bits of smurf, plants and rocks

 

 

I didn't even sleep until 5:30 this morning.. and I can't say it was a specific dog or chicken noise... it just was, and it was morning, and I was awake.  It was 5:23 and I turned off my 5:30 alarm.  And then I puttered around until 8:30 to feed the chickens!

I made curry rice and egg, and drank two pots of coffee (12 cuppers), and potted two houseplants, took pictures, and did the dishes, and some laundry, watered the gardens and worked on this bag, and French, and Danish, and Russian.  I still need to do something on my mobile Duolingo.  I looked at art supplies, and yarn, and plants online, and a few other things.  It just makes me want to use what I have all the more... although some Italian sketchbook paper did catch my eye enough.  The paper I currently have is so bright white that sometimes it annoys me.

begonia plants

the begonia cuttings we had ordered came, after being lost for TWO days in the mail (misdelivered) and we were a bit unhappy, not with the seller, but I told her we'd give them every chance we could and if they don't bounce back she said to let her know.  This was the picture Mark took right after he opened it.  When I came home after work Esme said 'That package finally was delivered, although it didn't turn out well...'   She and Mark put them in pots and in the room with the other begonias and we can see if they do anything.

 

 

apparently, I'm a penguin

I have rocks in my pockets, my wallet, my purse, on my desks, and in numerous dishes and drawers...

Amanita type mushroom (poisonous, of course)

I succeeded at making a 'dog joke' today, when I told Charlotte not to eat that, just because I was taking a picture of it.  She 'said' to Daphne beside her something on the order of 'sheesh, humans / can you believe she said that?'  and Daphne must have 'said' something that I didn't catch entirely as she was looking the other way towards Charlotte - and then Charlotte 'said' 'LOL oh you made a joke!' to me.  

  

spider plant

 I checked the umbrella plant - it's almost ready, but not quite.  The roots are just beginning to be tiny hairs on it, and I need to change it's water and hope it gets some good light for another few days.  BUT - as I was doing that, there were several little spider plant babies (this is one, just one! - and then I put two smaller ones in another pot together) that had fallen down behind the shelf and I clipped them and gave them pots.

Cat in Space, yarn and bank errors

 

 navy blue cotton thread cone

ordered this thread online to try to weave something in all cotton - it is quite a bit thinner than I thought IT would be, but about the thread width of what I had previously wanted for another project.  So, we'll see.  It said I have 800 yards of it to try probably both projects out.  Been making a bit more progress on the navy blue weaving - did a big block of the blue and will be switching back to the red in a bit.  I have to pull it over the top to continue weaving soon.  I still didn't take the navy and green acrylic mat off the other small loom.  I did make a big waffle-weave dishcloth for the sink (needed a new one) and two potholders, both in just plain red yarn.  And that was my weekend, other than grocery shopping and working much more than usual.  It's Tuesday and I'm saying the weekend is done now, so see what that tells you about that /ha /sigh

This morning I was up from like 3 am to 5 am then even slept in and would have forgotten about the small route they had put me on except something nagged me in the back of my brain - and when I checked the schedule again yes lo and behold, there was me scheduled for it.  So I put some of what we were supposed to get done today off to tomorrow and went and did that.

It rained some yesterday and a lot this morning - and then even a bit more.  The garden appreciated it and nothing looked flooded.  I bought one more pepper plant for the garden when I went for chicken feed, and planted it after I got home.  

rant : 

I had a hassle with the electric company and a fee that was really their mistake, but I paid it, unhappily.  I was disappointed in their logic, and felt down quite a bit yesterday after I talked to them because it just didn't make any sense what had happened - they should have known better trying to double cash a 78 day old check when they were already paid in full (for the three month bills since then!) - there was no way to win-for-losing ...I would have gotten some fee from them or the bank any way you slice it apparently - yet, THEY 'have to get their fee back' from me and the girl was very bubble-gum chew and 'but yea, that happens, we don't like, control it or anything, it's all the computer now'.  Well then, the computer can be better, can't it?  Can't it? 

