Mohair and Wool

This is going to be a short one today.  There's a lot going on around here and my time is short.  But, I wanted to show you...

The photo doesn't do it justice.  It's a scarf with uneven stripes of mohair and wool.

I was searching Ravelry for something entirely different but a similar-to-this scarf popped up and it gave me the idea.  

I've been wanting to combine these two yarns forever.  I even tried knitting them held together earlier in the week.... But they looked horrible held together.  The Iceburg Aloft muddied up the Cascade 220 Wave yarn.  I was so disappointed because I've been thinking about this combo for over a year.

But then I stumbled across the Ravelry pattern, took a look at the photos and now I'm making my own version.  Hope that's considered getting inspiration, not stealing.   It's just too simple to pay for the pattern though.  I simply cast on some stitches and started knitting.  Knitting uneven stripes of mohair and the wool.  And I'm thrilled with the results.

I'm also thrilled because over the past week, I have taken my email from almost 800 pending emails down to 41.  And I'm actually reading them, not just deleting them automatically.  Well, I am deleting the "this offer is good for today only" type emails without reading them.  And of course the obvious spammy ones.  But otherwise, I'm reading them.  So, if you happen to notice and wonder why I replied to 30 of your past blog posts on one day... Well, now you know why.  I'm also getting lots of scarf knitting done while I read the emails.

I hope everyone had a good Valentine's last weekend.  Hayden painted Valentines.  And herself.  

And last but definitely not least, please say a prayer for peace for my mother-in-law.  The Alzheimer's is winning.

Makers' Monday - Love Ewe Farm

I'm bringing back the Makers' Monday series, although it will mostly likely be a once a month thing rather than weekly.  Don't remember Makers' Monday?  Rather than being all about me and what I'm doing, Makers' Monday is all about other creatives and what they are doing.  

Today, we are celebrating Betsy McPherson and her sheep at Love Ewe Farm located in Montpelier, Virginia.

Betsy McPherson, Love Ewe Farm

Betsy is a member of my Wednesday night knitting group and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her and her yarns.  Betsy gets me into lots of trouble and frequently makes me goof up my self-imposed yarn diet. My most recent shawl that I showed you the other day is using wool from Brandi (the brown) and Sadie (the white.)

Romney wool from Love Ewe Farm

Despite her bad influence on my yarn diet, I asked Betsy to tell me her story.  How did a surgical nurse become a soap making sheep farmer, author, and knitter?  This is what she said...

We moved to Montpelier Va in 2012 to a house with 15 acres of land. At the time I was working as an operating room nurse but soon found out that I needed both my hips replaced! I was only 55 and after 30 years on my feet my hubby suggested that I retire. I knew I couldn’t just sit around and because of all the land we had we decided it would be fun to raise some animals. I have always loved to knit, I love the feeling of wool yarn between my fingers and then after seeing sheep sheared at the Powhatan Festival of Fiber, choosing sheep seemed like the most logical and magical animals to raise!

I had no idea of how many sheep breeds existed in the world, so I read and researched while I was recovering from my first hip replacement. I chose the Romney breed simply because I LOVED their faces! To me they looked like the all- American sheep, there are white and natural colored Romneys, but the white faces with their beautiful black noses just spoke to me! Another reason why I chose Romneys is that their wool is the “ finest “ of the long wooled breeds. Spinners love to spin Romney, the fiber drafts very easily and it is known for being a good beginner wool to learn to spin with. And lastly, Romney ewes are known to be wonderful mothers and have gentle temperaments.

Our farm is now in our seventh year and along the way I have become a District Director for the American Romney Breeders Association and I am on the Powhatan Festival of Fibers committee and head up the animal exhibit every year. Funny how life takes us down different paths, but our previous lives always play a role in our present lives and my nursing experience has played a big part in being a sheep farmer. We had a lamb one year who’s lower eye lid was turned inward and it was irritating his cornea.....our vet was out of town so I had to put a suture underneath his eye to pull down his lower lid until the lid was trained to sit normally. I could never have done that if I wasn’t an OR nurse in my previous life!

