Nature of Night in the Snow

This weekend has been chalked full of fun and exciting things! First off, on Saturday, Mary T., her youngest son Jubal, and I headed off for a fun day at Central Washington University where they were holding the annual Nature of Night interactive exhibit and the Bubble Planetarium. I got Jubal jazzed up by telling him that there was a dark tunnel you had to crawl through to get inside the planetarium. And indeed there was. Mary and I were both happy that we did not wear dresses that day! The planetarium was incredibly interesting and if you've never gone into one, you should. It's a great big gray parachute-like bubble that gets pumped full of air with a fan. It's quite large and can seat about 25 people inside if they sit in a circle. Inside is a projector that casts the stars onto the inside surface of the planetarium. Dr. Palmquist simulated what the stars would look like that evening, starting at 6:30 pm and going until 6:30 am. Then we visited with a Great Horned Owl named Samantha, who was injured by a car and lost one eye and is blind in the other. She was very patient with all the children and all the noise. We also made batwings and learned about the noises that bats make, and looked at how light is reflected in animals eyes. The eyes of mice shine pink when light is shone into them, and the eyes of rabbits shine red. We also learned about putting icing on star-shaped cookies. Very very important.Jubal and Mary making batwings.

There was crocheting at the cookie booth. :)

After all that was done, I can't really remember what all I did. Hmmm... Anyway, moving on to Sunday. It snowed. This season's very first snow fall, and it's been beautiful all day! When I awoke this morning and looked outside, hoping to see a white blanket of snow, I instead saw a very wet blanket of leaves. Bummed that it hadn't snowed yet, I went about my business of getting ready for church. By the time I stepped outside to walk the 1/2 block to my church, it had started snowing and already was sticking to the grass! It did not stop after that and after a few hours, it was sticking to the road and sidewalks, too! I was so happy!Hollyhocks in the snow.

Little orange flower

Cozy afternoon.

My Keens advertisement pic. LOL!

After church was an incredibly wonderful Thanksgiving potluck. I had turkey. I had mashed potatoes. I had sweet potatoes in yummy candy sauce. I had deviled eggs. Mmmmmm.... Then Mary and I went to her place and knitted while our friend Cindy S. and her children visited from the west side. Cindy used to come to our Monday Night Knitters group, but her husband got a great job with the railroad and they had to move to the west side of the Cascades. It was great to see her and her two children. Jubal was quite excited to have a playmate this afternoon.

Right now I'm reading an incredible book called Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. The man is amazing in his truthfulness and humility. I'll talk more about this book when I finish it. If you haven't read it, get it, read it, and smile.

This upcoming week is a short week for me at work. Only three days. Yeah! That means much more time for more important things... like knitting, and creating Christmas presents, and digging out my ornaments and my Christmas tree. This is certainly my most favorite time of year. I can do without summer. And that terrible month they call February when I get depressed and spend money and time lying in a fake sun booth getting a tan.

Spinning Madness

On November 12, Mary T., Janelle from Janelle Knits, Wendy M., and I all piled our fiber, our wheels and our bodies into Mary's Suburban and headed for the beautiful countryside of Kittitas County. Was it the annual Veteran's Day Spin-In at the lovely log home of Terry Niles? Oh yes. Was there excellent food to be had? Yes, yes. (I will say, I hate nuts, especially walnuts, but the creamy pumpkin pie-thing was so incredibly delicious, I didn't care one bit that there were walnuts in it!) The gathering was a bit smaller than in the past, but it was a great time and I learned all kinds of amazing things about natural dyes, a subject of which I am in serious ignorance, and got to spend time with all my favorite people doing one of my favorite things.









