn't work, so I went for a different approach. First I carded on the small amount of contrast colors I had. Then the apple green, bronze green and golden nugget. Last, I carded on the mohair blend. I stripped the batt in half and placed the two pieces together, the sides with the mohair blend sandwiched in the middle. Then I put the whole thing through the carder again

Pleased with how the batt had turned out I split it into a long w, predrafted it a little and then wound it up into a ball. You can see here how different this predrafted roving (the one in the back) is from the one that was just stripes on the drumcarder.(The small ball in the front)

I spun the roving using the point of contact method of spinning I have been practicing for the last week. I am getting better at it. There are still times when I don't get enough twist in the yarn before it pulls onto the bobbin and falls apart, but for the most part, I'm getting more consistant. As irritating as it is sometimes, I really like how fast this is, and how soft the plyed yarn is. I am having much less of a problem with overtwisting, and most of the skeins hang in a circle instead of twisting back on themselves now.

Now I like this yarn. I hope to have a swatch done to show you tommorrow, but let me know what you think. I'd like to know.

2006-08-29T08:46:00.000-07:00

We didn't get to go to church Sunday night, no one felt very good for some reason. I ended up digging out the dye pots to work on a colorway I have been thinking about for a while. I haven't decided exactly how to produce it, but I dyed all the top the colors I wanted. I have bronze green, a roving dyed with a mixture of bronze green and nugget gold to make a lighter apple green, nugget gold, rust, and cardinal. These colors really look so good together.

This morning, when things were finally dry, I made a batt on the drum carder, using all of the colors. There are several ways to do this, one is to make small stripes the length of the drum carder, like this....
Or, I could just stack several carded single color batts and then thin them out together. I also dyed a bunch of mohair locks at the same time, and haven't decided wether to card them with the wool or use them in a seperate project. Decisions, Decisions.

Well, that little dye project just about wiped out my wool supply, so I am going to have to buy some more wool. I think I am going to buy roving instead of top this time, it seems to work better with the spinning method I am trying to learn. I am finally getting a consistent single and once plyed, am getting a sport weight yarn, so it's getting better. Then last night I decided to "fix" my drive band and now it is so tight the tension is too tight. So we will be going to town tonight when Sean gets home so I can get some cotton string for the drive band. I swear, the drive band is the thing that gives me the most problem with spinning. I always get it too tight or too loose.

Yesterday was Chad's birthday. I made him a cake, which he wanted decorated in camoflage. I think it turned out pretty good. It says "You can't "hide" it's your Birthday! on it. Yeah, I'm not really good with the sayings on top of cakes. The cake always tastes good, though, and that's the main thing.

2006-08-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

This weeks knitting for the Pregnancy Resource Center. I really like these! Used the same patterns as last week.

2006-08-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

Early last week I ordered the book Spinning for Softness and Speed by Paula Simmons. It got here Friday. It's a slim little book, detailing a method of spinning with one hand. Done correctly, it is said to produce an even yarn that is not overtwisted. That is what I am interested in more than the speed, although the speed is amazing.

After practicing the method about three times, I think I am getting close. My results are still a little uneven, but everytime I have produced a skein of plyed yarn that is perfectly balanced, (the plied yarn hangs in a circle, not twisting back on itself) a feat that I have rarely produced before.

The evenness of this yarn still needs work, but I think it may be the fiber I am working with. It is pretty dense and thick. I'm excited about the whole thing though, I can't wait to practice more.

2006-08-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Not much time to post today, but I wanted to show the little baby set I did Saturday. Despite my best intentions, I wasn't getting any knitting done for charity, so I have decided that on Saturday's I will be knitting for the Pregnancy Resource Center here in town. Our church is really involved with the center, and it just feels like the right place to be knitting for.

These are the Striped Rib Sox, but made with no stripes, LOL. I used Baby Bee Sweet Delight baby yarn, in the crayon ombre color way.

The hat was made from Ann Budd's hat pattern from Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I used a double strand of the yarn I used to make the socks, on 60 stitches for a newborn sized hat.

More Later...

2006-08-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that it is Wendsday already!! Ack! I swear I mean to update more often, but time has just been flying by. With DH's new schedule, homeschooling and trying to adjust, I keep forgetting to post, even though I mean to.

Anyway, I seem to have finally gotten over my fiber block, and ideas for items from socks to shawls are multiplying rapidly in my skull. However, before I get to any of those, I have to finish up some of the UFO's around here. I have been working on the diagonal scarf a lot, while feeling guilty that I am not working on the cabled cardigan for my MIL. I know it will be no time before it will be cold enough to wear the cabled sweater, so I really should be working on it, but I haven't really had time to devote to it. It takes a bigger block of time to get re-oriented on it and make progress than I have had lately. So I work on the scarf.....

and I do some spinning......

I love that top skein. I carded some cranberry, hot pink and purple together, and that is what happened. It was lots of fun and a good short diversion from the ongoing lace weight singles spinning.

In other news, Reagan and I made a trip to Hobby Lobby last Friday, where baskets were half off. So we both got a "knitting" basket.

Mine...

Reagan's.....

Reagan also got a skein of really really fat yarn to knit with. She has really been knitting, everywhere, all the time. It's a guaranteed that if I get out my knitting, she goes and gets out hers, and if I get out the Minstrel, she goes and gets the Ashford traditional and gives it a go. She doesn't quite get it yet, but she's getting there. Anyway, she also got a copy of the Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book on sale for $3.66. She seems to really be enjoying it, or at least moving the book mark around every so often. This is her most recent "project"

2006-08-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

I finished the first pillow for the couch this afternoon after school. I waffled for a few days on whether to cut a back for the pillow out of an old blue jean skirt I had that anpped all the way up the front, or to whip out the sweater machine my MIL owns and stores in my garage and knit a back for it. In the end, I couldn't resist the snaps on the skirt. So I laid the pillow form on top of the skirt, traced around it with a white crayon, (adding 1/4 and inch for seam allowances) and sewed it up on the sewing machine. I think it looks pretty cool. I love the way it turned out.

Front:

Back:

I thought I would only knit one of these, but I had so much fun doing it, and it looks so nice I have started another one. I hope it goes as quickly as the first one did.

A book I had on hold at the library came in today, Alternaknits. It's not quite a knitting book I would spend money on, but there are a couple of interesting projects in there. There are some totes and a blanket made out of felted sweaters, and a really cool dress dummy that was decopauged with yarn labels. I don't need a dress dummy, but I think the idea would translate well to a big shallowly curved bowl for holding yarn.

Well, school here is in full swing, and going well. We are going to start going to a homeschool group meeting every week starting in September. It's something I think the kids and I all need. With all the heat out here, Stache has been spending a lot of time in the house. It's been edging up towards 110 degrees, and it feels cruel to leave the black dog outside in the heat. So he comes in an throws himself down over an air vent as soon as the kids get up in the morning. When school starts and the kids move to the kitchen for lessons, Stache moves too. What a sweety.

2006-08-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Ryan's birthday! He turned the big 1-0. As usual, we were kind of laid back about the birthday thing. I spent most of the day working on the cake, and it wasn't perfect, but Ryan loved it. It says "Hope Your Birthday is Right on Target"
and on the target it says "Happy 10th Birthday Ryan" We had a target theme going on because of what Ryan had asked for for his birthday, repeatedly, for months and months and months...

Now, you don't lightly go out and buy your kid a bow and arrow. However, we went through a bb gun safety course before the boys got bb guns, and Ryan is very safety concious about the bb gun. He follows all the rules exactly. A bow and arrow is a different animal though. So while he is allowed to go out in the front yard (remember, we live waaaaaaay out in the country) and target shoot with his bb gun on his own, he has to have me or his dad out there to use the bow and arrow.

So imagine my surprise when on Ryan's birthday, I got one of the best presents of my life! Jody made me a quilt! It got here in the mail yesterday and I just love it, it is so beautiful. I haven't decided quite yet where to display it, but it has to be out somewhere where people can see it, it's just too pretty to keep it hidden away.

I am so blessed to have Jody not only for my sister and twin, but also as my very best friend. I don't know what I'd do without you Jody, I thank God for you every day!

2006-08-04T06:57:00.000-07:00

First things first. Lori, do not read this post, just go do something else for a couple of days till your package gets there. Don't peek, now...

For the last year or so, my terrific SIL and I have been talking about me opening up an online store. She was going to design it, and I was going to sell yarn, maybe roving and finished items. To pay her for the work, she wanted a felted purse. More specifically, She wanted the felted purse from Bags: A Knitter's Dozen. I spun the yarn up for it ages ago, and here in the last couple of weeks, I knitted it up. I felted it in the washing machine. I needle felted the design. It was finished!

I changed the design some, and I also needle felted the button instead of wet felting it. I made a little ball of yarn and just kept using the needle felting tool until it held together.

I still had a ton of yarn left. Hmmmm..... well, the obvious thing to do was to make Lori's little girl a little bag that matched her moms! I followed the directions for the full size bag, except I cast on half the number or stitches, did half the number of rows, etc. I got a little more adventurous with the needle felting on the little bag. I used roving instead of yarn, and it really made a difference in how the finished bag looks. I'm not an artist, but I tried hard. I hope the little princess likes it.

Ultimately, I decided I just didn't want to try and make a business out of my spinning and knitting. I know a lot of people are doing really well at it, but whether it is a lack of confidence in myself or the fact that I don't want to make my fun into work, I never once had any doubts that Lori would have done a wonderful job with the website. I really appreciate all the work you did, Lori! You're the best SIL and your an even better friend!

All that felting has really got me inspired. I am spinning up roving left over from the blending experiments for possible use in future bags, and I am thinking about trying to make a sheet of felt . I also have to finish reloading everything on the computer so I can do the church bulletin tonight.

There are more changes on the horizon around here. We have been praying that DH would soon find a radiology job. People from the class that graduated this past spring have been having trouble finding jobs, and we were really getting worried that after all this schooling, he wasn't going to be able to find a job when he graduates next spring. Hubby applied to various area hospitals, and we kept praying. So I'm really glad to tell you that he starts this weekend as a student tech at the hospital he has been doing clinicals at all summer. They were really impressed with his work during clinicals and have bent over backwards to give him a job. Plus, they're giving him benefits, which means after a year of being terrified someone would get seriously ill, we will once again have health insurance! As always, all good and perfect gifts have come down from above, and we are so thankful that He has provided for us again. God truly is good, all the time.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. --John 14:27

2006-08-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

After ripping out and working on the entrelac pillow again last night, I have finally settled on a combination I am happy with. I think it looks pretty good, and it knits up quickly.

In case anyone was wondering, I did not crochet the pillow in that picture. It was a $5 clearance pillow at Wal-Mart.

Well, obviously, blogger doesn't work the way it used to. Shoot.

Anyway. . .

This is the clematis bloom that was supposed to be white. Isn't it pretty. Really am happy with this color, more than I would have been with white I think.

Well, I won't be blogging for a day or two. It is time for the dreaded upgrade to the computer. Ours is running slow and has other problems and DH has decided it's time. So I guess I'll be back as soon as I can

2006-08-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

Well, here is my second try at the enterlac pillow top.

I'm still not entirely happy with it, so I will probably rip it out and start over. I wanted some texture,so tried to do the natural colored yarn in garter stitch. It just didn't work the way I hoped it would. So I'll go back and do those squares in stockinette as well, and I'll probably be happy. I love the smaller squares, they really suit the look I was going for.

We had a good homeschool day today. We got so much done today. That is the way it has been for most of the summer. Everyone really seems buckled down. We got some of Reagan's curriculum in the mail and I need to order some science and math stuff. Math seems to be the thing that we have the most trouble finding a good program for. We found a good program for multiplication (Times Tales! Wonderful wonderful program for multiplication and division)

Today I cleaned out the kids bookshelf and the containers they keep their individual work in. I am going to store those containers on one shelf each of the very tall, very narrow book shelf. It looks so much neater than keeping the containers on top of the fridge, LOL.

Well, Hubby is home and I have to fix dinner. Hope everyone is having a good day!

2006-07-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

I think I am finally getting back into the swing of things, as far as fiber goes. I have begun the first of a pair of pillows to match the new slipcover for my couch. I had a hard time picking out a slip cover. Mainly, the decision was hampered by the fact that I was in love with a certain couch. None of the slip covers was going to make this couch look like the one I loved. Frugality prevailed in the end though, and I picked out a slipcover that looks like bluejeans. I am sure it will stand up well to three kids, it looks comfortable and inviting, and I we saved quite a bit of money. I am knitting the pillows to go with the slipcover from Bernat denim style yarn. It is 70 % acrylic and 30% cotton, very soft, and comfortable to knit with. I was surprised.

