So many hobbies!

Good thing she's cute

 

'Cause I got nothin'.  The shawl still looks pretty much the same and I've done nothing else except knit.  See, nothin'.  I'll have more after the weekend.

Have a good one.

Music that will blow your mind!

The first video was sent to me along with the following information:

"This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between The Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School Of Engineering at the University of Iowa.  Amazingly, 97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa, yes farm Equipment!  It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, Calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see It was WELL worth the effort. It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be Donated to The Smithsonian

P.S. At no time does a ball fall on the floor!"

Watch the video.

UPDATE:  Apparently the above story is a hoax and the video is computer generated.  Personally, this doesn't detract from my enjoyment.  It's still a very fine piece of animation and the tune is catchy enough that I want to put it on my iPod.

I don't know if this second video is related to the first but it's too cool to not share.  Watch it here.  I want this one on my iPod, too.

Shawl progress

 

I finished the body of the shawl this morning (woke up early, couldn't go back to sleep).  I think you can see from the picture how the short rows shape the shawl.  The yarn tail is at the bottom point of the shawl.  I've started working on the border/ruffle which involved making two stitches in the space between each short row.  That's a lot of stitches.  I'm a little obsessed with this shawl because it's so fun to knit - and I'm very happy with how the yarn turned out - so I expect to get a good bit of the border done this weekend... after the canning and freezing of the cherries.

My birthday is in a month and I've started planning my week-long birthday celebration.  One of my coworkers, Monika, said she didn't get the whole 7-day celebration thing.  Personally, I don't know why more people don't do it, too.  It's a perfect excuse to do and buy fun things for yourself.  None of them need to be expensive (although they certainly can be) just special or out of the ordinary.  For example:  going to Borders, buying yourself a paperback and a fancy cup of coffee and giving yourself permission to sit for an afternoon and read.  Or going to the grocery store and buying a pineapple or a papaya or some other item that you normally don't buy because they're too expensive.  It's basically giving yourself permission to treat yourself.  You do know that you deserve it, right? 

I saw my first parade in years on Saturday.  Naturally, I didn't have my camera with me.  Apparently, it's tradition for the people in the parade to toss candy to the kids.  Let me tell you, those kids were vicious!  I felt a strong need to keep my limbs close to my body at all times.  The coolest part of the parade were the antique bicycles.  They had a number of bikes where the front wheel is huge and the back wheel very small, like this one. 

I'm working on my never-leave-the-house-without-it kit that hopefully will assure that I am never without a camera again.  I'm buying this camera which is supposed to take very good pictures while at the same time being very compact.  Everything will go into this messenger bag (the black one) that will hang on a hook by the front door so I can grab it on my way out.  So far, the contents of the bag are as follows:  camera, journal, an assortment of pens, double-stick tape, yearly calendar, thumb drive, either a knitting or spinning project, iPod, earbuds, and my wallet.  That's all I've come up with so far but I'm sure that list will be edited at some point.  I've been thinking for a while that I needed a bag like this with a standard kit.  Too many times I've been out and about and ticked off that I didn't have my camera or my journal or my thumb drive.  I'm hoping this will help me be more creative, too, since I'll be able to jot down any ideas that come to me.

 

I picked these up while on my vacation.  The town near our cottage has a very nice quilt store and these 1/2 yard cuts of fabric will become spindle boxes.  I should be able to get two boxes out of each cut.  My favorite is the one on the right.

Cherries are next on the calender for picking and that'll happen next weekend:  sour cherries for canning and sweet cherries for freezing.  My grandma used to can sour cherries and they were divine either blended into ice cream for cherry shakes or just poured over the top for a sundae.  Yummy!

Vacations and projects rock!

Man I love spending time with my family.  I had such a good time up north.  It was relaxing, I had time to work on several projects, spent time with my nephews and sister... it was all good.  Our cottage is on a lake so I got to see the lake in all her glory.  And, naturally, I forgot my camera.  I decided I need to put together a bag that I grab whenever I walk out the door that has some essentials that I don't want to leave the house without:  camera, journal, thumb drive, pens, double-stick tape, iPod, ear buds, calendar.  This means I'm going to need to buy a small camera that is easy to tuck into a pocket.  I'll give you an update later on how that's going.

 

I started Shawl that Jazz on Wednesday and I haven't been able to put it down.  I've got about 10 inches of it knit already.  The yarn I dyed myself the week before and I'm almost done with the first skein.  If it looks like I'm not going to have enough to knit the border, I plan on dying a third skein in just brown and black.  I'm really enjoying this pattern.  It's pretty clever.  She uses short rows to shape the shawl and once the body is completed, you pick up those inactive stiches and knit the border.  It's pretty cool.

