"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

9/30/07

Mystery Sock Marathon

I have been knitting like crazy the last two days in an effort to get an S by my name on the SAM4KAL. I can say it now. My Mystery Socks for September are done! Here they are-still warm after blocking (I steam block). I wanted to get them posted on the KAL blog as soon as possible, so didn't wait for them to dry before taking the pic. I took the picture outside, and it's raining out today anyway, so it doesn't make much difference if they're dry or not.


Pattern:
Mystery Socks from Socktopia Knit Along. (I killed 2 birds with one stone-heh heh.)

Yarn: Fearless Fibers Classic Merino Wool sock yarn in the Navajo Colorway.

Needles: Two size 3 Addi Turbo circulars.

Comments: I really enjoyed this pattern. It was kind of fun knitting without knowing what was going to be coming off the needles. I don't really care for this type of heel though. The next pair I make I'm putting my favorite kind of heel in it instead of this one. I wish I knew what kind of heel this is so I could tell you. It was an odd one.

Again, I used the non-cable needle method of doing the cables.

I didn't wait for toe instructions. After the odd heel I decided to do my own favorite toe. After all, I'm the one that's gonna be wearing these things.

The colors pooled, but I like it this way. They work good with the pattern.

Have a nice evening.

9/29/07

Babysitting the Grandkitty

I am taking care of the Grandkitty this weekend while his Mommy is out of town. This requires a trip into town to my daughters apartment and spending time with Meadowlark. Feed him, water him, scoop his box, and cuddle him for a bit. This is what my daughter requested I do-spend a bit of time with him each day. She is worried Meadowlark will be lonely while she's gone. He's doing fine. I sat and knitted for about half an hour too, until he'd had enough attention and started ignoring me. He thinks my Addi Turbo circular needles are fun to play with.

I am to the heel of the second Mystery Sock! I think I'll get this done before the month ends. I so want to have an S next to my name on the SAM4KAL blog.

So much for not seeing a moose the past few days. One hummer of a BIG mama dropped by. Man, she made Miss Molly look like a mouse in comparison. She ate the top off one of the new flowering cherries, without even having to stretch her neck. I'm glad we had the little fence around it. She'd have eaten the whole thing! There would have been nothing left but a skinny little stump. I'm wishing that fence had been just a bit taller. The tree should be okay though. Just the top 6 inches got eaten.

Sarah's boyfriend has asked me if I'll knit him a sweater. Wow! Someone actually WANTS me to knit them a sweater. How cool is that! I'm liking him more and more each day.

Have a great day.

9/28/07

Fridays Feast 9/28/07

Satellite dish fixer called at 7 this morning. A very nice and polite sounding young man. He wanted to know what the problem was with our dish so he could pack the proper possible-replacement-parts.

I said "A moose banged his antlers on the dish. We think it's been knocked out of alignment."

He said "Excuse me, what?"

I said "A moose banged his antlers on the dish."

He said "A moose......banged???"......silence.

I said "His antlers, yes, on the dish." A pause of disbelief on the other end.

He said "Oh wow, I better bring another dish then, just in case."

It's going to be an interesting day.


Fridays Feast

Appetizer
How are you today?
Pretty good actually.


Soup
Name 3 television shows you watch on a regular basis.
CSI, Survivor, Boston Legal


Salad
What’s the scariest weather situation you’ve experienced?
July 9, 1995 we had a 10 minute 'storm'. The neighbors and the sheriffs who were visiting the neighbors (no one has said they're good neighbors) told us it was a tornado-they saw the funnel. But the resulting damage looked more like wind shear.


We were on the other end of the Parkarosa, at Dan and Sue's house, putting bean poles up in the garden when a fierce storm came screaming down the mountains behind their house. We dashed for the front porch and watched in wonder as wind and rain suddenly lashed with the sound of a freight train and a vengeance I've never seen before. In 10 minutes it was over. It was terrifying. It was then that my nephew told us there'd been a tornado warning on the radio.


A few minutes later we discovered the big huge fir tree in the back yard had been wrenched out by the roots and thrown down on top of Dans truck. We got worried about our house, so Dan and Sweet Hubby hopped in the car to drive the mile to the other end of the Parkarosa and check things out. They came back in less than five minutes. Hundreds of trees were down on the road. They needed a chain saw.


It took a couple hours to get to the house. We discovered it was fine. In fact, I had 6 very tall and leggy tomato plants sitting in pots on the deck and they were still standing. However, our lawn was covered with hundreds of trees. The dark and spooky woods were gone. (That's what my daughters liked to call it.)

