O is for Oblique.
Yes, fine, I’m cheating. I can’t come up with a good O post and this.. well.. works.. in a way..
I’m not what you’d call a “chocolate lover”. Most chocolate desserts are too rich and gooey and.. chocolaty. Fessing up to this tends to get me looks akin what to I’d expect if I said something like “After I cut off his feet…”. Don’t get me wrong - good plain chocolate (as in chocolate bars or candy pieces) I’m fine with. It’s those “death by chocolate” type desserts that are just too much.
However, mix the chocolate in one of those gooey desserts with something like caramel or mint, and I’m all good. Which would explain why the huge brownie with half an inch of mint frostening, consumed in bites between crises today, made things.. bearable.
In other news, I promised pictures.
First up - recent fleece acquisitions. The front left is the peacock merino (2 pounds!) and the front left is the khaki merino (1 pound) roving from Mary Kay. It’s very soft and very lovely and I imagine it will be rather dreamy to spin. The back is the 4 ounces of camel down I picked up at the state fair a couple weeks ago. I was warned that this has a short staple and likely to be slippery, but I think after the merino superwash, it will be okay.
Speaking of which, I rinsed and hung the skein I plied and wound it into a skein. I was pleased to see it didn’t seem to unply much in the process, though it did bloom a bit and is gorgeously soft stuff.
And here’s Rogue, all seamed up, but unblocked. The sleeve picture is pr’bly the most color accurate. The seam in the hood is a little wonky and I’m pretty sure I screwed something up in the decreases for the top of the hood because it’s not really flat, but I rather like how the hems turned out, even if the bottom hem left a visible line where it caught in the back.
And here it is blocking. I’m relieved that it relaxed and stretched out quite a bit once I soaked it, so here’s hoping it will be quite comfy when it’s dry. You can see in the picture on the left what I mean about the hood being sort of wonky. Not sure why some of these pictures look all washed out.. the one on the right is more color accurate.
And last, at least for the pictures for now, is the red Rowan River Tape I got from Saun. This is slated for a holiday project, so it’s likely the last you’ll see of it until January.
Would it be cheating..
.. to send the lamb fleeces to Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill for cleaning and carding into roving? Even if I don’t have a means to card the wool? I hope not. *smile*
I think I’ll pr’bly still wash it at home, though I might just box it all up as is and send it off to them. I think I have about 3-4 lbs, but I’ll have to figure out how to weigh it (if I dump it all in the mesh sack and weigh myself with the sack and then just weigh myself and subtract, that should be pretty close). I just need to figure out whether I’m willing to pay them $8.25 a pound to get it back in usable form… Considering how inexpensive the fleeces were, I’m tempted. For $33 plus shipping, though.. hrm.
In other news, I think I’m going to bring Rogue with me to the cabin this weekend and seam it up. It’s getting chillier here in the evenings and that means it’ll soon be sweater-wearing season! I’m also going to bring up the Blackberry Ridge Blue Willow cardigan sweater kit (with blackberry trim) my sister got me for Christmas last year and try to get it started. This one scares me a little because it’s really gorgeous and I don’t want to screw it up, but I also really want to wear it, and that won’t happen until I finish it! I’ll have to look tonight to see what needles I need for it - I think last I checked, I didn’t have all the needles I’d need, but that might have changed.
I am Knitter; Hear me ROAR!
Heh. Or something. I managed the crochet provisional cast on the Very First Time(tm). Once I started crocheting the chain it became immediately clear which side was the bottom and what part I was supposed to knit into to create the first row.
The reason for the provisional cast on was to allow for a picot hem, which I’d also never done before. I must admit, it’s a neat little trick and I rather like how it turned out.
And after the hem, there’s a little bit of lace detail, worked in purl stitches with a row of yo, p2tog in the middle before the main body of the piece progresses:
All in all, I am pleased with how this one’s starting, especially at the fact that I learned two new techniques in the progress.
I also got the sleeves for Rogue blocked, but I sort of cheated to do it. I just steam ironed them (except for the bias hem). I’m contemplating doing that for the body as well, but haven’t decided yet.
