Woolybuns

A Couple Things That Make Me Giggle

A photo from The Fiber Fetish (but you have to scroll to the 10th photo)

Video at YouTube, link sent to me by someone who makes me smile. 

Blues Therapy

I got the blues.  Crafty blues.  A couple days ago, I visited a friend unexpectedly and she invited me to join her later that day at a jewelry class.  I've been thinking about delving into that addiction activity for a couple years now, so what the heck?  I had a puppy sitter that day and decided to take the time for me.  Here's my first finished piece.  It looks better on me.

And last night, with the puppy worn out and sacked out on her bed in front of the TV, I decided it's been too long since I felted.  I'm teaching felting this weekend so time for fresh samples.  All that Tranquilty roving yesterday had me drooling, so I pulled out a batt of pure angora in similar colors.  Voila: a new scarf.  All the colors do not show up in this photo.  Sigh.  There is blue, obviously, but also violet and teal.  And some pink silk drizzled through it. 

Molly, on the other hand, is in the pink with an unnatural attachment to her blankie.

The Season of Rebirth

It has arrived.  Fabulous forsythia rings my yard in glorious gold.  For the last 11 years, these bushes have shared their bounty with me every spring.  I treasure them.  There are two smaller clumps nestled amongst towering pines.  Escaped bunnies and one very tame "wild" bunny, play hide n seek at the feet of these bushes while birds flit along the branches.  The hedge of forsythia running the entire width of the back of the property teems with all manner of wildlife.

I will miss these bushes when I move.

In my garden window, Phrag and Paph are still beaming with bloom, as is Phalenopsis.   The newest member of the family bursting into bud is my spring blooming Epiphyllum.  There are already 7 buds, with the promise of more.

And even better, my car is overflowing with fiber!  I visited Still River Mill yesterday, dropping off 3 fleeces:  chocolate brown corriedale, white polwarth, and silver rambouillet.  As bunny fiber is available, I will be dyeing for blending with the corrie and rambouillet.   I plan to add white angora and bombyx silk to the polwarth and have that spun into sport weight yarn.  When I get it back, I'll be dyeing that.   The fiber I picked up - well.  Yum.    Eleven pounds of fine wool/angora roving.  Two colorways.  Shrimply Delicious and Tranquility.  Both will be available at my booth at NHSW.

Progress... Well, In One Direction

Downward progress, I guess you can call it.  I have three skeins of yarn all nicely balled and ready to knit into my Pogo sweater.  Except that early last night, those three balls of yarn were 14 inches of stockinette sweater body.  Yeah, I frogged.  And it really wasn't that painful.  In fact, I sort of celebrated.  I tried it on and the sweater that used to fit was too big.  It wasn't my math.  My other clothes don't fit anymore either.  For the first time in a long time, I'm actually making progress with weight loss.  I bought a new pair of pants the other day and enjoyed it.  Well, the fit anyway.  I was so happy with it, I bought a whole outfit.  I haven't enjoyed shopping for clothes in a very long time.   And then the sun happened and flowers are starting to bloom and I went to a LYS looking for yarn for Hogwarts socks and they only had one color not both and I didn't need the disappointment so when a sweater sample decorating the wall spoke up, I listened.  It promised it would look good on me. In any color I wanted.  With jeans or with the new pair of khakis.  And someone helpful working at LYS figured out which pattern book I needed and you can't leave a yarn store without something, right?   The sweater pattern is from Tahki and the yarn is cotton classic in coral. 

Molly enjoyed my shopping, too.

Cats are Brats

and Corky excels at it.  She's a sweet, loving and affectionate cat who needs human interaction.  On her Own Terms.  Siamese terms. If Corky wants something, then it's good.  If Corky doesn't want something - Well.  She joined my family 12 years ago as a rescue, about to be put to sleep because she was pregnant.  She's been an outside cat ever since, because people in my household are allergic to her and she produces  particularly potent allergens.   But recent changes in family living arrangements mean she can now have some inside space, though I do still want to keep bedroom and living/dining areas free of cat allergens. She is always begging to come in so last night I tried to bring her in.  Because Molly sat near the door, Corky declined the invitation.  I picked her up.  She said thank you with her claws.  This morning, she was again at the door, staring at Molly.  Molly took about a second to stare back, then backed up, barked, pounced at the door, whine, bark, jump up and down, whirl, whine, cry, race through the circle of kitchen, living room, dining room, bark hysterically, then lay there, pleading through the door for friendship.  Corky sat.  And blinked.  Unimpressed.  I pulled out the camera. 

Corky always reacts this way to the camera.  She must be Amish.  And like so many tourists, I persist with my pursuit of Corky with my camera.  Today, I finally succeeded!

Better Than Humpty Dumpty

But not 100%.  Rose is in one piece again.  I can spin on her again.  But when the husband put her back together, he discovered the sound smack she got hitting the floor put her nose out of joint.  If you consider the metal shaft her nose.  In fact, it seems several of her metal parts took a licking and don't want to keep on ticking.  They want to blump.  He's got her finely adjusted so she doesn't blump at the moment, but the slightest jostle and back to blump.  The wood parts that didn't split still seem fine, in particular the wheel itself.  So I think replacement parts will improve her attitude.  But I'm not sure.  Time to consult Majacraft.  In the meantime, I could be tempted by a new wheel.  Well, a new used wheel.  I've thought about a Jensen Tina II so anyone who has one, please weigh in with Tina's pro's and cons. I haven't spun on a Tina, so don't know if she's a fit for me or not.  I've also lusted over a Reeves saxony, but also need to try one.  And I bet I could find true love with a Norm Hall wheel.  So if anyone out there has any of these wheels for sale, let me know, especially if you are somewhere on the east coast.

