2009 Completed Spinning & Knitting (Teresa)

2009 Completed Spinning:

Mardi Gras from Alaskan Sass (4 oz), Blue/White Puffy from Mom (8 oz), Earthy Rainbow (8 oz), Bump from White House, Yellow Bamboo/Merino Batts from Jela, Blue Puff Batts from Corgi (8 oz), Colorful Roving from White House in Oregon (8oz?), Gray Aplaca/BabyDoll (6oz)/White Alpaca/Merino/Mohair (6oz), Woolyhands Box of Crayons (3.5 oz)/Artist Pallet (3.25 oz); Turqoise/Purple from Miss Babs (8 oz); Seamist Merino/Recycled Soda Bottles (3.5 oz); Gale's Art Pastel Corriedale(8oz/146yds/5wpi); White/Gray/Brown Alpaca (6oz/256yds/9wpi)(4 oz/138 yds/9wpi)(4oz/124yds/9wpi); Midnight Roving (8oz/302yds/?); Brown Alpaca/Merino blend (12oz/640yds/11wpi); Mossy Glen Roving (6.6oz/220yds/?); Samples from Phat Boxes/Wensleydale; Pink Mystery Wool

2009 Finished projects:

Four Baby Hats, Bearfoot Primavera socks for M, Handspun Ishbel, Blue Baby Blanket for Peggy, Red February Lady for Tina, Totoro & Soot Sprite, Emily's Hearts, Jennifer's Sweet Georgia Hat, Gramma's Catnip Mouse, Icing Swirl Hat, February Lady Sweater, Brooks Farm Riata Purple Sahara Vest, Blue Northern Lights Midnight Shorty,Green Sheepish Mossy Glen Shorty, Leyburn Socks in Mountain Colors, Toasty Twist Sockalong in Galaxy; Eyelet Garter Ridge Shawl in Handspun Alpaca; White Sock-a-long Socks; Handspun Bucket; Publish Peppermint Twist Sock Pattern; Malabrigo StoneChat Shawl; Spinning Brown Wool; Monterey Socks in Lou's Brews (S); MissBabs Biological Clock Socks; Remake of Turquoise Hat; Bear Ribwarmer

Pictures: Polo and Cielito

Cielito is giving Nancy a kiss and Polo is looking longingly at the girls.

Polo has bred and knows where the girls are. He was way more interested in girls than us.

Cielito was getting and giving love his way.

Pictures: Encanto and Sonqo

Encanto is brown with a red necklace with his name on it. Sonqo is white. The one picture with a brown guy (Encanto) looking straight on at you and Sonqo sideways looking at you.

Merry Christmas to Teresa and I

First a vocabulary / language lesson.

Quechua ("qheshwa") is an indigenous language of the Andean region, spoken today by approximately 13 million people in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Northern Chile, Argentina, and Southern Colombia. It was the official language of Tawantinsuyu, the Inca Empire.

Cielito Lindo: Cielo means sky or heaven. It is also a term of endearment comparable to sweetheart. Cielito would be "sweetie". Lindo means beautiful.

Sonqo: Sonqo means heart in Quechua, which is a language of the Incas and ancient civilizations in South America

Enquanto: means something about singing / song?? (Look here at a momma alpaca named Serenade here.)

Polo: means Polo as in Marco Polo (You can see a picture of an alpaca named Marco Polo here and here)

You guessed it. Alpacas.
Four for Teresa and I to share. I hope I got the pictures marked correctly (next post because I want to make sure the names go with the pictures I think they go with.

And I hope I remember who is whom - (will correct in another post but want to get something out here).

But there is Polo son of Marco Polo. He's a brown (not sure what the colors are called either.)
Enquanto is brown and mom is Serenade. Cielito Lindo (white) is Nancy's baby and will be a permanent guest here. (Meaning if he ever leaves, it will only be to return home to Nancy at HummingHerd Alpaca's. And Sonqo is white.

Identify please

Mushrooms or toadstools, I need someone who actually knows the difference between the two. Someone who can tell me what kind of fungi are in the pictures.

They are Large, Tall, very pretty fungi. But I don't know what kind.

As you might have guessed from the photos, these are growing indoors. Behind the wall seems to be full and then some and they are coming up through the crack between the wall and the floor.

They will have to be destroyed but in the meantime - are they edible??

Happy 18th!

A Good Christmas, Thanks to All!

First, this is an old gift, but it's been on backorder for many months. So, when it finally came, I just wrapped it and put it under the tree. It's the extra spools and a fast flyer for my Lendrum.

It was, for me at least, a very knitting Christmas. And I really liked it! I got tons of knitting needles. I got some from Mom and some from Dena. I loved them all and you can never have too many knitting needles!

