Rambling Warps

Finished & ready for a winter project

I finished the Hunt Valley scarf last night, got all of the main knitting done & all that needs doing now is to weave in the ends and wash and send off. I'll be taking photos of it before I send it off. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good picture of the lace patterning...

It was a fun project: first I had to figure out how many stitches to cast on to use up all the yarn and still have about a 40 inch scarf...the original cast on would have made a scarf around 48 inches long and that's a little long for a "neck scarf"...so I cast on 8 more stitches and have about a 40-42 inch scarf... I did have to do a bit of frogging... the pattern is a 10 stitch repeat, 6 rows of garter and 4 rows of lace patterning and every so often I would mess up with the lace patterning and would rip back to the last row of garter and go back up again. My last frogging was because of a dropped stitch that I couldn't pick up... oh I could pick it up, but it just didn't look right, so out went 10 rows... but now it is done and I am left with about 10 to 15 yards of yarn, just enough for a swatch... this was 2 ply yarn on size 4 needles...

Now I can think about other projects... I need to have at least one knitting project in progress besides just socks and I was toying with the idea of doing something with a cone of chunky Donegal Tweed yarn (I think it's Rowan: it's from the Samuel Lumb mills when Fleece Artist had that wild yarn sale)... but then I thought "What About Rogue??" SO I think I will gather everything I need for Rogue, and see if I can remember which size needles I used for the swatches & maybe do another quick swatch as a sort of warm up...

I also have to decide which color to make. I have a choice between purple (kind of a darkish purple), teal, milk chocolate or oatmeal... I probably will make purple or teal, but we'll see.

I'll take pictures later, I didn't want to use the "but I need to take some pictures" excuse for not writing a blog entry today.

Blog entries

Which brings me to: I don't write enough blog entries... but I decided that I will try to do at least one post every week. I can't promise which day, but if you pick a day to check my blog once a week, you'll probably see a new entry!

Crochet Projects

I did a little work on my crocheting, am still working on that hat that I showed you last week, the variegated yarn. I have not been working on it consistently, otherwise it might have been done by now. I'm also not entirely sure it is the right size, but need to get past the ears and see how it fits at that point.

I also started a pair of crocheted socks, am using a pattern from South Bay Crochetbut I may try another idea for the toe... don't know if I have enough know how yet about crochet to figure out a pattern of my own... I like the idea of doing toe up socks or at the very least starting from the ball of the foot and working UP to the cuff so that I can control my yarn supply better...

I don't spend very much time crocheting because I can't watch TV while crocheting, can't hold much of a conversation with anyone like I can with knitting... I don't usually have to watch what I'm doing when I'm knitting and I know with Rogue, I'll be working my way through stockinette sections and then I can say "excuse me a moment while I work this cable" and then I'm back in the conversation... or can put the knitting down until the commercial break... easy enough...

Anyway, when I finally do post photos, I'll show you pictures of the scarf, my bag on a box tapestry and the practice piece I'm working on... and will also be sure to show you a picture of Yoda! She has gotten chunky! We don't know why after 4 years of being on this planet, her body finally decided to blimp out... she looks MUCH much healthier, but gosh is she heavy for her size.. but looks great.

Opus is getting along well with everyone, even Dumbledore sat on my lap when Opus was sitting next to me...without hissing or pretending to be twice his size!

Have a nice day and I hope everyone is safe, especially given the crazy Hurricane season we've been having!

obsessions

On the way home from the art guild meeting, I was thinking about obsession... obsession about a project... when I was in college, there were some people who would totally throw themselves into their art...totally. I remember a conversation with one girl who said her boyfriends never understood it, so she ended up ending relationships over it... I never was that way, at least not for days and weeks and months on end... I might get totally wrapped up in a project to try to finish it, and would be obsessed for that time, but it wasn't my life's work... I never could concentrate on just one thing, always had to try several different things & there's just no time for that... one woman at the meeting said that she didn't have time for any new crafts, and I totally understood her...

I also got to thinking about how I might see something I really like and decide that I'm going to do it... may not be Right Now, but maybe someday... like about 10 years ago, I bought Bernard Poulin's 1st Colored Pencil workbook... I just recently worked through it... and just a few weeks I worked through it. Why didn't I want to do it when I first bought the workbook set? I just wasn't ready... now I want to learn lots more about Colored Pencil besides just what was in this workbook... I now have about 4 or 5 colored pencil books and plan to do a few pieces from Ann Kullberg's Soft Realism... and I recently ordered a book on colored pencil portraits by Vera Curnow... should have it in about a week or two...