I have done enterlac before, but not for a while. I am really enjoying it. It really makes you think about design possibilities. I have also been doing some felting, but that's for another post. I am getting ready to do some dyeing, and possibly wet felting and needle felting another couple of pillows. I am still spinning the lace weight singles, I haven't decided yet what I am going to do with those. I may ply them and knit a smoke ring to wear this winter.

My other obsession this summer has been clematis. I had never really grown any flowers before, but I have enjoyed my flower beds and containers this year. Anyway, I have picked up five clematis plants on sale this year. All had bloomed except the last two, one called Bee's Jubilee and one called Snow Queen. As it's name implies, Snow Queen was supposed to be white. So imagine my surprise when I checked on the plants this morning and my snow queen was a deep deep purple. I don't know what I got but it was not a white clemaits. Oh well, it's still pretty. I really am enjoying the flowers this year.

Well, I had a lot of trouble getting this to type out, so if there are spelling mistakes, I'm sorry.

2006-07-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

So I got up this morning to an email from my mom wanting to know why I wasn't posting to my blog. There are lots of reasons I haven't posted lately; I've been busy with gardening and home improvement projects, doing homeschool, cleaning house. Mostly though, I am just suffering from an extremely bad case of knitter's block. Nothing I pick up and knit moves along smoothly and I have done more ripping out than knitting lately. I come up with ideas for projects and then quit when things don't progress as smoothly as they should.

I have been spinning a batch of roving I did on the drum carder that is part Ivy's wool, part alpaca. I am spinning it lace weight, and hope to knit the Sampler Stole from A Gathering of Lace with it. I had to ply the first batch I spun, it was too uneven to knit as singles.

Anyway, I hope I'll be back more often now. I won't make any promises, but if I'm not, at least now if you want to hear from me, you know to call my mom, LOL.

2006-06-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

I have tried to post about this sock 3 or 4 times, and haven't been able to. I have found that when this happens, my posts go from very detailed and explained to a bare boned explanation of what is going on. We are currently at the bare bones description. I finished knitting the sock leg on monday. I was pretty excited about it. It looked good, and I was really happy about how it had turned out....until I tried it on. I had tried it on and made sure it fit after I finished the heel, and maybe once more half way up the leg, and things were fine, maybe a bit tight over the heel, but I could get it on. After completing the leg, I could get it on after really pulling hard, and being afraid the stitches were going to pop, and getting it off was even harder. Something obviously had to be done.

So I ripped it back. I had a few options; Rip it back, and try to rework the leg somehow so it fits better, rip it back past the heel and make it into mittens, complete the one sock and make it into a Christmas stocking. I put it aside for the night to think about it, and realized that if I did make a complete pair of Fair Isle socks, I would rarely get to wear them. It is just too hot in OK. I hardly ever get to wear the wool socks I have now. I have Fair Isle mittens, and i get to wear them maybe once or twice a year. So what did I need?

Fair Isle Slippers. I will get a lot more use out of these than any of those other things. This particular yarn was just too thick for a set of useable socks here. I do still have the thinner yarn though, and, I think, an idea for knitting a pair of Fair Isle socks that are thin enough to wear here, and still go over my heel in an acceptable manner. And, the truth be told, as I was knitting this, I could see every mistake, every little quirk that made them not my best effort for fair entry. Now I can finish the second slipper, have a useable item, and a blank slate for what I am taking to the Fair!

We have had a lot of blessings this week as well. We found out on Monday that Sean is going to recieve even more scholarship money than we had anticipated, about 500 dollars more. That's a lot of money to us. Then my twin sister, Jody, called and said that they were going to be visiting in August! I have so much to do before then. It's a good thing I am still doing the Clean Hearts Clean Home Challenge, I am really going to need it!! I also discovered an amazing homeschool blog called Holy Experience. It is uplifting and gives me something to think about every day. We are back on the homeschool roll after VBS, and it is good to be getting things done. We are concentrating on geography, spelling, reading (of course) and history for the summer period and everybody seems to be having a good time. They love the maps in Geography. Well, I gotta be going. I am going to a spinning thingy on Saturday and have to get stuff ready to go and back cookies for everybody and their brother today. I wish someone would pay me for this stuff.

2006-06-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

Just posting some pictures I took to see if i can get blogger to work.

Hopefully this works. I have been trying to post for quite a while, and it's not working.

2006-05-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

I've been Missing in Action this week and wanted to let you know it will probably stay that way until next Monday. I am working on the sock, in the evenings, but we are having Vacation Bible School this week, so my time has been pretty limited. Hopefully things will get back to normal soon..til then, I'll be working on the socks. I almost have the first one done!

2006-05-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

I pushed on yesterday evening and finsished turning the heel on the sock. I had to pick up some stitches before I started the leg again so that I could avoid those awful holes. I don't like how it looks though, so I am going to have to rip it out and do it again. Plus I knit the wrong part of the chart, so it woul dhave had to be ripped out anyway.

The first time I knit the heel, it was very tight. So I ripped it back, picked up two stitches on each side, and reknit it with size 1 needles. That made it fit perfectly. I then switched back to the 0's that I am knitting the main part with. It's nice and comfy now. More pictures as work progresses!

2006-05-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't done any knitting on the Fair Isle socks since last Wendsday. In fact, I have done no knitting at all. Whatever the kids had the beginning of the week hit me hard, and I ended up sitting around, feeling horrible, and watching bad tv. Whee. I tried to knit, but kept messing stuff up, and gave it up for a lost cause.

Over the weekend, DH and his dad built me a porch. Now, we have lived here for almost 5 years, and I have wanted a porch a long time. I didn't get to help much. I tried, but didn't even have enough strength in my arms to push down on the drill enough to get the screw in. So I observed, fetched water and iced tea, and tried to keep the two smaller kids from getting in the way. I love the portch, it's just wonderful. We have been spending a lot of time out there, and after they get the roof on this coming weekend, it'll be even better. I spent an hour or two out there spinning last night and it was just as great as I thought it would be. The sock is on the agenda for tonight, so hopefully I will be posting new pictures tommorrow.

2006-05-18T23:19:00.000-07:00

If you haven't visited the Garnstudio site lately, you need to go visit now! They have so many of their patterns in English now, and they have the most beautiful baby stuff up that I have never seen before. If you are knitting for babies, there is going to be something there you want to try. Lots of cute hats, bonnets and socks, etc. All the babies in the pictures looks so soft and cuddly, so sweet! If you want to see the picture that goes with the thumbnail, click on the English flag under the picture. I had a problem with a picture of a different item than what I had clicked on coming up in the preview screen, but the correct picture and directions come up when you click on the English or US flag. Happy Browsing!

2006-05-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

Soooo...yesterday after posting I decided that I just wasn't happy with the sock as it was turning out. So I ripped it out and went back to the drawing board. After a few false starts, I have finally got a pattern that I am really happy about, I really think it is turning out so much better, and I am getting to use some of the brighter colors that I blended. What do you think?

2006-05-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

I started the Fair Isle sock this weekend. I am pretty pleased with it so far. I have had to stop to reconfigure the next band of color. The way I had it just isn't working for me. So I guess I'll mess with it a little and see what I can come up with. Here's a picture of the sock so far.
We had a wonderful Mother's day. Sean and the kids got me a copy of Lost the First Season, and a blender. He always gets me something with a cord, it is a running joke. We went to church, and then on a picnic back at the river. Stash has discovered the river. He would stay there all day, as long as we kept throwing the ball for him. We finally have to make him stop when he starts breathing heavy. The kids went wading, and we just had a lot of fun spending time together.

So anyway, after all that fun yesterday, Chad and Reagan are sick today. I'm going to go start the bread for today, take care of my kiddo's and see if I can make any progress on this sock.

2006-05-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

I have only one picture to post today. I cut my thumb on Monday while slicing bread, so didn't get to do much fiber stuff this week. It felt like I was knitting with barbed wire.

I did get this pair of baby socks done though, as a warm up for Fair Isle knitting, and as the first project that I have done for Afghans for Afghans.

I have been watching Tracy make all kind of lovely things for the Preemie Project for a long time. I wanted to do some kind of knitting for others, but I want to use the wool yarn I have on hand. Afghans for Afghans allows me to do that, plus, I don't have to use a lot of pastels, since they need socks, hats, mittens, etc for older children and women as well as for babies. I figure I can use these little projects as guage swatches, try out stitch patterns, etc, and do some good while I am knitting.

As for blessings this week...

1. Sean got two scholarships last Saturday! Not big scholarships, but every little bit helps, and we are so thankful. He made straight A's again this semester, and I am just so proud of him!

2. I got a second spinning wheel so that the kids could learn to spin! It is the wheel I learned to spin on, and my friend let me make payments on it. It's here now, paid off, and Reagan at least is pretty excited about it.

3. We are getting some drier wheather, and while I hope we still get periods of rain, it will be good for the garden to dry out a little bit. My Irises bloomed finally, and things just look so clean and grean and crisp outside. Spring is really the only season I like in Oklahoma. The summer is too hot, the winter isn't cold enough. Spring is so beautiful here though. I hope it lasts a long time.

Happy Mothers Day!

Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
Proverbs 31:28-30

2006-05-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

I finished winding the skeins of yarn for the Fair Isle project last night, and here are the finished results. Quite enough for several pairs of socks, you'd think. Now I just need to finish a couple of things on the charting, knit a swatch, and get going. I am so excited to finally be done with the spinning.

Sean took the day off from work yesterday, and we went on a giant wild goose chase. I was looking for a baking stone, and King Arthur Flour. The KA website had listed several places that carried it in Tulsa, but none in my area, so off we went. We stopped at 4 stores looking for a pizza stone, and none of the stores that were supposed to have KA flour actually did. Finally we called the health food store, yes they had the flour. So they put my name on the one bag of flour they had so that it would be there when I got there, and we decided to stop at a Tile store to get unglazed quarry tiles to use in the oven (perfectly safe for oven use, I checked and checked again) We buy the box of quarry tiles and head for the health food store. We go down their cooking utensils aisle, and there, you guessed it, is a pizza stone. Sigh. However, I was able to set the quarry tiles up in such a way that it's like having a little brick oven in the house. And it makes incredible bread. My bread today had incredible spring, and when I pulled it out of the oven, you could hear the crust crackling as it cooled, which is the effect I have been looking for. So all in all, I guess I'm happy!

This is the last picture for today, of the kids that I took yesterday.

2006-05-04T23:07:00.000-07:00

Showers of Blessings

We have literally had showers of blessings the last week or so. Ever since we planted our garden, it has rained every day or two. Considering the extreme drought we were in, that is the biggest blessing of the last two weeks. I think they said on the news that we had 8 inches of rain this morning alone. The garden is growing well, there are lots of little green sprouts coming up. I can't tell if they are good plants or weeds, so I guess they will have to be let to grow a little longer before I can tell.

Blessing #2, we found out that Dear Son 1 is not losing the hearing in his left ear. He had had a bad ear infection quite some time ago, and had recently been complaining that he couldn't hear. 5 years ago, when we moved out here he had to have that ear drum replaced. He had q-tips in both ears pretending to be an alien. I was going up the stairs to get him and take the q tips away when he fell and punctured his ear drum. So I was nervous that the ear drum was ruptured again. But the Dr. said he had another ear infection, and lots of wax. ear drops and antibiotics seem to be clearing it up.

Blessing #3 for this week, Sean is done with school for the semester. He doesn't have any more classes or clinicals until May 30, and we are pretty sure he made A's in all his classes! I am so glad we are going to get to spend some time with him. This semester has been the toughest so far.

I have been able to keep up with the Clean Heart, Clean home challange, to my own amazement. 3 weeks in and I haven't "forgotten" what I am supposed to be doing. This week was the master bedroom and bathroom. Now, I try to keep my room clean, I try to straighten up about once a week anyway, sincemy knitting and spinning stuff is in there too. And of course I clean the bathroom. But I haven't cleaned out the cabinets and drawers in there since we moved in. Today, they are cleaned out and very very neat. I am amazed at the amount of room I have in there! I found another whole shelf for towels that I didn't know I had!

Alright, that's all for now. I am finally getting the skein winder tommorrow, so I will hopefully have new knitting pictures next week. I can't keep posting pictures of the scarf getting longer, LOL. Thanks for all the kind comments on it by the way. It is as soft as it looks! I'm thinking about buying more of that yarn so I can make a shawl for myself. It is fun to knit, and the drape is just beautiful. I can't wait to see it blocked.

2006-04-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the kind comments on the scarf. It is coming along pretty well. I have made a lot of progress on it the last couple of days. I am still waiting on the ball winder. It was supposed to ship on Wednesday, so hopefully soon. I didn't get to post my blessings post yesterday and am short on time now, So I'll do that when I get home.

2006-04-26T21:18:00.000-07:00

I have decided I probably have enough colors spun up for the Fair Isle Socks. I am waiting on a skein holder so that I can get all that yarn made up into balls. Until then, I am working on the corner to corner "scarf" I had to do some ripping out this evening, but the good thing about ripping out this yarn is that it is so fuzzy, those stitches aren't going anywhere! It is just turning out so pretty!