...(and there my faith in logic becomes Stoic Spock and I have to reorient that not everyone is this stupid, I'm sure... )  Esme and I have had this discussion about similar things - in the car, describing how many people don't think ALL the time, they simply don't have to juggle five streams of thoughts that are overlapping and reminding you about this thing and that and doing calculations - their mind is focused on one or two things at a time that are right in front of them usually and when they finish with it - they move to the next thing, and sometimes their minds are even just blank, and they like it that way, they often aim for it.  They don't watch a show or read a book and have it reverberate with a hundred other connected thoughts for weeks and years later.  They're definitely not estimating the number of cows in that field or thinking about dispersion patterns or trying to compare the electron shell diagrams of Strontium and Tin while driving to work.  They don't remember the last things said in one place returning like echoes of the past when you return there, or have a constant back-checker making math calculations adding things up and dividing percentages after they leave the supermarket.  

 

Strontium and Tin

 

They probably don't have a 'collision detection' system running all the time about what calamities might befall everything around you - people running into each other, cars on the highway, things falling, burning, breaking, times and schedules (it helped today, with the 'boy you should look at that schedule it looks weird from here (here being looking at it for thirty seconds last week)) - it involves everything announcing what could go wrong with it in some extra 'awareness' box like a red light on your mental dashboard that won't stay off... my mom called it the protector instinct, when we discussed it when I was a bit younger than Esme, before I got a good handle on it - it can get really loud some days when I've already got too much to juggle and keep track of actually doing myself and yet sometimes especially with radio or music I can tune it down to a normal level.  This is how my brain works - and Esme has some extent of it, and she finds it annoying at the very least but does understand it.  I know I'm being cynical in some percentage except, that she listens to my philosophy rant and says it 'explains a lot, actually' - about the world she sees, about why we are always anxious (because we don't 'turn off' our brains)  and why everything so spectacularly doesn't work in many places, even after a millennia of people fighting over the right way to do things.

Anyway, gah.  The more I think on it, the more lost I will feel about it having no solution.  So, I'm weaving, and knowing I need to sort a hundred other things in the house and I've only begun to do so in my head here and there and pick up and move a few things at a time.   There are one or two things in 'space' I would like to lay hands on again and I know where they are or were before the storage container fell a few months ago, and that I put them safely somewhere new, but when I tried to get them earlier today I didn't take the time to feel 'down the rope' to where they were now.  Instead I ran into something else that would serve, and grabbed that up, and hung up the phone on finding the thing until later.  I've done mostly Spanish today and will do my Russian program in a a bit. Hopefully, I can continue and finish running the errands tomorrow.

 

 

Lyffan in from the wet outside, after her dinner.  Mark had seen her chasing frogs when we first called her for dinner - after a rain like this there are hundreds of little hop frogs that appear all over - she was 'completely occupied' he said - and  so we watched a bit more of a movie for another hour and then all the cats were finally ready.  Now she is sitting here sorting out her belly fur and trying to fit in this too small of a space, and maybe knock my garbage can down.  Minion usually sits here - right next to my computer space, but she is downstairs taking Loki's chair away from him that he has been in all day.  I saw him stretched out in the hallway floor and that's unusual for him, peek in the bathroom and there she is licking her feet in his chair with Charlotte lying on the rug saying 'I don't get it - but I'm not involved, I just sleep here.'   As I type this Lyffan has now fell asleep and is shaking her paws and whiskers chasing some outside creature in her sleep.

 

seems relevant short story idea : several geeks in a big office with headphones on jacked into some machine they haven't been told exactly how it works yet.  And yet someone is standing there with a clipboard trying to see what the results are.  Hey, do we just say 'Aliens, Hello?' or what?  How are they going to hear us?  Where is the microphone?  Do we just think really hard : 'Hello?'  No, man, you have to try something original, like 'And here we are back from Planet Earth with another line of smooth jazz and greetings to tell you, 'hey, we're listening'.. to what though?  How does all this work?<--that was the line of reasoning in a dream this morning just before my alarm went off.  

textile play

just playing around with textile stuff - again, not sure what I might actually get done or not, but it's a journey and I do like the processes.  I usually find a use for whatever I end up with... sooner or later.

