lunar landing!

the wing-of-the-moth, she is finished :-) friday morning at 4 a.m. the voting wasn't over til friday night, so mum was the word til now.


what a lovely pattern, thanks anne! i'll definitely knit this again, next time maybe i'll enjoy knitting it ;-)

and there is no way i can possibly sing praises highly enough for lisa souza! not only did lisa dye my yarn the exact lunar moth color, she blow dryed my mohair so it could go in the mail lickety split! gotta love that lisa :-)

i did swatch with a size smaller needle, as lisa warned me that her moho is slightly heavier than kidsilk haze. but did i go with my gut? no, i restarted with 6s...

major panic at the end, i ended up with ony a few strands of yarn left!



this wing-of-the-moth is so huge unblocked i reminds me of the great lunar moth from the original dr.doolittle!!!!







thanks cheryl, for getting the race together!
thanks to all my loyal supporters, i hope you win a prize!

the moho has landed!

how on earth am i ever going to catch up! beth has 13 repeats finished! yikes!
can't talk, must knit.
adding to the prize patrol-



2 skeins of lorna's laces sheperd sock, pick a color, purple iris, mocha, jeans. knitter's choice :-)

honey what's for dinner?

how about some frozen mohair?





on a finishing frenzy while waiting for my lisa souza mohair to arrive.

froze wrapped in traditon to make it easier to tink the crocheted picot edge. it needed to be a bit tighter. off for a bath and blocking. knit with douceur et soie color 8845.


next in the bath- seraphim. knit early in the summer with elsbeth lavold silky wool color 13. love the color and the texture.

then river got a relaxing bath and blocking, i knit it a bit longer than the 50 1/2 inches of the pattern, blocked at 54 inches. alchemy haiku, color montreat path, i love this yarn, with 40% silk and 60% mohair, it has just the right amount of fuzz :-)


tom's pullover is next in the bath. used rosemary's middle sized sweater from the green mountain spinnery book and rowan aranspun color gable (discontinued). i didn't block it on the woolly board as i wanted to keep the ribbing intact.

last in the bath were the 2 skeins of bfl handspun. firesong fibers, lavender fields no website. spun on the betty roberts wheel. much happier with the yarn after it's bath. after the spinning it felt a little ropey. after the bath it's much loftier :-)

modelling shots-

wrapped in tradition-

seraphim-

river- romi's amber shawl pin is the perfect finishing touch!




tom's pullover will have to wait for tom ;-)

model dedication? the temperature was 96 in the shade.

the gloves are off!

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

oh fsm, why didn't i have lisa overnight the frickin' yarn?

innocently, oh so innocently, i ordered anne's gorgeous wing-of-the-moth pattern. then perused lisa souza's yarn for some moho. ah yes, seafoam (the color lisa matched a fabric swatch for me for legend of the shetland seas shawl) will make a lovely moth.

innocently, innocently i email cheryl with my yarn choice. heh heh, she replies, would you like to join our friendly insert devil horns and tail little race. why yes, there will be betting, and prizes (will find something pretty my dears to add to the prize stash).

now i'm wishing i had the yarn overnighted. those other knitters competition are so far ahead. julia has 10 frickin' fir cones finished! beth is motoring along, erin has 7 repeats done. anne wrote the pattern, so she has the homecourt advantage. carole claims she hasn't started yet, we shall see if she has been stealth knitting. i see many sleepless nights ahead...........

wish me luck, and god speed mr.postman!

p.s. funny thing, i bought my son the teeshirt this summer with the morale logo. and some pirate lounging pants.

spinning for sanity

no wait, that's sorta already been taken ;-)

taking the betty roberts out for a spin. wow, what a lovely workhorse she is. i was lucky enough to get this wheel secondhand (thanks phoebe!). it is a fascinating wheel, there are 2 wheels, a large 28" outer wheel, and a small 15" inner wheel. you can spin on either wheel by means of an ingenious sliding flyer setup.