When I was able to put the shawl down, I did some bead embroidery for the first time in months and months.  I was able to complete the beading on one piece that I'd been stalled on since the last time I beaded:

 

Sorry about the glare; I waited too long to take the picture and had to use the flash.  Eventually, this will be sewn to a backing, some kind of fringe will be attached and a cord and the necklace will be sold (hopefully) on Etsy.  I also started a new piece that's not complete yet:

 

The cabochon at the top is turquoise from China (I love ebay!) and the bottom piece is a piece of shell I picked up off the beach on Sanibel Island.  My mom wondered why I'd pick up broken shells but these pieces are too beautiful not to save.  This picture is really crappy.  I'll post it again once I've finished the beading.

Gotta go to bed.  I'll tell you more later.

I'm not dead

Hi, guys!  I'm not dead, I'm just on vacation.  I was planning on posting regularly but my parents' laptop is on the fritz so I'm at the library at the moment.  Anyway, I'm in northern Michigan at my parents' cottage and I'm having a great time.  I've worked on two beading projects, done a little spinning and I just cast on for Shawl that Jazz this morning... after helping Dad stack wood for the winter. 

The spring/summer canning season has opened with a bang.  So far I've picked about 13 lbs. of strawberries and 6 lbs. of rhubarb and made 2.5 batches of strawberry jam, 1 batch of strawberry-rhubarb and 3.5 batches of strawberry-rhubarb sauce.  It's been so cold her the strawberry season has been late so I'm hoping when I get home this coming weekend I'll still be able to pick more strawberries and rhubarb for more jam and sauce.  Next will be cherries, both sweet and sour, and the little chest freezer my brother gave me will start filling up.

I'll try and post again before the weekend.  Have a good one everyone.

Strawberry day

The first picking of the season!  I took the day off from work and my girlfriends and I drove to one of the local U-pick farms and, in total, picked 41lbs. of strawberries.  Then it was a well-deserved brunch and off to Katie's to start turning them into yummy things.  I made a batch of strawberry jam and Katie and Alice made a batch of Spreadable Fruit to split between the two of them.  I had such a great time today.  It was so nice to have girlfriends to share one of my loves with.  Tomorrow after work, I'll stop at another local U-pick farm to pick 6 or 7lbs. of rhubarb that I'll turn into a couple batches of strawberry-rhubarb jam and a couple batches of strawberry-rhubarb sauce.  Mom likes to eat the sauce on toast in the morning and on ice cream at night.  Naturally, I forgot my camera or I'd post a pic of Alice and Katie with their berries.  Sorry.  I'm a bad blogger.

Nature rocks!

 

Starting seeds will never become commonplace for me.  It's the coolest damn thing to put these innocuous-looking morsels in the soil and a week later, seedlings push up from the dirt.  I was actually bouncing up and down I was so excited.  I'd say my neighbor thinks I'm nuts but she's known that for years now... mostly after the time she heard me sitting on my front porch giggling like a maniac at the thunderstorm going overhead. 

I caught this picture of Seli this morning.  She's a cave child and prefers to sleep under a blanket.

I've been thinking

Off and on I've been thinking of whether or not I should keep up my blog.  I've been dealing with some personal issues lately and I feel sometimes like I haven't been keeping up my side of the blogging bargin.  I feel like I've been boring and not very productive.  Not productive = no blog fodder = boring blog.   But when I think of the friends I now have because of my blog, I know I'd miss all of you too much if I gave it up.  So I'll keep blogging for a while longer and I thank all of you for your friendship.  It means more to me than you know.

I have a new toy:  an Ann Grout spindle.

 

It's a bottom-whorl spindle with a ceramic whorl.  It spins like a dream and for a nice long time.  My only complaint is I really could use a notch on the side to run the singles through but other than that, I love it.  It's very different from my other spindles. 

 

I'm spinning some gorgeous Polwarth that I'm in love with.  My singles are a little too fine for the weight of this spindle but I'm enjoying it too much to switch to another one.

(Hey, Yen, Ann Grout is a potter at State College, PA.  We should go visit her the next time I come to visit.)

Novels: the ultimate time suck

I found a new author I like:  Sherrilyn Kenyon.  Her books are found in the romance section at the bookstore but they're far more action than romance.  Yes, there's a smooch or two but there's actual plot (shocker) and lots of good action.  I picked up the novel "Acheron" Friday and I can't seem to put it down.  In spite of way too much reading, I still managed to cross a couple of things off my To-do list.

I was commissioned to make a spindle box:

 

She liked purple and green so I put the purple on the outside and the green on the inside:

 

I was hoping to start a beaded necklace this weekend to go with one of my new shirts but between the book and the box, I haven't even started picking out beads.  Oh, hey, I finally got my garden in.  I'm a bit late in planting but the weather's been so cold here in Michigan the last couple of weeks it probably won't make a difference.  In addition to the tomatoes, zucchini, green beans and basil, I also bought thyme and rosemary.  The rosemary will have to come inside during the winter (it's not a winter-hardy perennial this far north) but I'm hoping the thyme will make it through the winter in its pot.  I'd show you the pots but they're not very exciting right now; mostly just dirt or dirt with tiny seedlings.  They'll be more exciting in a few weeks.

If it warms up, I'll be picking strawberries and rhubarb next weekend and making jam.  The season's been delayed because of the cold.  It'll give me something to look forward to next weekend.