Scary!

Scary….Scarier…REALLY SCARY…..Either this is a case of the rare spooky eye syndrome or I clearly need more practice taking pictures with the I-Phone!!  :-O  As you can see not much knitting, crocheting or spinning has taken place here since the I-Phone took up residence.  STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE Lou Lou….there are projects waiting to be finished!!!

Waiting and Watching….

 

We’ve waited so long for the warm weather and all the beauty that comes with it and it has been well worth the wait.This is the view from our deck!!  Is it any wonder that I can’t stop gazing at it?!  The aroma of apple blossoms is simply amazing and we are surrounded by them this time of year!The front of the house, the sides and all down the road on both sides are lined with apple trees except for the occasional lilac bush and we have a few of those as well.  It’s breathtaking for about a week or so and then the wait for the fruit begins.  We have been fortunate this year and escaped those late frosts that hit the trees last year so there should be plenty of apples to go around.  I couldn’t resist picking a little bouquet for the dinning room table and apparently a certain someone thinks she’s waiting incognito to get into them once my back is turned!  Silly kitty that she is…..we see you Lilly Bean so you can just stop flashing those baby blues of yours’ cuz I’m watching you!!!  Meanwhile upstairs there is another little munchkin waiting and watching for his opportunityto get into my Mother’s Day loot!  Thanks to those two youngest kids of mine I have a whole basket full of new stuff from Knit Picks and Amazon to play with!  This should keep me entertained for a while!  I’ve already cast on for another pair of the Gold Leaf socksand this time I’m even making them in gold!  There’s some spinning getting done tooall under the watchful eye of that little rascal Louiewho has apparently discovered how to escape from that nifty little jail I had rigged up to keep him from swallowing fiber fluff when I wasn’t watching!  :-OI’m pretty sure this is a sassy little defiant look we’re getting here….might be time for some obedience lessons!!

BLOOMING!

We’ve been having a blooming good time around here lately.  Everything’s blooming….all the apple trees are in full bloom, flowers are popping up all over …and there’s GREEN GRASS everywhere you look!  Lovin the GREEN GRASS!!!!It makes for very happy Equines!  We’re all on a Spring High and feeling good.  Lilly Bean’s favorite person was home from DC for a nice long visit….and she was in kitty heaven for the whole time.  It was a very busy and enjoyable week.  Lot’s of spring chores (putting in window air conditioners, getting all the lawn furniture out of storage) and a good amount of fine dinning, visiting and lot’s of this………the gardener was a happy camper claiming the title  “Cribbage Champion” for the week, winning every game we played.  Good Lord, we’ll never hear the end of this!  I’m afraid blogging and all things wooly took a back seat though, but now  Mark went back to DC with out me , the weather man is calling for a freeze warning for tonight (there goes the apple blossoms) and the blooming fun spring party has come to a screeching halt for now.  So I guess it’s back to spinning and knitting by a cozy fire for a few days while Mother Nature throws her weight around again.   I have several new knitting projects in the works though (more about those later) so it’s all good….we’ll just let her get it out of her system.

Slow Days…..

You know you’ve lived in the middle of no where to long when you are totally entertained by knitting new dish rags with your favorite Harmony straights…while watching the ice go out on the lakeand your dog is just as entertained as you are!

Late Night Party

It’s 11 o’clock in the evening and I have the entire kitchen all a buzz with fiber, Koolaid, food coloring and vinegar.  All be it a quiet buzz…..wouldn’t want to wake the gardener lest he might think I have taken leave of my senses.  Don’t get me wrong, this is all perfectly normal behavior….it’s the timing of it that might be a bit questionable even for me (Miss late night knitter).  In my defense though, this is the first time I have started this process at this hour of the night.  You never know though…..this might just turn into a regular event.It all started with these amazingly long staples of llama fiber that I pulled out of my stash earlier this afternoon.  I’ve had this vision of a teeny tiny twined Yorkie sweater pattern buzzing around in my head for quite some time now and when that starts happening LOOK OUT!  Couple that with beautiful long stapled llama fiber and ….and you get a late night party in the land of Lou Lou.  All perfectly sane, normal, legitimate fun, right?  It’s just taking place at a very late questionable hour of the night so lets just keep this between you and I. 

FINALLY!!!

A seventy degree day!!!!!!!!!  Yay!!  I’m pretty sure everyone was getting sick of all my snow pictures.  I know I was sure getting sick of them.  I do believe we’re on our way to spring now though.  Most of that pesky snow has melted in the last three days here and we have spent most of those days out doors in the sunshine.  It’s amazing what that can do for one’s mood.  I couldn’t wait to get my bike up from it’s cozy warm storage place in the basement.  Of course that meant snagging the gardener up from the garden.  He wasn’t happy with me for interrupting all those pre-garden rituals he goes through every year down there but after a bit of bribing with his favorite pasta salad, he helped me get it up the stairs and out the door.  I have been waiting for this moment all winter long……….biking with my buddy!  I was so excited…… HE WASN’T…….at first….. something about the prospect of being strapped into this basket contraption on the front of a bike was making him a little nervous.  I could tell by that look………the one I always get just before he starts yelling barking at me.  But I took it slow with several easy trips around the circle driveway till he settled down and started to relax.It brought back sweet memories of my little Eli who was my precious little side kick before Little Louie.  He loved bike riding with me and I was determined to teach Louie how fun it would be as well.  It was working too.  He was starting to enjoy it….and once we got out on the open road with the wind blowing through his hair, he was hooked.  It must be a Yorkie thing……..every Yorkie I have ever had (and I’ve had a few in my day) has loved bike riding with me and I with them!  SPRING AND BIKING WITH MY LITTLE LOUIE…..IT’S THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!

