How The West Was Spun

Rose Trellis Lace Scarf

It is finished!  I finally got my test version (which also happens to be a gift) completed, and I really like how it came out.

The two versions were knit in a sportweight handspun (merino/angora blend from Kim, which you see above) and in a sportweight alpaca.  If you want a copy of the pattern, which, by the way is a fairly easy lace pattern, as there are 2 stitches of ribbing in between each set of lace pattern stitches, so you can keep your place pretty easily, just let me know via email or you can leave me a comment.  My friend, Terry, back in Peacham, Vermont, is going to be carrying this pattern plus yarn packs on her website in another month - you can click on the link in my sidebar for Snowshoe Farm Alpacas if you'd like to order the pattern and some yarn to knit it up in.  This would work just fine in any sportweight yarn, however.

Yesterday, my USPS carrier also delivered some fun gifts from Cathy (yes, yes - we just saw each other.... this is trade round #2).  She sent me the remainder of the alpaca/cashmere/angora/silk roving blend she used for her crocheted lace shawl/whatever that she just finished up, as well as some super-soft Bliss merino roving dyed with pinks and grays, a bit more of Bliss gray merino in washed but unprocessed form (to go with the stash I already have!), AND, a gorgeous carved green jasper whorl spindle that M made.  They are just that good to me.

I'm making progress on my William sweater from Rowan's "A Season's Tale".  I should be able to get the first sleeve off the needles and ready to block by the end of the day today.  It'll be half-done then.  And yes, I'm making a lot of progress on this and not much else - I'm attributing it to the busy summer.  Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

All for now.......

Travelogue

We have my MIL here for a visit this week and decided we'd use her presence as an excuse to do a little exploring.  We had good intentions of doing a lot of exploring since we are new to the SLC area, but um..... that was BH (before horses) and now, well..... we do a lot of horse things. 

Anyway, we had beautiful weather this weekend, so on Saturday, we decided to take the Alpine Loop Scenic Byway just south and east of us.  With a bright blue sky and a nice breeze, we headed on up into the American Fork canyon and followed the river up into the mountains.  We decided to bypass the Timpanagos Cave, which is a large limestone cave, as the wait was 2 hours to even get into the cave.  As we headed up in elevation, the temperature slowly dropped to a balmy 67 degrees when we stopped to take a picture of the snow-capped Mt. Timpanagos.

Everything up in the mountains is still lush and green because of all the late-season rains we've had.  Flowers are blooming and the rivers are running fast and furious. 

We continued along and decided to take the 7-mile spur off the main road to visit Cascade Springs.  This little gem is a series of natural springs that the Park Service has built a set of boardwalks out over, so you can walk amidst the bubbling water and little waterfalls.  The rock formations in the water are formed by mineral deposits from the water itself, which is crystal clear.  There are huge clumps of yellow columbines and monkeyflowers growing on little rocky toeholds in the pools of water.

We toured the park and enjoyed the running water and the coolness it provided.  The end of the hiking loop afforded this beautiful scene with jade-green hummingbirds flitting overhead through the tree branches.

As we continued the tour, we wound back down the mountain, coming into the Sundance resort, where we stopped to have lunch at the (somewhat pricey, but awesome food) Foundry Grill. Continuing past Sundance towards the west, and the cities of Provo and Orem, a stiff wind picked up with driving rain and big gusts.  We didn't get out of the car, but we did pass Bridal Veil Falls and watched the wind whip the falling water into translucent wisps of droplets as it came over the edge.

We easterners are still trying to get a brain wrap around the concept of mountains this tall, but it was a great day trip and I suspect we'll probably try to get back up there this fall for the foliage before the winter weather closes the road until next year.

All for now......

Happy Friday

I really have nothing to report.....nope.....nothing.  But also knowing me, I'll manage to fill up a blog post with just that.

Busy, busy, busy is the name of the game.  Lots of things on the plate, work is swampy and can you believe we have passed the Summer Solstice already?  We have had unusually wet weather for the month of June and thunderstorms producing actual rain in the last two days.  With the increased water, my inherited gardens have been very happy.   The rose bushes, some of which are taller than I am, have been covered with sniffy-good smelling blooms.  Here are a sample:

And another one of my favorites that smells sort of like an apple-lemon.

Also as a nice surprise, we have a HUGE clump of hollyhocks which now almost completely cover the mailbox and are closing in on the 7-foot-tall mark.

I'm closing in on the end of the angora/merino blend handspun scarf I'm knitting.  One more repeat of the pattern and I'll be done with this project, other than blocking.  I think I'll need to pick up another box or two of pins.  The move ate several strange combinations of things.  We cannot find our guest room washcloths or one of the blankets that cover the guest bedroom beds.  Apparently half my blocking pins are in that box - wherever it is living now.

