Cry Baby

Today I finally snapped. I had been holding in all the stress from the week's nightmarish events but this morning right after finishing a lovely breakfast on the deck the waterworks began.



When I got up, I was so excited over it being a "sock" morning. I dug out my favorite pair of old handknits and settled in for some quiet knitting but I found myself overcome with emotions and feelings of grief.



Even hiding away in my mosquito proof nook with a pot of tea and my lace project didn't help. I blubbered all damn day over every little thing. It's been too much. Too, too much.

Water, Water Everywhere...

I was prepared to post about how miserable it was without water today. Isabelle left us without power for an entire week and we were resigned to it but thanks to the wonderful BG&E electric crews it wasn't necessary. I still want to share a photo of what was to serve as our water supply. At least this came from the spigot before the storm. After Isabelle, I had to haul water out of the creek.



I didn't knit a stitch today. I cleaned house all day. The place looked like a hurricane hit it. There were as many leaves inside as out. Number Two Son showed up here for a visit this afternoon and he cooked a much appreciated dinner of roasted veggies over couscous. The night of the storm I ate a bag of strawberry Twizzlers while sitting in a dark closet waiting to meet my maker. Last night we ate Papa John's pizza in the dark so a real meal was very welcome. The best part is that I have water to wash all the dishes in. Water is such a wonderful thing.

Goodnight Irene!

24 hours after the storm the lights are finally back on. Last night, I was wrapped in my prayer shawl knitting by candle light trying to block out the terrifying sounds of the trees being thrown to the ground by the monster winds. It was a horrible night with 5 cats, 2 dogs and a parrot all stuffed into the basement listening to the howling of that horrible wind. No one got any sleep.



Until the power came on a few minutes ago, this is what my world looked like. Without power, we also have no water so a day without toilets is a very long day.



I was very anxious for the sun to come up in order to see what all the crashing and banging was about. I knew it wouldn't be good. My deck was a disaster.



Even worse, we lost a lot of trees including two of my beautiful silver birches.



That was my picnic table and bench. Both goners under the huge black walnut that crushed them. It just missed the house. That was my last black walnut. I lost one to Isabelle and now the last one to Irene. No more walnut dye. I am very sad about that.



The outside kitty houses got mangled. All but one kitty was inside the house for the duration much to their unhappiness. The mommy cat couldn't be coaxed in. I was frantic with worry. We didn't see a sign of her all day but happily tonight she showed up for dinner. She seemed a bit skittish but otherwise fine.



Everything is covered in leaves. It looks like a green blizzard.



The leaves are all still attached to branches which makes cleaning them up very hard. I'm not complaining though-we still have a roof.

One Bobbin Wonder

I just noticed that I have a lot of this one-bobbin thing going on around here. It seems I get all gung ho about a spinning project and then too often forget about it and go on to something else.



This Shetland is lovely. I washed and dyed it myself and then abandoned it.



Princess Kate has got to be ready for next year's Sheep and Wool Fest but the panic won't set in until February. Then I'll spin up a storm.



I spent more time cranking out this crazy batt then I did spinning it.



Then there are the spindles that never even got that far. I started this project on my way home from Rhinebeck. In 2009.



I can tell you the projects that I had in mind when I started these two but it really doesn't matter anymore.



How long do singles have to stay on a spindle before you are allowed to just wind it off and move on?

You may wonder, when we just had a monster hurricane tear through town, why I am going on about spindles. This is a pre-post. I am probably still hiding in the downstair's closet weeping as you read this so I have written this post in advance just in case we lose power (I lose my mind) for a few days (weeks).

Quakes, Hurricanes and Now This!

There is nothing worse than running out of yarn when you are warping a loom. No matter how much yarn I think I have, it is never enough. My knitter brain can't think in weaver terms just yet. A three skeins is a lot of yarn-until you stretch it out all over the house. I had to tie off what I had and now wait until I can take a trip into town to buy more of this stuff. In the meantime, the cats think I just invented a new toy for them. This is not looking good.

Fresh Figs

Right before all the ground shaking excitement on Tuesday, I was in the garden putting in some fall plants and enjoying a snack off of my fig tree.



Usually I am back at work by now and I miss fig season. I managed to make jam every year but rarely got to just enjoy picking figs and eating them right off the tree.



It's the only way to way to eat them.
They change so quickly once they are picked. I have never tried drying them but now that I have the time, I need to figure it out before the squirrels or the hurricane make off with the last of them.

Lucky Me!