2006-04-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

The weekend was busy busy busy, and I am just now starting to recover from it. We went to town on Saturday and bought plants and supplies for a garden. We have never been good at having a garden, but thought we would give it another try. We decided to go a lot smaller than we had in the past. We have a row each of; carrots/spinach, some herbs, peppers/bannana peppers, tomatos/eggplant, potatoes, strawberries, and watermelon/honeydew/cantaloupe. I hope it goes well. I also planted some stuff in the long neglected flower bed in front of my house and the planters whose sole previous purpose was to showcase yarn skeins.

Then yesterday morning, our air conditioning unit came dangerously close to catching on fire. I jerked the cover off of it to discover a good 1/4" to 1/2" of ice on all the pipes and conduits. The repair guy, who can't get here until tommorrow, said that all the freon probably leaked out, causing the motor to overheat. Hopefully he will be able to get it fixed, cause there is no way we can get through a summer here without air conditioning.

I've been knitting on the side to side scarf today, but haven't made a lot of progress. The yarn is so much fun to work with though, it is just so silky and soft.I just wish I had done it on bigger needles, so it would move quicker. It feels like it is taking forever.

And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.
--Mark 4:30-32

2006-04-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Friday wrap up post

I want to begin ending the week with a post that list some of my blessing in the past week. I have really had a tough time trying to choose what to list this week, the blessing have been numerous and rich! But I'm going to give it a try.

1. The number one blessing this week is that on Monday, when I was talking to DH on the phone, he out of the blue said that we needed to start praying together before we went to bed. This is something that I have always wanted to do, since I became a Christian, but did not feel comfortable talking to DH about. Praying out loud is something I do with the kids during our day, but not something he is comfortable with. We have prayed together every night since, and it just ends the day on such a note of peace and togetherness. Truly one of my biggest blessings ever.

2. The Clean Heart Clean Home Challenge! One of the reasons I have felt so upset lately is because I felt my heart was like my house. It looked good on the surface, but once you started digging into all the hidden places, chaos reigned. This devotional has really helped both my home and heart. I'm physically exhausted, but my heart is just soaring!

3. All the little things; the garden got turned over and disced, the new bread bowl, great bread, news of positions opening up where Sean wants to work, watching the kids play in the yard, the rain (that we need so badly) last night that washed everything to a sparkling green this morning.

I have not got much fibery things done since Tuesday. I worked until 10:30 Wednesday night, and then I Gasp read a book last night, and when I finished that one, I started another! I love to read, I have been reading everything I can get my hands on since Kindergarten. Lately though, I just haven't had time to read fiction, so it has been nice after the hard work all day to curl up with a book and get lost. I can't indulge it too long, I've got other things to do, but it's been a nice couple of days.

2006-04-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

Big, Bigger, Biggest

My new bowl got here a day earlier than estimated. UPS pulled up and I went out there to get the package and was handed a huge box. The only bigger one I have gotten was when they delivered my spinning wheel. I was a little worried, if the bowl was that big I had seriously underestimated it's size and there was no way I could make that much bread. Inside that box was a lot of styrofoam peanuts and another box. Whew! (I should have taken pictures) For a moment I had visions of one of those tricks where you just keep opening progressively smaller boxes and then you get a ring or a thimble or something, but no, the second box contained more styrofoam and the bowl.

It was still a pretty big bowl.

I figure if the little bowl holds enough dough for 1 loaf of bread, and the plain white bowl held enough for 2 loaves, then the biggest bowl probably holds enough for 4. That's a lot of dough to try to knead at once though, we'll have to see how it goes.

The bowl is perfect for potato salad though. I am the potato salad provider at family gatherings, and until now, have never had a bowl that was big enough that I could mix it up without getting a lot of the ingrediants on the counter. I think this bowl has solved that problem, haha.

Tents..

Have you ever watched the show on TV called Survivorman? They drop this survivalist guy into some remote area, with cameras and a roll or string or some other thing, and he has 7 days to get back to civilization before they go looking for him. My kids love that show. Which means we go to the library and stock up on camping and survival books. Yesterday, I decided that for school, they would have to use the books to construct a "campsite" in the back yard.

I gave them a roll of string and a sheet, they took their books and headed off. Chad did most of the building, but they all got into it. He had a little help from his friends...

They spent the whole day out there, they dug a fire pit and put old charred logs in it so it would look like they had had a fire, the made a tripod for cooking off of, they just had a lot of fun. It was a good break from our regular school work, and everyone had a good time. Today, Grandpa is ploughing up the garden, and we are talking about that, and what we want to plant. We also have to look for arrowheads, they are usually easy to find once you have turned up the earth.

2006-04-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I made some changes. I moved my knitting/spinning area from back in my bedroom to out in the living room. I had been going back there to work instead of staying out here in the living room. It just wasn't good. I immediately noticed a big change in everyone. Things just went more smoothly yesterday.

I didn't get much spinning done yesterday though. I had a mountain of laundry to do. I might have one or two loads left to do today, before the cycle starts all over again. I also straightened my room, putting books away mostly. I have a bad habit of dragging books out and leaving them in a trail behind me. Some on the bedside table, some beside my knitting chair, a few on the desk, cookbooks on the counters. I will still have to deep clean it when it's turn comes up on the CHCH Challenge.

I have decided that I am going to post more often, but not just about fibery stuff. I don't know exactly what things are going to be posted when, but on Friday I have a plan to post about the blessings of the past week. I've seen that on some other blogs and I really love the idea. What better way to end the week than listing the ways the Father has blessed you since the last Friday!

In fiber news....I'm still spinning!

I think though that I might cast on for the gauge swatch today. I drug out all my Addi Turbos, and I think I have enough yarn balled up to knit a swatch the colors for one band of the socks. The chart for the socks has been done and redone, but I think I finally hit on something I really like, and I'm excited about it. I need a tiny break from spinning, so that is probably what I will do this evening.

Today is day 3 for me of the CHCH Challenge, and it's supposed to be the front yard. We did the front yard about 3 weekends ago, we went through and picked up all the stuff that had blown in over the winter, took the large tree branches that had come down back to the woods, and just generally straightened up. So we will probably go out and just clean up again, and do Sean's car. Yesterday was vehicles, and we did the truck but Sean had the car. He took the truck this morning, so that worked out well!

2006-04-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. --Psalms 51:10-12

I have not been happy.

In the last 6 months, I have lost sight of the things that are truly important to me; my relationship with God, and my relationship with Sean and the kids. I have not been praying or reading my Bible the way I should. I have been grumbly and resentful with the kids and Sean. I just wanted to be left alone. Long story short, God showed me yesterday that if I kept walking around this house with the attitude that everyone should "just leave me alone" that was exactly what was going to happen. My kids were going to grow up resenting me, and would be glad to get away from me as soon as possible. Sean, not any time in the near future, but eventually, would just leave. That is not what I want.

SO some things are going to change, have to change, in my life and in my blog. I don't know exactly how I am going to get things back on track, but it's going to start with prayer and the Bible.

I am also starting a new devotional. It is called the Clean Heart Clean Home Challange The woman who runs this wrote a devotional (PDF here) that goes with the blog and everything. I briefly read a few of the devtionals on the blog yesterday, and every single one of them really spoke to my heart. I am looking forward to doing it, with a few modifications. Our garage was here before we were, my FIL built it to hold "stuff" they wanted to store but didn't have room for while they built their house. Now it holds absolutely everything that is "too good to throw away, but we don't need it in the house" from three families. It also holds an absolute abundance of snakes and mice. I refuse to clean that out by myself. So that won't be getting done, no matter how many lists it's on, LOL.

So far, that's my plan. As with all plans we humans come up with, it is subject to modification by the One whose plan supercedes all others, but it is a plan.

Well, there is other stuff I want to talk about, but this is already long, so I guess that's all for today. I'm sorry if it got a little too personal today, but that is also part of my push for change. More about that tommorrow.

2006-04-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

Some things you just can't do without. I have had this bowl that I make bread in since before we moved to Oklahoma, I got it at a sidewalk sale at the Pfaltzgraff outlet. It's a very large bowl, and is the exact size needed for my bread recipe. It has straight sides, so the dough travels up as it proofs, not out. It is ceramic, so it retains heat which helps the bread to proof well. It's apparent that I had become dependant on the bowl. So imagine my dismay a couple of days ago when I went to use it and there was a huge crack up the side and a couple of small chips missing. At first I told myself, it won't matter, I'll just use it anyway, it's just a crack....

However, things are not the same. The bowl doesn't feel solid anymore. After using it today to make the rolls for Easter, I knew that the bowl was going to have to be put out pasture, trotted out to hold fruit on the table occaisionally, but not used for much more. I knew the bowl was going to have to be replaced fairly quickly, though, because I have been trying to bake more of our bread, and none of the other bowls I have are big enough.

So I searched the internet for a new bowl. That sounds a lot simpler than it is. If you type bowl into the google search engine, you get lots of listings, none really useful. Dough bowl returns an amount of listings of antique wooden bread bowls like you "would" not believe. Wood just doesn't seem hyugenic to me, although I guess the pioneers made it through all right. I wonder if any of them got food poisioning from not quite clean enough dough bowls.

No, the bowl had to be ceramic, it had to be fairly large, and it had to be in the right price range. I was not spending 40 or 50 dollars for a bowl. My search eventually led me to the Williams-Sonoma store. This bowl is perfect. NAYY. Just really happy the search for the perfect bowl is over. I guess I won't be making sour dough bread tomorrow, but the new bowl should be here pretty soon. I probably should have ordered two of them, LOL.

2006-04-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

Dyeing....

.....easter eggs!

Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.--Luke 24:1-7

Happy Easter

2006-04-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

Shortly after I posted on Friday, my wool showed up. This only intensified my wish to start dyeing, but I had to wait until yesterday, when the dye finally got here. When the mailman delivered the package, we were in the middle of a huge clean-up. I wasn't sure that I was going to want to drag all of my dyeing supplies out after all that, but I did! I seem to be in a red phase, but I'm sure not all of that red will make it into the socks. I got bronze green, garnet, rose, mulberry, orchid, robins egg blue, along with standard favorites rust, navy blue, cardinal and lemon. I didn't dye all those colors, but at least I have them. Now I have to start carding, and will probably do that today.

Now I am going to talk about homeschooling for a moment. There is a certain elasticiy and continuity about homeschooling that I think is the best thing about it. There is a kind of magic that happens when you start to discuss a subject and other lessons rise up out of it. One of those magic moments started last week. We began our Bible study I think it was on Monday with the story of the ten plagues of Egypt. The last plaque was the passover, and one of the things the ancient Hebrews were instructed to do was throw out the yeast, they weren't allowed to have any yeast in the house when they were passed over. That led to a discussion of where they got the yeast in the first place. They didn't drive to the store and get it in little envelopes. That led to us trying to capture wild yeast for a sour dough starter

What an adventure! We all worked together to make sure that the starter got mixed up (during which we discussed fractions) The kids measured out the ingredients and took turns stirring. They kept an eye on it to prevent skin forming on the top. If it did, one of them would stir it while one of the others fanned it to force more wild yeast into the mixture. Every day or so, we would measure out a portion of the starter and add in new ingredients. In a couple of days, the first little bubbles started to appear.

We did more reading and discussed the history of yeast. Yeast in packets is such a new thing, and we felt like we were really living history as we nurtured the starter. Yesterday, it finally looked like we were ready to try our first loaf of bread. Since we were busy cleaning, we measured a portion of starter, water, flour and salt into the bread machine and let it do the mixing.

Ahh! Success! What a delicous lesson.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
(Joh 6:35-40)

2006-04-07T08:41:00.000-07:00

I have finished spinning up the supply of top I had on hand for the fair aisle sock, and I am waiting for my new order. I have a place that I order the Cushings dye from that usually the order is here two days after I order it, but for some reason, it hasn't even shipped yet. I called them yesterday and they said they were processing the order, but it still doesn't say shipped on the tracking page, so I guess it will be sometime next week before I can get started on that again. The wool won't be here til then either though, so I guess it doesn't matter if the dye is here or not, other than I just want to dye and have nothing to dye with, haha.

So of course I have free time. This should mean work on charting the socks, or knitting the cabled sweater. What it does mean is that I started another project. That mohair yarn just wouldn't quit calling my name. So I started the Corner to Corner Shawl from Knitters Scarves and Shawls. I don't have enough yarn for the whole thing, but I do have enough to knit two instead of three of the open panels. This yarn is just perfect for this project. It calls for size three needles, and I am using size 7, but it is knitting up just beautifully. I was hopeing for a project where I could knit while teaching during the day. This is not that project, I am still relying heavily on the charts. Hopefully soon I will get the pattern repeats memorized and be able to figure out where I am without counting rows.

