Surprise again!

At last the moment some of you have been waiting for. As you know if you're a regular reader of this compendium of nonsense I participated in Ted Myatt's Fibre to Scarf exchange. Getting my scarf so quickly gave me extra incentive to finish the one I was working on, so by the end of March it was complete.

It started with 8 ozs of Bullen's Wullens in a mulberry heathered with copper. The blend was combed out so it was very easy to spin up. I opted to making it a DK weight so that it would be a quick knit but not so thick that you don't have much yarn to make a scarf. I came up with almost 400 yards of lovely 2-ply that after finishing was wonderfully squishy and promised to be warm.

The next challenge was finding a scarf pattern that would keep my interest. I chose Brooke Nelson's Column of Leaves pattern off of Ravelry for its interest and quickly memorized pattern. The yarn worked very well with the pattern to my pleasure.

And who is the lucky recipient? None other than knitsib Kate Winkler who I've known from the list. She's tickled about the scarf and the goodies I included, and very happy that spring has offered at least an opportunity to wear it before the weather warms up and she has to put it away. It was a pleasure to make it for you, Kate. I hope it gives you lots of warm enjoyment.

Sunny skies on a Sunday

Spring is now getting a good shot in the arm this weekend here in Stumptown. Portlanders who were huddling in their jackets and scarves are walking the streets in shirt sleeves and sunglasses, big smiles on their faces as they try to soak up enough sun to neutralize the winter dullness. I've opened up the house to let the skimmia fragrance waft into the house and the cross breeze push the stale air of winter out. The cats are lounging in the sunshine after a good roll on the sidewalk and the bushtits are flitting about in the trees and bushes. A lovely day for sitting outside and knitting or spinning.

Last week at knit night I brought home Susan's carder and processed some of the washed wools I had. I completed the processing on two bags of wool, a merino I had purchased a couple of years ago and the Columbia moorit I got at the Aurora Fiber Faire last year, and now have some lovely batts to spin from.

It's interesting to see the crimp on both being so fine so I'm looking forward to seeing what I come up with from both wools. The merino was my first attempt at getting a wool in the raw after being sheared, washing it and processing it to batt form. I was afraid I had felted it but found to my delight that it had not.

The Columbia was washed and picked but needed carding. I did some experimental carding at OFFF on Deb Accuardi's carder and liked the result. It's a lovely warm brown that should be enough for a sweater when spun up.

Waiting

Is the week over? It's Friday? I never thought this weekend would arrive. Not that I'm going to be doing anything super swell and fun though part of the weekend I will. I was able to borrow a drum carder from one of my spinning buddies so will be working on prepping up the Columbia and the Lincoln fleeces into batts for spinning. I may do some blending experiments too to see what I can come up with. I have some bits and pieces of exotics I'd like to blend in with some wools. But Sunday will be spent on a liquid diet followed by prepping for a colonoscopy to be done on Monday. It's not a routine one either, so I'll be glad to get it over with. Last Sunday was more fun, meeting up with Dan and going to see Slumdog Millionaire. The images of all the colorful fabrics stay in my mind.

The secret project is done and will be heading out tomorrow to its intended recipient. I'll be able to tell more about it as soon as she gets it, so you just have to wait. I know I know, it's hard. In the meantime, I've dug up some yarn Ted gave me a couple of years ago that I had originally started knitting up Rose of England but ripped it all out when I stopped knitting it and found when I came back that I had stopped in the middle of the round and had no idea where I was in the repeats. This time I'm doing a simple triangular shawl with stripes of handdyed Page Mill Farms sock yarn inserted in it. I'd be doing the QAL except at work during breaks and lunch I'm often in conversation with friends, so this shawl, done in garter stitch, is just the right kind of project that keeps me occupied. The light was lousy for pics today; I'll try to get some up later because the two yarns complement each other so well.

Mileage

The lovely scarf QueerJoe knitted for me is getting lots of oohs and ahhs. I can't help but share, it's so nice. Rodger of Abundant Yarn wanted to adopt it for his own, but I gently wrested away from him. He does look lovely in it, but then he has a natural ability to pose artistically.