It’s much, much cooler here today and the humidity seems to have dropped substantially as well, so it’s likely that I’ll try to block the Candle Flame Shawl later this afternoon. I’m a little concerned that I don’t have anything long enough to block it on - unblocked it’s about 5 feet long and I expect it will stretch out another 2 to 2.5 feet during blocking. Even diagonal on the queen-sized futon I don’t think I’ll be able to block it all in one piece. Might have to sequester the dog upstairs and use the carpet on the living room floor.
M is for ..
Motivation.
There’s nothing quite so motivating as receiving a large box of new yarn and patterns for two new projects. No, I can’t tell you what the Cotton Fleece is for; this represents the start of my holiday knitting, so pictures will be a bit obscure.
This is Rogue sleeve number 2 as of sometime yesterday evening, a little blurry:
And here are both sleeves, finished but unblocked:
Yup. Motivation. On the hottest weekend of the year, with heat indices over 110, I was struck with the indescribable urge to pick up 100% wool and pound out sleeves. *shrug* Blocking will likely wait for a bit though - the humidity is so high I think it would take days for it to dry - and it’s not like I have any inclination to try it on at the moment, so for now, it’s enough that the pieces are all complete.
In the meantime, though, I have a decision to make.. cotton, or alpaca & wool?
Signs of the apocalypse?
1. Last night, I gave in and we bought an air conditioner. I’m not fond of air conditioners - there’s just something that doesn’t sit right in my mind about spending so much money to modify one’s environment for personal comfort. Part of it is a sort of half-hearted we-did-this-to-ourselves response for having so polluted our environment that for several weeks or months of the year in what used to be perfectly tolerable climates we can’t seem to survive. Part of it is disgust at the idea of using even more energy, which will add to the pollution, to ameliorate the effects of said pollution. Part of it is much more selfish - it’s damned expensive to run an air conditioner.
But as much as I appear to be more heat and humidity tolerant than Jack, it became abundantly clear that I am not more tolerant of a consistently mopey and cranky husband. So I capitulated and we bought a 10,000 BTU air conditioner for the upstairs rooms, a second fan to help circulate the air around the three rooms upstairs, and a spring-tension shower rod and heavy duty plastic shower curtain to try to partition the stairs off so all the cool air wouldn’t just rush downstairs (where it tends to stay naturally much cooler to begin with). So now, Jack sleeps better and promises that he’ll be less cranky, but I wake up every hour from the fan noise and vague concerns about a skyrocketing electric bill. *sigh*
2. I managed to complete the cable on the first Rogue sleeve successfully.
3. Many people I know, myself included, had significant issues with technology this week. From relatively simple but inexplicable (and painful) lost documents or queries to entire systems crashing for no apparent reason to flooding server rooms to possibly weather-related, possibly technology-related cancellation of several flights out of O’Hare, it has not been a good week for technology. Nope. Not at all.
4. We have absolutely no plans for this weekend. None. Not even a vague plan to come into town for the Art Fair, or to wander up to Hoedown Days. Nothing.
"I don’t know what I’ve been drinking, but I hope to Christ there’s more"
I think Rogue is expressing its displeasure at being ignored for the last several months. I’ve knit one sleeve through the end of the cable chart, only to discover that I missed an essential instruction in the increase rows. I ripped it back to the turning row, started again, got about 12 rows before realizing that I’d missed a two decreases several rows back. Ripped it back again and decided enough was enough for one night.
In other news, I just got notification from Barnes & Noble that the books I ordered.. a couple months ago? are shipping. Yes, I knew they wouldn’t ship until now when I placed the order, but I had a $25 gift card from MyPoints and knew that I wanted to get the next Harry Potter book in paperback, the last Gunslinger book in paperback, and the second of Jacqueline Carey’s Godslayer series in paperback, and one or the other of them didn’t print in paperback until this month (the Godslayer book, I think). Rather than pay extra shipping for books I wouldn’t miss until now, I just had them hold the whole order until they were all available. Yea! Christmas in July! Now to plough through the rest of A People’s History of the Supreme Court.. (Not going so well.. feels like I read this one already (which I have, just not in this format - I had an unofficial emphasis in American Constitutional History in college))
In yet other news, I’ve been contacted and asked to do Artisans Row at Boar’s Head this year, which is nifty. I’m not sure yet whether we’re actually planning to go to the event, but the fact that they sought me out to ask if I’d coordinate it again - especially with a solid four-plus months advance warning - is hopeful. I’m willing to shepherd this idea along for a little longer in hopes others will start to pick up the idea at other events I may or may not be able to attend. At least until something else catches my fancy. *shrug*
Right then.. off to try to get through the rest of Dred Scott..
