Catch Up

Sorry I have been ignoring this bloggy blog of blogness, but I have been busy being a mom lately.

I haven't done much, so there isn't much to post about. But.. here are three photos that'll bring everything up to date:

Here is Will on Halloween in his Bumblebee Transformers helmet. He loves the helmet!

Here is some really loud (think kryptonite) green BFL that my friend Katie dyed up and I spun last Saturday. Katherine loves it and wants some fingerless mitts made out of it for the bus stop (and teen gurl awesomeness). I can manage that request.

Jerry asked me to knit up some possum yarn watch caps for some pilots at work. Possum yarn is super warm and will work well in those chilly cockpits. I found a classic pattern and am in the process of cranking these out. They are only 80 stitches around, so they knit up super quick. I'll let you know how they like them.

On Friday there will be a swap. I am heading to Boerne in Texas Hill Country for a mini fiber festival called Kid and Ewe. It is small and quaint with only about 20 vendors. I will love it. I will have Jerry's mom (her alias is Bird of Paradise) flying in from N.Y. as my replacement. I'm sure they will have a bohemian weekend, as will I. I'll keep you posted. Adios!

Papillon Route

On Thursday, I felt as if the twin fairies had summoned Mothra. There were tons of moths (or what I thought were moths) all over the place. Every time somebody went in or out a few slipped in.

I just found this wacky Youtube video from one of the more recent Mothra movies. It makes me giggle. It will help you get into the Mothra mood.

So later on, I found out that these are baby monarchs that are making their trip to Mexico. They fooled me. It was still kind of icky to have all these guys fluttering about.

I did manage to photograph a few on the bushes. The ones in flight were impossible. I couldn't get any of them to hold still for a second!


Enough about the butterflies and on to the knitting content. I whipped up a cowl out of some handspun corriedale. The pattern is called Good Luck Cowl by Christianne Gerstner and it is available for free on Ravelry. This went fast, practically flying off the needles. I must crank out a bunch of these for holiday gifting.

Here is the Katherine modeling. She was in a teen angst mood so I cropped the angst part out.


Then I did some dyeing this week of other yarns. The grey skein is Henry's Attic pony laceweight in a steely grey for my upcoming Chrysler crown project. The pinkish skein is some BFL handspun fingering weight with no set future plan. I laughed when I discovered they matched my plaid shirt. It must have been a subliminal thing.

Lastly, here is photo of the Steph trying on some high tops. They have escape zippers in the center back seams. She did not get them, though she was very attracted to them. I hope I can survive these next few teen years!

Spin Cycle

I have been meaning to post but lately I've been distracted. I have been focusing on spinning and trying to work towards a more uniform fine yarn. The problem is that I don't practice enough. Soooo, over the last few weeks, I've been working on spinning down my stash of rovings. Here is one from Judy (Stitches West) that is a little on the thicker side. I was aiming for sock weight or finer.

Here is some watercolor finn that I dyed up. The dog got skunked the day after I had dyed it and I was so lucky that I had put it away and it didn't get ruined.

On the left is the finn spun up. The plummy one on the right is some corriedale that was getting towards the desired thickness. Now I think I better work on some gift cowls to knit down the handspun stash. And then in November I'm going to the Kid and Ewe sheep fest to hunt down more fiber. It's a crazy vicious cycle that spinners and knitters put themselves through.

I've been working on some socks for my gift pile. I think that this one is from Lisa Souza's petite hard twist. But if it isn't, then it's one of Tess' sock yarns. The pattern is from Cookie A and you could probably guess that from the crazy cable action it has going on. Not an easy to follow pattern, don't watch any foreign movies with subtitles and easy on the wine with this one.

Thanks to our local grocery store, you get a bonus WTF with this post. While cruising the poultry aisle looking for inspiration for dinner, I came across this wonder of wonders. What does one do with a package of chicken feet? I know they are popular in Asian cultures, but we are living at the base of Mexico. I am going to research chicken feet recipes and see what comes up. Meanwhile, doesn't this look like something that goes into a witch's cauldron? Spooky!

The Good, The Bad and the WTF

So here is the good. I finished my Aeolian shawlette from Knitty. It was wildly addictive and hard to put down at times. I think I cranked it out in a week which might even qualify for some sort of Ravelry record.

