Creative Pop-Offs

Painting, working, and remodeling (another catch-all post)

2011-11-12T22:45:00.000-06:00

Once again I have neglected my poor blog.

I've been working at the Tulsa City-County Libraries, though, so I have a good excuse! I've also been busy quilting, and the kids have been home sick a LOT in the past two weeks (which means I get very, very little done).

I've been volunteering at the South Broken Arrow library for around three years now, I think. Over the summer I trained as a substitute, and I've had an absolute blast going between the two Broken Arrow libraries. They've called me a few times for some of the other ones but I'm very intimidated by Hardesty so I've turned those down. It's a huge regional library and I'm not quite confident enough of my knowledge to tackle that one, but I will once I get a little more experience.

The bad part is that my stack of books to read is now almost three feet tall. That's not a bad thing except that I'm frantically trying to catch up on my quilting. I'm about six months behind on posting customer quilt pictures, but hopefully I'll get my act together soon.

Last weekend we decided to finally tackle the utility room, which has bugged us since we moved in seven years ago.

Here's how it looked after we moved the washer and dryer out and Greg took out the baseboards. (They'd been butted together instead of installed properly, so that had to go!)

Yes, the walls really WERE that dark. They'd been painted with a flat paint that came off when rubbed with a damp paper towel, so that was pretty bad.

Greg repaired some damage and sprayed a new texture, and then Gillian and I sanded it down and she vacuumed. Greg got a drywall mud that claimed to be less dusty, and I think it actually was--more seemed to end up on the floor than in the air, which is a very good thing.

Here's Gillian, being a HUGE help:

The previous owners have done all kinds of head-scratch-worthy things, such as painting the smoke detector in place, as well as just painting the wallpaper. Sigh.

Luckily the wall paper was only on one wall and seems to be *very* well adhered, so we went ahead and put the texture on over it.

Here (below) you can see Greg taking off the trim around the door--it had been installed rather horribly and had all kinds of caulk in the corners--the top was sucked into the wall while the sides weren't, so there was about a 1/8" depth difference among the three pieces. It looks SO much better now.

And you have to notice the wallpaper that's underneath the current stuff (be sure to enlarge so you can see it in all its glory):

We've been talking about redoing parts of the kitchen (taking out the drop ceiling, among other things) but knowing that there's *another* layer of wallpaper is a little disheartening.

Back to the good stuff. Here's the final paint on the walls:

Doesn't that color look so much better than the old, dark color? It's absolutely amazing what a difference new texture and color have made in that space.

At this point I'm incredibly behind on my quilting, especially since I've spent the last 11 hours in bed, shivering and trying not to throw up. I'd *so* hoped that what the kids had was going to pass me by, but no such luck.

My family is coming here for Thanksgiving, and I need to finish ALL of my customer quilts before they get here since we're putting my sister in the quilt room. I hope I'm over this illness in the morning so that I can quilt like a mad woman over the next six days!

I hope all of you are having a great weekend, and be sure to wash your hands properly and often! There's lots of icky stuff going around.

I'm back!

2011-09-03T15:21:00.006-05:00

Back to blogging, that is. :-)

I have no excuse, really, for neglecting my blog, other than catching up becomes overwhelming after a while and then inertia takes hold and, well, no blog posts.

Since my last post it's been five months. School ended, it got really, horribly, nastily hot, and my enthusiasm for most things went out the window. I don't like heat. But life goes on, and I've managed to get a few things done.

The biggest thing I've done lately is converting my Roman Maze quilt pattern to PDF and listing it on Etsy! I took a new picture of the quilt, since it's been a few years and digital cameras have improved quite a bit since I took the original picture.

Here's the new cover pic:

I've had quite a few requests over the years for a PDF version, but the stars hadn't aligned in the proper formation until I realized that Etsy would be MUCH easier than trying to coordinate things through my web site. Now the challenge is going to be converting my other patterns and getting a new pattern out (I designed it back in 2003, but then we moved, Ryan was born, and the hard drive died, so it's been on the back burner until now).

Let's see, on the knitting/crocheting/spinning front, I've managed to finish a few things.

I participated in the Tour de Fleece but only managed to finish ONE skein during the tour:

That's a fingering-weight merino two-ply yarn, and it's actually plied from stuff I'd spun a few years ago but hadn't ever plied. I had 8 ounces to begin with and it was early enough in my spinning career that I hadn't done a great job and put it aside. I managed to spin up the rest of it and chain plied it for this gorgeous bulky skein:

It's fun to see the effect of the two different plying methods on the same roving. (The colors are nicer in person on the chain-plied skein.)

So that's my one skein I started AND finished during the tour. I did spin on other things, as you can see in this collage.

About halfway through the tour the kids and I went to Idaho. I did get some roving—quite a lot, actually—while we were there, but I didn't get any spinning done. (Pictures of Idaho to come.)

I crocheted a necklace/bracelet with pearls:

I wear it as a necklace sometimes, or as a bracelet wrapped around my wrist six times.

My first crocheted sweater, a Butterfly Cardigan, using yarn left over from a sweater I knit for Greg about five years ago:

I finished a small shawl using my handspun:

The roving is from Dawning Dreams, and it yelled at me from across the room at Fiber Christmas in July a few years ago. The pattern is Holden Shawlette.

I started a pi shawl and my plan is to put sleeves in it to make a cardigan:

I'm a lot further along on this project than in that picture, but it looks like one big messy pile of yarn at this point so I'm not taking a pic until it's blocked.

There are a few other things I've been working on but I'll post pics of those another time.

In other domestic news, I got into making my own yogurt:

It's really good and really easy! I use this recipe, except that I use the crock from my crockpot, and I use the insulated cover that it came with and put the whole thing in the oven, and I don't strain it any more.

I'm woefully behind on posting pictures of customer quilts but hopefully I'll get my act together on that soon, now that the kids are back in school again. (YAY!!!!)

Happy Labor Day to my U.S.-ian friends, and everyone else, I hope you're having a great weekend!

SPRING! (ish)

2011-04-09T22:00:00.002-05:00

Oh my poor blog, how I've neglected you.

I've got excuses.

Good excuses, even.

Family life is busy, especially with all of Gillian's activities (and we won't mention mine, all right?), and then we all got sick.

I spent 10 days being totally, utterly worthless. I got the coughing illness that was going around, and *of course* it turned into a sinus infection. And of course I waited too long to go to the doctor (I get delusional that I can kick it without outside intervention, and it NEVER happens). So by the time I saw the doc, my left cheek was making this "crackle" sound and then a pain would shoot down the back of my neck. That's something new for me. I'm totally O.K. with it never happening again.

They X-rayed my face and pronounced my left sinus to be "severely impacted." Normally she'll push on my face a little to gauge the pain, but she didn't even come near me this time. It's not good when you impress the doc. Two steroid shots and a heavy-duty antiobiotic later, I'm feeling a million times better.

Just FYI, my daily routine includes a steroid nasal spray and a neti pot. I'm also a huge fan of Mucinex, and most of the time I can fight off sinus pain.

For those of you in my Facebook friends (those who haven't blocked me, anyway), I apologize. Apparently when I'm running a fever my whine filter becomes non-operational.

So, enough of that. On to spring!

We actually haven't had much spring around here. We've gone from winter to two days of "oh, spring is here!" then right back to winter for a week, and now we've slammed straight into summer. Like high 80s. And LOTS of wind.

:-(

I don't like wind. Or heat.

On the bright side, we have some absolutely gorgeous flowers:

Greg's woodworking project has been building a box for Ryan's toys. Ryan needed no encouragement to get in the box.

Here it is after the pre-stain, from the back.

Yesterday Greg mowed the lawn, and his shadow needed to help, so Greg let him steer. (I have no idea why Ryan is making this face, but I couldn't resist.)

Of course Gillian had to get in the action, and she actually pushed the pedals, too!

Things around here are really dry, but we're starting our garden. (That would be the royal "we" as I have almost nothing to do with it. I can't rake or till, so I'm not much help.)

Tonight we went shoe shopping, and I came home with these AWESOME shoes:

Greg is mystified, but he bought them for me anyway. :-) I love how steampunk-ish they are, and they're surprisingly comfortable! It's not often when I can find shoes like this that fit my huge, wide, Hobbit-shaped feet so I'm pretty thrilled. The cap on my bottle of happiness is that they were half off!!! There's no way I'd pay $80 for a pair of shoes, but $40 was totally do-able.

Greg keeps asking where in the world I'm going to wear them. My response: "where WON'T I wear them?" LOL! They zip up the inside of the foot, so they're fast to get into and out of.

That's it for my catch-up-post-of-randomness. I hope you're all having a great weekend!

Busy busy busy

2011-02-26T19:08:00.005-06:00

Today was supposed to be a day to recover after a long week, but I'm still exhausted. LOL!

Gillian started soccer on Tuesday and I think it's going to be fun for her. That meant that on Monday we went out and got her new soccer shoes and shin guards. Now we just need new socks (the old ones don't cover the pads all the way up her shins) and a new ball since her old one is too small. Ryan also got a new bike since his old one is waaay too small for him. His new bike is the same size as Gillian's current bike, although the lowest seat height on his bike is the same as the highest on Gillian's bike. I suspect she'll be getting a new, bigger bike for her birthday in May.

Wednesday was bowling (I didn't do well, but that's all right), with knitting that evening.

Thursday was supposed to be soccer again but it rained so the field was too muddy. The task of the afternoon was making the entries for the Twinkie Decorating Contest for the school carnival. The kids quickly decided that they'd rather eat the frosting than really work on their entries, and I did my damndest to be a good Mom and not do their entries for them. ;-)

Friday was the school carnival, and once again I'd drafted Greg into helping me run the Twinkie Contest room. It's the best job of the whole carnival because it means I set up the tables with the Twinkies on them, help judge, then sit in the room during the carnival and make sure no one touches the entries. Very cushy job! We didn't have as many entries this year as last year, but then we only got the notices out a week before since we had two weeks out of school due to weather.

The kids totally wore themselves out at the carnival and were asleep within minutes of their heads hitting their pillows. (Yay!)

Today I did a few things around the house, and Greg continued working on the awesome shelves in the garage:

He's going to make cabinet doors to go on those and it's going to be *fabulous.* The main purpose of the shelves is to get the luscious wood up off the garage floor, and I think Greg was a little surprised that the storage area at the top is already full of wood.

While he was working on that I ran the Bag A Nut (yep, that's its actual name) and picked up the old, bad pecans in the front. I picked up about 50 pounds of them, I think, and I'm tired now. I found three (yes, THREE) good nuts. I hate pecan weevils. There are still a whole bunch of bad nuts on the trees, unfortunately. It's been a strange year weather wise and I think it's bothered the pecan trees.

I hope you all are having a great weekend!

No more snow!

2011-02-19T16:11:00.003-06:00

Last week we were snowed in, and this week it's—literally—in the 70s. Yee haw for Oklahoma weather!

I didn't get a whole lot done during Snowmageddon 2011, unfortunately. You'd think being home for two weeks that I would've, but I got almost nothing accomplished. The kids got recharged, which is a good thing.

The one project I managed to do start-to-finish was a pair of chokers. I've been wanting to make this pattern for a while, and finally I just sat down and did it:

The top one is my handspun and the bottom one is some Koigu. I love that I used all stuff from my stash on these. The pattern is from a semi-local fiber friend, Dawn, and can be found here.

I finally managed to finish a pair of socks that I started back in September:

I got smart and measured the socks before I wore them so that I won't have to constantly try them on when I get close to the toe shaping. Yay for me! (You'd think I'd have figured that out a long time ago, but I've always been so stoked to wear them that I've never taken the time to do that.)

They're my standard 64-stitch sock with a Catherine Misegade's heel. I love that method!

Speaking of feet...
My MIL sent me some fun shoes! (She sent shoes for the whole family, actually, but this is MY blog so I'm showing MY shoes. LOL!)

It was actually warm enough to wear them on Thursday to pick up the kids. :-)
Isn't that a gorgeous color on my toes? That's Isla from Zoya, and I'm in LOVE with their nail polish. Not only does it *not* stink, but the colors are fabulous! It's probably a good thing that they don't sell it within a five-mile radius of my house. LOL! (Please ignore the pasty-white legs and bathrobe.)

My awesome hubby bought me some rings for a belated Christmas present, and they arrived today!!!

(I'm modeling them on my left hand since I'm right handed and I have a HORRIBLE time taking pictures using my left hand—the camera is definitely made to be held with the right hand and NOT the left.)

That top one has a lot of neat sparkle. It's definitely more flashy that the next one:

I think they're so cool! They came from this Etsy shop, and he was very patient with me when I asked him a really stupid question. (I was so excited about getting these rings that I forgot how to read. ROFL!)

Greg has been trying some new things in bowling and they're really helping his game. My game continues to plod along in the 130s-140s, but I'm pretty happy about that. One of these days I'll get a 500 series and they'll be able to hear me squee-ing from the moon. :-)

Greg's project for the weekend is building some cabinets in the garage to replace the plastic cabinet we've been storing paint in, as well as creating some lumber storage. He's got a pile of gorgeous wood from his Dad and we need to have a better way to store lumber so that it's usable! Here's the start of the project:

He's going to get a planer and then look out, because I'm expecting some beautiful wooden things. :-)

Snowmageddon 2011

2011-02-04T16:55:00.003-06:00

We have a lot of snow.

A LOT. (Not alot, that's a whole different thing.)

How much snow do we have? Well, 14" + at this point.

Here's looking out across the cul-de-sac to the neighbors' house, with the kids helping Richard shovel the driveway:

I took this picture to show the impressive drift at the corner of the roof:

The one along the fence is cool, too.

Here's Gillian's snow fort that she made using the snow from the driveway:

So that was February 2nd.

Today we got MORE snow:

I figure we got about 2" more, judging from the arms of the chairs.

The kids have been out of school Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today. I suspect there won't be any school on Monday and possibly later since they're predicting more snow, and none of the neighborhoods around here have been plowed. This is a record-setting amount of snow and this area just isn't equipped to deal with it.

