Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

It's been more like a week without any real knitting. Friday before last I woke up feeling like the floor of a NYC Taxi cab. Even at work, the boss noticed. Although he thought I had gone out partying the night before. It was a vicious cold. The remnants are still hanging on. I've got bronchitis and a set of sinsues that scream each time I cough. But the worst of it is over. Odd though, even when I'm laying there wheezing and shivering and wishing to be unconscious, I don't knit. I'll lay there doing nothing, but I will not knit. You'd think I would just be knitting all the time since my brain is too stuffed up for any higher-level processing. Oh I know knitting can be tricky, but knitting hats is easy. Before I started back at school, I knitted a 6' long stole for myself. It's just like 100 stitches, knitted in stockinette with the exception of the last 3 stitches on each side, to keep it from rolling. All white sock yarn, all off a 1,100 yard co...

I started working on the year end review like 3 hours ago, but I was distracted. First my nephew came over with his family to get eggs, then he got stuck in the driveway. Our 2nd snow of the year has made most of the driveway a skating rink. I've not been outside of my yard in a week. But then again, I'm on vacation,, so. I'll pick a few random photos to share. Dave shaved. Say that 3 times real fast: dave shaved dave shaved dave shaved. Yep, that's our bathroom and me holding up my cell phone to take the pic. Total time it took me to tell him never to shave again? 30 seconds. He looks like this Brother..........the one I don't like. Miss George and I spend a lot of time together. She has the bum leg,, so she would rather just sit and hang with us. She's a great Mom though, and her two daughters are out and about with her all the time. She will not go into the coop for the night without one of her girls with her. You've seen her in the big blue p...

Ok, it's a usual day here at the farm. Chores are done, animals are fed, and knitting is commencing while I start working on a few things. I've been working on extending my family tree a bit more. Whatever I had done was left pretty much in the air about 8 years ago. We had a years' subscription to Ancestry, but couldn't afford to keep it. Now, there are a bit more free sites that will help you without having to pay up $70 to see them. The two parts of my tree that were stuck were on my Mother's side. The Laws' side was stuck in Kentucky at the start of the 1900's. Now this might be fine for some, but come on! I've gotten one part of my tree back to the 1500's.  So I started searching, using the LDS website. Back when I started, the only persons in their database were ones 'sealed' to their faith. It's a part of their religion: If you become a Mormon, all your ancestors were 'sealed in the faith' -or baptised in Mormon. Many ...

That's what I'm calling this year: Finish or Frog 15. Finished: Squishy Cowl named Limburger. Dave and I went to the Monroe Cheese festival this year. It was an anniversary year so it was a crush of people. Wisconsin cheese makers set up a huge tent on the square and offer up samples of their best. Along the other sides of the square are fund raising tents, a reenactment of cheese making done 100 years ago, and some nice yodelers in Lederhosen.  One fundraising tent was to take the Limburger test. For $3 you got to sample Limburger, the smelliest cheese there is. You got the choice between 'fresh' Limburger or "about to go bad." I chose "about to go bad." The taste? Beer cheese. Tasted like Beer cheese.  Now add a bit of mustard on that and it tasted good. I'd do it again..with beer.  But..as we moved from one side of the block to the other, the crush of people got so bad near the yodeling bandstand that we were smack upside the shops...

I supposed to be studying Circuit Modeling, and yes, I'll get back to it. That in itself is at least a 12 page rant. The book I was supposed to be using sucks, the Proctoring is bullshit, and I've got at least 5 supposed professionals from the UW who are annoying me with their inability to think outside the procedures. If one more person sends me the 'procedures.doc' and insists that I peruse it again..I'ma throwing a brick at them. Yes, I know the bloody 'procedure' and I know you're hiding your inadequacies behind them. These people couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag without their ever-loving, vaunted 'procedure' And here's the kicker for all 5 of them: I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR PROCEDURES! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT LAME EXCUSES!! And their inadequacies has made me rethink my college of choice..maybe NIU has a better program... Onto knitting: Three people in one week let it be known they have cancer. Three...

Lots of fun around here...with spring being here and all. The goosie gals have been laying eggs constantly, so I've resorted to putting a few dozen on Craigslist to allow others to incubate and start their own flock. I tried something in the goose pen that turned out to be a failure: I had Dave take down the partition between Percy's flock and Molly's flock. Fights ensued between Percy and Albus, Adele was frantic and Molly was having none of it. After 2 nights, I put the stupid thing back up. I'm knitting basic stocking caps while studying. So far, I've knocked out 3 of them within 2 weeks. The last one was thrown at my Professor who was surprised. I asked him if he was allergic to wool. His confused answer was, "I don't think so, why?" because you're getting a hat there skippy.... I was screwing up the decreases horrendously. Instead of a double decrease using SSK,then K2Tog, I was doing just the SSK....it screwed it up a lot. They are handy...

