A Few Sheep Shy of a Farm

Okay, no new pictures today, sorry. I hope to take some more of the new bunny and the socks and the worms over the weekend and post on Monday.

So far so good with the “no fiber purchases until July”! I didn’t even buy anything at group last night, which is not easy to do when you spend several hours in a room full of yarn that could be in your room full of yarn!

Actually, I hope at some point this weekend to pull it all out of the closets, out from under the bed and all the other stashing places, put it all in a big pile and then catalog it all in my PDA. Part of the that plan involves remembering what project I had in mind in the first place and perhaps even including the costs in the DB (not sure I want to know just how much inventory I really have as I could probably open a shop now just on that alone!) I’m thinking that once I see just how many projects I already have on hand waiting to be done it might help me to keep from buying more at least for a little while. I’d like to finish 4 - 6 things before I add any more and since I’m a slow knitter that could take months! I do think that in July I may allow myself to spend some $ on lessons that involve learning new spinning and knitting techniques, esp. things that will help me to knit better/faster! Other than that I’m going to try to hold off from spending any more for as long as I can!

Rabbits are doing well. Blossom seems to be adjusting to her new home and has gotten less jumpy, more friendly. And Jasmine is “talking” to me again now that she isn’t alone. She had gotten very upset with me for taking Dusty away; she did not like being alone at all! This morning when I checked on them they both came right to the front of the hutch and wanted attention (and treats?) which is much better than how they have been the past few days!

And the silk worms are getting big much faster now, and Wow can they eat! I’m feeding them as many times a day as I can and they just go right through it! I need the kids to come back so I can have them climb the tree for me! I may have to plant some mulberry hedges for next year with more reachable leaves if I’m going to keep doing this!

Okay, well have a great weekend everyone and I’ll hopefully have more pictures for you on Monday!

Oh, and Bess, if you’re out there . . . the yarn is going in the mail today!

Sorry, no new pictures yet! I was home sick yesterday with a really bad sinus headache (D@^^ allergies!) and I just haven’t had a chance to get them on a disk to bring in . . . I’ll try to get them up tomorrow but it may be Monday (they won’t load from home via phone line w/o crashing this!)

I did get a little more done on the socks. I’m at the leg part, which I started doing in K1, P2 to humor DH, but it just isn’t coming out snug enough so I’m going to have to undo it and try something else, like K2, P2 or something. Guess I can look at it as a chance to try frogging on circulars, right?

Also, I’ve been having trouble viewing this page on my computer at work for some reason (came up fine at home) but it’s making it difficult for me to do any more editing or design stuff. Once I get that resolved I have more fun stuff to add.

Oh, and I’m collecting info on celebrity men how knit, as positive reinforcement for my cousin who asked to learn. If anyone has any articles or better, pictures about famous men knitting I’d love to hear about it!

Guess that’s all for now, new pics tomorrow if I can, otherwise have a great weekend and I’ll be back on Monday!

Good Morning!

Wow, what a fun/busy weekend! My cousins came for a visit and we had a big cookout on Sunday so lots of friends and family around. I stayed up way, way too late with my Aunt and now I’m practically cross-eyed I’m so tired! On to the knitting/fiber stuff.

Well, my cousins all wanted to learn to knit so between me and my MIL we got them started. The oldest is really moving along and I expect will be knitting sweaters in no time! The middle child had just started on Monday before they were leaving so we’ll see, and the youngest is small enough to still have a bit of trouble holding the needles etc. but after the work she did with pony beads this weekend, I’d say she definitely has an artistic streak! And since they are planning to move near us in July we’ll be able to keep working with them on it.

I turned the heel of the first sock over the weekend and I’m making progress on the second. I decided that even doing them both on the 2 circulars it will be easiest to turn the heels one at a time as the sort row stitches give each side an angle and can be hard to move around. You probably could do both at once and just slide the whole thing back and forth but I found one at a time easier. Once I’m back to the whole number of stitches I’ll go back to doing them all at once. I plan to take a picture tonight and should add it here tomorrow.

The silkworms are getting big! You can really see them clearly now. I don’t think all 3000 made it, but there are quite a few and as an experiment I’m sure there will be enough to do something with the fiber. Again, pictures tomorrow.

Yesterday, after our company had started for home, I took a ride over to Iron Horse Farm to see Debbie. Well, it turns out “Dusty” really was a buck. So he has returned to the farm and his sister, “Blossom”, has joined our little furry family. Isn’t she beautiful? I also had a spinning lesson while I was there, and learned more about the qualities of Jacob fleece and how to spin in the grease! Thank you to Debbie for spending the time with me on that!

I’ve also, voluntarily, signed up for the “Knitters Annonomous” group on Knitter’s Review K.A. Actually, it more of a Stashers Annonomous as the group has agreed to hold off from making any fiber purchases for a month!!!! I’ve done pretty well so far; and believe me, I was very, very tempted yesterday at Debbie’s as she has some wonderful roving. Of course I haven’t yet spun the last stuff I bought from her so I promised my self I can have more after I use that up!

Well, back to that activity that actually supports my fiber addictions! Have a great, short week and I’ll be back with more pics soon!

TGIF Mass Sheep and Wool Festival this weekend! and bummer, I’m not going!!!