And I got knitting books - tons of knitting books. I got some from Mom, some from Dena and each of the girls gave me knitting books too! (They know what I like . . .wonder who told them?)

I definitely have some projects picked out in the Ganseys, Bohus and Twined books!

My young musician got a piccolo and was pleased. She also got piccolo lessons (well time added to her flute lessons to work on the piccolo.) She is also getting guitar lessons, but they weren't under the tree and are hard to take pictures of . . .

The soon-to-be-college student got the Mac she wanted so badly and was happy. Some evil person convinced her that she absolutely was NOT getting a new computer of any kind, which had made her rather unhappy.

I got a new smart phone - which means I can now get emails when I'm not at home. Mostly it doesn't matter except when I'm at the beach for a week, then I miss getting my emails.


And it was a happy day for the dog too - she got a giraffe stuffed toy that squeaks, some dingo bones and a cool shirt to wear at the beach!

Christmas Trees

This year we decided to put up two trees - well, I thought it was a good idea and twisted an arm until I got my way. The one on the left is the big girl's tree and has all her ornaments on it. The one on the right is the littler girl's tree and has only her ornaments on it. Big girl has her own light up angel tree topper but Littler girl has none, so she borrowed the angel that Mom made years ago. The original idea called for three trees - a small one for each girl and a big one for the parents. I'm kinda glad that idea got nixed cuz trees smaller than these are hard to come by and there isn't room for three this big in my living room. (Really wasn't room for two but don't ever tell my husband that I admitted that.)

Knitting

So, even tho I haven't posted here much at all lately, there has still been knitting going on. I've just been so busy with teaching the knittng class, the last year of high school, the college search and applications and all the other things that go along with two teenagers that I haven't had time to post. So, here are some pics of some of the things I've been doing. First pic is two of the four baby hats I've made in the last two weeks. One of these isn't quite finished and one of the two missing (already given) ones was not this style. But they were all similar.


And, then there is the Mr. Greenjeans that I'm making for myself. It's been sorely neglected but it's still coming along. Knitting the cabled ribbing is tedious but it's gorgeous when it's done.

And this is just a plain old vanilla top down raglan that I'm making for myself. I've knit and reknit this much several times and I'm still not sure I've got the formula right. I'm also not sure if I'm up for ripping it out again if it's not right . . . This is very nice yarn and wasn't terribly expensive.

High Flying in Cyberspace once more!!!

Ok, some of you know this and others dong. Every computer in this household got whacked by some stinkin' virus - or trojan or malware of some type. In fact, I think that a couple of the computers got hit by several of each. I'm reasonably sure that these bad things came from Facebook. Each child and their mother all use Facebook now and while it's a great way to get viruses, trojans, spyware, malware and all other forms of bad crap on your computer, these people are not going to quit using it. That means cleaning up the computers and getting newer or better virus/spyware protection. Cleaning up the computer has cost a bit of $$$ and taken a huge amount of time. Seems that computers are like closets and although it seems like you can keep stuffing stuff in there without looking at whatever is in the back, eventually you open the door and it all tumbles out because there isn't really enough room for even what is already in there, let alone more.

Anyway, two of the four computers are running now. One of those two has been purged of about 5gb of crap and is running pretty well (especially considering said computer's age). One still needs to be purged. The third computer is still being worked on and the hopes are that it will recover eventually. The fourth, and last, computer is a goner. I'll deal with that after Christmas because it's just too depressing to mess with it now.

How to Kill a Saturday in One Huge Project

Or, The Subterranean Greenhouse Redo in pictures.

First, I had to pull a layer of ceiling panels off, then a layer of plastic that went across the top and to the floor on each side, then another layer of ceiling panels and two more layers of plastic that were wrapped around the frame and taped together for dear life. That took over an hour and I had no help with it.



Now, what you see here is the bare bones of the pvc frame. It is a rectangle that is 7' across and 9' long. the wrought iron railing is at ground level and you can see the top of the basement door on the lower left in this picture. The slanty hunk of pvc is a brace that holds that corner of the frame up when the whole thing is together.








Another view of the frame, this time the house wall side. The tall pole holds (or held, it's not as necessary anymore) the center of the pvc rectangle up. In this shot you can see the door and window more clearly. The door stays shut and the electicity for the heater comes out the window.



Another angle of the frame. On the far side, you can see the chimney sticking out from the house wall - it gave me a natural barrier to help keep the cold out and help keep the roofing on as well as the perfect door opening. I no longer allow the door to be useable in the winter - have another pvc rectangle that just fits in that spot that holds the plastic in place so the wind can't blow it - and I insulate that with bubble wrap.

