Peace & Sereknitty

Not much knitting is being done these days--I'm just trying to finish things that are on the needles.  I'm teaching a class on the Fake Isle (no surprise there....) at the yarn store where I work.  Of course I had to cast on so I could knit along with the class!  Just spreading the addiction....

I've come up with a wristwarmer pattern for sock yarn and it looks great!  As soon as I'm done I'll post pics and of course it will be on my Ravelry page.  I'm liking this pattern because it shows off the pattern of the yarn and doesn't take as long to make as a pair of socks.  Plus, they aren't as bulky as wristwarmers made out of worsted weight yarn.  My mind is already itching to create something in fairisle at this gauge....It is a sickness, isn't it?

Gardening has been taking up lots of time lately and this cool spell we've been having is great for my plants but shitty for my tan.  Oh well, I guess there'll be lots of time to spend in the sun in the upcoming months.  I did put in my tomatoes and some parsley and the oregano and thyme are bursting out of their pot!  I'm trying not to over do it this year with the tomatoes--only 8 plants!  I think that should be enough to satisfy the black holes that are my children and be able to make the yummy baked tomato sauce.  And this year I won't have to fight with Quackers to pick the tomatoes because he is happily ensconced in the new fowl yard.

Other than that, we spent almost the whole long weekend moving furniture.  Stuff (big stuff, I might add) that has been in the same place for almost 6 years--when we moved here!  It was high time for a shuffle and thankfully Doug didn't put up much of a fight so lots got done.  Did I mention that I could be of no help because I stepped on a rock (small--think pebble) barefoot a week and a half ago and still can't put my full weight on that foot.  After much icing the foot looks better (swelling was up above the ankle last week) but still hurts like hell.  Needless to say, I was not good for much more than pointing to where I wanted things moved.  But now I have my yarn stash out of plastic bins stacked to the ceiling and safely resting in an old lovely armoire snagged from the days when my mom and I had a shop.  We made serious progress!

Well, its time to put my foot up, knit and spend some time with Hen before bed.  Now if I can just talk him out of watching sports.....

My lilacs are finally blooming!

Favors for Mothers Day brunch.....

My photography assistant.....

The sun is shining-I'm outside....Have a good weekend!

I love it when the bluebells bloom.  Even though my dogs trample them when they tear-ass around the yard and Doug looks at them with thoughts of running the lawn mower over them, I still get a smile to see the big clumps of them in our field.

Those bluebells did get a bit trampled this weekend because we performed The Great Fowl Transfer.  We decided the the chickens, little chickens and ducks would all be happier in the former goat pasture so we converted the goat barn into a chicken coop by putting in new roosts and laying boxes and making it habitable for chickens.  Saturday night, Doug closed the door to the old chicken coop after the chickens had gone in for the night and Sunday morning it was easier to catch them and transport them to their new home.  So, we carried them, one at a time, to the new chicken paddock.  Some even fell asleep in Riley's arms as we walked the 250 yards from old coop to new coop (sorry, I always think of distances in football field terms...).  Catching the ducks was not as easy or peaceful.  I got my workout wrangling those quacking, flying, pooping  things!  Finally we had them all in the new yard and amazingly enough, the ducks didn't mind the chickens, the chickens didn't mind the ducks or the little chickens, and the little chickens didn't mind anybody either so all was good.  By the next day we had eggs in the nests and everyone seemed settled in.  I'm looking forward to a summer with no chicken poop on my front porch....Now if we can just convince the cats to cease and desist with the animals they bring into the house, it might just be paradise!  (In the last week the cats have brought in:  a mole (dead), a lizard (alive), a baby bunny (dead) and a rat (dead).)

Even though my life sounds plenty eventful, there has been knitting accomplished too:  Behold Baby Surprise Jacket (2) and Saarje's Booties....

Blue Moon Socks That Rock Mediumweight in Watermelon Tourmaline.  I just love how STR looks knit up as a Baby Surprise....I've even wrapped it and sent it on to the intended baby who was born last weekend.

I've also done some Mother's Day knitting but both my mother and my sister are nosy and would spoil their surprise so I'm not putting up any pics....

I was asked to teach a class on fair isle knitting (using the Fake Isle Hat as the project) for the yarn store I work at.  That means more Fake Isle's must be cast on and begun...you know how bummed I am about that........What a perfect project for spring/summer! (Or fall or winter.....) I'm also trying to design some wristwarmers using the same fake isle principle and using either Kureyon or Silk Garden and Ultra Alpaca--I'm excited to cast on!  I'll just pretend I don't have at least 6 other projects languishing on needles by the side of my bed....I really do need two more sets of arms....

Henry and I saw IronMan last weekend and we really liked it!  I was expecting a "boy" movie with loud noises, and rockem' sockem' action and there was some of that but it had lots of humor too and was really enjoyable. 

Well, back to work...

We're enjoying some short-lived sunshine this weekend and I was able to sit in a chair outside, listen to birds and knit.  A welcome and much needed rest.  These last two weeks have been brutal with Doug's responsibilities and Henry's baseball all encroaching my job, housework and, of course, knitting and relaxing time.  I know have a twitch in my eyelid....It will all calm down when school is over but until then, it's a bit of a marathon and sometimes I have to sprint to make it all happen.

