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!

Nick and me

Laurie was able to come to my lesson last week! She took this lovely photograph of Nick and me and had fun relaxing in the sun and watching me ride. Last week, for the first time, I felt like I really connected with Nick and that we were working together towards a goal and not fighting each other for control. I'm waiting for my ride to take me to today's lesson and I hope it goes as well!

Knitting and spinning...

I've been pretty busy with knitting and spinning lately. More knitting than spinning as I am gearing up for my new wheel to arrive (Feb. 14th!!!!!!!!!). The pictures loaded in opposite order than I wanted, so I guess I will go from most recent to last...

I just received our order of Angora Malabrigo in the mail from the lys in Murphys, CA, Maise Blue. The colorway is called apple cinnamon and not only is the color gorgeous, it feels amazing. I hope to spin angora yarn like this in the future! The main color is rather close to a rust color, with the halo being a pale green. I've started making a cowl out of it and it's coming along very quickly. I only hope that I have enough yarn to make the cowl long enough to go around my whole neck as I only have 100 yds total of it. We'll see, and I'll have pics up of the final finished project soon I hope!

Tempe Yarn and Fiber's charity knitting project this month is knitting breasts for mastectomy patients. Sometimes insurance doesn't cover normal prosthesis or a patient can't wear them because of sensitivity or heat rash and knitted boobs are just the perfect answer. They look just like regular ones in a bra, they are breathable, and they can be very fun! Here is the pair that I just finished knitting up to donate:

I tried to make them as fun as possible, which I hope some day makes someone with illness smile. They ended up just the same size as me, which I wasn't exactly going for but hey :)! I'm planning on knitting up a few more pairs - they are easy knits and really go to a great cause.

On to spinning... I have put my bunny socks project on hold because I needed to learn long draw to make them more fluffy and less dense. So, I pulled out some yak from my stash and am teaching myself long draw. It's going very well and I'm excited to see what the yarn will be like when I ply it and take it off the wheel. One ply of this yarn with be just yak and the other is yak carded with pink sari silk - I think that it's going to be beautiful and hopefully turned into a little shawl, if I have enough yarn.

Laurie commented that I haven't announced a rather important development with regards to knitting and spinning - I have decided to knit and spin only from stash this year. I'm not going to buy any yarn or fiber - with the exception of travel yarn (small amounts of yarn or fiber that is purchased when on a trip and is therefore a souvenir of the trip). So far, I have been able to reach into my stash for the yak, the yarn for the boobs, and for a lovely cloche hat that I made that doesn't look good on me or Laurie and will be sent off to a friend... So far so good!

Back in the saddle

Wednesdays are Camelot days, and I was back riding Nick! I brought our camera and one of the volunteers, Kate, offered and took pictures of me riding for my lesson. The light in the arena is kind of bad, lots of shadows, so not all of the pictures turned out. Posted here are some of the best of them. Hopefully, next week, Laurie is going to take off work and come and see me ride :)!!!! I hope she can. Yesterday was a lot of hard work and my legs are sore again today but not too bad. Nick didn't want to walk very fast for me, so I had to nudge him along at every stride. I'm going to have some serious muscles built up as my riding experiences continue. I found out at the Dr.'s office on Monday that I've lost 20 lbs since August! I'm very excited and even though I fell of the "eating healthy" wagon around Christmas, both Laurie and I are back on track. Here are the pictures:

Me up on the mounting ramp, getting ready for Nick.

Nick was nibbling on the railing and we were all watching.

Swinging into the saddle and leaving the wheelchair behind.

Volunteer, Joey, on the left as my spotter and Mary, the executive director of Camelot as my header.

Me, Nick and Michelle, my instructor, in the arena.

Michelle showing me the best way to hold the reins. I am having a bit of trouble not shortening my reins enough during riding.

Nick and I sharing a moment.

In this picture, you can see the huge arena and back behind where the stables are.

I had a great day, even if I know that I have a long way to go! Riding is so breathtaking and I'm loving every minute of it. I'm even loving every minute of having sore legs and being tired - it means I'm working toward my goal!

Destrct -o -bunny

After posting here and on Ravelry about my swap package, here was the carnage from the bunny room when I walked in:

And then I pulled out the apple honey bunny cookies from the package and...

"Cookie? I want my cookie!"

After running under "his" chair, "Nom nom nom, you can't have my cookie!"

"Where did all the cookie go?"

"Oh, mama, I need more cookie!"

"Please?!?!?!"

