Crochet Frosting

Thank you for your gentle suggestions for me to get over myself.  I have an iPhone and iPad an a teeny tiny iBrain so I'll start posting pictures.  It was suggested by my good friend "Anonymous" that I have it repaired.  That's a great idea but not only am I a Knitter with a capital K, but I'm also Lazy.  We'll see.  I may get desperate.

Here is what I've been working on:

I have a family room that is all beige and pale yellow.  Snore.  It needed a little color, so along with the Ripple blanket from hell, I am going to be so crafty and cover these cheap IKEA pillows with crochet frosting.  I mean, look at it.  Isn't she a beaut?  The other side will have a different color scheme and stitch pattern.  Haven't decided yet.  It has to be painless and mindless.

If you're still JUST a knitter, I highly recommend you buy yourself a hook and start covering stuff in your home with crocheted yarn.  It's therapeutic. 

Words words words

I tend to avoid lengthy, wordy posts.  At the risk of making myself sound stupid or lazy, a lot of words intimidate me.  Blame it on ADD, lack of sleep, not much time . . . blah blah blah.  I prefer pictures; loads of them.  I see a page of words and my mind begins to grow fuzzy and tired.  

My camera is broken.  Someone dear to me dropped it in the lake.  We snatched it up, dropped it in a bag of rice and after two days we checked - it still worked!  Still does, but there is a water mark on the inside lens that makes all of my photographs look like there's some sort of ghostly apparition on the right side.

I hadn't realized how attached I was to that little camera.  She went with me everywhere.  I took shameless amounts of pictures - mostly of absolutely nothing interesting.  But the beauty of digital cameras is that no matter how 'untalented' you are, eventually you will capture a moment or frame something so right that it deserves to be uploaded, printed, blogged or mailed to Aunty. 

Sigh.

So for the next few months, I'll be posting with my iPhone and iPad pictures (poor me).   And I'm going to make a valiant attempt to start posting again.  There is much to share and so much more to knit and crochet.

Love to all - get your blog on!

Here's a smile for you.

Scrap Pile

I spent my entire Saturday up to my elbows in warm, soapy lanolin water.  If you're just tuning in, I was given a bag of lamb's wool - fresh off the lamb.  The fleece was dirty. . . as all fleece off the farm is, so I'm told.  I wouldn't know.  I am a suburban gal.  I was able to divide the fleece into workable sections and I began my washing experiment.   I have NEVER done anything like this.  I buy my yarn.  I buy finished, clean (with the exception of Noro, which I swore I'd never use again), pretty yarn.  From a store.

But this was genuine, stinky, farmy, dirty, lovely fleece.  I'll skip most of the details and just tell you that you should not rush this process.  And you can really truly do this at home, in your very suburban backyard with nothing more than plastic storage bins, some dish soap, a couple of dog kennels and a patient family.

Here is what I did:

1. SKIRT THE FLEECE - don't I sound professional?  I googled this and found a few, very helpful, websites that explained that "skirting" your fleece essentially means pulling/picking off all of the really yucky bits (chunks of, achem, manure) and short-haired pieces - or "second cuts".  Sometime the sheep is sheered within an inch or two of its flesh.  An inexperienced sheerer is probably nervous about clipping the poor sheep's skin.  After the first layer is removed, the sheerer goes in for the second sheer to remove the rest of the coat.  This is the "second cut".   You do not want the second cut.

 I separated the sheets of fleece the best I could an set them on a dog kennel so that the bits would fall to the ground as I worked over it.  That photo above shows some of the yucky bits that I pulled from the fleece.

An experience sheerer will get a nice thick cut down to the skin on the first pass.  You want this full fleece cut.  

My labratory was spread out over the yard, but you get the idea of how simple it was.  I ended up not using the rubber gloves.  Your hands will LOVE the lanolin.

In the end, I found that soaking the fleece longer in warm, slightly soaping water, would produce cleaner fleece.   So it went something like this:

1. Fill two plastic bins with hot water. 
2. Add fleece to one bin with a tsp. of dish soap.
3. Let soak for several hours (don't agitate - you'll felt it!)
4. Press water out of fleece and transfer to the clean water in the 2nd bin.  The water should be about the same temperature.  Swish around gently and let it soak while you refill the first bin with more warm water.
5. Squeeze water from fleece and soak in warm (soapy) water again.
6. Repeat these steps until the water begins to run clear.  You don't need to use soap every time.  You'll strip off all of the lanolin (which isn't necessarily a bad thing - in fact, I used enough soap that in the end, I has stripped most of the oil/smell from the wool).

Here is a photo of "before" and "after" a good long soak. 

Washing this stuff took all day.  And then . . . AND THEN. . . I brought a chunk of the fleece to a spinning expert who took one look and said, "You can't spin this." 

Not even kidding. 

Ugh.

Alas, all is not lost.  I learned how to wash my first fleece and I am not intimidated.  In fact, when I buy (or am gifted . . . ) my first real FIRST CUT fleece, I will have an idea of how to prepare it for the next step:

CARDING

. . . to be continued . . .

