Knittinggarden

I'm not on Facebook, but I sometimes access DH's page and look at photos (and  keep up with the kids).  I saw this today and thought I would share.

That's all I can say about that; the Hansen miniSpinner retreat I went to at the beginning of this week in Port Townsend, WA.  Fifteen people with miniSpinners, Beth and Kevin Hansen, Judith MacKenzie in the flesh (!) and a picturesque little old town.  Doesn't get much better than that. I caught the noon ferry from Edmonds, WA for the half hour to Kingston.  After that I had about an hour's drive to my destination.  Not a bad journey, and the scenery was beautiful.  Quite a few of us had decided to visit Taylored Fibers, so we carpooled to their farm.  We saw sheep (I think this one is a CVM) and sheep butts. We saw the big carding machine that Barry Taylor uses to make beautiful rovings, which he dyes.  Many of us came away from this room with bags of fiber.  I'm planning to make a sweater with the CVM/Merino/Silk blend that I got. We went back to town to get ready for the evening get-together.  This is the stately old hote...

We have a big house on the outskirts of Seattle, and have lived here since 1996.  Almost 17 years, three kids, and lots of storage space adds up to a nightmare to get ready to sell.  DH is running his business in California, so I am here trying to muddle through the job of getting rid of a bunch of stuff and then sprucing up what's left. Which brings me to painting.  When this house was born in 1952, it apparently had dark, varnished, woodwork (maybe mahogany).  Sometime between then and when we moved in, some brilliant person painted it all with shiny, grey paint.  Ever since we've been here, we've been trying to cover that paint with white.  If you've ever tried this, you'd know it isn't easy.  Well, maybe if you're a professional painter it would be, but I certainly am not.  And painting trim usually gets to be my job. At the moment, I'm trying again to cover a bunch of grey cabinets with white paint.  I painted some doors and touched ...

I wasn't going to go this year.  No classes really thrilled me, I have more than enough yarn and fiber, and driving to Tacoma on a (likely) rainy day isn't the best thing in the world.  But then...... I looked at the vendor list again.  GothSocks wasn't going to be there, due to illness (so sorry), but I caught an update or two recently, so my stock was significantly replenished.  Most of the vendors are excellent, but I've visited their booths many times before.  What's that?  Jennie the potter, Jared Flood, Pygora goat fiber?  This changed everything! I called my intrepid fiber-show friend and with barely any arm-twisting, she agreed to accompany me on a field trip.  We drove down on Thursday morning, and just spent a couple of hours at the marketplace.  So fun! Our first stop was to see Jennie the Potter .  I had heard about her and seen photos of long lines of people waiting for her booth to open at places like Rhinebeck, but ...

Last Tuesday, our little Princess graduated from UNLV a semester ahead of time.  This brings to a close our college years.  Three kids in, three kids out.  I'm so proud of all of them. We spent a couple of days in windy, cold Las Vegas and watched as our little girl received her degree along with about 2000 other people.  Yes, it was a long ceremony, but I had brought a little something to do, which worked fine as long as the lights were on and I didn't mess up.  After messing up, I put the sock back into my bag and did what everyone else was doing, sitting there.  Or texting someone. The sea of red in the large arena made it hard to take pictures with my little camera, but I got a couple recognizable ones. The entertaining speakers of the bunch were an undergraduate honoree and Guy Fieri, who received an honorary doctorate.  Guy, of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives fame, graduated from the same UNLV school of hospitality that the Princess attended...

When the spam comments dry up, I figure it's time for a new blog post.  I've been home in Seattle for a couple of weeks and now I'm remembering why it's nicer to be in the desert at this time of year.  Rain, rain, rain....I know, it could be worse, but it's pretty gloomy. So this weather leads me to my activity of dreaming up projects to knit and spin and then trying to figure out how I can do all of them at the same time.  That leads to this: The WIP pile of doom.  Being on my own for awhile leads to my habit of spreading out various projects over the sectional in the basement and working on multiple things.  Tired of the sweater?  No problem, pick up the mitten...or the fingerless mitt...or the blanket...or the sock...or plan tomorrow's cast on of the stash-busting Color Affection Shawl...or print out a pattern for a hat that would make a nice gift.  Then spin for awhile with the handy miniSpinner that I can put right onto the sofa with me. ...

