Fiber Arts & Furry Critters

2005-11-23T15:45:00.000-05:00

This blog has moved to

http://fiberarts.typepad.com.

Clicking on the above link will take you there.

Please remember to update your links. If there are any links that I've missed, please let me know!

For now, my alpaca blog (http://nexusalpacas.blogspot.com) will remain on Blogspot.

Don't forget to check out the FiberCast podcast at
http://fiberarts.typepad.com/fibercast

Thank you!

2005-11-22T14:49:00.000-05:00

As some people know, I've been considering switching over from Blogger to Typepad. I'm sure at this point that I'll be doing that, but I'll duplicate posts here for a while, so you can switch your links over.

In the meantime, I'm so excited!! I just published my first podcast! This will be called The FiberCast, and it's being published from the Typepad site. There's now a link to it at the other blog, or you can get the mp3 file here:

The FiberCast

2005-11-18T15:07:00.000-05:00

Last week the kids had some time off school (Professional Development Days, whatever that means) and we went to visit a bead shop in Hudson, NH - Castleander Beads. DD wanted to pick up some beads to try her hand at making some jewelry. The ladies at this shop were absolutely lovely, very helpful and welcoming! The class prices are reasonable as well, and they had a great selection! I highly recommend this store. They had some fabulous class samples displayed as well!

Here are DD and DS at the store, pretending that they like each other only because they want me to buy them stuff:

This was DD's favorite class sample. It's called the Cinderella Choker.

This was my favorite, a chain-mail type bracelet called the Byzantine Bracelet.

In other news, DH has convinced me to wait on the acquisition of the Video iPod. One of the reasons I was interested in it (besides the fact that I've found some really cool video podcasts that I wanted to put on it!) was for the bigger hard drive - 60 GB instead of my current (and only six months old) 20 GB iPod. I have been pondering starting up a podcast of my own; rather than acquiring another digital device for recording, there are iPod add-ons (like the Griffin iTalk) that allow you to record using your iPod (when you can't be attached to a laptop for recording). The problem is that the iTalk device does not work with the current generation of Video iPods - not yet, anyway. So instead of getting the Video iPod, I'm sticking with my current one, and instead sprung for an iTalk and a microphone/headset combo.

When we got back from shopping, I found a package from Calista, a friend from the Christian Artisans list. In return for something I mailed to her, she sent this:

Is this not an adorable needle felted sheep ornament? It's actually much cuter in person; the picture doesn't do it justice! This is a skill I definitely do not have, which makes me appreciate the ornament that much more. Thank you, Calista!

2005-11-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

I have a little QuitTime meter that sits in the toolbar on my computer and keeps me apprised at a glance of how long it's been since I quit smoking. My meter, as of today, reads:

---
11m 2w 3d 13:15 smoke-free, 10,542 cigs not smoked, $1,317.75 saved, 1m 6d 14:30 life saved

DH has promised me a gift when I hit one year. Technically it will be one year at 9:30 pm on November 30, but I'm looking forward to it nevertheless. There have been many, many times that I thought I'd never make it another day, never mind a whole year! DH did not say, however, whether he'd get me a big gift or a little gift. I sent him to this website as a suggestion:

Click here.

2005-11-16T17:01:00.000-05:00

No new pictures today, but I have finished the first full pattern repeat on the Fish and Anchors sweater, and started the second repeat. I need multiple repeats - more than a dozen, I think. The pattern is pretty easy to follow, at least.

DH worked from home today, and we took a trip to Barnes & Noble in the middle of the day. It's amazing how many books you can browse through when you're not trying to keep track of children! I came home with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's new book, Yarn Harlot : The Secret Life of a Knitter, as well as a couple of technical books on Podcasting and Movable Type. I got the book on Podcasting because it's a topic that I'm currently fascinated (obsessed?) with; I got the Movable Type book because I'm currently experimenting with a blog on Typepad. The experimental blog is here. Let me know what you think.

2005-11-14T16:17:00.000-05:00

I'm not entirely sure yet that I'm satisfied with the blog template at this point. I had one person leave a comment that she couldn't see one of my pictures; I did have this happen at one point, and had to refresh the screen to see everything. I'm thinking it's because all that info has to be transferred over to the new template, and everything is not yet "meshed"; I could be wrong (it's been known to happen once in a while), but I'm hoping that's the case. If it's not I'll be changing the template once again.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some other fun stuff I've been playing with (when I'm not being attacked by the kitten). I've been discovering the wonderful world of podcasts! For those who don't know, podcasts are kind of like radio programs that you can listen to when you're ready, instead of on a radio station's schedule. I download mine through iTunes. iTunes, by the way, is a free program, and you don't have to have an iPod to use it. You can also go somewhere like Podcast Alley and download individual shows there. iTunes is just capable of automating it for you, and keeping all your downloaded podcasts in one nice, neat place. Many of the podcasts have their own website to start with, as well.

Some of the interesting podcasts I've discovered:

Annie's Quilting Stash

KnitCast - I first read about this one on Claudia's Blog. Thanks so much, Claudia!

There's another podcast about knitting called Cast-on, but I haven't had a chance to listen to that one yet. They only have a couple of episodes up so far.

I've also found a couple of podcasts about dogs. The only one I've listened to so far is the K9Cast. So far I really like this one. I found another one that has recently begun - DogCast Radio - but again, I haven't listened to any episodes from that one yet.

So far I'm enjoying listening to podcasts. It's easier than trying to keep track of a TV show while knitting, weaving, etc., and more fun! During the day most of what I watch, if I'm watching at all, is Trek re-runs anyway.

In other news, the kitten's name is officially "Stitch". I've been working on the Fair Isle sweater some (and will be again tonight), but this weekend I managed to get DS's quilt sandwiched, basted, and I'm about half done with the machine quilting. This is a use-and-abuse quilt, made necessary because he's outgrown his old quilt, and needs warm bedcoverings. What's really cool is the backing fabric, which looks like the lunar surface:

Cool backing for a quilt, eh?

2005-11-08T12:35:00.000-05:00

I've spent half the afternoon fiddling with my Blogger template because my archives were not all showing up in the drop-down menu. It should be working fine now. It's difficult to get everything moved over to a new template, though! Thank goodness I've learned enough to know that I need to save the text of the old template before installing a new one! I love the colors on this one, too!

Yesterday I managed to get a little work done on my lace piece. I'm working this piece as my entry for the Heartland Lace Guild's 3 Yards Club Challenge. This will be a Novice level piece. I don't think I've touched it since early October, when I spent an entire afternoon straightening out the mistakes I made while demonstrating at the Deerfield Fair. If you click on the big picture, you'll get a close-up picture of the lace that opens up in its own window (at least, that's how it should work!)

Below is a picture of what I've accomplished so far today. Again, this is from the Deerfield Fair. This is the gray romney I was using to demonstrate handcarding and spinning. I finally got around to plying it up - or starting to, anyway! This skein is 4.74 oz, and approximately 339 yards - or somewhere around 1100 ypp (yards per pound). This is about a third of what I need to ply up, and that's only about half of this fleece. I still need to card and spin the other half. It does have the most fabulous gray color, though - absolutely no brown tips! I do love a seriously gray fleece! Again, if you click on the big picture, you'll get a close-up of part of the skein.

Oh, yesterday I also took apart the innards of the dishwasher, cleaned a good handful of calcium/lime build-up out of the inside, and re-assembled it. It's working much better now, and I'm sure I saved us a bundle in repair costs.

And here are some new pictures of the kitty. I had to work very hard to get these. Most of what I took came out blurry, as he was quite active at the time. We still haven't come up with a new name for him. I was leaning toward something Trek - perhaps Spock or Sarek. DH likes "Flash", because his coloring looks washed-out, as if a camera flash was aimed at his middle. The kids have a few other ideas, some quite strange. Yesterday I came up with "Stitch", after "Experiment 626" in "Lilo & Stitch". We also came up with "Bra'tac", after the Stargate character. I really like that one! Hopefully we'll reach a decision some day soon, even though I'll rarely call him anything besides "here, kitty, kitty, kitty!"

2005-11-07T07:40:00.000-05:00

On Sunday we took the kids to Manchester for something called a "How To Expo". It was held in a hotel conference center. We saw presentations and booths set up by schools, dance studios, a go-cart place, some crafts (sewing, smocking, quilting, scrapbooking) as well as stuff that didn't seem to fit the "How To" theme that was advertised, like mortgage companies and car dealerships.

Here are the kids before we went into the expo center:

This event was, I believe, sponsored by Manchester, NH's local WMUR-TV, Channel 9. One of the first exhibits we saw when we entered was a re-creation of a newsdesk. They had set up a closed-circuit camera and TV, along with a teleprompter, to allow the kids to see what goes on! It was so cool! The kids had an awesome time reading the teleprompter and being "newscasters". They did great!

I also bought a book at the Channel 9 booth from Fritz Wetherbee. He's a storyteller on NH Chronicle, which is a local entertainment program (also produced by WMUR, surprise!). He has a very engaging manner, and a unique voice, and I love his stories when I can catch the show.

The kids really enjoyed the expo. Many of the exhibitors had baskets of small candies, and were very welcoming. DH got to look at tractors, I found some very interesting smocking going on, and the kids also enjoyed making nametags with some very fancy paper-punches at a Creative Memories booth. Those ladies were wonderfully friendly!

All in all, even though I got no knitting or spinning done, it was a wonderful weekend!

By the way, thanks to everyone for the wonderful kitty name suggestions! This one, though, is male - and he still doesn't have a name. Any more ideas?

2005-11-05T17:37:00.000-05:00

Today the whole family accompanied me on a visit to The Gathering. I believe this is one of the largest quilt shows in New England, if not the largest. This year they were featuring Baltimore Album quilts, my absolute favorite quilting genre. I was in quilt nirvana! DH was especially wonderful, taking the kids for a walk, disappearing for large stretches of time, leaving me to drool over the quilts, visit the vendors, chat with other quilters. It was great; I had time with the family, and time to explore the quilt show! DH and DS also bought me a gift; a wonderful tote bag that has a beautiful African print (I love giraffes!). It also expands and has folding wheels, similar to this one (except for the print, of course):

If you're interested in the quilt show, I uploaded pictures and descriptions of some of the quilts in a Webshots album, here.

I also got a couple of books, including one by Marsha McCloskey, entitled "Feathered Star Quilt Blocks I". This one caught my eye especially - not just because it has feathered star blocks, which I love, but because of the book's subtitle: Really Hard Blocks That Take a Long time To Make. Who could resist that?

We also have a new family member to announce. This one does not yet have a name. He is, however, absolutely gorgeous!

This lovely kitty was, for reasons we don't have enough time to discuss here, abandoned at my sister Wendy's house. Wendy already has one kitty, and for some reason, she thinks one kitty is enough! (Can you imagine?) I was at Wendy's house last week to help her with a knitting project (go, Wendy!!) and absolutely fell in love with this kitten! Wendy, knowing how to spot a sucker, told me the kitten was going to be given to someone else (who would, naturally, never be able to provide as good a home as ours). DH saw some pictures of the kitten and immediately agreed that he could come live with us. He is, after all, gorgeous.

Wendy's kitty is also gorgeous. She kind of looks like a semi-long-haired Siamese, and has the incredible talent of retrieving bottle caps, which has to be seen to be believed. This is Wendy's kitty, who was kind enough to tolerate the baby kitty's stay in her domain:

2005-11-02T08:40:00.000-05:00

OK, I think I have finally managed to convince (coerce) Blogger to display the photos I wanted to put up yesterday. I am in this case linking to pictures hosted in one of my Picturetrail albums.

For Christine, here is the photographic proof that I did indeed conquer the purple cotton yarn:

It took me four or five hours, and some concerted effort with a ball winder, a swift, and my highly-prized Nancy's Knit Knacks Yarn Meter. I love this gadget! I now know, for instance, that the two balls of purple cotton total about 400 yards. If it's enough, I would love to make a scarf similar to this one (see her October 31 entry) or this one.

Of course, in the same package was the fabulous Lorna's Laces Amethyst Stripe sock yarn. I immediately abandoned the green socks I had started from this kit, and started these:

They have become my new carry-around project, and will live in my bag (to be pulled out at long holiday check-out lines and traffic jams) until I become obsessed with finishing them.

The Rogue pullover has seen some progress recently as well. This sweater is now on its third incarnation. I have to admit, my main problem with this has been gauge-related - namely, that I prefer the gauge I was getting to the one specified by the pattern! I made a few changes to the pattern to accomodate my preferred gauge - knitting a larger size, adding a few rows here and there. I expect I may run into problems again when I begin the hood, as I'm sure I'll have to knit it longer than specified in the pattern, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

I have started another project recently for a friend. She supplied me with the yarn and pattern for this. It is a Starmore pattern, Fish & Anchors, which will eventually be for Melissa's son. Again I am not working to gauge (do we sense a theme here?) but in this case I am working larger than the specified gauge, to make the sweater slightly larger than the pattern measurements without having to make changes to such a complex pattern.

Here's a close-up of the work so far. I really enjoy doing fair isle, and have several of my own somewhere in the depths of the craft room (aka cellar). Even this close-up does not do justice to these gorgeous colors!

2005-11-01T13:19:00.000-05:00

OK, I did this long, wonderful post, filled with witty, grammatically correct and correctly spelled prose, combined with my (apparent daily limit of) 5 pictures (and what's up with that?), and it went poof. Grrrr. So no pictures for now, but I'll re-do that post with those pictures tomorrow, or as soon as Blogger deigns to bestow the space upon me.

Regardless, I'm determined to get a post up here today! Today is November first, or 11/1, and it is also eleven months and one day since I quit smoking! At times it's still the hardest thing I've ever done, but I have noticed that it's finally becoming easier to deal with, especially over the last month or so. My quit date was 11/30/04, and DH has promised me something special when I hit my one-year anniversary!

And no, Christine, the purple cotton yarn did not defeat me! That was one of the pictures I had in my previous post (that disappeared). I'll try to get the photographic proof posted tomorrow, Blogger willing (grrrr.....).

2005-10-20T15:38:00.000-04:00

Presents in the mail!

My contest prize from Christine arrived today! I was having a very busy day and forgot to haunt the mailbox, so it was sitting there unopened for at least a short while. I started opening it as I walked up the driveway, however. Packages in the mail are always very exciting! Inside I found a lovely card from Christine, and this:

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in Amethyst Stripe. She asked for my preferences; my first choice, as usual, was purple, and she came through in spades! This stuff is awesome! My current socks, which only have a few rounds done, will immediately be ditched for this.