In the meantime, I've finished my second Baby Surprise Jacket and will add the buttons today, I'm almost finished with a pair of socks for myself that I started months ago, I'm finished with a pair of wrist warmers out of homespun for my Aunt Nancy whose birthday is May Day and I'm half way through a surprise knit for my sister Alison.  It would probably be safe to post it now as her birthday is not until July and she'll start crawling around my blog looking for clues to what I'm giving her around June.....

We put in our new garden a few weeks ago and the cold weather appears to have been a good thing as everything looks wonderful.  I was worried because we moved two 7 foot tall lilac bushes but they seem fine and if I can remember to water them well I think they'll survive.  You can't really see anything from the picture but it's a nice place to sit now.

More pictures on knitting later--I haven't even pick up my camera in weeks!

Now I'm heading out to peruse the goat shed with Doug--we're thinking of moving the chickens and ducks out to there as its a bigger area with more vegetation and it will keep the chickens from taking dust baths in my new garden....

Oh, and Happy Anniversary to Carole and Ed!  My mom and dad have been married for 45 years today--who'd have thought it possible?  (I'm still only 29 though.....they had me quite a while after they'd been married....Really......)

Ooooh I'm a bad blogger....these days I'm more inclined to tune into some of my favorite blogs and lurk rather than put my harried thoughts together to form a cohesive sentence....

I do have a finished object though:

A Baby Surprise Jacket for my friend Donna's newest nephew.  Made out of Socks that Rock Heavyweight in Farmhouse.  I loved it so much (though the pattern is a bit hinky) that I've cast on another for my Vet who is due in May with a girl.  And upon stash diving found some more lovely Socks That Rock  in Watermelon Tourmaline this time in Mediumweight.  Same needle size.  Unfortunately I made a mistake yesterday and had to rip back half of my progress last night.  I hate that when that happpens....

Mom and I planned a new and much needed garden in front of my house which we will implement next weekend upon the arrival of 10 yards of dirt.  Ugh!  I'm hoping that it will help with making the house look finished and be easy to take care of because it will be mostly shrubs.  I have two 6 ft. high lilacs that are behind a tree and not getting enough light so we'll be transplanting those to this new garden too.  That should be a lovely ordeal....There are two other gardens to tackle and clean up and re-work and I'm hoping to get them done before summer.  And plant the cottage gardens with veggies....And Keep The Chickens And Turkeys Out!  They are everywhere!  So fencing of some sort must be pondered.

I'm off to re-knit what I knit yesterday....

Here's an ugly chick-pic:

Where do I begin?  Life is happening so fast that it's either a blur of Mondays or Fridays...You know what I mean?  I don't even know what I've done in all that time.  There's been snow (!!!!) and rice krispie treats and knitting.  A visit to a science museum in Portland (I tried to give my family the address to Yarn Garden but they didn't fall for it...), the yarn store I work at moved to a new location and last, but not least, Riley got her driver's permit!  My whole family had last week off so I took off from working out and caught up on my sleep. 

Sleep has been a bit spotty lately with one cat running into our room in the middle of the night to scratch on our box spring from underneath and then run around the room and out the door.  And if it isn't the cat, then I can hear the stupid chicks (which are huge but not completely feathered out yet) turn over their food pan and tap on it with their beaks.  Sometimes I can sleep through that kind of stuff and sometimes not so much.  Maybe I'm not drinking enough....

Finally there is some tv worth watching, even if its all on Sunday nights--we're enjoying John Adams and it looks like OPB is going to pull its head out of its ass and finally show the rest of the Jane Austen series.  Next week BBCA will start airing Wire in the Blood so I should be set for good stuff to watch while I knit on Sundays.  We've been watching DVDs of 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Saturday Night Live.  We did see Run, Fat Boy, Run with Simon Pegg who is always a hoot.  We liked it (even Ri and Hen), just enough gross humor for constant giggles.

Well, I must be off to change sheets, get laundry ready for next week and stir the chili for dinner tonight.  I'll leave you with the mental picture of my youngest sister with oversized plastic easter eggs hiding in her bra for our easter egg hunt....I did get that on film but I was threatened with death if I posted it....

Well, even though I know it's spring  apparently someone forgot to tell Mother Nature....It's so frickin' cold outside!  Frost and sub-freezing temps in the morning?  Enough already....

It's  been a busy week:  the yarn store I work at moved to a new location and will reopen on Monday so any free time this week was spent there.  And of course there were Easter preparations to accomplish....

Little boxes with pink colored, egg-shaped rice krispie treats for my nieces. 

Adding a bit of pink food coloring was just the ticket to make the rice krispie treats look delicious.

Some spring flowers for mom and Ali....

My latest hat:  Emma from Knitting Little Luxuries.  This hat was fun to make and I was able to whip it up last Sunday (of course that's all I did....).  It's made from my new fave, Ultra Alpaca.  I've got to knit me a sweater out of this stuff--it knits and washes up so nicely!