I won a free pattern from Wandering Cat Studio!
I had admired her new Dalhousie mitt pattern and my comment was one of the ones selected to receive a free pattern. It's been a long time since I have treated myself to some luxury yarn and as soon as I get next month's check, I'm heading over to her Etsy shop to pick up some to make myself a pair of these super cute mitts.

Note to Self: You also want her Magpie shawl pattern. Don't forget to also go pick that up over on Ravelry.

Rock and Roll

Excuse me Miss Araignee, what are you doing sitting in the driveway in the middle of the afternoon?



Knitting, of course.



Far away from the house and the giant trees that surround our house. I'm not going back in there.



Moments before, I was just sitting down with a nice cup of tea to take a knit break. The fish tank started to slosh. Stuff was hitting the floor. An evil rumble filled the house and my head.



Grab the old dog, grab the knitting and haul ass out the door then proceed to get completely hysterical. I needed someone to slap me. It was awful. It was horrible. It was, hopefully, my first and last earthquake.

Whew!

Me and my little 20 inch Ashford Knitters loom cranked out an 85 inch piece of material over the summer. This thing is huge! It is one of hopefully two or maybe even three panels in what might be a sort of throw type thing. I hesitate to say blanket because it is very lightweight. I used a cheapo acrylic because of the itch factor involved with having that much wool wrapped around my body. Besides, I couldn't even imagine how much it would cost to buy enough good wool to make something so big. Since I retired, I can't even afford enough to make a sweater.

I Lied

I said yesterday I was going to ply those singles after I finished another side of the dreaded shawl that shall not be named. I couldn't wait that long. I had to see what it would look like.



It made a very lovely but wildly variegated two ply. Now the really interesting part of all this is what it shall become. I am going to finish the turquoise and green socks with it. Yup. Just pick up with pink where I left off with green and then maybe dye a yellow/orange combination to finish with. It's probably going to look awful-but that's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

Something That it NOT a Big White Shawl

I have been knitting my fingers to the bone on that bleepity bleep Print O'the Wave monstrosity but from time to time I take a break and play with something else. I did finish the re-dyeing of the Corrie singles and they are really pink. I am going to ply them together in the very near future-as soon as I get the second side of the you-know-what done.

In Cold Sweat Part 3

Here is the grand finale of my horror movie trilogy. I am looking for one stitch that is MIA and happily I did find it later so my stitch count came out right. Thank goodness for happy endings.

In Cold Sweat Part 2

Even scarier stuff:

In Cold Sweat Part 1

There is no way I could show you how terrifying it was when I picked up all those edge stitches on the Print O'the Wave shawl in still photos so I made a few videos of the ordeal:

An Ugly Duckling

My Print O'the Wave Shawl looks awful now all bagged up on a circ. I had to pick up a trillion stitches and now I am knitting on an edging. I almost had an aneurysm trying to figure out how to make all that happen. It was awful.



I have to keep stretching it out to remind myself why I am spending so much time knitting on this ugly heap of yarn. I have to do it very carefully. I pulled it off the needles once doing this and DON'T want to do that again. I also put on some point protectors for the same reason. Those edge stitches want to jump right off every chance they get.

Re-Do

I did a terrible job at dyeing those singles. They are just too white.



I rewound them onto a longer paper tube.



And then rewound them again so the white parts would get the most dye.



I painted them good this time. Maybe too good. That's a lot of pink.

Dyeing More Singles

I've got two more spindles full of singles dyed. Now where is that sun when you need it to dry something?

A Race to Harvest

My giant fig tree has just begun to offer up some ripe fruit from the tippy top of its branches. Now it is a race to see who gets more-me or the ants. I've got the jam jars ready-so look out ants. I'm taking no prisoners.

I Have a Loom?

I do but I forget that I have it for months, even when it is loaded up with good stuff like this.



I had this plan to make several panels of the same size and then sew them together for a big throw so I was marking every 5 inches with pins to keep track of the size. I am getting pretty close to the end so I hope this sudden interest carries through to another warping session. And then another and another after that.

More Rainbow Jacob

I ran some of that technicolor Jacob through the carder. I layered on one color at a time trying not to blend it.



I split the batt in two and then in two again and pulled it into long ropes of roving.



I wound the roving into nests.



I got four good sized nests from the one batt and they are to be packed away for winter spinning. I plan on making a few more. Come January, if they don't cure my cabin fever nothing will.

Baa.....

The Jacob is dry. It may be bright but it still looks very sheepy to me.



It brings to mind a scene from Blow Dry, a weird little movie about a hair dresser that practiced coloring techniques on a herd of sheep. I'm sure that can't be good for them but think about how much more interesting a sheep to shawl contest would be.