Farm Yarn table at Center of the Yarniverse

Raising sheep is fun because of the seasons that go along with it....there is breeding season, shearing season, lambing season, and then just summer season where we watch the lambs play and grow until they are sold. We send our fleeces to a mill which makes beautiful Romney yarn for us and we sell any leftover raw fleeces to spinners at local festivals. I have learned how to felt little sheep which is a fun activity for me to do in the winter months as I await the lambs who will be born in March &April. I also make Goats Milk Soap ( we don’t have goats, I use a goats milk base )that I originally made to give to those who bought lambs from us, but so many people loved it so I keep making it to add to our table along with our yarn.

Lastly I’ve written a children’s book called Daisy and the Shepherd. I got the idea for the story while I was bottle feeding a little lamb named Tom Thumb......I looked into his sweet face everyday as I fed him and wondered what it would be like if the lambs could talk......so I put my story on paper and found a wonderful young illustrator who helped bring it to life! I have written a second book but haven’t gotten serious about it yet!

felted sheep from Love Ewe Farm

Our girls are grown and gone now (28 & 25) and I feel as if we now have 19 wonderful children in the backyard, each of whom have their own personalities and give me a purpose everyday as I shepherd them. My hubby always says that there are “highs and lows in farming” which is so true......some days are trying; tackling chores while enduring hot Virginia summers, dealing with ewes who have mastitis, or managing pasture parasites that make lambs sick, but as in all of our lives, you just have to stay positive and weather the storm!!

If you'd like to get to know Betsy in person, she invites everyone to come out and see the new little lambs that will be born in March and April.  You can schedule an appointment to see them either via email (loveewefarm@gmail.com) or through her website, loveewefarm.com.  She's also created several lovely shawl patterns that compliment her yarns which can be found on the website as well.  Additionally, her yarns are for sale at the Center of the Yarniverse as well as at the following fiber festivals this year:

• Powhatan Festival of Fiber - April 25th
• High a Fiber Festival - May 16th
• Fall a Fiber Festival - Oct 3-4

Besides the website, Betsy and her farm can be found on Facebook and Instagram with a quick search for Love Ewe Farm.

I can't wait to go visit the new lambs.  I hope any of you who are local will take Betsy up on her offer.  And hey, if you aren't local, well, you could always take a road trip!

Three on Thursday

For today's Three on Thursday, I thought I'd show you three of the many yarns I bought this past weekend at the fiber festival.  These three skeins have no intended purpose.  Yet.

Left to right, they are:

1.  Winter's Candy Cane from Puff the Magic Rabbit.  I was thinking socks when I bought this, but now I'm considering a hat and mittens instead.  The yarn is a superwash but it's 100% merino so it may make a better hat than socks.

2.  Another Puff the Magic Rabbit yarn called Christmas Tree Lights.  I am head over heels in love with this yarn!  It really does look a Christmas tree lit up with multicolored lights.  It's gorgeous, it sparkles, and it's what drew me into Puff the Magic Rabbit's booth.  I'd already decided that I was too hot and cranky, and I'd spent too much money and I wasn't buying anything else.  But Sarah pointed out Winter's Candy Cane (she knew I wanted to knit another pair of Christmas socks) and Christmas Tree Lights was next to the Candy Cane.... I have no idea what I'll knit with this but what ever the yarn turns into, it will be for me and I will love it.

3.  Twizzelfoot in the Harmony Moss colorway from Mountain Colors.  Its merino wool & silk fiber content make it incredibly soft and I just love the mossy green color. I'm looking forward to seeing how it knits up. Again, I have no idea what I'll use this yarn for but most likely it will be a shawl or scarf.

Sunday Hats - Arabella Two

It's Sunday Hats day!

Arabella Two, Woman of the Water

Today's pattern is the Arabella Two hat which you can find in Woman on the Water, an Etsy shop.  The listing suggests worsted weight yarn & US9 needles so it should be a pretty quick knit.  I particularly like the cabled brim.  I also think the pattern could be quite versatile.  Knit with wool, it would be a nice, warm winter hat.  Knit with a cotton blend, it would be a cute summer hat.  So, go check out the pattern here and send me photos of your finished project.  I'd love to see them!

Moving on to other topics....

It was pointed out (thanks, Kate!) that I forgot to include the fiber content in my post about my newest Pi shawl.  It's 100% superwash merino wool.  What does that mean?  Well, the wool comes from a merino sheep and well, I have no idea how they make it 'superwash' but 'superwash' means that it won't felt & if you want to risk putting it in the washing machine, you can.  The reason I say 'risk' the washing machine is because there always seems to be a crayon, a pen, a tube of lipstick, a pack of gum, a Tootsie Roll, a couple of screws and/or a wad of tissues hiding out in the washer whenever I wash something important.  But, if you don't have that problem at your house, you can machine wash your superwash knits.

