Knitting

Melissa Gilbert Promoting Her New Cookbook!!!

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Melissa Gilbert - New Cookbook

Melissa Gilbert – New Cookbook

I talked my daughter into giving me an early Birthday present.  She took me to see Melissa Gilbert (Laura of Little House on the Prairie) who was in town, yesterday, to promote her newest endeavor, a cookbook.  The cookbook is wonderful and as a bonus it has many photos of behind the scenes things and stories of the Little House TV series, and in the book she also answered questions that have been asked regarding the series.  All in all a very fun cookbook, and she was very entertaining.  She talked for a little over an hour, including letting the audience ask her questions.  At the end, she signed the all cookbooks.  The audience was so large that they ran out and not everyone was able to buy one, they brought 100 books to sell at the promotion – they hadn’t expected quite so many people,  I had told my daughter we needed to get there at least an hour early, so glad we did :).  Yesterday was the 1st day of it’s release, so my daughter and I got one of the first 100 books sold on the first day of it’s release.   It was a very fun day!! 🙂  She is a delightful person :).

I am working on 4 knitted items, in this order – a comfort shawl for a friend who had her twins too early and they didn’t live (it’s close to being done), the scarf from the handspun from a friends sheep’s fleece, finishing the sweater I promised a very special little one, and a pair of prairie boots I promised another special person. 🙂  Pictures will be provided when I am done with each. 🙂

Yes, the Scarf is Finished :)

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1st Fleece to Scarf Done

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Ok, this Little Lace Cat’s Paw Scarf took longer than a week, but it is finished (I just knit on it when I had time, that is why I don’t make promises :P).  I took it to Church with me today, but the teen (my friend’s daughter) this scarf was knit for and her family weren’t there.  I can give this to her next week.  I was a bit surprised that the scarf wasn’t quite as soft as I had thought it would be for a lambs fleece, then it hit me, this is a cross bred lamb.  The rams are Suffolk and the ewes are polypay (the lambs are raised for meat), the polypay is a fine fleece and the suffolk  is considered a medium fleece.   So it only stands to reason that the cross bred lamb’s fleece would be a little coarser than a full polypay lambs fleece would be.  It’s still not too scratchy and should serve her as a nice warm scarf here in the midwest, where our winters get pretty nasty sometimes.

 

Polypay Ewe Roving – Spinning

.I have begun spinning the polypay ewe’s roving, which is what made me wonder why the lambs roving was coarser.  It’s soft and very easy to spin with very little vm (vegetable matter for non spinners) in it and no noils :).  Tho’ I have to admit, I severely skirted this fleece because of the way the roving came back on the lambs fleece (still full of vm and noils from not having skirted as well and not seperating the shorter fiber of the neck and legs out from the prime saddle part of the fleece).  Live and learn, and I think I did :P.  This when spun, will become a blue scarf for my friend that gave me this fleece. 🙂  I have two patterns picked out, but haven’t commited to which one yet, still have plenty of time to make my final choice.  Will post the picture and link to the pattern when I have made that final choice.

1st Skein of the Polypay Lambs Roving is……… Done :)

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1st skein polypay lamb roving

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I finally finished this polypay skein!!!   It’s been a while since I started it.  I should have finished it long ago, but I was busy (and maybe a little lazy too).  The picture on the left is just wound from the spool to the pvp pipe niddy noddy.  There are some really pretty wooden niddy noddys but this one suffices :).  It is a 2 yard wrap so if my math is correct I spun 258 yards which should be plenty for the scarf I will be knitting.  It is a sport weight (about 18 wraps per inch).  The picture on the right is after I used the red (Crimson) Jacquard acid dye.  She chose the red dye and I have chosen to knit my Little Lace Cat’s Paw Scarf pattern because the teen I am knitting this for loves cats.  I think she will like the pattern. 🙂

 Soon I will start spinning the next skein  from the Ewe Polypay fleece my friend gave me, and will make a scarf for her to thank her for the fleece.   That way they will have one, fleece to finished scarf, from both fleeces :).  I will post a picture of the finished scarf when I have it done, hopefully this week, but as I always tell my children, no promises, only that I will try.

