How The West Was Spun

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Burger Toppings

• Lettuce - something not iceburg.
• Ketchup - no mustard.  Sorry... I know it's against a lot of folks' strongly-held beliefs you need both.  I have mustard issues. 
• Tomato - thinly sliced. 
• Onion - one or two thinly sliced rings of something like a Vidalia or other super sweet onion. 
• Cheese - I'm not super fussy about the kind, but gotta have something.  Blue cheese is a favorite.

Those are the must-haves.  These are my optional choices, but I'll definitely take them if you have them!

• Avacado or guacamole.
• Bacon.  
• Sauteed mushrooms.
• BBQ sauce.

Have a wonderful Fourth of July if you are here in the US!

All for now....

10 On Tuesday: Things I Want To Do This Summer

Sorry, I had fallen off the blogging train for a bit there; let me try to get back in the saddle, so to speak, with 10 on Tuesday for this week!

1.  Tour de Fleece 2013:  I've got my wheels geared up and I'm ready to do some spinning!  I had sort of half-heartedly spun in prior years, but last year, I got a LOT of spinning done.  While I don't have quite as much undivided time to devote to it this go-round, I do want to participate and my goal is to try to spin up an ounce a day.
2.  Organize my fiber stash: This is kind of a 1b thing for the list.  I have a ton of fiber and while there is a lot of it that I will get to at some point, I feel like I need to take a critical look at what I've got and maybe destash some of it that I don't love for whatever reason.  
3.  Knit.  A lot:  Not that I don't do this anyway, but I've got a ton of other projects I'd like to get on the needles in the next couple of months.
4.  Learn a few new great veggie-based meals:  D and I have been eating a lot lighter than we did when we first got married eons ago. While I think at heart he's still a meat and potatoes guy, we've enjoyed adding some fun veggie kind of things into our weekly recipe trial night.  I have a new one for fresh snap peas and ricotta with lemon and mint that's going into the rotation this week!
5. Do some planning for a Big Trip:  D and I, speaking of being married, have a big anniversary coming up in 2014 and we'd like to go somewhere nifty.  Haven't quite decided where that is, but a little surfing on the net for some vacation destinations is in order.
6.  Revamp storage in my studio:  Having added several new wholesale clients in the last few months, I'm kind of at maximum density in my studio while I'm trying to get kit orders and wholesale orders dyed and out the door.  I have added a couple new shelves, which have helped free up some table space, but I would like to add a few more, plus some see-thru storage bins for the odds and ends of things I take to shows (like small display baskets and extra duct tape, etc.)
7. Do my nails more often:  Don't even get me started.  Several girly-filled hours last weekend with some friends and now I'm addicted to nail polish.  Oi.  At least the warm weather is a good excuse to have pretty nails to show off, right?
8.  Plan the fruit tree garden:  D and I are planning on adding some fruit trees along the area we have the veggies this year.  While he (thank goodness) is doing the heavy clearing of some old overgrown bushes there, I need to figure out what we have space for and what will be happy up here. 
9. Ride my bike: I am kind of in a running rut.  Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but I do think I need to mix up the exercise a bit and haul my bike out on the weekends occasionally.
10.  Relax:  I say this, it's on my list..... I'd like to do it, but I think I'm finding "relaxing" isn't in my nature very easily.  Gonna work on that one.  :)

All for now.... 

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Things I Did This Weekend

1.  I worked at my day job both Sunday and Monday.  Blech. (And grumbled to myself about that a lot.)
2.  D and I went to a nice cookout with some friends on Sunday afternoon.
3.  I got a lot of knitting done.
4.  I spent several hours dyeing, got some custom orders done and I'm in the home stretch on  two wholesale orders as well. 
5.  I blocked out some "me" time on Saturday and went for a run - Monday as well.
6.  Saturday, I finished putting together the center of the quilt I've been working on (more on that tomorrow).
7.  I planted pretty annuals in the windowboxes and ceramic planters out front.
8.  Baked a pie (something I never ever do!).
9.  Started a great new book by a favorite author. 
10.  Found a brand-new iced tea for the summer I'm now addicted to (watermelon/mint!)

All for now......