Mary T. worked hard on her Bazaar Socks and finished the heel. Janelle spun some perfectly prepared and super bright "Pastels" from Louet Sales. The colors were so NOT pastel, though apparently that is the name of the colorway! LOL! Wendy brought her wheel, but instead worked on beading snowflakes for her Christmas stocking. I worked on some wool (that is all the information I have on the fiber content) that Janelle dyed. I spun half a bobbin, then Navajo plied it to see what it would end up looking like. I totally enjoyed it and the colors are going to be quite fun. I think I will knit legwarmers from it. I have a couple of pairs of legwarmers that I knit, but would like something bright and cheerful to wear.

This is some of the fiber that I was spinning.

This is what it looked like spun up.


This is the Barbie doll that presided over the spin in. The clothes were all dyed, spun and knitted by Terry Niles (whose vest appeared in Spin Off Magazine!). I love the little drop spindle!

In other news: Demon Hunter's new cd came out on the 7th and I was all excited to go pick it up at Fred Meyer. But when I got there, they had sold the last of them. I will have to wait until next pay day to get it. Darn! I have heard some of the songs and they are amazing! The message is what gets me. Always positive. Always looking upward toward God. And if you ever get a chance to check out Ryan and Don Clark's (the lead singer and guitarist for DH) business, Invisible Creature, you should. It's a graphic arts studio in Seattle that does covers for bands like Falling Up, Zao, He Is Legend, and Dead Poetic to name a few. Anyway, it's interesting and the art designs are awesome!

In other other news: I have fallen in love with the Flickr group wardrobe remix and have posted a few pics of some of my own remixes. Not only is it fun to see what kinds of things people are wearing out there, it's inspiring. Inspiring to my own wardrobe that is mostly Goodwill, handmade, or Old Navy (because ON is cheap and I have a card there.) and needs some fun and excitement as I move a bit away from my black phase. But also inspiring to my checkbook. I have found some incredibly expensive items recently at Goodwill: a Dale of Norway $400 sweater for $7.99, a 100% cashmere $200 sweater from Bloomingdales for 6.99, Doc Martens in nearly perfect condition for $4.99. I have always loved thrift store shopping, but always felt a little "orphan" like because of it. I have gotten over that for the most part because of living on my own with a minimal paycheck and having to pay rent, utilities and everything else myself, and because of awesome friends like Mary and Susan L. who encourage the 7:00 am Saturday rush to garage sales and keep their eyes open for the All You Can Stuff In a Bag for $3 sale at St. Vinnies. So anyway, here's a parting shot of my wardrobe remix for 11/14/2007. (Note the awesome bag that Matthew made for me for my birthday!)

Queen Mary of Ellensburg

It's true. Ellensburg has a queen. A Queen Mary T-. Long live the Queen! Hehehehehe... A find at the local bookstore, Jerrol's, has given both Mary and I a grin that was much needed. Especially the daintiness of the crown compared to the straightforwardness of the yellow market apron! LOL! In the '50s women did housekeeping in heels and pearls. Nowadays we've upgraded to Keens and crowns... :)

Speaking of Mrs. T-, she has been busy busy busy! Besides the homeschooling, collecting firewood out in the wilds of Kittitas County, and cooking up a storm (some flavorful AND beautiful edibles, I might add) she's been finding time to knit! The item she has just completed is so awesome, I might have to steal the pattern from her and knit one for myself. Not that I'm a die-hard Volkswagon fan. It's just that whole granola thing that makes me smile. Here is her seven year old modeling this killer hat.
Remember the Bazaar Socks I knit with the blue and brown Debbie Bliss yarn? Well, Mary fell in love with them and has decided to knit a pair also. She's using two shades of purple in Cascade 220 superwash. The result is subtle (as subtle as these purples can get) but very fun. (The colors are much brighter than my camera would capture. )What have I been up too? Well, I just finished the Cameo Capelet from Crystal Palace Yarns website. The colors are great, but I had to take it out and start over a couple of times to get the gauge right and to make it fit me the way I wanted. I hoped to use up all the yarn I spun to make it, but had a whole skein left over. So I knit a pair of matching wristwarmers to go with it. It's very comfortable and is warm without making me feel like I'm in a straight jacket, which some of the shrugs I've knit sort of feel like. EEK! Anyway, here are some pics of the FO (finished object).

