Bumps and Loops

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.

I'm knitting this scarf out of some sock yarn, the name of which I have forgotten and I've lost the ball band:

I think it's a Socks That Rock Sock Club yarn from last year, but I'm not sure. If anyone knows, let me know. I hate it when I lose the stupid ball bands!

We had the house pressure washed a couple of days ago. We had this done two years ago and thought we knew what was up. WRONG!

This guy was much more thorough than the last guy. The first guy was here about 2 hours. This man was here all day long. He used some stuff called Purple Power and sprayed that on, then he brushed everything down, then he pressure rinsed it all off. Now, the neighbor is getting hers done. See? I can't do anything that someone doesn't copy me. Well, not really. Usually, we copy HER.

The house looks great!

Here are some more flower pics for you. These are my neighbor lady's dogwoods and the guy is our yard man. You can't really tell, but up close, he looks almost exactly like Freddy Mercury. His wife informs me is is NOT of Freddy's persuasion.

Spring is in full swing here. I went out and planted a bunch of begonias and about 8 ferns last week, along with a bunch of packets of poppy seeds. This week, I'm going to plant about a dozen calladiums in the shady areas, in hopes of getting some color to the back of the yard. Last year, we planted some Boston ferns, but I think it gets to cold here for them.

Here's a bit of what's in the yard, right now, in addition to the tulips:

This is a really nifty plant, but I don't know what it is.

This plant has something interesting all year. It starts out in the Spring with these flowers. Then, it does this:


Where the new growth is when the flowers drop, turns very red. After awhile, there will be little greenish yellow sprays of tiny little buds that will stay on the plant all Winter long. I have no idea what this is and I'd love to know.

This is creeping flocks. There are places where people have planted whole banks of this stuff and it is absolutely gorgeous. This one is my neighbor's, but we have some by our driveway, too, the same color. I love this stuff. I think more will be planted.



Finally, the huge and ancient lilac bushes at the back of the yard are in full bloom. The aroma is intoxicating. This is the time of year when Virginia smells fabulous. I cut a few of the lilacs and put them in an old mason jar on the mantel:



I've ordered a couple bags of wild flower seeds and I'm going to replenish the wild flower beds I planted last year. The perrenials from last years' bags are growing, but I want to have the annual color, too. I also bought some bags of wildflower seeds for the shady areas. You know, the wild flowers look just that - wild. They're not for everyone, but I love the haphazard way they grow and bloom. Fortunately, my neighbor likes them, too. They grow on her side of the yard.

We took JJ's Swallowtail Shawl and the little bag below to her in Columbia on Saturday. We weren't there long, but we managed to eat fall off the bones ribs at The Ale House before we left to go back to Marion.

I think I've finally gotten a little tired of knitting this same bag. I have a couple of patterns for some other lace bags, so I'm going to try a few new ones.

I also have been downloading free patterns from the Internet for various kinds of purses, checkbook covers and other fabric "things." I've been feeling the desire to do a little bit of sewing.

I wonder if this means I'll be rotating my crafts again. I do that. The only thing I keep doing consistently is knitting and, I think, that's because I can do other things while knitting, like watch TV or talk.

There are tons of little brown bats in this area. In the early morning or early evenings, you can see them flying around in search of delicious bugs to make odiferous guano. I like little bats. They're incredibly beneficial, although I don't want them living in my house.

The little guy was hanging under the ceiling of the side porch on the house. I took a broom and let him grab onto it and put him in the shade of a bush in the yard to weather out the day. We had one of these guys last year, too, so I think it might be a young one that's "lost."

Please don't kill the bats.



For more information about these little guys, here's a great article.

It seems I go on "binges" of crafts. I'll spin for awhile, knit for awhile, weave for awhile, sew for awhile. Right now, I'm on a spinning binge.

Here's the latest, called "B.B. King." For course! Moody blues and green bayous with a little glitz for good measure.

Here's a detail of it. There's blue angelina in there for shine. It's hard to see and it's just little flecks here and there.