She also added this yarn to the package. It's a variegated thin purple cotton. It was giving her a hard time, and I volunteered my home as a safe haven. All purple loves it here.

As soon as I untangle the skein, I'll run it through my handy-dandy yarn meter (purchased through a huge stroke of luck at a sale price from my favorite yarn shop) and see how much is there, so that I can plan a project. I love the color! Thank you so much for the bonus, Christine!!

2005-10-19T07:30:00.000-04:00

Continuing my post from yesterday - this is what happened when the power went out! The electrical workers cut power to the downed lines, and re-routed it so that our house would have power while they worked.

After they re-routed power at the pole in front of our house, they cut down the tree that landed on the power lines.

Then they brought in a new pole to repair the broken pole and re-string the lines.

Then they brought in this giant drill, to drill a new hole for the new pole.

Here's another picture of the giant drill. We used something similar to this when we first set up our fence line for the horses (now alpacas) but it was nowhere near this big.

Then they set the new pole in place, and re-strung some of the lines. Right now there are two poles there, and one of the lines looks like it's hanging pretty low, but it's not low enough to touch it, so I guess that's OK. There are also lines going to both poles. Maybe they have to wait for the new pole to set up or something before they finish.

2005-10-18T14:32:00.000-04:00

OK, Blogger won't let me put more than five pictures in a post (for today, anyway; who knows what would happen if I tried this tomorrow) so I'll have to do this in two posts. I'll try to juggle the time & date to make them show up in the order I want them.

Yesterday we had a bit of excitement here. After eleven straight days of rain, followed by high winds, the newscasters were predicting downed trees due to the fact that the ground is so saturated. Indeed, we made it until about 10 am yesterday. I then heard and felt a tree give way. It felt so close that I had to check and make sure it hadn't hit the house!

It was across the street. Electricity was out (and for us, this also means water, as we have a well and an electric pump) and our phones, cordless, were out (I have a corded phone, but didn't need it this time). I called the electric company on my cell phone to inform them, and they were here within half an hour.

Here's the tree that fell and took down the power lines.

Close-up of the offending tree.

When it came down on the wires, it pulled them hard enough to break the top off a pole! We have a pole right across from our house, but this one is one driveway over from ours. This is the transformer, lying on the ground.

This is what's left of the pole.

Here's the electric company's truck, parked in front of the pole across from our driveway. They arrived surprisingly quickly! Here, they were shutting off electricity to the downed wires, and re-routing it so that I would have electricity while they were working. Later, they had to shut my power off again briefly to connect up to the repaired pole.

2005-10-17T09:38:00.000-04:00

Hey, I won something!! Thanks so much, Christine! And thanks as well to Bella, who I'm sure put in a good word for me, one of her biggest fans (or maybe she just scared off the other entrants ;D )

2005-10-17T06:34:00.000-04:00

The third (and final, I hope) incarnation of the Rogue sweater continues apace. I am almost up to the joining of the pocket (again), at which point I may take a picture. And after eleven straight days of rain, the sun finally came out yesterday! Our town didn't have any flooding, and we didn't have any personally, but many towns did, and some roads and people received severe damage.

Over the weekend I attempted to teach DD how to crochet. Well, I showed her a few things, and gave her my "Crochet Made Easy" CD. She seemed to be having a good time with it, but then disappeared up into her room. I don't know if the yarn or crochet hooks will ever be seen again, but I attempted to do my part. I've taught her some knitting a couple of times, and paid for a few knitting lessons at The Elegant Ewe, but it hasn't stuck. She seems interested in beading at times, too (which I have also encouraged). I am comforted knowing that if she ever does decide to knit or crochet something, she'll at least know where to start. I was taught at a very young age, and was able to literally just pick up knitting needles and knit later in life without a second thought.

2005-10-12T14:45:00.000-04:00

I haven't been posting, because I haven't been doing much of anything. No, I take that back - I've been knitting on DD's Rogue sweater, but I haven't made much progress because I've ripped out twice so far. The second time I ripped it all out I was up to the split at the armholes! My gauge has just not been good on this sweater.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate making gauge swatches? I do know and appreciate the necessity of gauge swatches, however, so I usually make something similar to a gauge swatch. In this case, I messed up the first knitting of the sweater (I wasn't even half way up the body) and the second iteration was way too small, even for DD. I didn't want to change my needle size, so I changed the pattern and added more stitches in the third iteration. Now I am again, for the third time, about half way up the body. The good news is that, by now, I can read the cable charts without referring to the key, so it's going a little faster.

2005-10-04T10:56:00.000-04:00

The Farm Museum had something on display that immediately made it onto my Christmas list. It was a reprint copy of the 1897 Sears & Roebuck catalog. I can imagine it would be fascinating to sit and browse through that for a while! I looked it up online and found it here, at Amazon.com for less than $15.00.

Yesterday I started plying up the singles I spun during my demo, and didn't do much else. Today I have a few chores to catch up on, but I also started a new sweater for DD. (DS's sweater has 1-1/2 sleeves to go, but I don't feel like playing with double-pointed needles today.) DD's sweater will be the Rogue sweater from The Girl from Auntie, done in a discontinued color of Naturespun worsted called "Azure". It's a lovely shade of green that will look fabulous on red-headed DD! I showed her the pattern already, and she loved it, especially the cable-edged hood. I love how this sweater looks! If it knits up as gorgeous as the picture, I may make one for myself.

2005-10-03T12:51:00.000-04:00

Back from the Fair!

I spent four days getting up early, and taking care of the animals early, in order to arrive at the fair by 8 am. My very wonderful DH took Thursday and Friday off work so I could be at the fair from 8 am to 6 pm. He even drove to Deerfield on Friday to take the kids to the fair! Friday was also his birthday, even though he received his gifts earlier in the month. Thank you so much, sweetie, and Happy Birthday!

The fair was great. Every year I modify my display and my demonstration techniques, and every year I learn something to hopefully make the following year even better.

I brought my antique Canadian production wheel. Based on what is left readable of the very faded table stencil, it was made in St. Hyacinthe Quebec, and was made sometime around 1880. It's a very quiet wheel while in use; that usually surprises many people. As in previous years, I set up boxes containing fibers that the public can touch and discuss. This year I had raw wool, washed wool, alpaca (Hagrid kindly contributed part of this year's coat), angora, cotton, and flax. Many people are very surprised to discover that flax becomes linen, and love to touch all the fibers and compare textures. The angora bunny always elicits an "Ooooooh!"

I usually hand out a few contact cards to people who inquire about modern spinning. If I'm not close enough to teach them how to spin, I can direct them to the closest spinning group. There seemed to be quite a few people interested in learning this year! My most interesting visitor was a gentleman from the Ivory Coast. He looked at my wheel and said his mother spun, but didn't have a wheel. I pulled out a drop spindle and asked, "Did she use one of these?" He said yes, and then proceeded to tell me about the blanket she spun and made for him (he didn't specify if the blanket was knit or woven, just that she had made him one. It sounded as if it was very special.)

This year I brought along a dark gray Romney to spin. I got this fleece a couple of years ago from Mary McCall. It's a very nice fleece, medium without coarseness, very springy, gorgeous color. I just never got around to doing anything with it. As it's still in a washed, uncarded state, I brought along handcards, intending to card as I went.

I usually bring a few things along in order to demonstrate if questions are posed. These items include hand cards and a drop spindle. I usually spin from prepared roving, so carding as I go was new. I've had a few classes that included some hand carding, but I've never done a lot of it. Usually if I have a lot of fleece to card, I pull out the drum carder to try to get a lot done at once.

This year I found out that I really enjoy hand carding! It turned out that the hand carding was also quite a draw with the crowd. I would frequently finish a rolag, begin to card for the next one, and look up to find a bunch of people just waiting to ask questions. I will definitely plan to work from washed fleece and hand cards next year! I plan to do a lot more card-as-I-go spinning at home, too!

I ended up with 12.9 oz of spun singles, and there's still half a bobbin full on the wheel. I couldn't stay til closing yesterday, so I have to go back and get the wheel on Thursday. Now I need to go upstairs and retrieve the rest of the fleece, and finish spinning it up!

That won't be today, though. I have managed to get all my stuff unpacked from the van. I still need to put stuff away, and straighten out the bobbin lace; I somehow managed to get off-track somewhere when demonstrating that at one point. Even that will wait. After four days of ten-hour stretches, today is for relaxing a bit!

2005-09-27T07:50:00.000-04:00

I got a telephone call yesterday morning that surprised me. It was from a gentleman I did not know, and he was looking for information on buying a spinning wheel for his daughter. I asked him how he got my phone number, and he told me I was his ninth or tenth phone call. His daughter had mentioned wanting a wheel and wanting to learn how to spin, and after a bunch of phone calls, he eventually got my number from a county extention office.

Now, I do demonstrate at almost every opportunity, including my four days a year at the Deerfield Fair, but I was very surprised (and quite flattered, to tell the truth) that I was on some official-type list as someone with some knowledge of spinning and/or wheels. Maybe it's silly, but it made me feel kinda-sorta famous!

By the way, I was able to refer him to a reputable shop reasonably close to him, and made a few suggestions for beginner-suitable wheels.

2005-09-21T10:58:00.000-04:00

A birthday present for my hubby!
I've made a few things now on my new lathe, but this is the first pen. It's also only the second acrylic pen I've made, but easily one of the prettiest pens I've ever made! DH has been waiting patiently for a pen from this blue acrylic for a couple of years now.

I used a pewter-colored Woodcraft kit. I think the pewter parts look lovely next to the beautiful blue swirls.

2005-09-20T06:42:00.000-04:00

To the right I have a comment from one of my sisters; nice to know my family visits once in a while, to see what I'm doing! (By the way, Wendy, you still owe me a picture of your kitty!) Unfortunately, I really don't have time to knit any kitty beds right now. If I actually knew how to use that knitting machine in the basement I might be able to make a few, but I don't. All I do is jam the keys.

Besides that, I have my hands full right now with school stuff for the kids (DS will be starting violin lessons today!), some woodturning going on, and getting ready for my yearly stint at the Deerfield Fair. (Come visit!)

If the shelter needs kitty beds and you feel you need to contribute, I have a suggestion: Go to the local thrift store or used-clothing center and get some sweaters - 100% wool ones. Throw them in the washing machine, hot wash/cold rinse. They'll felt into nice, warm kitty beds, no problem.

If you're ambitious, you can cut the sleeves off first. Four or six sleeves sewn together, depending on size, will make another kitty bed, and you can then throw that in the washer and felt it.

2005-09-18T15:17:00.000-04:00

Look what I found!

This is the only acrylic pen I've ever done; I have a blue one for DH glued up, but I haven't turned it yet. I made this one about a year ago but hadn't seen it in ages, and had assumed it was lost forever. This morning I grabbed a jacket on my way out the door to church, because it was looking like it might rain, and this was in the pocket. I was so happy to see my lovely purple pen again!

And check this out, my lace is growing:

Sorry for the murky picture; I took another picture with the flash, and it came out glaringly bright. I made a few adjustments to this picture to clarify it a bit, so this one is as good as it gets for now.

After being a member of the New England Lace Group for several years, I finally made it to a meeting yesterday. Part of the reason I had not gone to any meetings was because the meetings are held in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, which is about a 1-1/2 hour drive for me. I finally got to the point where I really want to meet other lacemakers, and see how other people do this. Except for one set of videotapes by Cathy's Lace Studio (which now seem dimly-lit and grainy, compared to the quality of other instructional videos and DVDs I own) and briefly observing a few demonstrations, I've never actually watched anyone else doing this. I don't know how other people's bobbins, pillows, lace, prickings, etc. look in person.

Yesterday's meeting was a lot of fun! And the lady seated next to me, Linda, offered expert and invaluable assistance with my piece of lace! I am so happy I attended, and I am determined to make more meetings. They are only held one day a month, after all. Thanks to Linda, I'll be much more confident working on and/or showing this piece at the Deerfield Fair.

Yesterday afternoon was also interesting. I spotted these critters in the back yard:

These are wild turkeys, and there were about a dozen all together. They were very quiet, and what was even more amazing was that the dogs didn't bark at them! The alpacas, however, were very curious! Click here for a picture of the babies watching the turkeys very carefully!

2005-09-14T09:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a run-around day. I spent all day running errands. With the current price of gas around here it has become very important to take care of as many errands as possible, as efficiently as possible.

First was DS's visit to the dentist. I think DD has a couple of visits scheduled for November, but DS is now done until March. We recently began taking him to a pediatric specialist; he had a couple of cavities, but would not allow our regular
dentist to do any work! We tried cajoling, bribing, threatening, medicating... we tried nitrous oxide (he would not allow that thing to be put on his face) and antihistamines that have a sedative effect. Nothing worked. He would also not permit them to put sealants on his teeth, due to the taste. This has all changed. The boy now has sealants in place, and both cavities have been filled. The pediatric dentist he's seeing now is an absolute miracle worker!

After the dentist visit DS and I went to Target for a couple of small items, then to
Rockler Woodworking. I needed a 1/2" drill chuck with a #2 Morse Taper for the new toy I picked up last weekend - it's a Jet Mini lathe! I've wanted a mini lathe for quite some time; all of my turning up until now, including all the pens and the lace bobbins, has been done on a Shopsmith.

After Rockler's we hit Wendy's for a Frosty - a reward for his good behavior at the
dentist. Then we made a quick stop at the credit union, and hopped on the highway.

Several towns away we had a stop to make at Dodge Agway to pick up the alpaca grain. Unfortunately, they made a mistake with my order. The boys' grain was in, the girls' grain was not. Fortunately we have plenty of grain and it's not a big problem. It would have saved me a trip had I known this in advance, however. Oh, well... at least we found the flyswatters there. Target has apparently never heard of flyswatters.

Then we had to get to the grocery store, and the pharmacy therein, for groceries and a prescription refill for DH.

We left home at about 9:30 am, and got home just after 2 pm.

Today I'm going to sit and knit. Or maybe work on my bobbin lace piece, or play with my new lathe. Oh, yeah, and do laundry. But I'm not driving anywhere!