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Things to Bring to a Picnic

It's definitely getting to be picnic weather, so here are my top ten things to bring on a picnic: 

1.  Iced tea: Preferably the sweet tea kind, but I'm flexible on that point. :)
2.  Watermelon: Ice cold and pre-cut so you can use it as a finger food.
3.  Fried chicken: I eat almost nothing fried anymore, but something about the crunch and the salt while sitting, eating outdoors just seems so right. 
4.  Homemade rolls: The soft kind you pull apart.  As a foil for all that fried chicken saltiness.
5.  Chocolate sheet cake:  I like it with a vanila frosting, or maybe a burnt sugar caramel glaze.
6.  Plenty of napkins and plates, and maybe some Wet Ones too.
7.  Comfy folding chairs - We have a couple we got for horse race weekend/camping that are actually fairly comfortable, lightweight, and have a cup holder!
8.  Bug spray:  Ugh - nothing worse than having to go to the ER after your significant other gets stung.  
9.  Sunscreen:  And lots of it.  Pasty-girl me needs 100 SPF applied liberally.
10.  A good book and/or knitting:  Something that doesn't take a lot of concentration so you can doze off into a food-induced coma in the sun. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I have a slightly older cousin I grew up with, whose birthday is just a week or so after mine in July.  We used to have a combined birthday party for the two of us many years that involved eating outside, and other than corn on the cob (a requirement as far as he was concerned, and easy to prepare since the party was in the back yard), the menu of numbers 1 thru 5 was pretty much what he and I asked for every year.  Which I suppose tells me my food tastes have not progressed past what I liked in grade school, but there ya go!

All for now.....

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Reasons Why I Knit

1.  I like to create things with my hands.  That's a pretty basic reason for most knitters, isn't it?
2.  I love color, and when I knit, I get to pick from all sorts of gorgeous colors out there.
3.  I have just enough of my grandparents' Depression-era mentality that I like home-created over store-bought.  (Despite the fact that most handknit sweaters nowadays cost WAY more than something similar at Target or wherever.)
4.  I like wool.  I like how it feels and anything that tends to be "sheepy goodness" scented, I''m all over that.
5.  I like cold weather.  Cold weather = perfect for wearing knits! 
6.  I like a challenge:  Learning a new technique, or figuring out some great little shaping or other detail makes my brain happy.
7.  I like knitters.  I'm not a super social/extroverted person, but knitting gives me a reason and an opportunity to leave my house and have great interactions with other knitters.  That's good for me.
8. I like having things that fit me just right.  I tend not to like off-the-rack clothes - they generally don't fit me well.  I can make it to fit me perfectly this way.
9.  Apparently I am inherently twitchy.  Knitting gives me something to think about, to work on, to entertain myself with when I'm "just" sitting.  Otherwise, I think I would never sit still.
10.  OCD:  I tend to be a little compulsive about a lot of things, and maybe a bit obsessive too.  I'm not really sure I can't NOT knit at this point - chalk it up to both the obsessive and compulsiveness, but I can live with that.   

All for now....

10 on Tuesday: Things I'm Looking Forward to in May

This week's 10 on Tuesday theme is Things I"m Looking Forward To in May.

1.  This one's easy: A mini-vacation to Moab!  D and I and a couple of friends are going to Moab for a long weekend.  D and his buddy are planning on dirt-biking.  I'm planning on being a slug!  :)
2. Gardening weather:  I think maybe one more round of cold temps this week at night for a couple of days and then it'll be officially planting time for the veggies. 
3.  Front yard beautification project: I picked up a handful of nice terra cotta-type pots over the winter, so I'm anxious to get some things planted in those to finish off one of the spaces in our newly landscaped (last fall) front yard. 
4. Classes: Not one, but two classes that I'm teaching at the LYS, which are always fun for me.
5. Patterns: I should have at least a couple of new patterns that'll be released in May.
6.  Cooking on the grill:  We normally cook at least a few times a week on the grill year-round, but now that it's warming up, we wind up cooking out a LOT.  We have a gorgeous mountain view off our deck with some comfy chairs, and there's nothing better than having a glass of wine on a warm-ish evening while the grill heats up.
7.  New Things: Looking forward to having a new online shop format ready to go, plus a new shop blog.  
8.  Planning ahead:  I actually like planning and making lists.  I've got a trip to plan to DFW in June for a weekend - it'll be a whirlwind tour, but hopefully I'll have some time to get together with some friends there too! 
9. Spinning:  I'm looking forward to a new 2IBH club, even though I haven't been spinning much.  I'm hoping to find my mojo for that again before the Tour de Fleece starts up in July this year. 
10. Longer Days: I get up really early and it's so nice this time of year to have it starting to get light even at 5:30 a.m.  Also nice to have what feels like an extra hour after dinner to do things outside.  I like the longer days, even if it means the heat is coming!

