Now With Weaving!

It's not like I needed One More Thing To Do and it's not like I needed One More Piece of Equipment, but I finally caved in to a little urge that's been lying dormant for 30 years, but giving me occasional little nudges. I used my birthday money and bought an Ashford 32" Rigid Heddle Loom and stand. Yesterday I warped it for a simple scarf and today I took my first piece off the loom.

It's not anywhere close to perfect, but not nearly as flawed as I feared it might be while I was working on it.



The warp yarn is Knit One, Crochet Too Parfait, in a kind of dusky lavender color. The weft is Brown Sheep Lambs Pride Worsted in a rich dark purple. These pics show it before I washed it, and the flash gave the yarn a sheen it doesn't really have. It's soaking right now, and with a little luck, I'll be able to get some natural light pics soon.

In other news, last week, while Mr. SABLE was in San Diego, we had about 15" of snow. It was a record-breaking snow event for Madison. The kids had Wednesday off from school and everything ground to a halt. Mr. SABLE had parked his car in the surface lot at the airport, thereby saving his company a whopping $2 a day over the cost of the garage, so Wednesday night after we were plowed out, we went out to the airport, found his car, dug it out, and then stayed to meet his plane. Remarkably, it was only about 40 minutes late.

In knitting news, I had to make another handspun wool/alpaca hat for Mr. SABLE because Owen claimed the first one for himself. Owen tried to claim the replacement, too, but I think he got told a thing or two.

Project Updates

Taking my cue from Bezzie (whose rant here on the so-called "green" reusable grocery bags got me thinking), I made these two cloth bags yesterday. I had bought a small stack of the green pseudo-cloth bags from my supermarket last winter, at 75 cents each. Although they stand up to more use than a paper bag, they have started to self-destruct. Rather than replace them with more of the same, I decided to put some stashed fabric to use. I bought the fabric at a thrift shop in Quincy IL over a year ago, thinking it would be nice for something. I just didn't know what. I have enough fabric to make at least 4 more bags this size, which is a bit smaller than a standard paper grocery bag. I need to buy more nylon webbing, though.

I've been working on turning a few older projects into patterns for the fall Knitcircus. We plan to have it available for purchase by Oct 1. I'm also working on a new project for that, but might not finish in time. That's ok. We can use it in Winter, and we've had great submissions, so we have enough good material for fall.

In Other News
We're counting down to the beginning of the school year. The little guy starts second grade on Tuesday, Sept 2, and Owen starts 8th grade on Wednesday the 3rd. We're having all kinds of behavioral issues with the little guy, but I have to say, Owen has suddenly crossed into a new mature, mellow version of himself. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't just a phase for him. I never would have believed that there would be a time when I would call Owen "mellow".

I did send Owen's quilt out to be machine quilted at the local place. I have no idea what I'll get back, but it should be coming soon. They charge about $65 for a twin size, and have stock patterns that their machine does. I'll still need to put edging on when I get it back, I think. For local folks, this is a funny little building on Regent Street, probably a survivor of the great Greenbush Urban Renewal of the 1960s.

We're still in limbo on Mr. SABLE's job front. He had a chat with a VP at a small start-up last week. He felt very positive about that and it could lead to a job offer soon. He's also encouraged that if he has to do free-lance stuff for a while, there are a lot of people in town who can throw him some work. The downside to that plan is health insurance, but it would be income. Time will tell. Stay tuned.

I hope to see all my local buddies at Last Saturday Knitting on the 30th!

Busy Busy Busy

I've been piecing a quilt top for Owen the last couple weeks:



I plan to send it out to be machine quilted because otherwise, it will end up as a permanent UFO. One woman I found online charges about $75 on an average twin size quilt, which is a pretty good deal considering the hours of my life I would spend (not to mention the frustration) if I tried to do it at home. I did notice a business here in Madison with a sign in the window advertising "Machine Quilting" so I'm going to phone them up today and see what they say.

I made this quilt top from a lot of Mr. SABLE's old plaid and striped shirts that had ripped out at elbows and pockets and such. I also picked up a few more shirts at Digger's Outlet to throw in a bit more diversity in the color scheme.

There has been knitting, too, but I have to keep that under wraps a while.

In other news
Today is the Little Emperor's seventh birthday. Hard to believe how fast the time has gone!