I've been wanting to try angelina for quite awhile and have, in fact, had this bag of it for months just waiting for the right fiber. Well, it came from a fiber club I joined called "Southern Cross Fibre." The folks who run it are in Australia and had wonderful reviews on Ravelry and other places.

I love his fibers. This one is from the March club. He takes requests for colors and tries to fit the offerings into your own specific likes and dislikes. So far, he's been right on the mark.

This one is Blue Faced Leicester which, as many of you know, is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This was a great dye job in that not a bit of the fiber was matted or felted. It spun up wonderfully.

Since it was my first time adding anything into the fiber, I kind of let the fiber spin itself. There are a few thick and thin spots in the finished yarn, but the 2-ply (plied back on itself) came out far more uniform than I expected and is very lovely. The colors in "real life" are much richer than they appear.

This is yet another one of those dice bags I like to make so much. I had one skein of very expensive Tilli Thomas beaded silk lace weight yarn. I had no idea what to do with it. I bought it on a whim.

I held it doubled and used the same old pattern. It was a real challenge to knit because it's so loosely plied to begin with, I was holding two strands together, the beads kept getting hung up and, doggone it, dark colors are hard to see. Part of the bag, I knitted standing right next to the biggest window in the house so I could see.

I'm giving it to my mother in law. I was knitting it when we were visiting and she said she liked it. I'll have to buy some satin ribbon to use for the closure, since I can't make the twisted cord out of the beaded yarn.

I spun two new yarns. Actually, I managed to finish two yarns I started about a month ago.

This one is called "Highty Tighty." The Highty Tighties are the regimental band of Virginia Tech and, since the fiber was dyed in Virginia Tech colors and I like to name my yarns after musical groups, this just seemed appropriate. This yarn is a 3-ply heavy sock weight, This means each individual single or strand is very, very thin - kind of like quilting thread. It's also very tightly spun. When the 3 plies are put together, the fiber plumps right back up and gets soft.

This fiber is blue-faced Leicester.

This one is named "The Who." Who? The Who. It's a nice 100% merino hand dyed fiber. I tried something new with the spinning. I split the roving in half and spun one half as one piece. Then, I split the other half in half again and spun that as one long piece. The idea was that the repeats of colors on the second half of the roving would be twice as frequent and, when I did the 2-plying, would make very blended and gradual color changes. Well, it did, but I don't like it. There's a small piece of what was left over from the plying. I did a chained ply on it and wish I'd done that on all of it. This is a case of live and learn. The big bunch is growing on me as it dries and plumps up, but I know I'd have liked it better chain plied.

We went on a road trip to Pennsylvania to see Jim's parents this past weekend. We drive up in the morning, visit, and drive back in the evening. Everyone, including the parents, think we're nuts (we are), but we kind of like the long day trips.

We stopped at the Pennsylvania welcome station and I had a brief moment to catch this pic of some dogwood in bloom.

It was interesting that some of the trees between Virginia and Pennsylvania in West Virginia at higher elevations seemed to be further along in their spring wake-up than those in our area of Virginia or Jim's parents' area of SW Pennsylvania. I suspect it may have something to do with the amount of sun they've received.

-- that's what I am. Totally besotted with Susan Boyle.

Britain Has Talent. Yes, it does. So many wonderful bands and actors and singers and other kinds of performers have originated in Great Britain, but this one has me absolutely entranced. Check this out, if you haven't already.

When someone can get Simon Cowell to look pleased, even happy, you've got something. Simon gets a really bad rap, in my opinion. Whereas Paula (U.S. AI) tends to be touchy feely to the detriment of really useful constructive criticism and Randy (U.S. AI) is always trying to be the "hip dude," Simon is actually saying something. Britain's other judges, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan are less superficial, but it's always Simon who'll buck the popular trend and "tell it like it is." Yeah, the shows are a bit hokey and you have to believe there's more political rigging than the public sees, but there's no reason why the judges' critiques have to be so saccharine. If these people plan on having a performing career, they may as well get used to being judged and Simon's good at it. So -- his reaction to Susan Boyle's audition was the ultimate compliment for an individual who wants to be taken seriously in the musical world. His reaction was mesmerizing to me. I'm thinking that his thoughts were, "How can I sign this woman."