2005-09-13T16:51:00.000-04:00

Just a little over two weeks until the Deerfield Fair! Outside of the fact that this is my favorite fair, it's also my four-days-a-year paid job. I actually get paid to sit and spin in the Farm Museum for four days! How awesome is that! If anyone reads this, I'll be there with my antique Canadian Production wheel from 8 or 9 am until about 6 pm (with breaks for meals) all four days. Please stop by the Farm Museum and say hi!

One thing I love about this fair is that there are NO games! I find the people who work the games booths at other fairs to be among the most annoying people I've ever encountered (yes, right up there with telemarketers), so it's wonderful that there are none here.

I have been spinning for the Farm Museum for four or five years now. I always bring a spinning wheel, and always a saxony style wheel - what people expect a spinning wheel to be. I'm sure I could raise a few eyebrows with my Majacraft Suzie Pro, but it is the Farm Museum, after all. My Canadian Production wheel fits in perfectly! It was also while spinning at the Farm Museum that I met the man who sold me an antique treadle sewing machine, in wonderful condition (although it needed a lot of cleaning and oiling) for $50.

I also brought along my Harrisville 4-harness loom one year, and a bobbin lace pillow with work in progress another year. This year I'm planning to bring some bobbin lace again, although I'd like to get a little more work done on the piece that's there by then. I'm also working on a piece of tatting that will eventually be a bookmark. Last time I brought along the bobbin lace, I was astonished at the number of people who told me (and were willing to argue the point!) that what I was doing was tatting. This time I'll have some tatting for comparison.

This is my tatted bookmark so far. I worked on it at the dentist office this morning, while waiting for DS. I had two people - one client, one hygienist - stop and talk to me about my tatting. Both knew what it was, but neither was a tatter.

I've also put a few rows on the Flirty Ruffles shawl lately. I had a hard time spreading it out to get a good picture of the pattern. I think next time I'll have to knit it onto two needles to spread it out some more. This one is growing quite slowly. Between doing lots of woodturning, and beginning both a bobbin lace and a tatted piece, there has not been much time for knitting. This pattern requires quite a bit of concentration as well, which has not been in abundant supply lately.

I did spread out half of it to show off the pattern a little more. Click here for a closer picture.

2005-09-09T14:04:00.000-04:00

Warning: Long post and lots of pictures ahead!

I know it's been a while. I've been dealing with the beginning of the school year, with its schedule changes, shopping requirements, getting up early again, etc. This is actually the end of the second week of school for us. My kids had four days of school last week, then four days off, then four days this week.

Of course, I've been heartsick over the whole Hurricane Katrina issue. I watched very little besides the hurricane coverage for a week. Now I'll be working on something and suddenly think of something else those poor people are dealing with or learning to deal without. Yesterday one show had images of some families being reunited with pets - brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat. I'm sure there are some people who did not and/or have not evacuated because of pets. I know that I couldn't go to a shelter and leave my animals behind.

While watching the hurricane coverage I did manage to finish the Feather and Fan shawl, although it's not yet blocked. My mother and DD have both hinted at how nice this one would look on them! You can see Roxie in one corner of the picture.

This week I've been working a lot at my woodturning. I have a large order of spindles to finish up. I'm almost done now. The whorls are all finished, and I still have about half a dozen shafts to do. I shaped and cut the hooks yesterday. I'm almost ready to assemble everything.

Besides turning, I've been playing with some bobbin lace since I finished the shawl. The Heartland Lace Guild has a program that acknowledges finishing a three-yard piece of lace, at any of four levels (Novice, Advanced, Proficient, and Expert). I have decided to start on a piece of lace for the Novice level, and I'm using a small (12-pair) edging pattern from Pamela Nottingham's book, The Technique of Bobbin Lace. This is what my lace pillow currently looks like:

I had occasion recently to order some thread from Holly Van Sciver at Van Sciver Bobbin Lace. I needed to make sure I have enough for the entire three-yard project. I have to say, she really knows the meaning of customer service! With the thread, I also got a new pair of bobbins. These are "Ebony and Ivory", or Positive and Negative (actually ebony and bone). I spangled them myself, trying to keep within the positive/negative theme while using only beads I had on hand. Aren't they pretty? I really like bobbins; I think that's one of the main reasons I like bobbin lace, I get to play with the pretty bobbins! It's also something I want to work on adding to my product line. I've got a bunch of cherry, maple and ebony cut into bobbin-size pieces, just waiting until I finish that spindle order.

Today was a very good mail day. First off, I got the new issue of Spin-Off! That's always a welcome sight!

I also got these two Disciple's Cross necklaces. These are handmade and came from one of the ladies on the Christian Artisans email list. I ordered one for DD and one for myself; DD picked the multi-colored one. (I should have lightened that picture a little more. They are much prettier than they look in that picture!)

2005-08-26T09:41:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday, buddy!

DS as a three year old:

And now...

Happy Birthday to my boy! He's 8 years old today!

2005-08-25T09:47:00.000-04:00

I think we're finally finished with the school shopping, after a final four-hour session yesterday. I took DD to Salem, so we could go to Target and Kohl's. (I'm sick of the mess at Wal-Mart, and Salem is the nearest town that has a Target and a Kohl's.) Target isn't too bad, although the one in Salem doesn't have a craft department. I don't know if any of them have crafts; the only other Target around is in Concord, and that's too far for regular shopping (unless I need to go to the yarn store, too, VBG!) I'm now washing the new clothes I bought for DS. He got all new pants, and I just know that's going to be a problem. They're bigger than his old ones (by quite a bit...) and he doesn't handle change well, even if most of the old ones no longer fit. Sigh.

School starts on Monday, though, yippee!! I have so much to do as soon as I have some time to myself!

I took some new pictures of the Feather and Fan shawl this morning. I knit it onto two needles so that I could spread it out for the pictures.

Here's a close-up, showing the pattern ridges.

I took a couple of pictures of the dogs this morning, gathered at the gate of the chain-link fence, but nothing came out right. The sun is just too bright. I did, however, get a good picture of Thor, who is now two weeks old!

2005-08-24T06:32:00.000-04:00

Fiddling with the template again... I have added a subscription feed, and a Bloglines button on the right-hand side, right under the picture of Roxie. I also added word verification to the comments... filthy rotten &%$##&$&** spammers!

2005-08-22T17:48:00.000-04:00

As a dog lover, and owner of multiple dogs, it's only natural to seek out other multiple-dog households. Therefore I also enjoy reading the blogs of those similarly afflicted. Occasionally one is fortunate enough to find a blogging household that not only has dogs, but shares similar hobbies! One of my favorites is Knitting, with Dogs. On that blog Janice not only shows us knitting, but also Aussies! Okay, so having four Aussies, I might be just a little bit biased. Her Jasper, however, is one exceedingly handsome boy.

Another dog-blog I really like is WhiteStar. She's another knitting dog-mom. Her entry for August 17 features, besides lace being knit in Kidsilk Haze, an adorable mud-puppy. The picture reminded me of some other mud-puppy pictures I've seen.

This is Merlin. He's an absolutely gorgeous red merle, bred by the same breeder as three of my Aussies (Clara Grover of Maine-Ly Aussies). Merlin shows in conformation and in agility, and does quite well in both.

This is Merlin after a self-administered mud-based beauty treatment. Does he look like he's been having fun, or what?

2005-08-21T14:17:00.000-04:00

The weather was lovely this week - until today, anyway. Autumn will eventually get here, I know - and it will be far too short, then we'll all be freezing our buns off again. I would love to find someplace that has spring/fall temps all the time, and yet does not have any of the pending disasters of the midwest (tornadoes) or the west coast (earthquakes).

I did take advantage of the beautiful weather we had earlier in the week. I had several nice walks with Trinity (the blue merle), and some wonderful bike rides! I love riding my bike. Yesterday I rode 27 miles, and had an awesome time!

We've been trying to teach the boy to ride his bike. He's 7 (for now - his birthday is next Friday!). He is now too big for training wheels (did you know those have a weight limit on them?), and he never liked them anyway, because they allowed the bike to tip. There was a good article in Bicycling magazine a couple of months ago about this very thing, and we're using ideas from that. We're making some progress, and I'm sure he'll be riding on his own soon.

I've been knitting on a couple of shawls. I'm up to row 122 on Flirty Ruffles:

I found after a short while, though, that I needed something that required a little less concentration. I had some red fingering/laceweight from a couple of years ago that had no intended project, so I'm using that for the one in the picture below. It's a free Feather and Fan pattern I found here.

I've done 180-some rows on this one so far. This only requires concentration every 6th row or so, so I can knit along and catch up on some reading, except on the pattern rows.

2005-08-12T15:39:00.000-04:00

Today is warm, but not as suffocatingly humid as it has been, so I ended up grooming all the dogs today. Ziggy got a haircut, although this time it was just his ears, face and neck, and not the all-over shearing he got last time. Indy and Roxie were shedding handfuls; Trinity and Q have had relatively recent appointments with the shedding rake, so they weren't quite as bad. Toby, the old Golden, doesn't have anything done unless it's vitally necessary; his arthritis is so bad that everything hurts him.

Here's Ziggy, sporting his shave. Although I tried, and even enlisted DD in the attempt, he would not put his ears up. He was just sulking; he hates being shaved.

And here's the Aussie posse - from left to right, Q, Trinity, Roxie and Indy. Aren't they just gorgeous?

2005-08-11T13:43:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that it's hot enough to melt human beings, I did manage to do one thing today. It may end up being the only thing I get done, but I have blocked the Creatures of the Reef shawl. The first picture is the shawl stretched on my triangle loom frame; the second is a close-up of the shawl motifs.

I got the shawl stretched and took my pictures; I'm going back to lying on the couch now. It is literally too hot and humid to move.

2005-08-10T12:46:00.000-04:00

Milk finally had her baby! It's another boy, and I already have pictures up here! Here's another one - Thor at one hour old.

2005-08-06T08:20:00.000-04:00

I know it's been over a week since I posted. It's been a very busy week, and a very hot one. Last weekend DH and I started on filling in and seeding the edges of the new driveway. We now have visible grass coming up! (Of course you can't see it in this picture, but trust me, it's there!)

On Monday a friend and I went to visit Nancy. Nancy used to live nearby, but then moved to the southern part of the state, near Keene. I miss her very much, and wish I had a lot more time to visit. The drive time to visit her tends to be prohibitive, however. Over the last several years she has lived in several small towns around Keene, but now she and her family have finally bought their own house! It's very exciting, and I had to go see the new house. It's at least half an hour closer than the last one, fortunately, and much bigger, and full of charming details that remind me of my grandmother's house. While there she gifted me with a bunch of books found at a flea market, including this one:

Can you believe it? And the book is in awesome shape! I have an (ahem) extensive book collection, and Nancy said she was sure I would appreciate this book more than she would. Now is that a priceless friend or what? Thank you so much, Nancy!

On Tuesday DH and DS traveled to Concord with me to meet Melissa and her family. They are lovely, friendly people! Melissa is on an email list that I hang out on frequently, and I am very glad we were finally able to meet. I hope we have time to visit again in the near future. She and her lovely (and very well-behaved!) children have a standing invitation to come by and visit the alpacas and dogs.

Yesterday we went to the movies to escape from the heat for a while. All four of us went to see "Sky High." What a fun movie! DH and I laughed through quite a bit of it, and the kids enjoyed it at least as much as we did.

I also had an FO yesterday! I finished the Creatures of the Reef shawl! OK, it's not blocked yet, but it is done!

Here's a close-up of some of the motifs. They will, of course, show up much better once it's blocked, but we have a row of crabs and seahorses, then a row of starfish, then two rows of fish, then a bunch of bubbles, or what the designer calls "seafoam." The chart is done starting from the long ruffly edging and works up to the neckline. I found that once I got past the crabs and seahorses, the knitting just flew. The bubbles required a lot of concentration, though.

Now I'm working on the Flirty Ruffles shawl, a pattern by the same designer as the Creatures of the Reef. COTR was done in a laceweight merino - a springy, stretchy yarn. The kit for Flirty Ruffles was a Christmas gift about 2 years ago, and is being done in lavender Jaggerspun Zephyr. Zephyr is a laceweight merino/silk blend. The silk adds an awesome sheen and drape to the laceweight yarn. Of the two, I'm sure the Zephyr will hold the shawl shape much better after blocking.

I had started this one when I got the kit, and then left it for something else. This time, though, I was able to pick it up and figure out where I left off within a few stitches.

I did stop in at The Elegant Ewe when I was in Concord on Tuesday. I managed to come up with a small skein of laceweight Shetland that should work just fine for finishing off the Siberian Winter shawl, when I'm ready to get back to it. Right now I'm still mad about running out of yarn and it will sit and be ignored until I'm ready to finish it.

2005-07-28T20:47:00.000-04:00

Hi, Melissa! My Creatures of the Reef shawl is being done in a variegated light blues-to-white laceweight yarn. Here is a picture of it taken in May:

The weather has been truly gorgeous today. After several days of sweltering heat, I would be very surprised if the temps even got to 80 today. As an added extra bonus we had very low humidity. This is what I would consider perfect weather!

DH took the day off to take advantage of the weather, and he and I worked on the driveway. We need to fill in the shoulder on the edge of the pavement with dirt, and plant some grass to keep the dirt in place. We got a very good start on that and now will need to wait for more dirt. Good, because that will give my back a chance to recover!

After that, as a reward for all my hard work, DH stayed with the boy and I got to take off on my bike. I did another "ride until I'm tired" - this time I made 14 miles, to Raymond. I did this a few days ago and really enjoyed it. Last time I rode just over 13 miles, and finished up in Kingston. It's a lot of fun when you just ride until you're ready to stop, and then call home to be picked up! Much more fun than having to worry about having enough energy to bike home as well!

And Milk still has not delivered that cria...

2005-07-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

DD is off to camp... we dropped her off on Saturday. The drive was lovely, once we got past the traffic jam clogging the road between Hooksett and Concord, NH. The camp looked beautiful. It sits right on Newfound Lake. Nice cabins, a couple of people from church that DD already knew, and lots of choices for activities - it looked like lots of fun. I wanted to stay with her!

I miss her lots anyway, though! I've sent a couple of emails, although the campers are not allowed to respond. I'll be going back this Saturday to pick her up, and I'm certainly looking forward to it - to seeing her, and to hearing all about her week!