Basically, the way the neighbors tell it, a tornado touched down just across the highway from Dans house onto our big field, plowed through the center of our property-all the way to the other end, jogged around our house, then lifted back up again and dissipated. On it's way it snapped the trees off like toothpicks or yanked them out of the ground and slammed them down. Trees 400 years old and 4 to 5 feet in diameter were nothing to the wind that roared through. It wiped out 70% of our forest. Everything was laying in the same direction-which is why we speculate wind shear, because tornadoes tend to make a jumbled mess. Very weird looking. It was one of those once in 500 years events. People drove from all over to come see it.

For us, it was extremely traumatic. Especially for my husband and his siblings. They'd grown up with those trees. It completely changed our environment and gave us years of clean up to do. I used to love the sound of the wind. Now I get anxiety attacks when I hear it.


Main Course
If you could wake up tomorrow morning in another country, where would you want to be?
Australia. I've always wanted to see it.


Dessert
What do you usually wear to sleep?
A nightgown. Usually of the short, t-shirt style variety. Sometimes, if it's an especially cold night, I like to donn my leopard print satin pajamas.


Have a great day.

9/27/07

Stamp It Done!

I have finished the Aran Baby Sweater. Have you ever seen anything so cute in all your life? Now I remember why I like the pattern so much. Cute as a button!



I was concerned that the brightness of the yellow might make this sweater look dorky, but in fact it doesn't. I've thrown it in the washing machine now. I'm hoping washing will soften the yarn up a bit.

Here is a bracelet I made last Saturday while teaching my Right Angle Weave class. I wanted to make something to go with the shirt I bead embroidered. I used the same beads-size 11 black opaque and silver lined matte teal, and some size 8 copper triangles. I also used aqua 4mm crystals. These crystals are the exact same shade as my shirt, though you wouldn't know it looking at this picture.



My left hand still aches from Sundays bead crochet marathon. Specifically my index finger and thumb, and the muscles between them. I need to take on some sort of crochet project to build up those muscles. I've been wanting to do the Looney Tunes pattern set (Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat, Tasmanian Devil, and Tweety Bird) by Leisure Arts ever since the book came out several years ago. (I was gonna link to someone who has that for sale, but it's out of print!) I have all the yarn for all four pals. Where will I fit it in my day????

We have not seen any moose for a few days, but we are thick with deer. I'm seeing several every day. Yesterday evening there were 7 at the bottom of the hill. Tommy is getting lots of exercise barking his head off and boinging up and down when he sees them.

Did I tell you I finally got the courage to call Dish Network about our satellite dish problems? That was Tuesday. After wading my way through the voice mail obstacle course, I finally got to talk to human Roxanne, a really nice person. She asked what the problem is. I asked "are you sitting down?" I told her my story. I got a giggle out of her, then a "wow, are you kidding?" She set up a visit for tomorrow from someone who should be able to fix it for me. I have to pay for the visit, but then, I wouldn't expect them to repair it for free. The moose broke it. Not a manufacturing defect whatsoever. Now, if I could get the moose to pay for the repair--but that's silly.

Have a good day.

9/26/07

Plodding Along

I have finished knitting the back of the swim suit cover. Hurray! I went ahead and read through the rest of the instructions, to refresh the memory, and have come across a problem. When you are done with the shoulders of the front piece, you are to attach them to the stitches of the back piece shoulders via the 3-needle bind off. Except that the instructions tell you to bind off all the stitches of the back when you are done. So there are none to 3-needle to. However, not to worry. Standard practice for me is to put shoulder stitches on holders for just this purpose, so I did not bind off the back shoulders. I kind of wish the pattern proofreader had caught that though. It could cause real confusion for a less experienced knitter. I guess I'll have to lob an email to Vogue Knitting (who's web site has been down for ages).

I have blocked the aran baby cardigan pieces. Waiting for them to dry now.

Running out of September so I guess I better get my second Mystery Sock done.

I found a very nice E-book this morning on beaded ornament covers by Glenda Payseno. You'll find it at Ready to Bead, an online beading pattern catalogue, also discovered this morning.

Web surfing is what I did in place of the private beading lesson I was scheduled to do. It was canceled because the student is ill. I'm so glad she canceled. I appreciate her unwillingness to share the germs.

