Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Good Mail Week

It’s a good thing it’s been a good mail week because the frustration with getting the last inspection on the house is beginning to work on me. To get the last inspection we need the power to be officially hooked up to the house by FPL. The inspector said they will be out anywhere between one to three days, yesterday was the third day. We were planning to call in today for the last inspection but we can not because no power. I’m hoping they show up today. We have until 4:30 to call for the inspection. If everything goes as plan we will have the CO tomorrow. If not it will be put off till another day. For those who do not know what I’m talking about, around three years ago we knocked down our old house to build a new one. In the meantime we stayed in a very small RV on the back of the lot. Three years is a long time for me. I guess I just need to be patient. What’s one day, one week, two weeks compared to three years?

On to knitting, Dax completed her first sock.


Wow, I was so impressed that I let her talk me into ordering a new knitting project for her. I figured she has all this time with nothing to do this summer so I went ahead and got her this:


It came in the mail a couple of days ago. I ordered it from kpixie. It's called lacy little top. I'm now waiting to see if Dax will actually complete the second sock.

I also got another package in the mail. It’s a book from Monika from Smoking Hot Needles blog. I am really looking forward to reading it. Thank you again Monika for sending it my way.


Well I’m off to clean up. I’d like it to look somewhat clean just in case we do get the final inspection.

Friday, June 22, 2007

On the wheel

Here’s what’s on the wheel, pretty boring heh?

It’s my first time spinning merino wool. I probably should have dyed the wool before spinning it but decided to dye it after. My best description of spinning this is smooth and sticky. I usually sit outside to spin and it is humid here. I found the merino roving likes to stick to me, my chair, the dog, the table. You name it, it will cling to it. However, once I figured out how to contain it, it would just slip out of my fingers onto the wheel so smoothly and it is very soft. I’m hoping to ply it soon and turn it into socks.

Speaking of socks Dax has decided she wants to knit some socks. It’s a good thing I love her so much because I opened up my sock yarn bin and said choose what you want. I saw her hand roam over my opal yarn and I thought to myself, oh those are my favorites. She then decided she liked the lorna laces yarn better, I thought, oh, my lorna laces yarn, sigh. She then thought nah maybe the socks that rocks yarn. Ok, it took me a long time to finally get some socks that rocks yarn but if she wants them she can have them. But then she decided that she liked the cladia handpainted yarn best.

So the cladia yarn is now on the needles and being made into a nice pair of socks. All joking aside I’m very pleased that at least one of my children enjoys knitting almost as much as I do. I did show both Tyde and Dax how to knit but it just didn’t stick with Tyde. He likes playing with my spinning wheel more then knitting needles so I still think he might come around one day.

The other big event is that we are now down to one more inspection on the house, the CO (certificate of occupancy). We are hoping to get this done on Thursday. All I can say is that it’s been a long three years.

I decided to end this post with a picture of Rohan with a bad hair cut. Dax insisted that we needed to shave him. I have to admit he does seem a lot more happy. But, he sure does look funny. She got tired of shaving him and left his head, tail and feet alone. He has a lion look to him.


I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Yarn, books, rags


Jennifer asked what yarn I’m using for the Lutea Lace Shoulder Shell. It is called Nashua handknits cilantro, in the color turquoise. It is made of 70% cotton 30% polyester. It has been interesting to knit with. So far I’m pleased with the yarn. However, I'm a little worried about keeping my gauge consistant with it. It has a good bit of stretch to it that I’m not use to knitting with.

In other news I’ve finished a book, actually two and joined a rag race.

The two books I finished are The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Dicamillo and Pendragon The Merchant of Death by D. J. MacHale. Both are children’s books recommended for ages 9-12. I felt the Pendragon book is more for the older kids and the Edward Tulane book is for all ages. I really enjoyed The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and think that if you have children that like you to read to them then get this book. The story is very heartwarming; the chapters are short and easy to read out loud. As for Pendragon I didn’t read it, I listened to it. I usually like to listen to audiobooks especially when I’m spinning and this is the one I listened to for spinning the purple stuff. It’s a series book and I listened to it because one of the students at the school recommended it. She did tell me that she read them out of order and found the first one to be a bit boring and the main character came out as being whinny. From the information she gave me I’m assuming the next book will be more exciting to read. I will eventually read another book in this series but I’m not in any hurry to do so.

The rag race is a dish rag knitting relay race, hosted by Yarn Miracle. If you are interested then visit her site for more information. It sounds like fun and not a huge commitment.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Plied up

It’s all plied up and ready for its next trip back to Alabama.
The fiber was bought from a vendor at the MSWF called Brush Creek Wool Works. Its label says 8 oz of purple Cotswold wool. I Navajo plied it and managed to get just over 365 yards. There is 182 yards in the first skein and 183.7 yards in the second skein (tied off with the pink string). I found it easy to spin up and enjoyed spinning it.


Now I have to figure out what I want to spin next. I pulled out some white superwash merino from the pile and thought maybe I could spin it up to be some sock yarn and then dye it. Honestly, I do have a lot of sock yarn in the stash but I don’t have really any that are solid colors so maybe I need some more. There is also that vest I wanted to do but I don’t think I will use the superwash roving for that. Hmm, I’ll have to think about it more.