Otherwise, it's very hot here. Yesterday was hot, hazy and humid, and today is supposed to be more of the same. Tomorrow is supposed to be much cooler, however, as is the rest of the week. I'm looking forward to the change immensely. The weatherman's five-day chart even showed a day or two that got below 80! I can't wait for those!

I've done a little bit of spinning lately (the brown suri alpaca) but I haven't touched knitting in ages. Part of the reason was because I can't finish the Siberian Winter shawl right now. I got half way down the edging on the fourth side, and ran out of yarn! I may have more downstairs in the cellar - I remember that the skein broke a couple of times while I was winding it, but I honestly don't know if I've used it all yet or not. I was so upset, though, that I couldn't even think about knitting for a couple of weeks.

For now I just won't think about the Siberian Winter shawl. When I'm ready to think about it again, I'll first look down cellar and see if any small ball is hiding. If not, I'll go to the LYS (which for me is the fabulous Elegant Ewe in Concord) and pick up something laceweight and close in color - a "natural" or off-white - to finish it with. At this point, it's not a total disaster - I am not ripping out all of the edging I've done, and if something else isn't the exact same color, I don't care, as long as it's close. I'm sure the people at church, if I wear it over my shoulders there to ward off the A/C, won't say anything.

Well, that's enough about the %&$##$&%@@ Siberian Winter shawl for now. Instead of thinking about that shawl or its (my? Naw...) failures, I'll work on the Creatures of the Reef shawl. I'm up to row 42, and there's not a lot to keep in my lap on such a steamy day.

2005-07-22T13:59:00.000-04:00

For today's excitement, we're sitting here melting. Well, honestly, it's not as bad as it has been this summer, but it's still very warm.

DD is off with the church youth group today on a canoeing trip. I'm sure she'll enjoy herself, I just hope she remembers to use enough sunscreen. Being of the very fair-skinned persuasion, she burns at the drop of a hat; does not tan, just develops a few more freckles and burns again the next time she's outside for any length of time. The last time she actually developed two small blisters on her face.

We're not driving on the new pavement yet. DD is going off to camp tomorrow, and it's supposed to be only 82 degrees (and not-humid!); we may park in the driveway after we return from dropping her off.

And Got Milk is refusing to deliver the next cria. I go out there and speak with her several times a day about this. At least Castanet, attitude and all, blessed us with a cria two days before her due date! I told DH that Milk is waiting until tomorrow, when we'll be gone most of the day.

This afternoon, to help mitigate some of this pulse-pounding excitement, I logged in and took a survey on weblogs at MIT. Click here for more info:

2005-07-15T08:38:00.000-04:00

Big changes were happening around here last night! It certainly provided something different for yesterday evening's entertainment! After living here for 12 years, we finally had our driveway paved!

First there was the Bobcat, levelling the uneven spots in the driveway.

Then we had a dumptruck, dumping a small amount of tar, which was mixed in with the dirt from the driveway to firm up the base in one of our problem spots.

Then, to the kids' delight, we had even more equipment show up!

They flattened and rolled out the dirt and the base they had already poured.

After that, since they started late in the afternoon, it was getting too dark to take pictures. But they had another dump truck full of tar, and they used this machine to do the initial laying down and spreading of the tar.

Then they rolled it and flattened it, and touched up the edges, and connected it up with the edge of the road. They really did an awesome job, and this is how it looks now.

And here's a picture from slightly farther away. You can actually see a bit of one of our neighbors' houses, up at the top. Yes, there are a few!

Now we're told that we need to wait at least five days before driving on it, longer if the weather gets really hot again. DH says it has to undergo a process that's sort of cooling off (from the heat of the tar) and curing. That's going to make getting groceries in a little more difficult, but I'm sure it will be very much worth it in the end. This was something we'd been discussing off and on for several years, at least.

2005-07-11T09:26:00.000-04:00

DD returned home on Friday night. We were so happy to have her home; we missed her a whole lot! While she was gone, I took the opportunity to really clean her room! I also picked her up a few new things for her room, and made her some new curtains. I had a hard time with the curtains; I wanted very much to just pick up and hang a commercial set, but they are incredibly (and un-justifiably) expensive, so I really had to get some fabric and make some. Besides that, she's crazy about dolphins, so I wanted something that works with that, too. These are her new curtains!

Yesterday we tried something new. We went strawberry picking! Thanks to the encouragement of Melissa (check out her blog, Fruit of Her Hands) and several others on one of my email lists, I have decided to try making jam and jelly. I already make bread, thanks to my very good friend Pam, who got me a new breadmaker for Christmas. I'm tweaking my recipes at this point, and DH has been told that we may soon be able to switch over to homemade bread exclusively. We did that five or six years ago, and I'd really like to get back there. I think making my own jam and jelly to go on homemade bread would be awesome, and it's something I've wanted to learn for many years.

Hopefully, this will soon be in jelly jars. Don't they look delicious?

I've also found a great website called PickYourOwn.org. They have lots of information and recipes on learning how to do home canning, and also state-by-state lists of places you can pick your own fruits and veggies. The one we visited yesterday was Monahan Farm in East Kingston, NH, and it was marvelous. I'm looking forward to finding lots more fresh fruits and veggies this summer!

2005-07-06T11:40:00.000-04:00

Some recent pictures. Blogger is being unco-operative yet again, so I've uploaded these pictures to one of my Picturetrail albums and I'm posting them from there.

This is the Rocky Gorge area, which is just off the Kangamangus Highway in New Hampshire's White Mountains. This was the place we went during the last really hot spell - and the water was icy cold!

Here's a close-up of the two kids in that really cold water. I have to admit, we were very much cooled off after swimming there!

Last week was VBS (Vacation Bible School) at our church. The younger kids (up to 6th grade) had daily activities for about 3-1/2 hours a day; DS loved it, and Mom loved the short break! Here he is wearing the shirt they painted during VBS.

And here he is as part of the skit that the VBS kids put on for us at the end of the week!

13 yr old DD has her own church activities, as part of our church's youth group. This week they are up in Maine, on a mission trip. They are helping paint a church up there, and putting on a "block party" as part of an outreach program. The group (30+ teenagers, and 12 or 14 adult chaperones) left right after Sunday morning service on July 3, and will be back Friday night. This picture is of DD at the front of the church, taking part in the dedication and prayer send-off ceremony. She called last night and told me they're having a great time.

2005-07-05T15:40:00.000-04:00

Our first alpaca baby is here! Check out his pictures here!

2005-07-05T09:35:00.000-04:00

Yes, yesterday was our wedding anniversary! DH and I and 7 yo DS went out for a little gallivanting, visiting two bookstores, two electronics stores and one restaurant. Besides a couple of books and magazines, DH got me one of these!

I was trying to upload a picture of it, but Blogger is being quite unco-operative at the moment, so I'll have to settle for a link to the product's webpage.

Anyway, it's a Palm Zire 31. I looked at the higher-priced models, but didn't really need all those features. For quite some time (several years) I had a Handspring Visor, and really loved especially the Contacts and Calendar features. When I lost it last winter, I still had the Contacts and Calendar on my laptop, and hoped to replace the PDA. Then my laptop died, and along with it, all my contact and calendar info. At that point, I really needed to get another PDA! I've been playing with this one since we got home yesterday, trying to rebuild all my info and remember all the stuff I need to put in the Calendar. I have, of course, already replaced the Solitaire and Mah Jong games. The biggest differences between this one and my old Visor are the size (this one is smaller) and the fact that the Zire is color, whereas the Visor was black and white. The Visor also took two AA batteries; this one is rechargeable. In many ways, the rechargeable electronics are, to me, less desirable. It's far more difficult to remember to carry the darn cord around if the charge gets low than it was to throw a few batteries in my purse!

2005-06-25T09:31:00.000-04:00

Well, we went to the Vermont Quilt Festival yesterday, and had a wonderful time! For once, we got there with enough time to see everything! (They usually have displays in more than one building.) We also had lunch at the festival, and the kids got to play on an empty athletic field, which gave me at least a little time to wander through the quilts alone. I actually spent less than $20 - I bought a spool of Aurifil thread and some needles from one vendor, and two bobbins for my antique treadle sewing machine from another. The rest of the time I spent taking pictures and admiring the quilts.

There was a lot of applique this year. Besides the fabulous contest quilts, there were also several special displays - one of teachers' quilts, one of antique quilts from Vermont, and two (that I know of) that honored specific quiltmakers. One of the special displays, that of work by Judy Roche, was not allowing photographs; that was a shame, because there were some truly exquisite antique applique quilts. (Just in case it's not obvious, I'm a fanatic for applique!)

I did create a Picturetrail album with all of the pictures I took. Regardless, here are two of the most incredible quilts I saw.

This is a quilt by Kathryn Tennyson called Americana Album. The workmanship is exquisite, as are the blocks. The background is gorgeous. Besides the overall picture, I took close-ups of quite a few of the blocks. Those can be found in the Picturetrail album (titled "Vermont Quilt Festival 2005").

This quilt is Earthly Delights by Karen Kay Buckley. Again, I took quite a few close-ups. I have Karen Kay Buckley's Magical Medallions pattern (middle of the page), and it is incredible. Her work overall is incredible, and she has a fantastic color sense. She tends to use colors in long runs (6 to 12 shades of green, for example); it doesn't make it easy to find the fabrics to re-create one of her patterns, however!

This weekend, besides being incredibly hot, is also the Annual Hampton Beach Sand Sculpting Competition. Today is supposed to be the last day - I don't know if that means that it's the last day the sculptors can work, or if the sculptures will be judged at the end of today. Pictures of the 2004 winners are here. Either way, the sculptures are supposed to be left up for a week after the competition is over, so we will hopefully be going to see them tomorrow or Monday, when the beach is not so hot (or so crowded! I hate crowds!).

2005-06-23T17:46:00.000-04:00

I've been working on the Siberian Winter shawl, and have now finished the edging on side 3 and started side 4 - I'm in the home stretch! Now I just need to finish without running out of yarn. Maybe I should knit faster...

This weekend is supposed to get very, very hot - the weatherman just said that Saturday could hit 100 degrees! We rarely have temps anywhere near that hot around here, but weatherwise it's been a strange year already. First it rained literally almost every day in May, followed by a week of suffocatingly hot and humid weather in early June - unheard of! I know that's grammatically incorrect, but I have no better way of saying it. Now, we're not even out of June yet, and already we're facing a second heat wave. (BTW, technically a heat wave is three or more consecutive days with temps of 90 degrees or higher.)

Then again, this weekend is the Vermont Quilt Festival. For some reason, it's typically suffocatingly hot during the Vermont Quilt Festival - it's a tradition or something. I'd really like to go to the festival (I've only been two or three times in the last ten years or so). They always have some incredible quilts on display. At least we'd be cool while driving up there in my air-conditioned van...

2005-06-16T08:22:00.000-04:00

Here in the northeast we have gone from melting to freezing. After about a week of very, very hot and very, very humid weather, we are now having temps in the high 50s, low 60s if we're lucky.

I've been knitting on the edging of my Siberian Winter shawl, and I'm almost finished with side two! I am again left wondering if I'll have enough yarn left to finish this. After the numerous times I've re-started the edging, if I run out at this point, I would be very tempted to just throw this in the trash!

Next in the line-up is the Creatures of the Reef shawl. I also have two others on the needles from my previous shawl knitting obsession - the Irish Diamond Shawl from the book "Folk Shawls", being done in purple Alpafina (a Russian-labeled yarn, purchased as a Webs closeout, several years ago at least); and the Flirty Ruffles shawl being done in lavender Jaggerspun. As if that wasn't enough, I got this pattern in the mail this week:

If you click on the picture, a larger version will open up in its own window.

This is the "Reflections" shawl pattern, from the Suri Elegance line of patterns at The Alpaca Yarn Co. It uses a fascinating construction method. The inside is circular, and reminds me in pattern of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pi shawl pattern. The circular center is then turned into a square with short rows, before adding rectangular border sections.

I have no idea when I'm going to work on it, but we'll see what happens if I ever finish spinning up the brown laceweight suri. I started with, I think, 6 oz. of that, and I'm pretty sure I could get more. This pattern takes an estimated 875 yards. If I don't end up with enough of the brown suri, I also have raw suri in black and in white.

2005-06-13T16:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I actually had a day to myself! I left early in the morning and returned late at night, without children, dogs or hubby. In between I attended a Production Spinning workshop taught by Alden Amos and Stephenie Gaustad, and got to spend the day with a wonderful group of spinners. Many of these people I have met before, either at various spinning events in the northeast, or on their blogs. Spinning is, after all, a very small world.

I started the workshop by being late, after getting lost. OK, I wasn't really lost, because I never lost track of Route 9, Route 116, or Amherst, Massachusetts, but I did have a lot of difficulty finding the actual building that housed the Fiber Arts Center, where the workshop was being held. Maybe I was just too distracted by the sort-of-renfaire type activity nearby, or the threatening thunderclouds, or the fact that Amherst is a big city (at least compared to my hometown) with LOTS of traffic.

The workshop was terrific. Alden and Stephenie are very interesting, knowledgeable, and funny people! I brought my Majacraft Suzie Pro wheel, because I consider it to be more adjustable than my Kromski Mazurka. There were actually quite a few Majacraft wheels there - I recall at least two other Suzie Pros, and one Majacraft Rose wheel. Schacht wheels were also heavily represented. Besides those, there were the usual ever-reliable Ashfords, a Lendrum or two (Claudia's Lendrum upright, as well as a Lendrum saxony, which was lovely!), and some true wheel masterpieces. Elaine had her Alden Amos wheel with her - and a truly gorgeous (and beautifully functional!) wheel it is!

This is Sheila with her Norm Hall wheel. It, too, is incredibly beautiful (and was easily the largest wheel in the room, with huge bobbins!).

Spindle spinning was also well represented! Here's Rosemary, with a lovely little Bosworth spindle:

Another excellent spindle spinner! (Helen informs me this is Jarrett, and he had a wonderful English accent.) He was spinning on a beautiful Timbertops accelerated wheel during the workshop. Here he appears with Claudia and Rosemary, who are sharing linzertorte in the background.

We had several "time trials" during the workshop, where I found that I can spin up to 6 yards per minute if I try hard, and that if I try, I can spin a normal knitting-weight (dk/sport) yarn. It is, however, very hard to ignore all those tiny bits of vm that might be getting by me when I'm spinning fast! LOL!