Ella also enjoyed her cookie, though she wasn't as melodramatic about it as Bennett was. :)

Bunny swap package arrives

Yesterday, the package from my bunny swap partner on Ravelry arrived! It was full of wonderful treats for me and the bunnies! For the bunnies, there was dried mango and bunny cookies and a nice big willow ball and a willow basket. Bennett has already nommed on the mango and played with his new willow ball (see pictures to follow). Ella also approved the mango even though she could only have a little bite. She's never been one for toys, but she did watch Bennett and I play with the ball from her little hay nest in the cage.

For me, the treats were many. First of all, some beautiful alpaca/corriedale from Spunky Eclectic in the colorway "Mandy", which is lovely and matched what I was wearing yesterday. I'm seriously thinking about having that fiber be my first spin on my Ladybug (which, btw, is scheduled to arrive Feb. 14!!!!!!). Also for me, although Laurie is contesting this, was a bar of whole hazelnut chocolate - oh yum! There was some good earth tea that sounds right up my alley and a little notebook and a packet of calender bookmarks that have orchids on them. A lovely smelling bar of lavender goat's milk soap arrived for me as well and last but not least, some adorable bunny themed stitch markers, which I absolutely LOVE! All and all, a lovely package - I hope my partner likes what she got as much as I love what was in mine. Laurie was there when I was opening everything and she kept commenting on how my partner sure knew what I liked, everything was perfect.

So here are the pictures:

The whole of the swap package!

Unbelievably cute bunny stitch markers!

And Bennett playing with his new willow ball:

"Mom, give me back my chew toy - NOW!"

Destruct - o - bunny strikes...

A surprise and a dream come true

I realize looking back over the last couple of months of posts, that I have left out a very big portion of my life in those months, mainly, Camelot. I think the last time I posted about my horsemanship program it was to let you all know that I got that last spot in their schedule. Lots of wonderful things have happened since then.

The weather got cool enough to drive pretty quickly and I have been driving in lessons consistently with not all that much ground work in between. To date, I have hit only 4 small bushes and gotten us stuck into one large bush (thankfully, Cayanna pulled us out of that one with no problem!). It is a lot of fun, driving, and when we went to the Christmas party, there were several horse drawn carriages and Laurie wanted to know if I could drive her in any of them. :) Not too long ago, my lesson was extended to a hour and a half instead of just a hour. I learned to drive while Cayanna trots, which was a lot of fun and exciting. One of the ground lessons that we did do was letting the horses out to play. I'd never seen a horse lay down and roll around in the dust before, and it was so much fun to watch them buck and run and interact together. I also didn't know that horses fart while they buck around, which was pretty funny. I've learned safety stuff and just barely touched on how to walk a horse on a lead rope around the barn. I've learned almost all of how to tack up Cayanna for driving and all the names of the equipment. I've also fed chickens and looked for eggs, cleaned tack with saddle soap and various other fun horse care things. I also learned that you should not drive with your cable needle tucked behind your ear because, "You might end up spearing your head on it like an olive." (I now check before I put my helmet on for that cable needle...)

I arrived at Camelot this passed Wednesday, after the winter break excited to be back with the horses and people there. When I arrived, I saw Tammi, a volunteer and student in the barn and I didn't think much of it. Michelle and I talked in the conference room and I showed off the pictures of Paul that I had brought with me. Shortly thereafter, we headed out to the barn, to which I was told there was a surprise. Honestly, I'm not sure what I thought the surprise was going to be - definitely not what it ended up being. As Michelle lead me out, there was an unfamiliar horse tethered to the railing. Not Cayanna but Nick, the horse that was picked out for me to ride.

Me - a rider!

It had to have been the greatest surprise I could have thought of and I couldn't believe it! Even as I groomed and helped tack him, I couldn't believe that the day had come that I was going to actually ride a horse. I was excited and nervous at the same time - what if I really couldn't do this? Would my dream of riding out on hiking trips with Laurie and doing the rim to rim trail at the Grand Canyon die right now?

It didn't. I rode and I relaxed a bit - turns out in the handful of times that I have ridden horses, I'd been doing it all wrong! I learned to use my body to tell Nick what I wanted of him, stopping was the hardest. But most of all, I rode and I didn't fall off and I wasn't so tired after all of it that I collapsed into bed for a week. Yesterday, my legs and core where happily sore. Not so sore that they ached but enough that I noticed they were there.

I'm so incredibly happy that this has happened. I thought that I would be driving all season and maybe was hoping to try riding next season, but Mary and Michelle apparently had been plotting and it was a total gift for the new year. I must have hugged them both three times I was so happy and excited! I plan on taking my camera on Wednesday and seeing if I can get some shots of me riding Nick. My dream is coming true and I don't even have words to describe how I feel or how it felt to be up on top of Nick's back, looking down on the world, walking around an arena and leaving the wheelchair far behind. There are just no words.

Here is Nick's page off of Camelot's website. :)