misfit meadows meanderings

The finish of one and the start of another

2006-09-02T06:12:00.000-05:00

I finished my Shedir cap. I had just enough yarn. The skein said 200 yards and the pattern said it needed a 170 yard skein. I had less than 5 yards left. It turned out great. Will have to take some pictures of if and post them later. I love it. It is so soft.

A bit later I started on the Rogue sweater. The yarn that came with the kit and was suggested by the designer is so stiff and scratchy. I don't understand why a designer would use a yarn like that. And to think I waited almost 2 months to get this from the store I ordered it from. First they had to wait until they got a new shipment of patterns from the designer "The Girl Form Auntie" then once the patterns came in they ordered the yarn which they had to wait to do until they had a minimum order amount. If I had known all of this I would have just ordered the pattern from the designer and found my own yarn. I had started this pattern before but lost the pattern and didn't like the color of yarn I had picked. Originally I paid for the pattern and downloaded it. It really was a hassle because the pattern is like 20 pages long.

I will still plug on with it. I will wear other shirts underneath like I had planned. I am sure it will be fine and I may just be gripey because when I got up this morning I had 3 call offs for work this morning and everyone who said they would work this morning if I called and asked turned me down. And the weather also sucks today. It better get better for the party tomorrow.

2006-08-29T12:42:00.000-05:00

Well, I thought I would try to post here more often. The kids started back to school yesterday so now I will have more time. Especially since I work from home now.

I am working on 2 knitting projects right now and will start a 3rd by the end of the week. The first one is the Shedir hat from the knitty.com pink ribbon issue. It is being worked in a baby blue cashmere yarn I got a great deal on.

The second is the on-going Aran afghan. I have over half of the squares done. I don't know why I just don't buckle down and finish it. It only takes 1-2 days to knit up a block. I believe I have 13 of 24 blocks done.

The third will by my Rogue sweater once my kit comes. I tried starting this but I didn't like the yarn I was using, it was mainly the color I didn't like. I came across a web-site with the kits and they were pretty cheap.

The goats are all doing great. I think all of the girls are pregnant again, except for the littlest baby girls, May and Coco and maybe Gretel. It is such fun to have the little babies around even if they aren't lambs. Maybe our luck with the girls will continue. We had 3 girls and 2 boys this year. Just wish and hope my dairy girls are pregnant. I can't wait to start making things with goat milk.

Hickory my Angora goat will get a haircut this weekend, I can't tell if she is pregnant and ready to drop or just fat from her hair. I will be able to get a bunch of good usable fiber from her this time. I have been really bad about shearing her and letting it go to long and it is not usable.

Yuck!!! Monday morning

2005-11-07T05:07:00.000-05:00

Yuck!!!!! Its Monday morning, I had to get up at 4:30 since I have to be at work at 7:00. Luckily I only work until 12. I think I will come home and get my chili made for dinner then relax until I need to clean house at the doctor's house tonight.

We got word that our puppy is actually a female. She is double the size of her littermates. I can't wait to see her. We should be able to pick her up right before Christmas. I think we have decided on a name for her Yeta. We decided that it was the female version of Yeti. The kids have been fighting over what to name her but I sort of like Yeta.

I haven't done much in the way of fibery stuff lately, I was working really good on my Aran throw, then it all stopped when I found a Pattern for a felted pumpkin at Knitty.com. So I had to order the yarn and try it out. I am almost done with it. As soon as I am done with it I can get back to the afghan. I also pulled out some hand-painted roving to spin. Don't know when I will get to it though.

New puppy

2005-10-31T06:37:00.000-05:00

We got pictures of the puppies. We decided on a nice large male. The breeder said we can have him. Now I can't wait.

First Snow of The Year

2005-10-24T20:57:00.000-05:00

Yuck!!!! It is snowing. I am not ready for this. This morning the temperature wasn't too bad, but it dropped through out the day. Which was wonderful since I had to walk home from work. I forgot to mention that it rained all day too. My bonehead 9 year old took my umbrella to school, so I had to buy a cheap poncho at work to wear home. I was soaked by the time I made it, which put me in a bad mood.

I am well into the second block of my Aran afghan. This block is the twisted lattice. This one is not mindless since there is no repeat to the rows. It is knitting up quickly though. I think the pattern is going to be backwards from the pattern picture, but that is from that I tend to read charts backwards.

I should be working on my blocks or looking for the Halloween costume for trick-or-treating. My son wants me to dress up to take them trick-or-treating. I just can't get my mind to work, I just received a call from my dad, he had to rush my mom to the hospital, they thought she was having a stroke. She had a blocked carotid artery. They will decide tomorrow what they will do, either scrape it or put a stint in. I am so worried. I am sure it will be fine but we don't usually have medical emergencies in my family. My grandmother just turned 97 yo.

Back to blogging

2005-10-23T15:51:00.000-05:00

Sorry been very bad about posting. In fact I haven't posted since May. It might be easier now that the weather is getting colder. It definitely fall and maybe leaning towards winter.

