Finally some knitting... and other stuff

Sorry for all you dial-up folks out there. This one's a bit photo heavy.


Several years ago, these sedums came along for the ride when someone gave me a bunch of hostas they were thinning from a family plot in a local cemetary. This year, for the first time, they are in a happy home. Lots of sunshine and no stress. What I love about these sedums is how pink they are, compared to others that look like the same variety. The bumble bees love them, too.


Here's our female cat, Hailey, sitting on the garden path by some ornamental grass. Why do cats start walking right at the camera the minute I crouch down for a picture?



A couple shots from recent butterfly stalking in the garden. Yeah, I know, the butterfly shots are all starting to look the same. I think the thrill is in the conquest for me.

Finally, some knitting progress pics



I would like the skinny scarf to be about 6 feet long. It's about 5 feet right now. Anyone with the perfect name for this, let me know. By the way, the Yarn Botanika yarn has a magical quality of reproducing on the ball while you knit! It's true! This ball still feels about as heavy as when I started! Amazing!*

If I hadn't stressed my left wrist on the sweater for the Little Emperor, I would have been done by now.

The working name for the boy-sized version of the Adirondack Pullover is Foothills. It still needs sleeves, a collar, a good jostle in warm water to make it submit to my will. I think it'll get shelved a month or more while I work on some stuff that doesn't stress my hands. I'm getting a feeling that my little guy is on a big growth spurt, too. I just dragged another box of Owen's old clothes out of the closet, and it's startling to see what almost fits!

*Click here to see close-up of scarf stitch.

Kindergarteners

They bounce off each other like gas molecules. Imagine holding helium in your hand, or putting a swarm of gnats in your lap.

Some need so much. Scared, quiet, overwhelmed. Some are bossy and some are rebellious. One boy already spits like an old man with a 40 year Skoal habit.

How can this petulant five year old girl with a teen mom be so secure in herself, so in charge of her universe, when my five year old will not let go of my hand until the last minute? What did that teen mom get right that I, with age, education, and money, could not give my boys?

How do the grown ups who run their school universe keep the wild ones in order without terrorizing the shy ones? Convey both kindness and total authority?

How many new disabilities are there now? Every kind of sensory integration dysfunction, and they need to work it out and be part of the system. You look at some of these kids and you think, surely, he must have a diagnosis. But, by the end of the day, in your mind you’ve labeled three fourths of the class. Maybe that number is too high? Maybe not? Does any child get to be five years old and not know that spitting in another child’s face is bad behavior? Unless he has a label?

Some kids can’t tolerate the noise, or the proximity, or the jostling. Some can’t stop making noise, moving near, or jostling.

They tease and bully from the second day. They form alliances. The daughter of the teen mom and the daughter of an older mom are the queen bees, already. They are in their own secret club, smug in their knowledge that they are elementary school royalty. They are deciding already who is weak or a geek, who will sink to the lowest caste.

Some of them bring out the worst in me, sometimes in spite of their obvious need. For all the things I never managed to teach my children, they are courteous to adults. There are kids who show up with matching, stain-free clothes, who come from clean orderly houses, yet, who size up every situation in the terms of what they can get away with. Were they born like that? Does it come from spending the early years in a substandard, understaffed daycare? Kids who act like the only time following basic rules matters is when directly under a teacher’s gaze. The only time you don’t break a rule is when you’ll get caught. These kids irk me in a fundamental way. When they try to smile cutely, ingratiatingly, I see it as manipulation, maybe even when it isn’t. For all my kids’ failings, they learned early not to expect certain manipulative moves to work.

I agreed to help in the lunchroom for the first two weeks. Closing in on the end of the second week, I am eager to be done, but I worry about how the kids will get their milks opened, pack up their garbage, cope. I know they will. They’ll have to. And I know that my kindergartener is learning the drill and shouldn’t run afoul of The Lunch Lady out of ignorance.

And the ignorance is so sad. The Lunch Lady is a Queen of Protocol. Woe to the child who defies her. Is there a better way?

