Big changes a'comin

Fiber stuff has been shoved aside for a little bit, but for a good reason!





This is Hank. Hank is five years old and is currently living in an orphanage in China.
He has Albinism. We have started the lonnnngggg paperwork process to adopt him. If things go well, we should be able to bring him home in the late spring or early summer.
Right now we are in a tizzy getting gobs of forms filled out and getting the house up to snuff for our first homestudy visit by the social worker (tomorrow, eeeeekkkkk!)
Once we get past that, there will be plenty of hurry up and wait time for crochet & spinning. And the 12ish hour long plane ride to China to pick him up....

Mmmmmm....coffee......

This coffee is 'da best. And I'm mighty particular about my coffee!!! My personal recommendation is the Jamaican Me Crazy. It's perfect IMHO. Good coffee with subtle flavorings added. So many flavored coffee start with crummy beans and then try to mask the crummyness by totally smothering it in overbearing artificial flavors. Joffrey's doesn't. Do I sound like a commercial or what??? I'm not working on commission, I promise!! It's just really good coffee!

In a few days I'll be sipping the Chocolate Turtle flavor, I'll give a review of that when it arrives.

Llama, Llama, DUCK

We had a nice little time at the nice, little sheep show yesterday.
It was just the right size for a less than enthusiastic husband & son.

They survived, I promise.

We saw some adorable, sheep, llamas, alpacas and a pair of baby yaks!
They were too cute.

Of course I managed to pick up some fiber, even with hubby in attendance. Got a great price on some Ashland Bay Merino/Silk top in Concord color so I couldn't pass that up. Also got some nice dark brown & white Jacob/Mohair roving. It’s white with big sections of dark chocolate brown splotched along the way. That should be fun to see what it spins into.

Got to watch a little herding demo. Now, I’ve seen some demos where the dogs seemed to be laser guided. Not the case here. Nothing wrong with that, they were still much better behaved than my lazy beasts. There were two dogs and four sheep. The sheep were rather placid, which doesn’t make for much excitement. After some moving the sheep this way and that, they ambled complacently into the pen. One dog was taken aside and tied to a fence. The younger, less experienced dog remained on the job.

Then the ducks were let out. Ducks are much more fun to chase herd.




Ducks quack. Ducks scurry around quacking with annoyance. Yes, definitely more interesting. Well…more interesting than sheep, but not more engaging than sheep poop. Our furry friend stopped to have a snack. The ducks, not being dumb ducks, took advantage of the momentary distraction and high-tailed it back to where the trailer was parked. Young dog turns around. Ducks are gone. Young dog looks left, looks right, no ducks. Looks at mom and clearly says “I knew it!!!! Alien abductions do exist!!” Really, what other explanation could there be???

Thankfully, older, wiser - and presumably better trained – dog who was still tied to the fence knew exactly where the ducks were. Younger dog was benched, older dog was unleashed and then stealthily slunk around to the front of the truck to scare the bejeazus out of the ducks. Ducks complained loudly and while muttering under their breath, they were escorted back to their crate.

September already???

I know, I'm going to be tsk'd tsk'd for blog neglect.
I'm back from my little trip, lol! Part of what kept me away from blogging was I was helping Amy test a pattern she had designed. It's a clever wrap that uses some stratigically placed buttons to convert from a shawl to a shrug.









If you would like a copy of the pattern for yourself, Amy has published it at LuLu

I have been spinning, and trying to finish up some UFO's. Pictures soon, I promise!

If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I'm dragging DH & the boy to the Garden State Sheep Breeders Festival I think that will be a small enough show to keep them from being bored out of their skulls, plus it will let me grab a little more stash.

The boy has started middle school. Yikes!!! So far so good. He is enjoying his classes and his teachers, and he's making the adjustment to changing classes, dealing with having a locker & such quite well.

We're off

For a long weekend to Bloomsburg, PA.
Hubby gets to stay home with the beasties of the non-child sort. Poor guy. Whatever will he do with himself alone for 4 days :::snort:::

Blog neglect

I have been bad, haven't I??? I think of things to write, but I always want pictures to go with it and that is the part that sticks me up.

So no pictures this time.