I made a trip out to Canby to drop off fleeces for cleaning and processing into roving. One thing I like about heading out into the country is going into a Wilco, a farm and ranch supply store, to see what they have. You're not going to find a store with farm supplies in the mall, and since it's to provide things that help keep a farm running you find all sorts of things. I stopped in one, a brand spanking new Wilco in Canby, and browsed for a while. I found welding shields, traffic cones, horse tack, heavy duty clothing, gopher traps, a dozen kinds of brooms, and propane tank parts. I came out with a Brute trash can, a heavy duty feed bucket (larger than the usual buckets you find at the grocery store), long sleeved PVC gloves (excellent for really messy projects like dyeing fiber), packets of seeds, and cat litter. For a fiberholic city girl it's a treasure trove.

The secret project is getting close to completion. I have a couple more repeats of the motif then I can work on the final border. I'm on row 105 on the Queen Sized Queen Anne's Lace which is waiting for me to finish the secret project. In between knitting sessions, a few spinning projects are getting done. Last night was the plying of the last of the Miami Stripes yarn. A few more yards were added to the baby alpaca laceweight singles. Some alpaca samples were done up for StitchJones and I played with a sample of fiber from H.A.Y.

Surprise!

Today I came home to a box on the porch. A little one. One I have been waiting for from a very special person.

Back in January I received an invitation to the second Fiber to Scarf project hosted by Ted Myatt. This year I sent off 8 oz. of StitchJones' Anjelica BFL roving into the ether, albeit reluctantly because the colors were so nummy. I got my fiber and it's spun and currently on the needles, so I didn't expect a response for a few months. Imagine my surprise when I get an email from Queer Joe saying that he's the one who got the roving.

I'm an avid reader of QueerJoe's blog and knew he had participated in last year's F2S. So when he wrote that he was busy spinning and knitting a secret project I suspected he was doing it again. So I emailed him a teaser for one of the conditions for participation is that you don't blog about the project. Secret project indeed. Yes he was working on it and was enjoying it so much that he was nearly finished. Then not long after that he emailed me that he was my fiber recipient and the scarf was done. If you've seen his work, you'd understand my joy. His lace knitting is exquisite and his designwork fabulous.

I give you QueerJoe's Anjelica scarf.

To add to the fun he tucked in a bag (just the right size for a spinning project or socks) filled with tools, the remaining yarn from the scarf, a dpn case, and a jigsaw puzzle magnet with a sheep. More than what I expected, which adds frosting to this wonderful cake.

Thank you Joe for the wonderful scarf and goodies. And thank you again Ted for hosting this fun event. I better get cooking on mine!

Not much to report

It's Sunday morn and the week to report,

Events to peruse and pics to sort

What is newsworthy and what is not

All thrown into one blogmeister's pot.

But the weather is foul and the news is thin.

Few pics were taken to raise a grin.

The cats are all healthy, well-fed and asleep.

I haven't gone out and purchased a sheep.

The house is still standing, the car's in one piece.

A rather dull week by some standards at least.

I didn't spend Pi day working on a shawl.

Friday the 13th didn't affect me at all.

No murder or mayhem in the office park

No break-ins or muggings done in the dark.

No purchases made in a fit of madness.

No events that would cause woe, sorrow, or sadness.

Spring's in the air, the trees are a-bud.

The hard cold ground's slowly turning to mud.

The clock's sprung forward, sleep lost in an hour.

The daffs and andromeda are now in full flower.

Soon to come a surprise anxiously awaited

A box to arrive and to open, breath bated.

But all that will wait on this Sunday morn,

It's just knitting and breakfast and tea good and warm.

Enjoy.

Getting naked

Imagine you're just minding your own business, just bopping around in your pasture with your buddies on a cool spring day.

Then some guys come along and herd you and your buddies into a barn. It's a little snug but it's warm and dry. There are some noises on the other side of the wall and some low chatter, but for the most part you're calm.

Suddenly someone grabs a hold of you and another bops you on your butt and starts shaving you. The noise is terrifying and the cool air hits your body before you know it. You're turned and twisted, the clippers buzzing all over your body and legs.

Next thing you know it's over. The guy who had shaved you lets you go, another guy guides you out to the pasture, and off you run. The cold hits you and you wonder where your friends are. You call and call and they answer, but some weird people show up. You realize then they are your friends, only shaven. Somewhere you hear the voices of women cackling with delight.

It was this Saturday that I and some of the members of the Portland Spinnerati went to Jon and Ronda Schultze's farm where we helped with the skirting of their Icelandic sheep. Eddie, a shearer from New Zealand, came to shear and eight of us took the shorn fleece and removed the vegetable matter, dung tags, second cuts, and mats.

Our reward? A car full of fleeces ready to be taken to the processors.

