Entrepreneurism at Work

Our local Walmart has remodeled and hence, lost their craft department.  A local lady knew this was a blow to all the area quilters/crafters so she opened a store to fill the need!  This is going to be a regular stop for me from now on!  She even has yarn and general supplies.  We were there as they opened and it was a constant flow of women just thrilled with this new adventure.  There are no stores to purchase fabric within an hour in any direction so while the economy is tough, I think she is going to do well.

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Nyki loves the ladder......she buzzes Bill the whole time he is working.  When she is tired out, she curls up and takes a nap......the flash of the camera disturbed her-can you tell?!

Various Pursuits

We see this gopher turtle  in the back yard occasionally; I managed to capture the visit this time!

As long as I was out, this caught my attention, the plant is full of banana peppers.

And talk about full, the tangerine burden is heavy this year!  I am so glad-there was not a one last year.  I do not know if you are supposed to cull fruit off the tree-most of the fauna has been on its own around here for several years and did okay so I hesitate to interfere.  Maybe I will remove stunted fruit from half the tree and see how it compares to the other half.

I have worked on the sock for Abigail but I didn't enjoy the pattern-too much purling;

so I inverted the pattern on the back for an experiment.  Unfortunately, I will have to make another for a pair of socks so while I put it off.....

I answered the siren call of lace knitting!  Isn't it growing nicely?  It will block out to 32" right now and it is just less than half way done.  It is a great knit; no problems yet.

My neighbor, Millie, brought me another top to quilt.  She has been a busy piecer!  I have it all loaded and immediately saw what I wanted to do on it for designs-no block this time!  (You would love this all in blues, Mom!)

Here is a peek of the center section, a simple design that matches the butterfly fabric on the backing.

(Millie and I are  going to a new fabric store opening this morning-will post about it later!)

I Can Do That!

I was disappointed not to have the right color of strapping I wanted when at the store.

 Then it hit me, I could dye the white webbing any color I wanted!  I dyed it with Rit dye, it is almost a perfect match!

I finished spinning the Molly enhanced yarn (merino with Marsel's cat fur brushings) and now will knit it into a little pouch.  Note the break on my spindle shaft?!  Nyki was determined to terrorize help me ply this on the spindle and in one giant leap tackled the spindle to the floor and it broke the glass shaft......I was not happy and she realized it by my yell of, " Oh, No!!!!!!"  I have glued the shaft and buffed it with my dremel so hopefully it will still work! 

Another Phase

                             
Bill has started to put the air conditioning runs in the ceiling.......this is the master bedroom!  As soon as these are done, we can get the sheet rock people here! 

We have had this fox visit us several nights in a row.  (My front door has beveled glass so it gives this prism look to my picture!)

When the fox is near, Vandy is not.  He finally came last night for a long and cuddly visit-these are rare visits!  See how sweet he looks while eating-he was a hungry guy.

I worked on my quilt today.  I finished the binding last night!  I so enjoyed the free motion quilting on this one-it was a great lesson and I can't wait for the next one! (Finished 52 x 61; this is the disappearing 9-patch)

 (My neighbor says she has another one for me so I have finished this just in time!)

Low Key

Feeling under the weather, not flu but some virus that has kinked my energy line.

Knitting up a pair of Aimee socks for Abigail.

Spinning this bit of self-blended fibers with Molly fur for a kitty memento pouch.

Not dyeing these because it will take more of the mental acuity than I have running right now.

Mostly doing this..........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Veterans Day

Heavenly Father, Help us to remember to be thankful....... for only righteousness can exalt our Nation.

Veterans Day

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No Ida

We planted a bunch of things in preparation for the big rains.......it didin't happen like we hoped but we did get 2/10ths of an inch last night and it helps.  This was the end of a long line of these plants (5' tall) that had grown over the path at a friend's home.  We trimmed it off and planted it in our hedge-Bill's truck sure came in handy!  We don't know the name of this yet but I will look it up.

The other day, I relieved another friend of some rose plants ( and a few other bonuses!)  We set these out to beautify the south addition where I want a lot of color and blooms.

We had enough plants to put several under each window down that side of the house.   We will expand the plantings to cover the whole end of the house but this is a great beginning!