So, what is a merino sheep, you ask?

Milligansganderhillfarm.com

Momma and her baby.  Adorable right?

sheep101.info

The proud pappa sheep look rather fierce & protective.

Well, happy Sunday.  I'm off to knit a hat, a few rounds on the Pi shawl and maybe even venture outside.  The sun is finally shining & it's supposed to be over 50 degrees today.  Yay, spring!

Growing Gills

I'm starting to grow gills.  June 1st marked the beginning of Hurricane Season & while we haven't had an actual hurricane yet, we certainly have had a lot of wet.  Tropical Storm Andrea arrived the first week of June & brought flooding rains.  I'm not sure how much rain we actually got, but they'd been predicting 6 inches.  Here's a photo of the Rappahannock River.  Every other day since, we've had massive thunderstorms which have each dumped 1 - 3 more inches of rain on us. This afternoon's storm is supposed to be the wildest so far as far as wind & tornados & may give us another 3 inches of rain.  In other words, I'm growing gills!

So, my new "real" job where some other company that I have no ownership rights to pays me is kicking my butt.  Rather literally.  I am so beaten up!  I fear I'll loose a fingernail from where I dropped a bag of rolled coin on my hand, that same hand has multiple cuts & scrapes, my forearm is bruised, both of my calves are bruised and I have a scrape/cut on my ankle.  And let's don't forget the first day's shin splints.  (Luckily they went away after only a few days.)  Who knew counting money could be so dangerous!  The job is a lot more physical than I'd ever have thought possible.  The actual counting of the money, not so much, but gathering & storing the money takes muscle.  But, injured or not, I still love the job.  So much so that I sort of feel like a Stepford employee.  The people are fantastic, they don't mind my constant questions (not yet, at least,) they are friendly & kind to the clueless newbies & everyone in my area seems to get a long well.  We also have a nice bathroom (which can be dang important!) with THE absolute coolest toilet paper dispenser.  So, yeah.  My life is so pathetic these days, I'm excited about a toilet paper dispenser.  But this thing is awesome!  It doesn't appear to be all that freakishly large, but it holds about 8 rolls & when one roll runs out, you just spin the dial & a new roll is ready & waiting.  I so want one for our house.  They can keep their money - they'll never have to worry about me stealing the cash, but if I can figure out a way of smuggling that toilet paper dispenser out of there, I'm taking it!

The only problem with the job is that it's severely cutting into my knitting time.  In the two weeks I've been working there, I've only knit one shawl.

And it's not even that large of a shawl nor did I use a tricky lace pattern that took forever to knit.  It's just simple garter stripes of gray & red with a solid red stockinette ruffle.  I like it though.  The red is bright & cheerful but the gray tones it down so it doesn't look like a stoplight & the ruffle girlies up the gray & red stripes just a bit.  It's another one of those shawls that I was planning to put in the shop but I may end up keeping for myself.

To add more color to this post...

My sad attempt at rose gardening.  I'm not sure you can call it "gardening" though.  Several years ago, my husband's buddy dropped by with a pickup truck full of plants he'd been hired to remove from someone's home.  He knew our "garden" consisted of not much more than crabgrass & thought we could use them.  Anyway, most of the plants have done exceptionally well.  This poor rosebush, however, has not exactly thrived.  First, it died.  I cut the trunk of it back just about to the ground & the next year, it came back & started to grow.  It just didn't grow roses.  For the past 3 or 4 years, it's produced a few leaves & grown a little in size but hasn't produced more than one or two roses.  But this year...  Blooms galore!  Of course, if you look closely, you'll see that the leaves are covered in brown spots which I'm sure mean something dreadful will happen to it soon.  Time will tell.

Can you tell?  I consider myself a naturalist gardener.  At least that's what I like to call myself rather than someone who kills plants constantly due to my lack of effort & caring.

And with that, I'll bid you adieu as I need to go hop in the shower & get ready for work.

Hail to the Redskins!

I'm not feeling overly creative at the moment, we are having a massive thunderstorm with dime sized hail and I needed a blog title so....

Hail to the Redskins.

