Bumps and Loops

I have joined up with some folks on Ravelry to take part in the Tour de Fleece. The TDF corresponds with the Tour de France and there are several versions of it in various places over the fiber community. Instead of spinning on bicycles, we're going to spin on wheels - fiber spinning wheels, that is. This is an example of one of the main ones.
As I mentioned, mine is on Ravelry.
I'm spinning 130 gms (about 4 oz.) of Merino wool roving from Southern Cross Fibres in Australia in the Wombat colorway. I'm spinning thin singles and am going to make it some kind of 3-ply, either chain plyed or regular plying. I'm about 1/8 of the way through.

I'm also going to spin this:




This stuff is precious beyond words, at least to me. These are two Abby's Batts in 70% merino and 30% tussah silk. They're 34 gms (1 oz) each. As you can see from the link, there's no availability right now. I'm wanting to spin them into singles to make an Abby. Abby Franqemont spins these things up. Everyone covets them and there's a veritable feeding frenzy whenever she gets some ready to sell.

For those who don't know, any yarn of any size that's just one piece of twisted fiber is called a singles (yes, plural). It's called that because it IS one piece of twisted fiber. Then, those singles are often (but not always) twisted together, or plyed to make thicker yarns. So, the wombat is going to be 3 ply, or 3 singles twisted together in the opposite direction from the way they were spun as singles. This relaxes the singles and kind of locks the singles together. The Peaches & Cream will be (I hope) a single lace weight. I've never tried to make a singles lace weight before and it'll be a little tricky to keep the twist from being too tight and twisting back on itself too much to knit. If that happens, I suppose I'll have to make it a 2-ply, but at least I'll have some pretty peachy yarn.

The team I'm on on Ravelry is "Team Monkey Farts." That's just awful!!! It's funny, but awful. This is my Ravatar for the tounament:




We're going to try to correspond the days of spinning with the Tour de France and spin every day they ride.

Oh, and did I mention there are prizes? There are prizes in many categories and, of course, I'm hoping to win something nice. ALL the prizes are nice. Wish me luck. Maybe I'll get a yellow shirt to wear.

I'd like to point out that my previous post was a criticism of the frenzy and completely unrealistic, noisy and public mourning of so many fans of both Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

I absolutely loved Michael Jackson's music and his performances. I never tired of his work - ever. "We Are the World" brings goosebumps to my arms within the first measures. "Billy Jean," "Thriller," "Do You Remember," and "Bad" are, to me, some of the most wonderful videos in the genre.

While Farrah has, at times, really lived up to the "blond bimbo" persona, she had moments to true greatness. She had performances that were magical. It was never, ever, her fault that her looks caused her agents and casting people to put her continually in such sexist roles. The news of her illness put in an entirely new light some of her more "spaced out" interviews.

I do not, in the least, condemn the people. Ms. Fawcett may, indeed, have been "average" in her talents, but she seems to have been a kind and courageous person. Mr. Jackson did, indeed, lose his childhood to his craft. Many have. He ay have gone to extremes to recapture that youth. That was his right, as long as it didn't hurt anyone else. I don't know if he hurt anyone else, or not. That's not for me to decide.

I hope both of these celebrities are at peace. I would just wish that those true intellect, scientific achievement, political progress, anthropolical advancement who have died would garner even a quarter of the sorrow showered on pop music, film and other entertainment figures.

What's wrong with us in the U.S.? Why is it we are more "touched," "saddened, "inconsolable" because some overpaid and over-rated actress or "pop star" dies? Of course, during their lives we noted how "crazed on drugs" or "stupid" or "shallow" or even "perverted" they were.

All of a sudden one of these folks contracts an incurable disease that thousands of Americans get every year (or hundreds or tens or whatever) and because they "meet the challenge with dignity," they're heroes. Excuse me, but you can't tell me that these actors, actresses, pop stars don't get $$$ from publicizing their stories. If you do tell me that, I won't believe you.

It's even worse when one of these characters is a child in man's clothing who has been (rightly or wrongly) charged with being a pedophile and there being at least SOME credible evidence it might be true. Get a life America!

There are scientists, writers, philanthropists, and everyday nurses, doctors, and others who deserve the mourning ever so much more.