Bison Scarf Finished :)

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Bison little lace scarf

A friend of mine has a friend with a Bison herd (American Buffalo).  She asked me if I could make something nice for her friend from the down that her bison shed every spring, and I agreed to do so.  She collected the down and sent me about 7 ozs or so, which included the weight of the mud and dirt, and I sent it off to a fiber mill to be dehaired and processed into roving or fluff so I could spin it and knit a scarf for her.  I have used this fiber mill before and they do a lovely job of processing, and anyone familiar with the fiber mills know there is always a wait because they are very busy.   Unfortunately a misunderstanding occurred in understanding the processing I had requested and they blended and spun it into yarn.  Because bison is such a short fiber the mill blends with with another fine fiber (merino) for spinning it into yarn.  The yarn is beautiful, so their work is still impeccable, but my friend’s friend wanted pure bison fiber for the scarf.  The box I got back had a beautiful skein of sport weight blended bison yarn (I would have spun it a little lighter into a heavy sock weight), some left over roving (which is very soft and wonderful) and the hair that came from the dehairing.  Tho I know there is weight lost during the washing process, I didn’t realize how much was lost in the dehairing process as I’ve never had a fiber that required it before so that was a learning process for me, but it was still enough for a nice scarf a little less long than I had intended.  I got the finished scarf, used my Little Lace Cast’s Paw scarf pattern, off in the mail on Tuesday and she should get the scarf and left over fibers today. 🙂  I hope she will be pleased with the results even if it wasn’t quite what she had wanted.  There is always next year.  Oh the fiber mill was very apologetic, they had just hired a new employee who was still learning what to do with the orders.  All is forgiven, their work is very nice.

Hmmm, the depths of deep space seems to have eaten my last post which was about football season and my beloved Cowboys, maybe WordPress doesn’t like the Cowboys, hmmm, gonna sneak it back in here anyway.  😛  GO COWBOYS!!!

1st Skein of the Teal Superwash Merino is DONE!

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1st Skein of Teal Superwash Merino

Ok, I finally have this skein done, between the “busyness” at work when I started it and re-organizing my time after early retirement, I have finally finished it.  I’m working with a new (old) program for fixing the pictures my digital camera takes and I’m not real sure about how to use it yet, but I’m sure as I mess around with it I will understand it better.  It’s very different than the one I was using and it has a little bit better control over what I want to do.  I’m sure my friend will be happy to get this so she can start on the shawl for the fair and I hope I haven’t stressed her out with how late I am getting this to her.  The next skein is already started  and I’m hopeful that I will have it done by this week end.  I will wind this into a center pull ball for her and get it in the mail to her tomorrow.

It’s General Conference weekend and I have thoroughly enjoyed conference so far.  One more session this afternoon.  We have General Conference 2 times a year and it is on both Saturday and Sunday, the beginning of April and the beginning of Oct and I look forward to them each time.  What a spiritual uplift they give. 🙂  Next Sunday I will be singing with the choir for Easter Sunday, and it’s a beautiful song.  The name of the song is Did You See Him in the Garden and you can hear it here by someone else on youtube.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, how could you not it’s SPRING!!!!

2nd Wisp Shawl Finished!

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click picture for larger image

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I got this shawl finished yesterday evening and was able to block it last night and it was dry when I woke up this morning so I ran it down to my friend.  She was pleased with the result and that made me very happy ;).

It’s an easy pattern to knit even tho’ it looks complicated.  Once I have the projects on my plate finished, I will try to find a nice heavy lace weight to fingerling yarn and make another one of these. :).

I picked up some more homespun from Lionbrand to make a comfort shawl for my future daughter in law who lost her father 2 months ago.  I hope she will like the color I chose.  I wanted to find out what her father’s favorite color was and make it that color but I didn’t get that information and the yarn was on sale this holiday week end so I picked out what I hope will be an soothing color to help with her grief.  I’ll be doing the Tara Shawl again.  It’s quick, easy and, with their homespun yarn, pretty.  I’ll post a picture after I get it started and enough done on the shawl so that you can see what the color will look like.  I do not use the fringe when I make this shawl, fringe, to me seems to get in the way more often than not.

Wisp Shawl Started

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click picture for larger image

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I’ve been working on comfort shawls this last year while starting this shawl languished, but I’ve finally got it started.  I decided on the Wisp shawl because it’s light and airy looking.  I’m not using the light weight yarn the pattern calls for tho, I’m using my hand spun which is about sport weight.  I’m also making it a little wider so it will cover more to keep her warmer in church or keep the chill of the fall and winter nights away.  I still have another skein or two to spin, part of one is on my wheel and I will try to finish it before I run out of the skein I am knitting from now because I knit during lunch at work for something to do.  This cria is sooooo soft, it is a pleasure to spin and knit with.   I’ll try to post another picture as I get more of it done.  You’ll notice the ball of yarn is not in a pull skein, because I forgot to wind it into a pull skein and took the long skein to work and ended up having to wind it by hand on my desk, but I didn’t mind because it’s so soft and squishy ;).

3rd Comfort Shawl Done

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3rd Comfort Shawl started

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Yes, it’s the same picture because I finished it on my lunch hour at work and gave it to her so I didn’t get a finished picture, I know, I’m bad.  She was so surprised and held it close and said, it’s so warm.  I hope it will give her many days of warmth and comfort.