Although I freely admit to being a yarn snob, I couldn't resist Red Heart's Team Spirit in Redskin colors.  That's Mr. Freaky Face modeling the hat.  He's very happy to have ear flaps because they cover up the dent in his ear from where he recently took a tumble off the shelf.

I haven't made much progress at all on the latest chevron scarf.

I wasn't feeling the love & quickly put it down & started another blanket instead.

I got the idea from a rug I saw in a magazine.  I'm using Fibonacci's numbers (the Fibonacci number?? not sure how to word that) for the stripe sequence & solid color scrap yarn for the stripes.  I like it & hate it at the same time.  It's bright and gaudy and tacky but oddly, the bigger it gets, the less gaudy & tacky it seems.  Is that what they mean by "growing on me"?

While working on the blanket squares, I watched Once Upon a Time on Netflix.  I started noticing all the different hats the characters wear which got me thinking about hats and how much easier & quicker they are to knit than a blanket and...

Voila!  The beginning of a hat.  On my screen, it looks like slate gray yarn but it's actually a dark gray.  Palette's "Ash" to be exact.  I chose the yarn simply because it was within reach & I had two skeins (wasn't sure one would be enough.)  It doesn't look like much yet, but it's going to be my version of Red's hat, only in gray.  It's also going to be slow going because once again, I'm using fingering weight yarn & #2 needles.  I really should stop complaining about that.  With the exception of that Red Heart hat up above, I don't think I've used anything but fingering (or worse, lace) weight yarn for the past year or two.  I think it may be time to give in and admit that all my projects take me a while.

Well, the hail has finally stopped and the thunderstorm seems to have moved on.  Think I'll go see if the newly planted tomato plants survived.

Scarf fever

I've got scarf fever!  My knitting obsession seems to have turned to scarves.  I'm choosing to ignore my list of about 80 things I'd planned to knit for the summer & instead, I'm madly knitting wool scarves.  At least I know I'll be warm come winter.

Yesterday, I finished this beauty:

I started with a mitered square and turned it into a loooooong rectangle.  The yarns are Knit Pick's Palette and a Jawoll Magic knit on US 3 needles.  It took me several tries, but I'm happy with the outcome.  I'd started out using only the Jawoll but the scarf was eating yarn like crazy & I decided I wouldn't have enough.  I frogged that & started over using a coordinating blue Palette & the Jawoll but although the two skeins looked great sitting next to each other, the knit stripes weren't so hot.  I frogged it again & gave the black a try.  Hats off to the Jawoll for surviving two froggins!

Rather than weaving in the ends & blocking it, I promptly cast on for another scarf.

I'm not sure I like  how the stripes are falling on the chevron pattern but I'm hoping it will grow on me.   The yarn is Patons Kroy Socks which I've used many times and the needles are Knit Pick's interchangeables, size US 4.  Have I mentioned how glad I am to finally have a set of interchangeables?    I love my interchangeables!  They are like my Kindle.  I thought I was probably throwing away money when I bought both the Kindle & the interchangeables, but everyone else had one so....  Turns out, Everyone was right!  They each quickly proved their value & became prized possessions.

Well, it's a cool, rainy day here & the couch & afghan (hand knit, of course!) are calling.  I think it's definitely time for a rare afternoon nap.
   

Champions!

Wow!  I've been horrible about blogging.  I blame many things; laziness, an obsession over my recent knitting projects, and my son's bowling & work schedules.  The boy child recently got his first job working as a mechanic at a bowling alley.  He's in Heaven!  The glitch is, he still doesn't have his driver's license & he doesn't get off work until 1 a.m.  And the bowling alley is an hour away from home.  Which means, I am surviving on about 3 hours of sleep at night since we don't get home  until 2:00 or 2:30 a.m. and that %$#@%^ loud, chirpy, morning-loving-bird starts making a racket at 6 a.m.  By 6:30 a.m., the woodpecker has joined in and any hope for additional sleep is lost.

I've also been spending a lot of time watching my son bowl recently.  The Youth YBA season was winding down & there have been lots of tournaments & end of the season hoop-la to attend.  Besides the regular schedule of bowling 4 days a week, there was the awards banquet for Zack's regular youth league.  Zack brought home several trophies, lots of patches (so many that for the first time, I'm thankful that he nails them to his bedroom wall instead of asking me to sew them onto something) and a ring.