As parents we color our opinions with our memories of our own experiences. If my lunchroom was anarchy, but I liked that, I think all this regimentation is oppressive. If my school lunch times were hell because of the chaos and unruly kids, then I’m apt to think this strict imposition of orderliness is good. It helps the kids focus on eating when they have only a short time to do that. For every kid who thrives with strictness, there’s another who would thrive with more latitude.

For every kid who can comply completely with The Lunch Lady’s demands by the end of the first week, there are 10 who cannot. She uses shame and ridicule to drive home her expectations. I think there’s a better way. Still, I’ve done my two weeks. I could not do her job day in, day out, year in, year out, for even 5 times what I bet they pay her. So can I still criticize her methods? Is that fair.

Sometimes I think we want our own children to be free souls. But we want all those other kids to follow the rules.

The tattletales
If one third of the kids are trouble-makers, another third seem to be tattle tales. I want a child to tell an adult when something is a safety issue. But I think most of them need to butt out on all the little stuff. Most of the tattling doesn’t directly concern the tattler, anyhow.

The timid
The last third are timid. Too afraid to speak, missing their moms and the cozy lunchtime rituals they’ve enjoyed for 5 years. They eat quietly, sadly, some cry. They look like Dickensian orphans, wondering how fate dealt them this cruel hand and placed them here, under The Lunch Lady’s watchful eye. They try to do everything right, but sniffle too loudly when the call for silence goes up. Then the eagle eyes whirl around, looking for the culprit who made the noise. These children break my heart. They wait patiently, quietly, for their tables to be dismissed, while the rowdies at the other end of the table push and cajole. The Lunch Lady passes them by, punishing the whole class for the actions of a few. Finally, she comes to their table, and reminds them all that they have practiced, they should know this by now. The timid ones tremble, hoping to gain freedom on the playground for a short while. In the 10 minutes that they have been waiting, quietly, hopefully, some fidget and look away. The Lunch Lady barks, “Pay attention! Look at me!”

Finally, freedom is granted. Until tomorrow at lunch.

Very Special Things

A new pattern by Wendy Wonnacott available here!


My own knitting is taking a holiday this week. I've been catching up on things I've let slide in the rest of my life and giving my left hand a break at the same time.


I foresee some machine knitting in my future!

More Things About Me

17. I'm a recovering alcoholic, sober for nearly 20 years.

18. I don't believe in astrology, but my personality seems to fit the profile for my sign, Scorpio.

19. I had to fire someone who worked in my bookstore once. On her way out, she told me I was, "rude, cruel, power-hungry, and abusive." Whew. Maybe some of that is true.

20. Mr. SABLE and I lived in Ithaca NY from 1984-96.

21. We moved to Madison WI when he got his first real job.

22. I don't cry very often.

23. But tear-jerker scenes in movies get me every time.

24. I'm embarrassed when I start crying because of that kind of blatant emotional manipulation.

25. I've never owned a dog.

26. I've always been extremely close to my mother.

27. My family moved to NH when I was 5, just before I started 1st grade.

28. In my very small public school, about 12 of us went from 1st-12th grades together. I graduated in a large class of 30.

29. When I was a young teen, I wanted to go to RISD and study fashion design. My mom told me that would be a bad idea.

30. So, I went to University of Chicago and had several concentrations before I stopped trying. Among them: Italian Lit, History of Religions, and Medieval History.

31. Eventually I may go back to college and get a BA in Textiles and Design.

32. My secret internet vice is looking at real estate. It's like pornography for me.

Personality assessment fun

My Personality

Neuroticism	33
Extraversion	48
Openness To Experience	43
Agreeableness	36
Conscientiousness	30

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report Bebo, MySpace Codes and MySpace Layouts by Pulseware Survey Software

Later the same day...

My Personality

Neuroticism	14
Extraversion	58
Openness To Experience	49
Agreeableness	65
Conscientiousness	62

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report Bebo, MySpace Codes and MySpace Layouts by Pulseware Survey Software

The First Few Days of School

Tuesday was supposed to usher in a new era at the SABLE house. I'm not sure it's quite worked out the way I thought it should just yet. Both boys are in new school situations and having some adjustments. For Owen, the main issue is the earlier start time. We really need to make sure he stops reading and goes to sleep by 10, because he needs to wake up around 7 and be out the door at 7:30. Mr SABLE is going in to work earlier, so we're seeing him a little earlier in the afternoons these days.

