Is Levi still ... Levi?

Oh, yea.

How was the first week?

Good, quite good. I am enjoying the job - the people I am working with are really great, and it is actually nice to be back to work and using my brain again. I keep telling my coworkers how quiet it seems to me in the office, and they think I am saying that the workload is light. "Oh, just wait until tax time!" they say. But I mean it is quiet, like, no one is screaming, no TV's are blaring, no toy trucks are roaring. You can hear a pin drop in that place.

The boys are adjusting quite well so far. Riley was in a "camp" at the YMCA last week, and this week he will be with Nini and Poppy. The next week he will be in 1st grade! Levi is already doing preschool all day - he is the easy one to take care of, at least this year. And boy, our evenings are short. By the time I pick them up and get home, if I fly, it is 5:30, and they are supposed to be in bed by 7:30! It is barely time to fix and feed them dinner - God knows how we will ever get any of their homework done. Or anything else, for that matter.

I have decided one photo per post is not too much trouble. Here is Riley wearing my glasses upside-down.

TTFN!

I've been one poor correspondent,

I've been too, too hard to find.
But it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind.



It sounded lame when America sang it in nineteen-whateveritwas, and it sounds lame now. But so be it.



So what happened? Well, Riley got out of school, and lots of fun summer things started happening. We went to Iowa over the fourth of July for a family reunion to celebrate my grandmother's 100th birthday. We had family visiting here from Iowa and Richmond and Charlottsville and Washington. The kids had lots of various "camps" and such.

Oh, and I got a full-time job, for the first time since becoming a mother. It is the end of an era for the whole family.

So anyway, good and bad, life gets in the way of blogging. My plan is to write more frequently - maybe shorter, less picture-filled posts. Little how-are-you-doing sort of posts. Because I have lots of news to share, but less and less time to share it.

Is anyone still out there listening?

Hello, again.

Some quick craziness to brighten your day

I think I posted a similar video last summer, but here are the guys jumping off of the dock into the mud/water. Just wanted to share!

Kindergarten Graduation

Now, I am sure I never graduated from anything before graduating from high school, But these days, in this part of the country at least, there are preschool graduations, kindergarten graduations ... I believe there is a 5th grade graduation ... it goes on. And on.

Riley's Kindergarten Graduation was a pretty big production - mortarboards, gowns, a play, several songs, awards, a poem ... etc. I went in thinking "Why are we making such a big deal of this?" and then spent the whole program with misty tears in my eyes, so proud and amazed to see my little boy looking so grown up. Here he is getting his diploma - the first woman you see is his teacher, Ms Gendron (I just missed her saying his name) and then the principal, Ms Anis, handing him the diploma:

And then the finale, "Skidamarink". Earbug warning: I have been singing this song ever since!

You may notice, Riley has lost one of his front teeth, and the other one is on it's way out and poking out a bit crooked! I can't wait for the big new teeth - he is going to look so different!

Lucy

Our church was having a parents-night-out event on a recent Friday night, where you could drop your kids off at church for the evening, and the youth group was doing the babysitting. We took advantage of this and went out to dinner with some friends. As we were all leaving the house, both of the dogs ran outside and off into the neighborhood. We had been planning to leave them inside, but decided to just leave them out, since they were not heeding our calls and we were keen to leave. Oh, they will be fine, I said.

But while we were out, a thunderstorm came through the area, as they do this time of year. And little Lucy is one of those dogs who is afraid of thunderstorms, and generally hides under the bed trembling until they are well over.

When we got home, Beale was on the porch, but Lucy was not around, and she did not appear as we turned all of the lights on and called around the neighborhood. Steve stayed up for awhile to see if she would come back, and I tried to sleep. About the time Steve gave up and came to bed, I was unable to sleep anymore, and spent the rest of the night hoping that when it got light, she would come out from wherever she was hiding and come home.