This lovely spider decided she was going to help me. I decided that she wasn't.

There were dozens of these moths, dead but perfectly preserved, in the layers of plastic. I call this the attack of the polyvinal moths.

After ripping off the plastic and cleaning out the mess, I decided that I needed to add the middle brace to the rectangle. Went to home depot and grabbed another hunk of pvc and two t joints, got my saw and a little later this is what I had. I am hoping it will help hold the plastic up better since I did not wrap it all the way around the pvc frame this time - just draped it over. You can really see the door and window in this shot.

First layer of poly on the frame - the frame is slanting toward the end with the railing because the brace is not in place. It's much easier to put the poly on with the frame loose so I leave the brace out till later.

After the first layer of poly, I put a row of ceiling panels - corrugated, clear plastic - across the top of the frame. Unfortunately they had all sagged and are now curved. I turned them over so the curve goes up, but the curve made them shorter and it made things difficult. After that layer of ceiling panels, another layer of poly - this one drapes down to the floor on the 'door' end (by the chimney) and down past the bricks on the other end.



After the second poly layer, I put another layer of the clear, corrugated ceiling panels - this holds the entire roof on the subT and, hopefully, adds yet another layer of air and insulation. You can really see the curving on this layer of ceiling panels - sure hope they lay down quickly cuz otherwise the first windy day they'll all fly away.

This is the inside from the 'door' by the chimney wall after I moved the plants in. I must have less plants this year cuz I have more room - tho I still have the 4 biggest plants to move in there. It's a lot brighter than it was yesterday so I'm glad I went to the trouble. Plus, I discovered that even the most protected and clean of the original poly was brittle and cracked and tore easily. Next year I think I'll get new ceiling panels (even tho they were the most expensive part of this whole installation).

This is looking down into the SubT from the top of the stairs that go down to the basement door. You can see ground level and the brick wall and the wrought iron railing.

And then, after I ripped out the old and rebuilt it, then moved all the tropical plants down into it, we all played basketball using the backboard that the neighbors left in our yard when they moved. It was fun.

Spinning - A day late

but not a dollar short. I started knitting the blue Mr. Greenjeans and it's coming along nicely - only one mod so far. I am still working on the black back attack and am stuck on a design element. I'm also working on testing a pattern for a hat but it's coming along slowly - need to hurry up and get it done because the designer is waiting for the testing to be done. I went out yesterday and bought some lovely green wool for a sweater for myself - just a top down raglan with roll collar and maybe cuffs . . . not sure. . .for comfort and warmth. Also need to get the yellow surprise knit and now a hat . . .


Now, on to the spinning as promised a couple of days ago. First, the blue/white roving that Mom got for me at Puffy Mondaes. It was superwash wool, but I dunno what kind and it was in some form that I've never seen or heard of before (not really roving). It spun beautifully and I made 236 yards of a lovely 2 ply, about a worsted weight. Don't know what it's going to be yet, but something and soon cuz it's nice and soft and pretty.

As you can see, it goes nicely with the blue/white that I spun a month or so ago. Mom's is the bottom and the older one from Corgi Hill is the top. I think that there is less of the Corgi Hill, but can't remember how many yards I had.

And then there is the Mardi Gras that I got from Alaskan Sass on Etsy. I spun it into a nice single that I navajo plyed into a 3 ply. It came out at least a heavy worsted weight, 142 yards. Miss S wants it to become a nice hat for herself . . . probably will become just that.

And next on the spinning wheel is the Robin & Wren from Feeling Sheepish. It is 5.8 ounces of New Zealand Romney wool - nice to spin. I'm spinning it into a pretty fine single and thinking about navajo plying it as well. Tina's husband is making me a new lazy kate cuz I don't like the one I have and if he finishes it, plying will be so much easier that I will be a lot more willing to do it.

Knitting today . . . .

hopefully spinning tomorrow. I've been doing a fair bit of both, but I don't seem to have time to post about it anymore.

First, for your viewing pleasure, another shot of the famous Max costume. The girl wears it everywhere.

And second a pair of socks I finished for the younger girl. These are made with some Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn that I bought a really long time ago - I think the colorway is dark rainbow but I'm not sure. I made a sweater out of the same colorway but thicker yarn for the same girl a couple of years ago. She's still wearing the sweater so maybe she'll wear the two together - but probably not. Anyway, the socks are knit in the Primavera pattern. I probably won't knit using this pattern again because it hurt my hands doing all the purl 3 togethers. Still the socks are nice and squooshy and hug your foot nicely.

Tomorrow I will try to post pics of all the spinning I've been doing . . .