SO right now, my obsession is colored pencil drawing (some call it painting, and I can understand why!) and crocheting...

Crochet projects

I still have not finished the hat that I showed a picture of a couple of days ago, but it's pretty close to being finished, although there's a small chance I may want to rip back and add a couple more stitches closer to the crown, but we'll see when I get another inch or two done.

I'm also going to try crocheted socks & see if it's any faster than knitting socks.

Dog & Cat news

I need to try to get a good picture of Yoda soon... she's gotten quite rotund lately and we're talking about putting her on a diet... we're not sure how because we have 5 other cats who are reasonably trim...Yoda does not need the extra weight because she has enough balance problems as it is... not sure what we'll do.

Opus is doing great...he's made himself at home and seems reasonably happy with us... he has gotten into some trouble with chewing and housebreaking, and is a bit of a picky eater (which makes housebreaking even more of a challenge since I can't count on him to eat his food and be done with it in 30 minutes or less so we can go out & do business... he's doing well with his commands, and I think he has a neutral temperament... I finally caught him in the act of pooping in the house, but unfortunately at that exact moment I was on the phone and couldn't get off.. arrrgh!

Time for bed... perhaps there will be pictures next time, but y'all know I'm not super fond of the photo upload process...oh well!

Rosh Hashana

I might have posted sooner, except I got busy with Rosh Hashana, kept the kids home for one day to observe the holiday and we went out to the pond for the Tashlich ceremony... threw bread crumbs into the pond, and read the a couple of passages from Torah and then had some honey on apples afterwards...

La Shana Tova to all & a sweet New Year!

Been working on my beanie hat, the one that I showed pictures of in my last blog entry... I don't understand how Laura (Croshay Design) does at least 3 hats in one day... I can barely do one in 2 week's time! Maybe it's because I'm still learning and maybe it's because I still have not developed the skill of watching TV or reading a book while doing a ridiculously simple/mindless pattern... I have to look at what I'm doing while crocheting, at least for the time being. I can't even knit a similar beanie in a day's time, but then I'm the turtle knitter... I just go in a slow meditative pace when I knit... I crochet a bit faster, but still...

Been practicing some stuff from Ann Kullberg's Soft Realism... colored pencils... I can understand now why many folks call it painting with colored pencils as opposed to drawing...

No photos today, but I told Gary that we need to fix the scanner: drawings would look SO much better scanned than photographed...

Have a wonderful remainder of the weekend!

My poor neglected blog

I've been taking pictures and working on projects, but I forgot to post... oops.

Our puppy's name is Opus and here is a recent photo of him:

Doesn't he look like he's wearing a ripped black sweater? Them's his markings! I thing they're cool...

I think he's an amazing dog: he learns really well, is good with the kids & gets concerned if we have a confrontation with one of them, but is learning that is the way life is... he's getting better with his commands and is a pleasure to walk & run with & is "weaving" around my legs less and less...potty training is a slight challenge: we just need to keep him from having access to the whole house! Dumbledore is finally starting to come around and accept Opus as less of a threat.

Anyway, here's the beanie hat I've been working on:

And the tug-toy for Opus:

It is longer now! I'll take another picture before felting and another before letting the pooch have it!

Auctions I posted

I've posted a few things on Art By Us which you can find by doing an advanced search for seller PatchWGirl at this link.

I have not posted Indigo Cat II on that auction site. I want to finish up a couple of other things and try posting them on eBay... here is Indigo Cat II:

The paper IS white... I had a horrible time getting a decent picture of this piece... I tried different angles, often taking 3 or 4 pictures in each spot, with AND without the flash, and finally the one above photo of Indigo Cat 2 in my gravel driveway showed the image properly... here's an example of the results I was getting:

While most of the US is starting school this week, we're almost finished with our first 6 weeks and should soon be getting notes home from the teacher to schedule the first parent-teacher meetings...this still seems weird! Yesterday Gary said that they said something on the news about condensing the school year so that school will begin after Labor Day... I've got mixed feelings about this: on one hand, I love having a longer vacation in December: we may be able to consider visiting my family in New York, but on the other hand, 2 months in June & July is awfully short.

I hope everyone who is anywhere near any hurricane threats is staying good & safe! If you lost your power, I hope you remembered to check your refrigerators, especially your freezers!!

We didn't get to do a brisket in the smoker this Labor Day as we had planned: our refrigerator isn't working properly: at the moment, we only have a freezer... so I leave you with a photo of Liberty instead of a beautiful smoked brisket:

Time to walk, water & feed the dog & check the news...