Our lives are stressful these days. Mr. SABLE has some employment uncertainty ahead. His company wanted him to move to way-southern NJ by Sept 30. He decided that he really wasn't willing to go to those lengths to stay with that company. He's hoping to find other employment that keeps us in the Madison area soon, but he's considering jobs quite far away, too. As it currently stands, his last scheduled day of work is Sept 30, so after that, who knows? There is a severance package for those not willing to relocate, so we should have a cushion for a few more months after that, but it's a lot of stress and anxiety for us right now. Stay tuned.

Updates

Here we are, sailing headlong into July. The news Chez SABLE is both dull and exciting.

First the exciting:
Issue #3 of Knitcircus is very nearly ready to send off to the printer. We hope to get it dispatched by July 1, with issues ready about a week after that. Putting a magazine together really is like solving a puzzle. Once you get all the component parts roughed in, you still have to find a way to make them squeeze into the allotted space without looking like they're being squeezed. I'm grateful that I was able to hit the ground running with InDesign because of all the stuff about layout and design that I already learned in Word or Pages. I'm grateful, too, that ultimately it's not my project, so I do what I can and hand it off to Jaala. It's nice not being the one who needs to keep track of every detail.

I'm a bit at odds with knitting lately. I have some projects in the pipeline that need some thinking time, like the Kauni cardigan. And some ideas waiting to be turned into projects, too, but they need even more thinking time. I definitely need to get my kids into some more structured activities for some of the remaining summer. Then maybe I could focus on what to knit!

Now the dull:
The summer's been whacky because of weather and mosquitos. We were supposed to spend 4 nights camping at Devils Lake, but our reservation was canceled because the park closed due to flooding. We spent two nights at Mirror Lake, instead, which is just not as nice a park in several ways. It would have been ok, except that the mosquitos were just about as bad as I've ever had on a camping trip. In fairness to the park, this is a bad situation all over the area. It's been too awful to even stand out on the sidewalk and chat with a neighbor in broad daylight for the last 10 days or so. I do think Mirror Lake would be nice for a visit in the fall, except for the drone of the Interstate, which is a more fundamental problem. Because Devils Lake had been closed, one of our great favorite boredom-busters has been unavailable. The park is about 35 miles from our house, so a bit of a distance with gas prices as they are, still, we could go a couple times a week without breaking the bank. The park just reopened on Thursday, so I think we'll have to plan a visit soon. The lakes right in Madison tend toward algae and often close several times a summer due to high bacteria counts. Lately, they've been closed because of potentially dangerous stuff running into them as a result of flooding.

Yesterday I took the boys to see Wall-E, a new Pixar Studios movie. The Little Emperor has been waiting for months for this release. It was a fun movie for the whole family. There aren't a lot of G rated movies that I genuinely say that about. I wish there were more, but it seems like there tends to be a gulf between the really dippy pablum they release for very young kids (i.e. Barney) and the violent stuff that slides by for PG audiences because people don't hold animation to the same standards as live-action movies. So, I'd give Wall-E two thumbs up for the four and up set. And the teen liked it, too!

That's the news for now. Stay tuned!

Endings

A very photo heavy post
And just kind of heavy, too.
Many of these get bigger if you click them.






I made my last trip down to Quincy Illinois yesterday, to retrieve stuff from my grandmother's house.

My grandmother was not an easy woman to love.

This house was built for my great grandfather, who was a prominent merchant in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Quincy. It was a thriving Mississippi River city then. By the time I came to know Quincy, it was a small city with a dying downtown and strangely disproportionate number of old people living on trust funds. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My grandmother was born in this house and she died in it, too. In the intervening 96 years, she lived in some glamorous and interesting places, partied with great exuberance, and made life miserable for the people closest to her. She never stayed away from Quincy for long.






These stairs were the most amazing thing to me when I was a child. They're still pretty spectacular.


Some rusting metal lawn chairs in the back yard.


So much of the family drama played out in this room. It was built on during my great-grandfather's declining years, when he could no longer handle stairs. He died in it. For many years it was the preferred socializing space, less formal than the living room. My grandfather died in it in 1999, at age 96. My grandmother died in it at age 96, in 2007. A tradition that will not continue. The house will sell as soon as my parents finish emptying it.




The attic.


The river and the bridge to Missouri.

And while I was away, picking out some of her paintings and refusing many offers of vintage table linens, I found that The Garter Belt site has vanished. This was not unexpected. Just a strange juxtaposition on the day when I say farewell to things and places that are receding into the past.

Going forward, look for more of my patterns to appear here on the blog. And I guess I'd better get my butt in gear on that website, too.