D's mom is here for the next 4 days for a tour of the Salt Lake City area.  We hope to take her on a couple of driving tours up into the mountains as she hasn't been to this state before, and it will give us the opportunity to do a bit more exploring ourselves!

Have a great weekend y'all.

All for now..................

We drove, we saw........

We shopped. 

We had an awesomely fun trip, Margene and me, traveling eastward through Wyoming into the mountains of Colorado.  We zipped along (hardly seemed like 7+ hours now did it) with sparkling conversation and in no time at all were in Ft. Collins where we descended upon Cathy like the Biblical plague of locusts.  After being greeted by the 4-footed welcoming committee, and standing dutifully in reverence while Cathy finished posting to her blog, we managed to unload the LARGE box of goodies I had brought in trade and then we set to petting all the fiber (processed, as well as that still on the dogs) and Cathy did her impression of Gollum and "my precioussssss" for us.

After a couple of hours of chatting and knitting, and Cathy crocheting like a demon, we finally released Margene to the company of her local guide, and we tootled on out to dinner (Yay - Mexican food not made by people blonder than me!!).  More chatting, more fibering, some more chatting, and maybe some chatting ensued, and off to bed I went.

Saturday a.m. dawned with a bright sunny sky.  Cathy took me on a local tour, which she describes on her blog, so go there and visit, but we did stop long enough on our way to Estes Park to snap a quick shot of the mountains and the bright, bright blue sky.  Snow in the mountains in June - how cool is that?

We actually were very subdued at the wool festival.  Perhaps bringing a HUGE box of roving and wool to visit when planning to attend a sheep and wool festival was not the best plan, because Cathy gave as good as she got, and I had a veritable plethora of super fine merino, both roving and locks, plus some dyed merino already set aside to make the trip back to Utah with me on Sunday.  We did wind up talking each other into a very scrumptious CVM lambswool fleece in shades of gray (Cathy has the pictures of that).  I only bought 1 old Spin-Off, one lace pattern book, and 1 skein of a silk/angora bunny laceweight, dyed with western sunset colors that will knock your socks off - with 1500+ yardage to boot!

Saturday night after the festival, we met up with a coworker of mine and her husband for dinner.  They drove down Wyoming and we met for a quick dinner...... which turned into a 4-hour tour......as Cathy and M graciously had them over to their house, where Cathy voted me off the island and decided she has a new best friend that she needs to share her rocks with.  Harumpf. 

Fine. 

Just be that way.

Cathy did manage to crank through several crochet samples for my handspun cotton sweater.... mostly I think because she liked petting the cotton over and over again...... but no matter, we have decided on one that I think shows off the variegated cotton without being overpowered.

These "eyelets" will run horizontally across the sweater, but then the Crochet Queen will turn the pattern to run vertically for the front bands.  Now..... I just gotta get more than 35 yards of the stuff spun up.

All in all, a wonderful time.  Would we do it again?  Yep.... you betcha.  In fact...... what are you gals doing this weekend? 

All for now......

Some actual fiber content

So finally, some information about fiber and knitting and spinning on my fiber/knitting/spinning blog.  Go figure.

I got my little wee sample skein plied up for Cathy to play with when we toodle off to Colorado tomorrow.  I was kind of a dork and only put ties in one place, so even though I washed it in a lingerie bag (through the regular wash cycle, then into a medium-warm dryer), it managed to twist itself into a knotty little mess.  I wound up winding it into a ball and reskeining it.  Ah..... MUCH better!

It's nice and soft and will be an interesting finished sweater.  The washing/drying process makes all the difference in the world.

I also have finished a new pattern for my friend Teri's farm store.  And before y'all get excited about another finished project, please note that I personally didn't knit the sample.  MY sample is still on the needles.  Destined to be a gift once it has it's moment in the sun being photographed as a sample.  But here's the finished one that Teri of our Salt Lake Stitch-n-Bitch group was kind enough to test knit for me.  It's a pretty easy little lace scarf in black alpaca.  It can go dressy or sort of goth, but it's simple enough for a first-time lace project and only takes one ball of sportweight alpaca. 

Tomorrow is the big day to depart for points east to enjoy the Estes Park Sheep and Wool.  Tour photos upon my return!  Have a great weekend!

All for now.............

Lazy Summer Days

Not for me, of course.  I rarely get to be lazy, but is there anything better than having a little nap in the warm sun, under 70-degree breezes while you have a guardian keeping watch?  Nope, I thought not.

These two sleep like the night of the living dead sometimes.  I will occasionally go out to get Digger for a mid-morning ride and will have to stand over him and talk loudly for several minutes before he opens one sleepy eye and yawns. 

I myself have not been napping; I have been diligently spinning my tricolored cotton.  I won't have an entire skein ready to go visit with Cathy this weekend, but I'm going to have a sample skein spun up so she can sample some crochet stitches with it while I'm there.