Alden and Stephenie gave us some rope-making demonstrations at the end (with Elaine's assistance). Fascinating process! When we were done there was much picture-taking, autograph-signing (I was well over an hour away from home when it occured to me that I should have brought my copy of Alden's book to be signed... sigh. Can I claim sleep deprivation, due to the pervasive heat wave we've been having?

There were a few other bloggers represented. Here's Dharia, with her Ashford traditional:

Mamacate was also there. Here, she's test-driving Elaine's Amos-built wheel:

Helen, of Bay Colony Farm, who put this workshop together (thank you, Helen!)

And here's a pic of Alden and Stephenie, with one of the workshop participants (Kate).

I put the rest of the pictures I took (about 15 all together) in a Webshots album. There are several group shots that include, among other people, Marianne from the NETA group, with whom I spent a very interesting lunch hour. (Hi, Marianne! Thanks so much for sharing your watermelon and those wonderful almonds!) And thanks again to Helen, for helping me match faces and names!

2005-06-10T08:10:00.000-04:00

After ripping out and starting over three times, I have finally finished one side of the edging on the Siberian Winter Shawl. Last night I finally reached the end of side one and turned the corner to begin side two!

Also, remember Ziggy? He's our powderpuff Chinese Crested. His last thorough grooming was back in November. A thorough grooming in his case means a complete comb-out, shampoo, blow-dry, more combing, and shaving the face, ears, and a "V" on the neck. At that time I took this picture:

Two days ago, in the midst of our current heat and humidity, and armed with a pet clipper, I did this to him:

I was originally just intending to shorten his coat a little, and shave the face and ears. I got a little carried away... He does look really cute, though, and remarkably like an Italian Grayhound or Whippet!

2005-06-08T06:29:00.000-04:00

I just put some new pictures of the girls (and one of two of the boys) up on my alpacas blog. Of course, after all the pictures I posted from this weekend, all you get is a picture of one of my cats - Sunny. I tried to get a pic of her doing her half-twisted, legs-up-in-the-air thing, but she moved.

2005-06-05T17:49:00.000-04:00

The only thing I've been knitting on lately is the Siberian Winter shawl, and that has not been going well. I recently started the edging over for the third time! The good news is, I think it is actually going to go well this time. I've certainly had enough practice at it! If I'd been able to get it right the first two times, I'd be over halfway done by now... sigh.

Yesterday was the 14th annual Granite State Knit-In, held at Loon Mountain in Lincoln NH, and the weather was awesome! My friend Pam and I have been co-teaching a drop spindle spinning class at this event for the last five years or so. Yesterday we had two one-hour classes; the first had four people in it (and one of them already knew how to spin on a wheel). The second class started out with six people, and ended up with five. There was one lady there who seemed determined not to get it, despite the best efforts of both Pam and myself. She finally gave up, and walked away... I've never had a student like that. I don't know if it was just her personality, or if she was having a bad day, or what. I got the feeling I could have been teaching her to chew gum, and she would have found difficulty with it somehow.

Today there was an event at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA called Women's Work and Child's Play. I found out about it from someone on the Flax & Linen (flaxnlinen) list (thanks, Penny!), and just had to drag take DH and the kids down to check it out. One of the things that interested me was that there were quite a few people in period (in this case 1800s) dress. I love that kind of thing!

First, we have 7 yo DS in a sheep cut-out. Turns out this was actually part of the "Child's Play" portion, and the cut-out was meant for tossing bean-bags through. I enjoyed taking the picture nevertheless, and he had fun posing.

Next, we had a doctor's or surgeon's setup. For this and most of the rest of the pictures in this section, I'm going to post a small (blog-size) picture, linked to a full-size picture. If you click on the blog-sized photo, the full-sized one will open in its own window.

Next, there was a flax-processing area. This is a picture of the back of that area, as we were walking toward the front door from the parking area. They were set up so that they were facing anyone coming out the front door, directly to the left of the photo.

Here's the flax that they were processing. If you click on the picture to get the larger version, you may be able to see the small round seed pods in amongst the flax stalks. As one of the men demonstrated to me, you can take several seed pods and very easily crush them by rolling them around in your palm, ending up with 4 to 5 teeny, tiny flax seeds from each pod.

This is the flax break. You can also see the scutching stand(? I'm not really sure what that's called, although I know the wooden knife leaning up against it - lighter colored wood - is called a scutching sword) on the right-hand side of the picture. You lay the flax stalks perpendicular across the flax break, and just lower the handle, to crunch the outside of the stalks. Then you drape the crunched stalks over the scutching stand and kind of scrape them with the scutching sword to take off some of the broken stuff. This stuff makes good tinder for starting fires, among other things.

After you scutch the flax, you drag it through several different hackles. I didn't get a picture of the hackle that was being used, but it was a fairly coarse one. You would start with a coarse one and progress to finer ones to pull off more of the crunched outside shaft and end up with the inside of the stalk, which is spinnable flax. The long, fine fibers that you finish with are called line flax. You can see some flax hackles on this page.

Here is a spinner spinning wool. This is Penny, from the flaxnlinen list mentioned above.

Compare that picture to one of the same spinner (thanks, Penny!) spinning flax.

OK, there were a few other things there besides the flax demonstration. On the other side of the doorway there was a lady set up with a modified version of a great wheel. Hers was a Rio Grande wheel with the treadle removed. She was sitting next to someone doing embroidery.

Next to them was a couple from West Mountain Farm in Stamford, VT, along with a llama and an alpaca. Gayle Garrison was spinning on a Majacraft Suzie, a wheel similar to my Suzie Pro, only hers was outfitted with a Woolee Winder. (I'm becoming more and more interested in these things, and I've never heard anything but good about them.) Gayle's husband Lars was spinning on one of Jerry Womack's electric spinners. I have to say, that is one of the quietest wheels I've ever sat next to, electric or no! The wicker-looking basket over the motor is attractive, and Lars' version also had a Woolee Winder. I hear it's fast, too! The only thing left on the wish-list is a foot control! It would be perfect if you could slow down/stop to pick out VM, etc while spinning.

Here are the animals that came to the ATHM with the Garrisons. The white alpaca is Bart, the dark llama behind is Reni.

2005-05-25T16:42:00.000-04:00

I actually made a shirt! And it came out awesome! Check this out!

I can't believe I got this done in one day. Of course, I have done nothing else today, but hey... Check out the handsome boy who is, by the way, thrilled with his new shirt! Makes a mom proud!

I told DH about it, and he asked me when I'm going to make him some. Of course, his will take quite a bit more fabric...

2005-05-24T19:55:00.000-04:00

Today is a(nother) very gloomy and dreary day. I thought April showers were supposed to bring May flowers. Well, there aren't going to be very many flowers growing if the sun never comes back out... it's starting to feel like it's been raining forever! The bad side of that is that I can't wash any fleece. When I wash fleece, I dry it outside on a screen, and right now, there would be exactly no drying taking place outside. The good side of this is that a) it's the perfect excuse for me to have all six dogs in the house keeping me company, and b) it's wonderful weather for sitting here, watching Star Trek and knitting or spinning away.

I have gotten the Creatures of the Reef shawl back to the point where I had to rip out, and have even finished a few more rows. This is significant because, at this point, each row is almost 400 stitches long. I'll try to put up an updated picture in a day or two. I do, however, have some new pictures to share!

OK, check this out - I have actually finished something! I finally finished hemming the two dresses I've made for DD!

Last night I got brave and picked up a different skirt pattern for DD (Simplicity #4595, a tiered skirt pattern - there's a review of this pattern here) and this fabric for her skirt,

AND a pattern to try to make a couple of button-down shirts for DS (McCall's #4164), along with THESE two fabrics:

DS picked out the fabrics and also chose those fabulous buttons to go with them! We actually had a GOOD time at Wal-Mart, learning how to find the patterns in the book and then in the pattern drawers, reading the back of the pattern package to find out what notions we would need (like elastic and interfacing, and then finding those), and picking out the fabric and the extras (rick-rack for the skirt, buttons for the shirts). I told the kids I would try to get the fabric washed today, so I could start cutting out the patterns sometime this week. This is definitely the most complicated sewing that I've contemplated yet! Ultimately, I want to be able to sew so that I can weave and then sew my own clothes from handwoven fabric.

2005-05-23T09:25:00.000-04:00

I picked up some of my knitting the other day, for the first time in a long time, and haven't put it down for long since. It started on Thursday. DH and I had planned to go to an early viewing of Star Wars 3. I'm getting a little too old (or too tired!) for those midnight showings, much as I love to be there for that sort of thing. But a local theater had three 10:00 am showings on Thursday!

We left the house right after 7 yo DS got on the bus - 8 am. After stopping for coffee, we got to the theater at about 8:20. At that time there were maybe four cars in the parking lot, so we decided to take our chances and run to McDonalds for some egg sandwiches. By the time we got back, 8:45 or so, and I got out of the car and got in line, I was #11. At about 9 am the theater operators showed up and told us they would be opening the doors to the public at 9:30. Yay!

I had planned for this wait, and was knitting away on a sock. This is Opal Bumblebee, and the first sock has been done for some time. The second sock is past the heel, and I'm working on the "straightaway" of the instep/foot. Nice, simple, round-and-round stockinette knitting is perfect for waiting.

Finally got into the theater shortly after 9:30 am, and got to see the movie. I loved it! I came home after that and have been slowly working my way through the series (4, 5 & 6, then 1; still haven't re-watched 2 yet) and when I'm done, I'll be going back for another viewing of Episode 3.

I've also continued knitting - except for the brown suri alpaca I've had on my Majacraft since the Sheep & Wool festival. I did spin a little of that at our spinning group meeting on Friday night.

As far as the knitting goes, though, I've really been in the mood to work on some lace. My first thought was to pull out some projects already in progress. I had two in a tote bag. The first is the Siberian Winter Shawl in off-white. I had stopped working on this because the edging was boring me to tears. In the bag where this resides I found a document dated June 2003, so this has been hanging around for a while. I pulled it out, and ended up having to pull out the entire edging because I wasn't able to figure out how to knit it from where I left off. What I had to pull out amounted to about half of one side. I've gotten back to that point and added a few rows besides.

Here's the whole thing. Please ignore the distraction of the Storm-At-Sea quilt on the bed. It was the only place big enough (and without a layer of dog hair) to lay out the shawl.

Here's a picture of just the center. If you click on it, a larger version will open up in a new window.

Here's a picture of the edging. Again, if you click on the picture, you'll get a larger copy.

While I was working on the edging I realized I was rapidly running out of yarn! I do remember breaking this when I was winding it - it came in a huge skein. So I needed to find the rest. I also needed to locate my copy of Sharon Miller's Heirloom Knitting book.

I decided to work on the other project in the bag before I could panic about running out of yarn. Avoidance tactics are always good, and procrastination is one of my specialties. The other one is the Creatures of the Reef shawl. Again, this one had sat so long that I had completely lost my place. I had to rip out about 10 rows of the "Crab and Seahorse" charts (the first charted patterns after the edging - this one is worked from the edging inward). I'm back on track on this one, too, though.

I did find both the missing yarn and the book I was looking for this morning, though! Looks like I'm good to go for a while! These two projects should provide days, if not weeks of procrastination. At this rate, I'll be lucky if I ever finish reloading the software on this computer... VBG!

2005-05-21T22:25:00.000-04:00

I don't have any new pictures right now, but I do have a new laptop. Last week my old one finally gave up the ghost - for the last time. Over the last year, I had replaced the hard drive and the power cord & plug. This time it was the power connection that went - the connection that not only supplies power to the computer, but charges the battery. The last time I plugged it in, smoke came out of the back - not a good sign. I've been using the desktop system, and quite uncomfortably, for the last week. Now I'll be spending the next week or so transferring files, and finding the CDs with all of my software on them to add to this computer. But at least it runs, it charges, it sits in my lap for typing, and it's again portable! I love my wonderful DH for helping me select and purchase this lovely laptop! I have a few other things to figure out about it (like how I'm going to connect to the non-networked laser printer, as this computer has no parallel port) but for the most part we're up and running, and online!

2005-05-13T18:15:00.000-04:00

This is a math problem, sort of.

If the NH Sheep & Wool Festival doesn't open til 9 am on Saturday, and it's now 6 pm on Friday, and I live one hour away... is it too early to leave for the festival?

2005-05-13T07:21:00.000-04:00

Last night was cold around here! I haven't seen what the lows were, but last night they were talking about record cold, possibility of frost, things like that. I closed the front and back doors of the barn so the alpacas would have a windbreak if they went indoors.

The weekend is supposed to be cold, rainy, etc. Lovely weather (not!). This weekend is the New Hampshire Sheep & Wool Festival, and I'm sure poor weather would affect attendance. Oh, well... all we can do is wait and see. I'll be there, in any case!

I plan to be there a lot, in fact. I'm one of the new New Hampshire state representatives for the Northeast Handspinners Association. I'm supposed to be there for as much of the festival as I can manage, handing out brochures and informing people of the existence of the organization, and the benefits to spinners of attending the bi-annual event called The Gathering. Oh, and I get to spin while I do this, too! I haven't decided what I'll be spinning yet, but yesterday I started in on some quiviut. I had originally picked this up with the intention of spinning it as-thin-as-I-possibly-can, but I certainly won't have the attention span for that while at NH S&W, so I decided to go for my general lace-weight size. Maybe I'll end up taking this quiviut with me to spin. I also have some lovely cashmere/silk blend somewhere. One of these days I'll have to attempt something thicker than laceweight, just for fun! :D

2005-05-11T18:34:00.000-04:00

My friend Pam came over today and we did alpaca shots. She's wonderfully fast at this; she's an ER nurse by trade, and does a great job helping me with the alpacas. She's also a great cook (I hate cooking) and a marvelous seamstress. While she was over here, she took a look at the two dresses I have in progress for DD and showed me how to do the next step with the sleeves. She also brought me a late birthday gift - some chocolate frosted walnut brownies! I don't think there's anything Pam makes that's less than perfect!

As I was entering today's information into my alpaca database (I use AlpacaEase) I noticed that the girls are due much sooner than I thought! I didn't think the babies were due until August, but according to the alpaca program (which calculates all this stuff for you) Castanet is due around July 7, and Got Milk is due around July 21. These are only estimates, but that means the first baby is due in less than two months! Wow! I can't wait!