The silkworms are doing their silkworm thing. Chompers is getting fat and happy off of them. They have turned out to be so much easier to keep than I had thought. All the websites I have read warn of dire consequences if you don't keep them in a totally sterile environment, wear rubber gloves, only touch them with tweezers. Not the case so far. I do take a little care to have clean hands and such, but they aren't as fragile as you'd be lead to believe. So that's nice. I do spend way too much time watching them though. The big news (on the bug front at least...) is that some of the cocoons have started hatching!! If you thought the worms were cute, the moths are even cuter!! Really! They are so furry and they have this Groucho Marx eyebrow antenna things going on. I will try to get pictures of that soon. Big sausage fest though...about 9 guys to only 3 girls. The moths have been successful doing the things moths are supposed to do and I have several hundred itty bitty eggs. If I can get those to actually hatch, I will have officially completed the silkworm lifecycle. Well...I guess *I* haven't, but I have witnessed it, how's that??

Fiber stuff. Finished another baby blanket, didn't like it though. It was a ripple that I had tension issues with for some reason (not usually a problem for me) It pulled in towards the middle. I put a border on it to try to hide it, didn't like the border. I won't be giving it to the person I intended it for, but I think it's good enough for a charity blanket. Not to say that charity items should be 2nd rate, just that there honestly isn't anything wrong with it construction-wise, I'm being too picky about the aesthetics to use it as a gift. Does that make me evil???

I finished spinning the yummy blue/green stuff I originally planned to ply it, but decided once again that I liked it as a single. This is definitely shawl stuff. Now I can get started on some of the new roving down below. Actually I have some other fiber I should finish, but I don't wanna. The first 3 skeins are majorly overspun singles. Yes, I set the twist & blocked it. Tried re-wetting and hanging with a weight to see if that would help. It did not. Decided to plow ahead and try crocheting with it anyway, it's so sproingy that it's giving me fits. I've even been trying to dangle the WIP to let the yarn untwist a little. Obviously that isn't going well. So I'm not very motivated to spin up the last 6 oz or so, which is silly. Beautiful color too, I'm mad at myself for messing it up.

Alrighty, I think that will do it for now.

Oh, one other thing. I love reading the comments I've been getting. I'm not sure what etiquette is about commenting about the comments.... so I'm not ignoring you guys, just not sure what the deal is....

Verrrry Interesting.....

More Emotional You have: 47% SCIENTIFIC INTUITION and 62% EMOTIONAL INTUITION

The graph on the right represents your place in Intuition 2-Space. As you can see, you scored above average on emotional intuition and about average on scientific intuition.Keep in mind that very few people score high on both! In effect, you can compare your two intuition scores with each other to learn what kind of intuition you're best at. Your emotional intuition is stronger than your scientific intuition. Your Emotional Intuition score is a measure of how well you understand people, especially their unspoken needs and sympathies. A high score score usually indicates social grace and persuasiveness. A low score usually means you're good at Quake. Your Scientific Intuition score tells you how in tune you are with the world around you; how well you understand your physical and intellectual environment. People with high scores here are apt to succeed in business and, of course, the sciences.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on Scientific You scored higher than 99% on Interpersonal

Link: The 2-Variable Intuition Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Please don't take this as a sign to tag me with all sorts of quizes and such, I'm really bad about filling them out.

Friday fun

Nice postman! Good Postman!







He brought me this lovelyness from High Prairie Fibers
Lovely stuff, super nice lady too. The purples are from her "days end" collection and the fabulous reds are from her Wooly-Mo collection. I need to free up some bobbins so I can play asap.

The nice postman also brought me these yesterday (though I don't think he understood what precious cargo he was carrying)




from The Lizard Lunch
There's 200 or so of the little buggers, about 5 days old.
They will eventually get to this size



Hey Julie, you asked for more worm pictures!!! I'm doing a little experiment to see what they like to cocoon in better. I have two racks made of those click together craft sticks (yes, I"m 6, ok?!?) one upright and one laying down, a section of egg carton, and some TP tubes.
So far there's 1 worm cocooning in each rack & the egg carton. No one has chosent the TP tubes.
Coincidence???? I think not.

Tomorrow is spinning group, that's always fun.

Got Silk?