The Road to Where is Paved with What?

I guess it's time for a blog post. I've been a little under the weather since Sunday and have taken a bunch of naps. I'd say I'm back up to firing on 3 cylinders (out of 4), having felt like I was down to 1.5 for a while there.

Because I've had this nasty little cold, I was a soft-touch this morning when the Little Emperor feigned claimed illness. I was thinking how I would not have been able to function all day, sitting up, paying attention, running in gym, and all that other stuff that's required. So, in moment of weakness, I let him stay home today. And I knew, KNEW, in my heart of hearts that I'd been conned by 9:30 this morning. I should have just marched him out to the car then and there and taken him. But I didn't. So, it's been a day of minimal productivity.

I finished the Sloane pullover. I need to see it on a real human and take pictures to really assess its success, but I think it's good. I've begun writing the pattern, which involves a bunch of simple illustrations to explain the process through the shoulder area.

Marie Grace tagged me for the Seven Things About Me meme a few days ago. I've been mulling over what I could possibly choose for that. Things I'm willing to share, that don't veer into Too Much Information, but something that my blog-reading public might not already have gleaned about me. I'll have to keep thinking about this. Right now, I can't come up with anything.

A Post Several Days in the Making

I started writing this on Friday, but didn't have photos ready to go and didn't have enough undisturbed time to put two thoughts together coherently. So, am finishing, editing, adding pictures today (Sunday).

Current Knitting
I started knitting Mr. SABLE a version of of the Iron Mountain Hat (v.2) with slightly fatter yarn, in blue and black


Still working on Mr. SABLE's Adirondack Pullover

Still working on the Tahki Tweed version of the One Row Scarf


In addition, longer standing WIPs include
Constance Shorewood about 98% done
The very long-standing tweedy slipstitch sweater for Mr. SABLE
Some miscellaneous socks

Finished a few weeks ago:

A quick little hat from Knit Picks Panache. Not sure I like how it looks, but it feels very soft and warm on my head, which counts for a lot around here.

Meanwhile, I've made plans to make another Iron Mountain v.2 for my friend Jim, for whom I made the brown fisherman's knit raglan last year, and a pullover for my brother's wife. I'm hoping to match both these projects up with stash yarn.

Family Life
Maybe part of why I'm so determined to match projects to existing stash has to do with our pre-holiday preparations. Mr. SABLE's brother and his wife came for a short visit on the 26th, which was great fun. There was a lot of hilarity and fun and games. But before they arrived, Mr. SABLE was driven to clean as I haven't seen him in at least 15 years. He purged and cleaned and filled garbage bags and recycling bins. He scrubbed the bathroom. And now our house is further from the brink of chaos than it has been for some time. So that's part of my motivation to reduce stash: having come this far in our house-normalization process, it seems like a good thing to continue.

The other thing is that on Christmas Eve I had to retrieve some "Santa items" I had hidden in my lair. It took me a full hour of dedicated searching, moving, and organizing to find the bag'o'goodies in a bin I thought I had searched early on. D'oh. And through that, I kept finding yarn I'd forgotten I owned. So I had a moment of clarity where the truth of my sickness was made quite clear.

Christmas Day was quiet. The Little Emperor came into our room about 10 minutes before 7, which is amazingly accurate. We had told him that nothing was happening until 7 and he doesn't have a clock in his room. We tried to doze the last 10 minutes then he gleefully announced that it was time. The morning went well. My brother made one of Owen's wishes come true by sending along an electric guitar that he owned but doesn't play these days.


In the early afternoon, The Little Emperor started to act a little sick. He fell asleep on the couch, spiking a fever of 103 F. In the evening we got a dose of Tylenol into him and got him up to bed. He woke us up at 3:30 a.m. saying he felt hungry and also unwell. Then he had big gastro-enteric symptoms (both ends), several bouts, pretty much keeping us up until 5:30. This was the day that R & C, the relatives, were coming, and we worried about them walking into a house of contagion. It seemed like the little guy was pretty much on the mend by late afternoon and was able to eat a good dinner (pizza) that night with no consequence. Still, I worried a bit, because I know gastro-enteric viruses can stay contagious for a few days after symptoms have passed.

R & C were supposed to stay two nights, but we all had an eye on the weather forecasts which were uniformly grim. They decided to return to C's cousin's in Chicago last night, so they were sure to make their flight back to NJ this afternoon. As it turned out, the flight was canceled, along with all the other flights to NJ on United today.