Today is a snow day. Yep, it's a Sunday, but Mass was cancelled so we stayed home and shoveled out the driveway.  It's been an odd week; I've slipped and fallen on the front steps due to the ice storm a few days ago. This morning I was going down the back stairs to release the flock when I slipped and fell again. Minion Slippers My right leg has taken quite a beating so far. I'm going to take it easy for the rest of the day. We've gotten the tree decorated, and I'm making peanut butter balls.  They are coated with chocolate, so I will need to refridgerate them for a few hours before that happens.  I'm finishing up a pair of Minion slippers for my cousin. The pattern I'm using is the Aunt Maggie's Slippers   and it's working up pretty fast. Of course, it would be faster  if I could figure out where I put my size 9 double-pointed needles! Meh. I'll just seam them up when I am done. School is done. I've had 4 whole days of nothing t...

It's like 6 degrees Fahrenheit outside with a wind chill of -30 degrees Fahrenheit.   NO Animal gets outside today...well except for me to do chores. African Geese can get their knobs frostbitten. So we made the decision to keep them in their enclosure today.  I went out and got them fresh food and water and plugged in a radio to keep them less bored. They're listening to country music. But let's talk knitting, shall we? Or at least fiber play.  Some new things off the needles: Not really all that new, but I've been working on my sock leftover blanket for about 5 years.  I'm currently working on straightening it out.  The right side needed another row added down to the bottom and the left side needed another row added to the top. That squares it up, so I can keep knitting it longer.  Right now, it is about 4 1/2' long by 3' wide. A Pair of fingerless mitts I have been working on for almost a year now.  You know the S...

OMG! As my lame excuse, let me show you what we've accomplished in the last week: Those 6 chickens are now happily ensconced in their new coop.  Yeah sure, it's not shingled and it needs another coat of paint, but we're in crunch time here.  This Friday we are getting 25 more chickens and 6 ducks. They will be babies, but we needed to clean out the garage so we can put the brooder back down. To do that, these 6 chickens needed to be in the coop. By the way the ^%#^% chickens don't like the roost I made them.  They're roosting on the rafters now. Flipping chickens!   More goose eggs are incubating.  Expected hatching is in about 2 weeks. I have been candling them this time and from my novice expertise, I say about 4 out of 8 look viable. But because I am a novice we will incubate all 8 for the 30 days.  Hey, call me pro-life. Knitting is going on.  I've made a pillow for my aging Tigger, a Wingspan shawl from leftover yarn, a Mango for ...

It was a tough week last week.  The death of Goosie, then a brutal head cold kept me pretty much laid up on the recliner heavily medicated.   I've been trying to work on a satchel-type bag that was never real popular (except for one Aussie who likes it) but I find real handy. So...for a few pictures.. The first is a delft blue with yellow interior. It's about 15" wide by 12" deep. I need to finish up securing the raw edges. Raw edges like to snag yarn. And now that I look at the picture and  the real thing, yes...the pockets are a bit skewed on this one.  This was the first one made.  I'm not happy with the loops for the strap: too much raw edge showing. I also did not like the size as it's very deep but not very wide. And it's skewed too.  I gotta work on that.  The last one is hard to see the pockets in the front because the interior fabric coordinates with the exterior so well.  Now this one might be a bit TOO big 16" by 14"  ...

I did reasonably well for a person who ignores her blog for months at a time. So I'm going to go random for today's effort: 1. Saw the remake of True Grit.  My Dad's a huge John Wayne fan and I've sat through the original dozens of times.  I don't like Glen Cambell's take on Le Boeuf.  It's 'dandified' as I say.  Matt Damon played the role better. The remake was excellent. It's a talent of the director to set out the story without allowing emotion. He just sets the scenes and lets the audience emote. Jeff Bridges played an excellent Rooster Cogburn, but Hailee Steinfeld, who played Mattie was excellent in her role. 2. We missed the last part of Harry Potter in the theatres again.  No spoilers please. I'm thinking I've got to go buy it so I can sob piteously in the privacy of my own home. 3. River Tam, the scarf is done and as a present to the world it is free.   If you are on Ravelry, the link is  HERE . My friend Kerri dyed it in...

