Gale's Art

I hope everybody is having a great week. I'm at the end of my summer break. It's back to school/work for me on Monday. I still don't know what I'll be doing but until I hear otherwise I'm assuming I'll be in the library.
I spun up 4 oz of Gale's Art merino roving in the proud peacock colorway.


There is 385 yards of 2 ply here.

I have another 4oz that I haven't spun yet.

I think I will try and spin the next 4 oz thinner to get some socks out of them. Maybe.

Friday Photo on Sunday

Here’s my Friday photo on Sunday. Ok, I’m a few days off.

I’ve been playing around with a different blog. I decided I wanted to post more photos but didn’t want to overwhelm this blog with my random ramblings. I called my other blog The Ugly Herthen. I got the name from a drawing I did one day when I was sitting around and drawing with Dax. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or not. I'm still playing around with it.

Anyway, I ran into another type of blogging called, tumblr. I’m wondering do any of you guys know much about tumblr? I heard somebody say it’s a glorified twitter. It looks like a great way to show photos but it doesn’t look very organized to me. In other words I don’t see where you can tag your photos.

If your like me and haven't ever seen tumblr and your curious here are some blogs/tumblr sites that have caught my attention.
That Girl
Live for the stoke Tyde would like this one.
Black and WhiteIt looks like you can submit your own pictures to this one.
Joie De Vivre
Restart My Heart This was the first one I ran into.

Simplicity 2902

I noticed I get a lot of search engine inquiries for sewing patterns I blog about. I can see why, I always like to see what sewing or knitting patterns look like on people before I spend my time on using the pattern. In reality the drawn pictures on the pattern or the pictures of the models don't really give you a good idea of what it looks like on a real person. I think ravelry has really cut back on the inquiries for knitting. But I still get a lot for sewing so here is my review on Simplicity pattern 2902.I made size 9/10 and ended up not pulling the darts in as much as the pattern recommended. I also took the straps in about an inch and they are still a bit to big. And then I moved the pockets more forward then the pattern recommended. I will wear this probably a good bit around the house or at the beach but not out and about. It's a bit on the short side. I guess if I wore some shorts or leggings under it then I would feel more comfortable wearing it other places.

I do love the pockets and thought they turned out nice.
Overall a cute little dress. Not very hard to sew together. I guess the most difficult part would be the pockets with the little pleat and binding but even that wasn't bad.



Anybody want to guess where my babies are at? Rudy took them to visit his parents for a couple of weeks. I'll give you some hints. Most the names in the area seem to have more vowels then consonants in them. With their light colored hair and blue eyes they are considered a minority, Haoles. There are no snakes there and more than one-third of the world's commercial supply of pineapples comes from there.

Friday Photo Rain

We’ve been getting a lot of rain showers lately. I’m not complaining though. It’s much better than the weather we were getting a few weeks ago of unbelievable heat and no rain.
I took these pictures last Friday when I was walking on the beach.

I hope everybody has a great weekend and for those who are celebrating Happy 4th of July!

Summer knitting

I wanted to knit something for the summer so I narrowed it down to three different projects. There was the petal halter from Interweave Knits Spring 2009 issue.
Then there was the Ogee lace skirt from Interweave Knits Summer 2007 magazine
And the last choice I had was Pink Frosting from Interweave Spring 2006 issue.

Yeah I have a lot of Interweave magazines lying around. I also have enough yarn in my stash to do any one of these projects.

I finally decided to go with the pink frosting.I’m knitting this in the round using Rowan 4 ply cotton that I got awhile back from a sale at Webs.
My knit stitches look so sloppy to me and the cables even worst. I have frogged this twice. Once because I had a twist in the cast on and the second time because I just didn’t like the stitches. Finally I went to Ravelry to look at others who have done this top and noticed their stitches were much prettier but also very similar to mine. I’ve decided to just keep knitting and love my sloppy stitches. This must be the nature of knitting with cotton?

Summer Days Photo Friday

Dax and I go to the beach almost everyday.
We try to get Tyde to go with us but he can't seem to get out of bed before 11 a.m.
If there were surfable waves maybe he would get up.
But for now we have those glassy small summer waves that are good for the river rat float.


I hope everybody else is enjoying their summer days.

I got this merino top roving a couple years ago while at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival from Ohio Valley Natural fibers.I don’t know how much I spun but I can tell you I still have a lot left over. My original idea was to spin enough of this to make a sweater but I’ve gotten bored spinning it so I Navajo plied it to get it off my bobbins to make way for something else. I really should invest in some more bobbins.

Here are the singles.
Here’s what I got after Navajo plying.


I thought I had about an even amount of singles on each bobbin, maybe a little bit more on one but I ended up getting 143 yards from one and 238 yards from the other. I haven’t checked the wpi but just from looking at it I can tell I spun one of the bobbins thinner than the other.
Well at least I have another 2 plus pounds of this stuff to play with to try and become more consistent. It is a pretty color and much softer then I originally thought it would be.

We got this post card in the mail a few days ago. I thought I would share it with you.If you can't see what it says, click on it to make it bigger.

I don’t know who Van is and I’m sorry he lost his cat but loved reading his lost cat card. His description of what his kitty responds to and the fact that if you find his cat he wants you to feed it then call made me smile. I use to refer to the shaking cat food box as the intenational kitty call :). It must be more unique then I thought. Hopefully he has found his cat.

