Pecular title

I can't decide which one of these I like best - what do you think?

Barbara Anne the Lush is great, but "in the Middle of much madness on Avon has a great ring to it.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Excellency Barbara Anne the Lush of New Porton Wells Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Empress Barbara Anne in the Middle of Much Madness upon Avon Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

The brown blob blocking

I finished the Forest Canopy Shawl and it is a delight to knit. Very easy to memorize the pattern and the instructions are very clear. I did many more repeats than the pattern called for, as my yarn was finer and my gauge swatch was more stitches per inch. My first lace shawl.

I knit this out of a fingering or lighter hand spun yarn. The wool is chocolate Polwarth from Rovings.com and I blended it with some silk I bought at SOAR. The ball of yarn weighed 6.5 ounces and was 850 yards. I have very little left.

The colors of the silk are very hard to see but give the yarn quite a bit of tweediness in some places. I am not sure that I like it, but will wait to see what it looks like after blocking.

Blocking on the Tri loom, if I was going to do it over I would change how I put it on the loom. I did the top first and then tried to do the sides. I should have done it from the center out three ways.

More pictures when my camera starts working again. I think I need to replace the batteries in it.

Guild Meeting of the Queen Creek Yarn Yankers

We had a little holiday/birthday party last Saturday at our guild meeting. The food was fabulous and this is Ellen trying on her new hat over top of some novelty yarn I spun at the last demo.

Knitters without Borders

Once again the Yarn Harlot has challenged knitters to step up and put our money where our heart is... hmm somehow that didn't come out right.

Please take a look at this post and consider giving to this great cause - even if just a little bit in this holiday season. Paraphrasing Steph - each of our donations is a small stitch amoung many and each stitch is necessary to the whole.

Knit from your Stash 2007

Wendy has started a Knit from your Stash 2007 idea and I am going to participate.

My own little twist to the rules is that I will also spin from my stash. The two exemptions are fiber bought at fiber festivals and my monthly fiber of the month club package.

Otherwise I will attempt to knit and spin from stash from January until September.

NO fiber content whatsoever

I saw a great quote today on another blog about consequences and it struck home for me today especially.

My 34 year old son has been living with me since he was released from prison last August and recently he stopped doing what he was supposed to do. You know - see his parole officer once a week, keep a job... etc.

It's always hard to watch those we love act in a way that we know will bring them nothing but trouble and will break our hearts. I know this first hand

Just a little while ago I got a call from D saying that my son was in an accident and she was going to see what he needed. Still not sure what happened, but the police ran his record and his parole officer already had a warrant for his arrest out there - so back to prison he went.

I am destroyed......

Computer Woes

I have been pretty much offline for quite a while now due to one of the nasty cats pissing on the keyboard of my laptop. I can do some functions, but basically it's not usable.

I have another computer in the office - a huge old slow desktop that I really hate, but between the two of them I can get some of my draft posts completed today.

I took the day off work as I have to burn thru some of my PTO before the end of the year. We switched to a use it or lose it policy for time off and I had quite a bit accumulated prior to the change. I get 25 days PTO per year and another 4-5 days of personal holidays. I had at least 15 days on the books at the start of the year so I've gotten creative at using up vacation time.

Next year I will have to use the rest of my legacy time of 10 days in addition to the 29 days for 2007. I have been sitting down and planning days off for the whole year - mostly around fiber retreats and festivals. I'll have the time off - now I have to save for the events themselves.

The first vacation will start January 26th and last until February 11th - we are taking a 15 day cruise to Hawaii. 4 days at sea, 5 days around the islands, 4 days back to Mexico and then back to Los Angeles. I have never been on a cruise and I am desperately trying to figure out how I can pack 15 days worth of spinning and knitting - (not to mention books) in luggage I can actually carry. LOL - D will probably only need one of her checked bags, I can use hers too.

Thanksgiving

It was great to have Bill here for the holiday. Here he is holding Zachary. The guys on the couch are my nephews Tyler (on the left) and Matthew.






My sister Juanita has lost a bunch of weight and looks great here with my best friend Jackson.







Patrick and his father - really the reason I brought Bill down here was so that he and Pat could have a little time together












Sarah looks so cute wearing Melody's hat







My family - That's D on the left, my son Patrick, me in a hideous dress and Bill.

Green Socks

I finished these green socks quite a while ago, but pulled them out to wear recently. I have completely crossed over to the dark side of knitting - yes that's right! I know wear socks as well as knit them.

For a long time, I considered my self on the grey side - I knit socks but did not wear them. Barefoot is the way to go as far as I have always been concerned, but the weather here has hit a cold spell and I tried on these green socks.

That was all it took. These have a cable running up each side of the instep and then two cables on each side of the leg. This is a 2 ply handspun superwash merino. I cannot remember who I got the fiber from.

Holiday presents finished

when I was at SOAR, I purchased a couple of kits from Lambspun for their "One Ball Shawl" the kit had all these fun fur and other novelty yarns in it and was wound in a ball with each yarn tied to the next. It was like knitting a surprise. I knit both of those up and gave them to my two younger sisters

This past weekend, I was at the craft store looking for some "unnamed items" for a couple of holiday presents and saw the novelty yarns all stacked up and decided to make my own kits for holiday presents. I bought about 10 skeins all different types, mainly browns. At home, I divided them up. some skeins into 3 parts, some into 4 - depending on the number of yards in the skein and how I liked the color or texture. Then I sorted those little bits into 7 piles and then arranged it so each pile had the colors and textures in a "different from all the rest but pleasing" sequence.

I started knitting one of the kits in the everyday - cast on three and increase 4 every other row - triangle shawl that Sarah is modeling below. That came out so well, I immediately cast on for Maegan's poncho. The girls loved them so much that they took them home with them instead of waiting for the holiday party.




The scarf to the right is for one of the other nieces and I knit it out of one of the kits too.















I still have 4 kits left - I am going to knit D's granddaughter a scarf and perhaps my mom and sister in Missouri.