Thursday, November 18, 2010






This is one of the cowls I designed this past weekend.


It's 10x24 inches in size and was knit on size 6 needles. It's a very easy pattern - it has "tumbling blocks" knit as the design. This design consists of simply knit and purl stitches - nothing fancy.


It is an easy pattern, so someone who is brand new to knitting could make this without any problem.

It is available for $20.00, which includes the pattern and enough yarn to make the cowl. The yarn is superwash sock yarn so the cowl can be put thru the washer and dryer when it gets dirty and will not shrink.
The next cowl, at the left, was designed and knit by me late last week. It is 10x22 inches and has a raised texture to the fabric. It is aslo easy enough for a beginner knitter to make.
This cowl comes in a kit with the yarn and pattern instructions for $20.00.
Let me know what colors you are looking for because I have a large stash of sock yarns and should beable to find what you want.


Tuesday, November 02, 2010






This is what I did over this past weekend. I made some bright new sparkly roving.


I added some white Shetland roving and some undyed firestar for sparkle and pop and got the above ball of bling.
I can hardly wait to get the rest of the wool and firestar mixed together so I can spin it. The new roving is absolutely soft and it sparkles like crazy.
I did add some firestar to some dyed roving and spun it up but it wasn't as bling-bling as this roving. I will be doing more with the wool and firestar as I found a box with 2 pounds of firestar in it that I had forgotten I had ordered. I plan on dyeing more roving next weekend if I can work it into the scheduled programs.

Monday, October 25, 2010


Well, after 4 days of work and almost 20 large trash bags of crap, the room is starting to look better. It still needs a good sweeping but my asthma is acting up today so all I was able to do was take out more trash bags to the road for pick up tomorrow.
I can actually get into the closet that holds all my fabrics now. I had forgotten what I had in there. It was nice to be able to close the closet door after I went thru it. I need to decide what fabrics will stay and what will go. Have tons of polyester which will go but have some knits I will keep. Looks like I'll be putting things on ebay this coming weekend.
I will be telling everyone what this room will end up being AFTER I get it fixed up. I'd like to get to that point by Turkey Day, but no promises. I have decided what furniture, from other rooms, will be moving into this room and what won't. I was going to move the love seat from the living room into here but then I found the twin bed frame I had bought quite a while ago. I think I'll repurpose it into a love seat - and hope that Chloe doesn't figure it out, she loves to snuggle on things with blankets and quilts on them.
Speaking of quilts, I found my antique quilt templates I bought over 7 years ago and the fabric that had been cut out. I also found an old cutter quilt I fixed (removed the destroyed blocks and put other block from the same quilt in their place) and I found 2 small quilts (wall size?) that I can quilt and display. One of these quilts has bright multi-colored blocks with jet black edging - talk about an eye-catcher. The other small quilt is made up of pastel baby-themed blocks edged in a deep royal blue - need to replace 2 of the blocks as some 4-legged rodent wanted to use it and chewed up the blocks. The bright colored quilt will definitely be put up on the wall, and the lighter one will probably be draped over my computer desk.
Well, better go for now, it's supposed to rain again and have possible thunder storms and I do not want to be on this computer during that.
Til later,
Bye.

Friday, October 22, 2010



It was 36 degrees when I finally let the dogs out this morning and we had frost. Not the killing frost we need to get rid of the pollen so Gracie can get off the prednisone, just a light dust of frost.

Will be glad when I can take her off the prednisone, she's getting to be a real crank. I think if she beats up on Travis one more time, he may decide to pack up his bags and blankie and leave. She is a real holy terror with the prednisone.

Thursday, October 21, 2010


Hi All,
Just thought I'd introduce you to the site boss for the bedroom repurposing.
This is Vinnie. He is a 12 1/2 year old black Labrador retriever who moved back into the house after his kennel mate of over 11 years, and aunt, died in June of this year. Since he's been here he has learned to like pizza (his favorite is PapaJohn's The Works), to "talk" to his food pan (he started this when he was a baby - he scoops out some of his dog food out of the bowl with his nose, grabs the side of the pan and barks - of course this works better and gets more echoing if he has the pan backed into a corner), is trying to figure out the space heater in the dining room (when it comes on, he will stand there with his nose about 1 inch away from the outside mesh staring at it), and tries to keep track of me as I move thru the house. He does a pretty good job of all this except he keeps losing me at times.
He has been over-seeing the fix-up of the bedroom by lying in front of the door (one of his ways to keep track of me), snooping around in piles of junk to be thrown out (probably looking for a mouse) and just lying in the middle of the room in the sunlight.
He will be checking on things later today when I work in the room again. He's so helpful, in his own mind.
Now to go block a sweater.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010