All for now...... 

10 on Tuesday: Top 10 Favorite Knitting Patterns

This is actually a tough one for me, because it's like picking your favorite ice cream flavor.  SO many, SO many I love!  (All the links will take you off to Ravelry pages.)

Since I have such a long list, I decided to break it into halves.  The first five are projects I've actually knit. The last five are ones on my wish-list to knit.

1.  Sprossling Cardi:  This is a quick knit for a garment, has lovely shaping, lace, and looks great on.  I get a ton of compliments when I wear mine.
2.  Ulmus Shawl: I tend to like just about everything Kirsten over at Through the Loops has designed, but this little shawl is a winner.  Knits up really fast, a lot of bang for the buck.  You can pick and choose skeins out of stash to use and still wind up with a gorgeous finished piece.   
3.  Flutter Scarf:  A great pattern from Miriam Felton.   The little detail at the hem totally makes it worthwhile.  It's pretty, feminine and can go with a winter or a warmer-weather outfit.  Looked awesome with handspun too.
4.  Widdecomb Fair: It's hard for me to find an Alice Starmore pattern I don't like.  I loved knitting this one.  The colors, the motifs, the little details like the border = Super Win for me.
5.  Irish Moss: Another Alice Starmore, but this is aran patterned, and not colorwork.  This project took me a long time to finish, but was totally worth it.  It's gorgeous, and one of the few things I've knit for him that my DH will actually wear (not all the time, mind you, but it's his cold-weather go-out-to-dinner sweater).

6. Olga's Vest:  I love the different styling you can do with this piece. I've got handspun earmarked for it.
7.  Central Park Coat:  I have absolutely nowhere to wear this, and I'm not entirely sure I want to knit an entire garment in double-knit, but somehow, I totally want to knit this. The art of it completely makes it.
8.  Quadrille Corset:  Another one I can't exactly see myself wearing, but it's cabled! And Steampunk'ed! And just really pretty with all those details.  
9.  Arrowhead Mittens:  I love the Art Deco feel of these, but I think they could be super interesting knit in a multicolor/plain color combo to totally change the vibe with them. 
10.  Arbois Sweater:  It's a jacket, but also a cardigan.  Interesting details to keep you focused on the knitting, but nothing so crazy difficult you couldn't watch TV or carry on a conversation.  This is the kind of piece I like to knit and like to wear.  

This actually was harder to pull together than it would seem - I apparently have a LOT of favorites!

All for now...

Ten on Tuesday: 03/26/2013

10 Things You'd Do If You Won the Big Powerball Jackpot:

1.  Quit my job.  Seriously?  Who would go back to work?  Definitely not me (and I mean my day job here, BTW.)
2.  Buy land and lots of it.  Somewhere remote.  Montana maybe.  I like Montana.
3.  Build my dream house and barn. (see #2 above - I'd make sure there was enough land for lots of things like horses and cutting hay).
4.  Make sure my retirement was covered, and that I could pay for #2 and #3 - investments, money under the mattress, whatever.
5.  Make sure my folks and D's mum were covered in their retirement - whatever they needed to be comfortable with that.
6.   Buy several exceptionally well-trained horses and hire a full-time trainer/exerciser to live on property so I could just go yank a horse out of the pasture and go for a ride without having to worry about having the spring stupids or some other crazy-horse behavior.  (I don't think he would move from Utah, but our friend Jerry would be at the top of my list.)
7.  Set up a couple of trust funds for some nonprofits I find worthwhile.
8. Set D up with his dream workshop - for motorbikes, woodworking, etc - with top of the line tools and facilities.
9.  Travel a lot.  
10.  Buy books, good wine, and gourmet cheese without looking at the price tag.

Gee - listed like that, I have kind of boring wants, I guess.  No Ferrari, no jet planes, nothing like that.  Most days I'd just settle for the cash to do #1 and call it good.

All for now.......