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For awhile there, everything was pretty routine and dull around here. Exciting, though, that we NOW can park our cars in the garage. That’s progress, thanks mostly to Bill, not me. Then, I got sick with the stuff that makes your ear stop up. That, in itself, did not make me feel bad, but loading up on antihistamines and decongestants to unstop it, did. So, I guess you think I have just been sitting around watching the grass grow, which it is, as you can see by this lovely green picture:
But, no, I have been busy with work, especially. I have managed to start some projects. I even finished one – some basic socks for Bill. More about my WIPS in a bit.
Can you tell llama farmers live at this house? By this?
Or this?
I like to sit out on my front porch and spin and look at this:
Look carefully in the lower right hand corner, and you can see part of Sugar. Sweet Pea’s out there in “the back 40″.
While sitting on the porch watching llamas and spinning, I came up with this:
I LOVE this roving, Northern Lights, by Louet in the Tropical Skittle colorway,
and purchased at Creative Yarns in Macon, GA. Did I tell you that this gem of a shop, arguably the best in Georgia, sits right in front of my husband’s company’s home office, and I did not even know it until about 2 years after it had opened? Where were my fiber feelers all that time, I wonder? I bought the handmade orifice hook there, as well.
Yes, I am knitting a February Lady Sweater, too. I am finding it to be a very pleasant knit and looking forward to being able to wear it, as you can see, I am not too far along with it.
All scrunched up on the needles, and not a great indication of how it looks. I am loving the one-row buttonhole she suggests one use.
O.K., that’s all for now folks. Have a great weekend!!
Ruth, no daily pictures of the bounty today. I got no chance to play with the fiber. Not much chance to do anything fun, in fact. Part of the specifications from the health and environmental services for our septic mound required we have sod placed on it. We tried to hire some people to lay the sod, but no go. The sod came yesterday, so guess who had to go lay it out in the almost 100% humidity, 90 degree weather. I am totally wiped out.
Bess, you can bet your bottom dollar if we had baby llamas yet, the pictures would appear on the blog almost instantaneously!!! I think the lady we bought them from must have gotten their conception dates all messed up. I am past the nail biting, wondering if “today is the day” stage, so I think probably when the baby does come, it will take me totally by surprise!!
At the H. household, that is? I got the dyeing bug and dyed up some $1 per skein bargain buy superwash wool. I was just playing with different techniques of dyeing. The socks are from Online cotton/wool blend sock yarn and have been finished FOREVER. They have been on display at the library since before the holidays. I now have them back. They look so nice and blocked, I hate to wear them.
Sad news, Fuzzy Mabel, my LYS has left the state. She is moving to South Carolina. Well, at least she has on online shop, too.
I have been in hiding. I tend to become a hermit when I am stressed. Several of you who know me well already know this about me. Anyhow, when 2 people in 24 hours say they want to see me blogging again, I know it is time to get moving. I have been BAD, but I hope all the pictures will be a good enough apology.
First, to get the bad out of the way. I was 
for most of February. It started as a cold and had a grand finale as a painful, stopped up ear. I am O.K. now.
Most of January I was consumed with new regulations and trying to incorporate them into my practice. Ugh, brain work!!
The nice thing distracting me from blogging was this:
New land!! 5 acres of it. And… tada…
My own little personal spinning/dyeing workshop that I am helping hubby (somewhat) get ready for use. Mostly I am just handing over nails, etc. But, I am also spinning in it some.
You may notice the standing water. We had that fixed this past week.
Better, huh?
Now, on to the fiber stuff. That’s what you are waiting for, of course. I got some wicked combs to process llama fiber.
And they do a GREAT job! Here’s some finished yarn from the top.
While I was sick, I tried 2 color twined knitting. (I am too lazy to look up the Swedish term). I am glad I learned it, but in my estimation, it was more trouble than the finished product warranted. (By the way, that is Araucania yarn).
I am continuing to plow my way through my lace knitting block. Another Forest Canopy Shawl (for me) knitted from yarn I handspun from Mary Ann’s beautiful merino/tencel roving.
Here’s a closeup for detail.
