Rambling Warps

Yarn for Sale

I have advertised some Briggs & Little yarns that I'm selling on a couple of sales email lists.... I still have a few left from this blog entry but have several more skeins of yarn on hand... I called them orphan yarns because they may be older dye lots... I will be updating the listing sometime over the weekend...

I also have a few cones of Jaggerspun yarn from this entry. Of these, I believe I still have a cone of Indigo & Brindle heather, hazelnut ragg & sagebrush ragg... as I go through my stash trying to make room, I'll list more things...

Knitting progress

I did NOT like the way the short row heel came out on the spring fling socks so I may be frogging them yet again... I'm thinking of doing Judy Gibson or Wendy Johnson's heel flap heel...OR may redo the short row heels and throwing in a pair of plain rows every few rows....the heel just isn't deep enough... maybe I should be working the heel on 2/3rd of the stitches instead of half? Words of wisdom, anyone?

ATCs from Imagination Tribe

Yesterday, my ATCs arrived for the Rubber Stamp ATC exchange... I got 9 wonderful cards & Evan gave me a couple of sheets of trading card sheets made for trading cards. I'll eventually get my own pack & need to make sure that they are archival quality!

Here are the cards I sent:

Random Spring Pictures

Fireants & a closeup:

Bluebonnets & some Indian Paintbrush
(but really I like to call them purplebonnets, they ARE more purple than they appear here....)

And my favorite wildflower, Evening Primrose:

That's all from here for now... if I think of something else, I'll write again! I close with a couple of words from Mister Jellybean:

Hi, I'm from another planet!

A book quiz

You're Ulysses!

by James Joyce

Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared
to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense. What people do
understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once
brilliant and repugnant. Meanwhile you are content to wander around aimlessly, taking in
the sights and sounds of the city. What you see is vast, almost limitless, and brings you
additional fame. When no one is looking, you dream of being a Greek folk hero.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Luna Moth in progress

At the moment, I'm working on the Luna Moth shawl..using Patons Decor in a variegated shade... I don't remember the name now but it's close to the tapestry shade but it's not it...the label is incorrect, says Hunt's Club but that's not the shade this yarn is...

Luna moth is a fun lace pattern... I joined the knitalong here and hope to have the shawl done & photographed by June 30th... I'm at the 2 go around with chart B and am half way through it with a little over 100 stitches on the needle.

Rubber stamp exchange

I got word from the host of the rubber stamp ATC exchange that she got my cards, YAY! I was getting a little worried that maybe they got lost in the mail, but at least I could have easily redone the cards, but would've hated to hold the exchange up. There's another exchange I may try to do: the famous artist ATC exchange... both of these are from the Imagination Tribe on yahoogroups... love that list!

A bird competition

I saw a bird competition on ebay that looks interesting... just type in birds aceo theme week and about 150 cards should come up.

Not much else from here... just wanted to check in!

A cool day in May

We get about one of these just about every May... a cool (or cooler than normal) day in May... I guess it's just mother nature's little treat before the hot weather kicks in... it's May 16th and we still have not installed the air conditioner... I came close to suggesting it a couple of days ago but the forecast showed highs for the 70s, so I kept my mouth shut about it...

I guess when it starts getting to the mid to upper 80s consistently with no cooler lows in the early mornings, it'll be time to put it in the window...

Why the big deal, why wait? Well... our last electric bill was delightful because we hardly used the heater...also, once the a/c is put in, we lose that window for cool breezes: even using the "fan" setting of the a/c doesn't seem to allow the cool breezes from outside in... so, as Tom Hanks said in the movie "The Terminal" "I Wait"... (in our case, We Wait)...

Creative stuff

Over the last few days, I made a couple more rubber stamps, a pitcher in 2 sizes, a dragon swan & Icarus (based on Matisse's Icarus) & also did a stamp with my first name on it to put on the back of ATC cards... yesterday I sent some cards to Kristin (she also has a knitting/quilting, etc. blog here) for an ATC rubber stamp image swap.

Now that the stamps are done, I can focus on some other things... tapestry weaving & drawing/painting...

No knitting progress lately... have gotten a little bit frustrated with the baby sweater be cause we're looking at summer weather & I had hoped to get it to them before... now I'm wondering if it'll be too small if I get it to them by the end of August?

Heel & Toe & Away we go

....or should that be toe and heel and away we go, in the case of toe up socks?

I decided on a short row heel & although I pretty much know how to make one, I'm keeping track with these instructions and hopefully it'll fit... it's also tempting to consider Wendy's gusset heel... if I don't like this one, I'll try hers... ONE of these days I'll finish these socks!!

Rubber Stamps

Over the weekend I did a few rubber stamps & yesterday I placed an order for some more carving material & carving blades... I'm getting more Speedball "pink stuff" and some white PZ kut... the Speedball stuff carves fairly easily but the PZ kut stuff seems to have more potential for details.

