Woolybuns

Hope Squared

At Stitch n Bitch, we've a couple times kicked around the idea of knitting a group afghan for some kind of donation project.   So when Audrey proposed Hope Squared in response to Katrina, she qot an enthusiastic response.  Last night, we brought our squares in.  The squares are 12 x 12 with garter stitch borders and whatever each knitter wanted inside the borders.  So that pile of squares in front of Audrey will become a twin size afghan.   Well done, Bitchers!    Amy Over Achiever whipped up several squares.  Karen produced a stunning cable and texture square which my camera failed to convey well.  And I did get my square done but instead of a lovely lace, it is double moss stitch.   I'm quite pleased with the double moss but will once again tackle that lace pattern I ran out of time for and beat it into submission make it my friend.

After we admired the squares, we settled in to knit and I discovered I only had 3 of the 4 dpns I needed to work on my sock.  I had brought another project just to get a good laugh show what I'm planning to tackle.  So, instead of the sock, I plunged in to the new project.  Good thing!  I got the first 12 rows done and hadn't a clue what the pattern meant after that.  Couldn't even figure out what part I was knitting!  Karen sent me a couple links to clarify, so I should be able to figure it out now.  When I have enough knit to actually show up in a photo, I'll let you know what it is. 

And then there is my spouse.   Out of the blue, these arrived at my door today.  He ordered some sprays of dendrobium orchids, which makes for a delightful and long lasting display on my coffee table.  But apparently the designer felt the urge to expand and sent this dramatic arrangement instead.  I love it!

Knitting Observations

Want a good excuse to stop doing housework?  Check out Harlot's surprise. 

Last night as I screwed up knit on a square for a group afghan project, I cursed, cried and generally behaved badly reflected on my journey into knitting.  I took my first tentative steps in 1978.  I would start with the correct number of stitches cast on but not one single row ended up with the same number of stitches.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  I soon came to realize the problem: I couldn't see the individual stitches.  No, not a vision problem.  Not sure what caused it, but I just had no clue where one stitch started and ended.  Kind of hard to knit into it properly when you don't know where it is!  And impossible to count accurately!  So sometimes, I knit two or three times into the same stitch, sometimes I dropped stitches, sometimes I just overlooked them.   I switched to crochet.  But I never got over that longing to work those beautiful knit patterns I kept seeing.  I made periodic efforts over the next 20 years to learn to knit.  Knitting just is an obsession - no, an addiction.  When my mom started spinning, dyeing and selling her own yarn at Common Ground Fair, I got sucked in even more and really tried to learn.  I even made a tiny bit of progress.  I could finally start seeing those stitches!  That was mid 1990s.  Then I walked into the bunny barn at Common Ground. 

Oh!
My.
Goodness!

I promised DH I'd learn to spin and knit if I had a bunny.   So I got my first bunny and eventually my first spinning wheel.  I was still trying to practice knitting with my mom's cast off oops, boo boos and end lots of yarn.  That yarn was too good for my pathetic POS crap knitting.  Not a single FO in that couple of years.  And then my wrist issues flared up and even though I was finally beginning to make some real progress on knitting skills, I physically couldn't knit.   A bit more than two years ago, I somehow stumbled upon a great chiropractor who really did wonders righting my bones.  It took a year but I finally  started knitting again.  I am a slow knitter but I forgive myself for that.  Over the past year, I haven't knit a lot of things, but I have a few FOs.  But more importantly, I've learned a lot.  As I ripped and knit and ripped and counted and cussed and ripped and knit last night on a really simple bit of lace, I did see my progress.  I may still have some serious attentional problems in knitting, but I can not only see my stitches, I can read them.  I can rip a couple stitches back several rows and reknit them without ripping every stitch in each row.  I can read a lace chart!  And given enough time, I can knit some simple lace.  And I know when to put something aside until I am more prepared to do it.  So my simple lace afghan square is on hold for a future project.  I need this square finished by tomorrow night.   That's the more immediate goal at the moment, so my square  is now a very simple textured knit.  The lace will be waiting. 

And I'm pretty ok with that.  It's been a long, sometimes tortured journey.  To all the UFOs I've left in my wake, I promise: you were not for nuthin'!  I've learned from each of you.