At about 5:45, it was light, and she was not back, and I threw on some clothes and went outside to walk up and down our road - I didn't know what else to do. Not finding anything, I was headed back inside, when I saw one of our neighbors driving up the road. He paused at his driveway, and then I suppose saw me on the porch, and drove up our driveway. He had Lucy - all covered with burrs (and a couple of ticks, I found later). He had found her a couple of miles away in Harborton!

I still can't quite believe that she made it all the way through a couple of miles of woods - alive - and then (miracle) ran into someone who recognized her and knew where she lived. But I am so grateful to have her back, I can't tell you.

Happy BELATED Mother's Day

It was a milestone for me.

I received my first, lumpy, hand-made in kindergarten clay bowl. Doesn't it just warm your heart to see it? He chose purple, because he knows it is my favorite color.

I will treasure it forever. Thank you, Riley!

Tara's Alpaca

Oh, man! My "I need to get this story/these pictures on my blog" list is getting long - I really need to make some time for this! I have many stories to tell you about the last few weeks, but first, as promised, the alpacas! Or is "alpaca" plural, also? I should look that up, but it would only slow down the process.

Anyway, let me tell you something about Blogger/Blogspot (whatever this thing is called.) When I add pictures to a new post, it always adds each successive picture to the TOP of the post. Very annoying. So each time, I have to select the picture and move it down to the bottom of the post, where I want it. And when I select a bunch of pictures ... I want to write about this one ... and then this one ... they show up in the opposite order on the post. BLEH. If any of you out there know how to fix this (or what I am doing wrong??) do let me know.

In the meantime, these pictures are all backwards, but I am not fixing them, because I am tired and I don't feel like it!

So first, here is a close-up of the lovely fiber on young Aspen, Tara's cria. (Cria = baby alpaca)



This fiber has been shorn by now, and is all in a one-gallon ziplock, since he was just a young-en.

Here is Tara and Aspen, held by (dang, can't remember his name now) the Mr. of the farm:

And some of the other critters:

And finally, a couple of clips of Baroness and Aspen:

Tara's animals are still up in Maryland, but she is getting her property ready for them, and they should be down here in November or so. Very exciting!

MD Sheep and Wool

So, Tara and I drove up to Maryland on Saturday evening and stayed at her father's house there. (Tara's Dad, if you are reading, which I suppose you are not, thank you so much for your hospitality!) We got up fairly early on Sunday to drive over to West Friendship - and we kept trying to be positive about the weather we were encountering, but ...


It was a very wet affair. See the river of muddy water running up the left side of the picture? It was like that all day - at times it sprinkled, and at times it poured, but it never stopped. Dedicated fiber lovers that we are, we had a great time anyway. We ducked under the sheets of visqueen (does anyone outside of Alaska call it visqueen? I don't even know) to get to all of the lovely fiber - and it was lovely. And there was lots of it.



We happened to catch the sheep-to-shawl contest just as this piece was being cut from the loom:




and whisked off to the stage area:



where they were tying off the fringe just as fast as they could, to get their project to the judges first - or at least, quickly!

Here is another team, still working on their weaving:

Anyway, my feet ended up soaked and dirty and cold, but it was a day filled with spinning wheels and looms and fibers and fiber-bearing animals and a good friend plus crowds of other people all interested in the same oddball stuff that I am interested in - so a great day.

And that was not all! When we were done with MD S&W, it was off to see Tara's alpacas!

Next post!

Yay, I finally updated my blog!

I have not forgotten you

I've just been, uh, busy. I have not stopped blogging, I just ... paused. Like, for a month.

I don't have any excuse, only that writing is hard for me, and sometimes I am just not up to it. But I have been knitting and spinning and having fun with the boys (all three of them!) and the extended family - and I will be filling you in shortly.

Next up, pictures of the MD sheep and wool festival - if anyone is still interested!

I'm off! (Must be the weather ... )

Off, that is, to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival with my friend Tara!

Very excited.

No time to blog.

Will fill you in later!

Big thanks to Steve for giving me the "kitchen pass"!

FO Time

If I haven't mentioned it before, FO = Finished Object.