First of all, let me apologize for being in a place where the sun is shining and there's barely a breeze, let alone a hurricane.  I pray for everyone in the storm's path and sincerely hope that it passes quickly and the damage isn't too severe. That being said, I wanted to share what I was treated to today.  I was sitting out in our little courtyard, where we have a few potted plants and a hummingbird feeder.  DH has set up a twig along the wall and the little birds like to perch there to be ready to defend the feeder.  I noticed a little hummingbird sitting there.  Then another came along and sat down beside the first.  From the markings, I assume that the first bird was female and the second was male.  They looked around for a couple of minutes.  Then another bird approached.  The male flew up to chase it away, then returned to the perch.  This happened a few more times.  Then the male began to hover over the female in ...

For those of you who are already in the thick of fall cold and storms, sorry.  For those of you who are enjoying extended fall colors and a nip in the air, I envy you. I left Seattle for the desert on October 9th.  We had had so much nice weather that the leaves hadn't changed yet and there hadn't been any rain or wind to knock the leaves off.  I was still cutting roses and picking grapes and raspberries.  I should have stayed a week longer, but who's to know? I arrived here to find temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s.  I wasn't impressed.  It was too darn hot! Just this week we've had morning temps in the high 50s and 60s and highs in the mid 80s.  Now we're talking.  Today is the first day that I think I won't demand AC on.  I shouldn't complain and I shouldn't say this out loud...but I want to see rain.  I'm sure when I get back home in mid November I'll see more than enough rain, so I'll just have to suck it up and enjoy th...

More plums (Italian prunes this time), raspberries, and one of the two kinds of grapes from the yard.  Will the harvest never end this year?  The cake is made with some of the plums and is ready for the oldest boy's birthday dinner tonight. The weather here in the Seattle area is unbelievably beautiful.  In fact, I'm thinking that a rainy day would be nice but the forecast just says sunny, sunny, sunny.  I think we must be in some parallel universe. In knitting news, I finished some socks.  These are basic, ribbed, self-striping socks with an afterthought heel.  The yarn is some I bought at the last Sock Summit from The Amy Lee Show .  I like the sparkle!

It was an intimate luncheon for 3000 people with some special entertainment.  The fundraiser was for Jay Inslee, who will hopefully be the next Governor of Washington.  In addition to President Clinton, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell spoke and some other notable locals also took the stage.  Musical entertainment was by Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie.  All in all, a fun and interesting afternoon. Tomorrow I get to see Huey Lewis and the News at an outdoor concert at a local winery.  A busy weekend for this little old knitter.

Never work on lace, even if it's in worsted weight yarn, after/while drinking a martini.  That's all I'm going to say about that.

I did nicely at the fair this year and I went to pick up my entries on Tuesday.  Each entry is returned with the judge's report and that can be pretty helpful.  Sometimes they give comments that really explain what could have been done better and I like it when they do that. Both of my shawls won blue ribbons and also best presentation ribbons that are "awarded at the judge's discretion to items of most lovely and eye catching appearance."  Cool!  I never actually thought about what I might do with my Pi shawl but I folded it in half and tried it on yesterday and it sits nicely on my shoulders.  Might be wearable on occasion.  Side note:  I like knitting shawls but rarely wear them.  Anyone else do that? This was the Gull Wings pattern in the Elizabeth Zimmermann anniversary shawl series by Mwaa Knit. The other shawl I entered was my Stephen West mystery knit Earth and Sky .  I mentioned before that I just grabbed this at the las...