Here is me practicing some twirls and Stevie Nicks moves. I really should have permed my hair and popped on a gypsy skirt.

Here is some more good. I dragged out my bead bin and set the girls up for a bead session. They sat and beaded for two hours and talked without fighting. Beads have super powers.

Here is the bad. Actually very bad. I didn't even try and block this, it was that bad. The pathetic part was that I kept going because somewhere in the back of my mind I was hoping that it would magically get good looking. Well, that didn't happen. Very bad.

And here's my WTF. A mink thingy that I can't seem to throw out. it was hiding in my bead bin. It was once part of a wearable taxidermy piece . My friend gave it to me so I could trim a pair of Tlinget moccasins I was sewing. All I have left is the front half. I think I'll save it a while longer. It looks good hanging out of a basket.

Okay, here's one last twirl, while I'm in the mood!

Darla, the movie

Inspired by Magusmog, I had to figure out how to use the movie feature on my camera. I lost the instruction manual, so it took a little fiddling around to get this going. So now I present to you Darla the useless dog:

My Dirty Little Secret

Sorry I've been neglecting my bloggerly duties, but this last knitting project knocked the daylights out of me. I am glad to say that it is done and I'm pleased with how it came out.

Behold the Barn Raising Blanket:

It coordinates best with Katherine's bedding.

But it doesn't look too shabby on our king sized bed (ignore those wrinkled shiny dark curtains, they make for killer naps!):

The i-cord edging was very time consuming. The whole blanket used two skeins of Miss Babs' to crochet and bind. Not as much as I expected. I took it in small chunks and it became a more manageable task.

Here's the dirty little secret. I still have a bunch of spaghetti ends that need some burying. Don't tell anyone. I'll save that for television knitting.

On a sad note, I want to put up a Youtube from the Jim Carroll band. He had died this past weekend and will be deeply missed by the punk community. I was lucky to see his band during my college days. Rock on in heaven Jim!

Soxyville Horror House

The mystery continues. Our air conditioning is having some issues with overflowing drip pans, insulation and maybe even mold build up. At least that's what the maintenance guys are saying. They are confused and confounded. They finally decided that they will bring in an outside contractor to assess the situation. Meanwhile, here are some photos of my mysterious oozy drippy ceiling. Totally demonic. The kids keep yelling at me to stop staring at it, so it has some serious hypnotic properties. I tried all morning to find a Snuffy and Weezy image of a house with pots and pans catching drips. Love them hillbillies.





On a happier note, I finished a blueberry waffle sock. Very easy and they have a cushy thermal knit look. Gotta love the waffles.

Channeling My Inner Stevie Nicks

I have been wrestling this machine knit silk blank for the last three days. Silk is a different animal than wool. It needs to soak in the vinegar bath longer. And it needs to take it's sweet time absorbing dye. It took me three days to figure out how to be patient. So here is a photo of how the blank came out.

Here is how it looks in a yarn cake. It is mostly cornflower blue, just like the flowers on the Corningware dishes. The outer edge of the cake is dyed much darker and inkier. The plan is to knit an Aeolian shawlette. And to punish myself more I went to the bead/crack shop (not really, but beads are kind of like crack to me) and picked up a couple of vials (get the crack reference?) of clear size 8 beads with an aurora borealis finish to embellish. I must love torture or something. I will wait for when school starts to begin this project. Very Stevie Nicks.

Reinventing the Easy Bake Oven

I loved my Easy-Bake Oven as a kid. My mom would mix up a box of regular human sized cake mix and I would spend the whole day cooking over the light bulbs (what an idiot!).

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when I caught Jerry all glazey eyed watching an infomercial for this cooking machine that is compact and red and comes with several different pans. It looked like the perfect size for the RV. I asked him if he wanted it. He said he'd wait until Christmas.

I guess as soon as I was out of sight he bought the red wonder gadget, because it showed up on Friday. Not only that, but Katherine runs into her room and returns with some hidden boxes of cake mix! The stinker, she knew.

So here is a photo of Katherine's cakes. They sort of look like ladybug wings.

Here is the little red wonder machine.

Here are the ingredients for Steph's gluten-free, egg free cakes. I also picked up some pink food coloring, because pink makes everything better in Steph's world.

Here's one of Steph's moon cakes. She was thrilled.