For the little guy, though, it's a big change. He's handling it pretty well, although every day I get a bit of resistance as we approach 8:15. When we're lining up waiting for the bell, he begs me to stay but accepts it when I leave. I've been volunteering in the lunch room with the kindergarteners and first graders, so we have to go through the separation issues all over again. I'm eager to finish that obligation. I will do Monday mornings in the classroom if it doesn't cause problems with my little guy.

I donated blood yesterday morning. That was uneventful. It's always good when that's uneventful.

I had coffee with my friend Heather this morning. While I was waiting for her, I managed to spill my coffee and soak my shorts. Fortunately, the spill was on my side so no ambiguity about the big wet spot. Home to change then off to school for lunch duty. Then home for a bit to organize my thoughts and eat a little lunch myself before I went off to the supermarket. Yay! Shopping alone! I love shopping alone.

So, not much knitting the last couple days. Part of that is just the running around busy-ness, but also I really did overdo it with the Cotton Top on the Little Emperor's pullover over the weekend and had to give my left hand several days with almost no knitting.

Tomorrow afternoon I get to hang out with Emily for a bit while she's in town.

Then Mr SABLE is taking the guys off camping for the weekend. I might sneak off to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival while they're gone, although it sounds like the knitty-heads will be gathering on Sunday.

Next week, I hope to really hunker down and get productive.

A little progress since yesterday...

I took this pic about an hour ago. I'm about half-way to the finished body length of this pullover. I'm aiming for about 20 inches long. The Cotton Top is giving my hands a bit of a work-out, so I'd better lay off it for the rest of the day.

I used Cotton Top for the second sweater I ever made. I loved that sweater. (Where is that now?) I could put it in a gentle machine wash in a mesh bag and then lay it out on a drying rack. It stood up to all kinds of abuse in the bookstore. It was oversize then, which means it might fit me ok now.


We had a few lovely days in a row and Mr. SABLE left his van windows open in the driveway yesterday. Our two cats slept in there all day! They really think it's just one giant cat bed.


Our little guy thinks he's a cat. This has been an enduring theme of his since very early on. His first word was Meow. I wonder if there will be Species Reassignment Surgery available when he's an adult. (A horrifying thought!)

Fiber and Knitting

Here are my main works in progress of the moment. The skinny scarf for the Yarn Botanika project is coming along. I find I can make great progress on this if I have my music going or something to keep me in my chair. I'm not a tv/movie knitter, but those of you who are will be able to do this pattern while parked on the couch with an eye on the tube.

The other item is the beginning of a top-down raglan for The Little Emperor. I'm re-using the same concept as my Adirondack Pullover, only at a slightly different gauge and in a boy's size. The yarn is from a stash-dive I took last night. Brown Sheep's Cotton Top, which was not in production very long. It's probably a heavy worsted/aran weight, 50/50 wool/cotton blend. It's soft to the touch and has a nice crunchy hand. When Owen came down to the basement lair to show me something, I asked him what he thought about the yarn for a sweater for L.E. He must be gaining some tact in his old age. He made a bit of a face and recovered. Then said, "You'd better ask him." Very diplomatic. The yarn looks better in the knitting than it does in the skeins. This morning, LE voiced his approval. The other day he said he wants a rainbow sweater, so I might have to make another one for him fairly soon.


This is the Corriedale Cross I've been spinning the last few days. Nice nice batts.

Some Things About Me

The court of public opinion is running decidedly against the "100 Facts", but strongly for the abbreviated version. Here's a short list to kick things off. Turtlegirl, you have permission to skip reading this post.

1. For 10 years, from 1985-1995, I owned a used bookstore. That store is still in operation, under another owner.

2. I’m a closet hypochondriac.

3. I stopped believing in Santa when I was just barely 5 years old. I was in line to talk to Santa at my school’s Christmas party and an older kid behind me told me there was no such thing and that was just a man in a suit. I knew he was right and told my mom I was ready to go home.

