June 29, 2009
Jim Bowie Days
This weekend we went to the Jim Bowie Days festival... was fun... Friday night, I sat down to read the shopper & was reading about the upcoming Quilt show on Saturday... Friday night. It mentioned needlework categories and one of them was knitting... panic was beginning to set in... KNITTING?? ARGH, it's too late to CALL them about it... do I have anything finished? The bookmarks, yeah, I'll block them & then in the morning I'll pick up some needlepoint needles to tuck in the ends...
By 9:30, we were at the quilt show and they were thrilled to have another entry & they gave me my own category: Lace Knitting... very cool...they were cool about my having to tuck the ends in & mount the pieces, especially since I said I found out about the event at 11pm the night before... here are the bookmarks:
I also won a tshirt from KNTX radio (spun the roulette wheel & got an even number, 40)... also someone was giving out mouse pads & yesterday one of them was screaming at me to decorate it with sharpie markers... so I did... fun. Will get pics of that another time...
Today we were supposed to go & pick up some building materials, but when we walked out the door a little after 8, it looked like someone was pouring buckets out from the sky... so we'll have to go another time...
June 23, 2009
A blank page full of photos & a Contest!
Last night Gary helped me make a Low-D water pipe whistle & it came out decent. I figure I'll need to get comfortable with it since it's more of a stretch than a smaller whistle...
Here it is next to the smaller, higher pitched whistle modelled by Jellybean & Sonic:
Here's a closeup of the mouthpieces:
The Low D mouthpiece still needs a little work to make it look better, but it works...
The Low D was made from a 3/4" hot-cold water CPVC pipe and the Soprano D was made from a 1/2" CPVC pipe... the wooden fipple was poplar dowel... had to sand them down to make them fit in the hole...
Got all the materials from Lowes.. including the following tool:
Also used a hacksaw, sandpaper, metal file, measuring tape, ruler, marker, pencil & a pocketknife...borrowed Gary's for the initial hole cuts & then used a smaller one to carve out the holes...
Tapestry Weaving
May be able to do a bit of tapestry! Got this wonderful beater in the mail yesterday:
Sorry about the blurry photo: I probably should have gotten someone else to hold the camera as it's not easy to hold something in one hand while photographing it with the other!
Just need to wind up some of the Briggs & Little Regal yarn so that I have colors... will do something like this for the first piece that I do:
Then I'll do some other stuff, maybe cats, or some other ideas I have...!
For the warp, I'm using Briggs & Little Durasport. Wish they had a finer 2 ply with nylon... guess I'll get some Navajo warp, I liked it!
CONTEST!!
A few days ago we had this for dinner:
It was yummy... it's gone now! Can you guess what it is? email me with your answer ... winner gets a copy of one of the Cottage Creations patterns in stock, my choice! If a lot of people get it right, I'll use one of those random drawing thingies to pick a winner!
Gonna keep comments closed until the contest is over (Tuesday June 30th at noon CST)...
And heeeere's Toph & Puzzler modelling their wonderful collars made by Sew Crazy Dog Lady They are VERY well made!
Here's Jellybean relaxing on Gary's keyboard:
I feel a nap coming on....
June 16, 2009
Promised Photos
Here is a photo of the tapestry loom I made... I put a warp on it & was going to weave a bit more than what is shown when I realized I don't have a beater.. might have one in storage, but I'd like to try out some new ones!
Here are my socks in progress:
2 socks on a 40" circular needle... I tried 47" but that gets a bit unwieldy, so I got a 40 and I like it...
Here's a closeup. I think the pattern is lost on this color yarn, but I want to do something interesting besides just knit until the cows come home (or until I get to the heel, which I'm guessing is roughly another 20 rounds), so I'm doing the Knitty Spring Fling stitch pattern on these socks:
I used a coat hanger for a "sock blocker" here to show the stitch pattern... it's a bit bendy...
More another time! :)
June 15, 2009
Wild Moth about a month ago
We had a wild moth (I think it's a wild silk moth?) here about a month ago:
I remembered this when I saw a moth posted on this blog Not sure if it's the same type of moth or not, but they're sure pretty...
BUT STAY AWAY FROM MY YARN & FIBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gonna go take some photos of the loom, socks in progress, etc., for my next entry....