The grocery stores are pretty impressive--I've *never* seen the entire egg, bread, meat, and milk sections decimated, but there is NOTHING left on the shelves. Greg managed to time it just right this afternoon and got four dozen eggs at Braum's, thank goodness! I hadn't realized how many of my favorite recipes use eggs until we were down to five eggs.

Thank goodness we've not lost power so far! The 30-something hours we were without power a few years ago was sufficiently traumatic that we've stocked up on mini-propane tanks for our indoor-safe heater, but I'm hoping we keep power through the next wave of ice/snow.

Despite the kids being home I've managed to get a little bit of quilting done. This one, actually, was finished a few weeks ago but I'm just now getting to posting about it. This is Carolyn Lamp's quilt. She bought the blocks (minus centers) at a garage sale and put them together. I think it's a gorgeous quilt!

Aaand now Ryan wants my help with taking a bath so I'm off to do that and get back to quilting.

I hope everyone is staying safe and warm!

Yellowstone slideshow

2011-01-01T21:09:00.004-06:00

I've just made a slideshow of *some* of the pictures from the trip to Idaho--this is mostly just the ones from Yellowstone. I promise to do a summary post (or five) soon!

For now, the slideshow:

If you click on it, it'll take you to Picasa where you can see them embiggened. (I highly recommend that!)

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-21T15:47:00.005-06:00

The kids and I are in Idaho, and my parents' house, as is my sister. It's darn cold here--around 20 degrees F at the moment--with lots of snow. The kids are loving it! (The pic above is my parents' British phone booth that they brought back when they moved back from England.)

The day before yesterday Gilly made a snowman:

and Ryan had a good time investigating the tree:

Yesterday was the Great Dyeing of 2010. Last year Karen and my Mom helped me dye the roving that I spun into yarn for my Bono Kimono (which just needs to be blocked and then seamed), so this year I told them I'd help *them* dye.

We dyed six pounds of roving.

The four braids on the left are my Mom's Polworth roving, and the three on the right are some of Karen's Polworth.

The pink/orange/purple on the left are Karen's merino/mohair roving, and the ones on the right are the rest of the batch of Karen's from the pic above.

Here are the rovings before we braided them:

And another gratuitous shot on the drying rack:

We've been busy indeed! :-)

ETA: I've gotten a couple of questions about what rovings are. They're basically long lengths of fiber that's been cleaned and the fibers have been aligned so that they're (mostly) going in the same direction. The proper name is actually "top" but "roving" is a more commonly-used term (although it's not correct--"roving" has the fibers *not* aligned). Here's a good explanation.

Quilts--lots of them!

2010-12-12T16:33:00.009-06:00

It's been very, very busy around here. I just finished the final quilt that's due out before Christmas. I feel like a huge load has been lifted from my shoulders.

This is going to be a *very* picture-heavy post, so I'll apologize in advance.

I'll go in order from the ones I haven't posted pics yet (although I'm deliberately leaving out one that I know if a gift, and she's asked me to hold off posting about it until after Christmas).

This is a team effort from Leslie Hale and Teresa Marler:

Janet Hall made this beautiful Irish Chain:

Janice Drehobl put this neat quilt together:

I LOVE how this one by Janet Hall turned out:

And another of Janet's:

Monica Maklin made a couple of really cute kids' quilts using similar patterns and cute prints:

Brooke Lindamood put this cute quilt together for her daughter. She wanted the quilting to look like bubbles, and I think it does!

This is Brooke's other quilt, made to showcase a t-shirt of her Dad's:

Here's another of Janice Drehobl's quilts. The back has notes from "the cat" and it's really cute. I wrote some sayings down the long strips ("a cat's a cat and that's that," "you own a dog but you feed a cat" and the like).

Janice's autumn quilt. We decided on leaves and pumpkins for the quilting.

Janet and her sister pieced this beautiful batik quilt:

Diane Turner's daughter put this top together using her t-shirts from high school:

Leslie Hale made some quilts for Christmas gifts:

Kathryn Blalock had some quilt tops pieced by some of her relatives, and she brought them to me to quilt. They all use vintage fabrics, and they're mostly hand-pieced.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2010-11-25T18:40:00.002-06:00

I'm so full I can barely type. :-)

Greg made an amazing turkey, as well as really, really, really good red-skin mashed potatoes from our garden!

I hope all of my fellow Americans have had a fabulous meal with great friends!

Yesterday I looked out the kitchen window and saw a cardinal. It wasn't bright-bright red yet, but it was still very pretty.

The kids' project for yesterday was to decorate the tree (which they talked me into setting up Sunday, the stinkers). Ryan did most of it, and he did a darn good job!

It's a little early, I know, but the kids are trying to squeeze the most out of the holiday season. LOL!

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Halloween!!!

2010-10-31T17:54:00.002-05:00

Family Calendar Picture

2010-10-08T10:23:00.002-05:00

Every year the Allred family puts together a family calendar. Since there are six kids (the "kids" are all grandparents at this point), each kid gets two pages, which means that my family gets one page. Here's ours:

Hopefully it'll be big enough to see details if you click on it.

Quilting!

2010-10-06T10:57:00.003-05:00

I swear I've been busier than a chicken with its head cut off, so I've been putting aside things like updating this blog.

I have three recently-quilted quilts to show off.

First up, one from Monica Macklin:

Next, one from Janice Drehobl:

And finally, one from my Mom:

Now back to quilting! :-)

Tulsa State Fair roundup

2010-10-03T16:52:00.005-05:00

This morning we loaded up into the truck and make the trek up to the Tulsa State Fair!

Five hours later (!!!!) we trudged back out to the car, but we had a good time.

Of my eight entries, I got two first place ribbons, four second place ribbons, and two third place ribbons. That mean everything placed, which is great.

The first-place items:

This was the ONLY entry in the "lace" division, which didn't surprise me *at all* since the rules specified that it had to be made from size 20 thread or smaller. That's totally ridiculous, and since we have multiple lace items entered in the knitting category, I'm hoping we can get that changed next year. At least this little doily didn't take me long. LOL!

I got four second-place ribbons:

My socks are the grey, blue, and brown striped ones at the bottom.

My Stor Rund Dug is the cream shawl behind the gorgeous blue one. I'm rather surprised that my shawl didn't do better, but oh well. Denise's blue shawl is stunning, so that softened the blow. :-)

If I enter another ornament, I'll be sure to put it on a stand of some kind since it doesn't look as good sitting on a shelf. LOL!

And finally, I got two third-place ribbons:

Not too bad!

The kids had a great time on the rides, too.

All in all, we had a great time, but my feet sure hurt. LOL!

Tulsa State Fair stuff

2010-09-18T17:14:00.005-05:00

I dragged the whole family up to the fair grounds and we turned in our fair entries.

I, of course, had tons of last-minute stuff to finish, the most-recent item being this bag:

I put a lining in it (deliberately long, because I'm anticipating that the outside will stretch a little as I use it). It's got a pocket on each side and in the side seam there are two lanyards with hooks for keys and my wallet, so that I can dig them out quickly.

I also (finally) finished my Hey Teach sweater, which is unfortunately too big (but not huge on me) so it's still wearable.

I'm calling this my Ridiculous Doily, for two reasons: 1.) it's done out of size 30 crochet thread; and 2.) it's done out of size 30 thread because the Tulsa State Fair category for "Lace" specified that said "lace" must be done out of size 20 thread or smaller.

Seriously.

It's pretty darn obvious that whoever came up with that ridiculous rule didn't pay attention to the nine entries in the "Knitting: Adult Accessories" category that were lace, and not ONE used "thread."

Thus, this is my Ridiculous Doily, made expressly to enter a knit item into that category:

I think it's around 14" across, although I didn't measure it before I turned it in.

The other last-minute project is my rubber-stamped scrapbook page, entered in the Rubber Stamping division. The rules stated that the entry had to be "70% stamped" so I stamped the brown paper, the tag, the ribbon, and the blue paper in the background.

Last week I posted about the flowers I was making using scrapbook paper, and here's the finished ornament:

I made a tassel out of gold embroidery floss and I think the whole project turned out really nicely. The tutorial can be found here (part 1; part 2 is at the end).

I just realized that I didn't take pics of the kids' Lego entries. Bad Mom! I'll be sure to take pics at the fair itself.

The fair opens September 30, so hopefully we'll hear pretty quickly after that if anything won.

The *best* part of the day, though, was meeting IndigoGentry and Saradippity, two of my fellow Ravelers. They're just as awesome as I thought they'd be.
I hope you're all having a great weekend!

Gilly's bed is finished

2010-09-12T12:25:00.003-05:00

Greg couldn't stand it any more—when he went to check on how the paint was drying, he declared it set enough to assemble the bed in Gillian's room!

I think it's absolutely wonderful, and so does Gilly!

It took her about 20 minutes to completely cover the top shelf with animals (just as I predicted). There are a few animals in the side cubbies, and a hardback library book fits perfectly too.

I'm so proud of Greg!

Quilt Machine Monday (a day late)

2010-09-07T13:34:00.003-05:00

I've been trying to get pictures of what's on the quilt machine every Monday, and obviously I've been failing miserably. :-)

I did manage to get a pic yesterday though, as well as the finished (quilting, anyway) quilt:

The color is off in this pic, but you can see the quilting really well:

And a detail pic:

This one is Teresa Marler's, and it's fabulously scrappy! (I love scrappy quilts--they go with everything and they're interesting to look at. I have a hard time making non-scrappy quilts any more.)

As well as quilting like a mad woman, I've been working on stuff for the Tulsa State Fair.

I'm making a Christmas ornament, and these are two of the 12 flowers that will make up a hanging ball:

I'm also working on finishing up my Hey Teach sweater (it's only taken me a year!) and a small doily. No pics yet.

Greg has continued to work on Gillian's bed, and now it's primed! The next step will be the glossy white paint, I believe. It's coming together, and it's going to be beautiful!

Now it's time for me to go shower--it's almost 2:00 P.M., after all. LOL!

A Bed!

2010-09-05T17:27:00.004-05:00

Greg has been working on building a new bed for Gillian, and today it all came together.

The kids are quite excited (and being total hams!):

Greg bought some neat hardware about a decade ago and so the side rails fit into the head- and foot-boards and should be *very* sturdy but still come apart.

He put some neat storage boxes on the sides and Gilly is already planning and plotting what she's going to store in them.

The plan is to prime it (tomorrow perhaps and paint it a nice glossy white.

Rectangly Hat pattern is up!

2010-09-03T15:42:00.003-05:00

A while back I test-knit a double-knit hat pattern, and the designer has now made the pattern available!

Here's the hat I made:

The pattern is free and available here and through Ravelry.

SewFlakes!

2010-08-28T14:00:00.006-05:00

One the local quilt shops, Sew Flakes, is having a Great Sewing Room Tour, and I (as Pieceful Stitches Designs) am a sponsor. I've donated two copies of each of my patterns as well as a gift certificate for $25 off machine quilting.

Go check them out!

Speaking of quilting, a while back I made a slideshow function of the customers' quilts I've done this year, which you can see here.

Every so often I get the urge to dye my hair and I did it again yesterday:

You can also see the blue pearl necklace that I made yesterday. It's a single strand, knotted between each pearl, and long enough that I can wrap it around as a choker. I see more like that in my future.

I think this hair color looks more natural than my natural color with my skin. The really funny thing is that the kids didn't notice until Greg said something. LOL! [This stuff is supposed to wash out after a month or so.]

Speaking of Greg, he's started building a bed for Gillian and she's been helping.

Greg has developed an allergy to sawdust, and I'm thrilled that they're wearing masks and safety glasses. YAY!

I'm terribly behind on my blogging, and so I'm going to continue with some catch-up stuff.

Last week was the annual scrapbooking convention, and I took two classes. The first one is called "Boxerpalooza" and is where they give you lots of scrapbooking stuff from their company (Boxer Scrapbook Productions) and show you ideas to use it. I got a lot of excellent tips as well as cool scrapbook supplies. One of the owners is a quilter so we chatted about fabric after class.

The other class I took was "Four Pages, A Bazillion Photos" and it was neat--they had some good ideas for putting lots of pictures on a page. Here are two of the four pages (without pics--I haven't gotten that far yet):

I also did a Make and Take from the Tattered Angels booth, using Glimmer Mist:

It was really cool, and I now understand more of the appeal of Glimmer Mist.

I also did some shopping. I couldn't resist a bunch of clear stamps, especially since the big ones I got were $3!!!

Now I just need to *use* them. LOL!

On the knitting front, I finished a pair of socks:

The yarn is some that my wonderful Aunt Louise sent a couple of years ago (I don't use sock yarn all that quickly, but I sure enjoy making socks!).

I also made a headband to use up some of my leftover sock yarn:

That's Mountain Colors sock yarn and it bleeds read like nobody's business, which is why I didn't send it to my Mom to use in her sock yarn blanket.

And I finally found a project that would successfully use the Disco yarn that started to be two different pairs of socks:

That's the Lacy Baktus, with an edging I stole from something else (I think a stitch dictionary--I'd have to look to be sure).

And last up on my catching-up list, this basket that we made in spinning guild at the August meeting:

It was fun to make! The teacher had the bottom and first round one for us or we would've been there all day. :-)

I think that's about it for the moment. I've been doing customer quilts but you can see those in the link at the top of this post.

I hope you're all having a great weekend!

First Day of School

2010-08-12T09:00:00.004-05:00

The kids are now back in school! Ryan is starting first grade and Gillian is starting fourth grade. (How the heck did that happen?)

They've been *so* excited about going back to school and seeing their friends. It's wonderful!

I had to make them get back out of the car so I could take these pictures—they were already in and waiting to go!

Ryan got his hair wet and spiked it a little:

And Gillian did her own ponytail. (I had to really persuade her to hold still and get the picture-taking over with so that we could get back into the car and GO. LOL!)

They're just a bit excited.