4. I first questioned religious authority when I was about four. My parents had been making a last-gasp effort at being church-going Episcopalians. While I was at the little kids' Sunday school, a church-lady told me that God was in every one and in every thing. (A little far fetched to my four year old mind.) Then she told me that God was in the crayons and in the paper of the coloring book. (That followed logically.) But then she said that God was not yet in the nice praying family depicted in the coloring page and that I should color them in to put God in them. Now, that was a load of crap, in my opinion. We had a pointless debate for a few minutes, then I colored the picture. She put it in a closet for me to take home later, but when my mom came, no one would give us my picture. We never went back to that church. I told my mom I didn’t believe in God and she said ok.

5. Now I believe in something I call god, but it’s nothing like the church-lady was talking about.

6. My brain is a trivia trap. I read little bits of stuff or articles and some facts stick. I don’t know a lot about any one thing, except knitting, but I know surprising things about topics you would never suspect.

7. I feel secretly guilty because I neither know nor care as much about politics as I think I should.

8. I did better on my math SAT than my verbal.

9. I didn’t vote in any real election until I was over 30.

10. I was born in the Hyde Park neighborhood on the south side of Chicago.

11. I was delivered by the same female doctor who had delivered both my dad and my brother.

12. I was a bad student in college. I was too interested in drinking and playing bridge.

13. My first son was born after a 43 hour labor.

14. My second son was born after a 5 hour labor.

15. I met Mr. SABLE in 1981. We started seeing each other in summer '83, moved in together in summer '84, got married in summer '90. (four facts in one!)

16. We both always forget all our anniversaries.

I'm thinking about...

doing a "100 Things About Me." Should I? Since you guys are the readers, let me know! I've read some really interesting "100 Things" posts and some real snoozers. Not to dump on myself, but my guess is mine would lean more toward snooze-land. Just being objective: don't tell me to get therapy for my poor self-image.

Anyhow, I've never looked into how to set up an internet poll, so, I'll just tabulate the Yes and No votes from the comments and go with that.

Yes=Elizabeth should do a 100 Things post
No=Elizabeth should NOT do a 100 Things post

More spinning

Last night I started spinning the Grafton Fibers Corriedale Cross I bought at the Fiber Studio in NH. Today I was able to spend some spinning time here and there between spats and obligations. I took the bobbin out to the backyard climber and put it in the setting sun to bring out the warm purples. With the flash in a darker place, the purples vanished and it appeared too blue. I bought about 7 oz of this. Wasted a bit right at the outset, but I hope to get something like mittens and hat or scarf out of it when I'm done.


While I was out posing my bobbin, The Little Emperor was hanging out with the big koi named Black Spot. Here they are, enjoying a truly beautiful evening. The kind of evening that makes you want to take a three mile walk.

Maybe I'll do that now.

Spinning

I've been making time for spinning the last couple days. Today I finished up the last of the mostly-black corriedale I bought from Susan's Fiber Shop when I bought the wheel. Toward the end of the singles, I could sense that I was finally controlling the process a bit, rather than being controlled! I plied most of it. There's still a bit of extra sitting on one bobbin that I'll ply with itself. My plied skeins were a little unbalanced, but then, so am I and so is my whole family. The first one I plied today wants to twist around a bit, not too badly. But the second one has more torque. I'll try giving them a soak and hang out with light weight and see if that helps.



Meanwhile, I ordered the spinning books from the library again. In April I got a big stack and read just enough to get started. It's hard to make sense of some of it (like different ways of controlling your draft) when you feel lucky to just to make something that looks kind of like yarn. As that part gets easier, it's time for me to learn more and improve my technique.

Finally, yesterday afternoon this poor swallowtail paid a pretty long visit to our butterfly bush. I got a bunch of pictures, several quite close and crisp. Alas, something has been shredding this poor butterfly. His wings are badly damaged, but he still gets around pretty well. Gives him character!

a quick project

I've been working on the skinny scarf on #2 needles pretty much single-mindedly for the past couple of weeks. It doesn't look like I have a lot to show for that, but I'm about half-way done and I haven't given knitting a lot of time lately.