I can see being sad about a celebrity's death. I've been saddened by popular people's passing from this life. I just don't go mourning in the streets and rending my clothes.

And, I certainly won't be "crying my eyes out" for these people or "missing the wonderful deeds" they have done.

Wake up, Ameruka!

Clare W. Owens, CPO (Chief Petty Officer, Coast Guard), was my father. He died in 1999 at the age of 94. This yarn comes from the Southern Cross Fibre Club and I know my father was under the Southern Cross many times in his seafaring days. The name of the fiber is "Veteran" and is a Masham wool. It's about 16 wpi (wraps per inch) and is a pretty even fingering weight 3 ply.

I'm kind of bored with naming my yarns after musical groups, so I'm switching to names of people I admire.

These are MY ducks (don't tell them that). I absolutely love to feed the mallards. I just adore their waddles, their quacks, the sound of their beaks when they snap shut. I just love the ducks!!! I'm probably breaking a bunch of "interference with wildlife" laws, but I don't know of any. If you know of any, please don't tell me.

I finished another woven scarf last night. It's made of an inexpensive acrylic yarn called "Pebbles." I'm still surprised at how wonderful these inexpensive yarns weave up. This one's incredibly soft. I used a 5 dpi heddle in the Ashford Knitter's Loom.

I was wandering around the yard to day and heard a very loud commotion in the lilac bushes. I use the term "bushes" loosely, since they have long ago grown into small trees. Anyway, there was much noise, much screeching and warbling. I looked closely in the branches and saw a whole lot of these:

That's a baby cardinal. There were several in the branches and they were obviously practicing their flying skills. They'd flit from branch to branch and make clumsy landings and, occasionally, fall a few branches. Their parents were flying back and forth calling encouragement to them and, sometimes, luring them over to them.

Today was the day for the fledglings to leave the nest. Judging from the strength of their flying, I suspect they'll all be off on their own by tomorrow. I can hardly wait for next year.

David Letterman is a hero. He's not afraid to take on the relic from the 60's, Sarah Palin and her not all that great family.

Who the heck does she think she is, anyway? Letterman's a comedian and he's known for taking on the celebrities. She decided to become a celebrity. So be it. She's a joke. She looks like she got stuck in the 60's, with her overdone hair and makeup and her twitchy, tight little walk. Her kid got pregnant out of wedlock, just like hundreds of other kids in the world. The difference is, for some reason, we're all supposed to think this kid's a paragon of virtue because she chose to have the baby and keep it. Oh puh-leeze. This just means there's another kid for the Palin's to mess up.

Her boyfriend became suspiciously absent when the McCain/Palin ticket failed. It kind of makes me sick. The two little "love birds" were sitting in the audiences holding hands like they were inseparable. It sure didn't take long for him to make tracks when it was over. It makes you wonder.

Now, he can't support his kid because "he doesn't have a job. Well, go get one. Or, daddy's parents should be helping out. In this case, my sympathies are with the Palins. They're footing the bill and you can't tell me daughter dearest is doing it all on her own. Daddy's parents could be doing some help, too. It's MY opinion (for what it's not worth) that deadbeat dads, no matter what their age, shouldn't see their kids, at least until the kids are old enough to know the difference, if they're not helping support them.

"People Magazine" seemed to think it was in our best interests to point out what a remarkable and wonderful girl mommy is. Well, she's no better than the other unwed mothers out there. She got hot and was irresponsible with her body. The difference is, she has parents who can afford to deal with the aftermath. Good for them. Birth mom's daddy says they never bothered to talk to daughter about birth control or things like that because she was always such a "good girl." Brilliant! She's a teen ager. He's a teen ager. They have hormones - LOTS of hormones. That's just irresponsible and stupid.

I truly don't think David Letterman would pick on a 14 year old. It was a joke. Maybe it was in bad taste. I think it was. BUT, you can't take on a comedian like David Letterman and win, at least win and look dignified. Stupid, stupid, stupid, in my opinion to keep harping on this. David Letterman is acerbic, can be nasty, can be very cutting, but he's not a pedophile. I think they can let little Willow be near him without her getting hurt. Or, are they saying that little Willow will be as unprofessional as the rest of the family and try to scratch his eyes out?