please check out the photos of the walnut wheel on phoebe's page. for some ungodly reason, i cannot get blogger to upload photos and it's driving me bonkers.

the wheels are both inset with flowers, butterflies, and mushrooms all set in a green resin.


be prepared to wipe the drool off your chin if you go to the betty roberts spinning wheel yahoo group and look at all the photos.

firesong fibers no website bluefaced leicester lavender fields.





bobbin #1




bobbin #2




all was going swimmingly til i got to bobbin #3, something was not right, it wasn't taking up. took the bobbin off the flyer, it was sticking slightly. i remembered judith mackenzie saying that sometimes new schacht bobbins do this, and you need to ream out the hole.


hmm, took my handy dandy reamer (usually used for reaming out the hole in a nantucket basket base for the ivory plug).



then i grabbed tom's gun cleaning kit, used the small brass bristle bush to clean any small pieces out. worked like a charm :-)














saturday sky for sandy.




we have beautiful huge pine trees in our front yard, the 2 on the ends have just died and we need to have them cut down. we lost 2 last spring. i am afraid there is some sort of beetle infestation, and worry that they will all be gone. the wind makes a lovely sound when it whistles through the pine needles.

P is for

perfectionist. i was going to say persnickety until i looked up the meaning online.

river's instructions tell you to use the lace cast on, so i used sharon miller's cast on in her heirloom lace book. knit knit knit. get ready to cast off. i wanted them to match, so i doodled with ez's sewn cast off, i think the match pretty well.

cast on


cast off



cast off in action. nice and stretchy :-)

yarn- alchemy haiku montreat path 2 skeins, plenty left over.

needles- lantern moon circs size 8. 17 pattern repeats.

oh fsm, it is way past time for a marathon blocking session...

thanks for all the comments re: the nutcase.

what do you do when

you get a phone call at 3:40 on sunday morning from the police that your house has been broken into, and do you want to press charges on the girl- hell yes!

you bake muffins.



i am sick of this nutcase. she is my step-son's ex-girlfriend. they dated only a few months and have been broken up for over a year. this time she threw the main cuircit breaker to the house thinking it would cut off the alarm, luckily the alarm has a battery back up. so when the police came, there was no power on in the house, and the front door was open. the canine unit found her in a closet. now, you'd think if you set off a house alarm you'd leave, right? guess not.

had to drive 2 1/2 hours home to lock the frickin' door, then tom saw that she had trashed the pool first, all the patio furniture, and all the huge potted plants (now broken) in the pool.

this is the second time she has broken into the house, the first time tom and i were in chicago, step-son didn't tell us til last week. and he didn't have her arrested. she has also driven her car into our garage, and been arrested outside our house. charming. this is not a teenager, she's 33.

so now you know why i've been incognito, i'm so ready to be back in hibernation in lake placid. south florida has too many wackos. i debated whether or not to put this on the blog, but i've been too upset not to.




oh, and i've been knitting river, the stole from rowan 38 by sharon miller. using some lovely dyed mohair from alchemy, montreat path. i made a chart for the pattern, my brain can't deal with written rows any longer.



saturday's sky a little late.

lacing away

on the thin ice of a new dayayaayayaaaa. too much a product of the 70s.

if only i could wear mohair, but alas it is too itchy for me. luckily both dd and ddil have rhinohides. this mohair is douceur et soie, color mocha 8845.



the pattern is wrapped in tradition from the wrap style book. the edging was a b*tch, every row is patterned. but once you graft the edge stitches together, it is knit in the round with a plain knit row inbetween. tinking is not fun with mohair.


got some addi naturas, as i didn't want to knit this yarn with regular addis. omg, what wonderful needles! nice sharp points and smooth joins. these are from the yarn shoppe in north miami, very nice customer service.



saturday sky, a little late.

thanks for all the kind cape cod words! sue and anne, i can't figure out a way to email you with a thank you note.