I wonder when we reached a point that we're so shallow that our artists have to be, not only good in their field, but look like actors. Think Carol Channing. Think Kate Smith. Think Sammy Davis, Jr. For heaven's sake, I want chills when I hear someone sing. Susan Boyle's voice is the kind you just either gotst it, or you don't. You can learn technique. You can practice pitch. You can do every vocal exercise on Earth and, if you don't have that tone and fluidity, you just won't get it.

I got chills from listening to her sing. I STILL get chills listening to the same old song over and over. I get chills watching the judges' and the audience's reaction to her.

You go, Ms. Boyle! Regardless of whether or not you win this competition, you will be singing for the world.

And, dear blog readers, please get off Simon's back. Yeah, he's not the most tactful man in the world, but he knows of what he speaks. Listen and you might learn to be a better singer or supporter. Let the fluffs keep on yakking and saying nothing.

And wait to see where Ms. Boyle's first recordings go.

A friend of mine has bought a sock knitting machine from eBay. She has a friend who also knits socks on a sock machine who helped her try to get hers in good working order. They did succeed, pretty much, but hers needs a new part of the ribber. She's knitting the socks on the machine and hand knitting the ribbing.

She says the learning curve is pretty steep, but does that stop her from forwarding to me a website where they sell sock knitting machines? No, of course not! This rascal is trying to get me to go down yet another Primrose Path.

I admit that, as always, I was intrigued. I went to the website - just to still my curiosity you understand - and nearly choked on my SaBe Life Water (my latest fad fave). The one I would have liked was $1900!!! That's more than my 2 spinning wheels, 3 rigid heddle looms and 2 knitting machines all together - maybe even with my Singer Featherweight thrown in.

I think I shall live vicariously through her. Go to it, Kate, my girl.

Kate's cool. She's a nurse and lives in Missouri. She "collects" birds (cockatiels and other bigger ones), dogs and cats. She lives in a house that always seems to be out to challenge her. She works with illnesses and people that make me really respect her. Once, Kate was accused of not keeping her end of a bargain, even though no one ever asked her if she had or checked anywhere to see. As a matter of fact, no one directly spoke with her at all. These folks on a group to which I belonged just gave her a hard time. At one point, one of the people on the group wrote to me to tell me they were "discouraging" her posts and that I should know that. I dropped out of the group. What made it worse was that this group was created because the folks didn't like being censored on another group. Human nature is quite odd.

So, to Kate: It is doubtful I shall ever buy a sock knitting machine. I shall just wait until you get yours fixed up and demand socks from YOU.

Oh! THIS is a sock knitting machine:

I swiped the photo from here: Old Tyme Stockings. I hope they don't mind. I've created the link so they might get some traffic and interest and so they won't get made at me.

Kate, you are a rascal.

I finally finished JJ's Swallowtail shawl. It took me months, not because it's so terribly difficult, but that I need to be "in the groove" to knit lace. There are days when I can knit the most difficult stitches and repeats with ease and others where I can't even purl across a row correctly. I've learned the hard way to give it a rest, sometimes for a week or two, or risk really making a mess and costing myself more time and frustration than is believable.

This is the second of this pattern I've done. The first was with fingering weight and was much smaller. This one is made with Louet Gems in the Emerald green colorway (no longer made) and is sport weight. The pattern is exactly the same, but the needles and yarn are bigger. This one came out 29" by 56". That's a nice size. The first one was made with Jojoland Melody and is just about, overall, half the size. It's amazing how much difference the yarn and needle size makes, even though the yarn wasn't terribly different in diameter or wpi (wraps per inch).