 

 

 

It is about 8 inches across and could perhaps weave something 3 times that in length when it is finished - we'll have to see.  I do like knowing what kind of dimensions I can get out of a setup.  I've saved that somewhere else for the other looms.

Took Esme out to town for breakfast, and library, chicken feed and grab groceries on the way home.  We also stopped in a thrift store and she chose a small sweater with lots of cables on it - and I picked up another picture frame to do more experiments in weaving on, but this one I didn't want to go through all the wrist-breaking action of putting screws in it right now, so I warped it up as it was with a 'pull over' warp that can be woven twice the length of the frame if pulled over the top once the one side is woven.  I've also been playing with the crochet techniques for the thread - although I'm using some 15-20 year old embroidery thread that we had bought on a closeout and I've never gotten to using too much of in the past.

 

I work again tomorrow, and Friday and Saturday and Sunday again after that.  But it was nice to get out for a girl's morning again, to break up the sit at our screens all day that we otherwise end up getting sucked into.

 

Mark is making dinner with the groceries we bought, after installing his new printer parts and getting that working doing what he wanted again.

 right now, the weaving is reminding me of this - a whale shark, but I'll get a little further up in a minute and start working on the red stripes - I really like this look, but I'm worried that the other grey yarn I have is not a perfect match, and I want to break it up a little with other colors so that doesn't matter quite so much

Notes : 7.5 inches wide, 4 inches gray (undetermined length, spare stash ball of yarn), 25 handwraps red to start next color

yarn and thread

 

So, is it madness or patience?  I tend to think, only based on what others say about it - that you have to perceive time on a different scale to work with yarn, weaving, crocheting, knitting, oh especially spinning then doing one of the above.  I didn't spin this - but I am crocheting it because I have thought about what it might be like when it is done.  It is forever time wise away from being done, so much infinite perhaps that it might not be completed, in fact, the probability (as so many knitters know with unfinished objects) is that it will not be done.  But yet, we begin, and often, we persist.  Is it madness or patience?  

Same with gardening.  Perhaps, with my learning languages without having any useful place to use them.  But I take a 'sense of cadence'? could it be a 'zen'?  from making something -for myself*- that takes a long time, and from checking on plants every day and eeking them along - from learning more again and again on ten different languages round and round and round the spiral.  It is like making hash marks on the stone wall except sometimes, you get to hold the object, or behold the plant, or understand the sentences in a foreign book or movie - and say 'hey, if I hadn't started this - I wouldn't be here now, using/admiring my persistance.'

So yes, a bit of both.  I still recall the (seriously different than me) lady who said I must be so bored to sit and knit an item - don't you have anything else you want to do.  Not that will become this, through me, and I will use literally for years etc...

I put on my little blue bolero thing the other day - one of those things made like this, out of fine blue yarn in a net foundation, with gold thread crocheted along the edges - and it has kept well over the past what.. nine? years, holding together, and being a pretty piece of clothing.  And there are a lot of things like that.  And if I hadn't started them, they wouldn't be something I have to use now.  And yet, we can't guarantee that we will finish things - we can't bank on the persistence part - so much could happen, and yet.. we start. And that depends deeply on who we are, what we value, how we reflect.  All of it.

//We shopped early early and it was already hot when we got back.  I did some watering in the garden and planted more seeds.  We planned to go out to a farmer's market today and get some produce.  It has started to rain a bit now, but we'll see what happens with it.  Mark has some alphabet and language stuff he wants me to look at - I made him a Czech list of 8,000 words, but he wanted 3 million, so he found some spell checker that has every form of every word in it.  I still like my 8,000 word list - it has a lot of useful words I didn't know all of, and could use for myself at the very least.  I did French and Spanish today, and a lot of Czech vocab, and need to finish out my Russian lesson.  Then I work the next two days.