In the mean time I have casted on a new project. It’s the Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell from Interweave Knits magazine.


I did manage to catch a picture of the shuttle going up. I took it from the back yard and got a kick out of Rohan’s reaction. We can hear the shuttle pretty good from the house. It makes a loud rumbling noise. Rohan kept looking in the tree to see what was making the noise.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Purple stuff

I am so enjoying the beginning of summer, maybe to much. I’ve been having a hard time establishing a routine. Not that you have to have routines but I feel I get so much more done when I have some kind of routine or plan. So, I’m working on getting back on some kind of schedule. I did update the blog to the newer version. I saw that on Bells Knits that she is using haloscan for her comments and decided to give it a try. In the transition I did loose some of the links to the blogs I like to visit so I’ll try and put them all back in soon.

We are waiting to see if the shuttle launches today. It was raining this morning but seems to be clearing up. Now it’s just plain hot and humid outside. You know how it rains a good soaking then the sun comes out and the water that just came down is now steaming around you. I was sitting outside plying some purple stuff. Sweat was just running down my face so I decided to take a break and get some ice cold tea. And well here I am sitting in front of the computer.

As for the purple stuff here is what it looked like before spinning.

I managed to get two bobbins full.

The purple stuff has some history behind it. When I went to the MSWF for the first time I bought some of the purple stuff, so did my sister. I’m not even sure if we had a spindle back then but we bought some anyway. It was the first roving I ever bought. .I managed to get home with out my purple stuff. I think it must have stayed at the festival and never made it back to the car. Anyway, my sister decided to send me her purple stuff in the mail. I kept it for a while and then sent it back. I did get a spindle and started to get somewhat good at spinning with it so she sent the purple stuff back to me. The purple stuff was precious to me so I kept it stored in the closet. She managed to get some wheels in her basement because the guild she belongs to asked her to keep them for them so I sent the purple stuff back to her. At the next sheep and wool festival I got a wheel. So you know what happened she sent the purple stuff back to me. This has been going on for over two years now. So, I decided to spin it up. When I finish plying it, I will send it back to my sister. It might end up with a home some day, LOL.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

We're Back

We’re back.
Back from the Disney camp out trip. First off I have to apologize mostly to my body.

I apologize for bringing the wrong blow up mattress. I brought the one with the hole in it. The result was having to sleep on the ground for the duration of the camping trip. My hips feel like they are bruised.

I apologize for not wearing the right undergarments for riding rides that get you wet. Umm, I managed to get a slight rash in a bad spot. My wet underwear rubbed a rash on my upper inner thigh area. I either need to wear the proper undergarment that will not cause a rash when wet and having to walk around a theme park or wait till the end of the day to ride anything that will cause a good soaking.

I apologize for not getting enough sleep. Dax insisted on doing the extra magic hours after the park closed. There were some nights that we didn’t leave the parks till 1am.

This leads to the next apology, which is to my feet. There was an awful lot of standing and walking.

I apologize to my budget and my somewhat attempt for a healthy diet, for forgetting a good amount of my camping food. Disney does not hold back on over charging for food and it seems that the unhealthy stuff is cheaper then the healthier choices.

Regardless of my complaining we had such a good time.

Notice that Dax is wearing her tank. She finished it that morning and wanted to wear it to the Epcot flower festival.

Tyde took this picture of Dax and I in the fairy garden.


Some silly faces.


Here's some proof that Tyde was actually with us.

I saw this in the villians shop at MGM. I always kind of wondered what Sleeping beauty pricked her finger on to cut it on a spinning wheel. Mine has no sharp points on it. This one makes it look like a very sharp bobbin.


I have to mention that it rained on Friday when we went to Magic Kingdom. It started as a drizzle in the afternoon and just turned in to a constant down pour. Luckily I didn’t wear the rash causing undergarment. I kept thinking it was amazingly not so crowded for the MK on a Friday. It was almost hard to leave at midnight because there were no lines. This is saying a lot because I’m not a night person. But we were all tired and a bit soggy so we headed back. The worst part was the bike ride back to the campsite. I kept having to dodge little frogs on the bike path. They seemed to be really enjoying the good soaking. But, I couldn’t hardly see, not only because it was dark but it was also raining. I’m sure I probably ran over some of them. We got back to the sight exhausted, put on dry clothes and tried to sleep on the hard ground. Wow, did it rain and rain and rain. I needed to pack up the tent the next day and was starting to try to come up with a plan on how to do this in the rain.

Later when I got home and after I took a nap on a nice mattress I asked Rudy if it rained here on Friday. He kind of looked at me funny and said, yeah it rained and there were a few power outages, the kids basket ball goal got blown across the yard etc. I’m looking a bit confused at this time and then he mentions tropical storm Barry. Oh, that’s why it wasn’t so crowded at the theme park that day, LOL. You got to love vacations where you loose touch with what is going on around you. We had no tv, no radio, no newspapers, nothing that told me there was bad weather on the way. I’m hoping that Disney informs campers of bigger storms like hurricanes. Needless to say our tent did just fine.