Will Have to Wait and See

My husband took me out to dinner last night.

This was my fortune.

Dena

Critters!

We saw a lot of critters while visiting Dena.  First, there are all the critters that live with her.  These are her four alpaca - Ceilito, Sonquo, Encanto and Polo.  I'm not sure if I spelled those right or got them in the right order.  Dena will fix the list if it's wrong.  The dogs are Alf and Fritz - her two Coton de Tulears.

This is her oldest son and her cat Dolphin.  Dolphin helps with everything you do.

This is Encanto (I think).

These are Polo, Sonquo and Encanto.

These are Polo, Sonquo and Encanto.

We also saw some Texas Longhorns . . . not a closeup picture!

And this is the elusive pig-dog!  I actually got a picture of it!!!

Bison or buffalo . . . really, really big animals.

Donkey

More alpaca - these are not Dena's.  I sure would love to have the fleece from that little brown/black one!

And their guard dog who barked like crazy at me even tho I was on top of a mountain and he was at the bottom.  He wasn't letting me get any where near those animals and he didn't even like me stopping and looking from a distance.

A goat that lived near the alpacas.

And miniature horses we saw on the way out of town.  Very cute!

 And, some pictures of Dena's Beaded Shapely Shawlette because I'm not sure she's posted pictures of it finished.  It's glittery because of the beads, but not heavy at all.  It's gorgeous in person!

Airplane Knitting

Yes, they will let you have and use knitting needles on airplanes. I started and almost finished this hat on the flight home. I have five short rows left. But I would have needed to switch to double points and I didn't have them with me. This is the Adult Ruth's Cap from Norwegian Handknits.

And now we are in the car on the way home from the airport, so this will get the finishing touches tomorrow.

Tatting

This has been a craft-intense week and completely delightful because of it!  There has been knitting and beading and lots of tatting . . . first, we started with hanky edgings 

And then beaded bracelets, these are Wandering Blooms by Dawn McLaughlin.

Good Idea? And Sheep!

Dena and I were playing and had this great idea.  I have a yarn bowl and a yarn bell.  Both are wonderful, but both are heavy and not suitable for travel.  But sometimes it's nice to put your yarn (or tatting thread) in something to protect it. 

 See the bottom upside down bowl, it is holding a nice sized ball of blue wool.  The end of the ball is coming out through a grommet so that the plastic isn't snagging the yarn.  The ball can't fall to the ground and get dirty.  So this is what we came up with - do you think it would sell?

This bigger sqare one will hold a skein of yarn.  This particular skein is baby yarn, so there is plenty of room for a bigger worsted weigh skein as you can see.  We tried it with a big fat skein of Galway worsted and it works perfectly.

The clear one that's on its side in this picture is holding a full cake of yarn (420 yards) and it is nice and safe and happy.

And this little one is just the right size for a ball of tatting thread. It will easily hold a ball of Lizbeth or a large ball of DMC thread.  The thread feeds nicely through the grommet on the top and cannot roll away when you pull a little off.

And today, we saw sheep.  Lots of sheep.  Lots and lots and lots of sheep.

And lambs, lots of lambs.

They are shearing the sheep in this part of Idaho this week.  In this valley, they gather all the sheep from miles around (and there are lots of them in this area) in the shearing sheds and the surrounding pastures.  There must have been many thousands of them.  It was such a sight to see.  The ones in this picture are waiting to be sheared.

These white ones have been sheared.

These are mommas and babies - the mommas have not been sheared yet.

And there are the dogs, guarding the sheep.  They were incredibly alert - any sudden moves would have been wasted.

And we saw a huge llama heard - they were pretty far off the road, but there were probably 25 or 30 of them.



What every knitter needs

or at least what every knitter wants . . .