*and yet, I have found that often, for others, I do not persist like this -- art projects, or specifically requested things that I did not want to make (because when I want to make it anyway, or made it and then give it away, it was the journey that was the reason for it, not the end point).. and the difference is in  because perhaps we never know how they will value it, and then when we do not have it later - that time is gone, but when we do have it, and use it, the time is still captured ... planting the orchard of trees that you may never see fruit from for years, means something different on another person's property when the chance to see them even if you live that long reduces nearly to nil by giving it away?  Sometimes though, we still persist on those - and that is why knitted and handmade gifts made with intention are special.//philosophy

Some more Crochet

 

  

Mark and I have been re-watching a tv series at night, and I've been using up some more stash yarn.  I made the green bag first, and have been using it as a purse.  The original reason to make it differently than my other net bag pattern was that it was more closed, and could keep rain off a library book.  I really like the way the stripes turned out on it, and the handles.

 I started making two other things out of the dark green yarn, but there wasn't enough to do much with - so I made a pair of slippers out of it instead.  I ran out of yarn just as I finished the second one -  and then ran an edge of gold yarn around it to make it a bit more even looking.

 

And the dogs had told me something about needing even more floor rugs - since we keep having to boot them off the one by the stove when we cook.  I'm not really sure where another rug could fit - but I used up a bit more stash yarn to make a really nice striped pattern.  I still have to tie up all the yarn bits on it.

of rugs and cats

It's been a while since I mentioned this, but we're sort of a hobby farm - with all these chickens, and my gardens, our 'working dogs' who are Catahoula and mutt and protect the chickens and the cats - and Melody, our blind goat whose main job is to eat weeds.  I had thought at one time I might have sheep or goats for wool and milk, but I wasn't quite brave enough for that, at least.. yet.  I guess you could also say our cats are actually 'working cats' - although don't tell them that there are cats that aren't (they won't believe you anyway) - they catch mice, they patrol around the yard and the chicken yard perimeter and the gardens, the garage etc.  And we have lots of mud, and lots of cold floors in the wintertime (cement and wood). 

 

 

  

The first of the 'working rugs', shown with Loki cat, a large Manx (we bought him and his sister from a working farm near Milan, so our cat Minion would have someone to teach to chase mice after all of her kittens were gone)  Loki decided this morning he would sleep there - although our dogs have been loving them, as well, especially as 'parking points' while they watch us cook.  I made this rug years ago for use in Esme's room.. but it sort of phased out and ended up in an old hamper.  During one of these cold snaps I had pulled it out and washed it, and put it back to good use.

 

 

 

This rug is headed for in front of the chair in the downstairs bathtub area - where the green one was before I got very cold cooking one night and moved it to the kitchen.. then I moved it to another place in the kitchen, and that sort of set off 'You should make more of these'  So I did, I made two more.  And when they get really dirty (like these garden shoes here, which are some of my favorite, mud and all) they can just get thrown into the washing machine. 

The bits : I darned socks and blankets today, finished that rug, swept floors, (swept floors again, and again... it is like that here with dogs!) did lots of laundry - put away lots of laundry! --- that ice storm, and the frigid cold that made it last all last week meant so much got pushed to the back burner.  I've got to work the weekend so I tried to just put as much 'good' as I could without really wearing myself out.  Esme when she got home and saw the post : You know that's a cat, not a rug, right?  It's not a cat rug?  Maybe Loki thinks it is.  The post says 'of rugs and cats' : it's about how our cats are working cats and chase mice and stuff, and these rugs are working rugs - as in, we're putting them to use.  Loki is, putting them to use, too.

I also finished that thank you gift for the people who helped us pull our truck out of the mud -a couple of knit dishcloths and a little card.

Pineapple Banana Cake, projects, garden thoughts

 

I had read somewhere that pineapple juice will curdle milk, but that heat-processed canned pineapple will not do this.  I had saved some pineapple juice from dinner last night and when I made my banana cake (which has milk and egg in it) I put the pineapple juice in after I had added the flour, and thinned it back out, and then put it directly in the oven.  We'll see how that turns out.