Finishing Post on Sunday Afternoon
R & C were able to get home, albeit, in a very Planes, Trains, and Automobiles kind of way. They got a flight on a different airline out of Midway, instead of O'Hare; to Philly instead of Newark. Then a rental car to to retrieve their car from Newark Airport, and eventually home to Summit.

BTW, here's one of a series of group pictures we had been ordered to produce for that side of the family:

C., manning the camera, had successfully gotten a laugh out of the kids by asking, "What kind of bees make milk?"
Answer: "Boo bees."

Happy New Year to one and all. Stay safe. Friends don't let friends knit drunk.

Should We Call the Experts?

I was unpacking my 6 year old son's backpack from school last night and found this art project:

Should we call a child shrink for an evaluation? Or just apprentice him to Tim Burton and call it good? (click it for a closer view.)


Here's the Solstice Tree '07

The kids put tinsel on after this picture, so now it sparkles a lot more. Every year I have to remind them that we are looking for a Charlie Brown kind of tree, because our living room is not that big. And the trees always seem much bigger when you get them in the house. This one is not very tall, but has a nice shape. The Little Emperor, artist of the work above, chose it. I think he did a nice job.

A note about the painting on the wall above the mantle on the upper left of the photo. This was done by my late grandmother, who was a watercolor painter of some local renown in western Illinois. She gave it to me years ago. It's not particularly one of my favorites of hers but I like the story that goes with it. She called it "Forgotten Landmark" or something kind of sentimentally evocative like that. My dad always comments, whenever my parents visit, "Oh, it's that old whore house down by the river." Somehow, I trust his interpretation more than hers.

My life in list form: no time for a proper blog post.

Machine conspiracy: one vehicle in shop with unknown malady.

Tomorrow's scheduling complications: re dentist, kids, schools, cars.

Today's expected snow on top of

All the other snow and ice we already have, and

It's cold. It was 1 degree F at 7 a.m. today. (or is that one f'in' degree?)

current knitting: another gift scarf.

Seasonal rant: Maybe this can hold off til around Dec 22?

I hope to make a proper post with pics and fun stuff soon. But my BIL and his wife, who are very nice, but childless and tidy and earn about 10 times (not exaggerating) what we live on are coming to visit the day after Christmas and I'm not sure how we can get ready for that.

The good news is, my sister phoned the other day and we chatted for over an hour. We haven't really talked in about 15 years, so this was interesting.

More anon. I'm off to pick up Thing 2 at his school. Later, will (I hope) be able to pick up Huz-beast, Thing 1, and my car on a subsequent outing. Otherwise, I'll have to get creative.

edited to add:
My vehicle was ready. Whatever made the Check Engine light come on was self-limiting for now. So, I don't need a new transmission today. (Whew!)

Which means tomorrow will be relatively easy in terms of picking up both kids from school and getting them both to the dentist for their appointments.

Whatever snow we're supposed to get tonight hasn't started yet, so I didn't have that added complication to my late-afternoon errand-running.

Project Reports

I'm in a project starting frenzy lately

Scott's Adirondack Pullover

A hat from Knit Picks Panache, like Solstice, only with a different design motif and adult size

The Gift Scarf

Another scarf I may frog, only 2 inches in, so not a big deal

I thought I might get some pictures of the projects, but it's cold here, so I wimped out. And the hat didn't turn out very well, so I need to do a bit of frogging and reknitting on that.

I did get my submission stuff done and sent with a comfortable amount of time for meeting the deadline. Now it's Wait and See time.

Meanwhile, I still have more finishing work to do on Constance Shorewood, mostly the zillion and one ends. The collar and band settled down nicely with aggressive steaming. I do think I need to do a bit of something around the buttonholes (like buttonhole stitch, maybe?), to give them a bit more structure and tidy them up.

I've discovered the joy of tormenting my almost-teenager. Last night we were sitting on the couch near each other while he was doing math homework. I was helping intermittently, and flipping through Knitting for Him. There's one model in that book who I think is really hot. I mentioned to Owen that I was enjoying looking at that model and he was very disturbed; like moving as far away as he could without leaving the couch and saying, "Ew!" disturbed.

Did you know that if your almost-teen is playing loud music that annoys you, you can trick them into turning it off in under 5 seconds? Just start dancing. No kidding. First he'll say, "Stop it." Then he'll say it louder, with more emphasis: "Stop It!!" And then, he'll turn off the speakers and put on headphones. Ah quiet.