Last night, I suddenly had the urge to do something quick! And to try to knit up some of the "yarn" that I've made. This is from the yarn I was learning on, in April, made on my drop spindle. It was a challenge to even make a small hat from it because the earliest stuff was very thick, super-bulky, and the last bunch would have knit nicely on #6 or 7 needles. It was very clear where the whole spinning thing clicked for me. So, yes, this hat has many gauges going on, and yes, it's kind of funny-looking and a little too short in the crown, but I felt it was important for me to actually make something from yarn I spun. I'm hoping that a little blocking will at least take away the nipple on top. It may not be the most elegant hat I ever made, but I'll wear it with pride, because it's the first item for which I actually made the yarn, too.

A Trip to Chicago

I went to Chicago today. My main mission was to meet Franklin for a little stealth project. My secondary goal was to meet Marcy, aka mittenfarce. Here they are together at Arcadia Knitting. It was a perfect day. Even the time I spent crawling in construction-related traffic was perfect. Maybe you need to be a parent to understand that part. When I get to take a long drive alone and listen uninterrupted to whatever I like on the radio, it's a good day. And meeting and hanging out with delightful knitters just tops it off. On the way down, I was reflecting on how wonderful Mr SABLE is. His wife announces one day that she's going to drive to Chicago to meet a man from the internet and take pictures of him! And he says, "OK." On the way home, I stopped at a Krispy Kreme on the interstate and bought a dozen donuts to reward my guys for being such great sports.

And now, I'm off to stare at a Sudoku puzzle for a few minutes before I fall asleep.

August 24, 2006

Remember The Apple? Here it is, right after I picked it and right before I ate it. It was pretty good. Maybe next year we'll get enough for the whole family.

The two skeins of yarn we dyed the other day are fairly different from each other. I'll probably have to alternate rows from them in whatever I make.


Here's a sample from one of them. I'm not sure yet what to make of it, but I'm thinking maybe a hat. I do like hats.

We had a lot of rain in the last 24 hours, and more on the way this evening. This afternoon, during a break in the weather, I was in my basement lair putting the finishing touches on a project I need to have ready to photograph this weekend. The Little Emperor was playing with the neighbor. When I emerged from the basement to see why it was so quiet, this is what I found:



Fortunately, he had not come into the house looking for me! The neighbor girl, who is 8 and should have known better, had gone into her house to change and did not wash her feet first. Apparently, she tracked mud all over and her step-mother was not happy. I don't mind kids playing in mud, but only in a designated spot and with a clean-up plan in place first.

We did the registration stuff for the Little Emperor for kindergarten today! Yay. Tomorrow Owen and I have to go down to the middle school and get him squared away. Then I just wallow in anticipation of Sept. 5.

This month's reading: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. The history of everything! in less than 500 pages! Kidding aside, it is fascinating reading.

playing with color

When we met in NH, Shelagh gave me some yarn to dye with the kids. On our first effort, we used red and blue Wiltons, made in a solution with water and poured over the yarn. The results remindedme of cotton candy. I know a lot of people would be happy with it, but it was a little too pastel for my taste. Today I went at it with all sorts of other stuff. I sprinkled grape and black cherry koolaid powder right on the yarn while it simmered in just enough water to cover it in my 12 quart pan. As it was simmering, I thought it needed a little something else, so I mixed some brown Wilton's paste in water and splashed that on here and there. When the water in pan looked clear, I turned off the stove and drained off the boiling water.
Some close ups of different sections of the yarn:





Don't worry folks, there will always be bugs here, too.

I've been trying to find a good milkweed bug for Shelagh, but having a hard time. Finally found this one hiding in the plant. Meanwhile, our older camera, which has the great built-in supermacro, is misbehaving terribly. I don't have a super macro for the new camera yet. So, my bug close-ups are limited for now.

A Post About Knitting!

Occasionally I should include some actual knitting content on this so-called knitting blog, hmm? Here's a detail picture of the Yarn Botanika scarf-in-progress. The stitch couldn't be easier, but it makes a great effect with this yarn. I'm planning to add something to the ends, to jazz things up a bit. Maybe some strands with interesting beads? Is the artsy-Bohemian look out again? I hope not. That's one trend I'm always happy to see cycle around again.