OK, it was a success, and I ate it with peanut butter

2 eggs

2 bananas

some milk

a couple of packed tablespoons of brown sugar

mixed all together - add all purpose flour, baking powder and salt

slowly mix in pineapple juice with the flour 

bake immediately in 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes until edges are brown

Working on some projects, looking up things on seeds and trees :

The Hazel tree we have needs a partner (or more) in order to produce nuts.

--looked into costs and season times etc.

The Black cherry tree we have is having a problem that looks like the trunk is splitting - asked an extension agent (from the wrong state, but they answered, awesome!) and they told me perhaps frost split and it might heal itself - but it will also be a place where fungus and insects can further damage the tree.  We will watch it this year for more of either of that - brown withering leaves etc etc.. and we might finally chop it down.

 

 possible frost split on a black cherry tree, or black knot, or cytospora canker

I got a hori-hori knife for one birthday for the garden, and I use it, both to dig with and to cut small razor vines and underground roots and such.  I got a Japanese sickle last year or the one before as well (boy the tractor supply guy's eyes were wide on that one) and have used it to cut grasses and lespedeza around here.  I talked with Esme about what both tools were, and that maybe I will look at getting a little hatchet this year to cut down small trees and bushes - Dad got her a machete for one of her birthdays but she doesn't use it, and I don't really feel like that is the right thing for my tasks, either.  I need to track down where my hoe-axe went that I normally keep upstairs here but somehow disappeared during the Fall.  I took the hori-hori out to plant peas yesterday because I could not find the hoe.

Bought some lemon cucumber seeds, they did unexpectedly well last year when the other cucumbers planted with them failed.  Need to plant kale soon.  Been thinking about trying Kenearly beans again, in that front bed where the peppers were - and putting the peppers only in the one bed (I had separated hot from banana this year after mistakenly buying both).  The one little squash I was thinking about planting is not available from the place that was selling it - Lakota, so I dug in my collection and found Little Gem which I had bought and not started any of.  Carrots need to be planted in March? for July.  Sorrel has to be planted in March.  There are already potatoes planted and will have to see if they bring up leaves.  Esme keeps looking for the lambsear plant but I think something dug it up and ate it - so we have talked about getting some more of those.  I see them on my route in several places growing in 'you have to be kidding' conditions between gravel etc.. so I think it had to have some help to entirely disappear.

 cinnamon basil

 Komatsuna mustard

 tulip lilies open in the daytime

 and closed at night and in the early morning

Esme did a virtual 4H camp over Zoom the past week, and I knitted on this blanket some more putting another 8 inches on it.  It is 36" wide.  I also found out that I knit in a mostly 'Portuguese style'.. but before I watched the videos I would have said 'continental' or left handed continental if you'd asked me.  Now though, I'm pretty convinced after comparing more videos.  I had heard of Portuguese knitting but only with beads... never watched an actual knitting with yarn example before.

dishcloth yarn comparison sugar and creme vs sugarwheel vs berroco linsey

A little yarn geekery.  I am comparing three different types of dishcloth yarn I used in the past few months.  I used the same basic pattern for three of the cloths, and one of them is my 'seed stitch' variant I use for oven mitts.

They were all knitted with a 5 to 7 size knitting needle.  I prefer my bamboo 5's or my metal 7's for knitting dishcloths.

The Contestants
Yarn A : Hobby Lobby Sugarwheel cotton
Yarn B : Mix of Berroco Linsey and Rowan Creative Linen
Yarn C : 'thick weight' ombre version of Sugar and Creme
Yarn D : 'thin weight' ombre version of Sugar and Creme

The Winner (to me): thin weight ombre version of Sugar and Creme

Yarn A : Hobby Lobby Sugarwheel cotton

The green yarn was the last bit I had left - there are like five other cloths from a previous post wandering around the house.  It was very fun to knit with, especially on smaller needles... and the color shifts were nice, green to purple, blue to grey etc.

HOWEVER... they don't make great washcloths (or dishcloths, whichever you call them).  They are not very scrubby.  Maybe for a baby, they would be nice, or for delicate skin.  But I like to use these washcloths because they are scrubby - and exfoliate.  When we use different ones for the sink, they scrub the dishes well.  I make larger cloths sometimes for 'mop-up' and cleaning, and it is important that they are good scrubbing cloths, too.