Desktop

They say a person is known for the things on his/her desk. What do you think?

Friday night while I watched movies I didn't want to work on the usual things, so I decided to make myself a bag for my spinning gear. It's made of Cascade 220 and Noro Kureyon with a Moebius handle I took from Cat Bordhi's first Treasury of Magical Knitting. I got it done in an evening and felted it while doing my laundry. I like the colors but am not too thrilled with its floppiness so I'm going to hunt in the remnants of my fabric stash to see if I can find a couple of fun fabrics for making a lining.

Where I get my chocolate covered cranberries

What I need per Google

Dr Mel did this meme where you type in your name followed by needs in the Google search box (I did "Duffy needs") and note what comes up. Since I share a name with a Welsh pop star I got a number of references to her, but there were some others that were interesting.

1. Duffy needs kids wellies for her little feet at Glastonbury.

2. Duffy needs no mercy at Mojo music awards.

3. Duffy needs numbers. Especially those printed on legal tender.

4. Duffy needs to be aware that a six centimeter wallet is putting more than his posture at risk. That's why I carry a purse.

5. Duffy needs a permanent loving home. Who's peeking?

6. Duffy needs to get out more. Really?

7. Duffy needs to find her place.

8. Duffy needs to be removed from our senate. Et tu, Brute?

9. Duffy needs to ready herself for stardom. I'm ready for my closeup Mr DeMille.

10. Duffy needs to stick to bartending. Ack my secret's out!

I'm trying to remember

Dear Supreme Being, whatever your name may be:

Hey there. I know -- you're thinking "It's that agnostic again. Make up your mind: do I exist to you or not?" Well I went deist some time ago. I just didn't pick one of the various faiths that offer their version of the path to Enlightenment/Salvation/Nirvana/whatever. So we can get that out of the way right now.

Anyhoo, I've been wondering lately just what it is that you decided that at the point a woman starts losing her hormones she loses her brain. I don't mean the mood swings or psychotic episodes that come with that (and by the way thank you for NOT having me go through that, since I went through enough of that prior to the hysterectomy). It's the memory loss. The DUH moments when you know exactly what that word is that you want to say and you're a perfectly intelligent person that has a college degree and a huge vocabulary but for some reason your brain misfires and the word just simply escapes you and you're stuck sitting there with your friend waiting for you to tell you the word as you sit waggling your fingers to try to FOR THE LIFE OF ME WHAT IS THAT WORD?? remember what you want to say. Yeah, that thing.

I'm sure you've heard from a multitude of women who have already gone through this and nod sagely. They look at me and nod. "Oh yes, she's going through THAT part." The big sisters of the grand sisterhood just watching you suffer as you try to remember what the last ingredient of that drink you had last night was -- it begins with a "c" -- or was it a "g"? Just what in hell was in that drink? They tell you later about all the post it notes they use and send you emails telling how you intended to go take the trash out but through a series of distractions ended up watching TV and going to bed.

Thank you for the Internet, Big Guy. It at least tells me I'm not heading for a life of sitting in a wheelchair with a vacuous look on my face and a big bib as my brain slowly rots. It's supposed to be normal for me to be like this. Perhaps not this soon but since I hurried up the process a bit I'm getting the results. Like remembering the routines of George Carlin word for word but heaven help me if I can tell you what I was doing with that handspindle last night is supposed to be normal.

So what did we do to deserve this? I know in the Bible it said that women were to bear children with the pain of leaving Eden. But did it have to include this? You'd think that the one thing you'd want us women to do is to remember. It was the point, right? But we don't. We forget, then recall just before we drop off to sleep that we left the groceries out on the back porch because we got distracted by a phone call from Maggie.

I tell you what. Do me a favor and for the next few generations test drive the possibility of allowing us women to remember things when we hit menopause. If you don't like it you can always undo the work. But I think you'll find that it will make your life simpler. After all, I can't imagine you'd want to hear the same prayers over and over again.

On the Fiber Front

Word reached me through Twitter that Phat Fiber is doing a giveaway. All you have to do is name a very cute baby goat and you get a chance to win a pound of lovely fiber samples. I've put in my entry after giving it thought. I hope I hope I hope I win!

In the meantime, I've been working on various things. The Queen Sized QAL is resting for the moment on row 75 (a little less than halfway rowwise and a third stitchwise). I'm back to work on the secret project and am very happy with the results. Earlier in the week I washed the remainder of the baby alpaca fleece and spent last night picking the locks apart into a big soft cloud. I'm less than halfway through the picking. I can see this being a very nice shawl.