In beading news--I have conquered a puzzle. I saw a photo of a Cellini piece some months ago that had me intrigued. Instead of the usual spiral stripes, it had a white diamond pattern on a black background. I just HAD to figure out how to do that. Putting patterns in a Cellini spiral is a fascinating idea! The gal who made the one in the photo was unwilling to share that information, so I've been experimenting around. I'd think I had it, then discover I didn't. Well, I know for sure I have it now. It is quite complicated. I shall post a picture of it when I'm done. Mine will be different than hers in that hers is quite large-more an art piece than something wearable. I want to actually wear mine, so I'm making a considerably smaller bracelet.

9/24/07

My Hand Aches

Note to self: Don't do bead crochet non-stop for 4 hours without taking proper rests. My left hand hurts like crazy. I got so excited about what I was doing I dropped into 'obsess' mode and forgot to come up for air. I have a lovely bracelet for my efforts though.


It was a good weekend. On Saturday morning Ruth came home for a visit. It was so good to see her. We didn't do much. Watched DVDs, took a trip to Costco, mostly talked. That was the best part. Talking with her. As my daughters get older I enjoy them more and more. It's great being able to have grown up conversations with them. They're so intelligent and whatnot that we can talk about really interesting stuff. Oh yes, we went to International House of Pancakes for lunch yesterday. I had Fruit Crepe Fever. Heh heh. They were scrumptious!

I taught my Right Angle Weave class on Saturday. I only had one student, but it went well. She had a finished bracelet at the end of class time. She really liked doing it too. I'd say I've created another obsessed bead weaver. She bought lots of beads to make more bracelets before she went home.

Ruth brought home a couple jewelry items she was hoping I could repair for her. One was a necklace made of black cylinders, washers, and round pewter beads on a leather cord. The leather was toast. It was pretty easy to fix. I just got some cord (satin instead of leather cos it'll last longer), restrung the thing, and voila!

The second jewelry item was a bracelet I think was a gift from one of her friends. She got it caught in her printer a couple years ago (an accident-it fell of the desk into the printer and got caught in the paper rollers). It consists of some enameled metal medieval axes connected together by oval jump rings. There were a few pieces missing, and the clasp was broken. I don't have any oval jump rings so I used round ones. There was an ax missing too. So what I did was remove the 6 oval jump rings that were still on the bracelet, put round jump rings in their place, then put the oval jump rings on the ends between the bracelet and the clasp (3 on each side). I put a toggle clasp on it. Then I hung a little pewter dragon charm on one link near the clasp (dragons and medieval go together, right?). She loves it. I'm so happy.

Sunday afternoon I got a bee in my bonnet for bead crochet. I've been wanting to make a bangle bracelet using size 8 beads.

It all started when I taught myself tubular brick stitch last week. I've been wanting to try it because it looks like bead crochet. I was kind of hoping for a texture similar to crochet too. Alas, tubular brick stitch is quite stiff, even though I tried my best to be loose about it. It's pretty, but I doubt I'll do it again.

My disappointment in that charged me for the crochet. I strung and crocheted the whole thing last night. It was fun. I much prefer using the 8's rather than 11's.

My left hand sure aches now. I've always had left hand ache problems with crochet. I probably need to grip things a little looser. I tend to squeeze the life out of it.

I managed to get a little bit of knitting done. I've added a bit to the Mystery Sock, and I'm just about finished with the back for the swimsuit cover.

This morning I headed to Cindy's for our weekly walk. Unfortunately, I did not check my cell phone for messages before I left. Turns out the walk was canceled. So I came home and took the boys for a walk on the Parkarosa. I wore them out. They're both sound asleep now. I wouldn't mind taking a nap myself.

Have a great day.

9/21/07

Fridays Feast 9/21/07

I had the good sense to pick the partially ripe tomatoes and bring them in the house to finish ripening yesterday. I heard it was going to be 41 degrees in Spokane/Coeur d'Alene overnight. That means a super dip under 32 here. I was right. My tomato plants are now dark green slime. It was fun while it lasted.

I have 3 inches done on the second Mystery Sock. Cool!

I spent most of yesterday moving photos from my Flickr web album to Picasa. My introductory 'pro' version of Flickr is about to expire, and what you get for free isn't enough for my purposes. besides, Picasa is much easier to use. I will still hold on to my Flickr album, cos I need it for putting pics on Ravelry. For now, though, Picasa will be the main album.

I have a COOL new banner. I created it at Cool Text , a free logo/banner creating web site, then modified it myself with Paintshop Pro.

Here's todays Fridays Feast:

Appetizer
What is your favorite type of art?
Music. It touches all my emotions.