My current project is The Taste of Aran Afghan. It is an afghan of course, comprised of 20 different squares of Aran stitches. I just completed the first block Honeycomb Cable. I ripped it out several times and restarted. I am a perfectionist on such things. The only thing is I couldn't get the gauge. But since its an afghan I guess gauge is not quite so important. I am working it in Wool of the Andes from KnitPicks in Cranberry. I am quite pleased with the way the first block turned out. I can always add a border at the end. Now to decide which block to do next.

The animals are all doing quite fine. We got them finally on the same piece of property. Our new puppy was born last Sunday. We will ge able to get him when he is about 8 weeks old. We are having a heavy debate here at home what to name the little guy. I want to name him Usko Finnish for faithful. Hubby wants to name him Vlad. Thats such a mean sounding name for a Great Pyr. I never have seen a mean one.

Twins!!!!!!!

2005-05-09T18:27:00.000-05:00

Finally some babies... Stacey finally had her babies. She had a set of twin girls. Right now they look like they will be black and white. I think they will turn brown like her last baby Sara did. Now we are waiting fr Tree Flower to have hers. Looks like she will only have a single. We hope to get lucky and have another girl. Her last was Jack a little billy. He will be 7 months old on the 28th.

I got my my computer/fiber room cleaned up today so maybe I can play with some of my stuff and not feel too guilty. I have so much silk to spin. I also need to work on on my sari silk blanket. I am just about ready to start on my Wool Gatherer cross stitch kit.

Long awaited package finally came

2005-05-06T22:51:00.000-05:00

Yay, my long awaited package of Muga silk roving and sari silk waste finally got here. I only waited a month for it. I already had 1 1/2 pounds of the muga sitting here waiting for the sari silk to add to it while spinning. Now it seems like I might have to wait to spin. My hand got torn up by my mother-in-law's cat.

We are still waiting for the 2 girls to give birth. Boy we really must have miscalculated dates. Stacie keeps getting bigger and bigger, her belly is almost dragging the ground. We are hoping for twins, triplets are too much to hope for. Treeflower isn't quite as large. Their udders are quite large too. They are bigger than the last time they had babies. So baby watch continues......

I get to get up early and go to an auction instead of the Maryland Sheep and Wool show. Hubby owes me big. Made him promise to take me to the Ohio one over Memorial day weekend. Plus I get to go to the one here in Waynesburg. But its still not the same. Oh well maybe he will buy me something good tomorrow. I think I will dig out some simple knitting to take with me to work on.

Hanging my head in shame at not being a good poster

2005-04-12T11:47:00.000-05:00

I just realized that I haven't posted since last month. I thought I would do really good at this since I have a lot more time now. I promise to do better.

I start on the knit-chicks group bag early. I couldn't wait until Friday. I finally moved the bag from double-pointed needles to the circular needle. I hope it ends up better than it looks now. Right now it is square and looking like a squashed pyramid. I still am trying to figure out how to post pictures here once I do I will post pictures of this project and other good things.

We are also anxiously waiting for our 2 pygmy goat nannies to give birth. They should go at any time. Last babies we got from them was a little boy and a little girl. Twins would be really nice but I couldn't get that lucky. I will have to settle for these 2 babies. I miss having lambs around. Some idiot stole all my ewes this past fall. They left the rams and all the goats. Sigh... Hubby said no more sheep until I can get our woven wire fence up.

Day 2 of being a lady of leisure

2005-03-22T06:18:00.000-05:00

Still getting used to not going to work everyday. I have to make myself sleep in instead of getting up at 4:00 a.m. Got some of the long neglected housework done will do more today. Then the rest of the rest of the day for the judge shows and the featured clapotis. I started on section 3 last night so today I will finally get to drop stitches. That's funny since one doesn't normally want to drop a stitch.

I got my Wool of the Andes yarn to dye in the mail yesterday. I already have the skeins divided up and soaking in water. 3 skeins will be done in grape kooaid and the remaining skein will be orange. This yarn will be my new newscarrier sack. I can't wait to get it started.

I will also work on some soap today. Will start to re-batch. I still have to decide what scent this batch will be. Maybe Moss TuberRose.

I tried to take pictures of the in progress clapotis but couldn't get the flash or the digital camera to work. Will have to wait for hubby to get home.

Clapotis in progress

2005-03-19T19:31:00.000-05:00

Finally started my clapotis. I am doing my first one in Ochre Silky Wool. My next one will be in Knitpicks Shimmer in the Happy Dance colorway. It is so great not to have to worry about going to work anymore. Monday I will have to start on housework that has been neglected for the job. The kids are all happy. I am too since I will have more time to devote to my fiber arts.

I started to brush the dogs today since they are starting to shed their undercoats. I have heard of people spinning their dog hair. I will give it a try. Yarn made out of their hair should really be very warm since they are mountain dogs. I just have to figure out how to go about spinning it. Clean it first then spin or spin and then clean. The undercoat I am getting from them is almost like the cashmere I have worked with in the past.

I think that is all for tonight. Will try to post a picture of the clapotis in progress tomorrow.

testing

2005-03-18T20:09:00.000-05:00

this is just a test