They practically jumped out of the car as soon as I told them they could unbuckle, and they never once looked back:

Happy first day of school! :-)

Fiber Christmas

2010-08-01T17:45:00.002-05:00

I still need to blog about our fabulous trip to Idaho, but first I'm going to post about Fiber Christmas in July that was this Friday and Saturday.

I ended up teaching three classes (Magic Loop Socks, Common Knitting Mistakes and How To Fix Them, and Designing Your Own Socks), and I got really good reviews about all of them.

Of course I turned right around and spent almost all of the money I got from the classes. :-) This is my big fiber purchasing opportunity for the year, and as usual I might have gone a bit overboard.

This is alpaca, bamboo, and merino:

They were clearing it out so it was $2 an ounce. I got four ounces of each of the browns, and three ounces of this gorgeous 60% merino/40% bamboo fiber:

These next two I got in a Dirty Santa swap. I've never worked with pencil roving before so it'll be neat!

I fell deeply in love with this fingering-weight yarn, and it'll probably become a double-knit cowl. I just need to decide what other color to put with it, although I'm leaning toward a cream or off-white. We'll see!

I'm not sure what breed this is, but I got it from Kate at Lowder Colors Farm's stand. It's 4 ounces and really soft. It looks fairly long-stapled so it'll be interesting to spin up.

This is something I snatched out of Bridgette's hands as she was going to give it away as a door prize. It's 100% silk and luscious.

I kept wandering by one of the booths and this particular braid yelled my name:

It's merino with "sparkle" although the sparkle didn't show up in the picture. It's not like Angelina or glitz, and it's going to be another interesting spin because I haven't worked with it before.
This braid yelled at me, too, and it's merino and silk. I'm way into browns this year, if you haven't noticed. They're just pulling me. :-)

I bought a few other things but I'm not going to photograph them right now (maybe after Christmas!).

I also want to post some of the websites for some of the vendors, but that'll have to wait until I'm a bit more organized. I'm still recovering from two really, really busy days right after coming home from a busy week in Idaho. :-)

New addition to sidebar: Magic Loop socks

2010-07-29T15:31:00.003-05:00

This is a quick update post (I'm once again ridiculously behind in posting, but I'll add a whole bunch later).

A couple of years ago I made up a handout to show my technique for doing two socks at once, top down, using the magic loop method (see tutorials in sidebar).

I'm adding the PDF with my illustrations about how to do the heels on two socks at once. Here's the direct link, or click in the sidebar.

This weekend is Fiber Christmas in July and I'm teaching four classes, so I'm frantically getting ready for that.

That's all for now!

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Happy Independence Day!

2010-07-05T10:59:00.007-05:00

Happy (late) Independence Day to my fellow denizens of the U.S.A.!

I slept for most of the day (I've got a sinus infection, I suspect), and Greg took the kids out to buy fireworks. They came back with quite a haul!

Here are the kids, with their chairs in the middle of the cul-de-sac, enjoying the neighborhood display:

That's Greg on the right, lighting a sparkler for Gillian, with Ryan in the background.

They got some of the bigger fireworks, and it was cool to have them right above our heads. I got two neat shots:

I even got a picture of Greg:

This is one of our favorite fireworks. It's a Purple Rain Fountain:

They go for a surprisingly long time. The kids had a great time with sparklers, and with a really long shutter speed I got some fun pictures.

----------------------

On the knitting front, I finished a Laminaria shawl and sent it to my dear friend Kathy for her wedding, which was Friday. I don't have any pics of her (yet) but here are some I took before sending it:

----------------------

I'm participating in the Tour de Fleece again on Ravelry, and I spun up some beautiful fiber that my Mom and Karen bought for me:

The color isn't *quite* right on this pic, but it's too pretty and shiny to not share:

And here's the final collage I posted on Ravelery:

I hope everyone has had a great weekend!

Quilt Show

2010-06-06T09:59:00.003-05:00

It's been a very, very busy month, quilt-wise. The Green Country Quilt Guild's big show was Friday and Saturday, and it was amazing!

I'm proud to say that I got TWO ribbons. Here's the honorable mention:

I managed to finish my Brazilian embroidered wall hanging, although it didn't get anything:

It's finished, though, after nine years, so that's really good.

This quilt got a second place, which I'm absolutely THRILLED about:

And here's another one that didn't get any ribbons (which I expected--there are knots on the back of the quilting where eight to twelve lines of stitching intersect, and I didn't fix them because this is a very well-used quilt).

And just for fun, I put this one in that my Mom pieced and I quilted:

I also put in my All The Same But Different quilt, which (of course) didn't get anything. It's not a pleasing quilt design to me. In fact, it's so unpleasing to me that I didn't bother to take a picture at the show, apparently. LOL!

I took more than 350 pictures at the show, and I've put many of them in my Picasa album, which you can see here.

More shawl pics

2010-04-13T09:06:00.003-05:00

I took my shawl to knitting guild last night and Gene took some pics for me.

Blocking this shawl was a bit of a fiasco, but it turned out just fine. I ended up pinning it out and then steaming it, because the first time I went to unpin it, it snapped back about 4" along a 10" section and I didn't want that.

Luckily my steamer heats up relatively quickly, so I steamed it and let it sit while we ate dinner, then frantically unpinned and off I went to guild.

There was *no way* I was going to not show it off at knitting guild. :-)

You can see bigger photos here, as well as some other of my fiber-y stuff.

DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!

2010-04-12T16:25:00.003-05:00

Yes, I *am* excited x eleventy.

That's because this is finally finished:

According to my projects page on Ravelry, I started it on February 17 of 2008. Two years this shawl took me, and there were times I literally fell asleep while knitting it.

The last round had 96 21-stitch repeats (decreased down from 25-stitch repeats in the rounds before), and they were taking me between an hour and a half and two hours to do, so I'm incredibly thrilled that this project is OVER.

On the quilting front, I got this little quilt pieced from some blocks I had put together a long time ago:

I'll put some borders and stuff on it to make it big enough for a nice-sized throw, and then I'll donate it to Quilts of Valor most likely since I'm really, really not into red, white, and blue.

At the upper left you can see a couple of my Storm At Sea blocks. That's all I've gotten pieced so far, but I'm almost finished cutting the background fabrics. I don't know if I'll have it done by June for the quilt show but I'm sure going to try!

That's all for now. I just had to show off a bit. :-)

Gillian's broken arm

2010-04-11T16:34:00.004-05:00

Just as life was calming down a little bit, Gillian broke her arm!

It's not serious and she's not in pain unless she twists it, luckily.

She was jumping out of the swing and landed on her hands and knees and her left radius broke. Her friend Isabel was over at the time and I think she was a bit freaked out, poor kid. Gilly was *very* freaked out because she couldn't feel her arm for a few minutes and it was a little sore.

Here are the x-ray pics:

I added some arrows:

But as you can see she's not too bothered.

----------------------------------

Greg has been working in the garden quite a bit!

Last week most of the plants in the "mini greenhouse" had come up:

They're now mostly in the ground!

Ryan was helping, too:

Here are the tomatoes:

And this isn't something we're growing on purpose, but I thought it was pretty:

----------------------------------

I got a new skin from DecalGirl for my reader, since the overuse of the unsharp mask was really bugging me (yeah, I know, I'm PICKY).

Here's the old skin still on the Reader, and the new skin:

I was asked why I chose the Sony Reader, and I had a whole bunch of reasons that I chose it over the Barnes & Noble Nook or the Amazon Kindle.

The big reason was the touch screen, which I absolutely LOVE. I can turn pages with a flick of my finger, but the big deal to me is that I can write on the screen and make notes. I've loaded some knitting patterns onto it, and it's awesome to be able to write directly on the pattern.

I tried out the Nook and I did not like it when I used it at the store. It was completely non-intuitive, and if *I* can't figure it out within about 5 minutes of playing with it, I'm not going to bother buying it. (Wow, that sounds really egoistical, but I can almost always figure out things pretty quickly.)

Another factor was that the battery is replaceable on the Sony Touch. Hopefully the battery will last a really, really long time, but it's nice to know it can be replaced.

The Touch doesn't have any wireless capabilities which doesn't bother me at all. I plug in my device to the computer to move files around, which is fine with me. The only thing I don't like is that it didn't come with a wall-plug charger, and I'll probably acquire one in the near future. I've heard that they charge faster and hold the charge longer when one uses a wall-plug charger, but I haven't verified that.

Another reason I went with the Touch is the file types it uses, as well as its compatibility with the library system. Now if only our library system would work out a decent way to search the ebooks, I'd be thrilled. (There's no way I've found to search other than "ebook" so you get everything. No way to search by author, etc. Blech. )

The Amazon Kindle was my second choice, but I'm thrilled with my Sony Touch!

----------------------------------

I haven't gotten any knitting done that I can share (doing some gift knitting for various people) so hopefully in a few months I'll be showing off some projects.

I'm excited because there's a new fiber festival coming up on May 2, and then Fiber Christmas will be in July again. I'm thinking about teaching two classes, possibly three, depending on how Greg feels about it since he'd need to be home with the kids on those days.

That's all from around here! I hope you all have had a great weekend.

Queen of the Household

2010-03-19T10:50:00.002-05:00

I hereby dub myself Queen of the Household for successfully replacing the fan on our vacuum. LOL!

Here's the fan that was broken (and incredibly loud!!!):

It was cracked in multiple places and made an incredible noise when I turned on the vacuum. It's also filthy but I guess that proves the vacuum was doing its job.

The new fan went in really easily and the vacuum is quieter than it's been for a while. It's an industrial Sanitaire vacuum that my grandfather bought for us as a wedding present, going on 14 years ago (gasp!!!). It's a fabulous vacuum and I'm very proud of myself for diagnosing the problem and fixing it myself.

On the knitting front, I started a new pair of socks. I'm trying these toe up, with a heel flap, and hopefully they'll fit.

I have a hard time getting the color balance right, but you can get the idea.

I also got a skin for my Sony Touch e-reader. I'm not thrilled with the quality of the picture (someone used the unsharp mask in Photoshop a few too many times) but I love the way it feels on the device. Next time I'll order one from DecalGirl instead, though.

I love my e-reader, although it's going to take me a while to duplicate my paperback collection in digital files. I have to remind myself that it's taken me years to build up my paperback collection, and I don't need to have all of them NOW. LOL! On the other hand, it's really nice to be getting rid of things and I need to move that to other areas of my life. I was good and got rid of a stack of knitting books that I'll never use, and I need to go through my quilt books next. I think my yarn collection might be getting purged next. We'll see.

I just might live

2010-03-15T15:02:00.004-05:00

Last week I got hit with a really, really nasty sinus infection. I spent most of the last week sleeping 12 - 14 hours a day, which is not my norm. But, at last, I'm managing to say awake all day!

So now I have a bunch of stuff to get caught up on, but I did manage to finish Teresa's quilt. It's gorgeous and I'm thrilled that I got to participate in this project.

Gorgeous, isn't it?

This weekend Greg and the kids did a lot of work out in the garden, and got two beds ready to go.

Here's the bed from last year, all ready to go, with some onions left over form last year:

Here are some seed packets and tomatoes started:

The new big raised bed, plus a tilled-up area next to it:

Last year the kids talked Greg into building flower boxes, and on Saturday he put them up on the side of the shed and they put seeds in them. Hopefully they'll grow!

The fish tank is up and filled with water, now all we need are fish!

Ravelympics

2010-03-01T22:09:00.004-06:00

It's been a busy week or so since my last post. (Why do I wait so long between posts?)

First up, Carmine is no longer with us. It turned out that he was older than a year old, and was FliV (I think that's right -- feline leukemia) positive. Very, very positive. I know we made the right decision but it was tough. On the other hand, we've seen a lot more of Lenny and Squiggy since they basically disappeared while Carmine was around.

Greg has been very busy with his new tools!

He sprayed some coats of polyurethane on the aquarium table:

And here's the finished table:

Isn't it gorgeous? It'll sit for a few more days to let the finish really harden, and then we'll get it set up in the living room with the fish tank.

Thursday night Greg and I went to see the opera Rigoletto at the Tulsa Opera. It was great! It was the final dress rehearsal, so our seats were really good. It's wonderful knowing people behind the scenes who got us tickets (thanks Lena and Somer!).

Friday was the school carnival at the kids' school, which was torture for the adults but the kids loved it.

They entered the Twinkie decorating contest, and here are their entries:

Those are Gillian's penguins, and Ryan did a car ("it's NOT a train, it's a CAR!"):

They both won ribbons so they were thrilled.

We won one of the class baskets! It was filled with all kinds of gardening stuff:

Now we're eager for the weather to warm up so we can get started on the garden.

During the Olympics, there's an event called the Ravelympics during which knitters (and other fiber crafters) attempt to finish certain projects. I managed to finish a pair of socks for the WIPs Dancing (Work In Progress) category, and I ripped out an almost-finished pair of socks for the Aerial Unwind category (no pic at the moment since they're just two balls of yarn again).

Here's the finished pair:

I really like the heel on this sock, and I'll probably use it from now on. There's no picking up of stitches!

I also got a quilt done for Calista, again using glow in the dark thread. Cute, huh?

That's it for the moment! Thankfully I don't have a lot going this week so I can concentrate on getting another two quilts finished. (I hope I haven't just doomed myself. LOL!)

New Furry Family Member

2010-02-16T09:15:00.002-06:00

Last night Greg got adopted by a kitten. :-)

He went out to his truck after work and heard meowing, and finally coaxed a kitten out from under the bed of his truck. He was cold, dirty, and *very* hungry. (The kitten, not Greg. LOL!) I think he's around three months old, and he's really friendly.

As soon as we brought him into the garage he headed right for the food bowl and chowed down for about five minutes.

Gillian came out and said "What happened to Lenny???? How'd he get SMALL?!?!"

So now we have three orange tabby cats.

He's very, very friendly. He really wants to be picked up and held, which is great because Lenny and Squiggy aren't into that so much and Gillian would be perfectly happy carrying around a cat all the time.