Lest you think I am a broken record on this (I have knitted 5 of the same pattern now), I branched out by knitting a gift scarf for Elayne – the Diamond Fantasy Scarf by Sivia Harding.
And, a closeup of my handspun basket o’color which is growing again.
The awesome, awesome red, orange, green, yellow, purple combo yarn was spun from Sandy’s famous Crayon Colorway Roving! Nice stuff. You should check it out. You know me, I just LOVE the bright colors.
The turquoise, blue, and green was dyed and spun by me. 50/50 BFL and Alpaca. Heavenly.
I also had 2 great “field trips” this year. First, I went to visit Elayne, and she took me to “The Settlement” where she volunteers. It is a whole pioneer village that is owned and maintained by the Volusia County School system and is extensively used by the school system for field trips for the children. While there, I taught Elayne and another volunteer at the settlement how to do point spinning. I think they both were mostly glad to have learned it. They do have a great wheel there that they do demonstrations with. The next day we spent at DeLeon Springs state park doing a spinning demo all decked out in Civil War Era garb. (Sorry, we “forgot” to take my picture).
Then, one rainy day (March 1), I went to Augusta with Bill and spend the day basking in the cozy warmth of Donna and Donald’s hospitality. The best way I have EVER spent a rainy day. Thanks so much, y’all.
So, that’s my 2007 in a nutshell. Hope to be a little more regular in posting now.
Ta Ta for Now.
And they were on sale for $1 per skein at Fuzzy Mabel! Since dyeing and sock knitting are my fiercest addictions, I dug right in. There were 4 skeins of the white yarn, and I course I swooped them right up. None of the sock yarns match, but there is always slip stitch mosaic and I would love to see how they blend.
Changing subjects, sort of, here is the Mason-Dixon handtowel hanging in its new home. I have started a teal one with a pattern from Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns.
Today I headed down to Jacksonville to meet Elayne for a day of friendship and fiber. We met, where else, at the knitting store, A Stitch in Time. Our friend, Lisa, was not working today. That was a little disappointing. It would have been nice to catch up with her and see what has been going on lately. I found some Regia bamboo/wool sock yarn that I just could not do without. I went up front to pay, pulled out my keytag to have it punched, and much to my great surprise, it was all filled up which meant… tada… $15.00 worth of free merchandise. Yippee! Now how could I have overlooked I had free stuff coming to me?
Elayne brought the fabulous belt she made by combination straw weaving and knitting, and it was truly awesome!!! She has promised to send along a picture. I have never seen anything like it. She also came with a “dreadlock” scarf in tow for me… it is just about what it sounds like, except that it is CUTE!!! I am going to try my hand at making one. She also made a very cute top and matching scarf. Let me tell you, the lady has talent. So, I had a very inspiring day and sock yarn, too!
Well, no, not really. But it has felt like it the past couple of days. I had another session yesterday with my 10 ish year old student, where she learned to do a heel flap, turn the heel, pick up gusset stitches and start the gusset increases. It turned into about a 3 1/2 hour session. Today, I did 2 knitting classes at Fuzzy Mabel, the first on knitting a vest, the second on finishing techniques. I have no immediate plans to teach formally or informally for another 2 weeks, though. I think I am ready for a break after the recent spurt of activity. It is probably a good thing – I got hoarse today and noticed I had quite a bit of drainage. I may be picking up the “stuff” that seems to be going around here, and I am just recovered from some cystitis.
Bright and early on the morning after we arrived at Gettysburg, did we go to the battlefield? No, the first order of business was to head east to East Berlin, PA and The Mannings.
I had no idea what to expect, but nothing like what it was! Wow! When you walk in, there is a huge room packed with every book imaginable on knitting, spinning, dyeing and weaving. I would have to say they stock a complete library there! I ended up taking these two home with me:
I have been wanting Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns forever, it seems. Then, I looked through the rigid heddle book, written by the same lady who did the video I ordered. I figured it would be mostly duplication, but it was jam packed both with patterns and supplementary information.