Oh, Happy Day

I took DS the Younger shopping, made an unscheduled stop at the local CVS.   As I walked in the door, I spotted a flyer dated yesterday.  Someone desperately looking for their lost Yorkie.  I whipped out the cell phone and called right away, got an answering machine.  So I left my number and continued the shopping trip.  Two hours later, about one minute after I walked in the door, Little Lost Dog's "mother" called - they've been crying ever since he took off and searching frantically for him.  His name is Louis.  Seems yesterday was bath day for Louis so she took off his collar with the ID tags, then let him out for a quick bathroom break.  Apparently he took off instead and I found him in the middle of the road probably before they even knew he was missing.   He is now safely back home and his family is designing a safe enclosure for the back yard.  Yay!

Life's Little Surprises

Cute, ain't he?  Not so cute where I first met him.  I had an appointment about half hour away and I was running a bit late due to a flat tire.  So, I turned the corner off my street onto a very busy state route.  There he was, trotting towards me down the very center of the road, veering first to one side, then to the other, traffic all around him.  I slammed on my brakes so I wouldn't hit him and he kept on going.  I drove just far enough to glance in the rear view and see him still out there, traffic stopping but no one making any effort to get the little tyke out of harm's way.  Sigh.  I pulled over, got out, stooped down, clapped my hands and called "here, puppy, puppy."  Well, he turned right around and skittered as fast as those short little legs could move him right into my arms.    Nothing else to do but put him in the car and take him with me.  Since I had bunnies in the back seat, I plopped him on the passenger's seat in front.  Ah, no, he said.  Little Mr Wiggles insisted on my lap, front paws up on my chest and his oh so stinky self right in my face heaping kisses right on the lips.  Yuck!  I fully understood and accepted his thanks but GROSS!  The stink!   Thank goodness the woman I was meeting with bunnies takes in strays and rescues so she understood my less than pristine self.   On my way back home, I was close to where DD works at a pet shop so stopped in with him.  She scanned him for an identifying microchip but we didn't find any.  He's got two collars on but neither one has any tags.  Didn't find any  tattoo ID either.  Pooch had/has significant matting around the head and all over his belly and he still reeked of foul, fetid grossness.  So DD popped him in for a bath.  We cut the worst of the matts off his face, and I may tackle his belly this morning.  He loves loves loves Button.  And he's quite attached to me, though very friendly with everyone.   One very big problem though: he's an intact male and Button is an unspayed female.  Thank goodness she's not in heat at the moment!  The only place I can keep him is in the kitchen with Button.  He's marking territory and growling at our neutered male Australian sheperd throught the door.   This situation can't go on for long.  I did check with animal control in town, got the police since AC was closed.  No reports of any missing dogs, let alone one as distinctive as this guy.  He's either a Silky Terrier or a Yorkshire Terrier - we think a Silky, since he's more substantial in bone and build than Button, a Maltese.  The Yorkie body build is more delicate, like the Maltese.  I adore this little fella!  But, he can't stay.  I will continue the effort to find his owner, but I've already met an older woman who fell in love with him and displayed all the attitudes and happiness at meeting the little guy and who desperately wants him.   So one way or t'other, he'll be leaving me.  But I'm happy to have met him and provide him with the assistance he needed.

All Skies On Sandy

My sky this morning started out beautifully cheerful and bright blue and dotted so picturesquely here and there with fluffy white clouds.  By the time I got the camera out there to capture that pretty optimism for Sandy's contest, this is what I got.   Yeah, totally obscured with those ominous grays.  Is the sky telling me not a chance  for the luscious Lorna's from Sandy???

But under that sky here in my  splotch on earth sits this cussed, foul mouthed, cranky little beauty named Reba.  She is a red satin angora.  I love her color!  She's nice enough to hold and pet, and she's easy to clip, but in her hutch, she does spit out what sounds amazingly like cussing.   Not the norm here. I usually get happy critters poking their heads into my hands looking for scritches before food.  I brought Reba into the herd for a very distinct genetic purpose but I much prefer my bunnies to be like the tumble bumble bunch of sweetness and cute that bounces around in Merry Hoppins' hutch.  Her babies are the best!  I come near and there they are, begging for pets and snuggles.   So, when Reba gets a date, he will be the very mild mannered,  cooperative fella named Prince Hairy.  And I will hope to get a fawn with rufous buck to breed to Merry, a pure German who carries the genetics for fawn and torte. 