Zack was presented with the ring for rolling an 820 set which was a youth record breaker.  It's a really nice ring, sterling silver & has his name, date & score engraved on the inside.  Sadly, he didn't get to hold his place as a record breaker for long.  Another local youth, Austin Washington (hope I have his name correct) rolled an 825 this past week.  I'm not positive  he rolled it during sanctioned league play though, so it may not count as an official score.

Zack's travel league also came to an end, with, wait for it.....  AMF Sunset becoming league CHAMPIONS!  AMF never wins, a Bowl America team always does, but not this year!  I'm so proud of the kids!  The last two games of the season were quite tense & the kids handled that stress much better than the parents!  Way to go kids!

It was a bit of a bitter sweet victory for us though.  It marked the end of Zack's youth bowling career.  He still has the State tournament in June & the Jr. Gold tournament in July, but this past weekend was the end of his youth team play.  My baby is growing up!

Meanwhile, amongst all the bowling, I've been getting a little knitting done.

I finished the mitered square afghan.

Pardon the messy desk.  After weaving in all those blasted little ends, I realized that I didn't have a decent place to photograph it.  I'm quite happy with the way it turned out and I used up lots of little scrap balls, although I probably still have enough to make another.  Shhh.....  don't let me have that thought for a while.  I have other projects I need to focus on instead of making another afghan.  Anyway, it was knit with fingering weight wool on #2 needles.  Fifteen rows of eight squares, and each square contains 440 stitches for a grand total of 52,800 stitches.  Hmm, sort of wish I hadn't done the math!

Yesterday I finished a chevron scarf.  It was knit with Patons Kroy Socks & a #4 needle.  I've said it before & I'll say it again, for "cheap" craft store yarn, it doesn't get much better than Patons Kroy.  I used 2 full skeins and I still need to weave in the ends & block it.  I have one skein left & I'm trying to decide if I should knit matching fingerless gloves or a hat.

And to prove that I have done something other than knit & hang out in bowling alleys,

The spinach is starting to come up although it still looks more like rows of weeds than spinach.

I also got a few tomato plants planted.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

That rascally groundhog lied.  Phil promised an early spring.  Instead, we have this:

For the 4th or 5th time since he made his early spring prediction, we found ourselves driving to a bowling tournament in the snow yesterday.  Today, the snow continues.

Despite the weather, it’s been a busy week with lots of little accomplishments or experiences.  First & most exciting, I went to bread baking class last week.  For the life of me, I can not bake bread.  I end up with cinderblocks every single time.  Even with the bread machine, if I take the dough out & make rolls, I end up with hockey puck shaped cinderblocks.  My lack of ability makes me absolutely crazy.  So, I turned to a professional.

First, she taught me how to make & knead the dough.

Second, she was great about not making me wait for it to cool completely before cutting into a loaf.  Yum!

I haven’t had the opportunity to try making bread all by myself in my own kitchen yet, but I’m looking forward to the chance.  Maybe tomorrow if things go well.  

I finally blocked the Pond Water shawlette that I mentioned here.

A close up:

I absolutely love how it turned out and am going to have a hard time listing it for sale in my shop  but I promised myself I would, so....  If the sun ever shines again, I’ll get it properly photographed & listed.

Meanwhile, my fish tank of little, tiny balls of scrap yarn reached the over-flow stage so I started another mitered square afghan.  I really do love making them.  Even the ones knit in all garter never get boring because of the constant color changes, plus, I feel very self important by being all green & frugal while using up scrap yarn.

I had hoped to be a lot further along with it by now, but I found myself in the driver’s seat all weekend instead in the knitting seat.  Normally, my husband & I take turns driving my son to the bowling alley (he bowls Friday, Saturday & Sundays.)  But this weekend, my husband got called away for work.  It wasn’t even the good kind of called away where I get a few days vacation from cooking (the kids would just as well rather eat sandwiches or frozen pizza than a real meal.)  Instead, he got the call around 11 p.m. on Thursday that he needed to go to NY on Friday.  He left Virginia mid day on Friday, drove to upstate NY, did the requested repairs on Saturday morning, & drove home that evening.  By 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, he was home & wanting to know if there were any dinner left overs.  Argh!  I am glad he got home before the most recent snow storm hit though.  But the point of this was, I ended up having to drive to the bowling alley each day.   And to make life even more fun & less knitty, my son was bowling in Richmond while my daughter had places to be in Fredericksburg, 60 miles in the opposite direction, each day.  Basically, all I did all weekend was drive up & down 95.  And for once, I didn’t even hit any horrible traffic jams where I could pull out the knitting & get a few rows in before traffic moved again. 