This yarn stretches, instead of compressing tightly, even when knitted on the same needles.  So, even though the yarn is very tempting and pretty - I don't think it is a good yarn for making washcloths.  With that stretch, it has a nice drape, and could make pretty shirts or shrugs, if knitted or crocheted to work with the bias.

Yarn B : Berroco Linsey and Rowan Creative Linen

Yarn B is something I bought on clearance, and intended to weave with.  It is Berroco 'Linsey', a cotton and linen blend yarn.  It is kind of expensive when not on clearance, and I wouldn't buy it specifically to make washcloths.  But, it is the project that called to me to test it out.  I knitted with two colors (the other was actually Rowan Creative Linen, which is very similar.. so take this with a grain of salt across both brands.  I made two washcloths, one green and yellow even and one mostly yellow with a few stripes of the green (rowan)... and like them both.  My husband says it has a hard core, with a softer outside - and it is scrubby enough, without being rough.  So, yes, I like this one.  It was a little tougher to knit on the smooth needles, but it came out nicely.  It stretches a little, doesn't compress to the tight square as much, but washes up well.

Yarn C : the cheap but heavyweight Sugar and Creme
Yarn D : the slightly more expensive thin weight Sugar and Creme

Yarn C and D are two weights of the same 'cheap' yarn available at Wal-Mart and such... sugar and creme or peaches and creme.  It is the most basic cotton available.  D is a finer grade weight that they had on offer last year, and I snagged about five balls of that ombre (it is usually the ombres that are fine weight) and knit them up into lots of cloths.  I love that yarn.  It knit beautifully (as fun as the sugarwheel) and it actually inspired me to try lighter weight yarns for this purpose.  It is scrubby, and compresses tightly to the square and holds well wash after wash.  The ends I wove in are coming out a little - but it is on several of the others, too.  I throw them in with the towels and other clothing so they are not treated with kid gloves!

The oven mitt is a thicker seed-stitch variant in a slightly thicker-weight ombre Sugar and Creme.

Cloths A, B and D are made with 'Grandmother's Favorite' simple dishcloth pattern - you can find it easily online with a search.  It is one of the very first things I learned how to knit and does a good job of teaching increase, decrease and yarn over.

Pattern for Cloth C
To knit the oven mitt / dishwashing sink variant :

Cast on 36 to 50 stitches, depending on how wide you would like it to be.  My husband likes the 36 for dishwashing, fits the hand better without being too large.  We leave one of these draped over the kitchen sink for washing utensils and other things.  The 50 stitches are better for the oven mitt / mop up type cloth because then you want it bigger than your hand.  It is also important to use a yarn with a good compression, the stitches hold tight to each other, for the oven mitt type.  A yarn like Sugarwheel would not be good at ALL for this use.

Knit three rows of garter stitch.
Switch to this pattern for the rest of the cloth:
Knit three, seed stitch nearly to end, knit three
If you would like, knit every fifth or sixth row throw in three rows of plain garter stitch.  This will give a ripply effect to the cloth and lots of grip.  You can see I have done that in the peach and brown 'C' cloth.
End with three rows of garter stitch then cast off.


The next yarn I would like to try out is Knitpicks Cotlin dishcloth yarn.  I think it would combine a lot of these qualities.  However, I am just using up what I have - because the best part about knitting dishcloths is that it can be done while you are doing anything else, watching tv, reading articles, reading a book, listening to music, sitting in the garden, talking on the phone, waiting for something to timer ding that you are cooking etc etc... 

Knit we go in quarantine

Well, except that I am an essential worker.  But, I will remember this as the item I knit during this time.  I have a pink version of this one that I knit a few months ago, and I have worn it as a skirt (belly warmer) and a shawl, and used it simply to cover my legs while I sit and read or type.

It is a size 7 circular needle, and this particular one comfortably fits about 130 to 150 stitches before they want to pop off.  So, that is the size these blankets are.  It works out with the Red Heart acrylic yarn to be about 3 feet wide, and then I knit them about 4 foot long.