DS the Younger is following in DH's and DS the Older's footsteps.  He decided to build his own computer.  So over the past week, the parts started coming in.  He followed their travels via UPS and Fedex tracking online and knew the final parts were to arrive on Tuesday.  I however did not have that bit of info so was not here when the nice delivery man showed up expecting a signature.   So DS the Y came home to not his boxes of goodies but a slip of paper saying "we tried."  Now, patience is not really DS the Y's strong suit.  But he stuck it out with the promise of a second attempt.  Can you imagine his reaction when no packages arrived at the promised time and on checking the tracking number, found that they changed their minds?   Yeah, more like Reba than Merry.   When I picked up DS the Y at school the next day, he kept asking "did the delivery show up?" and I kept dodging and tossing out herringbones.  Finally, as we pulled in the driveway, he demanded outright an answer.  So I said "oops, I forgot and I've been out a lot."  Yikes!  He stormed into the house.  Am I a mean mommy or what???  <G> Of course his packages arrived and he bumped right into them where I left them sitting in the entryway.  He carried them upstairs and set them down in our under construction hallway for a Kodak moment.  (OK, so it was a Canon moment instead.)  Ain't he cute???

Toddler Times

Both Risa and Sue are sharing those oh so funny cause they ain't yours toddler times.  Go ahead, take a look and have a laugh at their expense.  Back when my own little tykes were 1) little and 2) just as mischievous, pre-blogger days,  I didn't have a digital camer to take pictures of their merry misadventures.  So what's a Grammie to do?   A few months ago, my birth child (BC) was preparing the nursery for my little granddaughter.  BC's sweet, helpful 2 year old CJ pitched right in.  When BC wasn't looking. 

These days, my "tykes" pat me on the top of the head and laugh at my expense over things like my bunny "toddlers."  These two bucks are juniors, about 3 months old and looking pretty handsome in the link (and available, btw - feel free to email me if you're interested).  They still share a hutch.  The wild gray agouti (aka chestnut agouti) fella  is clearly the dominant guy in that hutch cause look what he's done to the chinchilla buck's coat!  Around the shoulders is all chewed off, along both sides is a great width of felt.  Bad hare day indeed.   I'll be shearing some bunnies today, if anyone needs me.

A Fair Weekend

Country fair season!  It's easy to overdose as there are so many but I choose a few to attend and force myself to not try to get to them all.  The big daddy of fall fairs around here is of course The Big E, something like the seventh largest in the world, if I'm remembering the history accurately.  Last year, I was winning bidder on a gorgeous merino fleece, the fleece that went on to be all those yummy and colorful batts pictured here.   So now that The Big E is underway again, I can hear that siren call! 

Yesterday, I went to a more local fair.  Two members of one of my spinning guilds run the fiber department at that fair, so the guild had a meeting there. We also had a spinning contest, longest thread to win.  I came in second.  I managed to forget the deadline for entering skeins and garments and didn't even get a chance to view the entries.  I'll have to try to be more organized at the next fair!

My favorite picture from this weekend came from the goat show.  This little cutie was waiting for the pack goat class, I think.

Bitchin' Socks

It only took... oh, 4 weeks or so...  but, I finally remembered to bring my first pair of socks to Stitch n Bitch this week.  Dear sweet Amy walked me through kitchener hell stitch and  the socks are done!  And Karen snapped a photo.  And yes, I'm so tickled with them that I wore them to class in spite of 70-80 degree temps!  They are nice and toasty and I'm gonna have such happy feet this winter.   I'm thinking it could be fun to try to coordinate a nuno felt scarf with these socks and use some of the left over yarn to fringe such a scarf. 

The next pair of socks have been on the needles ever since I finished the knitting on the first pair but I kept trying to do the dang heel in public and well, no.  So, I finally got the heel turned this week and am about half done with the foot.  No picture yet.  One pair will have to visit Rhinebeck with me. 

Remember when temperatures forced me to bring about half the herd into the house for a healthy dose of AC?  And two does decided one buck needed company?  Yeah...  Lucky for me, just the one doe caught his drift.  The bunnies will be three weeks old Saturday.  What a friendly bunch they are!  As soon as they could escape the nest box, they started greeting me at the door of the hutch.  And Mama Merry's reaction to their escaping the nest:

My spinning guild has another big treat coming up: we have Judith McKenzie coming in October!  She's doing a wheel mechanics program for the full guild then the next day, the workshop topic is Handspinning for Handknitters.  I met Judith at MDSW 2004 when buying a gorgeous rambouillet fleece from her.  I of course took full advantage and explored the possibility of bringing her to guild.  It's been a long wait but I'm sure it will be well worth it! 