Here's the new one:

You can see the yardstick on the diagonal there on the new one. I used it to make sure the points were all pretty much even. The first time I blocked one of these things, it took me over an hour. This time, it took only about 15 minutes. I've learned how to "read the pattern" better and could see which lines needed to be pulled straight to the perimeter. It make life much easier. Of course, it helps that the carpet in my workshop has a grid in the patterning. How convenient!

Here's a detail of the point and, then, one of the side. I just love this pattern.






The name of this post is "Fascination" because I am always, always, always fascinated at how a mass of crumpled and bunched up yarn and stitches can be pulled out into these fantastically beautiful patterns. The Yarn Harlot is right. People thought I was crazy because I'd call them over (yes, even strangers) and start pulling and stretching the bunches of stitches on my needles, exclaiming, "See? See how beautiful it's going to be?" I'm sure a number of them would have liked to just throttle me and thought, "It looks like a bird's nest to me." Hah! If only they could see it now. AND, most of them will never have such a lovely shawl (at least not knit by me).

I'm hoping I get to take this shawl to JJ in Columbia so I can get a photo of her wearing it.

I love this shawl. It's my favorite so far. I hope JJ loves it and it's really a testimony to my love for her that it belongs to her.

I'm renaming it: "Wild Child Swallowtail."

There's a song by Enya called "Wild Child." It, too, is incredibly beautiful, as is Enya, as is JJ, as is this shawl.

The most recent in the series of little bags I've made is this one:

I named it Ice and Snow because the gorgeous 100% cashmere (goat hair) is so soft and it kind of shimmers. Also, the white lined clear glass beads sparkle just a bit.




I love this little bag. There's a kind of innocence, mixed with just a bit of sophistication to it - a kind of coming of age.

The bag was made on size 2 needles. The yarn is from Colourmart in the UK and was part of a mill end from a fiber mill in Scotland. It was custom twisted to British double knit gauge for me by Sarah at Colourmart from 4 lace weight singles.

Question: Will I ever enjoy, or at least not mind, beading?

It's snowing today. I'm not overly happy about that, even though I love snow, usually. I'm just tired of the overcast days and the cold. It's been a long, long winter that started earlier than usual and is just continuing on and on. This should be the last hurrah for Old Man Winter, though.

This is a scarf using a faggot stitch and Jade Moon 100% Mongolian Cashmere - 1 skein. It made a pretty light weight scarf, but it'll be great for spring and fall. It's incredibly soft and the color variations are very subtle. I love this yarn, even though it's also very expensive!

The color is also the same as Jade's eyes:



That's pretty darned appropriate, considering the manufacturer of the yarn, don't you think?

In light of the fact there has been very little sunshine here for awhile, and that there have been so many cold, snowy, dreary days in much of the upper U.S. these days, I figured you can't get too many spring flowers. We've been lucky that a number of kinds of our flowers have started to bloom. Even though the sun's not out much they, at least, present proof that sunny days are on the way.

For those of you less lucky, here you go:

More daffys.



creeping periwinkle.



New tulips.



The pear tree, nearing its end, some daffy's, and although you can't really see them, some yellow rose bushes starting up.

Don't fret. Warm weather will get here. After all, we're in the middle of a global warming, right?

I know I've talked about Jasper a lot on this blog. I've told you of some of his shenanigans and about how his life goes. I thought I'd show you the infamous ice chest winter home.

Here's his corner of the porch in very early spring. Later, there will be lavender to make his corner smell good.


Here's a picture of Jasper the Cat hunkered down in his ice chest, ready to wait out an early spring storm that might bring rain and just might bring the last snow of the year. He looks pretty warm for an outdoor pussycat (not to mention right ornery, as a cat curmudgeon should look).

Remember, Jasper the Cat has his own blog these days. You can find it here: http://jaspersporch.blogspot.com/

More pics of spring springing here:

This one is a row of daffodils coming:

This one is a single daffy:



This one is a pretty little crocus:



And, this one is the most recent state of the pear blossoms posted previously:

I tend to be a rather "mouthy" person, in that I'll publicly state my stand on such things as poor customer service and "man's inhumanity to man and animal." It's so easy to find less than stellar customer service in these days of widespread Internet marketing.