                                       

This is the east end of our bedroom-the new plants we bought a few weeks ago and some transplanted mexican petunias which were in too much shade where we had them and they will look nice with the blue of the plumbago plants here.

While I was taking these pics, I heard a little meow.  After a bit of searching, I found Bling about 12' up in this vine that grows in our hedge.  (It is an ancient trumpet vine.)  He used to run up this all the time but we have not seem him climb it in a long time.  He looked very smug and napped for several hours up there! 

On the crafting front, I decided to set the lace shawl aside until I finished the  two pair of socks I had started!  It is growing nicely but I didn't want any other projects nagging at me while I worked on it so has been  backburnered for a day or two.

I finished the other 'dyed yarn cake' sock.  I will have to spin up some more of the suffolk fleece so I can make more of these!  The yarn is so stretchy and will not felt when washed so hopefully it will hold up well to wear, too.

 Once these were done, I started back on the bare yarn to finish up the WendyJohnson pattern.  Gratefully, I leave nice notes to myself so I knew where to start the heel, etc so that it matches the first one!  I will finish these up tonight after church as we are out of popcorn, a Wed. night tradition! :'(

I have a new quilt on the frame and am doing free motion feathers!  Thanks for the inspiration, Deb!  I have wanted to make these for a while now but like most things new, it is easy to freeze up and think too much about it!  I just set the needle to the fabric and began to sew......I knew what it should look like and by the end of this quilt, I will have a ton more skill than wishes!  I found that I prefer to quilt in one direction better than another and am not letting myself do that; I will quilt in whatever direction I find the block requires and while I am awkward at first, it is getting better.  I like the work and am pleased with the progress!

Bill is off to deliver the scaffolding back to the contractor (who has failed to pick it up for months)....the yard is almost recovered from the yard sale!   

Monday Stuff

The yard sale was not as vigorous as years past but we did make $100 so it was successful as far as I am concerned.  Today, Bill took the rest of the stuff to a secondhand store, the junkyard and the dump. 

On Saturday, I finished weaving the second t-shirt rug pretty quickly and got it fringed.  (Finished 24" x 42" )

Then out to the front yard to knit and answer questions to the people who stopped by the yard sale.  Relaxing to say the least, and Bling liked me bringing my lap outside for his snuggling pleasure.  I knit around him......  The lace shawl needed too much attention so I took out the wool I had dyed in the crockpot and began another sock from the SpinOffMagazine and it worked up beautifully and quickly.  The ball was lighter in the middle and darker as I neared the outside of the skein-what a fun result of my serendipitous dyeing. 

I went to the eye doctors this morning for a follow-up appointment after my glaucoma laser surgery in June-horray  that I didn't experience any closing of the hole they left in my eye for pressure regulation!  (Thank you Lord  for the good report;  I am usually the 'one out of 1,000' who has the weird side affects or problems if there are to be any but not this time!!)

Community Yard Sale

This is what we are doing today.......almost everyone in the community participates.  I can't wait to get rid of the junk treasures Bill has accumulated!

I am doing this in between customers!

Siren Call

Lace knitting.........the call of the delicate and beautiful.  Another one on the needles!  I can thank my friendly YahooGroup for the temptation (Triggy is the name of the pattern.).  I am using lace weight, spiderweb yarn, size 6 needles.  The pattern is untested so it is fun to see how it goes.  There are others knitting this, too, so hopefully the way will be clear for knitting! This is about the size of a dinner plate now-not bad for two evenings of knitting.  The yarn is a souvenoir from the recent trip to her LYS.

I finished the quilt for my friend-this was a large, heavily quilted project.  The quilt was the largest my frame will hold-110 x 110"  so it was quite a palette for quilting.  This is the back-free motion leaves and swirls.

A Book Report

One of the fun things about being out of town for a week is the fun of a large mail haul.

I unloaded the Amazon book order which is part of the Christmas shopping and I got sidetracked with this 'present' for me. 

Shamelessly I enjoyed an hour of being sure this book was a keeper........it is.  I love the way it has color pictures of the same weave in different color combinations-all one color warp, two color warp, change the weft just a little and voila-all new results!  This has begrudgingly gone into the pile of gifts and I will not look at it until ......Dec 25, I think!

It Worked!