The family has been experiencing a lot of changes lately, and I've not been knitting nearly enough! Our son Alex has graduated from High School and was preparing to enter Tech School for a welding degree. Everything was all purty and quiet here and then he got a text - from his girlfriend - who broke up with him - in a text. So 2 years of relationship ends in a text (can you tell that's a real annoying point for me, the text?) and my son is left bereft, hurt and without a real need to stay in this podunk little town. Two weeks ago, he announces, "I want to go into the Navy." Okay! This option was floated about in the last few years for many reasons: 1. We've got no real $$ saved up for college. 2. His grades are not really indicative of ambition towards a college goal. 3. This kid can code computer programs IN HIS SLEEP, and needs a place where he can expand on that knowledge is a more structured environment than college. College has too many distractions (girlz...

Let's start with Mango. Mango's taken on the personality of a cranky wild-child. He wanted to go planking, so sure...we went planking. Ok, he planked, I took pictures. He then noticed my frustration at a certain child who is on the cusp of graduating High School. That child has become so unfocused that he's almost useless. If you tell him something, you might as well staple a post-it note to his forehead. NO, I won't staple it...maybe some duct tape? Mango insisted on head butting him to remind him for the 4th time to take the compost bucket down to the heap. That's when Mango lost his button eyes. So I sewed them back on. Mango then announced that he needed a friend. Stuffed animal creation is actually ideal for stressful situations. Great for ADD: Mango and Papaya aren't really that chummy yet. Mango's ticked because I haven't given him a tail yet. Papaya's eyes are embroidered so they won't fly off in a fit of anger. Graduation: Yeah. I...

Every day we drive down the same road to our home. This road goes up and over hills, through fields of hay and corn and soybeans and then into a stand of trees. For the last month or so, I've seen these large nests way up high in the trees about 200 yards back from the road. Now screaming down the country road at 60 miles per hour, there's not a whole lot of time to get a real good look at these birds. From the passenger side of the van, I knew they were big, with long legs and neck and were dark. The nests looked huge and were perched on the top of what looked like ancient oaks. Today I decided to walk the 1/2 mile over to this stand of trees to take a picture of this mysterious bird. It's been nagging me; what in the heck is this bird? I took along my husband's expensive, but so worth it Nikon camera and the telephoto lens. Hey, he spent some of his retirement on the gear, so who am I to argue? It's still so worth the $ he spent! The big damned birds are Hero...

Ok, so I had a bit of a familial meltdown earlier. It was over 2 weeks overdue. Now I am back to my old self, working and reading odd stuff on the 'net. I have to share though, my time-consuming project. Over the last few months I've been slowly working on a custom-order for 60 bags. They are all the same fabric, all small KIPs and all going to one very lucky group going to Maryland Sheep & Wool festival from Pennsyvania. They will be enjoying these! I've been keeping them secret so that the knitters will be surprised when they get them. I have to do my touchdown dance, though. I am finished sewing them! Now they all get their strings and the final check before shipping. But I'm done sewing!!! And..I'll be getting more of this fabric for regular customers to the shop. It's just too cool not to!

I've been doing a lot of knitting, a lot of sewing, and a lot of meeting. Let us start with knitting: The Janesville Area Knitting Guild's Annual Knit-In was last weekend. Anyone who knows me know's I am the Door Prize coordinator for that event. Usually that keeps me from taking classes. As a help to vendors this year, we asked for less donations and gave them to the first 50 registrants. I got to take a class! I took steeking. Really, it's not as frightening as you think it is, once you know how. BUT, we need pictures! (Note to self: STOP TAKING PICS WITH YOUR CELLPHONE!) The pictures don't really turn out well when I do. My entrant into the knitting challenge is a Christmas Stocking done in colorwork. The yarn is entirely handspun, and the designs came from a book called "Aran and Fair Isle Knitting" and is part of the Harmony Guide Series from Britain. Sewing? Oh I'm in a Amy Butler phase again. Pop on over to the store for a nice bag while they ...

As a member of the Knit-In committee for the Janesville Area Knitting Guild, I am privy to information that others might not have until later. Being an honest lady, I knew that this years' competition challenge would be a cabled accessory. I make it a point never to start my project until January to give everyone a sporting chance. I thought about it and knitted the Divine Strawberry. Divine because I knitted it while attending my class at St. Augustine on the Apostle's Creed. I have become aware of the fact that I listen more intently when I am knitting, so I bring something that I can work on that does not need much attention and can be placed low on the lap. That way I can knit and not draw attention....mostly. It turned out a bit snug for my head, but cute nonetheless. Last week was the first time in over two months that I could make it to the yarn shop to discuss the Knit-In and such. That's when I found out that the challenge had been changed due to changes in our...