Soup

When was the last time you got a free lunch (or breakfast or dinner)? Who paid for it?
Lets see, I'm not going to count the ones my husband paid for because technically, that's not free, since what is his is mine and vice versa. My daughter and her boyfriend bought me lunch a few weeks or so ago. I think that was the last time.


Salad

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how emotional are you?
11


Main Course

Approximately how long do you spend each day responding to emails?
About an hour.


Dessert

To what temperature do you usually set your home’s thermostat?
70 degrees for day, 55 for night. Actually had to turn the furnace on yesterday. Yup, summer is definitely toast. Waaaaaahhhhhhh........!


Have a great day!

9/20/07

Hey! Get Away From That Dish!

A couple nights ago Sweet Hubby and I were watching the Colbert Report on the Comedy Central channel. Tommy started acting weird. First, he paced back and forth back and forth. Then he started circling the couch like a shark--around and around. Then he went over to the back door and sniffed at the bottom of it. Then he was circling and sniffing, circling and sniffing. Finally, I said to Sweet Hubby "There must be something outside." Sweet Hubby said "I'll go check." and out he went. After he stepped outside, we lost the satellite signal on the television. A minute later Sweet Hubby came back in and said "Where's the flashlight?" I handed it to him, then stepped out in the dark with him. You could hear the strangest sound down the hill-like someone banging metal pipes together. Antlers and Nubs were visiting. Antlers was banging his antlers on the satellite dish! Our dish hasn't been working quite right now. We're having trouble getting the HD channels.

I am trying to work up the courage to call Dish Network and ask for a repairman to come out and check our dish because "a moose broke it".

Have a good day.

9/19/07

Pics from the Parkarosa

These are some pics I took around the Parkarosa yesterday and this morning.

My husband is a genius! A couple weeks ago or so I mentioned we got some 10 ft. flowering cherry trees from Home Depot at the incredible price of $19 apiece. Here is one of them. Sweet Hubby has figured out a way to protect them from the Moose carnage. It's kind of hard to see, but he put a tube of fence wire on top of four 1x1 'legs' around the tree. He put one around the Honey Crisp Apple tree too. So now my baby trees are safe from harm.


I am forced to do it. I must say goodbye to summer. Sigh. This group of Choke Cherries across the road from the mailbox talked me into giving up the denial. The pine needles all over the lawn in the above picture helped too. Ponderosa Pines drop needles like deciduous trees drop leaves. They just don't drop all of them. That's how they keep their little puffballs of needles on the ends of each branch, even though the branches grow longer each year. Out with the old, in with the new.


I think I can pick that top right one now. Really, as tomato plants go, this is pretty pathetic. But it has fruit that is almost ripe! That is a small wonder. Growing them on the deck is working. We've had several frosty mornings now and they're still alive and well. If they'd been in the garden, I'd have lost them weeks ago.


One of the Chrysanthemums refuses to give up. I appreciate it's courage.


The new railing on the deck. It is so pretty. I'm very very impressed with my husbands building skills. I especially like the little copper decoration he put on the newel post. Chenille jumped up there as soon as she saw the camera pointed this way. She loves to pose for pics. Ignore the junk in front of the deck. We're not done with it yet. There is trim to install.


Such a diva!

Silver was warming himself in the morning sun, with his usual dignity.


This pic was taken Monday morning. Proof! that Chenille is not really afraid of Tommy. She likes to let him think she is. But, when it came to the warm blankie on a chilly morning, on the couch with Daddy, all bets were off.


I'm on to you my fine feline friend.

Have a great day.

9/18/07

Some Semi and Finished Objects (FO's)

I got the camera out for todays post.

Here are the sleeves for the baby aran cardigan. Aren't they cute? I need to block and sew the sweater together. Then I'll be able to put on the collar and button bands.



This is the current state of my swimsuit cover. 17 inches of lace. I get to shape armholes next.


This is one of the two cabs I did as sample models for the beaded cabochon class I taught recently. Daughter Ruth helped pick the colors for the beads. The transparent pinky/peachy sort of color was a stroke of genius on her part. I'm in the process of making a 3-bead netted strap to hang it on using those and some size 15's in the red color of the triangles.


This is a pink quartz cab someone gave me. I decided to go with pink, blue, and silver beads for this one. I love the little silver picot edging in size 15's. However, this cab is just a little too plain for my taste. So I'm going to embellish it somehow. Maybe a peyote ribbon, and flowers, or something.


