So many hobbies!

Catastrophe averted

I’m in the mood to knit another shawl.  Last night I picked my yarn, then picked my pattern, then looked for my circular needles which are in two black binders.  They.  Were. Nowhere.  To.  Be.  Found!  I searched the bookcases in the living room, the bookcases in the bedroom, the shelves in the basement and then the bins in the basement.  No needles.  Then I searched the bookcases in the living room, the bookcases in the bedroom, the shelves in the basement and the bins in the basement.  Nope.  Nada.  Back up to the living room… I think you get the idea.  I could not find the damn things.  Back in the basement I checked the bins again since I was positive they weren’t in the living room or bedroom.  Nothing.  I called my mom and told her picking up and rearranging condos was stupid and I was convinced my sister had stolen them.  Mom laughed.  Then I called my sister and told her the same thing.  She laughed, too.  Still no needles.  Finally, I decided to sleep on it and hopefully I’d figure it out in my sleep.  Got up this morning and… nope, still didn’t know where they were.  Finally I went back into the basement and noticed a bin that had stuff in front of it and was supposed to be empty.  Desperate, I opened it up and, yes, there were the needles, put there by my sister in an attempt to organize my knitting things.   I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.  The needles came upstairs with me and will stay in the livingroom where they can be easily found.

Galen found a new bed

As for me, I spent too much time napping on the couch with the kids and not enough time quilting.  I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I did get a little quilting done but not really enough to post about.  Saturday I was at my Guild's monthly meeting.  I spent all day with my friends and didn't leave until 5:00.  We did a lot of talking and spinning.  It amazes me how conversations can flow from one subject to another.  We talked about everything from gay marriage to our ancestors.  My friends Eric and Terry went to New York and got married a few weeks ago.  Congratulations, guys! 

The sandwich

The quilt sandwich is complete and the whole thing is pinned.  Now I need to figure out just how I'm going to quilt this thing.  Usually, I make/design a quilt that is easily quilted with a walking foot.  There are exceptions, of course, like the houses quilt, that really need special quilting that you can only get with free-motion quilting.  This time, I know what I'm going to do with the whilte background, but I'm unsure of how to quilt inside the blocks.  I'm leaning toward outlining the black borders in black and then just long lines in the color of each block.  I'm going to sleep on it tonight and see if something better occurs to me.  Suggestions are welcome.

I went with a friend to visit a new-to-me bulk food store that also specializes in emergency preparedness.  The owners were a husband and wife team.  As he was ringing up my purchases, I noticed that the husband was openly wearing a gun.  I had no idea you could do that in Michigan.  I told him the only people I'd ever seen wearing a gun were cops.  He then asked me if I had one, which I don't.  Guns scare the crap out of me.  He encouraged me to learn to shoot one and to visit a local gun range.  I admit, I'm curious.  Preparing for the zombie apocalypse is all well and good but all it takes is one person at your door with a gun and you're in trouble.  I'll think about it for a while but things in our country will have to get a lot worse before I go out and buy a gun.  I've already been warned that if I go out and buy a gun, my friends will stage an intervention to let me know that the preparations for an emergency have gone a bit too far.  Don't worry guys, I'm not there yet.

I'm still here

Hey.  The lessening sunlight at the end of the day is really messing with me.  I get home from work, I'm tired, I need to unwind for a bit.  Of course, by the time I'm ready to blog, the sun's gone down which means zero chance of getting decent pictures.  Gah!  I'm not ready for summer to be over.

I've done a little spindle spinning, done some drum carding but nothing very exciting.  I guess I'm in a bit of an end-of-summer funk.  I mean, heck, September is this weekend for cripe's sake?  Speaking of this weekend, I'm driving to my sister's in PA on Friday.  I promise to take pictures.  I'm bringing some spinning, some embroidery and a sewing pattern to work on.  The pattern is a knitting bag that I'll be making out of linen (you gotta love Joann coupons!) and lining with quilting fabric.  If I'm careful, I might be able to eke two bags out of that yard of fabric. 

I'm eager to try dyeing with the instant indigo.  I've ordered some shirts from Dharma Trading Co. that should arrive next week.  Then I'll need to get a pot that will be dedicated just to indigo dyeing.  I'm not sure why but once you use anything for indigo dyeing, you can't use it for anything else, including acid dyes.  I'll have to see if I have a pot I can spare for the cause.  Either that or I'll be heading out to Salvation Army and seeing if they have something I can use.

Some of the drumcarding I've been doing is white wool of various breeds that I'll spin for natural dyeing.  I've got some madder and some osage orange that I want to play with and I still have that cochineal from last year to play with.  The wool I carded tonight was some wonderful Corriedale from New Zealand.  It was beautiful and much softer than domestic Corriedale.  I bought it at the Spinning Loft and I want more.  It's really beautiful stuff.  I'm still undecided on what I'll do with the finished, dyed yarn.  I've wanted for a long time to knit one of those cuff to cuff sweaters out of a rainbow of colors.  I'll get to play with over-dyeing with the natural dyes.  I really need to find a way to not need to work because I have more project I want to do than I'll ever have time to complete.  I'll work on that.

Birthday

I had a great time up north with my parents.  This was the lake on Monday, the morning of my birthday.  It was 44F when we got up and the lake was steaming.  So beautiful!