Has anyone seen my "J" post..?
*sigh* I wrote my “J” post in March, way ahead of schedule, and saved it as a draft. I *swear* that the week before last, I published it. It’s no longer in my drafts folder, but neither is it showing up in my blog. *grumble* I can re-write it, it’s just frustrating that I was so ahead of the game and was foiled.
In the meantime, I will distract you with knitting pictures. First a couple of finished objects: the Fixation socks and the Lily ribbed tank.
I’m not sure how I like the socks. Fixation is just not.. really my thing, I think. I haven’t worn them yet (in fact they’re still sitting on the table like that and I think I took this picture this past weekend), so I might change my mind, but I don’t think I’ll make more socks out of Fixation, at least not for me. I have most of a skein of this color left plus most of a skein of a variegated colorwary, so I might make a pair for someone else using those.
The tank I like quite a bit. It could be a little longer and I probably could have made it narrower, but if I wear another tank under it (it’s a little too see-thru to just wear on its own), it works just fine. I wore it Sunday to my niece’s birthday party and this picture was taken after that, so it’s a bit stretched out. The silk doesn’t spring back as well as wool or acrylic would, but I don’t really mind that.
This, of course, is Rogue. Or at least most of the hood for Rogue. I actually finished the hood this week, but don’t have a more recent picture. I’m not sure if I’m going to start working on the sleeves right away or not since it’s unlikely that I’ll have much opportunity to wear it until fall, so it might wait until later in the summer. We’ll see.
I’ve also continued plugging away on the Candle Flame wrap and am about four or five repeats into it, which is still only about 2/3rds of the first skein. It’s sort of putzy, but I’m getting used to the chart (it’s 36 rows) so it’s been going better. I’m starting to wonder though if the variegated yarn is too busy for the pattern.
This is it so far, pseudo-blocked on my bulletin board at work. I think it’s the striping that is bugging me - I like the light/dark pools, but the striping is a little too stark. It looks better stretched out, so I’m hoping once it’s all finished and blocked properly that it will be fine.
This weekend we’re escaping to my parents’ cabin and I’m hoping to work on some tablet weaving, so there may not be much knitting progress to show come Tuesday, but I do have about 12 hours in the car the next four days, so there’s likely to be some either on Candle Flame or on a new project.
Signs I was not meant to work today.
1. The alternator in the car started dying half way to work this morning. I have a 25 mile commute, most of which runs through farm land. I was fortunate to make it to the little town between my little town and the little city I work in before it died completely, and the car is under warranty, so it will all be okay, but clearly someone, somewhere did *not* want me to be at work today. (I mean someone other than me.)
2. In reading local headlines, I mistakenly read “Rains keep local farmers from fields” as “Raisins keep local farmers from field” and couldn’t help but picture the California Raisins standing at the edge of a field drunk and threatening farmers with pitchforks…
3. I needed a nap. Because I was home, I could take one. Serendipity? I think not.
Instead of working and while waiting to hear from the garage, I will update you all on the state of my knitting and the state of my yard. All pictures are clickable thumbnails, e.g. clicking them will open a bigger version of the picture.
Yard first.
From left to right, a shot of the violets in the raspberry patch, the small apple tree at the corner of the raspberry patch, and the raspberry patch itself. We’re going to try to maintain a semblance of a path through the middle of the patch this year, which is why the straw/dead grass is in there. I’ll have to be vigilant about trimming back branches to maintain the path, but hopefully it will mean we actually get some raspberries to eat this year.
This is what we think might be a Sand Cherry, or alternatively one of the plum varieties. It’s a spindly little guy and hasn’t been well-tended so we’re not sure what to do with it (it’s also in sort of an awkward place, so the discussions so far have been “move it” vs. “dig it up and dump it and get a new something that we can identify”). I don’t remember it blooming last year, but we could have just missed it.