I just finished this netted ornament cover last night. I started it while teaching a class on making netted ornament covers last Saturday. I like to bead along with the students. It makes it easier to explain what they need to do.


This is the shirt I did the bead embroidery on. I bought this shirt last spring to do just this on it. However, it took something major to motivate me to actually get it done, didn't it? A sudden private lesson. Heh heh....


Here is a detail close up. I back stitched the beads on, going forward 3, backward 2. I used size 11 seeds in opaque black and silver-lined dark teal, and some size 8 copper triangles. I am very happy with the color combination. It's fun adding a little bling to something plain, and this was so easy!


That's all for now.

Have a nice evening.

9/17/07

Me-All, Canadian Thistle-0 Whoo hoo!

I have just spent the entire day pulling weeds out of the big flower bed along the back side of the house. I had some guys coming to clean my windows and decided I would do the right thing and not make them suffer pain and agony while they worked. 98% of the weeds were Canadian Thistle, most in front of the windows-natch. I pulled every single one of those suckers out! 6 wheelbarrow loads full! I have to say, I am very very pleased with the beauty bark we put in last fall and this spring. It doesn't stop the weeds from growing, but it sure makes them a LOT easier to pull out.

I got some special gloves for this project. I splurged and bought myself a pair of real leather gardening gloves. Usually I use the cloth ones, but they are no protection against Canadian Thistle thorns. Ha ha! The leather was totally impervious.

I also did this job at great risk to myself. The thistles were covered with yellow jackets. I'm not sure why that was, but I had to spray the weeds with Ortho wasp/hornet/jacket killer first and let it do it's dirty deed. Then I had to very carefully pull each one so as not to accidentally touch any part of my body with the plant, lest I get stung.

It's not particularly cold out. But the Jackets were pretty slow. I would have thought they'd have been buzzing around my head trying to do me harm, but they didn't. Must be in the mid to upper 70's. It was perfect for weeding. A nice gentle cool breeze was blowing. I really enjoyed myself. There's nothing quite like the feeling of getting all the weeds out of a flower bed so it looks pretty again. I have clean windows to look through too! How sweet is that?!

Yesterday I got to teach the bead embroidery lesson. My student called to tell me Wednesday wasn't going to work, so could I do Sunday. I had plans, but they weren't set in cement, so I dumped them. It went very well. It is always so amusing when I tell someone "this is really easy to do" and I get the "oh yeah, right'!" with the rolling of the eyes response. Then 30 minutes later you hear them say "Is this all there is to it???" Heh heh. That happened.

The mailman delivered a package today. This book:


In Russian it says "The Art of Beaded Weaving". The author is M. Ya. Anufrieva. It's a 'rare' beading book, known here in the U.S. as 'the white russian book', that was published in Russia. I found it on Ebay for a very reasonable price. I thought it was coming from Alaska, but as it turns out, it was shipped all the way from Moscow, Russia. My daughters boyfriend has dibbs on the postage stamps that came with it. I am SO excited to have it. There isn't a word of English in it, but the charts and graphs are so good you don't need words. The eye candy is awesome.

If you should desire to get this book, troll for it on Ebay. It shows up every once in awhile. There are two versions of it. The original version was published in 1999 and has blue trim, rather than red trim. The revised version (the one I got) was published in 2002 and has red trim. What ever you do, I'd advise against Amazon.com. It's listed at 500 bucks on there--which is a ridiculous price to pay.

Morgan is doing great.

I think I'm gonna reward myself for a job well done today and go play for awhile--with beads.

Have a great evening.

9/15/07

Morgan Is Home

As it turns out, Morgans problem was not his kidneys. Which has us all wondering about the last time. His kidneys are fine, but his immune system is running on overdrive, killing off the red blood cells. That's what happened before, but we thought it was kidneys causing the immune problem. As it turns out, it seems to be the other way around. Immune system causing the problem. So he's going to be taking Prednazone for awhile. Possibly for the rest of his life, since they couldn't figure out what is causing the immune system to superpower itself. The Dr. says that this is not an uncommon problem in old dogs (yes, Morgan is an old fart. He's 12. Iggy's live 13 to 16 years on average). Getting old sucks, even for dogs. Sigh.

Anyway, he's home and already showing improvement. His appetite is back, and he's walking around the house a bit. Even going outside to do the business. Unfortunately for me, the side effect of Prednazone is drinking water way more than normal and having to pee a lot. It's going to be a long night.

Thanks to those who have sent good thoughts his way.

Take care.