They are really handy little things to have around.
Weaving in all the ends of the stripes can be a bit hectic, but they look too plain otherwise, and I use up lots of little balls of scrap yarn in the process.

The nubbly areas are seed-stitch alternated for three to five rows and then back to garter stitch.  The stripe rows are two passes of each color.

Really simple but effective and useful knitting.

//

I saw a LOT of knitting posts lately, and yarn stashes, and deliveries etc etc... and I'm not doing anything fancy or ordering a lot of special yarn.. but I am glad to have something to work on.

I washed up and finished out the two Simply Soft scarves I had been making - one in magenta garter stitch and one in grey brick stitch.  They are about 10 to 12 inches wide and 5 and 6 foot long. respectively.  They are lovely and useful, as well.  I wore one of them around my neck up to the mailbox when it was cold the other morning, and the other one I had worn when I was wearing the pink shawl as a skirt and kept warm on top and bottom. 

That is a good yarn to hold up, although 3.68 per skein now at the store and what I have is mostly because Mark and Esme have given me them over the years as presents - silky and colorful yarns, they are definitely the type to draw the eye in.  I threw both of the scarves through the wash and they came out very nice - except I also threw in a wool scarf I had forgotten what it was made of and it came out really soft but kind of small - only 6 inches now by about 4 feet - but it is still a good neckwarmer type for tucking into a jacket collar.  I've worn a few of my knit hats, too lately - same reasons.. and making more of those for the 'pile' would be useful, too.

I also finished two net market bags, one book size and the other towel size for the beach.  The towel one is made of the same green yarn as this.

And of course wash cloths, I had stacks of them a few weeks ago - and they are all finished up and put into circulation.

some handicrafts

I could get the better camera, but these are not fancy things.  I've been knitting to keep my boredom and thoughts calm while I watch TV the past week or so - even before the panic really started with everyone and the coronavirus...

Esme stayed home from school.  I gave her the choice, as Benton county, McKenzie and Paris all shut down for the week but Huntingdon was holding out.  Everyone says Huntingdon will do it as well this week -- they have Spring Break next week but so did everyone else who closed.  I'll see what the news rolls in over the course of the day.

I made about eight washcloths (not all shown here) in cotton and linen.  They will be used in the bathtub and the kitchen sink, depending on the material and texture.  And I worked more on the lap blanket I began in December and finished it.  It was made of one huge skein of hot neon pink yarn and stripes of bits and bobs I had lying around.  It is very warm - but not much more than covering your lap while reading or knitting on the couch.

 picture is blurry, but they're already in the washing machine now, so this is what we got.  I found some really nice color combinations at Hobby Lobby the other day, and I also made up some plain cotton ones and some two-tone linen ones.

 this is a really bright neon pink Esme and/or Mark gave me for Christmas one year.. and there was so much of it I wasn't sure what to do.. so I broke it up with bits of other scraps in stripes.  I still have to weave in all the ends now - one bad thing about stripes!  It is very warm - sitting under it will half cook your feet.  Which, lately, is what we need.  It has been just so cold.

We doctored Minerva's eye yesterday, our sweet 'mama' dog who adopted Rex.  We couldn't find a cut or scrape either there or on her ears or neck or anywhere - but she had a bump near it and the eye was swelling  and weeping.  After a few hours the swelling had gone down.  This morning she looks almost better, just a little redness in that eye still.  I hope it stays okay now.  We bought a bit more medicine in Tractor Supply in case it starts up again after all this crazy is going on in the markets.

I am working on a green net market bag, that is coming close to getting to the top band and handle.  It has been sitting in my desk drawer for months at an odd stage .. something wasn't working.. I ripped it back last night and started it again, seems to be doing properly now.

Haven't been out to the garden today yet.. the cabbage seedlings seemed to do okay with their sun yesterday, no burning showing.  I picked up extra kale and mustard seed at the co-op while we were there picking up two bags of dog food. 

crochet and drawings

strawberry ice cream and cake.. maybe.  the two color mix I'm doing with a cone of red yarn and the shiny tan yarn is a little like a christmas sugar cookie with red sprinkles...

