Oh, Dudley! Look here!

Oh, Dudley! Look here!
Originally uploaded by fiberbrarian

I don't have my own dog, so I covet everyone else's. This is Dudley, a GIRL dog with a boy's name. The kids named her. When I found out that they'd named their orange cat "Purple", I stopped arguing with them.

Gazania magic

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Originally uploaded by fiberbrarian.

I took lots of flower photos this weekend. Here is a gazania that I especially like - the colors were different from the gold/orange/bronze of the others at the store.

The whole place is green! We've had so much rain that everything is growing wild.



I admit that I spend much of my freetime sitting on the porch and watching life as it passes by. Looks like I'm not the only one watching. This squirrel sat (draped?) in this tree for 1/2 an hour, watching me knit and watch him. It's a good life for us both.

Latest hat

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Originally uploaded by fiberbrarian.

Here is my latest 2-headed hat (the reversible/lined stocking cap). Both 'heads' are the same color - Crystal Palace "Iceland" (Rose Petal #9576). Wonderful yarn to work with. A very lightly twisted singles that is almost like knitting with roving. Be careful of splitting the stitches unless you want to - I think purposely splitting stitches would be an interesting experiment - like the needlepoint canvases that have a basic stitch size (e.g., 10/in) then switch to petit point for details (e.g. 14-16-18/in?).

This hat joins the many others items (hats, cardigan sweaters, pullover sweaters, socks, mittens) going out today to the Afghans for Afghans Mother's Day campaign. Thank you to Phyllis McQ and Linda L!

Happy May Day!

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Originally uploaded by fiberbrarian.

Here are some Lilies of the Valley - can you smell them?

Like so many of you in the U.S., we had two springs. The first one came way too early, got the animals and plants crazy, then came a series of hard freezes that killed the flowers, some of the plants, and really beat up the animals (human spirits, too). This spring is a little more sedate. I had a hard time finding flowers to show for this posting, and I went to Shelter Gardens here in Columbia. Shelter has beautiful plantings and wonderful water gardens.

Follow the lily picture back to flickr to see the other photos. The fish are not in the ponds yet, but the frogs are back and singing like crazy! What a wonderful evening. The only bugs I saw were the bees and water bugs, skimming along the surface. A wonderful night for knitting by the waterfall!

Happy May Day!

WWKIPD - June 9, 2007

World Wide Knit In Public Day (WWKIPD) is June 9, 2007! Make plans, Knitting Buddies!

Danielle writes:

Political? Nah, but if everyone in the world were a knitter do you think there’d be as many wars? I don’t think so. Seriously, we’d all be too busy swatching for gauge.

Good point!

Thanks to Mary Lynne, posting on Grey's Anatomy KAL and Whoduknit (good one).

Dulaan Five - Done!

Wah-HOOO! I sent my box off to Dulaan today! And then sent an e-mail to Ryan over at MossyCottage Knits to let her know that I'd met my commitment: Five for Dulaan! Actually, I did 28 for Dulaan! 7 hats, 4 pairs of mittens, and 17 scarves.

I think that will be my only news today. Except that I made brownies to bring to work today and celebrate. And the day is truly gorgeous - a little maple by the campus bookstore is putting out new leaves right next to the ones killed by the several days of freezing temperatures. There's probably a lesson in there, but today I'm concentrating on Dulaan and those good people doing the work of sorting and shipping. Bless them.

Beautiful snowflake hat

I found a beautiful snowflake hat over at Knitting with Grey's . The pattern is author created and she links to her sources - the snowflake is from Berroco and the thermal stitch that forms the side of the hat is from Knitty. The author and knitter is Knotingale.

With this odd spring that the midwest and much of the U.S. is having - a winter hat with snowflakes still seems appropriate!

I got my spinning wheel fixed last weekend! Actually, Dennis Kaiser of Hillcreek Fiber Studio fixed the wheel A YEAR AGO. (Through my bad treatment, my Ashford Traditional's wheel and spokes had separated. Dennis put it back together for me and glued it tight. Thanks, Dennis!) He asked me if I had the bolts to get the wheel reassembled. "Oh, absolutely! I put them in a safe place!"

We know how this ends, right? Last Saturday, a year later, I called and admitted that I could not find the bolts. I went out to the studio, got a sample of what I needed and headed in to Westlake's, where a nice young man pointed me to what I needed. One tiny glitch - the parts were a micronanotiny bit off, which I attributed to the different measurements of New Zealand and the U.S. I bought them anyway and they fit.

So - I got to spin for the first time in a year! I chose New Zealand Romney (an accidental tribute to my Ashford). A couple of skeins in a natural light grey, and a skein in a dark grey. The dark grey was especially overspun; the light grey was not all that balanced, either. I was too happy to be spinning to actually pay too much attention to 'the product.'

I tried to knit a fast warm scarf with two strands of the light grey held together and had to laugh - the stockinette stitches literally appeared diagonal on the scarf. So, I frogged it and plied the singles. MUCH NICER! I actually got one skein knit last night and then added in the plied dark grey to make a stripe. I couldn't put it down! (Along with the fact that I was listening to the Vancouver/Dallas hockey game that ran into FOUR OVERTIMES and ended at 2:30 central time. I didn't listen to the end - caught the results this morning. Vancouver. By 1 I think.)

Anyway - the spinning, the wool, the hats, the scarves - all appropriate as at least one forecaster is predicting snow for tomorrow/this weekend. sigh. But it's snowing up north, too, so we're in good company here at The Warming House!