But, if I stop rambling & wrap this post up, I can go knit for an hour or so.  

So......

March in Virginia

So far, it's proving to be a pretty typical March in Virginia.

We had a snow storm followed by several days of temperatures in the mid 60's.  The snow started Tuesday night & continued through Wednesday evening.  As is typical of Virginia weather, the storm couldn't make up it's mind what it wanted to be - rain or snow.  It would snow like crazy for an hour or so & the snow would accumulate to 5 to 7 inches, then it would rain like crazy for 30 minutes  & compact/melt the snow down to just a couple of inches, then it would change back to snow & start accumulating again.  Those periods of rain sure did a number on the travelers as it turned the roads into slushy, icy disaster zones, but it sure helped keep the total snow accumulation down.  If it hadn't been for the rain, we'd still be trying to dig out.

While it snowed, I knit.

It's a chevron scarf desperately in need of a good blocking.  I've also started another mitered square blanket.  I have several of them in the works, but I think I like this new one the best.  I'm not exactly happy with the square size of the other two, one's too large & one's squares are too small.  This new project is the Goldilocks of them & seems to be just right.  I've only gotten eight squares done so far so there wasn't much to photograph.

I also finally got around to blocking Sarah's scarf.

It looks much better in real life.  The light is horrible in that picture, plus the gray mannequin does nothing for the bright colors of the yarn.  Sarah seems to be happy with it and I think she'll be able to get a lot of wear out of it.  It's wool so it should be warm in the winter, but it's extremely light weight & lacy so I think she'll be able to wear it in the summer too.

For non-knitting news, I need to take a moment to say how proud I am of my son.  I've mentioned before that he bowls.  This past Saturday, he rolled an 820 set.  His coach thinks it's probably a state youth record, so that's pretty exciting!  A 900 would be three perfect games (36 strikes) in a row.  If Zack's information is correct only 17 people have rolled a 900.  Sixteen of them were adults & one is a youth with an unconfirmed score.   Also, with only three more weeks to go, his youth travel league remains in first place with quite a few points separating them from the second place team.  It's a little too early to start bragging, but ....  Go Sunsetters!

Well, I hear scrap yarn & mitered squares calling me.  And unfortunately, I think the laundry may be making some noise too.

Racing

I'm racing to get this blog post done.  I have 10 minutes before I need to go get dressed for today's grown up lunch with grown up women.  Grown ups!  I get to go see grown ups!

Yes, motherhood has been kinda getting to me lately.

I've been knitting like crazy lately & finally finished Sarah's scarf.  Which I haven't blocked or photographed.  I finished a cowl that I also have not blocked or photographed.  I'm excited about the brown cowl though - I have left over yarn.  Enough to either knit a pair of fingerless gloves or a pair of boot socks.  I can't decide which.  Feel free to chime in with your vote.  And of course, I still have not blocked the "pond water" shawlette.  The blocking pile is steadily growing and it mocks me.

Instead of blocking, I'm knitting another chevron scarf.

The colors aren't showing up well, but it's light grey, pale slate blue & green.  It screams "wear me with your favorite faded blue jeans" so of course, I love it!

Well, the clock is ticking down & I'm outta here!  Going to grown up lunch with grown up women & we'll eat grown up food & have grown up conversations.  I am so excited!  So excited, you'd think I was 12 & headed to Justin Bieber concert.  Good grief!

Don't forget to vote - fingerless gloves or boot socks?

Group W

I thought my baby boy turning 18 was bad enough but today he received his invitation from the Selective Service to take a seat on the Group W bench.  I have all the respect in the world for our military, but boy, am I glad there's no more draft.  Zack does not handle being bossed well without a clear & detailed understanding of why he's being told to do something.  He also does not have a single follwer bone in his body.  Zack would never survive the military lifestyle.

In knitting news, not much has changed.

The skein has gotten slightly smaller & the scarf has gotten slightly longer.  That's about it.