(the little pink bag on the left is made from Colourmart 100% cashmere DK)

Today, I am so impressed by one company that I absolutely MUST talk about it.

The company is Colourmart in the United Kingdom. This is a small company, run by Richard Lawn his his notorious assistant, Sue. They purchase mill ends of yarns used in the manufacture of high end textiles for the clothing and accessories industries. This is yarn made of beautiful cashmere, wool and silk with an occasional "other" fiber. I've ordered several pounds of their yarns over the past couple of years and have always, always, ALWAYS been satisfied - no unbelievably satisfied - with their products. Like no other company I know about, they provide a sample card for a very nominal fee and even include a small skein of one of their yarns so you can knit, crochet, or weave it up, treat it and see how their yarns actually finish out.

One thing I love about their yarns is that it comes to you, generally, unwashed. By this, I mean it is coated with the oils used by the industrial knitting machines. This "tightens" it up and makes it somewhat hard and thin. As you work, you don't see what it actually will look like after being washed and blocked. I find it makes it easier to work with, particularly when knitting. I also love the "magic" as it dries after the oils have been washed out. I also like the fact that this process almost requires you to make a sample swatch. I hate to do this, but as any knitter knows, it's the only way to come close to knowing how the finished product will look. It also helps insure the garment, if it is a garment, fits the way you expect.

Furthermore, you can wash this cashmere. I have machine washed it, but don't generally recommend it. I don't know why, but it just seems that cashmere should have at least a modicum of "respect." I do, though hand wash it. I machine dry it to an almost dry state and, then, set it out to dry on a flat surface. No "shy" fiber, this. It's tough stuff. You wouldn't believe it to handle the lovely fine fibers. It breaks easily if you give it just a little tug. Knit or woven up, though, this stuff's tough.

The magic of this yarn is enchanting. There's something so special about making an article out of it. When you finish, you have something that looks far from what you imagine. It's often stiff and thin. Give it a good wash in a detergent, though, and a nice dry and, maybe, a little fulling and it's as soft and wonderful as any high end garment you've ever bought.

It's also very inexpensive for a luxury yarn. You can get a HUGE cone of it for about $36 U.S - including shipping from the U.K. Depending on the weight of the fiber (lace, double knit, cobweb), you can get anywhere from 3300 yards in cobweb to around 1700 yards of double knit weight yarn in a pound. It's sold, generally, in 150 gram (5 oz) cones for less than $40. I've spent $60 for a single 2 oz. skein of 100% cashmere from other places.

See a color you like, but it's thinner than you'd like? They'll twist the singles for you into whatever size you like.

How long does it take? It takes about a week for it to come from the U.K. to my home in rural Virginia, U.S.A. That's faster than many U.S. companies get it here.

Oh, and the customer service? Well, that's the main point of this post, right? It's incredible. There has never been a time when I've asked a question that I haven't received a very quick and effective answer. The website gives extensive information about the yarns and its care. You can buy patterns and see what other people have made from these yarns.

Most recently, I wrote asking about a particular yarn that wasn't listed on their website. I needed just a small amount for a special project. I needed it in white - a color that's hard for them to get. Well, Sue found it for me and made a special effort to twist it up in just the right size and is shipping it to me in plenty of time to finish the item.

Let me tell you that I will be buying more yarn from Colourmart.

If you knit ... if you crochet ... if you weave, try it out for yourself. There's everything from unbelievably soft cashmeres and shiny silks to crunchy silks and, even, some vicuna fiber blends. You owe it to yourself to try them out.

In reading this article about AIG, I am absolutely amazed at the depth of some peoples' anger and desire for retaliation.