This kitten has managed to chase off both Lenny and Squiggy, who outweigh him by quite a lot. So far there hasn't been anything more than hissing on the new kitty's part so we'll see how things shake out. Lenny and Squiggy don't seem too put out, thank goodness. We put out a second set of food and water bowls so that all the kitties can eat without too much fuss hopefully.

On to other things. I realized that I never posted about my eReader! Greg bought me a Sony Touch Reader a few weeks ago, and not a day has gone by that I haven't used it. It's fabulous!

I even keep knitting patterns on there:

I love that I can make notes and write on the pattern just like on paper:

I love it!

Now I need to go be productive while I have time today, since tomorrow is my huge day (volunteering in the lunch room at school, then bowling for me, bowling for Gillian after school, then Panera for knitting that evening).

I hope you're all having a great week!

We've been busy around here

2010-02-15T16:49:00.002-06:00

As usual, it's been longer than I intended since my last blog post but we've been doing all kinds of things around here.

First up, I got two skeins of yarn spun from the roving that my Mom, Karen, and I dyed up while they were here at Christmas.

I'm very happy with it! It's exactly the weight I was trying for. I have five more braids to spin up, then I'll start the knitting. One skein has 172 yards and the second has 168 yards.

Over the weekend I updated my business website with three galleries of customers' quilts. Check them out here!

Speaking of quilts, I just finished the quilting on my friend Calista's quilt. Here's a detail shot of the rocket:

The thread glows in the dark, which you can see in this picture:

Isn't that the coolest thing ever?!?!

Greg has been really busy this weekend, too. He got a new (used, but new to him) table saw, and a new jointer. He's been working on a gorgeous fish tank stand, and he'll put the finish on next weekend.

Here's the table saw:

And the jointer:

I'm so glad he's having such a great time using them. I've given him a list of pieces of furniture I'd love to have him build. LOL!

Back to School!

2010-01-31T21:26:00.003-06:00

The storm dumped a bunch of snow, but it hasn't shut everything down the way the last ice storm did (thank goodness).

The kids *are* going back to school tomorrow, which is great! The only bad thing is that I've managed to come down with a horrible head cold, so I'll be canceling on going to the library to process holds like I normally do on Mondays. Can you imagine how I could spread this virus, handling a few hundred books? [Not to mention that I'm not very with it at the moment.]

I took some pictures of the weather, although they're not all that much different than the ones from the last post, you can see the snow is a lot deeper. Looking at the patio set in the back, I'd say we got around 6" at least.

I'd gotten some paperwhites right after Christmas, and I was so excited about them -- until they bloomed.

It took me about a day to figure out where the really nasty week-old newborn diaper smell was coming from.

I took this picture after putting them outside because I couldn't stand the smell any more. Unfortunately they've now drooped and I've probably killed them.

Pretty though, aren't they?

Speaking of pretty, the ice on all of the trees is pretty spectacular, especially with the sun shining through the ice.

I finished Gillian's new mittens a little while ago, and she took them out for a test:

The thumbs are blue because I ran out of purple yarn. LOL! She doesn't seem to mind, thankfully.

This next picture gives a pretty good idea of just how much ice we got.

On Thursday afternoon while it was snowing I managed to spin up one of the braids that my Mom and Karen helped me dye:

I still need to ply it, but I'm going to wait another day or so until the singles aren't so energized so I don't have as many tangles to deal with. As usual, I've wound it into a center-pull ball and I'll ply from both ends of the ball. Once that's done and the twist is set, it's on to the next braid. I have five braids total, and I can't wait to get it all done so I can start knitting it up into a Bono Kimono (Ravelry link). I'm shooting for a heavy worsted-weight yarn but we'll see. According to my spinner's control card the singles is 22wpi, which might *just* be worsted once the twist is set. I could be surprised though! This is really the first project where I'm trying very hard to go for a specific weight.

Speaking of knitting and spinning, thank you Fillyjonk, Marianne, ShortOldLady, Denise, and Calista for your comments on the last two posts. :-)

I'm going back to bed now and try to sleep off this cold.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Ice Storm

2010-01-29T12:24:00.003-06:00

We're getting walloped by the weather around here.

It started raining yesterday, which froze as soon as it hit the ground. Right now it's snowing.
So far we still have power, and hopefully we'll continue to have power. We keep having flashbacks to the ice storm of 2007, also known as The Ice Storm of Doom. LOL!

This time around we've got a propane indoor-safe heater, so things won't get quite as bad as 2007 as long as the power doesn't go out for too long.

I haven't actually ventured outside yet, but I did take some pictures from inside.

This is how the hoses looked this morning around 9:00:

Two hours later, after the snow started, they looked like this:

It's continuing to snow so they're quite a bit more buried now.

Here's the patio set:

The next-door neighbor's weeds (yes, they're so big they're growing above the fence--this one is about 12' tall):

The back fence (with the other neighbor's sagging patio cover) and lots of icicles:

It's really, really nasty out there. The problem isn't the snow, it's the 3/4" of ice all over everything. Greg actually stayed home from work today, which makes me worry a LOT less. He said he went to get on the turnpike (about a mile south of us) and the ice pellets started hitting his windshield. He said that getting there probably wouldn't be a problem, but getting home again after snow all day could be a *big* problem.

I was supposed to go scrapbooking tonight but I'm going to call and cancel. It's just not worth it to go anywhere, especially since we're normally there until around midnight.

I hope all of you are staying warm, and that all of my local friends don't lose power!

Extra Bad Blogger - Trachtentuch A shawl

2010-01-28T16:10:00.005-06:00

Not only have I not posted for a while, I realized that I never actually posted the finished Trachtentuch A pictures. D'OH!!

It's been a long time, so I'll do a little picture recap. (Warning: gratuitous spinning, knitting, and lace pictures ahead. LOL) I started this project in July and finished it in early September.

First, a collage of the spun yarn. I did this during the Tour de Fleece last year, and luckily my Mom bought eight ounces instead of just four because I ended up using about six ounces.

Here's the start of the shawl:

Shawl in mid-way stage (color is accurate in the first picture, and not in this one):

Shawl pre-blocking:

Blocking, detail:

Blocking, full:

It might not seem that huge, but each of those tiles is 24".

Bad pic of me in shawl:

And this is how I end up "storing" many of my shawls:

I'm thinking about using black wool for Trachtentuch B, but we'll see. :-)

------------------------------------------------------------

There's a huge storm rolling in at the moment and they're predicting that the power will go out in the next day or two. I just heard that school has now officially been canceled for tomorrow. I'm supposed to go scrapbooking tomorrow during the day and then for most of Friday night. I obviously won't be going during the day, and hopefully the roads will still be passable enough to go in the evening. Who knows!

Gillian stayed home sick from school (again) today, and she's much better than she was yesterday. While she watched a movie (Meet the Robinsons) I made a half-batch of laundry soap, so now I'm feeling fairly well prepared for the moment. That's about it for excitement around here. LOL!

Stay warm and safe!

Rock Day!

2010-01-17T18:52:00.005-06:00

Yesterday was the Tulsa Handspinners' Guild annual Rock Day celebration.
Rock Day was traditionally the last hurrah before the spinners went back to work (a day ahead of the weavers) after the Christmas celebration.

For our Rock Day celebration we played lots of games and had good food.
Here's what I came home with (as far as stuff done in contests):

The pink and purple fiber that's on the crown is the stuff I won a Kromski niddy noddy for -- I got the longest length of fiber spun using a paper clip. Not a wheel, not a drop spindle, but a partially-unbent paper clip.

Moving clockwise, the bunch of easter grass and tinsel was horrible to spin, but at least now I can say I've done it. I ended up with about 10" of "yarn" and now I never have to do it again. LOL!

The black yarn at the bottom is made from a man's tie! I cut strips about 3/4" wide in a spiral going from the outside in. It actually makes a kind of neat yarn.

The next one, the cream with pink, teal, and violet bits, was the second contest I won. We were given a baggie of thrums, which are the parts cut off a loom after the weaving is finished. I chopped them up a bit and caught them in between two plies of wool to make an eyelash-type yarn. It really should be cabled to make it more secure as the thrums just pull out if you're not really really gentle, but it was fun to make!

In the center, the cream yarn is stuff we were given 30 minutes to spin. It wasn't prepped other than washed, and so I just kind of fluffed and shredded it with my fingers, then spun from a hand full.

The white stuff is a used dyer sheet. It was not terribly pleasant to spin, but between this and the tie I'm now convinced that I can spin just about anything. I was joking around that if the apocalypse comes, at least my family will be clothed. LOL!

I got this as a door prize:

It's 7.25 ounces of Ashland Bay Merino roving in the colorway English Garden. (The color isn't quite right in the picture.)

There were a bunch of vendors there, too, and I picked up a few things:

That's some merino in Sandalwood, from Ashland Bay. I got 8 ounces.

Up next is more Ashland Bay stuff, this time 80% Merino 20% Tussah silk:

I got these locks from Kate at Lowder Colours Farm, one of my good friends:

I can't remember exactly how much I got, but I'll weigh it again at some point.

Now onto the grab bags of fiber. Everyone got one of these for participating in the various contests.

This one is wool (of some kind), and has been washed and carded:

This is the first bag of three that I think is mohair, and it's quite...odoriferous. It's also full of VM and possibly dandruff.

Bag #2:

Bag #3:

I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, other than wash it a few times.

I got two bags of this wool:

I'm quite pleased with these two little bags of mohair locks, which seem clean and nice:

I managed to finish the shawl that I made for the Rock Day Challenge in time, which took about two weeks from starting to spin the fiber to blocking the shawl (although it would've been easier had I started a week or two earlier!!!). I got first place in the contest, which absolutely thrilled me. Here's the shawl:

And a gratuitous artsy shot:

I had a great time at Rock Day, although it kind of wore me out. LOL! I'm already looking forward to next year.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr day, so the kids are out of school. It's a good thing since Gillian was up until midnight at the Girl Scout sleepover at the Oklahoma Aquarium last night.

I hope all of you have had a great weekend!

Birthdays and Cookies

2010-01-08T22:01:00.005-06:00

I've been a bad blogger and not updated for a while, and this is going to be a quick post.

Tomorrow we're having Ryan's birthday party. It's a few days early (his birthday is Thursday) but this was the best available time for everything. He's so excited he's about to pop! I'll probably have some pics to post tomorrow evening, assuming I'm not comatose by then.

Cookies sales (Girl Scout cookies, that is!) start on Saturday the 16th. I can't take orders before then, but if you want any cookies let me know! Boxes are $4 each this year. Apparently some of the surrounding states are selling them for $3.50 per box, but we have 25 Girl Scout camps to support for our area, vs. the six or so that many of the other councils around us in western Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas support. (At least that's what I was told by our troop leader).

Last week I got my bowling balls redrilled to fingertip layouts, and had grips put in. They're *quite* different, but my average is definitely going up! On Wednesday (first day with the new drill pattern) I got 108, 132, and 123 at league. Since my average has dropped to 123 down from 130 at the start, I'm feeling much better about my bowling. Greg and I went bowling on Thursday and I got a 143 and a 187, which is by far my best score ever! I only left one open frame on the last game. We'll see if I can keep it up. LOL!

Getting Back to Normal

2009-12-30T10:57:00.008-06:00

That's not quite the right post title, but I'm not feeling creative. :-)

My parents and Karen left yesterday to go back up to Illinois. My parents will fly back home on Saturday morning.

The day after Christmas Karen and my Mom helped me to dye up a pound and a half of the Finn top that Karen gave me for Christmas (see previous post).

Here's the finished stuff:

I wanted a bit of variation among the braids so I'm pleased with the differences.

I can't wait to get started spinning it up, but I have some quilts that need to be finished first. My dear friend Kathy sent some tops to be done by mid-January and I desperately need to get my Mom's quilt finished that I've had for more than a year. (What's that saying about a landscaper's yard that looks horrible, or a plumber's house that has leaky plumbing? Yeah.)

Speaking of quilting, my Mom got me this ruler set to make a Storm At Sea quilt. I'm very excited about it as I've wanted to make one of these quilts for years but I didn't like the methods I knew of to make it. I think this template set is going to make a huge difference in the ease of piecing it.

Here's an idea of my plan:

It's going to be huge—just under king size, at around 95" x 104". We like wide quilts on the bed, but they don't need to be too long since we have a big foot board.

I'll use lots of different blues but I'm thinking I'll keep the background in just plain white. We'll see though. I haven't done the calculations to figure out how much white I need, and I might go with a white-on-white print rather than plain white.

The layout with the border above is from the book that goes with the templates, and it's a great book. The author really plays with the layout and has some really different and fabulous ideas.
That's about all from around here. I'm going to attempt to get thank-you notes out today, as well as some of the Christmas stuff put away. It's almost noon, though, and I haven't showered yet. (Not an auspicious start for getting a lot done today! LOL!)

I hope you're all having a great week so far, and staying warm.

More Christmas Stuff

2009-12-25T18:16:00.010-06:00

What a great day it's been! I'm sitting in my new chair on a chair pad that doesn't hurt my feet, there are fantastic smells wafting through the house (it's great to have Karen here sharing her gourmet skills!) and the kids are in heaven playing with new toys.

What does my new chair look like, you ask?

I'm definitely spoiled! ;-)

My desk area is slightly more messy than normal, but if I told you it's cleared off most of the time I'd be lying.

Speaking of new toys, Gillian and Greg spent 5.5 hours (Greg timed it) putting together Gillian's Lego kit she got for Christmas.

Here they are, working on it this morning:

In the picture Ryan is waiting (ever so patiently) for me to help him with *his* Lego project, a dump truck. I think it took us about 30 minutes, although I wasn't timing it. One of these days he'll put his OWN Lego kit together. LOL!

Here's Gillian with the completed Lego kit:

One of the gifts for the kids this year was knitting, fulled clogs. The fit on both pairs needs to be fine tuned, but that'll come tomorrow. Here they are:

They seem pretty happy with them!