I wasn't sure that I could make a rug work on my loom.  I shouldn't have worried!  It wove just beautifully.  I used an 8 dent reed but only warped it for 6epi (thread 2 dents, skip one across), and for a  2' x 3'  rug using the strips of cotton t-shirts I had cut up and wound into balls a few months ago.  I must admit I did miss the shuttle throwing because I had to use the shuttle sticks for the fabric but it did weave up faster than the fine threads!  It required one t-shirt for each of the stripes, about 5-6" per shirt so I  used 6 shirts for this rug.  ( I cut the shirt off at the underarms and then spiral cut it to the hem for one long strip.)  It is now recorded for my notes and future plans.

I finished one sock and started the second last night.

I dyed the sock ribbing-it turned out much as I had expected-since these are for me, I will have this happy reminder each time I wear them!

 I dyed 2 more skeins for another pair of socks-I left these in the wound balls instead of skeins-it took up the dye very differently, of course, but it looks just as mottled as I had hoped.  It will be fun to knit with something besides the natural I have been doing.

We have had 2 warring families of sandhill cranes in the yard.  They are very loud when they are stating their territories.  This is the couple that won the turf war-we have had them around for quite a while and they are very relaxed around us but very demanding-they have a soft spot for white bread tossed out to them and come right to the door and ask for some!  It is still fun to have them ask-Nyki is impressed with their size and nearness-but I hope they won't become a bother-they are persistent.

A Different Kind of Day

Bill spent most of the day hauling stuff out of the house, garage and rental units. 

We even have a little stash to sell in the community yard sale this Saturday!  I went over to help him this afternoon and swept out the house, garage and the 2 double unit rental cabins also on the property.  The rooms  were very scary looking to me, think 1940's migrant workers and all the 60+ years of mold growth and you will be  close to the ambiance!  I said they should just level the buildings and sell the lot, Bill was telling me that someone would jump at the chance to buy it......well, when I was taking the pictures outside, someone stopped and asked if they could talk to the owners about buying it.  I hate it when he is so right-he loved it , of course. 

Well, Peg in So Carolina, I am having to face the consequences of my haphazard dyeing methods because I ran out of the dyed suffolk and now have to try and duplicate the original color!!! It isn't going to happen.  I think I will be dip dyeing the top to see just how close I CAN get and then overdyeing the pair of socks to fix the experiment!

I am going to start a new pair of socks.......Aimee socks by Wendy Johnson.  I hope to make a pair of matching mother/daughter socks out of this and then dye them to highlight the butterflies. 

The beginning of a new month is always so great for starting lists for all you anticipate to get done this month.  Hope you feel the same way!

Returned to Florida

Always wonderful to go on a trip and always nice to get home.  The white camelias are out in full bloom-they come out a full month before the red ones.  So pretty but no perfume; we notice that a lot of blooms in FL are showy but not perfumey.  Interesting random thought.

I finished the pair of long fingerless gloves for Marsel.  She gave me the yarn so I could make her a pair.  I used this pattern to give me a general idea and then did my own thing as usual.  They needed to be l o n g  for my daughter!

I am making progress on another pair of socks.  This yarn is my favorite from KnitPicks, bare superwash/nylon blend.  The pattern (Sheri's posies socks) is another from WendyJohnson's book Socks from the Toe Up.

Bill is off to a fun 'job' the Lord dropped in his lap.  While mowing the place where my parents stay for the winter, a man stopped and asked if he was willing to help him in his business of emptying foreclosed homes and then mowing the yards to keep them from looking abandoned.  This guy works for several banks in the area and has more work than he can keep up with;  is this a sign of the times or what!!!  Bill has been interested in some odd jobs for additional money and I had been resisting the 9-5 grind for him again or worse, shift work nightmares!  (I had prayed for the last of them when he retired!)  This present opportunity is so ideally suited to my packrat husband.  He has to haul all the stuff the last tenants left behind to the dump or to his garage, his choice!  This would be like letting me work in a fiber warehouse and giving me carte blanche to take home whatever I could carry each night!!!  Needless to say, he is excited.  If he gets this kind of work often enough, he can hire someone else to finish the house while he is doing something he enjoys!  He says he might even have some work for me cleaning out after Bill hauls the heavy stuff.  Who would have thought of this kind of work as being so lucrative.  We shall see how this pans out.