Thank God the campaign failed. From the first time this woman bumbled her way through questions, golly, gee, I said to my husband, that were they to win, I'd have to at least think about where I wanted to be living for the next eight years. She was unrelentingly arrogant, too cute, and didn't have a grasp of the issues.

Please, please, give me a break. Quilt telling me the Palins are "good people" in every sense of the word. As long as the keep making jokes of themselves, the comedians will enjoy helping them.

This is what I would consider my first REAL novelty yarn. It happened by accident. I had this lovely stretched merino from the Happy Hippie. The yellow and red parts were real bears to spin. They stuck together like they were glued, regardless of the fact that I attenuated the fiber and would even give it a good pull apart. The singles were of all different thicknesses and I was NOT happy with them. When I was done, I wondered what in the world I was going to do with them. Well, this:

is what I did.

I named it Carole King because, while it's wild and bright, there is a somewhat subdued quality about it.

I plied the two singles with four balls of this kind of "flag" yarn on a string in similar colors. I really like it. Now, I know what to do with those singles that don't want to be nice and well behaved!

I ended up with 225 yards of the Carole King, about 20 yards of Carole Prince (without the flags), and about 10 yards of singles (surprisingly, these singles are pretty uniform and balanced).

The fiber colorway is: "Long Hair"
The flag yarn is: "Blossom" by Trendsetter

Here's another slide show, if you're interested. val

I was so wrong! I thought there were only three varieties of iris from Holland last year. I was wrong! I'm now not sure HOW many there are. This peach one opened up today. I thought it was going to be another of the yellow ones. Not so!

I ordered so many bulbs and plants last year, I don't even remember what I have. It's going to be this way next year, too. I have my eye on some parrot tulips, some more iris and some plants for the shady areas.

This weekend we added four nandina, two blueberry bushes, one raspberry bush (we already have one), three tickweed, three of some kind of little white annuals, and I have several green bean bushes coming up, and we bought a yellow crookneck squash plant. I'm about done for this spring. Watch out fall!

Here's a little slide show for those who are interested. There are pictures of the rhododendron in bloom, a white peony, a pink peony, and two pictures of some kind of wild flower. I don't know what this flower is, but it fascinates me. It starts out as the green fuzzy thing and, then, magically, all these little round pink, red and white flowers come out. There will be more flowers. The annuals haven't come up, yet.

My goal is to have something blooming all the time in the spring, summer and fall. So far, so good. The lavender is getting ready to bloom, the day lilies and Asian lilies are getting ready. I'm hoping the begonias and columbines will make a good show later.

Our town is preparing for Memorial Day. This is a little town - village for you with a European flair -, but it really knows how to do Memorial Day up right. There will be a little parade with a true country flair. The floats aren't the crepe paper, Rose Bowl kind, but they're made of the stuff of the Appalachians. They consist of jeeps, truck beds, horse drawn wagons and lots and lots of horses. The Civil War Reenactors get in on the fun and ride as both the Yankees and the Confederates. They camp right down at the bottom of our hill by the river in their historic garb and tie their horses to trees.

This is my favorite part, though:

The courthouse lawn is filled to capacity with these big flags. Each flag has a cross at its base with the name of a war veteran. This is a small town and some of these families have been here since the 1800's, maybe even longer. There could be families that have been here since the mid-1700's. The family names are familiar to us here. There are little subdivisions and there are roads named after these people.

The big flag over the fire station isn't up, yet, but it will be.

This is what Memorial Day (Armistice Day) is.

This is the first major project I've ever made with Colourmart 100% cashmere yarn. This is 2/17 weight, which is similar to a fingering or DK weight in the U.S. The color is C188/6165. It's a tan with yellow strands twisted and has green and brown flecks in it.

Here's the finished shawl as it dries:


and here's a detail of the stitch:



This shawl is much easier than the Swallowtail Shawl and is much faster to knit. If you make this pattern with lace weight yarn, it would be not much more than a triangular scarf. This is just about a shoulder shawl.

It's official! I'm worn out. Over the past two weeks, I've planted veggie plants, dug up about 200 dandelions, helped paint a deck and steps and railings with waterproofing, moved about 200 pounds of rocks, cleaned a garage, cleaned out a shed and washed lawn and porch furniture.. I know there were more things, but I don't remember what they were.