Friday Photo and fill ins

Dax had one of her friends over so we started the fire pit and roasted hot dogs.
As you can see Rohan will be your best friend if you have a hot dog close by.
I was thinking of calling this post desire.


And for the Friday Fill Ins
1. I grew up thinking _clowns were creppy and saturday morning cartoons were worth getting up early for.

2. The Friday Fill Ins_ was the last website I was at before coming here.

3. Why don't you _grab a glass of tea and relax some?

4. Knitting__ helps me relax.

5. Thanks for the _comments you all have been leaving. I really sprreciate hearing from you.

6. Having to cast on what feels like a gazillion times is__ very off-putting.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to just relaxing__, tomorrow my plans include planting some flower seeds__ and Sunday, I want to sit at my wheel and spin some Gale's art merino___!
I hope everybody has a great weekend!

Kwik Sew 3497

I made the top awhile back. It's been getting a lot of use. I made view A, with the gather in the front, and used a cheap lycra fabric I got from Hancock fabrics.

I usually wear a tank underneath the top. It would probably work fine with out it but I feel more comfortable with the tank.

I made the size small and had to take it in around the arms. It bagged out a good bit. Maybe if I used a fabric that was less stretchy, an interlock, it wouldn't have done this. Other then that there were no other modifications that I did to the pattern.




On a different note, have you seen the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog? It's wonderful. It's an online tribute to Maurice Sendak, who wrote Where the Wild Things Are. Different artists/illustrators are posting their art work that was inspired from the book. I loved looking at all the art work, very nice.

The book has been made into a movie, which you can see the trailer for here.

Photo Friday and fill ins

Wow two posts in one week. It must be summertime:).

Here is a dandelion I took a picture of when I was in Maryland.I very seldom see dandelions where I live at. Maybe they don't like salt in the air. I do love them when they are in this stage. Don't you just want to pick it and gently blow all the little white things all over the place?

There is a blog called Friday Fill Ins and since I'm in such a participating mood I decided to put my fill ins in the blanks. Go ahead give it a try and see what you come up with.


1. Home sweet home.

2. My favorite thing for dinner lately has been anything that somebody else makes.

3. All Rohan did last night was bark! bark! bark! Tyde had some friends stay over and they had him all playful and barking.

4. A nice long walk will cure all woes.

5. I'd love to hear some good news.

6. When all is said and done, then what.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to not cooking, tomorrow my plans include drafting a pattern for some shorts and Sunday, I want to finally get some spinning done!

I know this is suppose to be a craft blog. I'll get to it, someday :).

Last day

The last day of school for T and D was last Thursday. I took this picture when I went to pick them up. The amount of buses they have always amazes me. Dax said she once counted them and got up to 26. A big difference from the elementary school they went to that had a whopping 3 buses.

However today was my last day. I wanted to participate in Dawn's, from Today and Everyday , self portrait month. She has a goal of taking a picture of herself daily for the month of June and has asked anybody who wants to do the same. I will not be taking pictures daily but did want to participate. So, I decided to let my self portrait be me in my little library. I’ve been using this week of no students or teachers to do inventory and to get the library ready for the next school year.
It’s a bit bittersweet for me. It's been a busy year and I’m so looking forward to the summer break but also my job is being consolidated. I guess that’s what you would call it. There are several schools in our area that are dealing with low numbers of students and the county is having a hard time with budgeting. Because of this it was decided that any school with an enrollment of less than 400 students will be sharing media assistants, (that’s me), technology specialists and Vice Principles. We have around 380 students. I don't know the pre-k students very well. They usually come in the library before I get there but for the rest of the school I know every one of them from kindergarten up to sixth grade.
I don't know what it will be like next year. But I do know it will not be the same.

I will really miss this job. I have absolutely loved it.

Sheep and Wool Festival Day 1

Well my one main thought when I went was no more fleece. I quickly broke that thought within the first hour of being at the festival. Dax and Sierra wanted to get some socks that rock yarn from the Fold and while they were waiting in line a lady walked up with a bag of alpaca. She was showing it off and letting me feel it etc…. Finally I asked her where she got it and I told Dax and Sierra I’d be back in a few minutes. My first purchase was 2 lbs of alpaca from Ameripaca. Ok it’s not a whole fleece so that doesn’t qualify as fleece right?

Here's Sierra and Dax listening to some music while we take a break.

Dax got a camera as a Christmas/birthday present. She spent a lot of her time taking pictures of animals while we were there. Also she just finished those fingerless gloves when we were on the airplane. The pattern is a free pattern called fingerless gloves musica. Here is the Ravelry link.

This was one of my big purchases Tilli Tomas rock star yarn. It was on sale but still very expensive, at least for me. I have a specific project in mind for it and it was discounted at the festival so I tried not to feel to guilty for buying it.

More purchases for specific projects the Kiparoo Farm Celtic Lace is for a pattern I got last year called the linen wrap blouse and the other linen, I can't remember where I got it, is for a market bag.

Oh, and I bought more alpaca. I was so drawn to the brown fleece this year. I saw so many pretty browns and when I saw this 1 lb cria (baby alpaca) fleece I bought it. Can't you see how upset I was for breaking my promise to myself not to buy more fleece :).