Thought I would leave you today with a picture of Stache, one of the abandoned puppies we rescued. The two little girls found good homes as well. We kept Stache because he isjust the prettiest dog. His growth has slowed down a lot, thank goodness. He is really a lot of fun and very loving, but he can be a pain in the neck sometimes. I'm so glad he found us, he has been great for the kids.

2006-04-03T07:37:00.000-07:00

We took a trip to Tulsa on Saturday, we went to see my friend Jane and pick up a wool picker. She is lending it to me for a little while, so I can see if I actually need one or not. My FIL has offered (i.e. I suggested) to build me one. He's and engineer and a woodworker. I figure he has the skills, he just doesn't leave himself a lot of free time. It might get done, and then again, it might not. I guess we'll wait and see.

After we got done at Jane's, we decided to take the kids to see the new Ice Age movie. So we start driving back into town, but avoiding the interstate, when low and behold, what do we pass? A Yarn Store!! It was called Naturally Needlework and Knitting. And Sean turned around and took me back! I about passed out from excitement, I got to touch stuff I had only read about on the internet and knitting books. Rowan KidSilk Haze, Lorna's Laces, lots of other stuff. It was like meeting the cast of your favorite movie! I would grab a skein of yarn, take it to Sean, say, "What do you think of this" And then show him the price tag. Anyway, I picked out a color of Rowan KidSilk Haze and told him that was what I wanted for my birthday, and then I bought this lovely yarn, Katia Ingenua Print. It has 153 yards in a ball, and I bought three balls. I figure that is enough for a large scarf or something, and the color is just beautiful. Like caramel syrup on ice cream. And that concluded Jan's first visit to a real yarn store.

Spinning continues. I have only got a few balls of roving left to spin and I will be done with all that roving that I dyed for the Fair Isle project. However, I have ordered more dye and more roving, so I expect it will take me until the end of April to be ready to knit the socks. I ordered 8 oz of white shetland, 8 oz of the grey, and 4 oz of Moorit. 4 oz of the grey though, I am going to dye with the dye color cardinal and use for my Aran socks. That is my favorite of all the colors so far, and I think it will make a beautiful pair of socks. I'll probably change my mind about the color of those a hundred times though. Well, I had more stuff to show, but my camera ran out of batteries, so it will have to wait for next time.

2006-03-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not,I have been trying to post all week. Blogger is so touchy sometimes. Anyway...Exciting news! Reagan has learned to knit! True, she has knit the same three rows multiple times and then ripped it out,but she is knitting!

She and I also did some dyeing on Saturday, with Wilton Cake dyes. I figured it was safer for her, and also we were in the middle of cooking for a BBQ to celebrate my FIL being home for good from his consulting job overseas. I didn't want dye powder floating around the kitchen. She had a lot of fun, and I ended up with pink hands, LOL. Her she is with the finished product.

I was hoping by now to have a finished swatch for the fair isle sock, but I have hit a small snag. Some of the yarn is too thin. I was trying to knit the swatch yesterday on size 000 needles, and it looked great, I just couldn't take it. So...I think I am going to have to rework some things and hopefully get it to work. The colors are beautiful though! I just might have to order some more dyes and fiber so I can get more of a contrast going. In the meantime, I am going to finish spinning the rest of the shetland roving I have dyed up, and work on the cabled sweater, it has been horribly neglected.

2006-03-21T11:43:00.000-08:00

I have been making progress on spinning the yarn for the fair isle project. I have five skiens done from the fiber that I blended on the drum carder, but I made a mistake on the purple. I accidentally spun and plyed two batts that were both purples, but one was a redder purple than the other. I don't know if it's going to work or not. So I carded the remaining two batts together, and I'm going to spin that up. Maybe it will look better, and if not, I just won't use that color in the sock.

Yesterday, after I finished spinning, I took some time and finished drafting out all the colors that I am going to use straight without blending. Now it's ready for me whenever I have a couple of minutes to sit down and spin. It sure looks pretty all piled up in the basket.

I also took some time yesterday after homeschooling and finished the charting for the toe of the sock. I knew it was going to take a little finesse to get it the patterning right in that area. I also charted a different pattern for the sole of the sock. It is amazing how you can take the same bands of color and get such different results by changing the patterning.

It started raining here on Saturday morning and has kept raining. We really needed the rain.They are now talking about lifting the burn ban, so maybe the wild fires are over. I went to my friend Margaret's house Saturday and had a wonderful time. Margaret has a whole room devoted to wool and looms. It is an amazing site, LOL. Margaret's loom room gives me something to look forward to when the kids are grown and out of the house. I'll miss them terribly, but a room full of wool and wheels and looms might just lesson the pain a little, haha.

Monday an amazing thing happened, we got to see the most beautiful rainbow. It was such a blessing, Reagan had never seen a rainbow in real life and she was just amazed and delighted. I got quite a few pictures, although they didn't capture the amazing beauty of the thing. It was so crisp and clear, and looked like it was close enough to reach out and grab. Chad was ready to set off and look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I talked him out of it!

Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. --Hosea 6:1-3

2006-03-18T06:22:00.000-08:00

Before I start spinning, all the batts that I have blended on the drum carder have to be drafted out. All drafted means is that they have to be turned from thick to thin. It makes spinning easier and quicker. I begin by doing something that Deb Menz calls "z-stripping" in her Color in Spinning book. It really helps a lot.

Can you see what I did here, cause it's kind of hard to put into words. You seperate the wool into sections, starting from opposite ends. You stop short of tearing it apart, so that it stays one piece.

Once you have done that, you go back to the beginning and draft it out farther, still being careful not to tear it into pieces. It forms a big pile of fiber in one continous pile. At this point, you can wind it up into a ball using your hands. I like to use the ball winder though.

The roving ready to spin. It's so pretty I almost hate to spin it.

2006-03-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

I decided yesterday morning to get the dyeing done for the Fair Isle socks project. To tell you the truth, I am really anxious to get started on it, I just can't wait. So I dug out the dye pots, the wool, the dyes themselves and got started. The first thing I did was divide the white and grey wool up into lengths that weighed one ounce each. Then I put the white in one container to soak, the grey in the other. Before I added the wool to the water I added a little bit of dawn as a wetting agent. Then I picked out which color dyes I was going to use. I have an idea of how I want the socks to look, so it is mostly darker colors; navy blue, cardinal, violet, turqoise, nugget gold, bronze green, and magenta.

After getting everything ready, I filled my two dye pots up with cold water, and added 1/4 a cup of vinegar. You need one cup of vinegar for a whole pound of fiber. I knew I was only going to be dying two or three ounces in each pot, but I wanted to make sure the dye struck. I then ran a cup of water into the measuring cup I use to mix dye. I added 1/4 a teaspoon of navy blue to the mixing cup. (I do this with a dust mask and gloves, and I do it over a protected surface so no dye particles get on to my counters or in my lungs.) After mixing until it disolved, I then added it to the first container. I repeated the process for the second container, adding cardinal dye to the second pot. Into each of those pots I added 2 ounces of the white and 1 ounce of the grey fiber that had been pre-wetted.

After bringing the pots to just under a boil, the heat is left at a simmer under the pots for 30-40 minutes. At this point, I have to deviate from standard procedure a little. I only have two dye pots. Usually, you leave the wool to cool down in the dye pots until the next morning. I wanted to get all the dyeing done today though, so what I do is transfer the fiber to buckets, dye stock and all, to cool down. Once it is cool enough to touch, I dump it, one color at a time, into the washer to spin out the water. That cools it down quickly, without any felting. It then fill the washer with cool water, and put the color in it to soak a little, and then spin it out again. I then hang it to dry. I have never had a problem with excess dye bleeding out on my hands during spinning or knitting later, and so I will probably continue doing it this way.

When I was finished, I had dyed the following amounts--from the white; two ounces of navy blue and cardinal, one ounce each of gold nugget, bronze green, and violet. From the grey; once ounce each navy blue, cardinal, magenta, bronze green, golden nugget, violet, and turquoise.

I am excited about the colors just as they are, and am really excited about blending them on the drum carder to get really wonderful colors for the socks. They are going to be so pretty!

2006-03-14T08:26:00.000-08:00

I finished the sweater!!

I used 1 skein of Yarn Bee's Baby Bee yarn, called Pitter Patter. I think this yarn is available at Hobby Lobby and Micheals exclusively, I haven't seen it anywhere on line for sale. I used size 5 needles, and the fabric is not at all rigid, it is really soft and squishy. The ball band called for size 7 needles, and that would give you a really holey fabric I think. It also has no elasticity. I tried to use it to make a matching beret, but the edge wouldn't stretch, so I scrapped that idea.

Lets see, it tookabout 2 weeks to knit this simple little sweater. I was easily swayed by the call of fresh wool. I probably could have knit it in one week if I had just stayed focused, and had buttons on hand. I bought four balls of yarn, and have three left over, 2 white, 1 white. I wonder how this stuff would work up on the triangle loom? I will probably try to crochet a baby blanket or knit one using two strands on big needles.

I thought I was going to share this picture of my daughter Reagan being baptized last Sunday, but blogger won't let me. I pray that the Lord will continue to guide her and direct her in her life, and that His hand will help her as she faces the problems we all have in this life. He has made an amazing difference in my life, and I can think of no other gift than to follow Him all your life long.

2006-03-10T07:54:00.000-08:00

The baby sweater is almost finished. I am really pleased so far, but still need to find a button or two, and finish the cuffs on the sleeves. All in all though, it has turned out pretty much as I thought it would, other than the collar. I planned on doing just a plain collar, but choose a shawl collar instead, and I really like how cozy it makes the sweater look. Of course, it's a very small shawl collar, I don't know how much fun that would be to knit for a full size sweater. Still haven't decided what to do with the cuffs on the sleeves either, but I have until after school and cleaning at the church to figure out what to do.

The reason I am not completely done with the sweater is because I have been compelled to play with my clean wool! I combed and carded some of each, and then spun it up, trying to decide which preperation I was going to use.( I mean, it isn't like I have anything else at all to do, no Shetland to dye and blend, or a sweater to finish for a baby shower on Saturday or anything)

The clear winner in this contest is the combed top spun into a nice worsted yarn. It is so smooth and glossy. I can't wait to put some dye to these and see what happens. I also might combine the white and the charcoal grey on some of it to get a lighter grey. The grey is so dark I think it would be hard to knit with. If you prepare it on the drum carder, you get a lot of neps and little pieces that stick off and look like they would pill the first time you washed the fiber. Combing gets rid of all the short pieces and trash.

Finally, pictures of Ivy's fleece...thought you might like to see it. It's amazing to me that none of those brown ends show up in the finished yarn, for some reason. That's not dirt, that is just the color she was when she got here. Margaret (who gave me Ivy and Tootles) told me that she would probably turn white, that that breed often does, so I was really glad that she only turned that charcoal color. I know there is one breed of sheep that gets lighter and lighter every year, but I don't know which one it is, or if they all do that. It'd be cool though to have a different color of fleece every year without having to buy a new sheep. That's all for today, I have a ton of stuff to do. Hope you all have a good weekend.

2006-03-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

I'm making progress on the baby sweater. I don't know why it looks so holey in the picture, it doesn't in read life. I hope you can see how it is starting to take shape. At this point, I am binding off one stitch at the beginning of each row to shape the neckline, and I have about an inch, inch and a half to go. Then I have to add the collar, and do some garter stitch on the sleeves. I'd like to add matching booties and a hat but probably won't get those done in time.

Ready to wash Ivy's fleece today. This is most of it, I have maybe 5 more "sausages" left to do after I get these done, I ran out of tulle to wrap them up. There are 15 here. It is so pretty. I can't wait to comb some of it and see how it looks.

Well, the biggest change around here is that I have started a diet. Well, really, I hate diets. It's not so much that I plan on changing how I eat, but how much I eat. I refuse to be the person who makes everyone miserable at Thanksgiving by insisting everything be "diet" food. I have started keeping daily logs of what I am eating, and measuring amounts. I was eating way over what is considered a portion, so hopefully just eating smaller amounts will help a lot. My biggest problem though is that after about 6 in the evening, I get really hungry. I'm going to try to keep from cheating, but the temptation is there. I know I can do it though.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
--John 6:47-50

2006-03-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

As promised here is the beginning of the baby sweater. I know it looks like I'm almost done, I'm not. I still have to finish the last sleeve, sew it all up, then knit 4 inches of garter stitch along the bottoms around the corners, up the fronts. Then I have to knit 3 or 4 inches of garter stitch on the sleeve cuffs, and make a collar. Luckily, it is a small project, and hopefully I will have it done by Saturday. Whoo.