Fur Son in the Hospital

Today is not starting out very good. I woke up to a sick Morgan. He can hardly walk, he's very cold to the touch (anyone who knows Iggy's knows they're little walking hot coals), and he's showing signs of anemia. He wouldn't go out for his morning pee, so I picked him up and carried him out. He peed once. Then wanted back in, but I had to carry him. He was unwilling to go up the steps on his own. That's not Morgan behavior. Usually he dashes out the door at the speed of light, pees in at least 4 places, poops in a corner of the yard, then dashes back into the house to dive under the blankie in his bed-to go back to sleep. The last time he was like this his kidneys had shut down. So I took him to the hospital. They are going to run some blood tests, and keep an eye on him until the test results come in, which should be later this afternoon. They'll call me to come get him then. I could have brought him home, but I just felt better having him there where they can keep a close eye on him. I can't, cos in an hour I've got to head to work. Class must go on.

The private lesson I had scheduled today has been postponed until Wednesday by the student. I'm so glad that happened. It has made this morning easier.

Poor Morgy Porgy. I hate to see him sick. He's such a sweetheart. He doesn't deserve to suffer anything. This aging thing sucks. He's getting 'old dog' problems. Sigh. I'll post an update when I have one.

Please send good thoughts to Morgan. My heart dog.

Have a good day.

9/14/07

Fridays Feast 9/14/07

It's been a couple weeks since I've done a Friday's Feast. So, the feast first, then life's news.

Appetizer
When was the last time you visited a hospital?
It was in 2005, now what month? Funny that I can't remember that. A former friend of mine had back surgery. They put 2 pins in her spine because it got twisted in a car accident. I was there because I care so much about her. She meant a lot to me. Unfortunately, our friendship broke up last year after I closed my store. She is a complicated person, with problems, but I love her anyway. Clearly the feelings were not mutual, which is a shame cos she was a lot of fun.


You know what's really sad, and weird, about this (besides losing my friend)? Folks don't believe she had the surgery. I know she did cos I was there. So, what's with that? I wish I knew.


Soup

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how ambitious are you?
Here is the definition of ambitious according to Dictionary.com:
1.having ambition; eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, power, wealth, a specific goal, etc.: ambitious students.
2.showing or caused by ambition: an ambitious attempt to break the record.
3.strongly desirous; eager: ambitious of love and approval.
4.requiring exceptional effort, ability, etc.: an ambitious program for eliminating all slums.

Based on that, I'd say about a 5. Over the years I have come to realize real success is not having a lot of fame, wealth, and/or power. Success is being happy, comfortable with yourself, and having loved ones in your life. It would be wonderful to have the first list of things, but I am not willing to do what is necessary to obtain those things. I'd rather be happy and have fun! I say 5 because those things that I do, I desire to be able to do them well. I always want to keep learning new things. If I ever stop learning, call Dr. Kevorkian.


Salad
Make a sentence using the letters of a body part. (Example: (mouth) My other ukelele tings healthily.)
Awww geez...I hate this kind of thing. Okay. Eye - Eat your eggs.


Main Course
If you were to start a club, what would the subject matter be, and what would you name it?
It would be a knitting club, an actual chapter of The Knitting Guild of America, and I'd name it Knits of the Yarn Table. I want very much to have a knitting club in Rathdrum, but I ran into some road blocks when trying to start one and decided it wasn't worth the fight at this time. Reserved for later.


Dessert
What color is the carpet/flooring in your home?
Hah!! That's a funny one. I'd call it dirty stained light ocean blue. I hate it. When we ordered our house (it's a manufactured home), I wanted green carpet. They came with pink, blue, or grey. Yecch! So we 'upgraded'. Unfortunately, the carpet sample that looked green in the sales reps office turned out to be more blue. I've hated it since the day it was installed. We're gonna replace it with bamboo as soon as we get the chance. Was supposed to happen this summer, but, well, life got in the way.


On to life. I woke up yesterday morning feeling kind of wretched. I'd started coughing during the night and coughed all day. Was I coming down with something? None the less, I carried on. I headed to Bead It! and taught my little tubular peyote class. I had one delightful student. She caught on very quickly. It only took one of the 2 hours scheduled for her to learn it.

While teaching a lady came in seeking help. She wants to learn how to do bead embroidery. I heard the boss say "oh yeah, she knows how to do that. We'll schedule a private lesson for you." I have a very expressive face. Dismay and horror must have appeared cos when she looked at me she started to backpedal. I wish she'd ask before making statements like that to customers. No, I have not done bead embroidery before. It's something on my list of things to do though.