PVC pipe loom
So yesterday I picked up some PVC pipe to make a small tapestry weaving loom or 2, threaded rods for it... I made the loom with Gary & Micah's help... Gary & Micah cut the PVC pipe and Gary cut the threaded rod & I assembled the loom. It's the size of a legal pad (but thicker)... we'll see if I like that size. I'm thinking: wider & shorter... whatever would give me good postcard/ACEO card sizes... photos another time as I'm getting pretty sleepy.
Will eventually make some looms in copper, but am using the PVC pupe as prototypes to see what sizes I like. I do miss the looms Gary built as Tornadowood prototypes, but we still have the jigs, so that is good... if we ever replace the tools or borrow someone's woodshop, I may have more... but the Tornadowood looms don't hold the warp as tightly as the copper looms will.. but I still loved weaving on Gary's looms...
Looks like I may be looking for a new tapestry beater. I may still have one in storage by Snipes.. I had 2: one was a little narrower than the other, 4 or 5 tines vs 7... both are great for the small size I work with. I've been googling & Finniwig is one possibility or Crafts by Patricia... or maybe another Snipes. I did email the gal who I bought my Hagen Tapestry loom from in 2005: she sent along a small but WONDERFUL tapestry beater & maybe she knows where I can get another similar one... also I emailed a couple of other woodworkers I know...
Also I'll want to come up with some new yarns that i'll like for tapestry. I'm thinking that I liked the stuff that Brown Sheep had for needlepoint... hmm... will play with the Briggs & Little Regal that I have for now, plus I DID see some needlepoint (wool/tapestry) yarn in storage, so may use it for stuff... (but I'm wondering what on EARTh possessed me NOT to get the Yellow & light green Regal colors. Who knows!
Music/Pennywhistles
I also bought some PVC pipe to make pennywhistles, as well as tools, etc., to make them. The CPVC pipes I got for whistles is actually hot/cold water pipes & have thinner walls than regular PVC pipe. Next time I go to Lowes, I'll see if they have electric conduit pipe. Also got some dowels to use for the mouthpiece. Am probably going to follow these instructions to make the PVC pipe whistles. His low D whistle sounds pretty good... just listen to the clips near the bottom of that page.
Home stuff
We're still trying to figure things out... need to finish up the loan application & also see what options there are for rebuilding or relocating... I'd love to be able to live closer to my family, but the east coast is ridiculously expensive as far as land values go... we'll have to see about job prospects up there, or/and the possibility of opening up a yarn shop...
May 30, 2009
Yarn Harlot in Texas #2
Yesterday was pretty neat...Harrison & I rode along with Gina & got to meet a couple of LSSK folks and also Melanie of Mystery Stole/Pink Lemon Twist fame was there... that was awesome! There were Ravelry folks there as well...
Photos!
Gina, Harrison, Moi & Stephanie
I worked on these socks while Stephanie spoke to the group:
One quarter of the knitting is an easy patterned section... for a good part of the time, I was fighting with one of the sections because the count wasn't coming out right... it's from this pattern It IS pretty easy, just needs a few seconds of concentration & also gotta make sure you're doing the k1-YO-k1 and ssk-k2tog at the RIGHT TIME & right place since you do one round of it where the k1-YO-k1 comes first & another where ssk-k2tog comes first...
May 29, 2009
Yarn Harlot in Texas
I'm looking forward to seeing Stephanie Pearl McPhee in Plano, TX tonite... I'm meeting another knitter & we'll head on over. Should be fun! (Plus I'll get a copy of Stephanie's latest book Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again)
Today we'll return the computer we rented (NOT this one!!) and the hard drive for Gary's computer should be here... hopefully the adapter for it will be here as well. He also ordered a parallel port so that we can use one of the printers we have...
Yesterday I went to a drama class party where we viewed the DVD for Robin Hood. I got a copy of the DVD as well as the photos from the play. I'll be posting some of them soon.
Looks like we won't find the other 4 cats... I go over to the other place every so often to see if any of them show up. Wednesday I stopped by to bring my bike over here & none of them showed up... so I guess the 4 we found is it..
On the knitting front, I'm making bookmarks, dishcloths & socks... the dishcloth in progress is super easy, the bookmark in progress is "shut up I'm concentrating" and the socks have an easy pattern 1/4th of the time and the other 4th of the time, it's plain stockinette...
Nuffernow!
May 20, 2009
Back online, finally...
...although I will still have to go to the library to use their computers so I can print shipping labels & packing slips. No biggie, I've got some printer ink on the way and we'll see if that helps with the printers we have here...
It's been an interesting few weeks... losing our house is almost bizarre. I miss the things that we lost but some of them are replaceable, some aren't. Those things I'll just remember.