And as it is 5 AM on a Sunday and I've been up since 4 after a CRAPPY night of no sleep (no more coffee at night!)  I think I'll feed the dogs and head back to bed so that Henry can wake me up in 45 minutes to check out his easter basket.

I'll leave you with a picture of one of our fields yesterday.

Knitting pictures:

This is my Natalie Portman Hat.  When I was in Tacoma one of the movies we watched as we knitted and "Miked" (Mikes Hard Lime), was Beautiful Girls in which Natalie Portman (who is about 16 and very cute) wears a stocking cap as she's skating.  I decided I had to have one, and though I'm no Natalie Portman, I do love the hat.  It's knit out of home-dyed, home spun BFL and I'm really happy with the results.  Here's a close-up of the stitches:

As you can see from the pictures its a bit grey and raining today so probably no outdoor chores will be accomplished but there will be knitting and lots of it!  I've got to make up for the lack of knitting content during the week....

And in case you're wondering and even if you aren't : Thank you, my ass is doing much better.....

I must be a really boring person:  I was on the phone with my sister Alison a few days ago, telling her about my workout when I noticed how quiet the phone line was.  I said ,"hello, hello" a few times to no response.  I looked at my phone which said it was still connected but figured the call must have been dropped so I closed my phone and figured I'd call her back in a few minutes.  As I set my phone down, it rang.  Alison began by apologizing--"I'm so sorry!  So sorry!  I fell asleep as you were talking..."  What????!!!  "Your voice was soothing and you were talking about your achilles tendon and I just fell asleep...."  Now, I know she was in bed and that I had probably awakened her from snoozing but to fall asleep a few sentences into a conversation.....Me and my melodious voice.....

Chicks!  We now have 6 new freeloaders residing in our bathroom enjoying the spa atmosphere of a warming lamp among the other amenities.  I got one of each:  a leghorn, a silver laced wyandotte, a golden laced wyandotte, a golden sexlink, a barred rock and, just to have some fun:  a white crested black polish.  Those are the ones who look like their always wearing a hat that Phyllis Diller would wear.  Already I'm tired of the intrusion and can't wait until they move out to their own abode.  And the cats sit outside the bathroom door in a creepy way listening to the chicks chirp......

I'm still struggling to get everything done and still find time to knit like I was able to do in the winter but its not looking good.  I'm thinking I'm going to have to start getting up even earlier than 5:45 or get up but not lie in bed with my coffee and the news for a half hour....

In good news, we spent a bit of last Sunday out in the yard, cleaning up and taking stock of what winter had wreaked.  We freed some budding (!) lilac bushes in the back from the clutches of the noxious blackberry vines that cover everything like those fast growing vines in Jumanji.  I was able to prune lots of roses and hopefully Doug will be able to fix the fence so that the damn deer will have to look at my garden fondly from outside as opposed to using my plants as their personal salad bar.  It was lovely to be outside and I really enjoyed it.  The daffodils in my field are blooming so I took it upon myself to pick three bucketsfull to have in the house and take to work.  However, my rear end was SCREAMING at me every time I bent over to pick the blooms.  I guess my work out on Friday had some lasting effects.  Every time I bent over, I held my breath and either groaned or moaned or whimpered in pain.  At one point, Doug was working near me and asked,"What the hell is wrong with you?"  I told him of my gluteal ailment and he giggled.  Butthead....

I recently watched the SouthPark episode where Cartman pretends he has Tourette's Syndrom--I love that one!  So I will leave you with an appropriate cry of "Ass!  Asssss!"

Now that the ducks are in the chicken yard, my lovely free-ranging chickens who aren't laying, are always hanging out on the front porch.  I come home to piles of dust (they take their dirt baths in the area right next to the porch and then hop onto the porch to shake off), and poo.  Lots of chicken poo on the front porch.  Its a lovely touch to our zoo atmosphere.  Be that as it may, I am starting to smell the blooming Daphne Odora (through the chicken poo smell) and am excited that spring really will arrive.  (I'm sure that along with it will come more poo....)

Can you believe that for the last two nights I haven't even knit?  I've been so crashing tired that I set myself up in bed with my plumpy pillows, knitting chart, project, clickers for the tv, phone (someone always calls as soon as I've settled in and the phone is always out of reach), ready to make some headway on my lace shawl and then....fall asleep.  Two nights ago I fell asleep with my head on Angus' head and then he lifted his head to listen to something and I put my head back down and we fell back to sleep with his big noggin on my head.  Thank goodness when I woke up to turn off the light and put away the un-knitting, I didn't have drool in my hair or ear...Needless to say I'm not looking forward to losing an hour this weekend due to daylight savings time.  I'm anxiously waiting for the 4 days of excercise a week to kick in and give me the energy I so badly need!

And speaking of excercise--I really had no idea how much I got done in the mornings between dropping Hank off at school and going to work!  I guess its better to be working out than sitting somewhere and knitting for an hour but dang, I'm missing that extra knitting time!  Maybe I just need to organize my time better....yeah, right......