I've truly gone too far. I have found a way to combine my beasties with my fiber addiction. No no no, I'm not talking about spinning dog hair (though that day will come soon.....) I'm talking about raising silk worms. The link here is silkworms are an excellent food for lizards. Mr. Chompers, the Bearded Dragon, luuuvvvvvvs these chubby delicacies. So last week I got a delivery of 100 silkworms that he has been cheerfully chowing down on. I moved a few of the largest ones to a separate container to see if they would do their thing. Do their thing they are!



To let you know what you are looking at, the worms are in a plastic drawer with TP tubes for them to set up shop in. Look to the bottom left corner, there is a fully spun cocoon. Four others are in the first stages of their cocoons in the tubes, one is spinning between tubes (gotta be a rebel everywhere....) One guy is still chowing down, hasn't succumbed to peer pressure.
They are surprisingly cute for a bug. They don't try to escape, they aren't noisy. Their little faces are unexpectedly endearing and they actually feel very soft and silky. I know...I'm going to be kicked out of the mom club pretty soon....

In about 7-10 days they should emerge from their cocoons, have a little nooky, lay eggs and keel over. What a way to go, huh?? Then it starts all over when the eggs hatch. I will be letting them come out of their cocoons. Reeled silk comes from cocoons unwound with the pupae still inside, I don't have the heart for that. I don't expect I'll raise enough to start a silk business, but I'm hoping to get enough to card with wool and get a nice blend.

All's fair

At the county fair!
I won 2nd place for my Butterfly Wing Shawl
Yayy!




My spinning group did a demo in the show tent for an hour. We had lots of people stop and chat. It was fun.

A little quiz

If you were a person in need of a tradesman, say and electrician for example. And if you
happened to live on the same street as said tradesman, to the point where you could recognize the house because of the clearly marked van in the driveway.

Would you:

A. Jot down the phone number that is written in lettering two feet high on the van on one of your many trips past the house, then call that number when you got home.

B. If driving to fast to jot down the number, take note of the company name that is on all three sides of said van, and check the phone book when you got home.

C. Wait until the van is *not* in the driveway, then ring the doorbell and proceed to ask the tradesman’s wife about complicated electrical needs.


Apparently, the most logical answer is C. I can’t believe how many people just drop on by. They always look so bemused too….almost every single conversation starts with ”I always see a van here when I drive by….” while they gesture to the empty space in the driveway. As if perhaps the missing van had been beamed into space by aliens. Dude, it’s 3:30 on a weekday, maybe the guy is…um…what’s that word?? Oh right, working.

Now, I’m all for promoting my husband’s business, and I appreciate local folk trying to support their neighbor, but c’mon. In this day and age, I’m really not fond of opening my door to strangers. I intentionally let the wacko dogs bounce and bark behind me as I stick my head out the door, which leads the stranger at my door to looking very offended. I usually do end up having to step outside, because it is difficult to carry on a conversation in such a manor.

So folks, let your fingers do the walking and use that cell phone we all love so much.

The incredible shrinking bag

From this






to this








in 6 aggrivating runs through the machine and another 30 min trying to shrink it more in the sink.

I like it, not love it though. I still see a lot of stitch definition, which I was hoping wouldn't happen since I was using better yarn (peace fleece). I've seen felted crochet projects that lost all stitch definition, don't know what the trick is.

On a happier fiber note, I got some yummy roving in the mail today from this ebay seller

Eternal Optimism

There is a little ritual that plays itself out every morning in our home.

After he finishes his own breakfast, the boy feeds the dogs. As he slings the kibble into their bowls, he cries out “Ok Maggie…Ok Boomer…EAAAATTTTTT!!!!”

And every morning, Boomer races into the kitchen with the same ever hopeful thought. Feather duster tail held high, you can almost see the words running through his mind.

Maybe today is the day that the boring kibble is replaced with something worthy of the Wild Wolf of the Tundra that he thinks he is. Such as a side of Elk. Or at the very least, a gristly hunk of roast from the supermarket. As he looks down on the hard, round chunks, his tail unrolls. The disappointment is as visible as the anticipation was.

Still, he takes a bite just to be sure.

You never know, maybe it’s Elk flavored kibble

Spin stuff

Ok, for my first fiber post, let's see if this shows up.
Yay, it does. This is a shawl I've started with some handspun "mystery" roving I bought at MDSW.
I like how the colors are swirling around. The mystery is what exactly is in the fiber. There is definitely some mohair, some silk noil and some merino. It's scrumptious.

Well...

I'm here Lissa, what now?????