Actually that is probably a good thing as I have spent way, way too much on fiber and yarn lately and have more stash than I could use in about 3 years time so I really should take a break from shopping and just work on knitting and spinning some of what I have. One of the things I really want to do in the coming weeks is to dig out all the boxes that have yarn and do an inventory. I’ve done a fiber inventory and an needle inventory recently so I have a good idea of what I have for each of those, but I really don’t have any kind of accurate list of what I have for yarns and what I planned to use them for! That would have been a good project for this weekend, being a long weekend and that being a lot of digging, but since we are having company for the weekend and a cookout on Sunday I just don’t think its going to happen this weekend!

I brought the buns to spinning last night. Everyone love them & thought they were very well behaved for bunnies. We were not, however, able to come to a definite conclusion on the sex of the “blue” bunny. Lucy thinks it is likely a boy. Actually, I feel a quite a bit better knowing that it wasn’t just me, they really are hard to tell at this age. I’m just not sure what I want to do about this! On the one hand, this is a really beautiful rabbit, everyone loved his coat, color and temperment. On the other hand I really did want to start with two does. I’ll let you know what I decide one I do!

I’m almost to the heel of the 2×2 socks! Just a few more rows to go! I hope to work on this during lunch today since I don’t know how much I’ll get done over the weekend. I do think, at least for me, with the way I knit that doing them this way is faster! Now yesterday I saw directions for knitting two socks at the same time, one inside the other. I think that will be the next thing I have to try. Perhaps I’ll do some small kids socks to try it out. Once I get the hang of that, I think I’m going to try to combine the two techniques! I’ll be knitting 2 pairs of socks at the same time on two circulars with one pair inside the other pair. Is anyone else interested in trying this with me? It might be fun if several of us try it at the same time so we can compare notes as we go! What do you think?

Well, its unlikely that I’ll be able to post over the weekend with everything that is going on, so have a Happy, Safe and hopefully dry Holiday weekend everyone!

Happy Thursday! The long weekend is almost here!

Well, last night I had planned to get all sorts of cleaning done before we have company this weekend. However, my allergies had been bothering me and the medicine made me feel weird so when I got home I was planning to take a little nap, just a half-hour. Well, 2 1/2 hours later when I finally woke up . . . I was feeling very strange and disoriented and then I realized, I had been getting another migraine!!! So I got nothing done on all the cleaning projects I had planned! Hate when that happens!!!

It did occur to me last night that perhaps I was wrong about the rabbit being a buck instead of a doe. So I brought the other one in the house and turned it over. I can’t tell the difference, they look just the same to me! That really complicates things! I now plan to do my shopping that has to get done tonight right after work and then run home, unload the car and get the rabbit to go to Spinning. I’ve been going to the Thursday night spinning group at Minds Eye Yarn for almost a year now. Lucy used to raise rabbits so I’m hopeful that she can tell me what I have without having to drive all the way to Sherborn tomorrow to see Debbie at Iron Horse Farm(who by the way, must think I’m crazy by now!) Keep your fingers crossed for me, I really want to keep this rabbit so I really hope its a she!

I plan to bring the medium colored portion of the Jacob Fleece I bought at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival with me to spinning tonight. I intend to use this fleece for my first attempt at spinning in the grease and I can’t wait to give it a try. I’ve had such a hard time making time for spinning lately and with company coming this weekend I might not have gone to the group tonight but I didn’t go last week either and I really try not to miss 2 weeks in a row.

I’m still working on the sock project. Only got a few rows done yesterday but they now reach about 1/2 way from my toe to my leg . . . few more inches and I’ll be able to try working out the heels! Once I have that figured out I’ll be able to start writing this up to post here. I have realized one thing that may make explaining this pattern easier. I’m not really working in the round. At least not in the traditional sense. If you really look closely at the way this works you are actually knitting a front and a back at the same time which just happen to be connected by the fact you are using the same piece of yarn for both halves. They are really each worked flat only when you turn it over to do the “wrong side” your actually doing the other half of the sock so that it tooks like it was done in the round! Does that make sense??? I’m going to try to explain it to the co-worker that I’m teaching to knit since I’ve found if I can teach someone else how something is done I can then understand it better and I’m able to write up a better explanation.

I still haven’t gotten back to writing up the pattern for Dom’s socks. I may try to work on it today if I get a chance this afternoon. Things seem like they are pretty slow at work today so I may have a few minutes. I’m just finishing working out the repeat of the cable pattern I used for the legs so it is really most of the way done. If at all possible I want to have it posted before the weekend.

Oh, and I’m planning to teach my cousins to knit this weekend. They were very interested in the socks I”m working on when they were here last weekend and wanted to learn how to do that. The 10yr old wants to make toe socks!!! I told her that might be a better 2nd or 3rd project and we should probably start with a scarf! Actually, that is what I love about teaching kids, they are fearless! They have no concept of a thing being difficult or anything, they just dive right in.

Silkworm update: They are growing fast now! I can see a difference in just an overnight. And they are really starting to eat more. I’ve been alternating between the fresh mulberry leaves from the backyard and the Silkworm chow that I bought from the place I got the eggs. They seem to eat both without any problem and sometimes (like at night) its just easier to give them the chow than to try to get leaves off the trees in the yard. They have changed from black to a very light shade of green-grey and are now more than an eighth of an inch long. I plan to take more pictures in a few more days, I’m hoping by then they will be big enough to really be seen in the pictures. I know I’ve lost a few along the way and right now I have no idea how many of the 3000 eggs have hatched or lived to this point but once they are big enough to handle I plan to count them.

Okay, that’s all for now. If I get the sock pattern finished I’ll post again to add it.