The garden bed along the south side of the house. (This bed is actually one picture longer, but at the moment that spot is mostly empty. It will be tomatoes and maybe garlic chives in a few weeks, though.) The first one is a shot of the Asiatic lily that grows by the water meter. I don’t recall it blooming last year, so we’ll see how it does this year. Next are the yellow flowers with tall stalks and the phlox, with a couple of tulips thrown in for early spring color. Next, the orange lilies that I just transplanted from a friend. There are also some poppies seeded behind the lilies, to the right of the bleeding heart, and a couple violets scattered in there for good measure. Finally, the part of the side garden that wraps around to the front, which is a huge bleeding heart, a couple still-too-big hostas, and some mint (and possibly now-destroyed catnip?) that I transplated from the raspberry patch.
This is the newly planted (mostly transplanted) garden inside the fence. I forget what the red/green plants are called, but in front of them is a row of hostas and in front of the hostas will either be cukes or 4 o’clocks, depending on what I decide to plant where. The other shot is a birds nest that is strategically placed on top of the outside light over the patio. Fortunately we don’t tend to use the outsidelights much, or the nest would have to be removed - it’s a fire hazard.
And the crowning glory (at least for early spring) - the large apple tree just outside the fence. It really is truly glorious right now. The bushes behind the tree in the first picture are the ones that we’ll be ripping out in a few weeks. They’re one huge bird hotel and the birds are truly a nuisance.
Later in the spring, I’m sure I’ll post more pictures of the roses and the phlox and the yellow flowers. I’d post pictures of the cukes and tomatoes, which are just starting to poke up their little heads, but I think that can wait.
Right then, on to knitting..
First up, this one ought to look familiar by now. Rogue, with the first dozen or so rows of the hood completed. I worked on this again last night and now have the first hood chart complete, so it looks a little different now, but not enough to warrant another picture yet.
This is the yellow ribbed tank (also a little farther along than shows here) from Noro Lily. I decided to suck it up and finish it and block it and see how bad the woven in ends were. If nothing else, I can tug out the caught up parts and re-weave them in. I’m taking the train to Chicago for the AIR Forum Sunday so this one might actually be finished and in a suitable state to wear at the Forum.
The socks I restarted in Cascade Fixation. It’s the lacy sock pattern from the Spring Interweave Knits, which I think looks much better than the pattern I was using originally.
And finally, the much abandoned of late Candle Flame Wrap, about two repeats in. I don’t like having two projects going that I have to sit with the chart in my lap to work on, and right now Rogue is more interesting than this one, so it’s mostly just sitting waiting for me to get interested in it again. *shrug*
I have yarn that I think will work okay for the brioche tank in the new Interweave Knits, so that might be the next knitting project. Or it might not. Only time will tell.
G is for Green (and Garden.. and Glow.. and Gloves..)
We had our first spate of warm-enough-to-be-outside-without-a-jacket weather this weekend. Sadly we weren’t home to enjoy it, but luckily it lasted over through to today. Jack came home after his classes and raked the lawn to get the last vestiges of autumn cleaned away and it inspired me to finally tend to the side garden. As luck would have it, it was getting on toward dusk by the time I got outside, so my first “g” is for the glow of an early spring dusk:
But it was still light enough to pull the deadbits out and let the garden greenery poke through. I’m a rank novice when it comes to gardening, so I’m still trying to figure out what all is out there. Below are pictures of what’s coming up now, and where I can, I’ve put in what I think it is. If anyone here is more knowledgeable about any of these plants than I am (which wouldn’t take much!), please feel free to chime in and correct me.
Pretty sure this is one of the hostas. I have *lots* of hostas. And they’re big. Too big, in fact, and in need of being broken apart into smaller plants. I have some friends who’ve drooled over the thought of hostas, so I have a feeling some of mine will be finding new homes soon.
I also have lots (and lots) of bleeding heart and they’re also all way too big and in need of breaking apart. I *think* this is the big one on the corner of the porch.
I have no clue on this one, but it’s my first bloom of the season, so it needed to be highlighted! I think the other plants in there will eventually become the tall daisy-like flowers, but I’m not sure.