Here are some of the gift I got:

That's a sling for my bowling ball from Karen, and a great mini journal and pen from Aunt Louise. I didn't manage to get a picture of the neat earrings and wine bottle cork she sent.

This is a wonderful kitchen towel that my Grandmother embroidered:

Isn't it great?

My sister, Dr. Karen, got the Starmore book for me, as well as Neil deGrasse Tyson's Death By Black Hole. (I showed it to my Dad and he's reading it now, so I don't have it in the picture.) Also in this picture is a set of soaps from my MIL and a set of seedless preserves from my Uncle Scott and Aunt Carol. I told you I'm spoiled!

This next item is just wickedly cool. My parents took one of their old spinning wheels to a man in Montana and he makes these niddy noddies and their cases by hand. His name is Steve McEwen, and if you want his address, send me a message.

Here's the case:

Here's the niddy noddy with the pin pulled out to release the yarn that's been wound. The pin on the thong goes through the cross piece and holds it in place during winding.

Mine is made of burl maple and Karen's is made from oak, we think.

Here are some more presents. The body wash and scrubbing mit are from my MIL, the three lotions are from Karen, as is the tube of alpaca (more about that in a sec), and the bag is from my parents.

Here's a detail of the alpaca. It's 8 ounces of adult black alpaca, and it's just luscious!

Karen also gave me 42 ounces of Finn roving, which is going to get dyed and hopefully become a Bono Kimono (Ravelry link). It's more yellow in the pic than in real life, but it's certainly not white-white-white like the snow.

The snow has been rather surreal! It's so bright during the day that I didn't even turn on the lights in the bedroom until it was getting dark. Impressive!

Stay warm and enjoy the weekend!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T14:54:00.005-06:00

It's been busy in the run-up to Christmas, so I've been enjoying being lazy for the last few days.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have been wonderful!

Here's the tree before Santa came:

See those two big boxes with the striped paper? Those are mine. LOL! The bottom one is a wonderful new computer chair (that I'm sitting in while posting this -- it's fabulous!), and the box on the top is a new set of pans! I'm pretty spoiled.

Here's after Santa came and filled the stockings:

This is one of the ornaments I made this year:

I used my Cricut machine and a file I downloaded after seeing it on the Sure Cuts A Lot list (the software that allows me to create files and cut them using the Cricut).

We managed to hold off the kids from opening presents until 7:30, although they sure looked over everything until we let them have at it.

Karen is looking out the back door at all the snow (more about that in a bit).

Christmas wouldn't be complete without a holiday apron, right? Here's the one I made last week, as a prototype for one I made for Karen:

I mentioned snow. Yes, we got some!
It started out as rain, then became frozen pellets of ice (but not quite hail), then turned to snow. Here's when it was ice:

After dinner, this is what we saw:

The kids about popped. Grandma took pity on them and went out with them for a few minutes, although they didn't last too long (it was COLD and really windy).

Here's my new set of pans!

Hopefully later I'll have some more pictures to post. We need to take a picture of some of Karen's aprons (she got four!) and my gorgeous wooden swift, among other neat things.

I hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas, and a happy holiday season!

Announcing...

2009-12-16T12:16:00.002-06:00

Dr. Karen!!!

My sister successfully defended her dissertation this morning!

YAY KAREN!!!!!

I'm so proud!

Christmas Musings

2009-12-04T12:12:00.002-06:00

We're almost totally decorated around here, thanks to the kids! They did a fabulous job.

(The star at the top is a color-changing LED one that's pretty neat, but I can NOT get it to stay straight.)

I have a bunch of presents that still need to be wrapped and put under the tree, but that'll wait until Monday (or later) when the kids are at school.

The kids did the whole village themselves, including getting things out of the boxes and (mostly) putting the empty boxes away.

I haven't put up lights outside yet, but I think we'll put up the inflatable after school today. Tomorrow is the annual Christmas parade, and Gillian's Brownie troop will be marching in it again. It should be fun! We really enjoyed the parade last year.

-------------------------------------------------------

Someone asked about my toe, and I'm happy to report that it's no longer swollen and unhappy. If it gets stepped on or bumped hard it's still painful, but it's not bothering me to walk any more thank goodness.

-------------------------------------------------------

I'm still knitting up some Christmas gifts so I can't post too much at the moment.

-------------------------------------------------------

I have to get a bunch of quilts done before Christmas so I'm going to get back to it. I read about a neat trick for easing in full areas when quilts aren't flat, and I'm impressed with how well it works. With the quilt under tension on the quilt frame, I spray it down quite thoroughly with water. As it dries is gets a little smaller. I managed to eliminate 1.5" of fullness (from a 12" area) with repeated applications of water, so I'm pretty happy.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Yet another catch-up post

2009-11-28T11:41:00.010-06:00

As usual, it's been a while since I posted last.

I've been busy between the knitting workshop and now!

First, the last day of the workshop:

Susanna Hansson taught a class on stripes, and it was wonderful! I was initially disappointed that it had been chosen, but I learned a lot. She talked about the Fibonacci sequence in a new way than I'd thought about, and I learned a new twist on making a jogless stripe.

The hat above is too small for Ryan so I made him one that's identical only bigger. Gillian wants one, too, only in purples instead of blues.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I finally finished up my second Honeycomb fingerless mitt. I've been working on writing up the pattern to make two at a time on magic loop, and hopefully I'll have it test knit and ready sometime in the next month or so.

I've also been doing some Christmas knitting, which I'm going to refrain from posting about here. I don't think the recipient reads my blog but I don't want to chance it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

During the spinning guild meeting and while Karen was here (we had a great time -- more about that later), I managed to get the Ashland Bay merino/silk spun up that I bought at the Snake River Fiber Fair in 2007. I think that finishes up the fiber that I bought then.

I got 184 yards from 4 ounces, and it's worsted weight.

Of course the picture doesn't do it justice. It's so soft! And of course I have no idea what I'm going to do with it (as usual!).

-----------------------------------------------------------------

My very nice Mother-In-Law sent me a gorgeous present for my birthday:

It's a basket of Amaryllis! I'm very excited. I love these plants, and three at once is a special treat.

I also got some yarn from Aunt Louise for my birthday:

She sent eight skeins of worsted-weight 100% Peruvian Alpaca, and it's incredibly soft! I have no idea what I'm going to do with it (yet) beyond petting it occasionally. She said that she made a jacket with some black yarn of the same stuff, and I can only imagine how wonderful it is. I'm tempted to dye it and make a cuff-to-cuff jacket. We'll see....

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Now, on to activities while Karen was here.

When my sister comes down to Tulsa, one of the must-visit places is DSW shoes, and this time I actually found *two* pairs of shoes for me! This is a truly earth-shattering event.

Here's a pic of one of the pairs:

Not only are they cute, they show off my socks (which knitters know is very important). I'll work on getting a picture of the other pair soon. They're just as cute!

Karen outdid herself with Thanksgiving. Here is everyone, ready to eat:

It was incredibly tasty and I'm so thrilled that we have leftovers. Yummy!!!

We swore we wouldn't go shopping on Black Friday but we ended up going anyway. We left Karen at home to nap and went to Harbor Freight (which Greg calls "Michael's for men") to get some wheels for the kids' go cart. It's been a big hit!

Karen went back up to Illinois this morning, and she's got a bit of work ahead of her. She's got about a week to finish her dissertation, then a week to relax and clean until my parents arrive. They'll all drive down from Illinois to spend Christmas with us, which will be wonderful!

The kids and I are going to work on getting the Christmas decorations out and put up this afternoon [since it's already noon! Where did the morning go?!?!] so hopefully I'll have some pics to share of that for my next post.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Bohus knitting workshop

2009-11-14T22:00:00.005-06:00

Today was fascinating!

The K.N.I.T. (Knitting Needles In Tulsa) Guild hosted Susanna Hansson for a Bohus (pronounced "Boo-heus" with the last syllable almost in a kissing kind of movement) workshop. We started on wristlets, and this is the class's progress:

Mine is the one in the center top.

Here are some of the gorgeous sweaters and accessories Susanna brought:

These are some of the ladies who took the class, with Susanna (seated) demonstrating a stranding technique:

These are some samples of different sizes and edging treatments:

I worked a little bit more on my cuff when I got home, but after the second time I had to rip back the same simple three rounds, I decided I was too tired to continue.

Tomorrow is the stripes class, which I originally wasn't going to take but I was offered a free scholarship so I decided to go! I'm looking forward to it.

---------------------------------------------------

In other news, I may have broken my toe last night. If it's not actually broken then it's very sore, very bruised, and rather swollen.

[Wow, my feet are really unattractive. LOL! At least I have hair on my toes, which means my circulation is still O.K.. Woo hoo for hairy toes!]

I hope all of you have as great a weekend as I'm having.

Almost over the bug, and a neat day trip

2009-11-08T22:42:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've been fighting some sort of illness. Everyone else in the family has had a very slight cold, but it hit me like a ton of bricks and has pretty well knocked me down for most of the last week.

I'm finally getting over it, and today I felt strong enough to go with the rest of the family on a day trip up to the Tallgrass Prairie up near Bartlesville. It was beautiful! They normally have a bunch of bison running around, but last weekend they rounded them up and they're penned for a while.

Greg drove, even though he doesn't generally prefer to drive, because I still wasn't feeling quite "with it" enough to drive.

I got some really neat late-fall pictures of the vegetation.

When we first started out on our drive (it took a little over an hour to get to the preserve), Ryan said that he really liked "seeing all the naked trees. But they're not ALL naked!" LOL!

This is a statue by the headquarters of the preserve:

And Mom, here's one of the pictures we'll be using for the family calendar this year:

This building is a landmark in Pawhuska, as the map we printed out said "turn right at the triangular building" (and it *is* tough to miss!). It's kind of hard to see form this angle, but it's definitely like a pie wedge. Ryan said "it's just like a slice of pizza!"

And now it's almost 11:00 at night, so it's time for bed.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T21:29:00.006-05:00

Happy Halloween, everyone!

While my Mom was here we went to a pumpkin patch and got pumpkins, then carved them the next day.

They had some really unique pumpkins!

Gillian almost went for this one but changed her mind.

Due to the magic of Photoshop, I got all of us in one photo:

Saturday morning we carved the pumpkins. I think Grandma did the majority of the work.

We finished them up after we dropped off Grandma at the airport, so at least the kids had a little something to look forward to. They did a great job!

And the late-evening shot:

The sunset was pretty amazing that night, too:

We had an eventful evening of Trick-or-Treating at the Night Out on Crime on Main Street tonight (Halloween) and the kids came home with quite a haul of candy!

Here are the kids before we left:

Ryan didn't want to wear his mask so at the last minute we used some of Gillian's face paint and made an attempt to add Optimus Prime type markings to his face. [Look at that beautiful, freshly-mown lawn!]

Here's Gillian's haul, just after she dumped out her bucket. (It promptly got spread out all over!)

And Ryan, showing off his candy:

Halloween was very successful all the way around this year. Greg stayed home to greet any trick or treaters, and when the kids rang the bell after we got home he said that our own kids were the only trick or treaters all night!

-------------------------------------------------------------

The lastest home improvement project has been replacing the back door, and it's made a HUGE difference.

Here's the door as it is now:

Last weekend Greg mudded it in and it is *fabulous.* We need to repaint the header (and the rest of the exterior) but that's going to take a lot of work and replacing of wood, so that's probably not going to happen until at least spring.

Here's the old door:

And here's the rotted section:

While the wood was pretty, it was warped at the top and let in a ton of air, not to mention the rotting sections of wood! I also really, really didn't like the divided light aspect of it. It visually closed off that area. I LOVE the new door and how open it makes the room feel.

I also don't notice the huge temperature difference between that room and the rest of the house any more. It's been such a wonderful improvement in so many ways!

I hope all of you are having a great weekend, too!

Non-Quilt Sewing

2009-10-26T21:06:00.006-05:00

I've been frantically working on about a million different projects, but I wanted to post this to show BeLinda:

It was a really fun project! The dress should fit an 18" American Girl doll. (It had *better* fit! LOL!)

Family Trek to the Fair

2009-10-19T20:25:00.004-05:00

As promised, here's the post about the family trip to the fair.

We ended up going on Saturday, October 10. It was fairly cold and we finally got our act together and got to the park and ride shuttle around 11:30. Here we are on the bus:

One of the first things we saw was an area for fishing, and the kids really wanted to try. Because the water was so cold the fish were really sluggish, so they didn't catch anything, but they had a good time trying.

After fishing, the kids were dying to ride one of the rides, and they chose this one:

I think they really enjoyed it (despite Ryan's serious face).

After that we wandered toward the kids' building and came across this neat display in the Made in Oklahoma building:

I took three pictures and pasted them together to make sure I got as much detail as I could. We think our pecans are the Squirrels' Delight ones.

In one of the animal buildings we came across a woman holing a bunny and I couldn't resist taking a picture:

The kids rode two more rides on the way out. One was a climbing thing:

And the other was a roller-coaster-type ride. Gillian loved every second of it, but Ryan was kind of touch and go judging from his expression. At the end he said he really like it and would definitely ride it again.

All in all it was a very pleasant time. There were tons of people coming in as we were leaving so we timed it just right!

Tulsa State Fair wrap-up post

2009-10-18T10:28:00.005-05:00

I've been a bit scattered lately, but I finally got the pictures ready for this post.

My friend Calista and I went to the fair on Monday, October 5, just the two of us (NO KIDS!) and had a great time looking at all of the Creative Arts stuff. We spent about an hour and a half just looking. It was great!

We found the kids' stuff first.

Gillian's Lego kit entry:

Gillian's decorated T-shirt entry:

Gillian's weaving:

Ryan's drawing:

Gillian's drawing:

Ryan's Christmas ornament:

Then we wandered over to the Creative Arts exhibit area and found my stuff (and Calista's, but she's got pictures elsewhere).

