Heal My Life

Tadpole Season

Well we lost another one - this time to a coyote; Big Red is no more.  I felt terrible when it happened, as Big Red was the brave one, now it's Blackie.  I know this is "the way it is" with farm animals, and it will probably happen again, but I can't help feeling so sad about them both.

And on that note, I also fell terribly sad that George Carlin is gone, much too soon.  We sorely need his constant questioning and his acerbic wit was refreshing.  I remember clearly when I heard him blurt out the "Seven Words You Can't Say on TV or the Radio".  It was 1972, the year after I was married and I can remember thinking that this certainly was a new world if you could say those things in public!     http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/23/9815/ I bought his albums (remember those) and watched his HBO specials and I'll miss him.

So we've been busy as usual, we've been cleaning and painting the new studio/manufacturing space for Heal My Hands and 8 Arms Creative and I'll post photos as soon as we get our office moved into it!  The colors are amazing too - wait till you see!  We've been doing just a bit of hiking too, and last week up on the Windsor Trail (10,800 ft) there was snow! 

Suleiman has been doing a bit of swimming in the pond, and I'll post a photo of it as soon as I get the wrought iron furniture painted up.  We bought and released three bullfrog tadpoles too.  Unfortunately I didn't realize that bullfrog tadpoles take two years to mature!  I was thinking I'd fall asleep to the music of bullfrogs... of well, maybe next year.

I've also made a couple of necklaces, one in braided Irish Linen with drop, pressed glass and silver beads, and another in silver beads with an aquamarine, a pressed glass leaf and a Hill Tribe silver charm.  And a very pretty freeform peyote stitch bracelet, which oddly, I can't find the photo of) I call Riverwalk.  It really is nice to actually make something beaded that turns out the way it's supposed to.  Thanks Marty! 

A Friend in Need... Pay it Forward

Every once in a while, your luck runs out.  I know about this - it's happened to me, and more than once.  Each time, I've been lifted up by the loving hands of friends and family who carefully, tenderly, gave me what was necessary and gently set me back on my feet.  And because there has always been someone there for me when I needed them the most, I gave a bit of a helping hand to someone else in need. 

If you've ever been on the receiving end (and few of us have not) please go over to Scouts Blog and give a helping hand to the woman who did this. 

To one of our most talented dyers and spinners - Pippikneesocks, who really needs her friends right now.  

Do it.  You'll be glad you did.  

Stupid Knitter Award

What is the one thing you should never do when you make a completely idiotic knitting mistake?  Post your question to the knitlist where over 10,000 knitters will have the opportunity to point out your stupidity and you will wake to a mailbox full of gingerly phrased suggestions that you read the entire pattern.

So I'm knitting the Ballet Neck Cardigan by Annie Modesitt.  Now before I go any further, let me say that I've been knitting for over 30 years, and generally, know what I'm doing.  Right.  It only goes to show you that you are NEVER too old or experienced to make ridiculously idiotic mistakes and then repeat them endlessly in a hopelessly unstoppable loop which seriosly feels like the ninth circle of Hell, oh wait, it's just that the wood stove has gone out and the house is freezing.  Note to self: Put more wood on BEFORE sitting down to knit.     

I knit the first six rows, no problemo.  Then, I'm reading the pattern and watching a movie (how hard can this be, it's a movie I've seen before and a simple lace pattern). Five rows in, I discover a major error.  I've left out a bunch of YO's and the pattern looks like a plate of spaghetti.  Stop. Sigh, Rip.  One of the things I always tell beginning knitters is to STOP KNITTING AS SOON AS YOU SEE A MISTAKE!  I tell them that in knitting, the error grows exponentially, just like in engineering measurements.  But the key to that advice is that you actually have to look at the knitting while you're knitting it.  Right.

So I rip and start again.  I get through the first bobble row and turn to purl back.  What's this?  A MISSING BOBBLE!  How in the name of the Ford Fairlane did that happen?  Let me guess; I was watching another movie.  Okay.  So I rip back to the pearl row beneath the bobble and fix the problem.  All clear - right?  Wrong.

I keep looking at the edge of the sweater and since there's only one garter stitch, the thing is curling like, well, a stockinette edge.  This can't be right, I think to myself, STILL not reading the pattern all the way through.  The pattern must be wrong.  Annie is off her proverbial rocker and those people over at IK Knits have failed to set her back to rights. So I call my daughter.  She doesn't have the pattern in front of her, but suggests that I read the free download version as opposed to the version in my older magazine as there may be an update I missed. So I look, and the download version is the same as the magazine version.