Tensions seem to be building at Chez SABLE as we head into the December Gift Grab Frenzy. I hate what Christmas has done to our culture and the effect it has on my kids. I find it disturbing and perverse that so much of our retail economy rests on the buying frenzy of one month or so out of the year. I'm sure I'll have a rant or two on that topic before we're done.

The Week in Review

Tonight I am staying up late, guilt free! Indeed, I'm required to! Owen and his friend Josh have gone to the local laser tag place where they have a Friday night deal that goes until 12:30 a.m. And I'm to be the designated driver when it ends. Often, I have an urge to stay up late and have to drag myself away from the computer or my projects because my more sensible self knows I'll regret it if I don't. But tonight, I'm on duty. And tomorrow morning, when the Little Emperor awakens, I'm not!

Thanksgiving
Our Thanksgiving was pretty low-key, which is the way we like it. No travel. No company. No big pre-party clean-up. No panic. I did cook the meal and it all turned out ok. The funny part is that I don't particularly like traditional Thanksgiving food. I don't dislike it: just not anything I lust after all year. We had a 12 pound turkey, boiled potatoes, baked sweet potatoes with brown sugar and butter, broccoli, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. Nothing came from a can. Mr. SABLE made the pies from a pumpkin Owen grew last summer. I did provide him with frozen pie crusts, because neither of us has the crust-making gene dominant. Tomorrow, I turn what's left of the turkey into soup and clear a little space in the fridge.

Knit Night
A week ago I went to Late Night Knitting at The Sow's Ear and had a little session of the Hog'n'Blog gang. So named by Dale's Mr. Dearling. Members thus far are Dale, Chocolate Sheep, Molly Bee, and me. Honorary member: Dale's Lovely Daughter. I had Owen in tow, which worked out ok. He practiced some of his magic tricks on the assembled knitters and was mostly well-behaved. When I got out my camera to try to take pictures, though, he put his hand in every one! Eventually I gave up, so, sorry, no photo documentation of the momentous occasion.

Current Projects
I've been working on a submission for a big time print magazine. I have no idea how it will turn out. I'm not expecting too much, not because I think my submission is lacking. To the contrary, I'm quite excited about it. I just find that it's better to approach it all with a bit of detachment. And I have a bit of dread that it might get accepted, because it isn't a quick'n'easy little project. The hard part, though, is getting all excited about a project but then, not actually making it right away! You make the swatch, you draw your sketch, you maybe do a schematic, and write a few descriptive words. Then put it all in a big envelope and send it off. After a time, you either get your submission back or a contract. If you get the contract, then you knit like the dickens for 3 weeks to make the deadline. And then, as far as I can tell, half the knitters in the world post online why your pattern sucks. Or not even the Why, just that It Sucks: no further explanation is forthcoming. So, detachment is in order. I do the footwork, I send it in, I see what happens next. If they don't want it, I'm going to make it anyway; it's just that cool.

Black Friday
I'm proud to report that no one in my family did any Christmas shopping today. Or shopping of any kind. The boys all went to a movie while I stayed home and enjoyed the quiet. I did a bunch of spinning, without too much aggravation to my left hand or carpal tunnel. After a little random Ravelry cruising, I figured out the appropriate use for some yarn that sneaked into my stash about a month ago, so I cast on for that and started. Pictures of that tomorrow. I'm making the Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf from Universal Yarns Classic Shades. This is a 70% Dralon/30% wool blend, with gradual subtle color changes: very like Rowan Tapestry but much cheaper. I don't know what in the world Dralon is. Sounds like Dacron meets rayon, but whatever. It feels nice and the colors are lovely. The yarn has a nice sheen, no doubt from all that dralon.

(A quick search reveals that Dralon is a type of acrylic commonly used in upholstery. Maybe the yarn in question will wear well. Doesn't look like it will, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.)

November 13, 2007

Constance Shorewood Yolanda Twatt Catfirth Wadbister
Just odds and ends to finish up here:

What's left:
finish sewing in sleeve
darn in a million ends
reinforce buttonholes
buy and attach buttons
Steam the hell out it.

Here's a closer view of the collar:


I might wish I had made it more generous, but I'll have to decide after the steam the hell out of it step. If it wants to stand up, thus exposing the wrong side to scrutiny, I'll probably redo it. If it lies down and plays nice, I'll keep it as is.