I’m starting another shawl, but this will be the one that I’m spinning the cria (baby alpaca) for a friend just because.  I have one skein and a spool on the wheel that I need to spin more onto and then ply it so that will give me 2 skeins.  I will need 3 maybe 4 skeins for this shawl.  It’s one I’ve done before, the Wisp shawl.  It’s light and very pretty.  I think light and airy for the warmth of the alpaca would be good, because alpaca is very warm.

I’ve been so moody this week, and then it hit me why, today would have been my youngest son’s birthday.  Happy Birthday son, I miss you.

I had to take Thor to the vet’s last week end.  He’s having some bowel issues and they put him on anti-biotics and a steroid.  She said if he’s better after the round of anti-biotics (the steroid is in the anti-biotic) then it was a helobactor infection and he should be fine, and that is my hope.  If not and it comes back  then it was an inflammation problem and the steroid was taking care it in the lower colon area, and she will try a different anti-biotic for the lower bowel and see if that takes care of it, and if not then she will have to do a biopsy to see what is going on.  Poor Thor was not a happy camper about getting his temperature taken (he had a sore bottom) – this was his first trip to the vet and I don’t think he likes vets now :P.  I’m glad I had a some savings, and it took it all.  This is why I don’t recommend ferrets to those who do not like to spend money at the vet’s office as the ferrets get older, because you will.  I have my own health check up’s coming soon and when all the free wellness checks that my health insurance takes care of for the year are done, I will be dropping my health insurance so that I can use the premiums I was paying for to take care of Thor.  He comes first.  Other than the free wellness checks (and they cover a lot of things), it was more of a catastrophic insurance plan, because it doesn’t pay for anything until I’ve spent $5,000 out of my own pocket, except for the wellness stuff.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL? 2011

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Are you ready for some football?

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I was afraid that there wasn’t going to be any football this year.  But they got it all figured out and we are in Pre-Season!!!  I didn’t get to see the Cowboys play their first pre-season game because it wasn’t televised, but they won!!!  I watched the Bears beat the Bills last night.  My son-in-law I’m sure is a very happy camper because he is a huge Bears fan :).  My daughter, like me, is a Cowboys fan, makes for an interesting household when those two teams play each other  :P.  My oldest son is a Steelers fan, no accounting for taste :P.  My 2nd son has no interest in football and neither did my youngest son, what can I say.

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3rd Comfort Shawl started

This is a simple shawl by Lionbrand yarn.  It’s a garter stitch (knit every row) using their homespun yarn.  Very simple but the yarn makes it beautiful.  I have a co-worker that was diagnosed with cervical cancer.  She did the radiation and they found that it had migrated to her pancreas so she is doing radiation again and I believe they will follow up with chemo.  These treatments make her very sick and she gets cold easily so I thought a nice heavy soft shawl with a soothing color would be nice.  I’ll post a picture when I finish, which I hope will be be soon.  I’m not feeling very well today so I haven’t been knitting on it today.  I only have about a 1/3 of a skein left.  My grandchildren (3 & 5) saw it and wanted me to make them one.  I told them I would make them one for Christmas, they were so excited.  You don’t see little ones excited about a hand knit item very often, was a good feeling.
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Our weather has cooled down significantly and I’ve been able to use my air conditioner much less.  Has been much less humid and much more comfortable. 🙂  My ferret and my parakeet both did their shedding/molting thing early this year, so I expect we will see an early fall and winter, sigh.

A Round Tuit – revisited

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A Round Tuit

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Years ago I saw one and thought it was so cute.  I found this one on the internet and used it several years ago, and have found that I have had to bring it out of mothballs and use it again :P.

When my son was going to move in with me, I had to move the 1/2 room of boxes out of the spare bedroom and ended up putting some of it in my bedroom.  He eventually decided to stay close to his daughter (5 hrs away from me), and after his death, I just couldn’t make myself sort everything out and put away.  It’s finally time, and finding time to do it is not fun…. but I have some motivation to get it done because it’s time for the apt inspection the city does here every 3 years.  It’s coming up soon so I have to get that bedroom cleaned out.  I’m part way done and decided to take a little break.  It would be much easier if I had a week of vacation to go through everything and do it right, but I don’t have any vacation time until late this fall.  Sooo I will just have to do the best I can with what little time I can squeeze out to get it done in.  I’m much better at procrastination :P.

I’ve begun working on a comfort shawl for a co-worker who has been diagnosed with cervical cancer.  I’m about 1/3 of the way done with it.  It’s a simple comfort shawl, as I felt that it would be needed in a hurry and no time to work on something that will take a long time to complete.  I’ll post a picture of  my progress later this week after the apt inspection.

Well it looks like we will have football this year.  That makes me happy 🙂

It’s been hot as heck here and lots of humidity.  I will be glad when fall gets here for the cooler temps and less humidity, but that means winter is right around the corner, so fall is a 2 edged sword. 😛