I got all of Tootles wool washed today. Here is the dirty fleece, wrapped up in tulle like sausages. The page that I got this little tip off of had laid each lock out end to end, and wrapped the sausage up bit by bit. That was taking me too much time, so I just laid a strip of wool out, wrapped it up, and tied it. It worked pretty well, and the kept the lock structure, so I think I will do it this way from now on. I ran out of battery juice before I could take a picture of the clean fleece.

2006-03-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

In Answer to Your Question...

Laura asked if we could wash the sheep before we sheared them....well, truthfully, I don't know. I have been watching a show on one of the History channels that chronicles what life was like on a sheep farm in Australia when that country was being settled. (Kind of like the Pioneer house that they did here in the states) They had something called a sheep wash, which was basically like a wide spot in a creek. The sheep were herded in, swam through the water for a while, then climbed out. It might have got some of the dust out, but I don't see how it would have removed any of the lanolin. Also, I think the same theory of felting would prevail whether the wool was on the sheep or off. Heat+agitation=felt. Besides, washing them first would have meant we would have had to catch them twice, Laura, and it's hard enough to catch them once!

The covers are left on year round, and if you are buying wool, some spinners will pay more for a covered fleece than one left uncovered. The reason we covered mine was because they found some burrs back there, and were covered in them shortly after they arrived here. Hay and stuff I could pick out, but burrs are almost impossible. I am hoping the fleece will stay nice and clean, and have less stuff in it next year.

We did the shearing ourselves. That's a story in itself. My MIL bought the shears, and they were pretty expensive, but she plans on using them to shear her german shepherd as well. Anyway, the saftey on the shears clicked them off every couple of passes. We finally resorted to cutting off the wool we weren't going to keep for spinning with a pair of scissors. That was quicker than the shears. We also got kicked repeatedly. Sean, Chad and myself are so sore we can hardly move today.

At the end of the day, it was a unanimous vote that next year we would try to find someone to shear them. There has to be an easier way than the way we did it. I keep looking at the wool though and secretly thinking it was worth it. I'm thinking the non-fiber addicted of the house wouldn't agree with that, so I am keeping that thought to myself.

As for how hard it is to turn wool into yarn, it depends on how much work you want to do. You can buy wool that is already clean, and carded or combed, dyed and ready to spin. Each step in the process adds to the cost of the finished top or roving. I don't think though, that the cost of feeding and housing the sheep for the one fleece you get from each every year would add up to the cost of the roving or top. I have the sheep because I really love them. I love looking out the window and seeing them, and watching them act like complete idiots out there is hilarious. I like the way fresh wool smells, and I love the work of scouring, combing or cardind, dyeing and spinning. Since I homeschool and am home with the kids a lot, it gives me some very needed intellectual challenges. If you didn't enjoy all those things, I think it would be rough work.

I'm including a picture of Ivy getting her nails done (LOL). In addition to the shearing, I trimmed the sheeps hooves. I think that is the hardest part for me, and it has to be done about once a month. Tommorrow, I promise I will post about the baby sweater I am knitting. I am not using a pattern, and it's been interesting, to say the least.

2006-03-04T17:12:00.000-08:00

We sheared the sheep today, and I thought I would post a couple of photos. This first one is of Ivy as we got ready to shear her. There was lots of trash and VM in her coat but I think most of it will be useable.

This is a closeup of Tootles coat. When I finally got my hands on it, I just could not believe how nice it was. Dirty, but so thick and soft!

Here are the sheep, freshly shorn and indignant. You can see the "Why I Never!" looks on their faces. The coats will keep the burrs and Vegetable matter out of their wool so that next year their wool is nicer. I am looking forward to working on the wool from this year though. I have some pictures of knitting that I will try to put up tommorrow. Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but things are hectic as usual, and I just haven't had time. Hope you are all having a great weekend.

2006-02-23T21:43:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note. We are finally getting over our visit from the stomach virus fairy. I have been playing with the drum carder, cause it's just been too hectic to knit. The 5 skeins on the left are samples for colors for the fair isle, the three on the right were just fun! That brown is from some mystery wool that I picked up somewhere, I carded it before I switched to the slow speed on the carder, and it needs to be washed again before I try to card the rest of it. The color is off too, but I can't seem to get the tones fixed, so this will have to do for now. Hopefully I will have more to write about later, when I feel better.

2006-02-19T09:07:00.000-08:00

At Last!

Ever since we moved to Oklahoma, it seems like I have been waiting for some real winter weather. It gets cold here, sporadically, but we don't get a lot of snow or ice. There is absolutly nothing I love more than being snowed in with my family, and I finally got what I was wishing for on Friday night. About 8 that night, the sleet started, and it was still sleeting when I went to bed about 1. Sean was sick, so I had to sleep on the couch, but it was so peaceful listening to the ice hit the roof. I had a cup or two of chamomile tea and slept really well. Of course, it has been an adventure, since the puppies are inside and not really housetrained. We put them out frequently, and there hasn't been a single accident.

Luckily, the bad roads didn't keep the mail from running, and my Beverly carder was delivered Saturday morning! I got it out of the box and put together, and did a few quick batts. They turned out well, they spin smoothly. I am sure as I gain more experience with it, they will turn out better. I have a little ways to go to acheiving the results I am looking for.

I carded a few color blends, a mix of silk noils and teeswater (don't know how that is going to turn out spun, but its pretty as a batt!) and some mysetery fleece that really got a lot of neps in it. I need to figure out how to get the slower speed on there, I am sure that will help a lot. The skein of yarn on top is just about dead on for the specifications I need for the fair isle project. I'm happy!

I got some moolah for my birthday, and I ordered some grey shetland and a set of 000 40" addi turbos with the money my MIL gave me. Mom gave me money too, don't know what I am going to do with that. My sister Jodi sent me the most delicous no bake cookies, a Jadeite bowl and a little Nippon dish. So now, I have glassware of my own.

Because of the bad roads Church was canceled today. I haven't got to go to church in three weeks, at least on Sunday. I hope I get to go next week. However, I am going to enjoy my day, snug and warm with my family and spinning.

2006-02-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

Celebration!

There isn't too much interesting fiber stuff going on over here these days. I continue to work on the fronts of the cabled sweater, and have started the side shaping. It's going to get real interesting when I have to start decreases on the neck line as well as the armhole shaping, LOL. I figure I will have to use two stitch counters to keep track of everything. You will be proud of me though, I read through the directions for the fronts at least two or three times and continue to read them every once in a while to make sure I am doing things right.

I did a little spinning yesterday so I would have something half way interesting to show you. I spun one sample thick and thin, and the other just thin, probably a fingering or sport weight. I can't decide which one I like more. I like the uniformness of the thin stuff, but I like the texture of the thicker yarn. Either would make an intersting project I think.

Yesterday was my Birthday. I think it will be the last one I celebrate. I just don't enjoy it much anymore. Maybe though, it was just this year. **Valentines is also our wedding anniversay, (Yesterday was our 14 year anniversary!) and I think I would rather concentrate on that than all the focus just being on me. It doesn't seem fair to Sean, he is such a good husband, and he spends the whole day trying to make me happy! I got him two videos he has been wanting, Galaxy Quest and Big Trouble in Little China. We both like Galaxy Quest, it's just plain funny. I don't really care for Big Trouble in Little China and make myself scarce when it's on. He also got himself some tools and things he's been wanting. I got a box of Godiva chocolate and a Patrick Green Beverly Drum Carder. However, it still hasn't arrived. I thought it would be here yesterday. It wasn't. Then I thought it would get here today. It didn't. Maybe tommorrow?? Hopefully.

Well, I don't like to blog too much about other peoples lives on here, but wanted to share that the mother of a dear friend of mine accepted Jesus into her heart today. There has been a lot of joy and celebration about this day that we were beginning to fear would never come. Don't ever quit praying for the people that you hope to see saved and don't ever doubt that the Lord can use bad situations for good. He is in control!

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. --Psalms 126:5-6

**Note: Getting married on your birthday is not a good idea. Especially when that Birthday already falls on a holiday, and you share that birthday with a twin. I am not complaining because I don't get as many presents, but just that it causes so much chaos. Not the smartest choice I have ever made, Let me tell you.

2006-02-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Finally!

I finally finally finished the back of the cabled sweater to day. I had to rip out a few more rows a couple of times after I discovered a couple of mistakes. The first of those rip outs fixed the one missing stitch to take me back to 130 without having to add one stitch. So my solution is to follow the length instructions for the x-large size sweater, except for casting one. I will take make the appropriate changes when casting on the sweater fronts, and that should fix it. I would show you a picture excpet the sweater back looks a little rough right now. I am praying that blocking fixes it.

Also, I have to tell you about one certain problem. When I bought the yarn for this sweater, I made sure I had the same dye lot. However, the color of the yarns is different, quite markably so. So I think this is the last time I will use Lion Brand for knitting a big project. Maybe hats, gloves, something I am dyeing myself, but not a sweater. I think I am going to have to dye this project, and the prospect scares me. I don't want to ruin it at that stage after all this work and heart ache.

In other news, I recieved the software that I ordered, the Stitch and Motif Maker software. So far, I like it. It has made trying to graph out the fair isle socks a hundred times easier. I don't know how many times I had copied the same sock onto graph paper so I could try a different color arrangement. With this software you can change a color in a second, and then change it again a million times in the time it took me to graph the sock out once. There is a little sample. I hate to post too much of it before I have them done, it'd be awful if, as slow as I knit, someone finished them before I did, LOL.

Well, sorry for the lack of posts this week. I have been working on the sweater and it has gotten the lions share of the attention. If I'm on the computer, I can't be knitting and I really wanted to get it done. Hopefully now that I have found my stride, it'll go quicker.

2006-02-03T06:31:00.000-08:00

I am about to toss this sweater back in the trash. I got to the decrease before the last decrease last night. I counted my stitches, to make sure I was really on the increase before the last increase. 129 stitches. Now, you know that's not right. Check the pattern. After the last increase, I am supposed to have...wait for it.....134 Stitches! 134 stitches! What happened. I decide to count the stitches again. 129. And again 129. Well, one more time. 136! Great! Maybe one more time. slump. 129.

I have to figure out what I did wrong. Start at the beginning. I cast on 158 stitches, so lets count that. Nope. Not 158, I cast on 154. SO I was 4 short before I even got started.

I guess what I am going to do at this point is rip the whole thing out... Nope, no way. Not doing that again. One devestating rip out per project is my new rule. Any other catastrophes will have to be dealt with in a less traumatic way. I am going to go ahead, find a place to add one stitch, and knit it to the recommneded length, and then finish it for the size that does end in 130 stitches. It's for my MIL, who is on weight watchers and getting skinnier everyday anyway, and with blocking it should fit her just fine. I have an XL sweater that I wear all the time, and believe me, I do not wear an XL. It will be fine, fine I tell you.

IN other news, those puppies are going to be gigantic. The biggest one weighs 31 pounds and the vet said they are only 12 weeks old. They all continue to worm their ways into our hearts, and it is going to be very hard to pick one to keep. THe little one we have named Sprout, the medium one I call Sheila. Everyone else calls her something different. The big one we call Stache, after Black Stache, one of the bad guys from Peter and the Starcatchers He has little white whisps under his nose and he looks like he has a mustache. Chad wanted to call him Cujo. I said no. "Slash?" asked Chad. Me, No. "Shredder?" He said in a pleading voice. Stache was a relief.

In other kid news, Chad was swinging a big stick in the yard (I bet they were playing swords, but no one will tell me that. No, Chad was just swinging a big stick) and hit Ryan in the face yesterday. Nothing like being jolted out of a semi-pleasant afternoon by the blood-curdling screams of your middle child, covered in blood. He couldn't quit crying, long after we got him cleaned up and assesed the damage, broken glasses, swollen nose, face scraped up and bruised. I had to get a little gruff and tell him to quit, I think at that point he was just hysterical. He's better today though, and I think he is almost proud of all the cuts and scrapes. Kids are weird.

2006-02-01T06:29:00.000-08:00

Order

I spent some time over the last few days bringing some order to the chaos of my fiber activities. I realized that the only way I was going to succeed in getting my yarns to turn out the way I would like is if I had a way to replicate what I had done already, so that I spent less time repeating color experiments, and also less time repeating mistakes. So I organized a zipper bound notebook that I had laying around, with areas for patterns printed off the internet, my designs, fiber samples and yarn samples. I found some plastic pages that were designed to hold photos, three photos to a side of a page. These are perfect for holding a 3X5 index card with a sample or two of yarn and information about the yarn on it. The system still isn't perfect, but it's better.

We got our income tax refund, and so I also have plans to order some stuff, chief among them a drumcarder. It's an expensive step, but I think necessary at this point. I am leaning towards a Deb's Deluxe by Patrick Green. I need to order some fiber as well.