Still, I don't read the pattern all the way through.  I'm very unhappy with the way the selvage edges look.  I experiment with crocheting an edge which actually looks lovely, but I'm still not satisfied.  I decide to write the knitlist for help.  And instead of waiting patiently for a response, what do I do?  Yep, you guessed it, I rip the thing back down to the garter rows.  There, I tell myself, that's better, I'm just going to knit all the edge stitches in a garter stitch.  So instead of waiting for an answer from 10,000+ knitlisters, I knit another four rows, and like a good girl, I put the knitting down to watch La Vie En Rose (which was wonderful by the way).

Fast forward to this morning.  Every other email in my box is from a knitlister gently suggesting that perhaps I might consider reading the pattern all the way though, at which point I'll discover that I'm to pick up and knit garter bands on both selvedge edges....

I have to rip out, for the fourth time, the Ballet Neck Cardigan.  I have never had to rip anything as many times, well unless you count the feather and fan socks which drove me to distraction until someone on socknitters kindly suggested I use stitch markers, as this sweater. I sincerely hope that it''s gorgeous when it's done.

The Moral: Gosh, there are so many I don't know where to start.  But how about this; READ THE PATTERN ALL THE WAY THROUGH NO MATTER HOW MANY YEARS YOU'VE BEEN KNITTING AND NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOU THINK YOU ARE.  Sheesh. 

Long Weekend Activities

A long weekend, wow - I remember those!  When you work for yourself, you rarely get to take them "off".  Just one of the benefits of being self-employed.  But this weekend we took all for ourselves!  Which meant that Anthony got to make some furniture (photos to come), and clear some brush and work on the chicken coop and make steamed buns, which were out of this world yummy.  And I got to, well, it's easier if I show you:

This is Thorpe.  I knit it in the large size, don't ask me why, the earflaps hung to my shoulders.  I was bummed until Anthony suggested I felt it.  And Voila! It fits like a charm.

Then I worked on Carmen, a new bag in hot summer pinks and yellows.  I had done the layering of bits back in NY and transported her rolled up in a tube.  I cut and laid on the sheer top layers, pinned them in place and free motion quilted the sandwich together.  Tonight, I'll burn through the sheer top layers on the back between the quilting lines and reveal the bits underneath. 

I can't wait - I just love setting fire to things. It's the best part!

 

 

Then, I brushed Sulei, and I brushed him and brushed him and well, you get the idea.  I have to do something about that straw.

 

And I ate Anthony's yummy steamed buns, and we ate our first EGGS with toast made of Anthony's English Muffin Bread and mulberry jam from last years canning.  And it was all so delicious. We feed the chickens amazing organic feed and give them fresh ground veggies every day and the yolks were a gorgeous deep orange. 

And so our Sunday breakfast was made up of all things we made or raised or wild-gathered ourselves. And I have to admit that it was so satisfying to know that we provided the entire meal in one way or another.  Self-sufficiency is just so darn cool.   

Valentine's Fiber Love

I know it's a bit early, but I have to show you what I made in Honor of Valentine's Day!  This Falklands wool roving is called Woodrose II, and it's from the Yarnwench, who by the way does not have cats near her fiber).

I spun 129 yards of approx 8-10 WPI and it's SO SOFT!  And PINK!  And LAVENDER!  I LOVE it!

So... what can I knit with 129 yards of nearly bulky yarn???  

help...

 

The Cat in the ... YARN. A Survey

Note to self: DO NOT try and spin any of the fiber you have stashed away in anticipation of the day you get your spinning wheel, unless you can verify for certain that the person who made it *HAS NO FREAKIN CATS!

Well Dear Readers, I did it again.  I pulled out some gorgeous fiber in shades of deep greens with hints of mustard, a pale green sparkle and touches of red, and started spinning it on Sunday.  By Sunday night I was rocking and crying with a swollen face, completely unable to breathe through my painfully swollen nose and sinuses.  And I an NOT a good mouth breather.  By three AM, after much medication, I was finally able to breather through my nose.  The pain had subsided and I was able to go to sleep.  Anthony, on the other hand, went into my fiber room and removed, in it's entirety, MY SPINNING FIBER STASH!  When I woke up on Monday morning, it was sitting, triple plastic bagged in the corner of the office. 