Today, I added painting our large side and small front porch. Unfortunately, I didn't have the size roller I thought I had, so I had to use a little 4" one. That meant LOTS more strokes and my shoulders are killing me and my arms are shaking. It'll go away soon, but I know I've nearly reached my limits.

Tomorrow, I'll go out and do the close painting with a brush and give the porches one more coat. BUT - and this is a BIG but (not mine) - I'm going to get that bigger roller. I need another gallon of porch paint, anyway, so it's not a big deal.

I really am tired. The upside is that I'm both toning some muscles and losing some weight in the process. Hooray!

This is a gorgeous new iris from last fall's planting:

And these are in their second year:

As per a previous post, a pear tree blew down in the yard. We had it removed on Saturday and the two men who did that were hired to transform the little red barn-like building in the back yard.

First, here's the photo of the removed tree place. I hauled all those rocks myself. It must be a gazillion pounds. Anyway, we're going to put a bird bath in that circle and a bunch of hummingbird and butterfly plants. This summer, I'm going to plant some bush beans in there, just for cover.

Here the shed with the materials to transform it:


and the guys who are doing the transformation.

Here's another view:



And this is the way it looks, now. It has a nice little screened porch and a window in the back. The inside is up to me. I figure that we can store folding chairs, tables, and other things to enjoy the outdoors inside the building and have a mosquito-free place to watch the birds in their new bath.

Behold, the Bean Hut:

Title of this blog post compliments of my husband, Jim

Excuse me? What was that shaking? Am I nervous? Could it be an earthquake?

Righto. Unfortunately, I snoozed right through any tiny tremors that made it as far as Marion. To those used to real earthquakes, my apologies for the excitement.

This is a weaving calculator I created in Excel to figure out the approximate yardage, ends, etc. for weaving.

Download Calculator

The instructions are at the bottom of the page. This should open in recent copies of Excel.

Here's another of the "pricey" iris I got from American Meadows last fall. These are just so gorgeous!

That's it - just too pretty to hide. I gotta share. This was a fairly pricey special iris bulb I got last fall and it's the first to bloom this spring. It rained last night and the water droplets on it were pretty spectacular.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. There's nothing quite like being a mom, is there?

My son sent me these yesterday:

They're really pretty! I love sunflowers and he remembered. There are three gorgeous ones in the bouquet, along with daisies, mums, roses and lilies. Thank you, JP.

We had planned on going to the Black Rooster for a Mother's Day lunch, but I think I just want to spend a normal day at the house. We did go out to MacDonald's for breakfast and had Egg McMuffins (which are nowhere near as good as Jim's version) and I tried the greatly hyped mocha. It was good, but not as good as the build up. I'd drink it again, but will save it for times when I really want the extra calories and don't want to fool with brewing coffee.

We also went to Wally World and I bought a few impatiens (actually, we thought they were cucumbers!), a zuchinni, a green pepper and a yellow squash. They're now happily resting in the garden. They sure should have enough moisture after the past week of torrential rains.

The river at the foot of the hill is very high and running fast and muddy. For some reason, I love it when it gets that way.

I'm working on a couple of projects (in addition to the usual pair of plain socks).

One of them is "Knitting Air," which is a lacy scarf of Rowan Kidsilk Haze

. Anyone who's knit with this stuff knows it's a bear to frog (rip out). I rare, therefore, would consider using it for a lace pattern, although people do this all the time. This time, though, I found a pattern I thought would be just yummy made up in Kidsilk Haze. It's the Travelling Roses Lace Scarf by Leanne Cooper.




In addition to this, I'm knitting a pair of Monkey Socks. Some of you will recognize this yarn from an earlier post. I had planned on knitting a scarf called "Dragon Scales" from this scarf, but as it went on, I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. So, I frogged it and am really liking it in the Monkeys. I also like this pattern. It's kind of a modified cable, lace pattern that really looks interesting with the busy variegated dye job of this unknown sock yarn.