I'm interested to see what it looks like plied on itself.  I've not been separating the colors, just spinning them as they get caught in the drafting triangle.  The organic khaki cotton is a bit shorter staple than the white or the indigo-dyed, so it often has stretches by itself, as the longer fibers get pulled out first.  I'll try to get that plied up, photographed and posted before we leave on Friday.

Finally, I really have to thank all of you crack pushers, enablers, fiber friends for encouraging me along on yet another tour of madness.  When I remarked to D at dinner the other night that I was now seriously pondering weaving and hand-sewing an entire period garment, he just put his fork down quietly and said "Really?" with an odd combination of awe, incredulity and complete hopelessness in his voice. 

D thanks you as well, I'm sure.

All for now..............

Road Trip!!!!!!!!!

Margene has already blown our cover - yes, gentle readers, we are escaping the borders of Utah and heading east (now that sounds weird to my ears) to Colorado to partake in the Estes Park Wool Festival next week.  We will be royally wined and dined, and generally schlepped around the greater Estes Park/Fort Collins area by two virtual fiber buddies - Cathy and Snow.  How fun does that sound?  (Oh, and Norma gets to come too, but frankly, considering the number of shows she's already been to this year, I don't think we'll be talking to her much.) 

I was hoping to have my Lincoln rug totally off the loom by the time we left, but I don't think that's going to happen.  I'm trying to get at least an inch woven each day, and I'm at the 36-inch mark as of today.  Only 24 inches left to go.  It is, however, supposed to rain here this weekend, so perhaps I'll get some more quality time in on it.  Or maybe we'll go buy a bed so my MIL will have someplace to sleep other than the floor when she arrives in 2 weeks.

I've been feeling very nostalgic this week.  I wandered over to Ms. Absinthe's blog where you may find her link to her Robe a La Francais gown she is making.  Now, please - don't misunderstand me - I have no where to wear something like this to, no time to make something of this magnitude right now while the Digger-boy becomes a man, and really way too much stash of other fiber things to be contemplating purchasing yard goods.  But I really, really, really want to make a historic costume for myself. 

So, I'm resisting (wo)manfully, but I think you and I both know I'm really just kidding myself here.  Some of the more bored who happened to wander into my "About me" fascinated readers among you may remember I used to work in historic textiles and clothing, so really, this would be a lovely entertaining project for me. Must.....resist.......

Of course, the other completely insane thought was not just to construct said period garment, but to um... learn how to set up my loom and weave satin striped fabric on it ...and um....then hand-embroider small flowers and wing'ed creatures onto it......um.....before then cutting it into pieces and resewing it together into a garment.   Probably by hand because I'm just that way sometimes.

I think I need to go lie down in a darkened room before I am overcome.

All for now.......

Walks

One of the best things (or maybe worst things, depending on your point of view) about having a dog is that you get to take a lot of walks.  I was sorta bummed when we moved into suburbia here that I wouldn't have any places that were still rural-esque, where Sydney and I could take our daily constitutional.  Luckily, we live at the edge of civilization to some extent, and right at the end of our road, there is a huge tract of land that is, as of yet, undeveloped.  (Only a matter of time, mind you, but for now it's still open.)

There is a small two-track that you can access off the paved road at the end of the street.  Sydney is always happiest when she can walk on this dirt road and hunt for bugs.

We then meander out towards the west, where there is a gravelled access/maintenance road that runs alongside the irrigation canal.  Here, there are weedy wildflowers in abundance, and I can listen to the red-winged blackbirds calling.  Some mornings, there are ducks floating in the water, but almost every day we walk, those tiny jet-pilots, the barn swallows are zipping back and forth above the surface of the water hunting bugs and sending out their high-pitched zzeets. (See the dark V-shaped speck in the upper left-hand corner of the photo, just above the line of the mountains - there went one...)

Syd generally pokes along and investigates things along the water's edge, although she has no interest in swimming - she's a landlubber - no question.  Our walk then takes us around in a loop out towards the Oquirrh Mountains where the colors this spring are really vivid, with the red/greens/browns of the rocks, and the more vibrant greens of the waving grass, and the bright blue calm of the sky.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. - Rachel Carson

So get out and do a little contemplating yourselves today.

All for now.......

Maiden Voyage

Nothing fibery today, I'm afraid.... it's all about horses.

We've finally had the planets come into alignment, Jupiter aligned with Mars and the moon in the seventh house, and we decided on a time and place to take Digger outside of the arena. Since there is still a lot of water running at the Dimple Dell park, we decided to head out towards the Oquirrh (pronounced "oak-ker") mountains to Yellow Fork Canyon.  We had Happy and D in tow, and Pam.  D got to be our rear "support horse", and Pam was to ride Happy.