I brought up several projects and only ended up working on one:  the quilt.  The binding is sewn on in the front and I'm blind stitching it down on the back.  It was a little difficult to do tonight because Galen kep curling up on the quilt in my lap.

Saturday Dad and I found a new gravel pit.  Gravel pits are a blast if you're into rocks.  You wait until it rains and the rocks are wet.  That's when they're at they're best and most beautiful.  I can see myself getting a rock tumbler some time in my future.  Next time I'm at the cottage and it rains, Dad and I will be cruising the gravel pit.

I drove back home Monday morning and treated myself to a movie in the afternoon.  Total Recall.  I liked it but then it's never a hardship watching Colin Farrell act.  My enjoyment of the movie was marred, however, by the couple sitting behind me who talked all throughout the second half of the movie.  I just don't get people and how rude they are.  Far too many people feel entitled to do what they want, the hell with others.  My coworkers wanted to know why I didn't say anything.  I've tried in the past to get people to shut up but all that happens is they tell you to f**k off and they talk louder.  So then you go out and talk to a manager, missing the movie.  The manager goes in and the rude people don't talk so the manager leaves and then they start talking again, only this time they're louder.  It's getting close to the point where I don't go to movies anymore and instead rent them from Netflix.  Sorry to rant but I was raised to be considerate of others and it blows me away how rude and self-centered people can be.   I just don't get it.

The Michigan Fiber Festival is next week.  I'm soooo not ready for it to be here already.  This weekend is my guild meeting and Sunday I start moving my camping gear up from the basement.  I work next Monday and I have the rest of the week and the following Monday off.  It's my first time off since May.  Did I mention that I'm not ready for this?   I need to start making lists of food and supplies needed for camping and for camping in August.  I'm both excited and kind of freaked out.  It's a weird combination.

I went to the doctor today

My knee has been bothering me and enough people at work badgered me to make an appointment.  So I did.  Turns out I have sustained an injury from participating in the Tour de Fleece.  Yes, I have a spinning injury.  I strained my knee.  I've been told to hold off on more spinning for at least another week.  This puts a crimp in my plans since I was planning on starting on this:

It's Corriedale pencil roving from Crown Mountain Farms.  I'm thinking I'll weave this into a table runner.  There's 8 oz. so I hope I'll have enough to complete the runner.  Hmm, this pencil roving is pretty thin...  I could weave this as it is.  I'll have to ponder this one.

I am happily without plans for this weekend, aside from a few errands.  This is my only free weekend for the next month and I plan on enjoying it.  Of course, that enjoyment was supposed to include spinning so I'll have to find something else to fill the time.

What are you plans for the weekend?  Anything fun?

I've still got it!

Years ago, I used to write for a living.  I was a technical writer and I was good at it.  Sort of.  Turns out, it's really hard to write about something you don't actually understand.  When I understood, I wrote well.  When I didn't, which was far too often, I couldn't write worth a darn.  So I changed what I did for a living.  (Turns out that, despite the unending stress, the writing was more interesting but I digress.)

I've really gotten into the whole emergency preparedness thing.  Not only is it fun to gather things I'll need in case there's an emergency, but it's comforting, too.  Anyway, the website/store I frequent most often is Emergency Essentials.  Turns out Emergency Essentials has a blog and the blog has an open invitation for anyone to write a post about an emergency you've experienced, preparing for an emergency or writing a review of one of their products.  If they publish your guest post, they give you a $20 gift card to the store.  A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post and submitted it.  Last week, I received an email stating they were going to publish it and to where did I want the gift card mailed.  I was floored that they'd responded so quickly and even more pleased when I found out they didn't edit a word in the essay.  You can read the essay here.  It had been so long since I'd done any serious writing, I was afraid I'd lost the ability.  (Yes, I know I write for my blog but that's just me messing around and having fun.)  I guess I've still got it.

(Note:  I just reread my little essay and not only did they not change anything, they didn't fix my mistake in the last sentence.  Oops!)

Chuck Norris jokes

This one's my favorite:

Miscellaneous Thursday

1.  Finally saw The Avengers tonight.  It was fantastic!  Joss Whedon did it again.

2. Turns out, if you snip the spent stalk off of snapddragons, they get bushy and look like this:

3.  It's been rather hot here and it's only the end of spring/beginning of summer.  I sure hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

4.  The yarn is plyed and hanging out on the ball winder.  Now I need to spin up the rest of the roving so I can warp my loom.  Let's hear it for starting Christmas presents in June!

5.  Tyr has this adorable way of keeping on top of what's going on outside.  She'll lay/stand like this for a while:

6.  I've got five other movies in the theaters that I want to see:  Battleship (probably catch this one on Netflix), Brave, Men in Black 3, Snow White and the Huntsman, Prometheus (seeing this one on Sunday with my sister), and Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter.   Okay, that's six.  Man, I love the summer movie line-up!

7.  Strawberry season is over for 2012.  Next is blueberries.  Should I make jam?

Spinning

Roving became singles.

Singles were wound into a center-pull ball... and now I'm plying.

A cool shot of my kitchen.  The light landed just right on the platter and had an interesting look.  Now I have to go put things away.