Instead of knitting, I've been rearranging furniture, purging & filing.   For several years, I've been using a desk made from a bathroom sink base & topped with el-cheapo kitchen counter laminate.  And for years, I've been hating that desk & swearing I was going to toss it out the window.  I finally reached the breaking point last week.  I didn't toss it out the window, but I did move it aside.  I'm now using an old dining room table as a desk & the old desk is pulled up to the end of the table (it fits perfectly!) for extra space to pile stuff.

Because the table turned desk doesn't have drawers, I also rearranged the one zillion plastic file cabinet/drawer things I have.  I ended up tucking several of those plastic drawer things under the table & so far, it's working great.  One of the plastic drawer things is on wheels so I can pull it out & use its top to set stuff on as well.  I've also rearranged the entire desk area so that my back is to the wall instead of to the room.  In the process of moving everything around, I decided to purge quite a bit of crafting paraphernalia that I have either never used or haven't used in years.  Much of that you'll be seeing over the next few weeks in my shop.

All in all, I'm loving the new desk arrangement.  I find I'm much more motivated to get to work in the mornings.  The only problem is, once my mind starts to wander, there's a whole lot more to look at now.  Instead of staring at the wall with one motivational quote on it, I can see the whole rest of the room.  And there's a LOT of stuff in this room.  It's a large room & serves many purposes.  My husband's office is on the other side, all of our homeschooling stuff is in here, the drum set lives in here (because it's so much fun to do office stuff while a teenager bangs away on the drums) and the room also serves as our "family" room with the TV & thousands of gaming systems.  I'm thinking I may hang curtain rods from the ceiling & "wall" myself into the corner some how.

Hmmm.....  maybe I could knit the curtains.....

Pop Quiz

Pop quiz....  How many times do I have to do the same load of laundry over again before I remember to take it from the washer & put it in the dryer so that I have clean, fresh smelling clothes instead of a wet, moldy lump of clothes?  They say "three's a charm" but I'm hoping that this fourth washing will be the one that makes it into the dryer.

I've once again taken a full month to write a blog post.  Good grief!  What is wrong with me?  I'd like to say it's because I've been so  busy knitting & otherwise being productive that I haven't had time, but sadly, no, it's more like I've just been lazy.  I'm blaming Netflix.  A few months ago, my daughter lay moaning on the couch from the flu & she found a free trial offer so we signed up.  I know, everyone else in the free world has already tired of Netflix & moved on, but our family tends to run about 15 years behind everyone else, technologically speaking.  Anyway....  I fell in love!  I can sit at my desk & pretend I'm working when in fact I'm obsessively watching eight seasons of various TV shows.  It's fantastic!

Luckily, I can knit & watch TV at the same time.  Granted, I've been spending so much time choosing the next show to watch that I haven't gotten that much knitting done, but....

 Before blocking....

After blocking.   Actually, during blocking. The candle is in the photo simply as a reference as to how much the shawl grew during the blocking process.  It's knit with two skeins of Patons Kroy Sock's yarn, one in blues & one in pinks.  I'm not normally a lover of pink, but I love the way these yarns blended with each other.  I also really like Patons Kroy Sock's yarn.  It's inexpensive, it knits up well, it feels good in my hands, and it seems to hold up well.  I've only knit one pair of socks with it, mostly I use it for shawls, but the one pair have held up in the wash just fine for over a year.  I'd planned to put this shawl in my Etsy shop but during blocking, I noticed an extra yarn over along the center column.  Items with obvious errors don't make it into the shop.  Too bad, looks like I get to keep this gorgeous shawl!

During the past month, I also knit this shawlette:

I'm calling it Pond Water.

 Not an overly attractive name, but the blurr of greens, blues & browns screams pond water.  The "pond water" yarn is Opal's Vincent Van Gogh and the solid green is Froclicking Feet.  I love the way the it turned out and can't wait for it to be blocked.

Apparently, I can wait.  It's been finished for several days & I haven't tossed into the bathwater yet.  It's been cold & cloudy & our house is freezing.  No matter how much I like the shawlette & want to see the finished product, I can't bring myself to hand wash anything in cold water at the moment.  Can you say, wuss?  It is supposed to warm up later in the week....

The other day, I discovered a new local yarn shop.  Actually, it's not all that new, just new to me.  The shop has been open a while now, but it's in a part of town I don't get to often.  After visiting the shop, I think I'll be driving to that area much more frequently from now on!  Anyway... my daughter talked me into knitting a scarf for her.