Hi All,

I decided, since I wasn't working at the time, it was about time that I did something with all this wool around here (besides using it as insulation). So, yesterday I started to clean up the 2nd largest bedroom and make it into a studio for knitting, sewing, spinning, and writing. BUT, this is how it looked AFTER I removed 7, count them, seven bags of *&^%.

This picture (above) is right in front of the door looking into the room. To the right are about 20 bags of fleece I plan of scouring and spinning into yarn - most of it is varying shades of Shetland, with an occassional border Leicester cross thrown in for good measure. The colors range from Shetland black to grey to different shades of moorit (brown, to the uninitiated) so a white with grey fibers.


This picture is to the left of the door and shows more fleeces in the black bags, some books I need to decide whether to keep or not and an old chest of drawers.
This picture is toward corner next to the big south facing double window. There is a lot of light in this room during the day, even in the winter.
I plan to take the entrance door to the room and make it into the desk/sewing table/knitting table. I also plan on moving the love seat from the living room into this room, painting the walls, and putting up a cork bulletin board.
So, come back often and see how this room is changing from a junk room into a studio where I can write and make yarns, and sew.
Til then,
BYE.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Hi All,
I finally finished my nursing degree and have taken some time off to relax and recoop and now it's time to get back to work. Unfortunately, around here pickin's are slim so I decided to start up this blog again.

As of today, September 24,2010, I am knitting my fingers off to make some samples of the knitting I have to offer for sale. I will have kits for a scarf and/or hat which will contain the needed yarns (very very soft acryilcs), the pattern(s), and, if you just want the scarf, knitting needles will be included. The scarf pattern is very easy for a novice to handle. The hat kit will include the yarn for the hat and the pattern and possibly dpns (if I can find some I like). This pattern is also easy. There will be a number of colors - I think the varigated yarn makes the prettiest scarf and hat - but you can have it in solids if you like. The scarf kits will sell for $20.00 and the hat kit for 15.00.

I will be posting a picture of the scarf and hat as soon as I can convince this laptop to accept the pictures and I will give you a list of the colors I will have available. I was going to have the finished product to sell but things changed earlier this week making that idea difficult to manage, namely with everything else going on.

Starting next year, I will have patterns for sweaters, small shoulder shawls and a Shetland shawl for sale. I hope to have some hand-dyed yarns for sale also. There will probably be other things, so keep checking back.

So, stay tuned and come back frequently to see what is available. I hope to have the kits ready for November sales. That is if the Knitting Fairy will cool her jets and let me work on these in peace. Nothing like a cantankerous Fairy.

See you soon.

Thursday, January 07, 2010


Well, we are in the midst of a winter snow storm - unfortunately, my camera didn't like the new batteries I put in ( 2x) and now it just sits there and looks at me. So, I decided to use another pix of the snow falling here.

This picture shows how it looks when the snow is falling down the "lane" under the trees going toward the front pasture. It is really pretty ( even if the picture is almost 2 years old ).

When I got up and looked out the backdoor at about 6:45AM there was no snow anywhere to be seen, but when my alarm clocks got me up at 8AM, there was almost 2 inches of fine powder on back steps and, if it had been rain instead of snow, it would have been pouring ( you could just see to the front of the pasture ).

The pups ( Gracie and Travis ) have been out 2x already playing in the snow. You would have thought that this was Travis' 1st snowfall with the way he's been acting - running around like a wild thing with Gracie hot on his heels. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it - oh. well, maybe next time.

Gracie and Travis are getting along a little bit better as long as he does what she wants when she wants. She let's him know when he can eat, if he can talk to me, and whether he can talk in his crate. Bossy isn't a strong enough word for this littler girl. But, she isn't like this with the older girls in the house or outside, just with him.

Better go for now as Gracie has Travis pinned in a corner and I'd like to keep both of them alive to have a litter of pups in a couple of years, so .....

Bye for now.