Here's the newest of yarns called "Smashin' Pumpkins." This is BFL (Blue Faced Leicestershire) from the Southern Cross Fibre Club, March 2009, in the coloway "Fall Back." As you all know, by now, I love BFL. This was no exception. This time, the colors worked out the way I wanted them to. I split the top in half lengthwise and spun each, then did a 2-ply with them. It's about 135 yards of heavier worsted weight. I used a Kromski Minstrel at the smallest ratio and spun like the dickens (partly because I'm burning calories).

We think we were in a tornado on Friday night. No one has confirmed that officially, but it sure appears so. At around 11:00 p.m. Friday night, the rain started in earnest. You could hear it pinging on the shed roof on the deck and the wind was whipping up so fiercely that rain was coming in windows from two sides of the house at the same time and from all sides within seconds.

Growing up in Florida, I'm totally used to high winds from tropical storms and the occasional hurricane. I know what they sound like. They kind of whistle and things rattle. I'm crazy enough to like the sound and the storms. This was different, though. The sound was more like a growl or a car with a bad muffler. Shortly after 11 p.m., the cable system went out, which means our TV and our Internet connection. We couldn't tell what was going on.

In the morning, we found our house, which we had just spent $250 getting pressure washed was absolutely plastered with leaves. Big leaves, little leaves, pieces of leaves. On top of that, one of our big pear trees had split down the middle and had fallen in the yard, right on top of a bunch of bulbs and berries I had planted and nearly on top of our backyard shed. Below are some photos of it. Poor tree. We called a tree man to come and remove it (which he'll do sometime this week), and he told us everyone thought it was a small tornado. When we drove through town, we saw the same damage down our hill, right down Main Street of downtown and, then, up the hill to the hospital where Jim works. The tree man is also going to do the work for the hospital and he says a huge tree had fallen on a nurse's car, along with a lot of damage to the trees and plantings there.

Our tree man is charging us very little for the tree removal. As a matter of fact, he's charging less for that than the cost of replacing the dehumidifier in the basement that was, evidently, struck by the lightning show that also entertained us.

For a few minutes, I felt like I was back in Florida.

Here are the tree photos. Poor tree. Pears are subject to this kind of splitting, though.

You can see how rotten the tree was at the crotch. This is what destroys the pears so often.


We don't know for sure, yet, but it looks like the building escaped unscathed. We'll know for sure when the tree's out.

My friend, Colin, in England was kind enough to share THIS article explaining, graphically, how to protect yourself form the latest threat to our health.

The other day, I took away Jasper the Cat's winter ice chest house and made up a bed for him using a small feed tub, some old clothes and the rug from on top of his ice chest (for a familiar odor). For days, he snubbed it. I think he was punishing me.

Well, it's been raining for the past couple of days and there's every indication it will continue through the weekend. I guess he gave up. Anyway:

I love ducks. I don't know why. I like their chubby cheeks. I like their flat feet. I like the way they eat. I like to watch them waddle. I love the sound they make when they come in for a landing or take off. I especially like their sounds: Wak! Wak! Wak!

When I was young, one of my favorite comics was the Donald Duck series, including the Unca Scrooge and all associated with Donald. I, like most youngsters in the U.S., learned that ducks say, "Quack." Well, in the comic, they said, "Wak!" I always wondered why until I really started to listen to these ducks. They say, "Wak!"

When they come in for a landing, I run like an idiot out into the yard with a mason jar full of corn and sunflower seeds, yelling, "Ducks, ducks, ducks!" Now, this really does sound idiotic, but the ducks have learned to come for that sound. They're getting braver and braver.

A couple of years ago, I fed one pair and ended up with about 40 or 50 ducks in the yard at once, after the ducklings got older. It was great fun to watch them grow up.

Anyway, without further ado, I present Mr. and Mrs. Duck.

This was spun in about a day, off an on. It's from the Southern Cross Fiber Club and is 115 gms of Masham Top. I'd never heard of Masham before. I like it. It's a bit more course than many, but it's a dream to spin up. It's extremely long stapled fiber and needs very little twist to hold on. I'd originally planned on spinning it as a fingering weight single, but when I was experimenting with the finished single, I decided to ply it as a 2-ply. It's incredible how much it softened up, probably becasue there was so little twist to begin with.

The name?
Strawberry Alarm Clock.