Ain't She Cute?

So sweet sitting there. 

So, what's wrong with this picture?

Yeah, this.  My cute n cuddly puppy is not content with knitting needles or yarn.  Nope.  She goes for the big stuff.  She keeps trying to eat the singles sitting on my bobbins still attached to the wheels.  On Saturday when I returned from spinning guild, I put Rose up out of Molly's reach.  My calculations did not fully account for Miss Galumphing Girl.  She prances, she pounces, she whirls dervishly, and she slams with great enthusiasm into things. Rose came crashing to the floor and split her bottom.  Right in front of me.  The spouse interrupted his exit to glue it for me and will reattach it probably tonight.  He makes no promises about it's staying power, due to the large gap at one end.  Any Majacraft dealers out there that can order me a new part?

And that was not the end of Molly's marauding over the weekend.  With the house in major disarray as people sort out their lives, Miss Molly Mischief soothed her erupting teeth entertained herself with every manner of foreign body she could slurp: plastic tie wraps, vacuum cleaner wires, styrofoam packing materials, plastic bags and bottle caps.  By Sunday afternoon, she was occasionally hacking.  Monday morning instead of heading off to pick up my car, I hauled Molly off to the vet.  Three sets of x-rays later, we see two of those foreign bodies traveling Molly's digestive tract.  That traveling part is a good thing.  The vet staff "induced" elimination, examined resulting material and voila!  One tie wrap no longer part of Molly's life.  One foreign object left.  But, that foreign object made it almost as far as the tie wrap so the thinking is it will continue.  I'm on poop watch.   The vet staff chuckled and said such comforting things, like: This is going to be one expensive puppy!

I think some knitting will happen today.

Saab Story, or Why My Next Car Will Be Something Different

I love my Saab.  Love her comfort and the way she hugs a tight curve and how she kicks into high performance with the touch of a button.  And then there is that great Turbo roar on a highway on-ramp.  She just makes me smile.  She's a seriously fun drive.  But.  Ouch!  Those repair bills.  I wish I could say it was just my particular car.  Certainly not every Saab needs a new engine at 75,000 miles (thank goodness that repair was under warranty).  But every Saab owner I know gets that pained look when you ask about maintenance.  I just took the car in because of a few issues: theft alarm sensor was failing which translated into the dang thing shrieking in cycles and refusing to defuse, no heat on the driver's side, and a few episodes of horrendous dragging type noise in the front passenger wheel area  that no one could figure out. The alarm sensor turns out to not be a big deal and they think the noise was the loss of a splash shield over a few days.  Another not so bad repair.  The heater?  Yikes.  The entire dash has to come off and everything behind it apparently comes out.  The repair replacement for the heater is usually around $3,000.  But the service manager decided since we are - ahem - such good customers, he could give us a break.   The entire fix for alarm, shield and heater will be somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000 to $2,500.   Just think of the nice spinning wheel I could have bought if I'd known I could afford to part with that much money.

Oops

So I've been emailing Son the Older along with Son the Younger, Daughter and occasionally the husband.  I generally use my email address that comes with my ISP, which is Cox Cable.  Put that together with Woolybuns and say it out loud.  Yeah, inadvertantly rude and suspicious if you don't have a clue what Woolybuns refers to in my world.  Pretty damn funny if you do.  So I've been harrassing asking Son the Older about not responding to my emails.  And he's been wondering what the hell I'm talking about but being too polite to say that.  Instead, he says sorry.  The latest email I sent concerned a Tshirt that showed up on The Yarn Harlot's blog.  My subject line was "should you ever come across this t-shirt in my size" and the message itself: "BUY IT!!  And give it to me, of course.  And since you are all muggles: in knitland, K2 P2 is a knit stitch pattern known as ribbed." So again, not a hint of response from Son the Older.   And then yesterday, I get this in my inbox: "Who are you please remove me from your lis I am fed up with your spam" (spelling and punctuation errors came with the message, they are not mine) and I'm thinking WTF?  But then I checked out the email address it came from.  Yeah, only one letter different from Son the Older's.  Oops.  Sorry, Stuart, whoever you are.  Son the Older muses on the advisability of Cox Cable sticking with their motto (go on, say it out loud, don't just read it): Cox on Demand.

Harry Knitting

I started the first book in the Harry Potter series last night, and started reading blog archives from the sock pal I'm knitting for.  I want to plot out the perfect pair of Harry socks for her.  This is going to be fun finding out about her.  She's quite a humorous twit!  I like that in a person.  Of course, she is yet another swap pal who doesn't like fuzzy yarns.  The knitting goddess must be intent on forcing convincing me to work with other yarns.  Gee.  Darn.   The hardship I have to endure. 

Something else that made me giggle.  The brat daughter who called to taunt me with ocean sounds and reports of 80* temps?   Last time she called, she said it was snowing.   Poetic justice.

And just for the cuteness of it all, a Molly photo. See that small dark thing at the edge of the rug fringe that she's staring so intently at?  Apparently last night when I chopped up cucumber, I dropped a bit on the floor.  Molly found it this morning and decided it makes a lovely toy.  She's been tossing it around the living room, staring at it and then pouncing on it to fling it again and then do it all over again.