Baa Baa White Sheep

I have a bag of wool.  Yes.  A real, honest-to-betsey bag of wool.  A gal from my hubby's work heard that I knit.  And so did what makes perfect sense . . . she sheared her little lambs and now I have a hefty bag of dirty, stinking, manure covered, straw filled bag of wonder and magic. 

I'm not even sure where to start.  To be completely honest, I'm afraid to touch it.  I guess this is where the city girl gets off the train. 

Well.  I suppose the obvious thing to do would be to clean it as soon as possible.  But how, pray tell, does one wash a bag of fleece?  It's so. . . . so. . . unclean. 

To the internet . . .

. . . stay tuned. . .

ps.  my camera is broken.  BROKEN.  I'm lost in a world with no pictures to post.

A Knitters Garden

 My garden these days is getting a bit rumbly bumbly.  The weeds are crowding around my perennials and veggies like ants to a lollipop.  The sun is scorching all but the most hardy of flowers.  See those Ox Eye Daisies starting to curl?

 The dill is starting to bend over - to tall to hold its own in this big mess of green.

Just on the other side of the rickety pickety fence, there is a nice shady place.  I spent a moment there today because I saw tiny red dots among the shade and green.

There was a decent breeze that kept these little raspberries dancing and bobbing about, which is why the picture is blurry.

Back up to my happy spot to work on my next project.

SUMMERTIME!!!

It's been so amazingly hot and humid.  The best part about living in Minnesota is that there is always a lake nearby to throw oneself into.   Here's a few shots of the best jumps caught on my camera.

Top the day off with a wee bit of heaven. . .

 Happy Fourth of July!!!

Knitting is back.

I was browsing through my favorite blogs when I came across some pretty little socks on We Heart Yarn and I found myself leaping to my feet and dusting off my box of knitting needles.  The crochet hook will have to wait.

Thankfully, my days of hoarding luxurious sock yarn has paid off and I indulged my urge to knit instantly.

Let's see.  This pattern is fun and playful.  I need a yarn with a good sense of humor.  Aspen green, no.  Not right.  Ah.  Here it is.  Madeline Tosh sock in "Beach Towel".

The pattern is called Toasty Twist Socks by Teresa Fox.  G from We Heart Yarn modified hers with a linen stitch heel and I liked it so much I'm doing the same.

Keeping busy?

 Hello out there.  It's me again.  And yes, I've become blasé about keeping the blog up to date.  This doesn't imply I haven't been busy at the needles.  In fact, if I have some down time, that's where you'll find me . . . merrily knitting or crocheting away.    I made these little plant pockets after I saw them here on Ravelry. 

 I'm using up old stash yarn and will have my entire porch surrounded in no time.  They are very simple to make.  Let me know if you want any specs and I'd be happy to share.

I have also been busy on Monstro - the ripple blanket from planet Acid-Trip.  Umm. I'm really not all that hip on the whole color scheme.  But in the end, this sham-wow of a blanket will bring a bit of racy color to my plain old family room couch which is a very boring beige.  The pattern and very easy tutorial is found right over there on Attic 24. 

Happy Spring!

Knitting on the Road

 We recently drove out to Montana for a family spring-break trip that took us 19 hours one way.  There was plenty of time to get the fiber fun-bag out and work a bit on my zig-zaggy blanket.  I can almost do this blanket with my eyes closed.  19 hours of crochet will do this to a person.

We spent the first part of our vaca at the local ski-bum hill.  They were having the end-of-the-year party, so we stayed after for the festivities which included a pond-skim competition.  I've seen this on tv, but never in person.  I could not believe the courage of these people.  Really.  They don't heat that water and it's about 3 1/2 feet deep.  This was the youngest competitor.

 This was the most graceful contestant.  I'd like to think that's what I'd look like.

The rest of the week was spent hunkered down at the cabin reading, crocheting, watching the boys prep for their little fishing excursions on the local rivers.

 Here are a couple of flies.  Teeny tiny.  They managed to catch a few fish on those little buggers.

I went to town and found this little sign hanging in a local cafe.  I don't know who said it, but it's good words to live by, don't you think?

The agony of guilt.

Those labs just can't control themselves.  It's genetic, I swear!

I'm being swallowed by a boa constrictor. . .

I'm being swallowed by a by a big huge mother of an afghan, that's for certain.  I was dragging this cute little project around with me while I attended my duties as a mother - piano lessons, sporting events, etc. etc. etc.   

But recently, after two grueling 19 hour drives to Montana and back, the thing has begun to get a bit unwieldy.  Its proportions are not fitting into my little day bag.  I'm having to roll it up into a tube shape that's the size of a toddler.  But I continue on.  I'm not sold on all the colors I chose, but there is no turning back now.  It's still King sized and there it stays.

I'm going to have to choose a new project to be my 'mom's waiting in the parking lot' bit.  Something smaller, like a pair of socks.  I'm getting an itch to hold my knitting needles once again.