Happy Birthday, Laurie!

I just wanted to take a little time to say Happy Birthday to a very special person in my life - Laurie! We've been friends over 10 years, through the ups and downs and chronic illness and all of that and I hope that we are still friends at least another 10 years! I hope you have a blessed, happy year, Laurie - I love you lots!

She's landed!

Well, no pictures yet, but yesterday I got a call from TYF saying that they had received the shipment from Schacht and that my Ladybug wheel was in! Terry put her together and I've been hooked ever since. She has the honored spot in the living room - right in front of my recliner (what I usually use to spin in). I love her and I'm so happy to have her home with me after all the waiting. When I went in to TYF last night, I had intended to spin some CVM that I bought at TYF from a little 4-H girl who was selling raw wool. I washed and carded it and planned on it being my first project - however, when I sat down to spin, I decided I should not spin for a specific project but just spin to get to know the wheel, so I bought some Mountain Colors targhee (in the colorway Heather - !!) and am spinning that up!

Pictures soon - I promise!

Bennett says hi!

Somebunny got all nosey about the camera this morning and wanted to know why mama wasn't photographing him, so here are his glamor shots from this morning...

Medical fun

To add to fiber fun, I have had a bit of medical "fun" in the past week. I'd noticed about two weeks ago that the lump on my back - remember the emergence of random hurt-y bumps all over my body and the particular painful one on my back? - started to hurt more than usual. As a chronic pain pro, I ignored it - although I did mention it to my PCP at my appointment last week. Last weekend, while showering me, Laurie noticed that the lump on my back had doubled in size and felt hot to the touch. This worried us, I had just finished a round of antibiotics for a UTI, so I shouldn't have an infection after that. So, what is going on? After an urgent doc appt that made me miss my horsemanship lesson, we still don't know. My pain meds got upped and I was told to make haste to the dermatologist. Unfortunately, I had just missed a derm appt a few weeks ago because the scooter blew a tire that morning and I wasn't able to get myself to the appointment. I have a loaner scooter now, thank goodness, although I do miss mine terribly, but I still missed the appt and it takes three months to get in to see the dermatologist. Hopefully, Laurie is going to see if we can schedule me in with another derm doc on my insurance plan and that would be faster. It's so frustrating not knowing what's going on with my body. Can't things ever settle down for once? The resident that I saw at the urgent appt was really sweet and seemed genuinely sorry that she couldn't do something more for me. I really hope we can finally find some doctor who will biopsy one of these lumps and get down to the bottom of this.

The good news is that this weekend will take some of the stress off. Laurie, Marc and I are headed up to Flagstaff. It's supposed to snow and I'm looking forward to hanging out, looking out onto snow covered trees and knitting or spinning or tatting.

And lastly, fabulous news - my mom was so generous, she paid for me to take the beginning floor loom class! It starts tomorrow! Squee! At least I have happy things to look forward to in the midst of the medical crap!

Fiber fun

I've been having lots of fun with my fibery crafts lately - trying anxiously to distract myself from the wheel countdown. If you remember correctly, I was expecting Feb 14th to be the day, but it turns out that is the day they were supposed to ship it, so, alas, I am still waiting and jumping at any ring of my phone to tell me that she's arrived. I'm not terribly hopeful she'll be here by the end of this week, but maybe next week! (fingers crossed). So, to distract myself, I've done a little tatting. I made this cute little cat face and put it on a notecard to serve as Marc's birthday card. It ended up really cute, although a bit wonky in one bit - I'm still working on reading the tatting patterns and knowing when to "reverse work" or not. It's coming along though, and I'm enjoying it. Marc really liked the card! Here it is:

A few weeks ago, when I brought my first tatting into TYF, I had several people offer me some more shuttles. I greatly appreciated it because I only have the two and they are somewhat hard to find. Cora Lee, one of TYF's employees brought in two big boxes of over 100 shuttles that a friend had given her. They ranged antique silver to cheap plastic and everything in between. Cora Lee let me have a few of them, so here they are! I have three favorite and the others are more utilitarian. These first two are in the favorite category.

It's hard to see in the pictures but the one on the right has faint flowers carved into it and has the date Aug 1868 on it. That one happens to be my favorite of them all.

All three of these pictures are of the more modern but still pretty type that I ended up with.

This last is one of the three favorites, made of shell.

When I first brought the tatting in, Laurie let me buy two balls of thicker crochet thread to practice with, because the thread I had in my stash was over 60 yrs old and very very tiny. I'm using the light purple to practice and the hope is with the pink sparkly one I will make Christmas ornaments for gifts for next year. I've really been getting the hang of tatting, it's been fun to learn a new craft and study my way through new patterns. I've started a bookmark for Cora Lee to thank her for her gift of the shuttles.

Browsing Ravelry last week, I found the cutest pattern for mittens. I just had to make them for the executive director of my horsemanship program - they have little owls on them. I made them out of Cascade eco alpaca and they turned out fabulously. The hardest part was sewing on the eyes! They are blocked and ready to be gifted, but alas I was not able to go to horsemanship this week (see future post) and will have to wait until next week. They are super soft and not heavy at all. I hope she likes them!

Now, I just have to keep waiting on my Ladybug... (big sigh)

Bennett pictures :)

Some new pictures and Bennett stories...