I have mostly been a one-project-at-a-time knitter lately. That is, until this spring, when I have been starting knitting projects right and left, spinning, felting, generally having a great time, but not finishing much. And as these things go, that can only go on so long before I start feeling the burden of all of these half-finished projects, and I go into finish-it-up mode. We begin finish-it-up time with a project started and finished on the same day.

I really shouldn't be posting this, as I am planning on gifting this, and I may be ruining the surprise. Looks familiar? It is very similar - not quite an exact duplicate - of the scarf I made for my Mom's birthday. I started it at the knitting group on Thursday, to show everyone how to use the Ashford Knitter's Loom, and I finished it before I went to bed that night! It turned out just as nice as the first one, I think. I did a lot of measuring and counting for the first one, and then I made this one sort of off of the top of my head, so it is a bit different.

I should be an Ashford dealer, as now everyone in my knitting group now wants a Knitter's Loom.

Levi looks a bit like he is being forced to model, but he was happier than it looks.

It (the scarf) is very nice, if I do say so myself, and I may just have to make a third, as I still have (probably just) enough yarn to do so.

Levi seems to be getting more blog-coverage these days, so here's a little Riley to even things up, taken during spring break at the playground in Wachapreague.

Other updates for this evening:

-The weather has been HOT (like 90 in the shade!) here, but I believe a cold front is coming through tomorrow and it is all going to change.

-We were all well for several days in a row (a first in the last few months!) but that is over now, too. Levi has had coughs and a fever, Riley just coughs so far. I'm hoping Levi can go to school tomorrow, but we'll see ...

Thanks, Mom

I used the idea from that magazine article you sent to make these "cozies" for the set of glasses that Steve gave me for Christmas. I think the design was intended to be used for hot drinks, but I hope that they will work for cold-beverage-sweating, too.


Other fiber updates:


-no more progress on the lace circular shawl. I started the lace border three times and had to rip it out ... having trouble reading the chart. Who designed this thing, anyway? Oh, right.

-Finished the baby sweater for my WA friends - finally! Now I need to start one for our new family baby ... waiting to find out if "it" is a boy or a girl! (That would be Tom and Amber's)

-Started some fingerless mitts to match a scarf I wove quite a while ago. Thinking I might either sell the set, or gift them to someone. I owe Terri something, but she says she doesn't like wool, and I just don't know what to do with that ... hmmmm. I'll post some pictures when they're done.

-My friend Amy aquired three Navajo-Churro fleeces from her sister, who raises the sheep, and together we have been washing and carding and sampling them. I have a few photos of the fleece I have, in the washing process:


Above, the whole fleece as I received it. There are two distinct "layers" to this fleece, with a long, grey/blonde course outer fleece:


and a shorter, softer, brown layer next to the skin:

and it was dir-ty! Holy Cow:

That's from the first cold-water soak - in our bathtub. Isn't my husband a dear for putting up with this kind of yuck in his bathtub, all for the sake of his wife's peculiar hobby? I think so.

OK, I guess that is enough for now. I have a bunch of projects going that I haven't even mentioned here yet. This spring has been all about starting new projects - I haven't finished very much lately! But I am having a great time letting the creative juices flow, enjoying the process, not worrying too much about the finished product. I would like to catalog everything I am doing on this blog, at least for myself (not sure if my readers are interested or not!), but I am too busy Doing, to take the time to Photograph and Blog about everything. But it's all good, as the kids say.

Random Old Photo

OK, not really random. One in which both Steve and I are looking pretty young and sveldt, at least compared to what we look like 9 years and two kids later. Even then, he was sucking in his gut, and I was doing that turn-your-hips-and-put-one-leg-forward thing that women all do when they are posing for a photo. (Mt. Rainier in the background) A nice memory.

Steve - I still love ya!