I also just completed two scarves, one from some bulky buttery softy merino I spun like ages ago and a fun little scarf with a very big button from yarn I spun from a $1 grab-bag of random bumps of merino and CVM wool. I'm not posting pictures of them just yet. I'm working on a hat to go with them (another hat. Yes it is true). It's almost finished, but I wanted to show it all off together.

Recently I've subscribed to Interweave Knits newsletter, Knitting Daily. What I've noticed between it and several blogs is the prevalence of UFOs... No, not the kind that leave crop circles or fly across the corner of your vision simply to tease you into thinking you might have seen something. No, I'm talking about the ever-evil... UnFinishedObject. *sigh* Knitting Daily had the gall to create a poll asking about how many UFOs are hiding in baskets, closets, and under the beds of knitters worldwide. I decided, against any kind of proper judgment, to participate in this poll, I pulled out those abandoned articles and discovered I had only seven. Now I have only six because I felt somewhat guilty about that buttery merino scarf. I don't write about this to set any of you into a panic. I simply thought it odd how many other knitting bloggers were also peeking into their stashes of UFOs. Maybe it's just that time of year when we're indoors a bit more or we've been going through various hiding places to find our holiday gear to display and have had to go through our UFOs to reach it. I don't know. But there is my confession. Six castaways. I am certain that four of them will never reach completion since I cannibalized the yarn to finish them for various other projects. LOL! I refuse to commit to the other two, though one is supposed to be a Christmas gift this year.... Oh... Oops... Actually, I forgot about....

Metal Sunday

So I've finally recovered from the abundance of spin ins over the past couple of weeks and have settled into my new wheel. I've discovered some quirks about it and had to get out my tool set to tweek it a little here and adjust it a little there. Now I'm spinning some lace weight camel/tussah silk blend on it and it's so glorious! The other gloriousness is that it is finally officially fall. The leaves have turned and are falling, the sun is going down far sooner than it once did and frost has covered my car every morning for the last week. But the thing that makes it most official is that I've gone down into the basement and have turned off the outside water. Yes. That is the first true sign that summer has gone! LOL! As I was walking around Mary's house on my way to work, I saw a sunflower that was just giving up on the blooming season. Its petals hanging down, I couldn't help but think it was weeping. And I couldn't help but take a photo of it.

I have finished spinning the Goldhill from Lorna's Laces. I started knitting the Cameo Cabled Capelet from Crystal Palace Yarns, but wanted the stitches to be tighter, so I used a smaller needle. And after nearly getting halfway through, I realized that the capelet was going to be far too small, so I took it all out today and have put it aside until the other items I'm working on have been finished. Or not. This yarn is so wonderful and so perfect for this time of year, I may have to get working on it again pretty quick.

The other items I've been plugging away at have been the Lacy Hug-Me-Tight from knit2together, a great book that I may have to purchase here shortly. I'm actually using the yarn it calls for, AlpacaSilk from Blue Sky Alpacas, only I'm using a pinky/red color (#123) instead of the blush color the pattern calls for. I actually swatched this one (yes, it is true, though I had knit about 3 inches before I decided it wasn't looking right and needed a swatch!) and discovered that if I used the needle size recommended I would be getting about 30 stitches to 4 inches instead of 20. So I bumped up the needle size. Now it actually looks like what the model is wearing! Yeah!

In other news, it was my birthday today. Yeah. Or something. Mary T. gave me one of her Longaberger baskets! A little tiny one that hangs off my wheel. I can put all my little goodies in there and not loose them as I've been known to do quite often! My dad and stepmom came over and went to church with me this morning and then took me to El Caporal, the local Mexican restaurant. It was a great time! And I got a call from my brother and my mom and Matthew and an email from my online friend Khalid, all wishing me a happy day.