As I was the walking wounded all day on Monday, which was difficult since Monday is our busiest day here at HMH, I didn't have an opportunity to mourn my lost stash.  Yesterday I was feeling the loss a bit more keenly, and by today - I'm just devastated.  So now that this has happened to me twice, and I have had to bypass yarn and fiber from cat owning spinners and dyers more than once,I have to ask:

What's the deal with fiber people and CATS?  There seems to be a disproportional number of fiber people who are cat owners as opposed to dog owners.  Perhaps it's just that cat owning fiber people take more cute photos of their fur babies than dog people.  Anthony thinks that fiber people are nesters, and cats are nesters, so nesting people are attracted to nesting animals.  I don't really buy this, as if that were the case, fiber people would also be attracted to rodents, and know some who are, but too few of them to qualify for this study.  Seriously, I can't shake the feeling that fiber people are cat people. End. Done. Period. 

So Indulge me.  Take this little survey, and then send all your fibery friends to take this survey, so I can satisfy my curiosity once and for all and dispel my notion that fiber people are indeed cat people!

Free Online Surveys

 

* Disclaimer:  Please know that I have nothing against cats particularly, and hold them in rather high regard.  They are less needy than dogs and can be left alone with a bowl of cat food, a bowl of water and a fresh litter pan for the weekend.  I even had a cat, Brucie, briefly as a child, clearly before we discovered my allergy.  I cried when we had to give him away.  It is only because of my allergy that I have begun to notice this peculiar link between fiber and cats and not because I dislike them.       

Knitting? I remember that!

So I've been sick, and I have NOT been knitting.  I've also been too sick to come out here to the office heated with, well more on that later. Hence the lack of posts.  I've had this $%&*# cold for going on five weeks now and for many of those days, reasonably warm office or not, I've been too ill to sit at my desk and get any work done.  I've also often been too sick to knit.  Any energy I had I put towards baking for Christmas.  And that sucks.  Not the Christmas baking, I mean the not knitting.

I have managed to do a little, I just haven't managed to photo any of it until today.  I finished a pair of house socks from from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One.  I can't remember the name of the pattern and I'm not going back into the house to get the book.  But they were a fascinating knit and they fit me like a glove.  I love Cat for writing this book and I will be knitting many more of these patterns - the geometry of how they work (which you can't really appreciate from this photo) is just so darn cool.

I also finished the Veldt Shawl.  I should have knit another few repeats, because when it came off the needles and was draped over my shoulders, the darn thing is long enough to hit the ground on both sides of me, but too narrow of width.  Sigh.  I didn't want to scare up more handspun in the proper weight and colors to knit more garter row groups, but I think I may have to undo the bind-off and knit it a bit wider once I find some more handspun so at least it looks more balanced.  I should have taken the shot of it on me so you could see what I mean.  I also could have left off the fringe, but it seemed bare without it. 

I hate it when projects seem to go haywire like this. 

I did another pair of Fetching Fingerless Gloves from Knitty since I seem to have lost one  of my old pair and I needed them desperately.  They're knit in De Vi Autunno which is a super soft merino that self stripes in wide bands.  I even matched each glove by using two balls!  They look awesome.  And my fingers really aren't that red and I have no idea why they came out that way.  I know I should have given these as Christmas gifts, but seriously, my hand was freezing to my mouse sort of like when you lick a light post in the dead of winter.

What's that?  Don't we have heat in here?  Why YES, of course we do! 

We have an original Anthony-made forced hot air heating system. See, the fan "forces" the heat from the old wood stove giving us - you guessed it "FORCED HOT AIR". 

Well anyway, he thinks it's funny.

Don't Feel Guilty...

...over of the size of your stash - I can guarantee that you have NOTHING compared to this woman.  Oh, and YES - I have been knitting!  But my camera has no batteries.  I'm going to town tomorrow for more, so STAY TUNED!

So What's New?

I know I've been a bad blogger, it's been weeks since my last post.  Here's what I've been doing: 

Yesterday, in preparation for a Thanksgiving feast for, which I'll be making desserts, at my friend Scout's house, I baked pate a choux or cream puff shells.  And lo and behold, not only did they RISE, but they rose HIGHER than they ever did for me at sea level.  YAY!!!  I didn't even have to alter the recipe.  How awesome is that.  I'd have taken pictures but Anthony and I ate them, which is sort of too bad because they really were pretty.  They ended up getting filled first with tuna for lunch, and then some leftover chocolate custard and almond creme anglaise for dessert.  YUM!  The shells really are very easy to make; don't be intimidated by the French.  There is a fab recipe and step by step instructions complete with photos here.

This past weekend, A and I drove to Farmington, NM, which is in the four corners, for a Fiber Fest to vend Heal My Hands.  No one came.  I'm not kidding - really - no one came.  They missed a year and didn't advertise in the right places, and so no one came.  We made did okay with Heal My Hands, all of the fifty or so people who showed up and most of the vendors bought from us, but I felt terrible for the other vendors - and there were some great people with wonderful yarn and roving (which I did NOT buy because my spinning wheel is STILL not here)!   