While I've been working with this yarn, I've been thinking about the other kinds of projects it would serve well for. Since it's a superwash, I bet a couple of skeins in the right colorway would make adorable baby things. I can tell you, it would not cause itch on even the most hyper-sensitive of babies. The stitch pattern I'm using for the scarf would also work well with it for a swingy unstructured cardigan. I can imagine all sorts of interesting textured scarves, worked the long way with self-fringe. Of course you'd scare a few people away if you tell them to cast on 300 stitches on #2 needles, but for the stalwarts who stick with it, the effect would be great.

I've been making mental lists of various WIPs. That's Works in Progress as well as Works in Planning. As always for me, socks don't count. Anyone remember the tweedy slip-stitch sweater I started for Mr. SABLE last fall? Maybe I'll bump that back into active status. I doubt it would be a best-seller pattern (those # 3 needles!), but I know it will be a great garment. I still have high hopes of starting a complex fair isle soon. Like this fall? Again, I don't know that such a pattern would sell enough to justify the work in a pure dollars and cents accounting. But, it would make me happy and satisfy a deep itch. I need to finish machine knitting a very basic fisherman ribbed sweater for my friend Jim. This is long overdue. I will be relieved to clear it from the pipeline so I no longer need to feel guilty about neglecting it.

I would like to strengthen the Mens' offerings over at TGB. Only two garments for men! No wonder the guys grouse so much about their choices in knitting patterns. Then you read up on their wants and you understand why: no bright colors, no dull colors; not too fine a gauge, not too bulky; not plain, not complex; don't make it look like a sailor, no cables; not like a Grampa sweater, not too trendy and of the moment, and certainly nothing you might call a "Cosby sweater", etc etc. It can be any color as long as it's blue or grey. Maybe beige. But only the right beige. If any guys care to tell me what they personally would like, I'd love to work on expanding the options. But the way I read it, all the patterns most men would ever need have already been written: they just need to re-use the classics.

All in all, a busy time ahead. I just need to get these kids settled in their schools and my whole life will change. And this will once again be more of a knitting blog. It seems every time I post a close up picture of a bug, someone unsubscribes from my bloglines feed. We can't have that, now, can we?

Miscellaneous pictures

We have a volunteer plant that grew in what my guys call The Bog. All the bugs love these flowers. Last summer we noticed some little yellow beetles were having a collossal orgy on them! Some of them were stacked 4 or 5 deep in a mating frenzy. This summer, I'm seeing wasps and ants as well as the horny yellow beetles. While the wasps are busy working those flowers, they don't even notice a camera looming inches from them. If I could package and sell to humans whatever it is in that plant, it would probably solve all the big world problems. No more wars. No aggression. Just slurp the nectar and spread the pollen!


Here are my guys installing a two-part garden pond that Mr. SABLE scavenged from the curbside. They all seem to enjoy endlessly moving around big piles of earth.


The Little Emperor is hoping to be accepted at the Jedi Academy. Of course, he's a little too old and has already formed strong attachments, so has the potential to be another Anakin/Darth Vader kind of Jedi. Clouded this one's future is.


The apple. This one has a backstory that goes to my childhood.

When I was a kid my parents had an aging sick apple tree in the backyard. Every year, the apples fell to the ground and rotted before ripening. My dad would occasionally get the idea that the apples needed to be picked up. It was one of my most hated chores. Ever go to pick up an apple and have your fingers squish right in to the rotten core? Multiply that by several hundred. I spent many late summer afternoons hiding way up in trees, hoping to avoid being seen, so that my dad wouldn't suddenly decide that an idle child needed a chore. Since he was a college professor, he had summers off, mostly, and was around enough to get ideas. When I was a young teen, they had the tree taken down and I was delighted to see it go.

When we bought our house here in Madison in 1997, it had an apple tree in the yard. It, too, was sick and old and dropped all its pathetic fruit before they ripened. I just let them decompose on the ground and ran the mower over them. One day I got my neighbor Chainsaw Pete to come over with his chainsaw and take it down. Problem solved!