First up is very cute sleepy bunny lounging on the couch.

(And a close up)

Bennett loves the couch, even though we try to keep him off of it and always keep the sheet on to protect it, he is often found lounging like this on it. A few days ago, he figured out how to get under the sheet on the couch and it was hilarious! He was hopping under it all over the place and periscoping, so we could see a bunny outline wherever he went. When we finally stopped laughing and were worried that he was stuck under there, Laurie went and freed him. He gave her a look like "why are you spoiling all of my fun, auntie Laurie?" and reluctantly hopped off the couch.

These next pictures are from him being adorable and cute again during a petting session while we were watching Battlestar Galactica (we're a bit hooked on them from netflix). He is such a cuddly bunny and always ready for a snuggle.

Knitting and spinning and WEAVING - oh my!

This past weekend was a learning experience for me - a very fun, exciting learning experience. Our little yarn store offers weaving classes and has floor looms (and other types) in the store to be learned on. The weaving class itself is a bit expensive, but if there is a loom available, for $25 they will warp the loom for you and let you weave a 72" scarf. This offer is not a class, although there is some basic instruction when needed and it's a fabulous way to start weaving without a lot of major monetary commitment. So, this past weekend, I wove! I wanted to weave with some of the alpaca that we brought home from Chile two years ago, so two weeks ago, I brought in the alpaca and all of the friday night crowd helped me pick a yarn that would match beautifully. We ended up picking a very lovely coral color and that is what I used as a warp. The first scarf isn't very pretty - it's very wonky in places and I didn't have a pattern in mind, so it's rather all over the place. Nevertheless, it's my first woven piece and I'm happy to have made it! I am planning on giving it to my mom, as it's something that she would be hard pressed to destroy.

My second scarf, however, I am so very proud of! I picked a herringbone pattern from a weaving book and did that. It turned out fabulous! I can't wait to wear it somewhere! I'm hoping to talk my mom into helping finance taking the weaving class, because a woman from our lys offered to loan me a loom if I learned how to use it properly. That would be fantastic! I'm trying to decide what to do - if I want to weave another scarf or really take the class and dive head on into weaving... We'll see!

Here are the pictures - I wish you could touch them, they are so marvelously soft:

First scarf

Second, herringbone scarf

Knitting and some new learning...

So, I finished the cowl that I was making with the angora Malabrigo that we got in the mail a few days ago. It is stunning and beautiful and oh so soft. We found some lovely matching ceramic buttons that Laurie attached to each corner and a crochet chain figure eights around the buttons to close it. Unfortunately, there was only 100 yards of yarn and the pattern I used called for 120, so it doesn't fit me. :( It does fit Laurie very nicely and looks very amazing on her. She is very happy with it, too. Here's the final picture:

This past weekend, Laurie and I did a bit of traveling. Laurie's Aunt Carolyn was visiting Prescott because she was doing her orientation for Prescott College. We drove up Saturday, to pick her up (sadly, we missed going to the Prescott yarn shops because we took so long to clean up the house and they were all closed - I was bummed). We went to our favorite restaurant in Prescott, the Prescott brewery and took a little walk around the square. It was extremely cold! We stayed the night in Prescott Valley, and headed out Sunday to drive over to Jerome, where we did stop at Knit 1 Bead 2 and got some lovely alpaca/silk in a to die for purple color. Carolyn purchased two tatting shuttles - she had forgotten to bring hers (she used to tat quite a lot but has drifted off the past few years), and was very excited about finding them. We went on to Crescent Moon Rec area in Sedona, and ate a picnic lunch (did I mention how cold it was?) and Laurie and her Aunt took a walk down the river path (I napped).

When we arrived back home Sunday, Carolyn whipped out the tatting shuttles and was showing me how she did it and what could be done. This is what her work looked like:

I had heard of tatting before, but didn't really know what it was or what implements one would need to do it. Apparently there are a couple of types, Carolyn does shuttle tatting. Basically, the end result of all the types is a very fine lace made by tying knots. It is very work intensive and not many people do it anymore. It is, however, beautiful. Yesterday, while Laurie was at work, before Carolyn had to go home, she sat me down and taught me how to do it. She was a good teacher and said that I picked it up faster than she did. My pieces look nothing like her beautiful work, but I'm still plugging away at it. The only crochet thread that I had on hand was giving to me by Laurie's mom (Carolyn's older sister) and was part of a crochet table cloth project that their mother was working on before the birth of their older sister and never finished (it was given to me to piece it all together). So, the thread I'm working with is probably twice my age and tinier that a beginner should be working on. I'm hoping that at TYF tomorrow, Laurie will agree to let me buy a small ball of larger crochet thread so I can keep practicing - I keep breaking the antique thread because it's pretty fragile. It is fun, however, and I'm going to keep practicing, even if it's not my main craft engagement. Here are the picture of what I'm working on:

While Carolyn was here, I completed a ring and she showed me how to connect the next ring I was making to the first, then this morning, when I picked it back up again, I messed it up and couldn't take it back because the thread is too small, so I had to abandon that one. The one on the bottom of the picture, is the new ring I have started and that is going along well, so far, I'm crossing my fingers that I don't mess up again!