While it is my personal opinion that bonuses should not be paid to individuals who have failed at their jobs or who have been employed by a company that has directly or indirectly caused the loss of so much money by investors, I think the venom of SOME individuals toward the executives that received bonuses is uncalled for. Do I think the bonuses should have been paid? No. Do I think it might have been ethical and novel if these workers had rejected the bonuses, but to claim publicly they AND THEIR FAMILIES should be executed by piano wire around their necks is simply human nature at its worst.

What possible good would it do? Would it help the investors who lost money? I think not.

After all, it's partly the government's fault for not insuring there were adequate guidelines and requirements for those who claimed bail out money.

I am deeply angered by the lack of care and good management of AIG. BUT, to suggest the executives and their families should be "snuffed" is simply nastiness.

I went out this morning and took pictures of the stuff that's "springing" up in the garden.

These are pear buds. In another week, these trees will be pure white and loaded with flowers.



This is a tiny little clematis vine we planted around the light post last year. We had no idea if this would come up this year, or not.



These are teensy tiny little flowers. I don't know what they are, but they're all less than a half inch in diameter.



This is a hydrangea that almost died a couple years ago when it decided to snow on Easter Sunday.



And, finally, the best for last: Two of the first daffodils of the year in this yard. There are going to be many, many more because I planted over 100 bulbs last year and a lot of them have been successful. Hooray!

I'm in a rut - or I'm totally fascinated - I'm not sure which. I keep knitting little bags. Here are two more:

The one on the left is a sample bit of 100% cashmere from Colourmart, done on size 3 needles.

The one on the right is the leftovers from a handspun project.

Don't you wish it were this easy:

Just a fire and a little time alone.

And, 'cause I love her, she's a star again. Recaption her. There MUST be a better one.

This weekend, I've been making bags. I don't know why. I just am.

The one on the left is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. The bigger one is made from a Noro Silk Garden skein, as is the blue little square one. The beige envelope with the little pearls is made from some silk/camel stuff I spun myself. It's just sooooo soft. a business card fits into it perfectly.

I'm thinking this is another great way to use up little bits of leftover yarns. The bags are all knit the same - starting with 15 stitches. The way to change the size is with bigger yarn (or smaller) and needles. I suspect there's another way, but that would involve math and way too much thinking.

Here's the progress on my niece's Swallowtail Shawl. It's made of a sport weight yarn, so it's a fair amount bigger than the pattern:

Below is a close up of a couple of the NUPPs. They're done by knitting 5 stitches into one stitch on one row and, then, on the returning row, purling one stitch into the 5 stitches from the previous row. If you don't knit the first 5 loosely enough, it dang near impossible to purl one into the five. I've found, though, that if it's too tight, I can slip one or two of those 5 stitches and then purl what's left and slip the last one over. If you don't knit, this is just a bunch of words. Knitters will understand.


Those chubby bumps are the NUPPs. In this case, they're the flowers on a "lilly of the valley" border. You'll see.

I've decided to make some little purses out of the luxury fiber sample pack fiber. Here's an example of one kind:


There are no "rules" about the stitch pattern, so I'm going to make some of them out of lacy stitches. These can be jewelry bags, credit or business card holders, amulet bags, etc., etc., etc. They'll also be a great way to use up a lot of little bits of yarn from other projects.

We had planned on visiting my niece last weekend in Columbia. The Weather Gods, in their infinite wisdom chose last weekend to dump some of the worst winter weather in years on the Southeast. There was a gray "Winter Warning" or "Winter Advisory" combination plopped right over us, from just north of here, to just south of Columbia and just to the West of the western Interstate highway we'd have taken and just to the East of Columbia, effectively insuring that any mountains we had to traverse would be treacherous, either going or coming, or both. So, we reluctantly canceled.

So, off we went yesterday. We closed Jade, with all her equipment in "her" room (to protect the parakeets from bored kitty), and took off. I had a Mapquest map, but it really didn't have enough detail to see where we were going and it appeared the instructions were incorrect. AND, this brilliant person forgot to take JJ's phone number AND her new apartment number. How clever! We got there, though.