I have been really making a lot of progress on the re-knit of the cabled cardigan. I have done 83 rows since I had to rip it out, much faster than the first time around. Soon I will be done with the decreases and ready to cast off for the arm holes, and then soon after that should have the back completely done. I can't wait. I think the rest of the sweater is going to go much quicker. I am sure you all will be glad to not have to read about my struggles with it anymore!

I have been struggling to get order in my mind this week as well. I keep getting upset about Dad. Every time I think I have it all sorted out, something happens to jumble it up again. I get irritated with Sean, he can lay down and drop off to sleep in about 5 seconds. When I lay down, my mind just starts to whirl. I have repeatedly handed it to the Lord, only to pick it up again as soon as my head hits the pillow. I know it's going to get better with time, I just want it to be better now. I keep praying for peace, and I know that I will have it, in the Lord's time.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
--Philipians 4:6-7

2006-01-27T06:13:00.000-08:00

One mans trash, another mans treasure! We found these three down at the end of my SIL's driveway yesterday afternoon. They were pretty skinny, and it's a safe bet they need to be wormed and get their first round of shots, but they are just beautiful. We had been planning on getting another dog around Easter, but I guess the Lord had other plans.

Have you ever seen a little boy so happy? There is something about this boy and dogs. He has picked out the boy of the bunch as the one to keep, that one is already retrieving balled up socks and bringing them back to Chad.

Action shots! In knitting news, I made another mistake in the cabled cardigan yesterday, and had to take out all of yesterday's knitting. I was so made at myself. But I made myself fix it rather than throw it across the room, and now I am ready to start again. I might take today to spin after homeschool and all the stuff we have to do on Fridays. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

2006-01-26T07:48:00.000-08:00

Progress

We have had a good morning here. Sean did not have clinicals today, his program is up for review by someone for something,(Way to take an interest there, Jan), which meant Sean didn't have to be at school until 10:00. It was nice to wake up and him still be here, and we had a nice breakfast with everyone around the table and started the day with prayer. However, he's gone now, the kids are already bickering (Reagan is playing the harmonica and the boys don't appreciate her abilities, LOL). For the second day in a row, Ryan can't find his papers and Chad is just being a teenager. Sean will be back about 12, he doesn't have to be at work until 5 so we will get to spend some good time with him today.

I have been really working on getting back on track with the cabled cardigan. After 2 days of knitting, I have done almost 40 rows of knitting, but they seem to be going faster. 20 rows a night is much better than what I was doing before.

And there is always the knowledge that when I finish these decreases I will be knitting 22 less stitches than I was before!

I decided to check how my spinning for the Fair Isle Socks was stacking up against "real" fair Isle Yarn. When I was planning my first Fair Isle project, Anne from She Ewe Knits really went out of her way to help me plan my project. There is a picture of the hat that I made on her site, and I had enough yarn left over (I really over estimated how much I would need)to knit a pair of mittens to match the hat. The second wrap of yarn here is the Jameisons Shetland Spindrift. The top white sample is shetland wool that I spun a while ago, it is a little thinner than the Jameisons. The other two are samples that I spun recently, out of "generic" roving. I'm spinning with as little twist as possible in the singles, so it will be softer. The green sample (carded from blue and yellow dyed roving to make the green) is right on mark size wise (wpi) with the Jameisons. My yarn has a lot more twist per inch (tpi)in the plied yarn though. Since I haven't been able to knit a sample using this yarn yet, I don't know if that is going to be a problem or not.

I watched a really good movie the other day, Diary of a Mad Black Woman. It was written by Tyler Perry, and was a play before being made into a movie. Perry also wrote the screenplay and acted three parts in the movie. My heart broke at the beginning of the movie. The actors and actresses gave really stellar performances. While I wouldn't recommend it for children because of some adult situations and humor, if you haven't seen it, you should. I didn't notice a lot of gratuitous bad language, there were no sex scenes, not one use of the Lord's name in vain*, and the Christians were not the bad guys. Plus there is a scene of a very moving alter call at the end of the movie.

For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
--Psalms 103:11-15

*It really made me happy that the Lord's name was not used in vain in this movie. I can handle some cussing, if I have to, although I don't like that either, but taking the Lord's name is just so unnecessary. It never adds anything to a movie.

2006-01-24T13:47:00.000-08:00

Deja Vu

Today, after much perseverance, I finally reached the end of the back of the cabled cardigan.

It was so exciting, I have been knitting on this for what feels like forever, and felt like if I could just reach the end of this one piece, then the others would go quickly and I would soon have it done. I have decided that I was going to do a double needle bind off on the should seams, so grabbed a yarn needle and waste yarn to put the resting stitches on to. I need the needle that it's on to knit the rest of the pieces. Okay, the first 41 go on one loop of string. The second 40 for the neck on the other....What? What's wrong here....read the directions. Shoot! I was supposed to do a series of increases after the first 6 inches of knitting. Like, months ago.

So I ripped it out.

Don't be too dissapointed in me if I am not too thrilled about getting started again. I just feel so been there/done that about this, but I really want to do it. I just don't relish the thought of having to knit all that again, plus the fronts, sleeves, and the buttons band. I will though. It's a battle of wills now.

So what have I been up to besides blissfully unaware cable knitting?

"Designing" the Fair Isle socks. I had a really good idea, and now I am trying to approximate colors with colored pencils on little mock ups of the motifs. It still needs a lot of tweaking. I can't get a color combination that is exactly perfect, yet. Luckily, it will be a while before I am ready to start knitting these.

So, I had been thinking that if I was going to get everything done this year that I want to, I need a rough schedule to keep me on track. Until the cardigan is done, I am going to put a minimum of 2 hours a day on cardigan knitting. I don't want it to be next Christmas before I am done with it. If I start at 6, after dinner, then I will knit on the cardigan until 8. That still leaves me with at least two hours to spin, knit something else, blend colors, whatever. At the minimum, every week I need to spin some, dye some, card some, work on the Fair Isle Chart some. I need to be making progress on it all, if I just wait until I am done with this cardigan, it might take forever to get it all done.

Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing. --Psalms 65:9-13

2006-01-20T10:11:00.000-08:00

I am finished with spinning yarn for the next project. These two colors of yarn are favorites of my Sister In Law Lori. Well, she isn't just a sister in law. She is a friend as well, and a wonderful cheerleader. Lori is a web designer, and has been encouraging/pushing me to open a web store so that I can sell yarn or roving, or both. We have talked about it quite frequently, and she has done some designing. early on in the talking stages, the subject of payment came up, me wanting to pay, not her begging for payment, LOL. We decided I would make her something. Since she lives in Florida, she has no use for mittens or shawls, sweaters or slippers. She would, however, like a felted bag. I still haven't decided about the shop. There are a lot of people, spinning a lot better yarn than I am who have opened shops recently, and I am not sure I want to do something for pay that brings me so much enjoyment. So I guess you'll have to wait for a while to see if I take the plunge or not. But you will get to see me knit and felt the bag! I have spun almost 400 yards of the purple, and a little less than 100 of the green. I have not decided which pattern to use, but it will use these two colors. That's all I am posting today. The boys had a stomach virus yesterday, and I am definitly getting it, or have it, or something. I'll post more pictures after I start the bag.

2006-01-18T11:16:00.000-08:00

Progress

I started spinning the purple (in my mind it is "amythest") roving yesterday. It is always a surprise how much yarn you can spin when you are going for chunky after you have been spinning for fine awhile. I finished 232 yards yesterday. It felt like a huge acomplishment after it took me forever to spin the 200 and some odd amount of yards of the thin dark purple yarn I posted a picture of yesterday. I probably have about the same amount of the amythest roving left to spin, and then the accent color before I begin to knit the project. It is going to be a fun project, I think, and I will post the details of that when I start knitting it.

I also recieved my shipment of books from a big name book seller. It will be the last time I order books from them, I think. I ordered them with my Christmas money on Dec. 26. They didn't ship the books I guess, until the determined they weren't going to get the third book back in stock. The thing is, that I haven't been able to find that book anywhere in stock, except from used book sellers. So why does this book seller have it listed as shipping in 1-2 weeks? It just seems silly to me.

Then on Sunday I recieved an email saying that they might have the book on the 14th of February. At which point I canceled that part of my order and started looking for another copy. A search for 220 Aran Stitches-A Harmony Guide Vol. 5has led me to believe that I am not going to be able to find it except used. Instead, I ordered a used copy of The Harmony Guide to Aran and Fair Isle Knitting, from a used book seller. I can't find anything to tell me if those two books have the same information in them or not. I think as a general rule I am just going to start ordering used books. As long as they are in fairly decent shape, they will serve my purpose, and it will certainly make my wallet happier. Anyway, with the two books that arrived today, I can begin planning my Fair Isle socks so I know how many colors of yarn I am going to need and how much.

I started to watch the elimination rounds of American Idol last night, but some of the contestants were being treated so badly, I had to turn away. I know sometimes it must be torture for those judges, but I don't see any sense in being mean to people who have put themselves out there. Of course, if they were postive and kind to everyone who auditioned, the ratings would probably tank. Every time the Powell guy said something, I found myself singing Steve Green's song for children, " Encourage one another, and build each other up". That is what I sing at my kids when they are being nasty to one another. So I decided I am not going to watch it at all this year. I usually only watch it for a few weeks anyway, and I wasn't enjoying it. I would rather watch TCM. I have been catching up on my cultural references, haha.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. --Phillipians 4:8-9

2006-01-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Things have been hectic here since Friday. My two youngest somehow found a patch of poison ivy in January, and I had to take them to the doctor for a shot to ehlp clear it up. Reagan is very allergic, not only to poison ivy, but to any over the counter med to treat it. I think we caught it early enough this time that she won't be completely covered with it. Ryan had it all over his legs and in his hair, on his face creeping towards his eyes. I just hate that. Something is going to have to be done, but I don't know what.

So Friday was a dye day. I dyed a whole bunch of rovings for the Fair Isle project, but nothing struck the way I expected it too. I didn't have enough vinegar for the dye bath and the dyes just didn't strike well. So on the way home from the doctors office, I bought more vinegar and some citric acid, and redyed almost all of it. The citric acid really makes dye strike well, but it also made the rovings very harsh to the touch. After soaking them again in some water with some hair conditioner added, they are now ready to spin I think.

This purple roving is for a "special project".
You know who you are.

This roving was dyed using the turquoise and terra cotta dyes. I really like the way it turned out, and will spin it kind of chunky so it looks like there are turquoise beads where the bumps from plying are. No specific project for this, I just thought it was pretty.

I finished spinning some of the roving for Fair Isle on Monday. I think my spinning is getting finer as I become used to spinning a thinner single again, and I am really going to have to watch that. The newest is the darker purple. I like this color, but it may be too stripey for the Fair Isle project. I am going to have to knit a sample and see.

I was up late again last night, unable to sleep. My mom is kind of like that, up at different times of the night. I don't mind it really, it gives me some quiet time by myself, with no demands. I usually end up reading my Bible, and last night instead of the New Testament I ended up in Numbers. This verse really jumped out at me.

And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have showed among them?
--Numbers 14:11

I have to say, He was talking to me. I know He promises He is going to take care of me, but sometimes it is hard to believe it. Instead of waiting for Him to deliver whatever it is that is needed at the moment, I start trying to make the things I want to happen, happen. I wonder how much time I have wasted, how many times I have screwed up His plan doing that. I don't want to get in His way anymore.

"You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right--somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?"
"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No, Nobody is ever told that." --Prince Caspian

I'm praying that I never again have to wonder what might have happened if I had done things His way, instead of my way.

2006-01-12T07:59:00.000-08:00

Rule No. 1: Always read the directions. I am afraid that in my delight at figuring out the Mobius cast on, I rushed into this project. I did not check gauge, I did not check what the finished dimensions of the project were supposed to be and I most certainly did not read the directions. Oh, I skimmed the directions, I thought I had read them, but I really hadn't.

As a result, My cowl is really a scarf, it is not wide enough to cover my head as shown in the picture on the pattern, and I spend hours yesterday mistakenly knitting what was supposed to be "purl one through front and back loop, purl 3" as purl one through front and back loop all the way around, in every stitch. It took for ever to knit that row and the next one.

I had started the bind off when I discovered my mistake. I had to think for a while about whether I even wanted to rip it back, or just finish it and be done with it. Usually, I wouldn't worry about it, I would call it a design feature and be finished. But yesterday, I ripped back. I had to mentally close my eyes to do it, there were a lot of stitches on those needles. Luckily it was wool yarn, and the stitches were easy to pick back up again, even though it took forever. The sad thing is, it probably would have looked better if I had just finished it the way it was! Finally, after knitting the rows correctly, and binding off, I discovered that the fabric curls horribly, probably because this would work with cashmere, it has a lot more drap than wool, I bet. In wool, it curls.