Now I just need to get this year's fleeces weighed out and figure out what I'm selling, what I'm having processed into roving, and what I'm going to have blended with wool and processed into roving...

2005-05-10T16:42:00.000-04:00

It is, finally, nice outside. It seems like it's been weeks since we've seen the sun, and the weather has been cool, rainy, chilly, you name it - most un-spring-like. Not much fun at all (pout). Today is sunny and warm, and all the windows are open. This means, naturally, that 7 yo DS is home from school because he's sick. Yesterday he was confirmed with a case of pink eye (aka conjunctivitis), and needed to be on the medication for 24 hours before returning to school; that would be tomorrow (big grin!).

Here are a couple of pictures of our new man, Feldspar. He's a real sweety, and so far very vocal. I really like the ones that "talk" to me!

Isn't he cute? In the second picture, you can see Nox's eye in the lower right-hand corner. He was doing his best to be included in the pictures, so of course I had to get a few of the other boys as well. Here's one of three of them (Hagrid is in the stall - guess he's not as nosy ... er, friendly... as the others!)

I also took a few pictures of all the work I did in my shrubbery beds a week or two ago. You can see the pretty little purple flowers on my mini Rhododendron. Here is one half of the front of the house:

And here's one of the side, showing some of my daylilies, one small shrub (don't remember what that one is) and a hosta or two just coming up.

2005-05-06T17:18:00.000-04:00

Haven't gotten much craft stuff done this week. On Monday I had to get Annika into the van and to the vet's for her health certificate; on Tuesday I took that up to the state Agriculture Dept to get her "travel papers." Today I spent all day (over 8 hours) on the road, bringing Annika to New York and picking up Feldspar. Despite all my preparations, I still forgot to bring Annika's fleece to her new owner; I'll be mailing that out to her on Monday. Pics of Feldspar soon - hopefully tomorrow - as it's too dark to get any right now.

2005-05-02T15:04:00.000-04:00

The kids are back in school. I'm never really sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I do so enjoy sleeping in while they're on vacation, even if it's only until 6:30 or 7 am; on the other hand, I also enjoy the peace and quiet of time without sibling rivalry! Even with the kids in school this week, though, it promises to be a busy week. Today started with taking Annika to the vet for a health certificate; we're actually getting closer to trading her for our (hopeful) future herdsire, Feldspar! It seems like this has been in process forever, and I'll be glad to finally get the trade done. The rest of the week includes things like grocery shopping, a school meeting on Thursday, and (hopefully) travelling most of the day Friday to trade Annika for Feldspar.

Last Thursday was shearing day here. Boy, was that a lot of work! It was the shearer, me, and DD, who did a wonderful job assisting. All seven alpacas were sheared, and the fleeces are bagged and labeled - although I haven't yet weighed them, and the bags are still stacked in the barn aisle. I didn't get any pictures of the shearing being done, as we were kept very busy, but if you google "alpaca shearing" you'll find several sites with lots of pictures. I do have a few post-haircut pictures, though. In order, they are Nox, Shadow, and the babies, Annika and Angel. The biggest surprise was how small the alpacas look after shearing - positively delicate, rather ethereal. The babies in particular look a lot smaller. I'm sure there are some pre-shearing pictures not too far back, if you look through the archives. (Try March - there were some posted on March 31.)

2005-05-01T20:42:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been having a wonderful time taking advantage of the "it's my birthday" excuse this weekend. On Friday night I went to the monthly meeting of the Massachusetts chapter of The Applique Society. The meeting was in Chelmsford. The group has only recently managed to secure a regular monthly meeting place, rather than relying on (more-or-less) local quilt shops for space. I found the meeting place quickly and easily, and it was not too bad a drive from my house, so I'm going to try to make more of these meetings.

Saturday DH, the kids and I hit not one, but two quilt shows, one in Concord and one in Plaistow; we had a great time and took lots of pictures (actually, I took a few, then turned 7 yo DS loose with the camera. His pictures are a little fuzzy, but surprisingly good!) After the second quilt show we went out for a late lunch/early dinner, then home for some quiet time.

I've also been working on sewing up a couple of new dresses for 13 yo DD. I consider most of what is commercially available to be inappropriate for one reason or another, so I'm making her a couple of simple dresses. Sewing clothing is definitely not my forte, but they're coming out nicely. I just have to attach the sleeves now, and hem the dresses. I do wish my serger were a little more cooperative, though. Perhaps, as we used to say when I worked computer Helpdesk, the problem is between the machine and the chair...

I just finished basting this piece:

In person the colors are a little deeper, although just as intense. This is the beginning of my first Hawaiian-type applique. It starts as a papercut-type pattern (think cutting out snowflakes) and then is basted in place, and appliqued with a needleturn technique. In case you can't tell, these are seahorses. Unlike most of my applique, there are no lines to follow, so it's a little scary. I'm following instructions from Nancy Chong's Hawaiian Quilting video, and eventually hope to make this quilt for dolphin-crazy DD. The seahorses piece is on a piece of fabric 18" square, and took me two days to prep and baste. The dolphins quilt would be about 90" square (finished size). I have no idea how long that will take just to prepare and baste, never mind applique (and then quilt after that!). It's probably at least several years down the road anyway, the way I switch gears on a regular basis...

I'll try to get some pictures of my mulched shrubbery sometime this week. I know tomorrow (and possibly Tuesday) are going to be busy, as well as Thursday and likely Friday. Maybe I can finish the mulch and take pictures on Wednesday...

2005-04-27T07:49:00.000-04:00

We've had some wonderful weather lately! I do love spring! I had a load of mulch delivered last week (how exciting!) and managed to get most of the work in my shrubbery beds done. I still have to finish filling in the mulch in the 3rd bed - I've already pulled up the extraneous vegetation, put down that weed-blocker paper that looks like the interfacing you buy for sewing clothing, and put enough mulch in there to hold the paper down. And the other 2 beds are finished. Just need to finish that third one, and then I can go around and distribute (ie use up) the rest of the mulch.

Well, it isn't going to happen today, first and foremost because it's raining and is supposed to continue raining, at least all day today if not tomorrow too. It's the flip side of the wonderful weather we've been having. Also, I have to get to two different banks today to take care of some business, get some hay in the barn moved around (that is, get it out of the aisle and upstairs because we're going to need the aisle), and get the alpacas locked in to prepare for shearing tomorrow because it's raining today and we don't want them wet for shearing. That's going to be lots of fun. The boys are no trouble; they'll do just about anything as long as grain is involved. The two babies aren't much trouble either, although they take a little more effort to get inside. However Castanet and Got Milk, the two pregnant ladies, are another story entirely. They seem to know exactly what you want, and have no intention of making it the least bit easy on you.

Tomorrow I have to go re-register my van in the morning, and the shearer is coming in the afternoon. Friday I have an early appointment to go get the van inspected, and it's at a dealership, which means for some reason it takes three times longer than at a small garage. The only reason I'm going to the dealership is because it's free, as that's where I bought the vehicle. I may time them this time, though. I have an appointment for 9:30 am, and I plan to be there on time. Last time (in January, when I bought the van) I remember waiting an inordinately long time. We'll see what happens this time. Just because it's free doesn't mean a 20 or 30 minute inspection should take an hour and a half.

And there's a quilt show I want to get to on Friday, as well as an applique group meeting in the evening. Saturday DH and I are hoping to get to a movie, because my birthday is Friday. Oh, and it's vacation week, so all of this is with the kids around. :D

I'm still not smoking, though! It has now been 4 months, 3 weeks, and 6 days.

2005-04-22T12:34:00.000-04:00

OK, so it's a little later than I promised, but I do have a bunch of new pictures to share!

Here's the yarn I just finished, along side a skein of Margaret Stove's Merino Lace yarn for comparison. Below that I have a closer photo of the two of them. If you click on the closer photo, you'll get an extreme close-up of the two yarns. I didn't realize that the North Ronaldsay yarn looked slightly hairy from so close!

As for what else I've been up to, for some reason I have again become enamored of the applique blocks I have in progress. I have worked on finishing up several that are at various stages. The first one is an Elly Sienkiewicz block, from one of the Baltimore Beauties and Beyond books.

The next one is not quite finished, but it's close. It's one of the Victorian Fancy Cutwork blocks, by Jo Coons at Potpourri Pieces.

The last one is a picture of a couple of blocks that will finish at 5-1/2" square. These are from a book by Judy Garden called Dutch Treat. I really love the blue background fabric, and the way the blue and the pale lavender/gray work together. One block is finished, one is almost done. If you click on this picture, you'll get a close-up of the finished 5 of Diamonds block.

I also uploaded all of these to the folder labeled "Other Quilts" in my Webshots album. There are some other pics there of other applique I've done (or am working on!).

Oh, and in other news, I am now one of the NH state representatives for the Northeast Handspinners Association!

2005-04-14T19:43:00.000-04:00

Pictures tomorrow, but I just finished plying my North Ronaldsay roving. This is from a rare breed of sheep, and I was given this small ball at the SPA Knit & Spin - a bonus with my subscription to Wild Fibers magazine. The way I spin, it was only natural that I would try to see how far it would go. I would characterize this as a medium fiber - certainly not as soft as merino, but not harsh - and I thought my roving had a rather short staple. Still, when it was done, the skein weighed 0.775 oz (22 grams) and was approx. 153 yards of two-ply laceweight, coming in at about 3158 yards per pound. I don't know what I'll do with only 153 yards of laceweight, but that's nothing new. I have lots of yarn sitting around that doesn't yet have a purpose!

Speaking of laceweight, I finally looked up the results of this year's Longest Thread contest that was held in March. For those who don't know already, this event is part of the Bothwell International Highland Spin-In, which is held every other year in Tasmania. The Longest Thread contest is only a small part of the gathering. This year's Longest Thread (the longest thread spun from 10 grams of raw wool) was 1103.58 meters, produced by Carol Robinson of Australia. Full results can be found here, and a gallery of pictures from the event is here.

By the way, 1103.58 meters for 10 grams of wool comes out to about fifty thousand yards per pound!

2005-04-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

Continuing with the events from last Saturday, I left Stratham after attending the quilt show and drove to Lowell, MA to the American Textile History Museum to attend a spin-in. I believe the spin-in was organized by my local spinning group, the Island Pond Spinners of Hampstead, NH. I took a few pictures at the event. I also started teaching one lady to spin on a drop spindle, let someone else use my Majacraft Suzie Pro wheel to try out some laceweight spinning, and had a wonderful conversation with the guy running the looms in the museum. Here are a few of the pictures I took:

If you click on the picture, you'll get a larger version of this picture in a new window.

Oh my goodness, look, another spindle spinner!

2005-04-11T19:13:00.000-04:00

I had a very busy weekend. Events included attending a quilt show and participating in a spin-in at the American Textile History Museum, as well as getting DS to a birthday party held at a gymnastics facility. Boy, did he have fun with that one! For once, I remembered to take lots of pictures! I'm going to split this into entries over at least a couple of days, because I plan to share a bunch of those pictures.

First, the quilt show. This show was sponsored by the Seabreeze Quilt Guild of Exeter, NH and was held in the gymnasium of a school in Stratham, NH. I'm sure this is a fairly small guild (unlike the Amoskeag Quilt Guild in Manchester, which is enormous), but it was a very nice little show! There is something to be said for a quilt show where you can be sure you saw all the entries! Here are a few in particular that I enjoyed:

This is a scrappy Blazing Stars made with lots of half-square triangles. It's amazing the range of colors that blend to make "red" or "light background".

I don't remember the name of the quilt (although I have it written down somewhere) or, for some reason, the name of the pattern, but again, another very nice scrappy quilt.

This is a favorite pattern, one I fully intend to make someday (y'know, that time when all those other things will get done, too!). It's called Cathedral Windows, and it's kind of a fold-and-sew pattern. It doesn't generally use batting like a traditional quilt, and is very modular - and therefore easy to carry along. Makes a great travel project. If you're interested, this link gives you some idea of how these are made. If you click on the picture, you'll get another picture that's a close-up of several cathedral window blocks.

This one is an "I Spy." This is great for themed fabrics, especially "kid prints", and every I Spy quilt I've ever seen looks like it would be great fun to make and to use! The variety of prints included in even a small version of an I Spy quilt is astonishing. The only thing that has stopped me from making one of these so far is the size of those itty-bitty joining triangles.

Tomorrow I'll show you a bunch of pictures from the Spin-In!

2005-04-06T11:51:00.000-04:00

This will be one of my next cross stitch projects:

The chart is called "Woman" and it's from African Stitch. I love all the different pictures that are worked into the hair - I'm sure there's more symbolism here than I can comprehend. And even though it looks black and white, the picture actually uses 32 solid colors and 34 blended colors of floss. Amazing, isn't it?

2005-04-05T09:25:00.000-04:00

So far this week the weather has really been lousy, especially compared to the wonderful sunshine and temps we had last week. It rained all weekend, but that really didn't matter, because my ankle has really been bothering me, and I couldn't have exercised anyway. Instead we decided to go out to a Home, Garden and Flower show on the UNH campus, where I hobbled around (because my ankle still hurt!) but otherwise had a good time.

This is the outside of the Whittemore Arena building, where the show was held (as evidenced by that large sign on the side of the building):

Here is the inside:

And here's a shot of my very good friend Nancy, who has recently lost a lot of weight and looks really fabulous! We used to spend a lot of time together - in fact, she's largely responsible for my interest in weaving - but then she moved far, far away. She'll be moving a little closer soon, and Pam and I are both looking forward to that immmensely! Maybe we'll be able to visit more often if Nancy lives closer than two hours away! Hi, Nancy!

2005-03-31T12:26:00.000-05:00

I was going to take a nice long bike ride today; it's so beautiful out! I really do love spring weather... I even put the new seat I bought yesterday on the bike already. Instead, my left ankle has decided to act up. Maybe it has something to do with the 4-1/2 miles of walking I did yesterday, although I don't recall injuring myself.

I walked out the door to inhale some fresh spring air and bemoan my lack of a long bike ride, and noticed all the boys looking toward the house, so I ran back in for my camera. Here are the boys - from left to right, Hagrid, Shadow and Nox.

Not to be left out, I had to go take a picture of the girls, too. Well, I took some pictures of the babies, and the moms are in the background anyway:

2005-03-31T10:41:00.000-05:00

For those who don't know, I am the listmom of several Yahoogroups email lists, as well as the administrator of one Ringsurf ring. These are not paid positions, they are all volunteer. I take care of the lists and the ring because I like to do it, and because I believe the lists and the ring serve a purpose.