Easter

Oh, yes, a week later I am finally getting around to showing you some Easter pictures. First, the celebration at the Country Club. Nini and Poppy are longtime members of the Eastern Shore Yacht and Country Club, and hosted us and the Ben Sadtler's (Steve's brother and family) for the annual Easter Egg Hunt there. The weather was windy and cold - but the kids did not seem to mind a bit. There were bouncies:

...in addition to the main event, the mad candy scramble. Is everyone ready?

That is Stephanie, Ben and Nini, waiting for the madness to begin. Here is a small sample of what ensued:

And here they are sorting out the booty afterwords:

While the adults tried to stay warm:


(Some of the Williams' clan there - longtime Eastern Shore family friends.)

And I suppose the day would not have been complete without a photo with the big rabbit:

On Sunday, we went to the early service, and the boys and I joined the church we have been attending, Franktown United Methodist. We haven't been attending very long, but we are really comfortable there, and it seems like a good fit for the whole family. Steve is, as the pastor described him, a dedicated Presbyterian, and decided not to join. More accurately, Steve is a free-roaming, liberal Quaker type Christian, and won't be tied down! Apperently, I am the traditionalist in the family.

Hope your Easter was as full and as fullfilling!

We Rogues of Wool

I will write a "real post" soon - but I had to share this.

Read the cartoon:


Sing the song:


Buy the t-shirt:


Enjoy!

Family Here

Family is here (earlier than expected!) for the Easter holiday - so I might not have time to blog in the next few days. But we are having fun, and I will update you with pictures and such when we get to the other side!

Here are a couple of boy-boy pictures to tide you over:

This is what they will be wearing for Easter - now I just have to find some appropriate shoes ...

The Next Big Thing

The impetus behind finally getting (making) myself a yarn swift, after having done without for more than 20 knitting-years, is this one particular project that has been forming in my mind for awhile now. I bought a skein of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace, 1250 yards of 50/50 lace weight wool and silk, color "Vera", at Rosie's Yarn Cellar in Philadelphia in the fall of '07. I didn't have a project in mind at the time, but gradually I developed a vision of a circular shawl with a fairly plain interior and a deep, interesting, sideways-knit border. The trouble with this design is the danger that you will run out of yarn on the way around the border, as it is very hard to guess how much yarn you will need for the border relative to the body of the shawl. I speak from experience on this one.


Are you still with me?


So, in the book The Best of Knitter's Magazine Shawls and Scarves, Joan Schrouder describes a technique of knitting the two (body and border) separately and then attaching them. So that is my plan - but that involves (in my mind, at least) knitting from both ends of this 1250 yards of lace weight yarn. I definitely needed to wind it into one of those cute, flat yarn "cakes", like what you get from a ball-winder. And I definitely needed a swift, or this could turn into 1250 yards of tangle in a hurry! So here we are:

Yes, I have changed to a champagne bottle. Taller, and nice and heavy on the bottom. The winding actually took me several days, as I kept getting interrupted/bored and putting it down.

Here we are partway through the winding. (Me and the mouse in my pocket.)

And here it is all done - phase one finished! Now, on with the design!

I consulted several lace edging designs from http://www.knitting-and.com/ , and the Harmony Guide to Aran and Fair Isle Knitting, and I have decided to make up my own:



Doesn't it look interesting? Time to swatch!

The Answer

A baby sweater! This is Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket - or BSJ, if you are in the "in" crowd. A friend of mine back in WA just had a baby, and I thought the little boy might need a summer sweater. So Tami and Michael, if you are reading this, Surprise! You will be getting a little sweater in the mail soon. I just need to sew up the seams and add the buttons. And maybe show it off to a few more knitter friends. It is just too cute, if I do say so myself.

What is this?

Any guesses? Answer tomorrow.

I forgot to mention...

- There was a girls' night out earlier this year, in case anyone was concerned that the girls were being left out at the elementary school. I have no idea what their activities were.



- The spinning wheel on ebay sold for just a couple of dollars less than you can buy it brand new. Not smart, bidders! But it saved me some money, anyway. Phew, that was close!