I did buy some of the most gorgeous yarn I've ever touched from Elsa Wool Company.  It's cormo from her own flock and it's as soft as a cloud.  I bought both worsted and woolen spun,natural colors in sport and worsted weights.  I wound one skein into a ball last night for socks.  I can't wait to get it on the needles!

Saturday night, after a yummy seafood salad at Red Lobster and a movie in bed at the hotel, my tooth started to hurt.  It got worse through the night and by Sunday morning I was pretty much in agony.  We went to the show but only ended up staying for a couple of hours.  The four hour ride home via Rt 505 took us through some beautiful scenery.  If I hadn't been rocking in pain - I'd have taken more photos, but here's one so you get the idea.  Anthony found a dentist in Santa Fe, Dr. Cho, who met us in his office and started a root canal for me at 7 pm on a Sunday night.  Who say's there are no such things as Angels? 

So my tooth is better now.  The chickens have been doing okay, and we only had a couple of mild scares.  One Feather and one of our red girls have what seems like a head cold.  We're giving them medication and hopefully they'll be better soon.  One of the male peacocks seems to think that perhaps our girls would make fine mates, so he has been preening and shaking his big tail at them whenever he thinks of it.  They seem less than impressed and just appear worried that maybe he'll take their food.

On the knitting front, I have not had much time to knit lately, but I'm almost finished with the veldt shawl. I ran out of Louisa Harding Sari Silk in #20 halfway though a row last night so I have to order more before I can move on.  I also did two baby socks from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One, link is in my sidebar, and believe me that book is AWESOME!  If you knit socks you NEED to have this book.  It'll change the way you think about knitting socks forever. 

The little sock on the left, is a Coreolis, which is an amazing way of increasing around the sock starting at the outer instep and curving up and around the foot and ankle.  There are NO gussetts!  It is truly amazing and you just have to se it and the other sock architectures for yourself to understand just how brilliant Cat is.   

And last, but by far not least, my daughter just sent me pictures of the cake she made for her company's Holiday Cake contest!  The winner gets a day off WITH PAY!!!!  he's won two years in a row - I'm keeping ALL my fingers crossed for her this year.  The cake inside the sled is a Martha Stewart Coconut cake recipe which she said is delicious.  The sides are gingerbread, and the gifts are dark chocolate fudge, dipped in tinted white chocolate with a fondant bag and bows.  And she did this with three kids, three cats a dog and no help!  She's so good!

So I'm off to the post office (which is another hideously painful and frankly unbelievable story that I'll save for another time) to ship orders.  And I promise to be a better poster.  Really.

      

Puffball and Shawl

It's been a bit busy around here lately, what with babysitting my 8 year old granddaughter and gearing up for the fall and Rhinebeck with Heal My Hands.  I must admit that despite all the hullabaloo, we have been eating rather well.  Yesterday while taking Madeline to her mom's office at 5pm, Anthony spotted a treasure in the grass along the way.   

Its a Giant Puffball!  Though this one wasn't such a giant, only about 10 oz, it was absolutely delicious.  We sauteed it in butter and poured a bit of cold noodle dipping sauce A had made for lunch the previous day on the slices.  I can't wait to have the rest of it tonight!

And guess what else?  I've FINALLY started the Veldt Shawl. You can see my inspiration here.  I'm using the Sarah Blanch shawl pattern from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls.  You can see a closeup of how the pattern looks in all one yarn on Knitty Delicious' blog.  It looks almost like hairpin lace!  I'm using yarns that I've been collecting for my "Veldt" colorway, a combination of handspun wools, mohairs and shiny ribbons. 

It looks completely different!  I'm using a 40 inch Addie Turbo circulars, and it's a good thing too.  I don't really care for metal needles, but I had a sneaking suspicion that bamboo or wood would create too much drag on these yarns and boy, was I ever right. 

The shawl is very simple, you don't need to carry a pattern which is part of the reason I chose it.  The large loops are created by wrapping the yarn three times around the needle after it's inserted for each knit stitch on a row.  The extra wraps are dropped on the subsequent row.  So what's the problem?  The ribbon tightens itself like a noose rather snugly on the wrap row, so I have to squoodge it back onto the needle for the drop row.  Bamboo, wood or even Denise needles would have rendered this already difficult row impossible. 

But it does work, and I am absolutely in love with the way it looks.  This project was supposed to be for upcoming extended car travel - I don't know If it will last that long.