And it was a good day. I have been listening to some of Demon Hunter's new songs, enjoying the sound of their album, Storming the Gates of Hell, that will be released in a few weeks. Right now I'm listening to Pillar. Though I haven't like much of their older stuff, their song Frontline totally grabs hold of me and makes me jump around like a crazy woman. LOL!

I spent some time while I have been cleaning house, decorating it as well. I bought a cute little Christmas tree at a yard sale over the summer and love it so much, I've kept it out. I decorated it with some garland I made from some tags and various buttons and ribbon and hemp and wound that around the tree. Then I pulled out my airy orange ribbon that I bought from Meadowlark Farms and draped that around the tree. The effect is wonderful and I find myself enjoying it as much as I would if it were decorated with Christmas ornaments and tinsel.

The Fall 2007 Spin In

Two Spin Ins in one week! Aaaahhhh!!! I thought I'd be stressed. I thought I'd be psychotic. I thought I'd be overwhelmed... But no. It was a BLAST! And it wasn't stressful at all. I was in charge of the decorations and making sure there were name cards on each table and for each kind of soup and for the coffee. Though I got very little sleep, I had a great time coming up with fun ideas and using my computer and rubber stamps.


So, we had six vendors, all bringing something entirely different from the others. I really enjoyed the eclectic style of Janelle's booth and went back several times to find more things. And she bought my lovely Ashford Traveller for $350, which paid for the Schacht I bought last weekend. And she sold her Ashford Traditional for $3oo so she could pay for my wheel! How 'bout that for confusing. Mary T. also sold a wheel this weekend. A Louet for $150. Yeah!

We also had a couple of ladies from Rowan Tree Woolery who brought a ton of roving of various kinds as well as necessities like lavender scented spinning wheel oil and a stack of various sized knitting needles. Karen Dodson brought her stash of Ashford items, from looms to wheels to combs to dye kits. She also brought one of those newfangled picture frames that scrolls through your digital pics. On display was her trip to Norway. Yes. I drooled. I envied. Another lady brought some loom parts and pieces that you don't normally find just lying around. I loved her bundles of heddles and took several pictures of them just because. Ace Fields in Thorp brought her Mill Race Farms soap that she makes out at her house. She also brought more squash than I've ever seen in one spot as well as some great old issues of Interweave Press' Spin Off and Handwoven magazines. Another lady brought her weavings. After viewing them, I decided it's time to dust off my table loom and get back in the game! I have only woven a few things because the entire process scares me. But I plan to spend some time this winter, as it gets cold and icy out, warping it up and getting those weaving jitters out.

Mary T. bought some beautiful forest green wool and some handpainted roving of fun bright colors to go with it. She will be spinning on that shortly and plans to make a fair isle shrug, using the green for the background color and the handpaint for the design work. It will be beautiful! I bought way too much stuff. I got 1.5 pounds of some teal/blue/aquamarine roving that is from an animal called a Potluck. I can't remember if it is a sheep or a goat, but the wool is a gorgeous color and I plan to knit a sweater from one of the Noro books. I also bought another Lorna's Laces Wool Top for Spinning. This time I got Tuscany. It's the same colors as the Goldhill, but instead of pink, there's blue. LOL! I didn't realize that until I put them side by side. Hehehe... I also bought some camel down/tussah silk blended fiber that looks amazing. We'll see if I can actually spin it or not. And I got some of that sparkly StarFire stuff just to see what it looks like spun up.

You thought that was all huh? Well guess what? I got more! I bought some space dyed alpaca and some other space dyed wool roving from Janelle. She does such an amazing job dyeing her wool! I also got some angora top, some handmade paper, and a beautiful knitted wire bracelet with beads.