That's why I do it.

Now, someone tell me - why do people join rings, and then never bother to put the code on their sites? How long am I supposed to wait for them? I think I'm going to put something about it in the ring rules - if you can't be bothered to find out how to get the ring code up on your site within two weeks, I'm going to delete you from the queue. And if you haven't posted to your site in over six months, you're gone from the ring as well.

2005-03-28T08:21:00.000-05:00

For those who don't know (and you all should know, because it's so awesome!) it's been 3 months, 3 weeks, and 6 days since I quit smoking!

I also went out on my bike yesterday in the fabulous spring weather and rode almost 14 miles! I was great, you shouldda seen me!

Today, of course, it's pouring rain. Gotta have at least a little spring flooding around here (usually in the Salem, NH area) to keep things interesting.

2005-03-27T07:55:00.000-05:00

Another beautiful day! Yesterday the temp was in the mid-40's; today is supposed to get even higher. Ah, spring! I love it!

I really wanted to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and get out of the house yesterday. After much discussion (during which DH and I realized that most of the walking trails we know of are probably still snow-covered) we decided to take the kids roller skating again. This time we went to Roller Kingdom in Tyngsboro, MA. We skated for about two hours - at least the kids and I did. Apparently DH doesn't skate; 13 yo DD is doing great on rollerblades, and 7 yo DS is just learning - reluctantly, and with many bribes, but he's making progress. What great exercise, though! I had an awesome two-hour workout and had a wonderful time doing it! I think we need to do this more often! Of course, we also had the nice sunny drive down and back - parts of it with the windows in the van open. Fresh air! What a concept!

Overall, I liked Roller Kingdom better than the place in Newington, with a couple of exceptions. There was no wall or ledge around the perimeter of the ring for the beginners to cling to, and I didn't know a single piece of music they played. I told DD that we'll try the only other skating place I know of that's still around next time, and see how they all compare. The third one is in Haverhill, MA.

2005-03-24T05:39:00.000-05:00

Sunday we had gorgeous weather, and I escaped outside for a bike ride. I did 8-1/2 miles, and was pretty happy with the improvement over last fall. Despite slacking off the last couple of weeks, the time I did put in at the gym has definitely helped. I've been trying for the rest of this week to get back to the gym. Monday DH had medical appointments; Tuesday I had to wait for the vet; Wednesday I had to be here for the furnace guy! Today I woke up to snow! We're only supposed to get a few inches, but they've already posted a two-hour delay for school. After the gorgeous weather we've had lately, this is definitely not a welcome surprise! I am so ready for spring!

2005-03-19T07:55:00.000-05:00

Her birthday isn't actually until Monday, but we'll be celebrating today. My baby girl is turing thirteen!

(Sorry about the terrible photo. I don't have any digital pictures that go back that far, so this is a picture of a picture.)

2005-03-13T10:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday it snowed... and snowed... and snowed. And this is the second snowstorm this week! Remember? On Wednesday, school was cancelled because of the snowstorm Tuesday night, and I had to bring the kids with me to pick up the new loom. So now, after two snowstorms in one week, we have lots and lots of snow here. Here's a picture of our mailbox this morning:

Here, Castanet and Got Milk dare to finally venture out of the barn to check things out:

And here's a picture of the bench on the deck. If you click on the picture, you'll be rewarded with a larger picture of the backyard (oh, how exciting!).

What to do during a snowstorm? Well, if you're new in the area you go out and buy about two weeks' worth of milk and bread before things get bad. The rest of us know that the grocery stores will be open and accessible the next day, and we find indoor games to play. In our case, we had a "Lost in Space" marathon, and I worked on warping the loom. This morning I actually started weaving!

It has been interesting. Not only is this a new-to-me loom, but I'm also new to 8-harness weaving. The loom has a few quirks, and we've been working at getting to know each other. Yesterday I installed the two new treadles and two replacement lamms; today I've been finding out what other quirks she has. When I started I was not getting nice even sheds, and I was having trouble with stiff treadling and sticking harnesses. I got all of that straightened out, and I think the only thing I'm still having problems with is the brake. At this point I'm not sure if the problem is with me or the loom. The issue is easy enough to work around until I get it figured out, anyway.

Even with just starting the weaving, though, I can see that my color choices are not going to result in the patterning I wanted. The solid purple is way too close in color to one of the colors in the variegated; and I think the variegation isn't going to show the patterning of the shadow weave. Oh, well; the purpose of this project was also to learn about the loom, and to learn to use tencel. Next time I'll try to make better color choices. (I'm also thinking I should have used a closer sett.) Patterning or no, however, they will be very pretty, very purple scarves!

At this point I have to mention that I have the world's best DH! This loom was purchased with my expected future tax return - despite the fact that I haven't even gotten all the paperwork to the accountant yet! And he always manages to be supportive and encouraging, no matter how much space I'm taking up, or how much muttering I'm doing as I try to figure things out (like treadling, uneven sheds, and how not to drop my shuttles all the time as I try to weave with two different ones!) Love you, sweetheart!

2005-03-11T14:04:00.000-05:00

I'm making progress with the new loom! Today the UPS man brought me some parts I ordered. Even though the loom has 8 harnesses, it was missing the lamms (aka "harness lifters") for two of them, plus it only had 8 treadles. Thanks to the UPS man and a little hard work, it now has 8 working harnesses, and 10 treadles! I must say, as well, that the Macomber people are wonderful to work with!

Last night I disappeared into the cellar for a while and made myself a raddle for the loom (I've never used one before, and don't know if I'll use this one yet, but I have one!). I also made a new warping board - my last one was on loan from a good friend, and it was returned quite a while ago. I am now winding a warp with 8/2 tencel from Webs - one cone of solid purple, one of a jewel-tone variegated. I'll be warping the 8-harness loom for scarves in a shadow weave pattern. This is the pattern I'll be using:

This gives a vague idea of what the scarves will look like. The variegated thread will make it look a lot different, as will the size of the thread/fabric etc. I've been reading up on weaving with tencel, too, as what little I've woven has been done with cotton. Apparently tencel won't work well if woven at the same tension as my cotton, so I'm sure I'll be learning quite a bit as I work with this material! It is lovely, though, very shiny-pretty. Reminds me of silk to a great extent.

2005-03-09T16:31:00.000-05:00

We had the strangest weather yesterday! It started out warm, and pouring rain; over the course of the day, as the temps cooled, it turned to snow, and that became one heck of a snowstorm. We had hurricane-force winds, some very interesting snowdrifts around our property, and around 8 PM last night, a couple of brief episodes of thunder and lightning! In the middle of a snowstorm! I have lived in New England most of my life, and I can honestly say I have never seen thunder and lightning in the middle of a snowstorm!

This morning the schools started out with a two-hour delay, and then later changed it to a no-school day. DH went to work, and I took the kids to Peterborough with me to go look at a new-to-me loom.

And look what followed me home!

It's a portable Macomber loom - 8 harnesses, 24" weaving width, and small enough to live upstairs with us instead of down in the cellar/craft room. It's almost small enough to fit in the closet behind it. Isn't it cute?

2005-03-07T20:10:00.000-05:00

I did go to the spinning get-together in Hampstead on Saturday afternoon, and had a very good time. To my surprise, there was a reporter-type woman present for some time. Today I got a couple of emails from members of my spinning group; one of them included a link to this story, which appeared both online and in print!

2005-03-07T10:13:00.000-05:00

School vacation is over, and the kids are back in school today! To celebrate, I've been very industrious, and I'm working on all the things I put off while the kids were home. I just finished putting the second coat of stain on chair #2, for instance. Chair #1 has been completed for at least a couple of weeks now, while chair #2 has, instead, graced the center of the kitchen floor. We are now ready (once the stain dries, anyway) to begin with the several coats of polyurethane necessary before it can join the other chairs at the dining room table. That should only take another week (or three, knowing the speed at which I work).

Yesterday we went out to the movies! We tried a new place, Chunky's, in Haverhill, MA. It's kind of like a movie theater, only besides popcorn and soda, they serve food - like burgers, nachos, stuff like that. And instead of movie theater seats, you have these enormous seats taken from cars - like the passenger seat of an old Cadillac or something. They were extremely comfortable! Outside of the fact that we spent enough money for next week's groceries, we had a lot of fun. It's a good thing we don't get out to the movies very often. Oh, btw, we saw "The Pacifier". I thought the movie was a lot of fun, but it wasn't quite dark enough in Chunky's - I guess the waitresses still have to be able to see enough to deliver food.

2005-03-03T09:55:00.000-05:00

DH took today off to spend it with me and the kids, and it looks like we'll be going roller skating with the kids. (DH wants it known that he will not be donning roller skates, though.)

On Saturday, though, I will be at the Hampstead Meeting House (on Emerson Ave in Hampstead, NH, right next to the police station) from 1 to 5 pm. My group, the Island Pond Spinners, will be demonstrating various spinning and weaving activities for "Daughters of Liberty" day. More info on that is available on the group's home page in the link above; I'll be demonstrating drop spindling and hand carding. After being home with the kids all week, I'm very much looking forward to it! If you're going to be anywhere near Hampstead, NH on Saturday, please stop in!

2005-03-02T10:58:00.000-05:00

I found out that my Tagboard account had expired in January; that's why I was getting pop-ups. It should be all set now; I'm leaving the Blogger comments in place anyway, for those who prefer them, and/or for when Tagboard is down.

2005-03-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

In answer to Deborah's comment, I can certainly understand being uncomfortable with change after all you've been through! I hope the changes to my blog are not too disturbing for you... ;D

Hey, I found my loom! I also found the long, skinny basket that sits on top of the loom castle and holds all my extra bobbins, shuttles, weaving needles, etc. It is now all set up and I even got started weaving the pattern on it again. These are the long-lost kitchen towels.

This loom is a Harrisville T-6 - 4 harnesses, 6 treadles, 36" weaving width.

DH and I are now contemplating a new loom. This one is nice, but it is only four harnesses (can we say "harness envy?"). This all started sometime late last week, when I was browsing the Spinner's and Weaver's Housecleaning Pages. I saw an ad for a 12-harness table loom, 21-3/4" weaving width, for $600. This was a great price, so I talked DH into letting me call (it was in Massachusetts, which is within driving distance - many people will not ship looms because of the weight). Unfortunately, the loom was already sold, so DH and I started talking about what else was available. I considered another loom that was advertised on the same site - an 8-harness counterbalance loom, 44" weaving width, for $500. The problem with that one, besides the fact that I know very little about operating a counterbalance loom, is that it is huge! It has a six-foot castle! If I brought it home, I would have to find a place to put it where it would be a more or less permanent fixture. The plus side of this one is that a) it has more than four harnesses, and b) it is definitely hefty enough to weave rugs. (Note here that, first of all, my Harrisville T-6 is almost certainly not hefty enough to weave rugs, at least not without some modifications; and second, I have no clue whether or not I actually want to weave rugs.)

Other looms up for consideration are a Dundas table loom, 25" weaving width, either 12 or 16 harnesses; and the new 16-harness Ashford, in a 24" weaving width. Ashford makes a table loom in a 32-inch weaving width, but the wider table loom only goes up to 8 harnesses.

I think I really want the Ashford. I think having the levers on the front would make it a LOT easier to use. DH may want me to go for the 12-harness Dundas, however, which ends up being $200 cheaper. Stay tuned!

2005-02-28T10:33:00.000-05:00

OK, I changed my template. I wanted to enable Blogger's comments, and I somehow messed up the other template and couldn't get them to show up. I'd like to ditch the Tagboard, because even though I paid for that, I'm getting the popups. I really, really hate popups!

2005-02-28T07:56:00.000-05:00

It is school vacation week here. Usually this means 12 yo DD tries her best to be anywhere but here; she generally ends up spending at least one overnight at a friend's house.

We also have what they're calling a major snowstorm (N'oreaster, in this part of the country) on the way. That's supposed to start this evening. This time it's supposed to be heavy, wet snow instead of the light, fluffy stuff, which increases the chance of power outages exponentially. Unfortunately, I have to step out sometime today and get a few groceries. I don't generally do a storm stock-up, but Mondays are my regular grocery shopping days! The grocery store is definitely going to be much not-fun today.

And despite the fact that the kids are going to be home all week, I'm thinking of trying to unearth my loom. I have some cotton hand-towels on there that have been waiting patiently for over a year. Part of the reason for that is that we ran out of room in the living areas of the house; the loom now resides in the basement (otherwise known as my craft rooms), where it quickly became stagnant. I'd love to move it upstairs again, and keep trying to think of how I can rearrange things to make it fit.

In the meantime, here's something that I stole from Amie's blog.

-------------------------------------------------------
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you
-------------------------------------------------------

Here it is:

"America's space shuttle will fly again on Apollo Day. We'll have more with our guest, Admiral James Kirk of Starfleet Command, right after this."

Those who know me won't be surprised. The book is "Star Trek: A Flag Full of Stars" by Brad Ferguson.

2005-02-25T08:12:00.000-05:00

Check it out! Right here in the Boston Globe, an article about knitting socks! They talk about self-patterning yarn, sock knitting methods, etc - in a regular, everyday newspaper!

2005-02-24T14:47:00.000-05:00

I haven't done much of any crafts lately, but last weekend I did get in a bit of spinning up in Portland, ME at the NETA get-together. I've made it to this event all three years it's been held so far; last year it was just a brief visit, as I had DH and kids with me, but I made it nevertheless. One of these years I'll be able to afford to get a hotel room and stay the weekend!

One of the things I spent money on while I was up there is a workshop to be held at the 2005 Maine Fiber Frolic. Although it's not yet listed on the website, they will apparently be hosting a workshop with Alden Amos!! There was no way I could pass up the opportunity to take a class with him! I may have jumped the gun (I think I was the first person to sign up for it) but class space is limited, and I didn't want to miss out.

Another project I'm working on is an alpaca trade. I found out that Jeanne at Gemstone Alpacas was interested in trading what sounds like a very nice herdsire (check out Feldspar under the "Current Sales List" link on her webpage) for a dark female. I checked out Feldspar's bloodlines (his daddy is Black Flame, who has an 18 micron black fleece!) and we've agreed to trade him for Annika, my black female cria. Assuming everything goes as planned (I'm such a worrier!) we should be doing this April 3rd.