I couldn't find any more of the off-white yarn at either store, so now I've got to decide to break up the pattern or continue with the white and have just that one area with the off-white... I'm thinking I'm going to mix the white and the tan yarn together there and then do it again on the other side, and that will allow me to do something else 'on both sides' that is alike as well... maybe pink mixed with the tan after that.  I was roaring along did all of what you see here in one day and then I came to a standstill because I wasn't sure how to proceed or if I should rip out.

The tan yarn in the big skein is part Alpaca.. from an old cache of statsh yarn.

 study of a cat that won't sit still - slightly abstracted

 drawing a memory of the 1940s house with the barrel stove and the brick wall... I will have to do from another angle so I can get the German wooden cuckoo clock above the chair by the window to the right of all of this.

Tapestry weaving

After many years hiatus, I'm trying to do a little tapestry weaving again.  I upgraded my regular 'frame' to have pegged screws, to keep the tension even.  I used a drill press (not shown) after first marking out regular pinpoints in pencil on the backside of a picture frame.  I actually used lined wide rule notebook paper to get my spacing.

It took a long time to warp the string, and I tied it at the edges with a good amount wrapped around the frame for extra on each end.

Tapestry is a technique where you will have to go back later and clean up all the threads - leave them there and don't tie them all tight yet - the tension of the whole piece may shift a little as you go.. so you want room for that.  Leave a tail of at least three to five inches sticking out after finishing any color - tuck it behind while you work if it is getting in the way.. but we'll clean them up with a big yarn needle (tapestry needle) at the end.

This is how the tapestry is coming along... still a bit of a ways to go but I am about three quarters there.  One thing about tapestry -when you draw the picture out, the results will be 'squished' vertically.. so plan wide if you want tall...

About making the loom...

 

After the screws were all in, we began to warp the loom by running the ball of yarn back and forth and catching it on the pegs like this.  At times, we had to stop and take the screwdriver to a screw and adjust it a tiny bit to get the yarn between them.

  
Adjust the screws with the screwdriver.


 Running the yarn back and forth



Planning shapes and building up bit by bit.. if there is too big of jump between areas of colors, best to make a new tassel of yarn and start that as its own section. The bottom of this weaving has two levels of 'rya knot' fringe.. which I was practicing with.

 

A visit to my LYS in Murray, Kentucky Red Bug Yarn and Gifts

I found a good quantity of 'Linsey' yarn by Berrocco, which is 65% cotton, 35% linen, and 'Creative Linen' by Rowan, which is 50/50.  The yarns have a beautiful drape and the contrast will go nicely in a woven project.  I need to build a new larger skinny frame loom to do the project I'm thinking of.

The drape and feel of it was a big draw.

 Esme also found some 100% wool and a cute measuring tape. 

I told her if she is going to a yarn store she should at least buy one skein of yarn to experiment with.

 

This is the 'Shawl in a Ball' continuation.  I found a circular needle to help make this project not so heavy on my elbow.  I had started it on straight needles before I realized how much it would weigh as the project got longer and longer.

 

This is what the tapestry project looked like at stage one

And I'll call this one stage two point five...

A showy butterfly on the zinnias

The only 'Teddy Bear' sunflower that has bloomed so far

Blast from the Past :
I was trying to remember the name of the yarn store in Fargo, North Dakota when I used to live there.  It was called 'Yarn Renaissance" and it was in the downtown area., but within biking or walking distance (2 miles) of my duplex on 7th avenue.  I remember biking down that long stretch straight to the store and then cruising back with whatever little thing I had found, usually a skein of Baby Ull DK (merino wool 6 dollars) or Sugar n Cream cotton.  I made a green and white woven wool purse from their materials (they had wool felt, too) with green glass turtle buttons that I used the year that I graduated from NDSU.  I remember swinging that purse on my shoulder in my graduation gown and then having to hand it off to my mom and dad when it was time to line up.  I found a news article that said it closed in July, 2007.