We went to a great little place, called The Gourmet Shop, in Five Points in Columbia for lunch. I had a most yummy tomato with chicken salad. They also serve lovely baguettes with them. This place also has one of most wonderful gourmet food and cooking utensil shops I've ever seen. It's not cookie cutter, like Williams-Sonoma or some of these other stores. There are all kinds of great things. I did manage not to buy anything, but might have to the next time we're there.

Jim and I, then, went to the hotel to check in. It was hot in the room and we turned on the air conditioner, only to find it didn't seem to be cooling very well. We thought it might get better, so we left and went to pick up JJ for lunch.

Here's a pic of her apartment:

What a cute place! That's Jim sitting over there by the fireplace. I think he finds JJ and me together to be a total hoot. We're both crazily frenetic and chatter like a couple of magpies.

After a bit, we went to the Liberty Tap Room and Grill for dinner where we gorged ourselves (JJ and me) on prime rib, salad, broccoli, sourdough bread and Smirnoff Ice for her and a crazy martini for me. I'm really not as smashed as I look in the photo below. I do need to learn to SIT UP and COMB MY HAIR before I get my picture taken, especially if I'm going to hold up a glass of alcoholic drink! For some reason, my hair took yesterday to take the day off. It flattened and turned just incorrigible. And I just don't remember to SIT UP. I've never had that sense of "posing" for a picture. Ah, well, look away if you must. You can see JJ. in the picture below this one.


Here's the aforepromised pic of JJ:



After dinner, we walked back UP the hill to the car, parked what seemed like ten miles from the hotel to two totally overstuffed females. We went back to JJ's place and I got to show her the Swallowtail Shawl I've been trying to make her for about a year, now. I've frogged (ripped) it at least twice - more if you count the times I just couldn't get the garter cast on to work - but I think I've finally gotten the rhythm.

Later, we went back to the hotel to find it was just as hot and muggy as when we left. Jim was feeling chipper, so we decided to drive back home then. We got in around 1'ish - an hour before we had to turn the clocks forward for that blasted Daylight Savings Time thing-y.

It was a great trip: beautiful weather, fun talking to JJ (she's the original niece, you know - born when I was eight and we did many, many things together growing up), eating way too much yummy food, drinking more stuff than I'm used to doing, and driving on roads that were rather barren for I-81. We'll have to make this trip again!

We were gong to take a weekend trip to Columbia, SC this past weekend to visit a niece. Amazingly, there was a blanket of horrible weather that stretched from just north of us, just east of us and west of us and, then, south to just south of where we needed to be. While we may have been OK, there are pretty big mountains between us and Columbia, either way we go. We had to postpone our trip until next weekend. Ah, well, another week of anticipation.

This storm is incredibly odd. The snow is falling from the southeast, when it usually falls from the northwest. It's interesting that it actually looks odd.

It's doubtful we'll get a lot of accumulation, but it might make for some slippery roads.

The poor folks who aren't used to this stuff will be suffering. It's supposed to be snowing in Alabama, Georgia and, even, northern Florida.

I'm OK with all of this, as long as it doesn't snow on Easter again. It killed a whole lot of new, tender vegetation two years ago. The weather gods and I are going to have it out if that happens again this year!

Virginia Tech's Regimental Band is known as the Marching Virginians, but they're affectionately nicknamed the "Highty Tighties" by students, staff and alumni.

I have two Pounds of blue faced leicester wool that was dyed by Spunsilver in the Virginia Tech colors of maroon and orange. I'm spinning this stuff finely and will make whatever plying decisions I need to make it a fingering or DK weight. This may take me the rest of the year!

Little miss Jade got a collar on Saturday. I've never had a cat that would wear one, but I thought we might try again. I had no expectation that this would work, but felt Jade would look very lovely in a collar. Well, here she is:

There was no fuss, no muss, no complaining, no gyrations. I put her on my lap, put the collar on and that was it. She actually seems to like it.