My baby was showing me how the multiple shots feature works on my camera one fine afternoon. The pictures aren’t great but I’ve kept them because they make me smile when I look at them. He makes me smile too, all the time. Sometimes he makes me laugh so hard I can’t breathe. He’s wicked smart and I’m really glad he’s in my life. And, we’re inseparable.
Posted in ABC 2008-Along
I really must start planning these better! Everytime I’m skidding in just before the cutoff. Ridiculous! Anyway, this is 50 grams of Blue Faced Leicester from Fleece Artist. Colourway is Mermaid. I plied it with 50 grams of Amethyst from Fleece Artist and it came out like this:
Really pleased with it. Shiny and soft.
Posted in ABC 2008-Along, spinning
Gift
A friend of mine is moving to Montreal and I’m worried about her being cold next winter. Neck warmer in Fleece Artist Ottawa. Love this yarn. The little flecks look like stars on the blue/purple bacground.
Wanaa make one too? Do this:
Fleece Artist Ottawa
5mm circular needle, 16 or 24 inch
Cast on 104 stitches, join being careful not to twist. K4, P4 around until desired length or you run out of yarn. Cast off in pattern and wear in good warmth. 
I’m going to do the second half in Fleece Artist Kid Silk Mohair so it can be folded in half and can be reversible. Ta da!
Off to dinner. It’s baby’s & my 12th wedding anniversary tomorrow. And they said it would never last! Wait, no one said that. Everyone said we deserved each other. Hmmmm, that’s very different.
Posted in ABC 2008-Along, knitting
Snowflakes that is. This is out back at around 9:00 am this morning.
Jane is none too pleased:
Soon after this shot she was back inside sleeping in her house. Likes her comfort does our Jane!
About an hour later:
Some of the flakes were almost the size of my palm. HUGE! Luckily it did melt quite quickly. So happy that no shovelling was required. Now that I’m 39 I have to save my energy and that means less manual labour. As if. You wait. Next week, that lawn is going to want to be cut. The hedges already want trimming.
Posted in ABC 2008-Along, spring
Grouse Mountain gondola ride picture from the top. I almost threw up I was so scared.
Mom looked a little green too. 
Posted in ABC 2008-Along
The husband, he’s sort of freaking me out. Phrases like “tasteful decorator piece”, “rich browns”, “making our space flow”, and others just seem to roll from his tongue lately. The man is in full decorator mode and there is no stopping him. We did get “rich brown” drapes and our living room tables arrived a week early so that was nice. I’ll try to get a pici today.
The fibrefest was good but I hear it may be the last one. Lack of turnout and such. I’m getting the feeling it was lack of organization creating lack of turnout, but whatever. I put in a pantry of fibre. All the staples. Three colours of Shetland, Finn, South African, Wensleydale, Suri alpaca, and Icelandic. Then I picked up my order from Yummy Yarn. Gorgeous! Eight ounces of Gummy Worms. So happy. Then I picked up the wee bags of designer fibres. Little two ounce bags of cashmere/silk and merino/alpaca/cashmere and four ounces of carbonized bamboo. Apparently it’s heated until the fibre carbonizes and turns grey. It’s the exact colour of ash. Very silky and pretty.
Today, I’m hemming drapes. Whoo hoo! And, I need to find a pici for “E” as today is the last day of “E” for the ABC Along. Hmmmmm. E is for exhaustion?
Posted in ABC 2008-Along, addiction, fibre
I’ve wanted to spin for a long time. A couple of years ago I got the bug really bad and hubby made me a drop spindle. It and I did not get along. At all. Then hubby worked on making me a spinning wheel. He’s very mechanically inclined and basically wanted to see if he could do it. Using bits and pieces from the garage he cobbled together a very fair wheel. The only things he/we couldn’t seem to figure out was the tensioning and getting the ratios correct.
We both got bored and it ended up in the basement, neglected. The spinning bug reared its head again last spring. It was much stronger than before. I kept seeing the pretty yarn and fibre from Hello Yarn and I was oh so smitten. I joined Adrian’s fibre club last spring, still didn’t have a wheel but I wanted some of her fibre and if I was in the club I was guaranteed to get me some!
About six months later I signed up for beginner lessons at Birkeland Bros and our instructor was Louisa. Most excellent spinner that she is! Also, very patient and positive. After four weeks using their wheels (Ashford traditional, very nice – Ashford Joy, so sweet! – Louet S10, not a great fit for me) and learning how to use a drop spindle (still not my favourite thing to do, that’s for sure), I got a Lendrum DT.
She’s lovely and I’m learning new stuff all the time with her. I didn’t want to use my “good” fibres on her until I got better at spinning so I turned to the two pound bag of New Zealand crossbreed fibre I had leftover from lessons. Hmm, what shall I do with this, thought I? I know, I’ll spin enough to make a sweater, because that totally makes sense and of course my first real spinning project should be enough for an entire 46″ pullover. Yep, you bet.
Well, I did it. Last night I plied the last two bobbins and put it all in the bath for a good soaking. There is a definite difference in the yarn I spun in November to what I spun last week. There are also some definite thick and thin bits. I don’t care, I’m totally going to make a sweater with it. A good sturdy sweater for walking the dogs in the fall. Something utilitarian and comfortable. If we had a barn I’d say it was a barn sweater, but we don’t. So, how about a garden shed sweater?
I still can’t believe that I spun up 2 pounds of yarn, about 1000 metres. It didn’t seem like all that much until I put it all together last night in the tub. Then it really did seem like a fair bit. And, it weighed a tonne when it was wet! It should all be dry by tomorrow and I will be ready to wind it all up into balls this weekend.
In other news I’m almost done the EZ Brookes sweater. I’m very pleased with it so far. I’m doing a 3×3 ribbing for the collar but I’m not sure it I’m going to be in love with that or not. We’ll see. I contemplated a hemmed neckline like the cuffs & bottom but I wanted something a little different. I’ve got class tomorrow, guild on Thursday (Happy Valentine’s Day!), and a crop on Friday so I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it until Saturday at the earliest.
Last but not least, here is my stripey Romney out of her bath and feeling all fresh and stripey:
Posted in ABC 2008-Along, spinning
What else could it be? Okay, how about Beentsy in a basket?
Just so everyone knows, she has lost a lot of weight since this picture. She no longer fills an entire Ikea laundry basket. Turns out, she had a thyroid problem. Who knew?
Posted in ABC 2008-Along
As you can see from the sidebar on the right I’ve joined the ABC-along 2008. Kinda cool.
For those of you who don’t know the story, Abbie came to live with us in April of 2006. I say came to live with us because we didn’t go and get her, she literally just showed up. My big ol’ German Shepherd was crying at the gate and this tiny scabby little dog just ran down the driveway to her, through the gate, and started bossing everyone around. She was so thin (only weighed 5 pounds, she’s 14 now and the vets says it’s the perfect weight for her), was missing all the fur from her ribs to her tail, and had no ID. We couldn’t find her rightful home and I couldn’t face sending her to the SPCA. We called them and gave her description but no one ever called or went there looking for a wee scabby dog. We called her Wee Scabby Dog for weeks thinking we wouldn’t be keeping her. Then when it became obvious she was staying we just changed it to Abbie, or when she’s being a poo head, Scabby Abbie.
Unfortunately, she loved flip flops, or as we used to call them before it meant underwear, thongs. She loved them so much she went through nine pairs of them. She crawled up shelves to get them if they were out of reach, there was not stopping her.
Drove me crazy. Then she would look at you like this:
and there was nothing you could do about it.
Posted in Abbie, ABC 2008-Along