The naming:
It sounds like Shorewood is the preferred choice by the majority, with Constance running a strong second. The other women's names were never seriously in the running; I was just playing with the alphabet after my bedtime.

But I think Constance Shorewood sounds like the name of a soap-opera character. Maybe she once did a stint as a pole dancer in a boobie bar, 20 years ago, under the name Yolanda Twatt. But since then, she's married up in the world, is active in the Important Ladies Who Lunch League in her fictional city, and looks elegant on the arm of her oh-so-important husband, Charles Shorewood, MD. But then, she receives a message from someone who knew her back in the day, who has a photo of her at her old place of employment, and wants $50 grand to keep quiet. How far will Constance go to protect her reputation and standing in the community? Tune in tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I've had lots of other bloggy ideas running through my brain, but they all leave when I sit down to type.

On Saturday I went to see The Wallflowers in Milwaukee with my neighbor A.P. We had a great time. (You can see A.P. modeling the Autumn Walk Scarf over at TGB.) It was one of those kind of concerts that just seems magical. The band played forever. The encore was as long as the main set. That was my birthday present to myself.

Mr SABLE left on Sunday for a work trip to NJ, leaving me to figure out how to get both kids to school in the morning, get Owen to his mandatory band concert tomorrow night (after The Little Emperor is supposed to be on his way to bed), attend both parent-teacher meetings, while providing proper childcare for the young 'uns, and generally just muddling through my week. Not even getting to the birthday issue, which isn't that much of a big deal. It can shift around as needed.

My folks phoned earlier and my dad asked, as he's been doing since I can remember, how it feels to be (fill in the blank). This year it's 46. Chatted with my mom a while and had a good laugh or two.

My folks are at my grandmother's house now, overseeing the removal of most of her stuff to be auctioned off at the end of the month. My mom said it was quite a spectator event for the neighborhood as the stuff went out to the trucks. Yes, plural. It took a fleet of trucks to do it. Read all about it and go buy stuff if you're in the area.

Last night my boys and I were driving past the Culvers on the beltline in Madison, and as usual, they were scoping out the Flavor of the Day. (Culvers is a fast food chain, with a different frozen custard flavor each day.) Owen reads aloud, "Cinnamon Bun" and we both burst out laughing. If you don't get the joke, listen to this, especially pay attention at time 4:31 on clip.

More cardigan names

Yahara
Lake Mendota
Sand County
Trempealeau
Shorewood (a twofer: ritzy neighborhoods in both Madison and Milwaukee)
Vilas
Bayfield

(I just took a quick look at the Shetland Islands on Google maps. There are some delightful place names there: Twatt, Bixter, Semblister, Catfirth, Freester, Wadbister, Huxter, Flugarth, Swining, Busta (that means "enough!" in italian! Oh, wait, that's basta!))

Then there's the female names approach:
Adrienne
Bonita
Constance
...
Xaviera
Yolanda
Zelda

Constance might work.

I got waylaid from finishing tonight because Owen insisted on playing Monopoly with Mr. SABLE and me. I trounced them! In record time! First, I commandeered all the railroads on my first pass around the board, then I bled them dry. In the end, I owned everything except Park Place. And I didn't even really feel like playing. Go figure.

The Little Emperor's First Lost Tooth

The Little Emperor has had two very loose teeth in front on the bottom for several weeks. Today, when I picked him up at school, he told me he had lost one of them. My little boy is not so little anymore!

The Little Emperor Turns 6!

Here we are, probably around July 31 or August 1, 2001.

Holding up his head at a couple months old:


The brothers getting along:

(The Little Emperor is wearing the very same t-shirt today that Owen was wearing in that picture. Cue the Twilight Zone music...)

One of my favorite images of him, taken just shy of one year old:


Swinging with his favorite squirrel, around age 2:


Happy Birthday Little Emperor! You keep life exciting for us.

Going Out of Town

But just for a couple of days. But, since my blog posts seem to have been happening on weekends lately, I thought I better tell you all that I'll be back late on Monday and not to expect much until Tuesday.

My parents will be working on the stuff in my grandmother's house and I'm taking Owen down with me to be an extra set of hands and also take pictures of stuff we might try to sell in a more up-market venue.

In fiber news, I've just been spinning and carding mostly.

I did start knitting a beret from the grape Kool-Aid 3 ply, which I think will be very cozy for winter. And I nearly finished a long-dormant second sock this evening. (I was inspired by Terby.) I managed to get right up to the toe shaping before I lost the will to see it through to the end.