2005-02-24T12:15:00.000-05:00

Just for fun:

2005-02-06T14:47:00.000-05:00

I started working on the chairs this afternoon. DH and I have decided on one coat of stain (Shaker Maple color) and multiple coats of polyurethane. Here is a "before and after" picture - actually, one chair stained (not urethaned yet) and one chair still unfinished. If I had known the stained one would almost disappear against our cabinets, I would have tried to put it up against a lighter-colored background.

2005-02-06T09:15:00.000-05:00

Hey, check it out, a progress picture! Here is the current progress on Mystic Stitch Millenium:

This is most of page 1, and the pattern has 9 pages. You can see what the whole picture will look like in a previous entry on this blog, or in my Webshots album (link in the sidebar).

I'll be on to something else now. I'm going to try something new - if I can keep up with it. I'm going to try timing the amount of time I stitch. Among people who rotate through a number of projects (and there seem to be a lot of people who do this) it seems to be popular to work in ten hour stretches (although some people vary the amount of time, and some people vary by number of days, etc.) I'm going to start on the Aussie picture (also in the Webshots album) and try timing ten hours. It'll be interesting to see how far I get.

2005-02-05T18:47:00.000-05:00

It was a beautiful day today, and we went out gallivanting to take advantage of the sunshine and warm air! (It actually hit at least 50 F today! It was wonderful!)

Our first stop was the NH Farm & Forest Expo at the Center of NH Expo Center in Manchester. We had a very good time - interesting exhibits, inexpensive admission, and 7 yo DS had a great time collecting pens, pencils, stickers, etc from the exhibitors. This was the place I first saw someone spinning on a spinning wheel, about eight years ago; it was also the place (that same day, in fact!) that I bought my first drop spindle, and the first time I saw a real, live alpaca. Some lovely memories!

Our next stop, after we managed to make it out of the (shudder) city in one piece (Oh my god, the traffic! No wonder we rarely go into a city!) was
Country Woods Unfinished Furniture in Raymond. We have been down to only two chairs for our dining table for some time now, and have been meaning to look for some new ones. We found them today! They are like the ones on this page, Item 14, third row down. They are unfinished, and we're going to stain and urethane them (hopefully some time this week!). We got two, and we're planning to go back and get another two in a month or so.

2005-02-02T08:06:00.000-05:00

Still haven't done much on the cross stitch, but at least I got past the boring black part. I'm almost done with page 1 (of 9) and then I'll probably work on something else. I'll post an update picture soon, probably when I finish page 1. If I actually get some time to work on it, that should be within the next couple of days.

The last week or so has been especially hectic. DD was in a play at school, which required lots of driving back and forth. We all went to the final performance of the play, and had a great time. We went out to dinner before the final performance, and through an amazing stroke of luck, ended up with free dessert! Between the dinner and the play, it really was a lot of fun.

Monday I had to take the new van in for inspection, and DD had a counseling appointment. Yesterday I went to the gym and later had to take DD to her riding lesson. I feel like I've been doing so much running around lately! I think we're pretty much done for a while - good thing, too! Today will be a trip to the gym and some grocery shopping.

When I go to the gym, I'll be meeting up with someone from one of my Freecycle lists to drop off a bunch of magazines. This will hopefully be the beginning of a much needed basement cleaning. The basement houses the majority of my crafts "stuff" - quilting fabric, yarn, spinning fiber, lots and lots of books (both read and unread), and bits and pieces of assorted crafts I've tried over the years. I admit it, I'm a packrat, and I have a very hard time throwing things away! It does eventually get to a point, though, where I have so much to do, and so much that I want to do, that I get nothing done. I'm fast approaching that point (actually, I think I've been there for a couple of months) and need to clear things out in order to get back on track. As painful as it will be, that also means getting rid of some craft stuff (like the rug hooking supplies) that I know I'll never get back to. Keeping it around just makes me feel guilty for not getting it done, even though I found it was a craft I really didn't enjoy.

I've been busy already this morning, though. Besides getting the kids off to school and DH off to work, I found out that I had to order a new cable to connect my PDA to my computer. I was unable to do any updates or software downloads because the old one died, and I was unable to resuscitate it. (I actually had to look up the proper spelling for "resuscitate"!) Fortunately, the cable was quite inexpensive, and will hopefully be here within a few days.

I lead such a boring life.

2005-01-19T06:37:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to work on my cross stitch a little, but I'm stuck in a boring black section of the chart right now. I think I'll work on it a little more once I get that part finished. Of course, I'd get it finished much faster if I actually worked on it more, right?

I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately, both in hardcopy and online. A lot of it has been blogs, focusing on exercise (runners and triathletes) and weight loss. I've also been reading through some copies of Inside Triathlon and Triathlete magazine, and I'm reading a Star Wars book at the gym right now.

I'm really enjoying the gym right now! I'm also pretty focused on trying to lose weight. The show The Biggest Loser really caught my attention, as has Dr. Phil's Weight Loss Challenge. I have purchased a copy of Dr. Phil's book, and that's next on my reading list. In the meantime, I'm using the treadmill, stationary bike, weight machines, and pool, and actually enjoying breaking a sweat! Like many other times I've tried to exercise, I'm having major problems with shin splints on the treadmill, but everything else is going well. I've actually lost six pounds since I quit smoking, instead of gaining! It's not much, but it's a start!

One of the other big changes we had to make recently was my vehicle. I purchased my silver 1996 GMC Safari as a used vehicle in 1998, and it served me well. It was up to 189,000 miles, and had lived a long and useful life. It got to the point, though, where it was no longer a trustworthy vehicle, and then to the point where repairs would cost more than the vehicle was worth. This happened last week, unfortunately.

I was very, very attached to that van, and it was also one of the few vehicles that 6'6" DH had no problems fitting into. We were very fortunate, while car shopping, to find a low-mileage, white 2001 Chevy Astro (Chevy's version of the Safari, but basically the same van). It's almost like having my van back, only younger! (And cleaner!) We picked it up last Monday. Other than the fact that we will not enjoy having car payments again (our last car payment was made in 2001), I have been enjoying having a vehicle that I know can get me there and back safely!

2005-01-17T09:26:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't posted in a long while. A lot of this time has been spent just adjusting to changes. I haven't done any crafting, outside of a very little bit of cross stitch.

I believe I mentioned that DH okayed a 3-month gym membership as one of my Christmas gifts. That took effect on January 1, and I've been doing very well at getting to the gym. I am very tired, but I'm seeing lots of improvement in my fitness level.

The other changes I've been adjusting to are all related to not smoking. My Quit-Meter now reads 1 month, 2 weeks, 3 days. About a week or a week and a half ago I stopped using the patch (I still have enough Wellbutrin to go another month or so). I was just tired of changing it every day, and sick of getting the adhesive residue off when I took the patches off. Now there is no more incoming nicotine. I went through the eating phase again (mostly Bob's Sweet Stripes soft peppermints, and doublemint gum, but also some chips, pretzels etc) and now need to concentrate on getting my eating under control again. The good news is I've actually lost six pounds since I quit!

My latest project, even though I've touched it only infrequently, is the Mystic Stitch chart, Millenium. I hope to actually have enough done to take a picture one of these days!

2004-12-28T18:45:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, all, and a Happy New Year!!

I am now approaching 4 weeks of being a non-smoker! So far it's working out well. One of the gifts DH got me for Christmas is a 3-month membership to the only gym in the area that has a pool! The only thing is, my membership doesn't begin until January 1; I'll be there on Saturday, though!

Other than dealing with everyone being home, I've still been cross-stitching. My current project has been the Bag Ladies kit that my kids got me for Christmas last year. This is what it will eventually look like:

And this is my current progress on it:

Also, in my usual ADD fashion, I will be starting another picture soon. Actually, this is so common amongst cross stitchers that they actually have a name for it - it's called having a rotation. My rotation currently has five or six projects, including the ones I've posted about recently, and this one, that I'll be starting tonight:

The picture is titled Millenium. The original artwork is by Graeme Stevenson, and the charted version is by Mystic Stitch.

2004-12-23T10:15:00.000-05:00

Christmas is approaching far too quickly. The kids had their last day of school yesterday, and now are home until January 3rd. Well, DD had her last day of school - DS has been home with an on-and-off fever all week that has now developed into one heck of a cold.

Besides running around doing Christmas shopping and other errands, I've been working on the "Cats on a Staircase" stocking. I finally feel like I've made some progress on this:

We had our family holiday get-together last Saturday. We only stayed for a little while, because DD wasn't feeling well at that point, but my sister finally got her quilt! Despite the fact that I had it back from the machine quilter's for two months or so, I put the binding on Friday night. Procrastinating as usual! And in my normal procrastination mode, we still need to get a Christmas tree...

2004-12-14T16:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got a package from my Secret Santa! I have no idea at this point who she (he?) is, but I know the package came from Connecticut. This by itself means nothing - I've heard of Secret Santas who send a package to someone else to re-mail with a different address. Nevertheless, the whole Secret Santa gig is a lot of fun, and I had a great time putting together a package for my own giftee.

Anyway, this was a wonderful package! I did wait the requisite 5 or 10 minutes before tearing open the envelope.

The first thing I found was a bee-ooo-tiful Silver Lining chart! It's a picture of blue flowers (I believe they are pansies) and it's called "Peekaboo". I haven't started it yet, but then again, today's not over. Here's what it will look like:

The next thing I found was a very cute little Christmas card, signed by my Secret Santa. I never think of those little details! Now I wish I had!

Next, a small chart - "Peaceful Home", by JBW Designs. Just what I need right now, something I can *finish*!! LOL! I may do this one very soon!

Next, a baggie with some stitching supplies. There are always those things you can never have too much of - in this case, DMC needles and five skeins of floss. Upon closer examination, one of the skeins is a very shiny, sparkly purple, #5289. I've never seen this one before, and I'll need to find something to use this in very soon! Another picture:

The remainder of the padded envelope contained three wrapped packages. I actually had to stop and think about whether to open them or wait. DD sided with me and encouraged me to open them immediately. This brought to mind the current commercial where the woman is opening her presents, and her husband says, "Congratulations! You waited til December 18!" I have no idea what the commercial is for, but I like it!

In the first package was a beautiful sparkly, shiny, purply scissor fob!! I love this! I already told DH that the scissors with the fob (and I showed it to him so he'd know what a fob looks like) are not to be touched by anyone but me! I put it on the new scissors I just got at Yankee Cross Stitch a couple of weeks ago. Besides the fact that it's pretty and sparkly and purply, it has a THIMBLE charm on it!! This is wonderful, as I collect thimbles, and definitely did not have this one!

The second package was DMC floss bobbins, and a package of self-stick DMC floss numbers! Terrific! I'm always buying new floss for new projects (instead of checking the floss stash).

The third package was the never-goes-wrong gift, chocolate! A bar of Lindt (my FAVORITE brand of chocolate!!) milk chocolate! As I've only recently quit smoking and can't seem to stop eating for long, this is very welcome (and did I mention that Lindt is my FAVORITE brand of chocolate?)

I have to mention now that a couple of weeks ago my friend Cheryl made me a lovely scissor fob. It has a very pretty multi-colored heart on the end.

Alas, the lobster claw did not fit on my scissors. Yesterday, though, after I put the new fob on my scissors, I realized that Cheryl's fob would fit on the new fob! So I now have two fobs on my scissors, making them doubly off limits to the rest of the family! (That is how that works, right?)

2004-12-13T15:50:00.000-05:00

OK, here's the updated picture of Corner of the Villa, taken today:

I also realized that our family Christmas get-together is this Saturday. That means I absolutely, positively have to get the binding on my sister's quilt sometime this week!

2004-12-13T13:08:00.000-05:00

DH asked me when I was going to post to my blog. I figured if he was commenting on it, I've probably let it go a little too long, huh?

It has now been 1 week 5 days and counting since I quit smoking! I'm doing pretty well, as long as I don't run out of peppermint sticks and pretzels! I love what's called "soft" peppermint sticks; we can also buy them in small "puffed" balls, as opposed to the flat, circular hard peppermints.

I've been doing a lot of reading online and not much crafting, although I did take a picture last week of my meager progress on my "Corner of the Villa". Here's the updated picture:

I've actually gotten a little more done since I took that picture; it's looking a little more filled in now, and I'm starting to feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel - for page one, anyway! I think I need to pull out another picture to work on for a bit, one where I can actually see some progress.

I've also gotten almost all the Christmas shopping done. Today I need to get the presents out of the van and into hiding, before the kids find them!

2004-12-04T19:52:00.000-05:00

It has now been four days since I quit smoking - thank God for Wellbutrin and the patch! The first three days were very, very difficult; today was less so, and was the first day that I actually felt I might succeed at this without causing someone bodily harm or needing a padded room.

As encouragement and reward, DH took me to the not-so-local needlework shop, Yankee Cross Stitch. I picked up a new pair of embroidery scissors, a piece of 25-count black linen for this picture, and some floss bobbins. I also got one pattern - "The Ark" by Stoney Creek. I thought I had seen every Noah's Ark picture available (and own a few of them) but I didn't have this one, and had to get it!

I also got two kits. I have wanted both of these for a while, and have only been waiting for the right excuse. This was it! The first is a Sunset kit, called "The James-Younger Gang".

The second is a Dimensions kit called "Frederick the Literate." The designer, Charles Wysocki, has several cat-themed ones. I have one other, and am only mildly interested in the rest. I may change the fabric in this one; it is currently 14-count black Aida, and I really prefer 16-count or smaller fabrics.

On to day 5 without cigarettes, and hoping this gets easier as it goes along!

2004-11-23T15:20:00.000-05:00

Before and After

Ziggy before...

For those who don't know Ziggy, he's a Chinese Crested, powderpuff variety. He weighs about 10 lbs on a good day, but don't tell him that... he thinks he's just another Aussie. And while I think he's a cute scraggly little dog, in this picture he seriously needs a good grooming. He hasn't had a complete grooming for about six months. A complete grooming, for Ziggy, includes not just brushing out, but trimming the hair on his feet, trimming his nails, bathing, and shaving his ears and face.

And now, after just one all-day grooming session, here is Ziggy after!

All together now... Awwwww!! Isn't he cute? (And it's about time... as you can see from the pictures, the grooming was definitely needed!)