My quilt (which will be going to Karen for her birthday, which was in January):

My socks (at the top):

The Sweepstakes winner for knitting (Rori's Hey Teach sweater is the blue one on the right):

My broomstick-lace-ish crocheted scarf, next to the first place winner (not sure why that one got first, but it's not up to me LOL):

My crocheted hot pad, which was in the Crocheted Article, under 24" division:

And my Hyrna Herborgar shawl, center bottom:

Last but not least, here's my rubber stamp entry, in the scrapbook page category:

Here's a view of the glass cases:

Everything still smells like fair food (fried), but at least they're secured in the cases.

These were some really neat baskets that I loved:

And finally, Calista and me:

I'll post pics of the family excursion to the fair a little bit later!

I bought myself a present

2009-10-09T10:38:00.004-05:00

My birthday is coming up, but I couldn't pass up this when I found it on the clearance shelf at WalMart for $15:

I used one at scrapbooking night a few weeks ago and I was hooked! I know, they've been around for at least two years, but I'm tragically unhip.

Speaking of birthdays, Greg's birthday was last week and all he really wanted (besides his two front teeth, hahahaha Greg) was a steak dinner.

Since I don't work the grill, he had to cook his own dinner.

They were SO good! Gillian wanted a sausage, but both kids finally tried the steak and decided that it was really, really good.

The next post will be about the fair and booties. (NO, I'm *not* pregnant, these are for some of my sister's friends.)

Fair opened this evening

2009-10-01T19:41:00.003-05:00

I'm knee-deep in quilts to be done, but for those who are wondering how I did at the fair, I have a couple of results thanks to Kim, who was there tonight.

My socks got first place, and Calista's got second. Yay!

My crocheted scarf got a second place.

My shawl got nothing, which was a bit of a surprise, so I'm eager to see what got ribbons! I'm sure my friend Denise's gorgeous silk Aeolian shawl got sweepstakes.

I still don't know how the kids did, or how well my crocheted trivet, quilt, and rubber stamped scrapbook pages did, but I suspect they didn't get anything.

I'm eager to go see everything!

Fair Entries

2009-09-29T16:04:00.003-05:00

I managed to get all of the fair entries delivered, at last! The kids' stuff was due last Saturday, and my stuff was due the previous Saturday. I swear I was working on fair stuff right up to the last minute.

Here's what I entered:

Hyrna Herborgar from handspun, in the "Adult, any other clothing or accessory, knit" category

My second Quilted Lattice socks, in the "Socks, knit" category

My broomstick lace-ish scarf, in the "Adult, any other clothing or accessory, crochet" category

A trivet, in the "Any other crochet article under 24”" category

"Rubber stamping, scrapbook page" category

And a quilt that'll go to my sister after the fair:

Now comes the waiting to find out how I did! The fair opens the day after tomorrow, although I doubt we'll be going that night. I know a few of my friends are going then, so hopefully they'll report back.

A Winged Visitor

2009-09-21T12:21:00.006-05:00

This morning at 7:40 the phone rang. It was Greg, who was out in the driveway. He'd noticed a hawk sitting on the fence right outside Ryan's bedroom, and I ran and got the camera.

I managed to put the telephoto lens on the camera, and got some pretty decent shots.

Right after this it jumped down to the front of the gates, and we think it caught a small snake.

I have some pictures of the snake in its talons (and the hawk eating it), but they're kind of blurry and these pics are much more impressive:

Isn't it a beautiful bird?

Bad Pictures ;-)

2009-09-04T17:00:00.004-05:00

I've been working on a couple of projects but neglecting to take good pictures, so I'm going to go ahead and post the bad ones. ;-)

First up, the scarpbook pages I did last week at our monthly scrapbooking session:

That one is going to be my entry in the fair, for the rubber-stamped scrapbook page category. I'm sure I won't win as I don't do as many cool things with stamps as some people do, but it's good incentive to get scrapbook pages finished.

Here's my two-page spread of when we went to Bartlesville for a WONDERFUL outdoor concert. One of my Ravelry friends, who is in the Amici New York Orchestra, got us tickets. It was amazing!

I wish I could figure out how to make them bigger when you click on them. It used to be set up to do that but if I don't want duplicate pics in my picture storage, I can't make them embiggened when clicking. :-(

---------------------------------------------------------------

I'm almost done with my Trachtentuch A. I've now run out of yarn *twice* but luckily my Mom got 8 ounces of fiber and I still have two ounces left. I just need to ply it and give it a bath and I'll be ready to finish the bind off. You can see the needles still attached at the upper right of the shawl. I only have about 18" more to bind off, but I ran out of yarn!

This is the scarf I've got going, which is my first broomstick crochet project. I'm loving the yarn/stitch combination. It's going to have two identical ends, with a square (or something) in the middle.

In the comments for my last post Eva pointed out that I could work bottom up and not have to do any grafting. She's exactly right! I haven't really planned it out yet, much less tried it on the knitting machine, and that'll be the first step on that project.

That's all for now! I'm going to go attempt to ply the singles to finish my Trachtentuch. I probably won't manage to actually finish them until tomorrow, but you never know. :-)

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!

Temptation

2009-08-29T13:12:00.003-05:00

There's so much knitting (and spinning and quilting and beading and scrapbooking) I want to do, but this has caught my attention and I keep coming back to it:

It's a vest kit from KnitPicks, and while it would look horrible on me (horizontal stripes = very, very bad), I was thinking about getting the kit plus a bunch of one of the colors and making a yoked cardigan with the stranded patterning on the yoke, then solid on the body and sleeves.

Of course I need another project like I need a hole in the head, but I was thinking about cheating in a massive way and trying to figure out my knitting machine. It's for fine-gauge yarns, and the Palette yarn should work nicely in it. I could do the yoke by hand, circularly, then do the body and sleeves on the knitting machine and just have some grafting and seaming. It's darn tempting!

Now I just need to clean the house and get some projects finished so I can consider ordering the kit. LOL!

I'm officially a bowler

2009-08-26T14:39:00.003-05:00

Today was my first bowling league meeting. I did pretty well (for me!) and my official average is 141.

I still don't have a team mate, but we might combine my "team" with someone else whose partner backed out. I'm just happy to be bowling.

------------------------------------------------

I've been knitting but don't have too much to show for it.

I started a double knitting project for Ryan, who requested a blue and red scarf.

I ended up cutting it off because I'm just not happy with it. I need to figure out the technique a little more, since I hate the way the checkerboards don't line up. I know I'm doing something wrong, I'm just not sure what.

I've been working on my Trachtentuch A shawl, although it still doesn't look like much:

It'll look a lot nicer once it's blocked. I ended up having to spin up an additional 2 ounces of the merino/tencel, so I'm really glad I got 8 ounces instead of 4. Thanks, Mom!!!!

I have four more rows and the bind off, then I'll block it. Hopefully by the end of the week....

I've also started another pair of socks. This is again using the Quilted Lattice stitch. I'm in love with it for variegated yarns. This pair is going into the fair instead of my Coupling socks, which have a few too many problems to enter. (Not that they're unwearable, I just don't think they're good enough to enter in the fair.)

I finally got some pictures of my Hanging Garden Stole, which I posted about a few weeks ago. I blocked it on the last day of July.

------------------------------------------------

That's about all that's happening around here. This afternoon I'll take Gillian to her first bowling league meet, which will be fun. She's really excited about it.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Scrapbooking -- lots of pics!

2009-08-25T12:46:00.004-05:00

On Friday of last week Marci and I went to the Creaking Keepsakes Scrapbooking convention here in Tulsa. It was a blast! We took three classes and shopped to our hearts' content.

Here's some of my loot:

That's not all of it, but it's a good sampling. I got a sheet of Technique Tuesday stamps that was on cleareance, some neat gel pens that are really really glossy and raised, some grossgrain ribbon, and a couple of neat paper kits.

The classes were really cool! I especially enjoyed the results from the Jacob's Ladder class. We did two layouts, and I took three pictures of each so you can see how they work.

Layout #1, closed:

Open to the left:

Open to the right:

So you could have a total of five different pictures. (The picture on the smaller striped paper changes, as you can kind of see because in the first picture it's grey, and in the picture above it's tan.)

Here's the smaller version, whic I really like:

Cool, huh?

Here's Marci in the Jacob's Ladder class:

And me!

The first class we took was making a clear acrylic album, and here's the finished (except for pictures) project:

There wasn't as much to it as I'd thought there would be, which was cool. My only problem is that I don't really want a bunch of little books around, as it's so much easier to keep things contained/together if they're in one or two albums. These might be nice to giving to people though.

I took another class on using clear stamps and learned a lot more than I'd thought I would, which is always great. Of course I don't need any help in my addiction to clear stamps, but that's all right. LOL!

-------------------------------------------------

I'm trying to finish up some things to enter in the Tulsa State Fair, and hopefully I'll have a bunch of pictures of the projects in the next few weeks. They're due on September 18 so I'd better get going on them.

I hope you're all having a great week so far!

A Hot Time

2009-08-21T22:12:00.004-05:00

Yes, the weather is hot, but the harvest from the garden is even hotter!

The peppers are the only plants left, but WOW are they productive!

The kids and Greg picked quite a few this evening:

There's one small bell pepper in there. The green and red ones are jalapenos, and the yellow ones are Hungarian wax peppers. I'm not sure what we're going to do with all of them, especially since there are lots more on the plants still.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I'm so behind in a lot of things, and in the interest of being less behind on my blog here are a couple of pictures from the Fourth of July:

The kids LOVE smoke bombs, and this year they really enjoyed running through the smoke.

We had some small fireworks and I managed to catch this neat picture:

We had a nice, low-key time.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Today I went to the a scrapbooking convention and took three classes. It was a blast! I learned some neat things and I'll take some pictures in the next few days.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

First Day of School!

2009-08-12T14:48:00.005-05:00

The kids have been SO excited, and so have I! Today is the first day of school!

Gillian is starting third grade and Ryan is starting kindergarten, which goes all day.

Here they are with their backpacks:

They picked out their own clothes and got themselves all ready. I'm so proud!

Here's Ryan, settling down to business immediately in class:

And Gillian, heading in to get to work in her class:

(Note the cool shoes -- they're from Aunt Louise, and Gillian has all kinds of outfits planned around them.)

We rode our bike in, which was nice because the traffic was a zoo, as usual. It wont' be quite so pleasant this afternoon since it's in the mid 90s, but I'll bring some water and we'll be fine.

I helped out in the lunchroom this morning which was really fun. The kids are all SO well behaved! It was fun to be able to check on the kids halfway through the day, too.

I can't believe we've already started back to school but it's going to be nice to be back in a routine.

I hope you're all having as great a day as I am!

"New" Old Wheel

2009-08-09T11:25:00.004-05:00

I was talking with my parents and sister, and we realized that I never blogged about my "new" old wheel!

I picked up this wheel from Craigslist back in May:

I have no idea who made it, as there are no identifying marks.

It's quite different from my Fricke so I haven't really learned to use it yet. I need to learn a whole different system, since this one is bobbin-driven and I'm used to my flyer-driven Fricke. I'm hoping that once the kids are back in school I'll have a few hours to really play with it.

Speaking of school, tomorrow (Monday) is Meet the Teacher, where we find out who the kids' teachers will be. Wednesday school starts!!! I'm ridiculously excited, and so are the kids. :-)

I let Marci talk me into helping at the cafeteria on Wednesday, so I'll see the kids at lunch time. This will be Ryan's first time in all-day school and I suspect he'll be exhausted for the first few months, just like Gillian was in kindergarten. I'm really hoping that both kids continue to enjoy school.

I hope you all have had a great weekend!

WIPs Wrestling and Fiber Christmas

2009-07-31T18:19:00.007-05:00

My goodness, I'm incredibly behind on this poor blog!

The month of July was WIPs (works in progress) wrestling on Ravelry, and I have one measly project to show:

I've gotten my bag felted, but I'm still working on the (incredibly monotonous) I-cord for the handles. (I-Cord stands for "Idiot cord" if you were wondering.)

I don't love it as much as I did before felting. The colors got kind of muddy, unfortunately. I'll definitely do more stranded projects in the future, however!

My sparkly socks are about 75% complete, about halfway down my foot between the heel and toes.

I've also been working on getting a spinning project finished. I bought the roving last year at Fiber Christmas and spun up a bit, but I've finally gotten back to it.

The smaller ball of singles is what I got done at Fiber Christmas this year, which wasn't much. :-) I've wound it back onto the bobbin and now there's almost as much on the bobbin as is in the bigger ball, but I'm going to go as far as I can before tackling the next bit. I'm going to make a two-ply yarn that will hopefully make a Bono Kimono (Ravelry link), although I won't be following the totally-less-than-adequate "pattern" I bought at Loops. (There's no gauge listed, among other pattern sins.) The garter stitch, while being phenomenally boring to knit, should show off the yarn quite nicely.

--------------------------------------

Fiber Christmas was AWESOME this year.

I taught four classes and everyone seemed to really get a lot out of them. Or at least they told me they did! ;-)

Here's a view from the back, where I had my booth (I had my quilts out with information about my machine quilting):

It's three pictures mashed together, but you can get the idea. There are six vendors (or seven? I can't remember) along that far-right wall.

I came home with quite a haul:

I'm not going to talk about everything, and a couple of things aren't in the picture, but I'll put detail shots up in a bit.

I got some more wonderful lavender sachets from Gina at Across Generations. I also got the rug hooking wool (back, center) from her. She's so nice and her stuff is top notch!

The bright orange roving called out to me from across the room. I don't know why, but I just had to have it.

I think it's the addition of brown and red. Gorgeous stuff! Now I just need to decide what kind of yarn I want it to be.

This gorgeous alpaca/silk yarn is what I got as a door prize. I was so thrilled!

Next up is some 70% alpaca/30% bamboo roving that I got from Ozark Carding Mill.

My original plan was to spin up one ply of that and one ply, tail-spun, of these mohair locks:

But then I noticed something not quite right and it doesn't wash out:

I thought at first that maybe it was just vegetable matter, and I microwaved it just to be safe, then washed it, and it's not coming out. It looks a lot like the leavings of lice to me. Anyone know what it is, and should I just throw out the locks?