This gal wants a LOT of help, right down to telling her what color beads to use and all. I mean, color choice is so personal! She's gonna have to do that herself. I'll teach her how to sew them to the fabric, the rest? She's on her own. She's got a brown corduroy vest with a paisley print that she wants to embellish.

So, we've got a tentative lesson scheduled for Saturday. When I got home I immediately started researching the subject of bead embroidery. I can sew beads to fabric. That's easy. But I know there are tips and tricks that an experienced person knows that I wouldn't. I learned all kinds of interesting stuff. I made up a little hand out, and I'm ready. I'm SO glad it has turned out to be an easy subject. If the boss does this to me again--heads are gonna be bouncing on the floor!

I also set up a private lesson with my delightful student. She was unable to attend the Cabochon class, so I'm gonna teach her that. I'm looking forward to it.

Back to the coughing. As I said, I coughed all day. The air around here is pretty smoky. I can hardly see the mountains to the northeast of us. There are forest fires all around--all 150 miles or more away, but the wind carries the smoke here rather well. Then there's the Coeur d'Alene Indians. They're burning their 1000's of acres of blue grass fields. I mean, the air smells like burning grass!

When I went to bed last night I coughed and coughed. Darn! I'm getting a cold of some sort. Then I started analyzing just exactly how I was feeling. Tight chest (having difficulty breathing--actually painful to do so), goo coughing up (yecch!), slight dizziness (definitely oxygen deprivation going on here). I am such a dummy! I'm having an asthma attack! Clearly the oxygen deprivation is causing my brain to malfunction! I grabbed my inhaler, puffed twice, and haven't coughed since.

Have a great day.

9/13/07

Deer 16-Chrysanthemums 0

Moose clearly do not like Chrysanthemums. They lasted over a week. I'd forgotten about the deer passing through on their way to their appointed winter homelands. It's September. Darn! It ate all 16 plants before Tommy got the chance to chase it away. It was a fat sassy Doe with no babies. There've been 3 of them in 2 days looking for something other than our nice luscious lawn to graze on.

Note to self: No Chrysanthemums in the planter boxes. Marigolds! No one has even touched the marigolds.

I've had 3 pathetic rose plants (I'd call them bushes but they're too pathetic) in the front bed for 12 years. For the most part they have lived a neglected life-usually being choked half to death amongst a bunch of Horsetail and Canadian Thistle weeds. (I wish Canada would take their thistles back-wretched things!) I finally gave them the tender loving care they require this year. Proper fertilizer, and even weeding them when necessary. On my purple rose I had 9, that's NINE gorgeous flowers on it all at once. As I walked into the house I was thinking about how just a little fertilizer sure makes them happy and I've never had more than 3 flowers in a year on that one and wow! it sure is loaded and gorgeous this year. Sigh, next morning they was GONE! It is a well known fact that deer love roses. The prettier, the tastier. At least I got to see the blooms before they were devoured. Next year I'm taking a picture.

To be honest, at this time of year I don't really mind the deer eating some of this stuff. It makes getting the beds ready for winter a lot easier. Less pruning on my part. Heh heh.....

Teaching a beading class this morning. Our first 'week day' class (as apposed to evening class). I'm teaching tubular peyote. One of my favorite subjects. I have one student. Not as much money, but way easier to teach.

Have a great day.

9/11/07

Camping on the St. Joe

On Thursday sweet hubby and I packed up the trailer and went camping. We have not camped on the St. Joe river before, so it was a new adventure. We drove down to the Huckleberry campground, which is about 30 miles up the river from St. Maries, pulled in, and got a premo spot.

The park is beautiful. The weather was perfect the whole weekend. We got a spot with a gorgeous view of the river and surrounding mountains, and a nice gentle walk down to the rivers edge. There are lots of cottonwood trees and cedars. Some of the trees were already starting to put on their autumn colors. The water was clear and cold and the fish were jumpin' like crazy.

There's an advantage to camping after Labor Day. Not many people camp. We had a large part of the park all to ourselves. In addition, this park normally has power and water hookups. A couple days before we got there they'd had a big thunderstorm that knocked out the power to all but 9 of the spots. Everyone was down in those 9 spots. We have batteries and a generator. We don't need power hook up. So we got a premo spot all to ourselves. It was great!

Besides being our first camping trip on the St. Joe, this was also our first trip without our kids, and our first trip with just us--no other family. Usually we go camping with hubby's twin brother and family-which we did this time, but we left a day earlier than them so we got a bit of 'alone' time. They showed up Friday evening.