I am really just not happy with this project, although it was a blast to knit. And it was totally my fault, not the designers, hers looked great or I wouldn't have knitted it in the first place. What will I do about it? Well, I love this yarn. The color is the only thing that I like about the finished project. I might sit down this evening and pick out the woven in ends and rip it all back, or I might just throw it in a drawer and get back to the knitting and spinning at hand. I haven't quite decided yet, LOL.

2006-01-10T07:47:00.000-08:00

We had an eventful weekend. We got up quite early to go to an auction at Sean's work. At 7:00 in the morning, it was really cold, about 28 degrees outside, so everyone bundled up. All those mittens and scarves I knit before Christmas really came in handy! We drove into town and wandered around looking at what they were going to have up for auction, and didn't find anything that was really that interesting, so Reagan and I returned to the car to play I Spy while I cast on and began to knit this shawl from Garnstudio.I am using some hand spun in natural colors and I think it will be really pretty. However, I hit a snag and ripped it back. I am going to chart it out so that it will be a little easier to follow the pattern. If you haven't yet discovered Garnstudio, go and take a peek now. They are beginning to translate their free patterns into English, and it is a great site. The last time I looked, they had over 40 pages of free patterns already translated and more go up every day.

I was supposed to go to Rebecca's house on Saturday evening, she is starting a knitting group/Bible Study. I was so excited about it. But on the way home from town, we got a call from Sean's mom. There was a fire between where we live and the main road. About a minute later, we could see the smoke. The closer we got to the house, the more concerned we got, because it was beginning to look like it was closer to the house than we thought. Ends up that it was less than a quarter of a mile from the house, but luckily in an unoccupied area, and across a dirt road. The wind was blowing it away from us, and the fire department was on the scene. We decided to stay put rather than drive to Claremore, just in case. So I guess I will try to make it to Rebecca's the next time! I am really looking forward to it.

Yesterday, I cast on for yet another project,
this moebius cowl from Cat Bordhi's site. I finally figured out how to do that cast on, and felt pretty pleased with myself. My yarn is the handspun in reds, oranges and purples that I had thought I would use for socks, but it looks nice like this. I am going to knit the multi colored until it runs out, then the purple, then the red for the edging. It is really addictive knitting and hard to put down. I think I am going to cast on another one in bigger needles in the wild autumn colored mohair I spun about a year ago. I think that would make a fabulous scarf.

Sean started back to school yesterday, and had his first day of clinicals today in Tulsa. I pray that he does as well this semester as last (He was on the Honor Roll at the college, he got straight A's!) It will be wonderful if he can get a job as a student intern at one of the local hospitals. Then next year we would get to see more of him. We miss him, and these kids need to see more of their dad. I know though, that it is all in the Plan. I keep telling myself, I might not understand the plan, I might not like the way the plan is going, but I have to trust that He knows more than I do, LOL. When Sean decided to do this school thing I was pretty upset, I didn't want my apple cart upset, I guess. But it has been so good for Sean, and he is really so much happier. It'll be worth this little bit of not getting to see much of Sean on a day to day basis in the end.

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. --Isaiah 64:4

2006-01-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

Fist Full of Colors

I finished the first run through of samples; they are all spun, plied and set. It was a lot of fun, and interesting to see how many colors you could come up with when starting with three base colors. However, out of the 12 colors in this combination, there are only a few that I think I will actually use in the Fair Isle sock project

My three favorites are the two that are a mix of terra cotta and yellow, and the mix of magenta and purple. I think the magenta mixed with yellow and turquoise just doesn’t work well. I like the bright greens I get from yellow and turquoise, but they aren’t for this project, I don’t think. I guess I’ll see when I get closer to actually charting out the project. That bright green might be good for some sparkle among some darker colors.

Well, a long mystery has been solved here at my house. For months my spinner’s control card, (a nifty little Lucite rectangle, about the size of a credit card, with markings for measuring your single against so you get a consistent thickness) has been missing. I have looked and looked for it, tearing apart and sorting out the wool bins, looking under furniture, etc. Well, starting this project, I either needed to find it, or at least mock up a new one on the computer with black lines so that I would have something to measure against. I don’t want to end up with half the yarns for my sock fingering weight and the other half sport, which would be a disaster. Well, I finally asked the kids if they had seen it. Upon which Son #2 disappeared. And returned with said control card, a knot in it’s cord and rusty. He “found” it in the air-conditioning vent. Gee, I wonder how it got down there? I guess that part will remain a mystery, as every small person in this house swears they had nothing to do with it. Oh well, still useable. I cut off the cord, and washed the dirt and rust off. Then my daughter brought me a new cord she had made for it. It is very pretty, and since the cord is elastic, I can still stretch it over to measure my single.

That’s all for today, I think. I probably won’t get to post this weekend, it sounds like Sean has a lot of stuff planned. I hope you all have a good one, and I’ll see you next week!

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. --Ephesians 6:18-20

2006-01-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

Figuring It Out

My cabled sweater had a brief visit to the frog pond yesterday. I kept looking at the cables, something was wrong. Finally I saw the section where I zigged when I should have zagged. Luckily the mistake was after I had made the armhole decreases, so I didn’t have to re-do that. So I figured that out.

I continue to figure out a good process for blending the fibers for my Fair Isle goal. For the final project, I plan on using a Shetland roving that has been ageing in my stash for about a year, but for now, I am using some other wool I have sitting around. I started by blending equal amounts of the primaries. Then I mixed two parts of one primary with one part of the other, to get more one sided blends. I think the experiments came out all right. I am now working on spinning them all up, and then plying.

I am carding the fiber by lightly pulling the dyed top onto the fist comb, first one color, then the other, in whatever parts I am using (1 blue to 1 part yellow, or 2 parts red to 1 part violet, for example). I lightly card the colors, and then roll the fiber from the short end across the card. I then use a short pulling motion to distribute that clump of fibers back onto the card, and then lightly card again.

At that point, I had been rolling the fiber up into a rolag, from the long side. However, experimentation last night revealed that if I roll up the fiber again from the short in, and then draft the fiber out, the resulting yarn is much more smooth, and has less thick and thin spots in it. I tried using the ditz to pull the yarn into a roving off the card, but that didn’t work too well.

Some things are harder to figure out than others. I was born and raised in WV, I lived there for most of my life. I am not from the area that the majority of mining takes place. Nonetheless, I have followed closely the unfolding events of the miners trapped there. Last night, I checked my mail and the news one last time before I went to bed, and rejoiced to see that 12 of the miners were alive. I turned on the TV and watched the rejoicing of the miners’ families and friends as they received the good news. I went to bed, and prayed and thanked God for the miracle of their safe return.

So it was heartbreaking this morning to check the news and find out that it was a mistake. I usually check news online, and I haven’t had the heart to turn the TV to the news station and watch the news reports. My prayers are with the families; I know that the faith that kept them in that church praying for a miracle will see them through this heartbreak now. It's hard to figure out why things like this happen, and so many people question the existence of God because of it. How could a kind and loving God let those men die? Why did the families have to suffer by having te joy turned into mourning? I don't know. I do know though, that the God of all comfort, He that turns the shadow of death into morning, He will be with them, just as surely now in their sorrow as he was when they were praying for the miracle that didn't happen for most of them.

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. --2Corinthians 1:3-4

2006-01-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

The first "finished" object of 2006, I suppose. You can look at it two ways, as it was amoung the last things I dyed in 2005, but I finished plying it yesterday morning. It turned out so nicely. There is 182 yards, of probably fingering weight or sport weight yarn. I can't find my wpi tool. I was hoping I would have about 200 so that I could make the Heartstrings smoke ring from it, but I guess that is not going to work out. So there is no plan for this yarn at the minute.

I also have some more work done towards my Fair Isle goals. A few more blends. I don't know too much about blends yet, I'm just getting started. I have to sit with the color wheel in front of me, and I have been searching out yarns made from blended fibers to look at on the internet. I think my favorite in this picture is the second blue from the top, followed by the green at the bottom.

I continue on my search for a good Bible study. I know that I need some direction, and I really need to work on trusting the Lord. Sometimes it feels like I am balanced on a precipice, and all it will take is one gentle puff of wind, one more "bad" thing to push me off into depression. I have stood, expecting that long fall, and it never comes. He continues to be faithful, to bear me up, even when I feel like I have failed Him. Since I haven't found a Bible study (for free, online, anyway) that "fits" yet, I have been studying the names of God. One site I have read lists 603 different names that He has been called, not counting the I Am's (ex. I am the LORD which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness.) and the Who's (ex. Who walketh upon the wings of the wind). Just reading the names is calming, and I take comfort in it.

My favorite, right now, is "A Nail in a Sure Place" When we discussed this one during homeschool the other day, I explained to the kids how if you want to hang a shelf or a picture, you have to find a stud in the wall. If you put your nail any other place, then you can't put much of a load on it, or it will tear out of the wall. And so is Jesus. at least for me. When I try to find my happiness anywhere else (in money, friends and family, food) I soon find that I can't put much of a load there. There is not enough money in the world to take the place of Jesus; I can't always be what other people need me to be, (or they for me!); food (although I love it) does not fill me up with what I need. No, the only sure place to put my faith is in Jesus.

And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house. --Isaiah 22:22-23

2005-12-31T09:56:00.000-08:00

Knitting/Spinning Goals-2006

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the direction I would like to take my knitting and spinning in. The way I see it, I have two options. I can continue on the way I have been, dyeing wool in random patterns, spinning it up thick and chunky and knitting nice warm things from it. There�s nothing wrong with that and it is a lot of fun. I have managed to produce a lot of things that my children, friends and relatives have enjoyed and love doing things that way.

The fact of the matter is though, that fat chunky yarns are not where my heart lies. When I first got my spinning wheel, I thought I would use it to spin yarns I could use in Fair Isle work. Lace, Fair Isle and more traditional knitting has always been what I wanted to do. Then,when I started spinning. I was less than pleased with the fine yarns that I ended up with, because they were a little harsh and scratchy. I was overspinning them, because I hadn�t yet learned how to spin soft yarns with lower twist. I think now that I have learned how to do that, I can successfully go back to spinning thinner yarns with better results.

That leads me to thinking about what I would like to do in the next year, and I have come up with a list of goals, things to work towards.

1.Design a Fair Isle sock pattern
2. Blend rovings and spin them into the yarn to use in the socks.
3. Design an aran style sock and a yarn to use for it.
4. Submit both sock designs to the Tulsa state fair.

I think those are realistic goals, and probably not too ambitious.

I also need to work on developing some color sense. I have been running on instinct there, and I need to start reading some things on color theory.

Personally, I need to also find a good Bible study, and getting my heart back in the right place. I have some anger about the whole situation with Dad�s passing that I really need to get rid of, especially since I am not going to get any answers short of Heaven. I have decided I am going to be more open on this blog about my faith. I have kind of pussy footed around about it, because I didn�t want people to feel uncomfortable. The truth of the matter is though, it�s my blog. I shouldn�t be uncomfortable writing about the biggest part of my life on my blog. I have joined the Christian Knitters web ring, and I�m going to start talking about my walk with the Lord. I don�t feel like there is anything else I can do.

2005-12-30T11:29:00.000-08:00

The dyes I ordered arrived in the mail yesterday. I really like Cushings acid dyes, and the service was super fast. The three rovings on the left in this picture are Merino, using the new colors. The eight single color rovings are 4 ounces each of the new colros. Left to right, silver gray, turqousie, nugget gold, Egyptian red, bronze, violet, terracotta and magenta. I have two ounces of each to spin straight, and 2 ounces to blend with other colors for optic blends.

This is the roving that I started on last night as soon as it dried. It is pretty plain, just bands of the silver grey and the bronze. Subtle, but beautiful. This is merino and very soft. There was only 2 ounces of it, so it will have to be combined with something for a project. It was just an experiment to see about the color combination.

This is a close-up of a smidgin of yarn. I dyed this tiny scrap of merino I found floating in the water with the turqoise and terra cotta dyes. I absolutely loved the way it turned out, but I will have to wait until I get more merino and for another dyed day to try and replicate it. I didn't really try for evenness here, there was such a small amount of the fiber. I really like the looks of it though. I am still plugging away on the cabled sweater, and got the buttons. I am hoping to get a couple of inches a day done on the back, and then the arms and fronts should go quicker, I hope. I love knitting it, but I have to keep taking breaks so I don't fall asleep. It isn't boring, it's just that knitting is so relaxing. When I get sleepy, I spin for a little while, I have been doing a lot of samples for a project. More about that in the next post.

2005-12-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

We found a "new to us" used bookstore in town a couple of days before Christmas. I love used bookstores. I asked the owner if she had any knitting books and she said some one had been in a few days before and cleaned her out. Disapointing, but I decided to go ahead and look around anyway. Just a few minutes of searching turned up a copy of Traditional Knitting: Patterns of Ireland, Scotland and England. Lots of Arans and Guernseys, a few Fair Isle patterns. I didn't find anything else in the craft section, but did find some children's books. DH went to check out, and I was just walking along looking at stuff. That's when I found it..Irish Knitting by Rohana Darlington. It was with the books on Ireland! So I got that too. Turns out she was asking much less for it than they are asking for it online. I have found it online priced as high as $130. It does have some beautiful patterns in it.