It would really bite if I need to do that, but I did buy these locks from the same vendor:

They don't seem to have the same thing, thank goodness, although I haven't really examined it like I have the grey stuff.

Next up is my sheep ornament, which was my entry into the Christmas Ornament contest. There were some really, really neat ornaments!

I bought some sock yarn, although I'm noticing a definite autumn/brown/red theme in my purchases. I need to get off of my red kick!

The colors are slightly more vibrant in real life.

One of my students gave me two skeins of this WONDERFUL handspun yarn:

I was blown away! I think it'll become a neck scarf, or possibly a Quant.

At the very last minute I picked up four ounces of Kate's Wensleydale cross roving:

No idea what that's going to become, but I couldn't help picking up some of it.

I also picked up some cones of silk yarn, in fingering- and lace-weight, as well as two hanks of DK-ish-weight silk from Henry's Attic.

I also got a cone of black wool lace-weight yarn:

There's quite a bit on there and I'm looking forward to making a couple of lace shawls from it.

That's enough from me for now! Three posts in one day must be a record. :-)

I hope you're all having a great weekend!

Thank You for Voting! & Shoes

2009-07-31T15:47:00.002-05:00

Thank you so much to all who visited and voted for my yarn ball decal. I think I came in second (although I'm not sure because I was so tired when I came home on the 25th that I didn't check my standing). I'm pretty thrilled to have done so well!

My wonderful Aunt Louise sent some really neat shoes for the kids. Thank you, Louise! Both kids immediately tried them on and have been wearing them since.

Idaho Trip (VERY picture-heavy)

2009-07-31T09:15:00.014-05:00

Quite a few posts ago I said I'd finish posting about our trip to Idaho, and I didn't. Shame on me!

Now that Fiber Christmas is over for this year (post and pics later), I can concentrate on other things and getting caught up.

So, in the last vacation post I stopped as we were heading up to Island Park on Thursday. I'm going to go back to using my Dad's narration, so here goes!

June 4, 2009, afternoon

The drive up to Island Park was spectacular with the Tetons visible to the east.

Buffalo Campground, near Pond’s Lodge on the Buffalo River, was almost empty. We found a great spot by the Buffalo River in the C loop with its electrical hookups. Spot C14 cost us $11 rather than $17 per night because Bill is over 62.

We also reserved a spot for Mom Allred’s bus.

The mosquitoes were absolutely fierce until it rained and there was a wind to drive them away. Sand hill cranes (birds) were nesting on the other side of the river. I had never before heard them and as they flew overhead they were calling the entire way. We also saw osprey.

Five people are ‘cozy’ in a 21 foot 5^th wheel camper but we all had a great time. There’s nothing like camping to bring a family together.

Friday, June 5, 2009:
We drove in the Avalon to West Yellowstone and stopped to see an exhibit of painted fiberglass ‘buffalo’ in front of the old Union Pacific Railroad depot, now the historical museum.

The ‘buffalo’ will be auctioned the end of August and are expected to bring from $1,500 to $10,000. I can’t imagine where a person would put one of them. Local businesses seem to become attached to the ones in front of their stores and will probably keep them.

Union Pacific also had a dining room to the west of the museum where Bill’s father was a dishwasher in the summer of 1939. Dad always loved West Yellowstone and Yellowstone Park.

Ryan announced that he needed a belt to keep his pants from falling down so we went to the old Eagle’s Store. Ryan picked out his own belt with horses and a shiny silver big buckle. He also got a glow-in-the-dark Yellowstone t-shirt and Gillian got two Yellowstone t-shirts. The adults had a cup of much-needed coffee.

The nice ranger lady at the West Entrance gave us an information package including a page of animals to check off for each of the kids.

We saw elk, buffalo including orange babies, bald eagles, Canada geese, and swans even before Madison Junction. We drove up the Firehole Falls road. We had lunch at the picnic area at Firehole Flats and saw a bald eagle circling nearby.

We drove to Old Faithful and while waiting for it to erupt saw Beehive and Lion’s Head erupt on the other side of the Firehole River. We watched Old Faithful.

The kids put their hands in the lukewarm water that flowed from Old Faithful.

We then went to the Old Faithful Inn and had ice cream and some iced tea while we sat on the balcony. We drove to Bridge Bay and had a potty stop and watched boats being launched including a huge one. We drove to the Lake Inn area and saw more buffalo. We watched a storm on Lake Yellowstone.

We drove through Hayden Valley and commented on the scoured areas where buffalo rolled and dusted themselves. Kathie gave each of the kids $5 and at the Canyon visitor’s center store Gillian bought a set of Yellowstone picture cards. The kids and Kathie played ‘go fish’ with them. Sometimes Ryan liked the picture on his card so much that he didn’t want to give it up. Kat also bought bookmarks and a refrigerator magnet with scenes of Yellowstone.

It began to rain hard and on the road from Canyon to Norris we were fortunate enough to be going against a long herd of buffalo that had been on the road for some time, judging from miles of backed-up traffic on the other side of the road going the same direction as the buffalo.

We could hear their grunts as they passed. They were shaggy from shedding their winter coats.

We returned to camp in Island Park about 6:30 p.m. to find Melanie, Kevin, and Emily already set up. About 8:30 p.m., Wayne Valentine drove Mom’s bus with Paula into the campground and Wayne and I helped plug the bus into power, light the hot water heater, and get Paula and Mom settled.

The mosquitoes were fierce.

An osprey was keeping an eye on Kat and the kids and came in for a landing on a tree across the river:

Saturday, June 6, 2009 (D-Day):

In the morning Bill took Ryan and Gillian to the fisherman’s dock at the far end of the campground and enjoyed the beautiful area.We later learned that Kevin, Melanie’s husband, has been coming to this campground and the others in Island Park from early childhood, camping and fishing with his folks.

Later Kevin took Gillian and Ryan fishing. He hooked fish and they reeled them in. Gillian caught two and Ryan one. They were both very proud of their fish. They also saw two moose!

It rained much of the day. The kids played with Emily and rode bicycles and scooters that Kevin and Melanie had brought for them. Grumpdad hid from the mosquitoes in the camper, read more about the Titanic and enjoyed a nap. We went to Pam and Wayne’s cabin for dinner and were joined by Rachel and Jeremy and their four children for the 3^rd birthday of their youngest, Luke.

It was unusually silent when we woke up and Bill looked out of the camper to see it snowing! There already was about 2” of wet snow everywhere, very beautiful. We got dressed and had breakfast and enjoyed the snow, then started preparing the camper for the trip home.

Pam and Wayne joined us and Kevin prepared a brunch of eggs, sausage, and fish that Ryan, Gillian, Emily, and Kevin caught in Mom’s bus. We helped prepare it for the return trip and left by 12:30 p.m.

Kevin, Wayne, and I all emptied camper tanks at the dump station at Island Park, a very scenic area on the north fork of the Snake River. We couldn’t see the Tetons because they were shrouded in clouds. We were home by about 3 pm and unloaded the camper and spent most of the rest of the evening doing laundry and cleaning out the camper.

Monday, June 8, 2009:

We rested in the morning.

Bill went to work for an hour to make sure there were no pressing issues and then had an hour-long lunch at our house with some of the symphony people about symphony issues. In the afternoon we visited the library to return books, get credit for reading, and check out some more books. We drove to the Museum where Kathie bought two books to store squashed pennies from various locations since the kids have many more at home.

We then drove to the mountains east of Idaho Falls to about 6000 feet to see the giant windmills and stopped near one. We could hear its blades softly ‘whooshing’ and the gearbox humming. We looked over the Snake River Valley on the return trip down the mountain. In the evening, Kat, Kathie, Gillian, and Ryan played ‘Go Fish’ with Yellowstone cards Gillian bought at the store at the Canyon Visitor Center

Tuesday, June 9, 2009:

Bill went to work and Kat and Kathie packed.

Bill returned about 11:30 for lunch and good-bye and at about 12:15 Kathie took Kat and the kids to the Idaho Falls Airport. Our house is once again too quiet.

Cricut Contest

2009-07-14T22:32:00.002-05:00

I've been spinning but not taking pictures, so hopefully tomorrow I'll get some pics. I've also been quilting up a storm! They're all customer quilts, not mine, but I've been having a good time with them.

A little while ago I entered a contest to win a Bind It All binding machine, and I'm blown away at the creativity of the other entrants!

Check out the entries and cast your vote here. It's definitely not just scrapbooking stuff--there are LOTS of different things that people have come up with and it's worth checking them out.

I entered my yarn ball decal, if you're wondering. ;-)

Spinning and WIP Wrestling

2009-07-11T20:28:00.005-05:00

I still haven't done the vacation blog post, mostly because I've gotten so sucked into the Tour de Fleece.

Here's what I finished up today:

This is the first time I've spun up three separate plies, then plied them together. I usually spin one long singles and then wind a center-pull ball, then ply from that. This time I separated the top into three parts and spun them, then wound them off onto toilet paper rolls. (Classy, huh?)

Two of the plies were within 6" of each other (AMAZING!!!) and the last one had 9 yards more than the other two:

I'm very pleased with the results!

I see a lot more three-ply yarns in my future, but I need to get another bobbin for my spinning wheel before I try it again. I spent a lot of time untangling the singles since they weren't under tension, but I got a gorgeous yarn anyway.

This yarn is for teams Spinning Bunny (because that's where I bought the roving) and team Suck Less, and I think I'm definitely sucking less with this yarn. LOL!

-----------------------------------------------

In WIPS Wresting news, I've gotten some progress done on two projects.

First up, I'm almost finished with the heel flaps on my Coupling socks. (I'm using the stitch pattern from the Coupling socks from Knitty, but making them top-down.)

This is the K.I.S.S. Bag (Keep It Simply Stranded) from Sally Melville's Color book.

I decided to do eight repeats of the motif instead of 10, because I'd rather have a shorter bag than a taller one. I'll probably use some leather handles, but I'll decide after I've felted it.

Both of those WIPs (Works In Progress) are for Team Team on Ravelry.

Quick Spinning Post

2009-07-09T13:26:00.004-05:00

I know, I know, I still need to finish my posts about our vacation last month.

I'm going to post a couple of pictures of the spinning I've been doing for the Tour de Fleece on Ravelry for now, though.

First up, the merino and tencel that my Mom bought for me while we were in Idaho.

The singles on the wheel:

The color isn't quite right, but it was almost midnight when I took that picture.
The singles

The two-ply yarn on the wheel:

The un-set yarn with a nickel:

And a collage, before the twist was set:

Next is some merino that I bought in June 2008, but haven't done much with. It's 8 ounces, and I got some spun and plied but there's still a lot to go:

It's a bit felted (just a bit, not too bad) so it's requiring a fair bit of prep before I can spin it.

It's going to be worth it though!

And finally, the spinning that I did last night. This is the Anshan's Biscotti colorway from Susan's Spinning Bunny, and it's BFL.

I'm having a good time spinning and working on my WIPs (works-in-progress) for WIP Wrestling (also on Ravelry), so that means spending less time on the computer. Hopefully I'll get the post on our vacation finished soon!

-------------------------------------

I'm also working on getting stuff ready for teaching four classes (!!!) at Fiber Christmas in July, coming up at the end of the month. I might not be posting much between now and August!

Think very hard before ordering from WalMart's web site

2009-06-24T09:22:00.003-05:00

I'll update more about the vacation later, but first I have to share a strange situation I've been having with Wal-Mart's web site.

I order photos all the time from them and I've been quite happy with their service up to the last few months.

Greg ordered a pool from them and created his own account in the process.

Ever since then, I've been unable to order photos online. It keeps telling me " We're having temporary difficulties arriving at the destination you requested" and will not let me complete the order.

Apparently Wal-Mart has decided we're the same person, despite having completely separate emails, passwords, and user names. They sent *me* an email telling me I had unordered pictures in my photo cart (which I did), but the link took me to Greg's account without making me sign in. Since I don't have his password and it's not stored on my computer, that should never have happened.

Their customer service department seems totally clueless and it seems is doing its best to ignore me.

Thank goodness we don't have credit card information stored on their site!

I won't be ordering from Wal-Mart's web site ever again, and I want to warn everyone what happened to me.

Be very careful ordering from Wal-Mart's web site!!!! (or just dont do it!)

More of the Idaho Trip

2009-06-14T17:38:00.012-05:00

My Dad wrote an awesome recap of our Idaho trip, so I'm going to let him narrate and I'll add occasional pictures.

Here we go!

We drove to Rigby on back roads and had lunch in the room at ‘Me n’ Stan’s’ (a restaurant) where we had our rehearsal dinner on August 30, 1968. We ate a local specialty, scones with honey butter. We drove to Mom’s where we sat with Paula, Mel, Pam, and Mom while they ate and we all had dessert together.

We then went to the children’s portion of the Idaho Falls Library to check out books and reading material for the summer reading program. The railroad tracks south of the library and between it and the parking lot were about to be repaired so we looked at how the inside upper surfaces of the old tracks were worn over.

We drove to Reed’s Dairy and all bought kid’s-sized cones of ice cream, ate them in the little inside seating area (to avoid the rather intense smell of dairy cattle), then stopped at the Fiber Arts Guild meeting where Kathie took her grandchildren inside to show them off to her friends.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009:

Bill had several meetings and worked all day.The rest of the family drove to Rexburg to meet Pam, Rachel and her kids, and Mom and Paula. They rode a wonderfully restored carousel and had ice cream and ate at McDonald’s.

Here's Aunt Paula, who was being a great sport about riding the carousel (she's in the purple/maroon shirt in the center):

And here's Grandma and Aunt Pam:

In the evening Granddad and the kids took the truck to the storage place and retrieved the camper. We all loaded the camper and Granddad mowed the lawn. It rained and got the camper wet so Granddad washed it while he had a reasonable chance of removing a year’s accumulation of bugs.