Also well worth it: I dropped DH off at the airport this morning.  He's in VA on business for a few days.  So you know what that means: I'm hot roddin' this weekend!  Yeah, he flew so his car stayed home and I've got the keys.  So now it's my turn to fly!! Yippee!!

And I leave you with a photo of Puff Daddy.

A Weekend of Woo Whoooos

I done it!  Finally.  All it took was being stuck for hours with only homework, pacing or spindling.  My car needed one of the big services (routine maintenance to the tune of $1,016.00!) and the closest dealer couldn't fit it in.  So I took it to the dealer about an hour away.  So rather than putting in a total of 4 hours of driving time, I waited all freakin' day armed with a bag of homework, my Moosie and some fiber.  I was good - I did the homework first (write the scene of a guy ice skating to express grief). I even liked doing it! Then I set to making friends with Moosie.   What a cool spin! So smooth and inviting and just a delightful experience.  Even better,  I now have a Moosie full of spun singles.  Yeah!  About half an ounce of polwarth, angora and silk on the spindle and another half ounce in that ball waiting to be spun.  It's gonna be a scarf.

The next day, it was a drive to MD for a combo bunny run (deliver one, pick up one) and teach how to make wet felted mittens using a luxury batt of angora and merino.  While it was not a particularly fun drive (2 bad accidents within 20 miles of each other, a highway interchange designed to tangle traffic, and a route over populated with construction zone signs), the rest of the weekend was great!  I stayed with Daniela , new blogger and new bunny mom and now new wet felter extraordinaire!  Bad, bad blogger - I forgot the camera.  I'm not sure a camera would have captured Daniela's delight in her new art/craft, but let me tell you: she's got the touch and she's got the enthusiasm!  I love it when someone gets the fun in the felt. 

And finally, there is the bunny.  She's so far unnamed, the result of Puff Daddy taking his act on the road.  He found a classy dame in MD, got some coaching from the Bunny Pimp (you know who you are - do you want to 'fess up and explain it all??? After all, you da woman! Heeheehee), and co-produced this lovely star.

Academic Sock

That dark blob on the oddly shaped bench in the even more oddly shaped nook is the sock in progress.  The bench in the oddly shaped nook is part of my alma mater's modernization.   Those wierd little nooks pop up in a number of spots through out that building.  Study nooks, I guess.  That thing on the wall appears to be a shelf for, I'm guessing, a computer.  Quite different from ... ahem... my day.   I graduated 18 years ago.  It was an old building then.  Glad they are updating.  Something else in the quirky department at the college is this fun little sign:

The sock begged to sit on the radiator in question and as one always ready for a reason to challenge authority, I would have indulged the sock, but the sign is too high to capture both it and the sock misbehaving.  No students were around to have them snap a shot of me holding the sock while sitting on the radiator under the sign so maybe another day.

So what the heck am I doing wandering the not so ivy halls of my alma mater?  I celebrated the end of summer by going back to college.   Spur of the moment kind of thing.  Possibly akin to a man of "my age" springing for a red Porsche 911.  And speaking of being my age, holy crap!  Those other students are just babies!!!!  Girl babies wearing altogether too short skirts with front slits up to you know where and necklines plunging straight towards them.  Boy babies discussing erotic images in class as if they are just oh so experienced and wordly.  Who the heck decided a short story with images of erections and cupping of breasts was appropriate for these babies???  Oh, yeah.  The pretty blonde professor whose mother may be younger than me.  Professor is young looking enough that some of those baby boys have already made comments about erections that had nothing to do with the story we read.  Do they not know I'm a mother of babies like them???  Do they not know such babies are not supposed to have knowledge of such things in the presence of an old fart???? 

In any case, I'm only taking one class.  Don't know where I'll go with it.  I'm taking an undergrad English class though paying grad student rates since I already have a bachelor's degree.  And if that's not bad enough, by taking just the one class, I have to pay the higher per credit fees.  So, if I went full time undergraduate, the semester would cost just under three grand - that would be for 12 to 18 credits.  Full time graduate tuition is a bit over $3200.  For my measley three credits?  $1200.00!   So, at least double the price if you figure per credit.  Ah, well.  It can't be cheap running a university. 

Katrina Aid

The knitter/fiber bloggers demonstrate once again the spirit of generosity and compassion.  Lots of links on where to send what to help.   Cathy, Kim, and Margene all have good links to check out.  And now I'm off to buy stuff for that very purpose.