We also had FOOD! A Soup Potluck that had some of the best soup and other fun goodies I've ever had. Whoever brought the little scones...those were delicious! And the pea and ham salad was excellent. Mary made her famous Cheesy Corn Chowder. Yummy!
We also had Door Prizes and a Raffle Basket. Everyone won a door prize, and the leftover items were open to whoever wanted to haul them away when the spin in was over. Lynette Miller won the Raffle Basket and Janelle's mother won a bag of Columbia fleece to be processed and enjoyed.









Thank all of you who came and supported this Spin In! You were all lovely and I had a super great time just hanging out with you all!

Eastward Ho!!! The St. John Spin-In

7:30 am: Mary T. and I started out for the far reaches of Eastern Washington. The area was foggy... So much so, we couldn't see anything around us. The only variation was the shift in colors of the fog, from gray to pink to green to peach. Then we came up over the hills and was greeted by a beautiful blue sky and the sun.

Once we passed Moses Lake and hit the long stretches of wheat and hay fields, we started to see the enormous old barns of a time that is quickly receding into the past. This red barn was still in good repair, though unfortunately most had been left to the decaying forces of wind, weather, and time. When we reached the Palouse, an area of Washington and Idaho that truly surpasses even the beauty of the mountains for me. The rolling hills of bright green, rusty orange, dusty tan, and dark brown don't roll out as far as the eye can see, but hem you in closely, their velvety textures inviting glorious peace. As we passed Ritzville and turned at Sprague to head south to St. John, we passed this round barn. We swerved off the road to get a few pictures of this rarity. The barn was run-down, yet still functional. Two others stopped to "help" us out, assuming we were broke down. One lady was actually going to the same place we were going! By this time, the early morning rise, the lack of coffee and the the bright sun in my eyes most of the morning had converged into a headache and I was quite frightened that I would be entirely unable to enjoy myself.

9:30 We finally reached St. John. As we cruised through town, I spied a food mart, guaranteed to carry at least bottled coffee if not the desirable freshly made kind. As I found the goodness, the cashier, seeing my rather pitiful state, informed me that I could find some "real coffee" at the floral shop two doors down. "Are they open?" I asked, astonished really to find anything open at all in this little town. "Oh, yes," the cashier replied. "Jessica's already been over this morning." I bought the bottled Starbucks anyway, then rushed out the door and quickly told Mary T. that I was going to the floral shop. She followed me over and what I found was a glorious little shop with even more glorious coffee. Once I got my fix, we headed back to the car and I snapped this pic of the General Mills building. I would have liked to have spent the day just taking photographs, LOL! But there was spinning to do!


10:15 Mary T. and I finally reached our destination and hauled our piles into the old schoolhouse. There were already plenty of people there and plenty of food to save us from our two hour drive. The first thing I saw when I walked in was a Schacht Matchless Wheel for sale. For $250.00. I immediately wanted to buy it, but assumed something was vastly wrong with it, so I ignored it the rest of the morning. I perused the other vendors and found a great many things I loved, but nothing I really needed, so I set up my Ashford and started to spin some Lorna's Laces in Goldhill that I had gotten at the local yarn shop, The Dancing Ewe. In between spinning strips, I visited the food table and worked my way through the vendors a few more times. Another lady began to try to spin on the Schacht and looked to be having some serious problems. Finally I went over and asked if I could help. I was able to figure out the problem, a bobbin that was sticking and not allowing the yarn to pull in. Mary T. then came by, fixed it and I turned to the woman selling it and said, "Will you take $200?" The lady nodded her head and I walked away with a Schacht Matchless Wheel, three bobbins, and a lazy kate for $200.00. Other than that, I bought some bits of fleece fore four bucks, some weaving yarn on cones for $2.00 and 10 beautiful handmade cards for $1.00. Not a bad haul, though quite a bit more than I had anticipated spending.



Besides spinning and chatting and shopping, there were some very cute and cuddly baby angora bunnies there for purchase. Though I probably spent as much time playing with them as I did spinning and taking pictures, I did not buy any. Whew! It was tough to leave them there, but given Gus' "one pet only" disposition, I feel that I had made the right choice.