The yarn is from Araucania Yarns.  I'd like to tell you more about it but I can't read the tag.  The yarn itself is fantastic, but the label...  The label is horrible.  It's gold ink printed on brown paper and the print is microscopic.  Even if the gold ink didn't blend into the brown paper & become invisible, I still wouldn't be able to read it because the print is so small.  The yarn shop tells me it says that it's 450 yards of hand painted merino.  What ever it is, it's lovely to work with.  The finished scarf will require some serious blocking though.  I'm using a fishbone lace pattern but unblocked, it looks more like ribbing.

Another thing that's kept me busy...

My baby boy turned 18 yesterday.  Apparently entering adulthood didn't affect his fondness for having his picture taken.  Or maybe he's mad because he had to light his own, single birthday cake candle.   He's also wearing the exact same shirt he's worn for the last two birthdays. Wonder if that means I need to take him shopping or if he's just a loyal Disturbed fan.  Anyway, happy birthday, Zack!

Bowling Fumes

I'm pretty excited & still slightly high on bowling fumes.  My son is one of a team of three Virginia State High School Scratch Division bowling champions.  The tournament was last weekend & it was a Very intense day of bowling.  My son's team, the Richmond team, and the second place team from Tidewater fought each other for the lead all day.  The championship win came down to the last throw of the last ball of the last game.  Talk about tense!  I think I ground my teeth down to nubs.  The tension wasn't helped by the fact that the bowling alley's equipment kept malfunctioning which caused long pauses in the bowling.  All those pauses can really mess with a bowler's bowling mojo but the kids handled it well.  I was extremely proud of their professionalism and awesome sportsmanship attitude.  Congratulations Richmond, VA!

There's Zack receiving his Championship trophy and scholarship awards certificate.  I cropped his teammates out of the picture because I failed to get their permission to post their photos & I think it's rude to post names or pics of other people's kids without permission.

On to knitting news....

Even though I finished the shawl in early December, I'm still high on yarn fumes from the Starry Night project.

The photo is pretty lousy.  For one thing, I can not fathom what possessed me to recover my mannequin in that weird gray fabric.  Yes I can, it was on clearance & I was being cheap.  Stupid move!  Nothing shows up well against that gray.

But the shawl itself is Gorgeous!  The moment it was unpinned from the blocking mats, it became my favorite knitted piece.  Ever!  I've worn it so many times, I've already had to wash it!

Again, a really horrible photo, but it shows how I use it as a scarf instead of a shawl.  The colors aren't showing up very well, but the yarn is a tonal blue that ranges from favorite faded blue jeans to an almost black blue and it's got just the tiniest bit of silver sparkle added for interest.  And it's soft!  So cuddly soft!  The shawl's softness is partially why I've had to wash it already - I find myself stroking & petting it every time I wear it.  Honestly, I was a little surprised by the softness of the finished product.  The yarn itself, while not uncomfortable in the least to knit with, didn't have that "pet me" feel to it.  Maybe because it was lace weight which sort of never feels pettable.  Just not enough width to the yarn to pet I guess.  I was also a little worried that the Stellina (what makes it sparkle) would be scratchy, but it's not.  You can't even feel the Stellina.  But during blocking, the yarn bloomed just a teeny tiny bit and Poof!  A gorgeous, pettable shawl was born.

 The yarn is Night Sky and it came from a fellow Etsian, Swift Fiber Studio.  Tamsin, the shop owner was a delight to work with & quick to answer questions, so if you are in the market, please check out her shop.

Currently, I'm working on a chevron scarf using self striping sock yarn.

I really like the way the stripes are working out.  I'd be finished by now but I keep having to tink row repeats.  For the life of me, I can not remember to purl two together at the end of the purl rows.  This is definitely one item who's price will not be based on an actual hourly rate!

I may have to pause the chevron scarf today & go knit myself a new sweater, hat & mittens.  So far, it's been an extremely mild winter.  We've only had a few nights were the temperature has dipped below freezing but the cold arctic air is swooping down towards us and tomorrow we are supposed to see 13 degrees.  Brrr!  I think 13 degrees is definitely new sweater worthy!  Now, if I only had some yarn....

I do believe I need to grow my stash pile!

Off to find the yarn catalog....