I started a new pair of socks called blueberry waffle socks. The yarn looks more like blackberry. The pattern is a no brainer to remember, which is perfect for this last crazy week before school starts. Sigh.

Quick Update

I forgot to post this. It was done about a month ago from a gigundo sunflower leaf and some easy mix concrete (and a pile of sand to get the concave shape). I think I want to paint it in a verdigris blue/green style, but it is too hot to deal with that idea for now.

This is a pair of socks that I started in July when I did that trip to Long Island. The socks are from Cookie A's new book, Sock Innovations. The yarn is from Tess, in a nice mossy color. I got a little lazy and stopped the pattern after the cuff.

Here is how the blanket is progressing. I've been adding squares on every night. I still haven't put much thought into how I want to handle the outer edge, but I-cord may be the way to go.

Day Trip-What's Up With the Snakes?

We needed to do a day trip and get out of Dodge, so we threw a bunch of pillows, blankets and snacks into the RV and hit the road. We took the main highway out of town and the funky back roads home. We had an astounding roadkill tally that included a pig and a cow, it was a bit much. There also seemed to be a snakey theme going on and I was extra careful.

We also passed a collie farm with beautiful murals. ....

Awesome old towns with great architecture....

Tons of cows.....

And a terrific frozen custard shop that made the best turtle sundaes....


I couldn't finish mine, so I popped it in the RV freezer and saved it for tonight. Yum!

Never Underestimate the Power of Crochet

One of my goals with this blanket is to figure out how to attach the squares with the least amount of starts, stops and ends. I came up with a solution while laying in bed, trying to fall asleep- crochet. I figured out a path of zig zagging concentric paths radiating out from the center. And by George, the plan is going to work. I just follow my photo of the layout, grab a few squares and get single crocheting:

Now doesn't this idea just kick ass! Don't neglect those crochet skills, they'll come in handy sometime.

Testing.... one, two

The squares to the Barn Raising Quilt are all done and I spent the morning laying out the squares in an arrangement that pleased me. Of course, the dog took that as a cue to walk in the middle of everything and sit. I got some good photos before she rolled around, silly girl! By the way that thing in the bottom of the photo is a ladder. I had to stand on a ladder to get everything into the frame.

Then, I tried a sample of connecting the squares with single crochet. I have a very dark color from Miss Babs called blackbird (not in this photo). I think black single crochet will give a leaded stained glass effect. I think I am ready to finish this beast.

Gurlies Shopping

Yesterday, the girls and I went off on an adventure to check out some antique shops, get some nail polish and hit the health food store, not necessarily in that order. Our first detour was this bead shop we never noticed before. It had rows and rows of tubes of seed beads. I had to compose myself and fight my magpie urges. I told the girlies that if they wanted to buy beads they had better have a project in mind first. Meanwhile, I never did that myself, I would just buy beads like crazy and deal with their destiny later. So we left before we got into trouble, but I definitely need to make something knitted with beads, and soon.

Then we drove to antique lane to search for treasure.

There were some junk shops mixed in with real antique shops. And sometimes it got very overloading. The musty smells mixed with the confused piles of clutter was a lot to deal with. Steph handled it surprisingly better than I did. Here's a pair of awesome Fendi sandals that Katherine spied. I love the colors and the hand painted platforms.

I spotted this old Belgian album of the Singing Nun, a sixties folk phenomenon. I remember the movie they made out of it with Debbie Reynolds. I tried to find it on Netflix but it's unavailable. I think I will order The Trouble with Angels instead. There was an oversaturation of Catholic influence(poisoning?) in my past.

We also found old treadle sewing machines and typewriters. The girls knew about typewriters from the book "Click, Clack, Moo" (ducks that type).

Then we found this weird cool alleyway that had neat stuff. Unfortunately it was over 100 degrees in there and we could only handle about five minutes.

We got so overloaded after about an hour of schmying that we had to bail. I only ended up with a lucky horseshoe that needs some cleaning up.

At home we chilled and did some funky home pedicures. I did a dark plummy purple with some dagger type things on the toes. Kath did some neon yellow with black designs, and Steph chose her signature pink. My toes got so cold that I wrapped my feet with some old Noro legwarmers. We then sat up late and watched the movie Mall Cop (very New Jerseyesque). It was a great girlie day.

Here's the last of my Sunflowers. As they say on those NPR parodies, Good Times.....