I must make a recommendation to my fiber readers because these bags can be hard to find. I like to keep my projects in zip-closing bags to keep them clean and protected from potential snagging, but the gallon sized bags are sometimes just way too small. I use the Hefty Jumbo zip bags for the big projects. Shawls, sweaters, you name it. They hold a lot. But the tricky part is that they're not found just anywhere. This evening when I did my groceries I found my local Safeway had them in stock, so I snagged a couple of boxes. Surfing on the net yielded no results, so if you find them, BUY 'em! You'll be glad you did.

And you thought I was nuts

The Yarn Harlot was surprised that there were flowers in bloom here when she came in from Toronto. The garden thinks it's spring. These are the daffodils in the front yard. There have been some nippy days this week, but they're still pushing their way upward. I'm waiting for the andromeda to start its popping of its flowers.

The needles have been clicking away now that the data entry days have passed by. I finished the UO colors hat for the Bossman, who was pleased as punch when he got it. I learned later some were commenting on his Rasta hat. What, there's no red in that! Who said that? I'll set 'em straight.

What's really coming along is the Queen sized QAL. I took one of my extra long circular needles along so that I could spread it out to show how far I've come on it. It's going to be huge. I'm only on row 57 and there are 159 rows to the thing. It's not even fully stretched out. When I showed Dan the artsy sidewise pic, he said it looked like a picture from the National Weather Service. "Warnings are posted for Hurricane Duffy, which at this time is a Category 2 but can easily develop into a Category 5 if that high pressure system doesn't come far enough south to make it veer off to the east."

Still churnin' on

Thanks to all who sent emails and comments of encouragement re: my bout with the Black Dog. Like I said then I get them rarely fortunately and so far doing well with my current regime.

Hints of spring are appearing already. My daffodils are several inches up out of the ground and buds are starting to swell on some of the trees. It's too soon, though. Oregon weather has a tendency to be sneaky. You'll get a stream of days that promise warmth, then before you know it a storm comes plowing in from the Pacific bringing in colder air and days of sog. I don't garden like my mother did but I did learn from her about the Oregon weather sneak. Hopefully it won't be such a destructive sneak that it kills some of the buds on the fruit trees.

Yesterday was a lovely day to head to Woodland Woolworks to take pics of spinning wheels. I kind of felt like a spy up in the wheel room. I didn't want to make a mess or arouse questions. I couldn't get a good light background for taking pictures against so I did what I could and sent the pics off to Judy. Hopefully she'll be able to transform them into a logo for PDX Spinnerati.

I didn't leave empty handed. The Bossman has become quite the Oregon Ducks fan, to the point where he has a Duck jacket. He wears the Dale Sisik hat I made him several years ago, saying it's the warmest hat he has ever had, but it's heathered red with blue stripes. I told him he needed a hat to go with the jacket, so he told me that if I made him one he'd pay me for it. While at WW I got some NatureSpun and started to work on it. It'll be black with green and yellow stripes. I thought about making the Tychus hat but the more I thought about it the more I thought it would make him look like a gnome. So he's getting a watchcap instead.

I'm still working on the Queen Sized QAL and don't have a pic of it. I know -- I should be smacked as a bad blogger -- but I gotta tell ya the grey skies do NOTHING for the purple this yarn is. I beg you to be patient and you will be rewarded. If you're impatient, look at this and know this is a pale imitation. I also have the Christmas sock going on, but the hat's taken over because it will have more of an instant gratification reward to it. I'm hoping to have the cap done by the end of the week. The Christmas sock will come to work to be done during breaks and lunch when the cap is completed.

It was good though to get out of the house Saturday and go bobbing along to Carlton. It was a pretty day with the sun going in and out between clouds. The grapevines on the hills were all bare and the landscape had the look of drear that people tend to assign to winter. The scars of past storms had yet to be covered or removed. But it was also a look of promise, that when the weather changes and the warmth returns there will be fruits to reap. I hope that this section of the valley remains untouched by the developer. The houses of the bedroom communities are fast growing and taking over farms and their appearance adds nothing to the landscape. For me, that is the drear that holds no promise of bounty.