So, that year for Mothers' Day (a holiday I hold with great antipathy) Mr. SABLE and Owen go off shopping and come home with...
an apple tree. When they asked where they should put it, I said, "Back at the store?" but they planted it anyway, in the middle of the lawn area (creating an island that I have to mow around) about 10 feet from the stump of the previous tree.

That was probably about 5 years ago? This year, the tree made its first apple. Which Mr. SABLE says is for me. I have to admit, it looks very nice hanging there, growing and ripening. It almost seems a shame to eat it.

BTW, I just added a sidebar link to a new photo album of my butterfly pictures. It's small right now, but I hope it will grow. Scroll down a bit and look under the heading Photos.

P is for...

Pesto (here's the basil)


Prickly

August and Everything After?

I made the rounds of my regular thrift shop haunts on Saturday. It was extra fun, because I got to go alone! My ostensible mission was to find a bicycle for Owen and books for the Little Emperor. Owen's current bike is a wee bit too small. I know that in two years, he will start his serious growth spurt and I don't want to spend a lot on a new 18 speed bike. So, I hoping to find a reasonably nice one for cheap at one of the used sources. I found a couple candidates, but nothing that I felt I needed to bring home right away. I was fairly successful finding books for the Little Emperor. He's been enjoying listening to the easy "chapter books" and has recently discovered the thrill of Captain Underpants. I scored a few of those and some other titles I thought he might like. The great thing about Captain Underpants is that Owen enjoys reading them aloud to the L.E. so we enjoy a few moments of brotherly harmony.

While I was out thrifting, I also found a couple shirts for Mr. SABLE, a nice flat queen size sheet (no, we don't need them to match), a round pizza pan (about 14 cents at Diggers' Outlet), several froggable sweaters at the Salvation Army, and a few other miscellaneous goodies. Yesterday I was able to get two of the sweaters unseamed and begin making yarn out of them. It was perfect porch weather: not too hot, light breeze. I worked on a brown shetland wool sweater and a burgundy colored cabled wool one. Pictures soon.

Last night I started tinkering with the Yarn Botanika project. Read all about that on The Garter Belt Design Team Blog (link in the sidebar).

I am eagerly awaiting Sept 5, the first day of the school year. That's the "everything after" part of the post title.

Butterfly Hunting

I've been stalking this swallowtail the last few weeks, with no luck. He's too fast and hasn't settled on one flower for more than a nano-second. But today, I got him!

Meeting Marji

Today I met my internet friend Marji. Her son is living about an hour south of Madison and she's visiting him this week before Stitches starts. She made the drive up here and we had lunch at Lakeside Fibers. I got to see all her works in progress, at least the ones she had with her. It was great fun to finally meet her face to face. The time felt way too short, but Mr. SABLE had come home for an extended lunch with his offspring and he was eager to get back to work. (Our children have that effect on us.) I'm hoping she'll be up this way again before too long. Once the school year starts, I'll have all kinds of freedom to meet up for lunch all over southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

What's In My Knitting Bag?

It's been a long time since I had any knitting content. Without further ado, here's what's in my knitting bag:


The Bag


The Overview


The Forgotten Vacation Knitting
I had this sock yarn packed and ready to take along. I went out the door without the knitting bag. Last night, I started a sock on two circulars from Knit Picks new collection. So far so good. I'm not sure I'll really make the switch from double-points, but figured I'd give this a try at least once.

The Emergency Project, bought at The Fiber Studio, Henniker NH


Socks have become my default easy knitting projects. Take them along, stop and start as needed: no thinking, no pattern needed. They're small, portable, and one can never own too many pairs of socks. Socks are great gifts. You don't have to be as careful to marry color, style, and size to the recipient as you do with sweaters.



Also, in the other post "N is for New Hampshire" I forgot to include the picture of this Yak down.

You cannot believe how this stuff feels. Wow!

O is for Ossie

This is one of our two cats. They are littermates, 6 years old. Ossie is a big smoochie brown tabby, the kind that pushes his head hard into your hand when you pet him.

The Garter Belt newsletter is now available! Click the link and download! (And sign up for the next one here, on TGB's Front Page.)

And a big TGB welcome to Marie Grace, Yarnslayer! We're happy to have you on board and look forward to to all your new designs!