I've been working on replacing my pattern stock, and now I have plenty of Cottage Creations patterns, a few Bear Brain patterns & a few 2 Old bag patterns... I have some SpinCraft patterns on the way as well as some more Briggs & Little patterns. I don't have any Patons patterns, but will be working on restocking them.
Yarn, we'll see... I'll dye some & will take pictures & post them...
Right now, we're staying in a mobile home owned by our neighbors at the place where our house used to be.
There are more photos on my Flickr page
Here is an photo from this article with a photo of Gary & 2 of the boys with one of the older ones in the background:
The only structure on our property that survived was the rock shed.. it's got room for a crib, and old peg perego twin stroller (the front back type) and 2 or 3 bicycles and a couple of fishtank stands.
It's late, I'm tired, so I'll write more another time!
April 30, 2009
Texas Wildfires
Just a quick update to let everyone know that we lost our house on April 9th when the Texas Wildfires blew through our town... everyone is okay and we took the dogs with us, found half the cats & we're currently staying at a mobile home owned by our neighbors.
We're still sorting out all our options & want ALL our customers to know that we will be filling orders as best as we can (and we're currently in the process of getting our new computer set up with the internet so that we don't have to rely on the library for email, shipping labels & such)...
Thanks to all who have been so incredibly generous with help & such... some of you have asked for a list of needs & every time I start to write one, I find that some of the funds that have been given to us are meant to cover some of the things listed... also, since we still don't know what exactly we'll be doing regarding rebuilding, we don't know what we'll need... we'll get it all figured out!!
If you've ordered something and have not heard back from me, please please PLEASE write to this email address to let me know! It will not bother me, in fact it will bother me more if I go through my paypal orders & click on "check shipment" and find that your order has not arrived, so let me know!!
Cheers!!
Jessica
April 02, 2009
yarn & such
I've put some of the yarn that I have on hand up for sale:
Softspun in espresso (several skeins) $5.25/skein (normally $58 for a 10-pack)
Atlantic in scarlet (a light red, almost orange) (several skeins) $4.25/skein
Random skeins of fewer than 5 colors $4/skein for these:
I have a few skeins of Red Atlantic in different dye lots
Violet Atlantic (2 or 3 skeins)
Light Maroon Atlantic (1 or 2 skeins)
Rust Heritage (5 or 6 skeins)...
Plus shipping!
Heritage & Atlantic are normally $4.80 for a 10 pack or $5.30/skein.
Email me at this email address if you're interested in any of these yarns!
Puppy Kindergarten
I've signed Pixel up for Puppy kindergarten. The classes start on Tuesday 4/7. The first class is for humans only, no pooches. I thought about bringing Toph, but when I spoke to the trainer a few days ago, she said that I could bring 1 dog and then go home & work with the others based on what I learn.
We've been having some problems with her with aggression toward the puppies, and we haven't yet figured out a pattern. She plays REALLY well with them & is eve gentle with them during play time.
Sometimes it's over a bit of food that falls on the floor, sometimes we can't figure out what started it. Most of the time it's one of the girls (Ruthie or Puzzler or Goldie) but she has attacked YinYang a time or two and maybe Toph.
I talked to the trainer about it a few days ago & as best as we can tell is she was removed from her litter too soon. I was told that the puppies were 8 weeks old when we first got them, but I'm thinking now that they were closer to 6 weeks.
Basically when she picks a fight with a puppy, it doesn't look like she's going to stop, not even after one of the puppies rolls over in a submissive position... so we have to pull her off (not safe!) and then we put her in puppy bed (her crate).
One good thing: over the weekend, she got into a fight with Theresa & Pixel rolled over & I don't remember having seen her pick any fights since then. I'm HOPING that helped!
Hopefullly dog training will help as well.
Knitting!
I'm almost done with the Rogue hem & would like to toss some additional color on a few skeins of the Fern Green yarn that I'm using so that it'll come out subtly variegated...
I'm also working on a headband or hat... if you are a Ravelry member, you'll be able to see this page
And whenever my Pony Pearl sock needles get here, I'll start a pair of socks. My sampler sock project bag went missing & it has not turned up. I really really hope that the puppies have not made off with it & ruined the project!!
Robin Hood Play
The time of the play is getting closer & closer. It's in May. We're getting Harrison & Reuven's costumes together. I need to dye Harrison's fabric, probably will do it today or tomorrow...
Nuffernow! No photos today, maybe next time! :)