Now you see it! :-D Now you don’t! :-(

GRASS!!!!  Do you see it there?!  At the base of the birch trees!!  GLORY BEE IN HEAVEN!  It’s grass….and it’s green!  I do believe that Spring just may be approaching here in the middle of no where!  Once I saw this out the front window, I headed out to scout out more signs of it…..OH MY LORD!!  The daffodils have burst right up through the snow!!!  Apparently they just got sick to death of waiting for spring too!  And hollyhocks……:O……right up next to the house foundation!  This is the most green I’ve seen in I don’t know how long!!!  I was loving it, savoring it and all willy nilly with the sheer joy of Spring finally peeking out from under all the snow……and the very next day this happened!!What a difference a day makes around here.  We were all just peering out the window in dismay……dang…..it’s snowing again…..all over the daffodils, hollyhocks, and grass patches!!  Such a disappointment…especially for this little Robin who mistakenly thought that the early bird gets the worm but I don’t think there are to many of those out there yet.  The poor little things are trying to find shelter in the bushes. After researching what else Robins eat besides worms(which were nowhere to be found), I made up a yummy nutritious berry nut suet cake for them to help them make it through yet another weather event here and turned my sights to some nice sea foam fluff to take my mind of the white stuff piling up out there.I decided spinning and plying 90 more yards of yarn to finish up my mittenswould be a lot more productive than playing peek-a-boo  with Spring.  It sure was fun while it lasted though!!!

Winter Weary!

We are officially shack happy here…..most of the windows have iced overmaking it a bit difficult to see what’s actually going on out side but it doesn’t sound good anyway so it’s just as well.   I think it’s safe to say that winter has totally over stayed it’s welcome this year!  The wind is howling, the snow is falling and this ant has decided to move inside here with us where it’s warm.  I would remove it but Little Louie has taken a liking to it.He has been staring at it and following it around for several hours now.It’s his very first encounter with a bug and he’s totally fascinated with it. He probably likes the idea that he’s actually bigger than something.   This is how we are spending our days now…..inside away from the cold, wind , and snow.   The gardener is desperately trying to grow things in various parts of the house.I’m worried that this is going to end up being one of those years where it snows on the 4th of July and that’s not going to go over big with the gardener.  Now me on the other hand…….I can just knit leaves if I have to!!  Although now I’m wishing I had knit this Garden View Shawlette  in green.   It may just be the only green we get this year!!!!!!!!!

Wonder Mitten!!!

Introducing Wonder Mitten!!!!Seriously…..this is one intense mitten……the Swedish folk really know how to make warm durable winter outer wear!  In my opinion, the twined or tvaandsshttp://bagateller.tripod.com/tips/twined.htmltickning technique is the most sensible technique out there for knitting a truly warm and durable mitten.  Now that’s not to say I didn’t have a spot of trouble in the making of this wonder mitten though ….. apparently thumbs are every bit as complexing for me as heel turning in socks because that’s where the trouble started.  It doesn’t help that you have all these needles working on such a narrow little spot either…..I blame the NEEDLES…..  for the fact that I’ve started knitting the dang thumb inside out!  :O  So you know what that means……….YUP….the dreaded ripping out and starting over!!!  This is no easy feat with twined knitting either because there’s double the yarn and it’s slightly more energized from the whole twined process!  Thankfully this all took place during another one of Mother Natures winter events in April and it took my mind completely off that whole mess outside.   Once I got the thumb turned right side out I ended up with a magnificent warm, soft, fuzzy, durable winter mitten.  The fabric is dense but not to thick, which I like.It actually repels the snow and stays dry.  Probably because of the llama fiber it’s made with.  It does take a bit more yarn than other mittens.  I used slightly more than 140 yards of fingering weight home spun for this one mitten!  It has a longer cuff though too, which takes more yarn.I absolutely LOVE this mitten and the whole twined technique!   My mind is going all crazy with all the things I can use this technique with……like TEENY TINY TWINED YORKIE sweaters and warm winter vests with pretty embroidery on them…..but first I need to get back to the wheel and spin up about 15 more yards of yarn to finish the other mitten!!   So there you have it…..a twined mitten using z-plied llama yarn and this Ravelry pattern.

Watching Snow Melt …

It was a balmy 35 degrees today so we headed out to the front patio to watch the snow melt .  We could be here awhile cuz this process isn’t moving along with what we could call lightning speed. SIGH   No grass yet to speak of in the horse pasture…..but there is a small patch of it along side the drivewayso that’s encouraging!!  And check out Little Louie walking on a leash like a big boy for the first time!!  I think he was actually thinking of heading into that snow!!  Yikes!  I need to get back to work on my mittens…..they’re forecasting snow for the weekend :O !  Will it ever end?!