more babies!

two more calves :-) they are so cute! the first one was creamy colored, the next one was grey, and the last is more white. we haven't named them yet. there are more to come...






daisy is the mother of the grey, and cookie is the mother of the white.
we are a little worried about tippy tail, the first mom, she is very thin. but dd says she looked better when she brought the hay yesterday afternoon. tippy has always looked more like a donkey than a cow, the man who built our pole barn called her "wormy". i love tippy the most, she is the tamest of all the cows :-)


the daddy.


please send some second sleeve mojo my way, am trying to psyche myself up for poor neglected donegal. would like to wear it to madrona next week.......(hah)

c is for calf

i was too late to join the abc-along, but couldn't resist the c.
tippy tail (my favorite cow) just had a baby bull calf last week. dd took the photo. we have one more baby bull, daisy is the mom, no photo of him yet.
cathy, they are from our charolais bull :-) the mamas are black!


swatching, swatching. couldn't decide what to knit for harlot's olympic knit challenge, then i saw this knitting off the cuff team. we don't need no stinking patterns ;-0

the yarn is jamieson's soft shetland, from when they had their close-out sale. color is peppercorn, and i wish i had more, it's a lovely brown-green tweed with flecks of rust. i'm thinking ganseyish design, with this rib from nancy bush's knitting on the road conwy socks as the hem. plain body, and maybe a modification of the rib in the yoke. my man doesn't care for fussy sweaters. it's tough designing a man's sweater that's fairly plain, but still attractive and not too boring to knit.


plain stockinette and yummy wool, what could be finer?

p.s. thanks for all the basket compliments :-) i think i emailed everyone privately, but if i missed someone, thanks!

nous sommes finis

ok, i haven't taken french in a long time, so if i spelled something wrong, please don't write ;-)



the baskets, they are done!







everyone did a wonderful job!!! they are all beautiful :-)
karen wove a tall 10" oval purse with double handles, phyllis wove a 9" oval purse with a walnut handle, carol wove a 9" flatback purse with a leather strap, and i wove an 8" round topped basket, still to get it's walnut handle.


karol lindquist, our teacher, is in the middle.
i must admit i'm glad the class is over, it was a very intense (but rewarding) 5 days. was too pooped at night to knit a stitch, and am woefully behind on all my blogs and lists.

this weekend, karen, phyllis, and our dhs are headed to the east coast. am trying to find the socks i started a long time ago for some mindless knitting.

p.s. i look slightly demented in the photo with my basket..

i thought i was tagged ;-)

The Meme
Four jobs you've had in your life:

1. bartender (over 20 years)
2. waitress
3. needlepoint store
4 antique furniture refinisher


Four movies you could watch over and over again:

1. sleepless in seattle
2. overboard
3. urban cowboy
4. sabrina (the original audrey hepburn)


Four places you have lived:

1. westchester, illinois
2. silverton, colorado
3. delray beach, florida
4. lake placid, florida


Four t.v. shows you watch

1. gilmore girls
2. alias
3. medium
4. jeopardy


Four places you've been on vacation:

1. england
2. victoria, b.c.
3. new mexico, colorado
4. nantucket


Four websites you visit daily:

1. 80 million blogs
2. ebay
3. all my yahoogroups
4. spinners and weavers housecleaning pages

Four of your favorite foods:

1. dark chocolate
2. dark chocolate
3. dark chocolate
4. pizza


Four places you would rather be right now:

1. colorado
2. new mexico
3. nantucket
4. anywhere with tom

i had a whole bloody post done this morning, then got that f***ing internet explorer has encountered a problem message, grrrr. had to run to class, no time to repost :-(

celtic celebration!

i LOVE this celtic poncho! and so does dd. actually i think the color looks fantastic on her, so it's hers.

fun fun fun knit, the black water abbey yarn softened up wonderfully.

the pattern was easy to knit, and i love the 2 cables together, they complement each other beautifully.

thanks for all the comments! it's really fun to hear from people on the net that i don't even know :-)

don't know how much knitting time i'll have in the next week. my basket teacher, karol lindquist is comimg tomorrow,and i'm driving to fort myers to pick her up. our class starts on saturday. i'm making an 8" round topped basket. turned the top and bottom last summer on nantucket, so i'm all set to go :-)

chachachachachanges

just a few mods to the celtic poncho pattern. the pattern has you bind off the stitches for the neck opening, then knit up both sides of the neck, cast on the same amount of stitches , then continue for the other half of the poncho (i hate that word, must think of something else to call it).



instead, i placed the stitches that would have been bound off on a piece of yarn, knit the 2 sides of the neck as in the pattern, then did a provisional cast on for the cast on stitches.



don't know if there is any advantage to doing it as written in the pattern, but i hope mine will look neater.



almost forgot, on the 2 sides of the neck, the pattern says to just knit stockinette if you don't have enough sts for a whole cable repeat. instead, i did i slight mod of the cable pattern, and continued the cables. keep your fingers crossed for me!