In the same huge room, there is also yarn, patterns and spinning and weaving accessories, such as niddy noddies, stick and boat shuttles, bobbins, and on…
Moving into the second room, you see mostly knitting yarns. The third yarn contains knitting and weaving yarns and also spinning fibers. I took the chance to buy up some Optim. Unfortunately, it is only white – that is all they had, but no problem, I am always happy to do some dyeing.
In the fourth room were yarns specifically for weaving, where I took advantage of the awesome yardage and reasonable price of this:
Yup, pretty soon, I am going to weave some hand towels. (Am I a weaver yet?)
And, lest you think that was the end of the tour, the BACK room is a true wonderland, since that is where all the spinning wheels and looms live. We had a good time looking at all of them. This was my first look at a Saxony Schacht, and all I can say is OH MY GOODNESS.
Well, I think I did pretty good getting out of there only about $100 poorer. The lady checking out in front of me forked over $4000 for a loom!
After leaving Harper’s Ferry, we headed to the Antietem Battlefield, got an orientation at the visitor’s center and took an auto tour of the battlefield. I was amazed at how large it was, until we visited Gettysburg. It was sad to reflect on how many died and were wounded at these spots.
From Sharpsburg, we then headed toward Gettysburg and had a wonderful lunch/dinner (or whatever, it was 3 pm by then) at The Antrim House at Greencastle, PA. If you ever get by that way, I highly recommend the food. We had the dinner buffet, and the food was excellent. I also was bad and had an enormous slice of coconut cream pie. That mile high meringue will take me in every time. There was no doubt this was a homemade dessert. Yum!!
After our meal, we took headed toward Gettysburg, stopping at Fayetteville, PA to browse some antique shops and walk off some of that meal!!!
Gettyburg was not at all the way I expected it. I loved the layout of the town, especially the main square.
Here, Bill converses with an important visitor.
A short distance away is The Misty Mountain Fiber Workshop, easily identifiable by the gorgeous honey oak walking wheel in the window. The owner was gracious and had that signature serenity very often characterizes those in the fiber business. Here, she patiently explained “all about looms” to us, and enabled us to reach a decision on what type of loom to buy, should we ever decide to do that. I bought 4 oz. of some lavender merino and a couple of jars of my favorite dyes (Washfast). I would have bought more, but the color selection was limited.
Next, we finally get to Fiber Mecca.
But, that is a long narrative, and will come with the next post.
We are back from our wonderful, much needed trip. The weather was marvelous, except for one day, when Ernesto blew through Virginia. Fortunately, we were in the western part of the state and had only to deal with some rain and some moderate winds. The whole week was a huge antiqueingCivilWarhistoryfibershopping feast. We started out by going into northern North Carolina, then up I-81 along the Shenandoah to Gettysburg, PA. We returned down US29, passing through Hunt Country, Culpepper, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Appomatox, and Raleigh. Yesterday was just one of those drive days to get home. Gas prices were much better up that way than expected, most of the time better than what we have down here, and that was a very pleasant surprise. Also, we had coolish weather that enabled us to walk around in comfort. I am not sure how it could have been better.
The first leg of our trip was a little corny, I suppose. We stopped at Mt. Airy, the hometown of Andy Griffith. As most of you probabaly know, Mayberry was modeled after this little town. You definitely could see some similarities, and of course, the town has embellished itself to fit the mold we expect. We took a tour of the town in a Galaxie Ford “squad car” and ate lunch at The Bluebird Diner. We took some fun pictures at some places “set up” to look like the TV show.
Here I am with Andy and Opie outside of The Andy Griffith Playhouse.
No trip to Mayberry is complete without knowing that “Goober Says Hey”. Yes, that is what it says on the towing truck. I am sorry the picture is too small for it to be clear. I don’t seem to be able to do clickable images with wordpress.
Here, Bill is becoming sheriff for the day. He actually had a Galaxie growing up, so this was fun for him. Come to think of it, our family had one too. But I was too young to drive it.
And, of course, back at the courthouse. Here is Bill officiating as sheriff.
And, me, trying to sneak out under his watchful eye. Yup, that is Otis’ cell. (And we got to see Otis’ suit in the Andy Griffith Collection there in town, but no pictures were allowed.)
(Stay tuned for future posts to see if I got out.)
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