Thursday, June 4, 2009:

At 11 a.m., Gillian, Ryan, and Kat went for a half hour ride in a Cessna Skyhawk II, a 4 place airplane, with Bob Picker, flight instructor. Gillian sat in the left-hand (pilot’s) seat and flew the airplane. (Bill was about her age when he had his first small airplane ride with his Uncle Bob, his mother’s brother, from the Sayre farm in West Virginia to Dayton, Ohio.)

Gillian turned the airplane using the wheel – her legs were too short to reach the rudder pedals so Bob operated them for her and took off and landed. The flight was an ‘Introductory Flight’ and featured a thorough pre-flight inspection where Bob patiently explained the airplane and what he was looking for during his inspection.

Here's a view of the mountains to the east, with the Grand Teton just peeking above the closer mountains in the very center.

Gillian made a sharp turn and I was surprised to be looking straight down at Idaho Falls.

The Snake River, with the falls in the center.

By 2 pm we were on our way to Island Park with Ryan and Bill in the truck and the ladies in the Avalon. We stopped at ‘Dave’s Jubilee’ in Ashton for fuel for the truck, a big bag of salt water taffy, a small ice cream for everybody, and a potty stop. Gillian asked as we entered the store if it was where we bought salt water taffy last year. What a memory! Later whenever Ryan didn’t like a piece of it, he’d spit it out. The Tetons were spectacular to the east.

I'm going to end this post here, as the next post will have a *lot* of pictures!

Holy cow, where did the month go?

2009-06-02T12:04:00.007-05:00

I just realized that it's been a month since my last post. No wonder my sister has been bugging me about updating!

At the moment the kids and I are in Idaho visiting my parents, and we're having a great time so far.

This morning we were supposed to go for a small airplane ride but since it was raining, we rescheduled for Thursday morning. Let's hope it clears up by then!

So instead of going flying, my Dad pulled out his neat trains, which are incredible moving works of art. They've got working parts and make all kinds of neat noises.

Here's GrandDad running the train for the kids:

Ryan was really enthralled with them:

Both kids decided to be bridges:

The trains were definitely a big hit!

After that we went up to Rigby and ate lunch (and delicious scones!!) at the same restaurant where my parents had their rehearsal dinner 41 years ago. After that we went to visit my grandma and saw three of my aunts. It was a fun, but brief visit.

Yesterday we went to the Titanic exhibit at the local museum, and it was neat but sad. I learned a ton of things about the Titanic and its sinking, and the kids had a great time feeling the big chunk of ice they had in the exhibit.

Sunday my Dad took the kids to wash the car and run an errand while my Mom and I went to a bead show. It only had two vendors, but we got some neat stuff!

I got some purls. This is the dark strand:

And I also got two light blue strands:

I also got this round bead that I'll use with the stone beads below for a necklace:

I'm really excited about this Labradorite. I've been looking for some for a while, and my wonderful Mom bought this strand of beads and single large bead for me:

The picture doesn't do it justice. The beads flash with iridescence like fish scales.

I also got a little bit more done on my brown socks:

So that's about all I can handle for the moment. I'll work on another post tomorrow.

Bye for now!

We Survived the Tie Dye Party!

2009-05-03T17:12:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was Gillian's 8th birthday party.

The kids all had a fabulous time!

Gillian really wanted a pinata, so we figured out a way to hang it in the garage. It had some cones on it, and after it broke the kids each grabbed one. Ryan immediately put his on for a hat.

The kids had a really good time dyeing the shirts, and they're so proud of what they made!

(I'm not putting pictures of the other two girls because I don't have their parents' permission.)

It turned out to be really awesome that only two other kids came, because I don't know if I could've handled more then four kids doing tie dye at once. LOL!

Here are the shirts that the kids did, plus one of mine (the blue one at the top):

Here's Gillian in one of her shirts:

The part that wasn't cool was that only 2 girls showed up out of the 9 that we invited. People around here don't understand "R.S.V.P" apparently, which does NOT mean "call if you're going to come but ignore if you're not." Then again, it could also be that the kids didn't pass the invitations on to their parents.

Isabel gave Gillian a huge set of sidewalk chalk, and this morning Gillian made this on the chalk board (it's wet wet *wet* outside):

Pretty good job, huh?

-----------------------------------------

A few posts ago I put some pictures of the Amaryllis, and it turns out it's *not* an Amaryllis, it's a Hippeastrum. I put some of the pollen on the stamens, and it's looking like we're going to get seeds! I'm so excited.

-----------------------------------------

I finished my Monkey socks with about 4 yards total left from both balls, so it was a little tense toward the end. :-) They're on my feet so I'll try to get some decent pictures in the next day or so.

I hope all of you have had as good a weekend as we have!

I'm thrilled with myself

2009-04-29T16:16:00.004-05:00

I love figuring out things, and I'm pretty proud of myself for my latest project.

It's a decal of a drawing I did of a yarn ball with needles!

(And yes, I really did clean only the area where I put the decal, not the whole window--it's raining outside and I figure the rain will wash off the window for me. LOL!)

Here's a close up:

I got vinyl in black, white, and silver, and if it holds up well then I might attempt to sell them. The vinyl I got is supposed to last for 5-6 years in outside exposure, so it should stay looking nice for a while.

---------------------------------------------------

I've had more customer quilts to do lately so I haven't been doing as much knitting as I normally do. I'm closing in on the toes of my Monkey socks, which is good. I'm also getting very low on yarn which is not so good, but I'm trying not to panic. If all else fails I'll just buy another ball and do the toes in a different color or something. It'll all work out!

I also have two other knitting projects going that I can't blog about (yet), but hopefully I'll be able to show them soon.

---------------------------------------------------

I hope you're all having a great week!

Amazing shawl

2009-04-27T10:35:00.002-05:00

I got an amazing package in the mail on Friday:

(Not the cat, the shawl!!)

Isn't that absolutely stunning?

It's from Nurhanne, the wonderful person behind Yarn Over. A while back I signed up for the Pay It Forward challenge on her blog, and this is what she sent me!

I'm almost done with the items I'm sending to my three Pay it Forward people, I'm just waiting on one thing to come in the mail to finish it up.

Isn't that an amazing shawl? I'm just flabbergasted.

Thank you, Nurhanne!!!

Alpaca Farm tour

2009-04-25T12:42:00.004-05:00

This morning the kids and I went to a local alpaca farm, Broken Arrow Alpacas, and had a great time!

The kids got to pet some brand-new (10-day old) Great Pyrenees puppies:

And feed and pet some alpacas.

What beautiful animals!

After petting the alpacas and puppies, they showed us the bags full of sheared fiber and the roving and yarn that was for sale. I think we (the Tulsa Handspinners) bought more than half of what they had, and one of the other members (thanks Karin!) talked me into taking half of Rosie's fiber from the next shearing, which will probably be in the next few weeks. (I'm not sure which animal is Rosie but I don't think I got a picture of her.) Rosie is one of the white alpacas.

I bought three 1.75 ounce balls of fawn roving, and they threw in a bag of the fiber from the neck and shoulders. It's *so* soft!

Now I want to go spin. :-)

I hope you all are having a great weekend!

It's been busy around here!

2009-04-23T23:09:00.004-05:00

The last 24 hours or so have been quite busy around here, getting ready for a new refrigerator!

I know, you're thinking that we're crazy to be so excited about a new fridge, but the old one was 18 years old (I bought it when my parents moved out) and it's been moved many times. The ice maker had died once and the fridge motor was running almost continuously, so I think this new fridge is going to make a huge difference in our energy consumption.

Here's a pic of the old one:

The towel taped to the counter is because there's some really, really sharp tile there and I didn't want to scar the brand new fridge. We'll be putting some wood there to keep the new one in good condition.

Here's the new fridge:

It's HUGE! 22.9 cubic feet. So far it's fabulous! We went for the freezer on the bottom and the french doors (obviously) and I think it's going to be really, really nice.

Here's DD, wanting to be the first to put stuff in the new fridge:

I'm tired. Moving food (and refrigerators) around and cleaning to get ready has made me tired, so I'm going to bed.

I hope you're all having a great week!

Pretty things

2009-04-20T12:23:00.003-05:00

We finally had good enough weather for me to get some pictures taken this morning! All weekend was icky weather, with lots and lots of rain. Not so good for taking pictures but great for the plants.

First up (speaking of plants) are some pictures of my amaryllis. This is such a gorgeous plant! Greg had been teasing me about watering an empty pot, but we finally got this:

There's still one blossom to come. I'm really enjoying this plant!

-----------------------------------------

I promised better pictures of the yarn for the Yarn Dash, and here they are:

This picture is in strong light and is probably the closest-in-color to the yarn in real life. (Monitors vary, of course!)

This next picture shows the slight variations from the kettle-dying technique:

It's 880 yards/100 grams of lace-weight merino wool. This will make a gorgeous shawl! (Or anything else you'd like to use it for. LOL!)

Go sign up for the Yarn Dash if you haven't already, and this skein of yarn could be yours.

Yarn Dash

2009-04-16T23:53:00.006-05:00

You may have noticed the Yarn Dash graphic in the sidebar. If that's what brought you here, welcome!

Hint for those of you who haven't spotted the "found" graphic yet: keep your eyes on the sidebar and don't get distracted by the socks. ;-)

Here's a little preview of the prize I'm contributing:

It's lace-weight yarn, kettle dyed by me. More pictures and details tomorrow when the sun is up.

If you haven't joined yet, go sign up!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T17:30:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a gorgeous day here, and we planted a whole bunch of flowers. I'd wanted to put up some hanging baskets in the front and I found some self-watering pots that were perfect. I put some hangers on the posts in the front, and in a few weeks the pots should fill out and I'll have pretty trailing petunias!

Greg mowed the lawn after I took that picture and it looks really pretty.
The perspective in that picture is a little off—I promise the house doesn't have weird angles the way it appears to!

In other planting news, the potatoes survived the cold snap last week and are thriving:

The dogwood in the front is also pretty with its pink blossoms:

And yesterday we got a patio set! I'm so excited! The next project is to build a pergola-type thing for some shade. We decided not to get an umbrella since the winds here aren't kind to umbrellas. We've seen a lot of glass-topped tables smashed because the wind grabs the umbrella (even when it's closed!) and tips over the table. This set is all metal and matches the bench that I bought almost 8 years ago.

As you can see from the pictures above, yesterday was a beautiful day. The rain/thunder started at about 1:00 in the morning and the rain hasn't stopped since!

We had a fun (but quick) Easter egg hunt this morning, and the Easter Bunny brought Lego kits for the kids. Ryan got a dump truck and Gillian got a Darth Vader ship from the original Star Wars movies. They've had a great time putting them together today.

I hope you've all had a great weekend, and Happy Easter!

Finished socks

2009-04-09T17:12:00.005-05:00

I have two finished pairs of socks to share!

First, socks that I made for my Aunt Louise. She got them earlier this week, and they're a *very* late Christmas present:

The yarn is from KnitPicks, their Essential Kettledyed in Grasshopper. The color in the pic above is slightly off; the yarn is more of a yellow-green.

The second pair is my Traffic Island Socks that I was test knitting for a Ravelry friend, RedScot.

I really enjoyed the pattern but I can't say the same thing about the yarn. It's Walk Away from Yarn Bee, the Hobby Lobby brand. It has a thread that runs through the center of the plies and it was a real problem as I was knitting. It didn't stretch like the rest of the yarn so the wool/nylon plies would build up around the center thread. I ended up breaking the thread whenever it would become a problem, which was about every two or three yards.

Hopefully the yarn will hold up, but I'm not holding my breath. I gave it one star out of five on the yarn rating on Ravelry, and that one star was because I really like the color patterning.

----------------------------------------------

I have so many things I need to finish and work on, it's hard to choose what to work on next. I knit two rows on my Hey Teach sweater, and I need to get back to working on that now that both pairs of socks are finished. I also have some quilts that need to be done (neither are mine), and hopefully I'll start on those this weekend.

I hope you're all having a great week!

Creative Pop-Offs

Painting, working, and remodeling (another catch-all post)

I'm back!

SPRING! (ish)

Busy busy busy

No more snow!

Snowmageddon 2011

Yellowstone slideshow

Happy Holidays!

Quilts--lots of them!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Family Calendar Picture

Quilting!

Tulsa State Fair roundup

Tulsa State Fair stuff

Gilly's bed is finished

Quilt Machine Monday (a day late)

A Bed!

Rectangly Hat pattern is up!

SewFlakes!

First Day of School

Fiber Christmas

New addition to sidebar: Magic Loop socks

Happy Independence Day!

Quilt Show

More shawl pics

DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!

Gillian's broken arm

Queen of the Household

I just might live

Ravelympics

New Furry Family Member

We've been busy around here

Back to School!

Ice Storm

Extra Bad Blogger - Trachtentuch A shawl

Rock Day!

Birthdays and Cookies

Getting Back to Normal

More Christmas Stuff

Merry Christmas!

Announcing...

Christmas Musings

Yet another catch-up post

Bohus knitting workshop

Almost over the bug, and a neat day trip

Happy Halloween!

Non-Quilt Sewing

Family Trek to the Fair

Tulsa State Fair wrap-up post

I bought myself a present

Fair opened this evening

Fair Entries

A Winged Visitor

Bad Pictures ;-)

Temptation

I'm officially a bowler

Scrapbooking -- lots of pics!

A Hot Time

First Day of School!

"New" Old Wheel

WIPs Wrestling and Fiber Christmas

Thank You for Voting! & Shoes

Idaho Trip (VERY picture-heavy)

Cricut Contest

Spinning and WIP Wrestling

Quick Spinning Post

Think *very* hard before ordering from WalMart's web site

More of the Idaho Trip

Holy cow, where did the month go?

We Survived the Tie Dye Party!

I'm thrilled with myself

Amazing shawl

Alpaca Farm tour

It's been busy around here!

Pretty things

Yarn Dash

Happy Easter!

Finished socks

Think very hard before ordering from WalMart's web site