I wish I could show y'all my stamps & images (and the socks), but will have to wait until I get the camera stuff sorted out... I may pick up a scanner from the thrift shop but I think that unless the scanner can connect with The Gimp, I may still have the same issues with the scanner as with the camera... (gotta look at The Gimp more closely, maybe it will download/upload to/from camera...hmm.... I just loaded Gimp and can't find the option, but Micah said that there may be an add on we can download for it...)

The stamps I did were:
an image from the Speedball instructions that look like a starfish
a smileyface (can use these on customer packing slips)
a sailboat, and a cat design that I went on to explore a bit more in my moleskine and may do a painting or/and tapestry from one of those ideas..
did one stamp with the word "meow" along with the cat (did it over the cat's body to make best use of space) and am now calling this The Meow Series...
my first stamp was the HELLO stamp on a pink rubber eraser... those seem to be similar to the speedball "pink stuff".

The Garden

We've got rainy weather here... yesterday we put in some tomatoes and a Jim Bowie/New Mexico pepper plant into a bed (and a couple of marigold plants)...
and hopefully they will do well...

I put in some Better Boy, red "patio" cherry tomatoes and some yellow cherry tomatoes... we turned a bed over a few weeks ago, we should have planted right then and there (but at the time, we were actually expecting freezing temperatures overnight!)...

Because we just let the bed sit for a few weeks after turning it over, we had to pull out some weeds and work around a few ants in the bed... planted through a couple of layers of newspaper & then put some composted leaves that were along the front gate to hold the paper down... still need to dig up more of that and put more down & maybe finish digging the other bed so that we can put in some lettuces & other greens... we've gotten better about eating salads, so having greens & lettuces on hand is a good idea.

Maybe next year we'll do a more involved garden...

Age is only a number

Several years ago, when I was around 19, I was talking to my roommate's boyfriend about the Age Thing... he was 20 or 21 and he talked about how weird it felt to turn 20 or 21, I don't remember which...when my time for 20 or 21 came, it was no biggie...
Over the years, I don't think any of my ages felt weird or anything like that...

But today I am 50... 5-0... fifty... five-oh... f i f t y... hhehehe.. for some reason that feels weird. Fifty? It's half of 100... and I hope I get to see 100, I want to be a sassy, open-minded but opinionated, funky, creative, happy old lady of 100...heck, I'll be happy to be a sassy, open-minded but opinionated, funky, creative, happy old lady of 60, 70, 80 or 90!! :) Or any number in between...

It's only a number...but it just feels weird...
I don't feel as immortal as I did when I was younger... I've seen loved ones die, my grandma, mom, uncle, dad in my 20s and 30s...
My oldest 2 are 12 and will be 13 next year... my youngest will be 6 soon and still has his baby cuteness...
Anyway Happy Birthday To Me!
Gary & the boys will be busy doing something in the kitchen later, no idea what for sure, but we'll find out!

Project Stuff

Yesterday I got a Raggedy Andy kit which I bought off eBay... it's a crochet kit & I'll probably see how it can be converted to a knit pattern since I don't see any knit Raggedy Anns or Andys on the internet, either pay or free... doesn't look like it would be hard to do & I'm thinking that the leg stripes would look better knit than crochet, but the crocheted face in the round looks cool...

That said, I AM going to crochet this pattern...

I did run into a bit of confusion when I started: the instructions don't list a gauge for the doll OR the clothing, they just say what hook size to use... the back of the head feels rather boardlike & stuff & I'm wondering how on earth I'm going to sew the 2 parts together...I guess I'll manage. I did try the next size larger hook & the fabric still feels boardlike, but looks sloppier, so I'll stay with the E-hook...

Could be that the yarn is a type of craft yarn. The kit doesn't say what kind of yarn it is, it didn't have a label & looks like it is a 50 gram pull skein... (I'm working from the outside of the skein since I don't really like the way pulling collapses the skein...)

Normally I'd try to convert patterns to the round, but I'm making an exception in this case because Raggedy Ann & Andy do NOT look "right" done round: there's a free Raggedy Ann & Andy pattern online that's worked in the round and they're just too rolly poly looking... cute but not the effect I was after...

This is the kit I bought:

I'm making him for Reuven since he loves Raggedy Andy... he had a Raggedy Andy doll but Opus got to him, chewed the eyes... we also found a handmade Ann in a thrift store over a year ago & he got her eyes also... we have a couple of other blind or half blind teddy bears... thankfully, Opus is over that puppy chewy stage (and we TRY to keep him supplied in rawhides)...

Still haven't gotten back to the socks, but I'll probably do a plain shortrow heel... not sure if I'll do it on half the stitches or what, but I want to be able to do an afterthought heel if the one I make wears out so doing it on more than half the stitches might not work... I may frog a couple more rounds & increase the stitches so I have more stitches for that section...we'll see!

rounds versus rows

This brings me to one of my pet peeves in knitting & crocheting instructions: a lot of patterns I've seen refer to things as ROWS regardless of whether or not the work is progressing flat or in the round... the raggedy andy instructions are great in this regard: it refers to rounds when working around & rows when working flat... a round of applause to the pattern writer for that!! :)