But the spinning and carding, well that's been fun. I've made a mountain of batts from the mixed-browns Brown Sheep mill ends, minus the brown I peeled off to spin solid. I finished spinning all the brown I peeled off and have one more bobbin to ply, which will have to be plied on itself. The remaining mixed browns are mostly black and the white stuff you can see in the photo in the last post is mohair. Boris is going to stay with Fern for the coming week, so I guess I'll be concentrating on spinning or maybe knitting. I've also been spinning singles from some brown merino-romney cross that came in the large fiber lot. This is turning out very nice. It has a lot of lanolin left in it still: not completely unscoured, just a nice bit of lanolin to coat my hands while I spin. I got a length of that off the bobbin and folded it in half twice to get a sense of how it will perform as a four-ply. It's nice. Looks like about 10 w.p.i. with a great springiness. It should be a very resilient yarn.

Other news
My order from the Interweave Press hurt book sale arrived today. I really lucked out. I was on the computer at the moment the email announcement went out and I ordered right away. I got Alden Amos, Lee Raven's Hands On Spinning, In Sheep's Clothing, Starmore and daughter's Children's Collection, Feitelson's Fair Isle Knitting, and a couple others.

And now, I really have to go to sleep. Owen and Mr. SABLE are out getting the new Harry Potter, which means I'll be on duty with The Little Emperor in the morning.

Pictures next week. I promise.

Photos from our weekend. And of yarn.

I just looked at the few pictures I took while we were in Illinois with my folks over the weekend. Sometimes when I look at a picture of my mom I'm struck by how much of an an unknown she is to me in some ways, and yet, how familiar in others. In the picture, I see the old lady she's becoming and it seems way too soon. And I see the mom I've always known and also, the person I feel that, as a daughter, I can never entirely know.


We were all at a big playground a few blocks from my grandmother's house. Owen took 20 pictures of sparrows.

The Little Emperor spent about 20 minutes spinning on this gadget.


After all that spinning, look how happy he was:


In Other News

Today the UPS man brought me a box with over 4 pounds of fingering weight yarn. On cones. I had seen this yarn at the WEBS site last week. Last week when I was playing around with all that fingering weight yarn I own and trying to make it work in a project. And then I realized that I really need some lighter values, because without enough value contrast, you get mud. So, I was browsing my favorite cheap yarn sources because paying $5 per 25 gm ball of Jamieson's is really a last resort option for me. I ordered a pound each of the four palest choices in that listing. (Pale yellow not in picture.) The yarn is still in the spinning grease and has a rough feeling on the cones, so I skeined off a bit to wash and see how that changed things. I think it'll soften up enough to be a good purchase.

My Crazy Week!

I can't believe it's Thursday already. The Little Emperor started coming down with a cold over the weekend and missed three days of school. He's had a bad chesty cough and been pretty low energy, up until yesterday in the late afternoon and evening, when he became feisty enough to be annoying and I decided it's time for him to go back to school. He still has the chesty cough, but no fever, so I don't think he needs to see the doctor.

While he's been home, I filled out our taxes. It's a little bit of a pain in the neck because I had some self-employment income this year, which adds two schedules to the 1040, and because I get a modest payment from a trust fund from my deceased grandfather every year. The payment for each year comes in the first two months of the following year (65 Day Rule) and is followed by a thick envelope of forms that have only a few incomprehensible numbers on them. Most of this trust money comes from tax free bonds, but a bit of it comes from taxable dividends and interest. And some money is exempt from Federal taxes, but not state. The total amount of trust fund money would not support one person above poverty for a year in Madison, but it does offer a nice little cushion in our lives. Still, when I'm staring down the Alternative Minimum Tax form and after working through the computations to be fully compliant, I find that it doesn't affect our federal outcome one bit, I get a little bit of attitude. Which could seg me into a fully-formed rant about taxation in America, but I might have to save that for another day. I usually like to compose those kind of rants carefully a day ahead, or more, and proofread at least once before I hit post. So, I got the tax forms all filled out on Tuesday April 17, feeling mightily relieved and like a good citizen, and while I'm stuffing the envelopes, I double-check the address for the State of Wisconsin and I see that the Wisconsin deadline was April 16. Oh well. Not much can be done when it's already 24 hours late. Just post it and hope for the best.