I had a wonderful time. I got some knitting done, took the dogs on several nice walks, fished, kayaked, and relaxed. We even played cards and got drunk one evening. We ate good food too. In fact, we had such a nice time sweet hubby and I didn't want to come home. However, I was out of clean clothes, so home it was.

Sunday we packed up and headed for home. Hubby wanted to take the long way home. The drive to Huckleberry camp ground took us 2.5 hours. We went by way of hwy 95 to Plummer, then the hwy through St. Maries to the river and up. Coming home, we went by way of St. Regis. The road follows the St. Joe up river for several miles before splitting off toward St. Regis. It was a 7 hour drive. Of course, we stopped a lot along the way to look at scenery and whatnot. It was a beautiful drive.

Yesterday J, C, and I went on our usual Monday walk. This time we walked along the shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene around North Idaho Community College. We did almost 4 miles. I was already kind of tired from the camping trip, so after lunch I conked out and slept for 3 hours! Unwillingly! I had a lot to do yesterday and I got none of it done.

This morning I went to bead group. I worked on a bracelet project I've been trying to figure out. Basically I'm doing a Cellini spiral, but I'm putting a diamond pattern in it at the same time. It's taken me awhile to figure it out. Cindy has been helping me. We'd think we had it, I'd take the idea home, and it wouldn't work. I finally sat down and drew the design out on paper, bead by bead. Today I started beading it and darn if it doesn't work! Hurray!!! I'm using black opaque and silver lined light topaz beads--basically black and gold--in 4 different sizes. It's going to take awhile to get the bracelet done, but it's gonna be gorgeous.

I'm also working on a 3-bead netted strap for one of the cabs I finished beading last week.

I need to unpack the rest of the stuff from the trailer, and start doing the piles of laundry we brought home with us. so I better get busy.

Have a good day.

9/6/07

More Sweater Done

It's been a busy week. I had bead group on Tuesday where I worked on two items. A peyote cellini bracelet design I'm trying to figure out how to do. It's a tough one. I know what I want and how it should look, I just can't figure out how to execute it. I've finally resorted to drawing the whole thing out one bead at a time in hopes that will help cos I'm just not getting it by going by my brain pictures. Something is getting lost in translation between the grey cells and the fingers. Sometimes this happens if it's a complicated design, which it is.

I decided to skip spinning club yesterday morning because we're going camping today and I needed some time to do laundry. My favorite jeans needed washing. Can't go camping without my favorite jeans!

In the afternoon I headed for the Knitwits meeting. I had a great deal of fun. Lots of laughter and camaraderie, which is the whole point of being in a knitting club. Everyone who entered stuff in the fair under the Knitwits name got their ribbons. There were LOTS of blue ones in the bunch. I got the blue ribbon I won for Piggy Piggy. We are a good set of knitters, no doubt about that. I started the first sleeve for the aran baby cardigan. It was kind of challenging trying to knit something with a complicated pattern and talk at the same time, but I managed to do it. Didn't have to tink anything when I got home. (Patting myself on the back)

It was also 'ask Linda Jo knitting questions' day. I got asked a lot of them. Was happy to help though. I love helping people increase their knitting skills. It keeps the art alive. I handed out a lot of web page url's to folks for visual aids. I am surprised how many I have saved in my noggin.

After Knitwits I headed to Bead It. I had a beading lesson planned for 4:30 for a couple of the gals who were in my cab class last week. I helped the one gal finish her cab. And then we worked on learning how to do 3-bead netting. They wanted to learn that technique, so I offered to help them, for free. I'm not sure if they both got it or not. One said she understands it. I'm not so sure about the other gal. If not, she can contact me for another session.

In the evening, after dinner, I got to working on that little sleeve and managed to finish it before bedtime. It went very quickly! I'm not taking it camping with me though. I've decided to take the swim suit cover. I need to make some MAJOR progress on it this weekend. I still haven't gotten to the point where I had to rip back 7 inches yet.

There is a decrease in Moose damage this week-not because there are no moose, but because they've pretty much cleaned out everything they'd be interested in eating. They have not bothered the chrysanthemums yet. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The deer have taken to eating my roses--just the blooms. They're leaving the leaves alone. Sigh...

I better get packing. I'm anxious to get out into the north Idaho wilds-kid free. Well, until Friday evening anyway. Then nephew Nate will be there, but he's a quiet kid.

Have a great weekend!