- Bonus points to the anonymous commenter (Mom) who knew that the swift-bottle came from the Elk Head Brewery in Buckley, WA, my former home. I mean Buckley was my former home, not the brewery. Anyway, stop by there if you are in the area, it is a clean, well-lit garage where you can get a really good beer.



- A gratuitous fiber photo. Here is a recent project - felting soaps. I found some nice glycerin soaps at the dollar store and decided it was time to try it. They are currently on sale at the Bear and Cub in Pungoteague!

And then there was me

One thing I notice as I read various blogs - the bloggers rarely put up photos of themselves. We all think that we look bad, I guess.

Anyway, Riley grabs my camera once in a while and takes dozens of pictures all around the room - most of which I delete. But pictures that show recognizable people (and occasionally, dogs) I keep. Here is what I look like to my children, apparently:

Scary.


Here's another, blurry, but I think kind of a good picture of me. I am getting jowly like my mother and grandmother.








(I hope my mother and grandmother don't mind me saying that!)

It is what Steve calls my upside-down smile - that turns down rather than up. It counts as a smile anyway, in my book.

News on the home front - Riley has ANOTHER ear infection! He was home from school on Friday as we took him to the doctor and pharmacy for more antibiotics. He managed to rally by Friday night, though, as it was "Boys' Night Out" at school. All of the boys were invited to come to the school from 6:30 - 8:00, they had karate and wrestling and basketball, as well as sandwiches and other snacks. Riley loved it. There were only a couple of other boys from his class there, but I guess that was enough. And I got to sit around for an hour and a half and knit on a sock for Steve. Levi and Steve had a little one-on-one time. A good time was had by all.

Fiber Update

Because I know you are all dying to know!


I made Mom a scarf for her birthday - woven on my Ashford Knitter's Loom with some handspun soysilk/wool and a commercial microfiber yarn. It even arrived on time! Total success! This does not happen to me often.

I've been tinkering again. So, having successfully made myself a lazy kate, I found myself in need of a swift. Actually, "swift and ball winder" has been on my Christmas list for years, but no one has taken me up on it. So I googled (of course) "homemade yarn swift" and it came back with several references, almost all pointing back to this creation by Crafty Diversions. But then I came across this, which is entirely more my style. Bonus points to anyone who recognizes where that bottle came from.





I have a nostipinne, (spellcheck?) which is basically just a thick stick, tapered a bit toward one end, on which to wind a center-pull ball. So I don't need a ball-winder anymore, either. Oh, the money I am saving! Can I spend it on this?





What, you might ask, given the current economic state of everything, do you need another spinning wheel for? I love my Traditional, but it is not terribly portable - I need a wheel to take with me to spin-ins and such, right? Well, obviously, it is not that I need it. I want it! It is a Roadbug, the latest model from Merlin Tree, and there is one on sale on ebay. And it is even a lefty - just exactly what my little heart desires. And the bid is (as of this writing) only $55! Egads. I would not be in the market for a wheel right now (although I definitely want one of these eventually!) but if it is going to sell that cheap on ebay, I can't afford not to buy it. Right?

There are several more days on the listing, and while there is only one bid on it now, there will probably be lots before it is over, so I am probably getting excited over nothing.

I've got more fiber stuff to show you, but I will save it for another post so as not to overwhelm you.

Later!

Good Morning

The view from the front porch this morning.

We have had lots of rain lately, occasional snow and freezing temperatures, as well as the odd day that gets up into the 70's. Since this is my first winter here, I don't know if this is unusual or if the winter weather always bounces around this much. But this morning, the sun is breaking through the fog, and it is predicted to get into the 60's. I have some already-sprouting tulip bulbs I bought half-price, and a couple of packages of ranunculus tubers (or are they bulbs, too? Odd looking things, anyway.) Also some poppy seeds given to me by a friend back in WA, with a reminder to "bloom where you're planted." So this morning, Levi and I are going to dig in the mud a bit, before it starts raining again, and hope for some blooms soon.

Beale enjoying the view.