We got the crew off-loaded and saddled up.  Digger was a little dancy - new place - and there were other new horses there too (although we went early enough so that there were less rather than more new horses).  Once we got saddled up, we decided to lead the horses across the parking lot, and then across a bridge where there is still a lot of noisy water running, and then up over the gate that blocks the entrance to the trails (it's about mid-calf height) to see how freaky or not-so-freaky he was going to be.

We did pretty well, just a few snorts and some extra time to look at some of the signage and concrete barrier "boogie monsters", but he did okay with stepping over the gate for me.  He was a little keyed up, so we walked about 100 yards up the trail to let him have a few minutes to calm down.  We walked along until we found a nice relatively wide and flat portion of the trail so we could get mounted.  Pam came and stood by Digger and got his lead rope attached to the saddle, in case we needed it, while Dave held Happy.  I got on and got situated, and then Pam went back to get on Happy. 

Digger and I took a couple of meandering steps and I was letting him eat some grass along the roadside while Pam was mounting Happy.  Apparently Happy got spooked or panicked or something while Pam was trying to mount, and she wound up trying to run and buck at the same time before Pam had either her stirrups or the reins under control, and came tearing up to us, finally tossing Pam off the side onto the ground, and then backing into us.  As I'm catching all of this out of the corner of my eye, I'm thinking "Uh oh... his mom's freaking out.... he's gonna take off on me any minute."  But surprisingly, he just stepped one step to the side when she backed into us, to sort of get out of her way and stood there calmly watching all the action like "Huh..... look at that horse freaking out.  Wonder what she's doing.  Cool."

Once Happy was up next to us, she quit being stupid and stood still.  We checked Pam out, made sure she was okay (which she was, but ticked off at Happy for being a dork), and then we set off.  We wound uphill, crossed a couple of small dry runs, went over several rocky sections (and passed multiple picnic tables, signs and big rocks, all of which are potential spook-zones) without much problem.  We got to the loop where this particular trails turns around and we had to cross a small stream.  Digger wasn't sure about that, but luckily "support horse" D stepped right up and showed him it was okay, gave him a little direction with the lead rope and on we went. 

On the way back, we had only one minor incident where Digger decided he'd see if he could dive for some grass to eat, but again, "support horse" D was right there to get Digger back on the straight and narrow.  After that, he gave me a few half-hearted attempts to see if he could get away with that, but with some coaching and corrections, he straightened out and stayed on the trail.   

We only rode for about an hour, but was very proud of the boy.  He had no major spooks, and when he did encounter something scary, even if he snorted at it and turned his head to keep his eye on it, he kept his feet moving forward and plowed past the scary object.  He didn't try to run or misbehave, and I got about 97% attention for the entire trip, which is wonderful.  He made sure to keep his ears flicking back to check for any new directions from me as we went. 

We didn't get pictures on the trail - too much for me to be thinking about - but D was kind enough to get one of us when we got back to the trailer before we unsaddled.  And look - I'm upright, conscious and no major hit-the-dirt marks on my clothes!  A good deal.

All for now........

Checking In

About time for an update on sundry projects, I do believe.

I have finally finished knitting the ribbing for D's Irish Moss sweater front.  Maybe I'll finish this in time for THIS Christmas, although then again, maybe not.  I'm hoping I will leap into zipping through this when the cold weather returns.  Until then, I'm sorta poking along on it.

I'm 16 rows away from beginning the decreases on William sleeve #1.  That is a perfect auto-pilot knit, so it's progressing more quickly.  I can pick it up and knit a couple of rows, or even get distracted mid-row and I don't get confused about where I am in the pattern.

I started a lace scarf out of the merino/angora handspun I just finished up.  No pictures yet.... lace looks so very odd and wonky when it's not blocked.  Suffice to say - warm and snuggly. 

My rug project is actually on the downslope towards being finished....granted... a very l-o-n-g downslope, but I reached the halfway mark this weekend (30") and then got another 2 inches woven beyond that yesterday.  I can't wait to get out of the doldrums on this sucker and get it off the loom.

And as a quick bunny update, the little black bunny, Ostara, who arrived just before Easter is doing great.  We have well passed the day mark where she would have delivered, if the little hussy had gotten herself in a family way before she arrived.  I am glad and grateful for that.  The bunny boys seem to have gotten over the initial influx of testosterone-laden excitement and now are back to just being excited about banana treats.  Ostara is actually a pretty friendly little gal.  She will come over to the door of her hutch to visit when I go out to the barn and she likes back-scratches and head pets.  She quickly got on the banana-treat bandwagon and now will grab the slice from me, and scurry back to munch on it in her little sleeping corner. 

Hope everyone has a great first weekend in June!

All for now........