love in a box

my man in brown came through ;-) and lookie what he brought just for me, black water abbey yarn in autumn. it's not soft like virtual yarns hebredian, but the color is awesome, and i don't plan on having it next to my skin. i might not have it at all, dd loves the pattern...



was swatching like a mad fiend, the pattern calls for 7s, but i was going down, down, down needle size.

swatches lie. the next day i knit whole moss stitch border, all 3", then measured, oh no, the gauge is too tight! but i'm confused, even though my gauge is way too tight, it is the right measurement for the pattern - 44". math is not my strong suit, but even i can divide 212 by 4, and it ain't 44. hmm, maybe it a typo.

so frog, frog, and start again with 7s. now the gauge is right. taking a tape measure and draping it over my shoulders, 44" seems way to short on the arms anyway. 53" looks better.



am really enjoying the pattern stitches, the cable combinations and the gold tweed are lovely together. and i'm hoping the yarn will bloom. but must take a break, as my right arm is killing me from knitting too long with big needles ;-)

happy friday the thirteenth!

perfectly pressed pieces

the other day on fibertraditions, caroline asked how we blocked knitting. usually i wet block after the whole garment is sewn together.



kimberly is a good exception. because the pieces are stockinette, they curled badly.
and since you have to sew the stranded inserts into the vents on the back and sleeves, i wanted to make sure the inserts fit properly. hence the steam blocking with a wet towel. they do look a hell of a lot better ;-)



next i have to duplicate stitch the colors into the inserts, then sew together, knit up the collar and the button bands.

as per usual, i am bored to tears by this stage of the game, and looking for any excuse to play with something else.

there is a kal coming up for the sweaters from camp book. i have always loved the snow sky sweater. since i can't wear shetland yarn (too itchy) must look for a sub. at rhinebeck, a vendor had the most lovely fingering weight merino in natural colors. now where did i put all those business cards....

ah, the joys of being persnickety (anal)

yesterday, i knit up the 3 borders on kimberly's vents. but something just was not right, on the bottom edge, there were these little pieces hanging down. if you were piecing a quilt, they would be called dog ears.



the pattern has you double decrease every row at the center, but no decreasing at the beginning and ending of the rows (the bottom edge.)



so i ripped them back to the pick-up, and started over, this time decreasing one stitch at the beginning and end of every odd row.
viola, no dog ears :-) all is right with the world.

where is that bloody ups man?

where is that man in the brown shorts?

luckily for kimberly, the ups man hasn't delivered the black water abbey autumn yarn for the celtic poncho today.

so i finished the even more finicky borders on the vents. the fiddly stranded inserts get sewn into the vents on the sleeves and back.



first i divided one side of the vent onto 4 parts with pins. then picked up 57 sts. pick up one stitch in the center (with the coil-less pin) then back down the other side picking up another 57 sts.



the border is a sweet little reverse stockinette thing, wouldn't be bad once, but you have to do all this 3 times...



here is the insert. none of the pieces have been blocked yet, but i remeasured the back at the armhole, and it's exactly the width i want. perfect, now i can steam block it and not wet block it.



my little madaket, isn't she adorable? i love her more than words can ever say :-)

a sky for sandy

funny how the blogosphere takes over. i looked out the window, saw this sunset, and immediately thought i must take a photo for the blog.
we do get some lovely sunsets here in lake placid.

robin, robin the hooded man

not being a poncho person, i really don't understand why i cannot resist this one. maybe it's because this pattern reminds me of something from my past.







was i the only one mesmerized by bbc's robin hood in the 1980s? i loved this show, it appealed to me on so many levels. robin was hot, and i love medieval history. in college, it was the only class i enjoyed, the rest of my college experience sucked.



but this robin hood , i loved the characters, i loved the costumes, but most of all, i think i loved the music. clannad gets into my soul.

kimberly is plugging along, have all the major bits done, just have to knit one more of the fiddly, and i do mean fiddly, inserts. will kimberly be finished? she better hope the celtic pattern and bwa yarn don't arrive quickly!

hard to believe

that this

will become this.

ah, the power of blocking.

the last bits of kimberly you saw were sent to the pond. got to the armhole of the back, measured, yikes wwwaaaayyyyy to big. not a good thing to try and figure out the maths at 2:30 in the morning. still can't figure it out, since the gauge is spot on.

so frogged, and reknit the small size instead of the large size. it still will be a tiny bit too big. one thing i learned from the red koigu raglan is, if there is no ribbing at the hem, make the sweater more fitted in the hips. otherwise you will look like the liberty bell. not very attractive.

kimberly is really the zen of knitting, nifty little pique edge at the bottom, then miles and miles of stockinette with tiny needles and lovely vibrant hebredian 2 ply. if only i were going to be buried instead of creamated, i would be surrounded by koigu and hebredian 2-ply.

if i ever get to meet priscilla gibson-roberts, i would kiss her feet. the woman's uncrossed eastern (or anne modesitt's combination) knitting has totally changed my knitting for the better. my purl rows used to be the bane of my existence. now my stockinette is sweet perfection. thank you priscilla :-)