The coming week at the office will be nice with my focus mostly being on the old part of my job that I neglected while working on the big project during December and January. It's kind of like meeting up with an old client you've lost contact with and getting reacquainted. "Well hey there! You're looking a little -- um -- larger than when I last left you. Oh, I see. Well, let's see what we can do about that."

Have a great week!

I'm here

I missed my usual weekend posting. Saturday I was intent upon working on my projects to get as much as I could done. Sunday was not so good. The black dog of depression came visiting and hit me hard. By the end of the evening I was a mess, so was glad to finish the day. I rarely get days like that but when I get them it's miserable. I can only attribute it to a combination of frustration with my asthma and whacked hormones. When the week started up again, the blog sat in idle while I worked at resolving the latest setback. Today I'm doing much better moodwise thanks to getting a change of asthma meds and focussing on other things. I've decided to go on leave from the chorus so that I can use the time to get stronger and pursue projects that can give me a little spending money. New filters are on the furnace and things are getting picked up around the house. We're moving on.

I finished the dickeys! They came out very nicely too. I'm hoping the recipient finds them comfortable to wear. Her response will help me decide whether to add more sizes to the pattern write up I did to see if it would be salable. The Christmas stocking is on the needles but is a bit slow going only because I'm not looking forward to doing the intarsia portion.

I was reading an article the other day about photo editing software. There's MS Photo Editor and Photoshop, as well as a bunch of other software out there for people to tweak their photos with. I've used Photoshop in some things and for some editing it works really well. But for the most part my photo editor is MS Paint. Yep. That primitive little software residing in your Accessories file. About 99% of my photos that I post here are edited in MS Paint. It doesn't matter what computer I'm on -- as long as it has a Windows OS it'll have MS Paint.

Case in point is the latest project I've posted in my Ravelry projects. I couldn't wait until summer to start MMario's Queen Anne's Lace shawl. I didn't want to do it in laceweight because I didn't want to work with a super light yarn. I knew I had in my stash a bunch of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool I had picked up a few years ago with the intention of knitting a sweater out of it. It had enough yardage to do the QAL. So I cast on last night.

Now the beginnings of a lace shawl are pretty puny. This thing has over 150 rows. I'm on row 16. So instead of leaving a blank pic on my project page, I figured I needed a placeholder. Buster's an excellent stand in, so I created this:

Ravelry has a habit of loading the pic so that you can't use the entire picture, so I centered the writing so that it's positioned well for making this an avatar. And it was all done in MS Paint.

Tomorrow's a new day. More rows to knit. More fiber to spin. And my fourfoots to love.

Did you look over at the counter? Twenty thousand looksees. And some come back. Thank you for coming over to visit. Mwah! Mwah!

Waitin' and hopin'

It's funny how sometimes when I sit and think about what I'm going to write in my blog I hear Garrison Keillor's "It was a quiet week in Lake Wobegon" going through my head. For the most part it was one of those weeks. What's that? An inauguration? Oh yes, there was that. I watched the inauguration on CSPAN, avoiding the talking heads commentary (I heard plenty of that on NPR on the way to work Tuesday). And in many ways I'm pleased so far with what has been done since then. I hope it's the beginning of good things. We certainly can use some encouragement.

For the most part this week I worked on the commissions. Part of the commission involved swatching for a Christmas stocking. The yarn I picked out was excellect yarn but it was too thin for a single knitting and too thick for double strand knitting, so I had to go hunting for something else. Today I participated in the PDX Knitbloggers Seattle to Portland Yarn Crawl where a group of knitters from Seattle took the train down and hit yarn stores in downtown Portland. I was able to find the yarn I needed for the stocking and spent time working on the dickey in black, which fortune provided me in my stash a second ball of the same yarn in the exact same dyelot. I had to redo the collar due to the bind off on the front and back were too inelastic, but I should have it done by the end of the evening.

Your Comments

Thank you all who have written in comments. I know I get a lot of readers but not many commenters, so it's a treat to have your feedback. Thank you too for the comments on the Miami Stripes yarn. I haven't worked on more of it but I will soon enough. On the Faireycized pictures, I've forwarded the original photos they're based on for work on them to make images that won't violate the agreement. I'm looking forward to seeing the results. Thanks too for noticing the new blog banner. I redid the template so that I can take advantage of Blogger's new layout system and popped a favorite pic in there. It's a photo I took of some swatching I did on the way to Vermont last year. Putty colored airline tray tables are such nice backdrops for still life photos of knitting.

And for those who enjoyed Buster's playing in the snow, one last pic until the next flurry.