I also recieved some money from the inlaws for Christmas, and from my sister. So I ordered some books; 220 Aran Stitches and Patterns by Harmony Guides, Traditional Fair Isle Knitting by Sheila McGregor, and Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. Unfortunately they won't be here until sometime in the middle of January. I also ordered a bunch more dyes.

Work continues on the cabled sweater. I am just at the part where I decrease for the armholes on the back. I have ten more inches to knit after that. Hopefully I will get more done now that the kids all have mittens and hats, and I can just work on it.

2005-12-25T19:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I took a bit of a break. The lead up to Christmas was harder than I thought it was going to be. I missed Dad, even though I didn't usually get to even see him on Christmas. We had a good Christmas though, and I am glad about that. My kids have defintely taken up the cowboy theme. I have to keep checking to make sure the outlaws aren't sneaking up on us, LOL. I have been doing a lot of fibery things, I have lots of ideas and goals for the coming new year. I look forward to it with hope. It won't be so long until the next post this time, I promise.

2005-12-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I had another attack of the spinning bug the last couple of days. The last time I dyed, I used up all the leftover dye to dye dribs and drabs of fiber. I just popped the pre-wetted fiber into the dye jars, to which I had added some vinegar, like you do with easter eggs. The dyes struck in various ways, creating some interesting color combinations on the fiber. I think I have decided to do this everytime I dye, spin the fiber up fine, and use all those fiber as my Fair Isle palette. I have really had a yearning to do some Fair Isle, but it will have to wait until after Christmas. I spin until I have filled the bobbin to a certain point. That gives me about 240 yards of each color. Any fiber that is left over I am saving to blend on the drum carder that I will hopefully get for Christmas or my birthday/anniversary. If not, I can blend it on the handcards. I hope if I continue this way, I will have quite a bit of yarn to experiment with because I would like to submit a pair of hand dyed, hand spun, hand knit Fair Isle socks or mittens to the State Fair next fall. It's a goal I haven't met for the last two years, so hopefully I will be able to meet it this year.

On the knitting front, I am working on a pair of mittens for Chad, that I started at Sean's work Christmas party. I am not going to have enough yarn to finish, so they may end up looking a little weird. I was sure I had enough for both mittens, but I don't. I will probably just dig into the stash and try to find something that matches a little. I also continue to plod away on the cabled sweater. The back is taking a long time, even if I knit all evening straight on it, it just doesn't seem to progress very far. Maybe once I get the back done and move on to the fronts and the sleeves it will go quicker. Despite the slow pace, I am enjoying knitting it, I just didn't expect it to take this long. I have already informed the recipient not to expect it before February. I also have added several more projects in my head, a pair of slippers for my twin for her birthday, hats for the boys, a vest for my mom, (she loves vests) and that project for my sister in law. She's gonna love that one, but I can't tell you what it is, cause she definitely reads the blog.

A week or two ago, I told you that the woman from whom I got that wonderful alpaca fiber was going to be putting yarn from the same animals up for sale on ebay. She doesn't spin or knit, (yet) she bought the animals as pets. However, it is beautiful fiber, and I wanted to put a link to it up here so you could take a look if you are interested. I don't get a cut or anything, I just wanted you to know that it was out there. These two auctions are from Beni and Storm, in case you want to take a peek.

Just a randome spinning picture. This is of the yellow fiber I am currently spinning.

2005-12-05T05:28:00.000-08:00

While we were out Saturday, we went into Walmart as his work had gotten the kids gift cards from there for Christmas. I wandered through the craft section for grins, they hardly ever have anything that interests me since my hobbies have taken a woolen turn, but all ( I mean all 5 or 6) of my yarn needles had dissapeared. I had to have more, so I wandered back there. Above the area that has the yarn needles hanging on a hook were a bunch of locker hooks.

Now I have been looking for lockerhooking supplies for a while. I tried to find them at hobby lobby, and had to buy a kit to get one. So I was a little irritated to see 8 or 9 hooks, hanging by themselves in walmart, for $4 a piece. So I pick up the yarn needles, pick up the locker hook, and almost, almost, leave the the craft department. But I decide to walk over and see if they are starting to carry the senseo yarn. I really like it for socks, and I am not planning on starting a pair, but it would be nice to see if they have any of the yarn. No yarn. But there, above the crochet hooks and aluminum knitting needles is the lockerhooking fabric...and locker hooking instruction books! Using that horrible eyelash yarn and fabric, but instruction books! I could convert the instructions to roving if I wanted to. So I picked up a package of the backing material, it is 3 feet by 5 feet, I think, big enough for a good sized rug.

When I got home I used the stuff from the kit I had bought previously to do this. There are things I don't like about it, there has got to be a better way to weave in the ends of the locker thread on the back (You really don't want to see the back, LOL) and I have no idea how to finish the edges. Mine frayed on one side and now I don't know what I am going to do about it. I like the resulting fabric, though. The dark brown is some icelandic wool roving, and the 4 squares are the natural dyed wool from the natural dyeing workshop our guild held last spring. I am going to have to look into this more and see if I can find some pointers on finishing.

2005-12-04T20:14:00.000-08:00

My mom, my sister and I have been playing a little game. One of them takes a picture of some unknown piece of glass they own, and then we scour the internet, looking for the manufacturer, the name of the pattern, going prices, etc. However, I am way behind in the glass race. I don't own any glass that is remotely interesting. So on the weekends, I have been dragging my family to local antique and consignment shops, looking for an anonymous, unloved piece of glass to call my own. There is only one problem. I invariably walk out with fiber items instead of glass. I enjoy it, but mom and sis really don't share the fiber bug, although they are polite about it. They don't snicker in my face, anyway, LOL. Anyway, this is what I found on my glass hunt this weekend...1940's knitting magazines, amoung a bunch of clipped news articles and a huge bag of knitting needles in a vintage knitting basket. The sweaters are horrible, but the sock , the scarf, the mitten and glove patterns are classic!

Also in the knitting basket, these crochet hooks, obviously vintage if not antique. The top two are bone, the bottom one seems to be ivory. They are tiny. I keep thinking about the tiny antique shoes you see in museums. Previous generations must have had tiny hands as well.

There were lots of other knitting needles in the bag, mostly aluminum, some plastic. That is what I am looking for. I love those old plastic knitting needles, they have perfect points for lace on them. I especially love the old Baleene circulars, but have only one pair. There were some of the older circulars with a metal coil cable between the needles, I haven't tried them yet, but they feel really smooth, you can't even feel the join. I wonder if they are a nightmare with lace yarns? There were lots of other patterns in the bag as well, I need to go through them and sort them out. Most are clipped out of newspapers and magazines, but a few you can tell were ordered from somewhere. I plan on going through them all and putting them in those plastic page protectors in a notebook. They might never get used again, but I keep thinking of all the work "she" put into them, and it makes me sad to think they just got tossed out.

I also hit the Hastings bookstore, looking for the new issue of Spin-Off. I think it is out, but I couldn't find it. I guess if they quit carrying it, I will have to order a subscription. I did pick up an issue of KnitIt of FC Knitting, I can't remember which one. It had some purses in it, and there was one in there that was perfect for my pesky sister in law with weird taste. A wild one that one is, let me tell you, but we are lucky to have her. Well, I better get to bed. There was some other fiber related activities, but blogger is not going to cooperate and let me post those pictures today, so I will post about that tommorrow.

It is finals week for Sean, and then hopefully I will have some time with the old coot. I miss him.

2005-12-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

The first picture I wanted to show was of the ribbing as I sewed it into Reagan's felted mittens. I saw this in some felted projects book, although I didn't follow a pattern for these. I have knit enough mittens in my knitting career to be able to do it from memory.

I have been dyeing and spinning a lot lately. This is the batch of roving I have been working on. I have to admit, I thought it as a very ugly roving, although it reminded me of one of those pictures of far away galaxy's they are always picking up with the Hubble telescope. Lots of oranges and purples. But ugly.

Which proves to me the adage that ugly rovings sometimes make beautfiul yarns. I have spun this up at several different weights, some lace weight, some heavy, some worsted. They are all pretty. This picture is a little washed out, but believe me, it is a really pretty yarn. I am already knitting Ryan mittens out of it. I guess that's all for today. Boy, am I glad that Blogger is working again.

2005-11-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

The Bad News:The kids are sick. They are coughing and snotting and whining. I can't make them do school while they are sick, all they want to do is lay on various pieces of furniture and watch TV (at least they like the discovery channels, I can find stuff halfway educational anyway).

The Good News? My kids are of an age that them being sick means I have some time to do fibery stuff! I have plied 2 full bobbins of singles into yarn for gloves and a hat for one of the boys, and finished putting the ribbing in Reagan's felted mittens.

More bad news though...I can not get blogger to let me on to post pictures, although I have taken plenty of pictures. I guess you will get a lot of pictures when I get blogger working.

2005-11-26T18:24:00.000-08:00

Despite my initial misgivings, Sean and the kids were ready to put up the Christmas tree. So on our way back from town yesterday, we stopped at the Christmas Tree Farm and picked out our tree. It is a different variety than we usually get, it is called and Ice Blue Crystal Sapphire. I guess that is what inspired us to buy the blue themed Christmas ornaments, something else we don't usually do. We don't usually have a theme, But other than the three angels, the angel tree topper and the heart ornament that Sean and I bought for our first Christmas tree, we bought all new ornaments. Not a lot of them, only about $25 worth.

I put on the tensil and wired blue sparkly stuff, then added long streamers of curly ribbon. That helped a lot in ornament placement, as I could say to the kids, okay, each section of tree gets 1 of these, or 3 of these other things.

The kids helped me load the tree with ornaments, although I always get to put the angels on. The angels had been missing from action the last 4 years, but Sean found them yesterday when he cleaned out the closet, so they are back! Yeah!! It was Reagan's turn to put the angel on the top of the tree.

Well, the tree is decorated, we had a wonderful time, we are ready for Christmas (sort of), and the kids are in bed. Back to spinning and knitting!

2005-11-25T05:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't had a chance to post in a while, I have had things done, I just hadn't had a chance to sit down and post. These last few days have been really busy. I got a big chunk of time before and after dinner yesterday to wrok on the cabled sweater. I really think it is turning out nice, and despite it being slow, it was a very easy pattern to memorize.

I also finished the felted gloves for Reagan. I still have to knit a ribbing and sew it in to keep out any (very) hypothetical snow, but I think they turned out cute, and she likes them. Hopefully these will fit her a little longer than the fair isle ones I knit for her last year. She can't even get those on. I made these out of that self striping yarn I dyed, and it was a lot of fun. I have also been spinning and dyeing. I was reading on the internet during a bout of insomnia about Irish Tension. As in Scotch tension, you have a drive band and a brake band, the drive band goes around the bobbin whorl and the brake band around the flyer whorl. It is a little noisy on my wheel, but spun a very fine single with very little effort on my largest whorl. I also managed to get rid of a persistant squeaky gate sound coming from my front treadle by rubbing candle wax on the peice of wood that seperates them, and heavily oiling the leather ties that tie the treadles to the footmen. Hopefully that will last a while.

2005-11-16T08:42:00.000-08:00

I have been working on a project, and decided I needed a contrasting yarn. I still had two balls of the yarn from my felted slippers lying around, so I decided to ply them together to make a thicker yarn that could be used in the project I am working on. This is how that turned out. The yarn is very slightly over plyed, but it looks really interesting. I should have set the twist, but I need to get the project done, so I went ahead and knit. It is going to be felted anyway, so I don't think it matters that much. I guess we'll see if it was a mistake or not later.

This is the yarn I am using it with, the yarn that I showed Monday. I know it sounds weird, but they look pretty good together. I can't show you a picture of the project yet, but I will soon. I have a feeling there are going to be lots of "secret" projects cropping up on the different blogs as it gets closer to Christmas. Hope you all are staying warm where you are. We finally had a really cold morning today. I love it!

2005-11-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

I have been getting ready for Thanksgiving, getting all my pots and pans in order, etc. I won't be home for Thanksgiving again this year, we are staying here in OK after having made the trip to WV three times since June. I did bake a lot of bread and some cookies, froze them, sealed them in the Tilia food saver, and then shipped them UPS 2nd day Air to my mom this morning. If she freezes them when they get there, hopefully they will still be good at Thanksgiving. This is the one loaf that wouldn't fit in the box. It is Maple Walnut Bread This recipe calls for cinnamon chips which I didn't have. Next time I will put them in, I think it would be better. We just toasted it and put cinnamon sugar on it though, and it was delicious. I also think it would make great french toast!