Meanwhile, Monday afternoon, Mr SABLE came home from work with a little box in hand. He asked Owen to pass it up to me, (I was half-way down the stairs) and it's labeled Apple Care, which can only mean one thing. He's been to CompUSA and bought something. Something BIG. (BTW, in our family, we say Compusa like it's the name of an obscure country in Africa: Kahm-poo-sa, with the emphasis on
the middle sylable.) So, here's the Something BIG:


It took us a couple days to get all my stuff moved and install new copies of the software I use that doesn't come with it, but I'm happy as can be. When I have patterns to format, I can have a page layout open and not constantly juggle formatting palettes, and have Photoshop open, and Illustrator, and still see everything I need to see. What a thrill!

Today, now that the Little Emperor is back at school, I finally get to do a big grocery shop and take a big comforter to the laundromat. It's one we used to have on our bed and when I bought us a new one, LE took it over. He's still in Pull-ups over night, and sometimes he exceeds their capacity. Unfortunately, Sunday night (I think, it all blurs together) he leaked onto the big comforter which does not fit in my home washer. I can tell you, I'm getting mighty tired of changing sheets at odd times of the night. When Owen was 6, we used an alarm method and it worked really well. It's just about time to use it on the LE, too. I miss having an unbroken night of sleep.

Yesterday I managed a few rounds of knitting on the Baby James Cardigan. I think when I get back from grocery and laundromat, I'll figure out the numbers for the neckline shaping, and move that into the hood region. If I don't just take a nap until 3, when I have to go pick up LE at school.

I'm happy to report that our temperatures will reach the upper 60s and low 70s in a few more days! Yay! I'm ready.

Wet Wool

Here are the Komi Mittens, wet and laying out on an old dishtowel on the porch. Do you think I have a problem with delayed gratification? Yeah, I haven't darned in my ends yet either.

For people who read this kind of stuff, I'm including the technical details.

Pattern: Mitten #23 in Mostly Mittens, by Charlene Schurch; Large size.

Yarn: Red, Yarn From the Barn, Sport wt, from Rainbow Fleece Farm, New Glarus, WI.
White, Columbia Minerva Fingering wt worsted wool, vintage yarn from the stash.

Needles: US #2 double points, Ribbing in US #0 double points.

Notes and Modifications: I just launched into the larger size without a swatch. When I make the next pair, I'll make the smaller size, or use smaller needles. These will fit Mr. SABLE. My back-up plan was to felt them slightly if needed to make them fit someone. I didn't alter the pattern one bit, other than using different yarn than shown. These are really fun mittens to make. The patterns are simpler than they look. I plan to make more.

In Other News
We had an interesting time last night. About 11 p.m., just as I was drifting off to sleep, Owen came into our room to tell us that he was shivering and couldn't stop. I took him back to his room and covered him with more blankets, and realized there wasn't much more I could do for him. Like a bad mom, I went back to my own bed and tried to get back to that delicious state of just drifting off that I had been yanked from. Mr. SABLE had opened the window a bit, as it was the first warm day of the season. As I was lying there, I thought I smelled something off. I have a terrible sense of smell, so I asked Mr. SABLE if he smelled a skunk. He snorted and muttered no. About ten seconds later, he said, "Ewww, I do smell a skunk!" and slammed the window shut. We still smelled it, but not as overwhelmingly. Now I had two worries. First Owen and his fever/chill and then, realizing one of our cats had not come in for the night. And he was out there with a skunk. I checked back on Owen about 11:30 and he was less shivery, but starting to feel hot to the touch. Then I went to bed and slept until the alarm went off at 6:50. (Have I mentioned how much I hate the time change? Getting up in the dark? Again.)

I let Owen sleep, called the school to let them know he wouldn't be coming, and asked Mr. SABLE to check for the cat. Thank goodness, the cat smelled just like his normal self. And thank goodness there was no lingering whiffiness in the yard, because I surely believed that skunk had sprayed right outside my window. We had skunk action last spring. They were fishing for koi in the garden pond. I hope they aren't actually living on our property. I really don't want to find a family burrowed in the lilacs or worse, under the porch!

So, Owen's home sick today. And if I had to choose between my children, I'd rather have a sick day with Owen than the Little Emperor any day. He's far more self-sufficient.

A note about Last Saturday Knitting
We are taking a trip to San Diego for spring break, so I won't be at Last Saturday Knitting this month either. I've had more days away than there lately, it seems. Sorry. But I really really really will try to be there, as scheduled, for April.