Again.. no clue.. Iris? Tulip, maybe? Something that’s about to bloom in any case, so I’ll know more in about a week or so if nothing else!
I’m trying to remember what was growing in this spot last year, and the only thing coming to mind are the ones that my mom wanted that I can’t remember the name of.. They weren’t clumped like this, though.. so this might be something else
These little guys could very well be something I don’t want. There’s lots of them and that makes me wonder if they’re not weeds that should be gotten rid of.. I think there was some kind of viney thing back in this spot last year - wild grape, maybe? - but I think we pulled all that out in the fall.
By the time I was done cleaning out the debris and raking up the bits, the moon was out and it was getting to be full on dark.
Moving on to other greens, here’s a shot of two of my current knitting projects:
The bottom one is Rogue in Wool of the Andes Evergreen. I thought I was almost done with the front, but realized this evening that I misread the directions and need to rip back the left front and re-do it. Even though tonight is Rogue Monday, the garden was calling, so I didn’t get any additional progress made.
The top project is the Candle Flame Shawl from KnitPicks. At the time the picture was taken it wasn’t very exciting. I’m almost through with a full repeat now and will post additional pictures once I finish the first repeat.
I also finished the elbow length gloves I was working on:
They don’t stay up as well as I’d like, but they keep my arms and hands warm and they match very well with my Birch, so the two of them with a t-shirt and jeans is quite the funky little outfit.
And here’s a gratuitous shot of most of my handknit (by me) socks; I’m missing one of the cotton pairs in this shot, but if you count, you can see I can wear handknit socks for a whole week and not wear the same pair twice! Left to right: lacy socks from a pattern in a recent Interweave Knits from the lovely purple/grey wool I got from mamacate last summer; the blue Sinfonia pair; a pair from one of the KnitPicks socks yarns; a pair from the CashSoft that I got from Kim; the other pair from the other wool from mamacate - these got washed and dried once on accident so they’re not quite as stretchy as they were and are a little more felted than the purple/grey pair; the green Sinfonia pair.
I figured out recently why I don’t seem to like the self-striping sock yarns.. all the socks made from it look the same. I know that’s usually a plus, but I have gotten rather fond of my socks from hand-dyed wool and variegated yarns that result in unique socks that are still identifiably a pair.
One last “g”, but this one without a picture. It’s for getting off my butt and getting back in the pool. I agreed to do the swim portion of a sprint tri again this year (with a little more warning this time!), and I have about two months to get into decent enough shape to make a respectable showing. I swam today for the first time in about 10 months - only 5 laps, but it was enough to tire me out and remind my muscles how this works. I focused a lot more on my hip/body rotation since that gave me trouble last year, so we’ll see how that goes.
Rogue update and counting sheep.
First, I did work some on Rogue Monday evening. I got through the front shaping to the point where the neck divides - so only about 30 rows, but progress is progress.
I’ve also been working slowly on the arm warmers. I’m past the split for the thumb on the first one and am almost ready to do the last bit of ribbing to finish it off. It should be complete tonight during my commute home. And then I get to start fretting that I’m not going to have enough yarn left to make the second one as long. *sigh*
Last night I went out to the farm Deb works on and saw lots and lots and lots of little lambs. Lots of them. The flock they have is rather large and they started lambing a week or so ago. Several of the ewes had single lambs, but many more have had twins or triplets. In fact, one of the ewes had just recently lambed with triplets - they were still damp when we got there. They’re very cute and they have this adorable little hop thing they do. I wasn’t brave enough to pick one up - didn’t want to spook the little guys - but I did pet several and they’re very soft. It was dusk when I got to the farm and the barn was dark so I didn’t get any pictures (I didn’t want to spook them with the flash).
Deb said I can come back when they first let them out to pasture (which is apparently amusing because they don’t know what to do or where to go, so they run around like mad little beasties and bleat) and then again when they shear later in the spring. I’ll try to get pictures then.
The breed is Clun Forest, and they’re originally from Scotland. Apparently the women who own the flock like these particular sheep because they’re relatively small, are good mothers and lamb easily, and produce good wool for hand spinners. Looks like I’m going to have to learn to clean and process a fleece soon!
