Fiber, Food, and Fun!

This is a HUGE pumpkin patch on the road to Taos through Kansas! This is in Granada, CO. It was after this picture that my camera screen went black and a message that said, "Error 45. Please see your user manual." So I was only able to get three photos the whole trip. I tried several times.

My girlfriend and I got up early Thursday morning, loaded up her stuff, and away we went across southwestern Kansas. I will not try to explain about the feedlots that hold huge amounts of cows waiting to be slaughtered. You smell them miles away and there is only that aroma that comes from a feedlot.

We stayed in Trinidad, CO, which is near the New Mexico border. Then after a stop at WalMart to get cold medicine for my friend, we crossed over to New Mexico. We saw tons and tons of antelope and one bison farm in the grassland before the mountains.

Once we arrived in Taos, we drove around a while so I could orient myself to the town again. We had a very hard time finding the alley that led to the bed and breakfast we were going to stay in.

This is the door to our room. I am pretty sure that this at one time must have been the maid's room. It was up three flights of very, very steep spiral stairs. It was located over the kitchen area.

This is only a part of the stairs we climbed up and down to and from the room. I think it was perhaps two feet wide. But I loved it. It was really a little bit isolated from the rest of the rented rooms, and I guarantee that no one would climb those stairs unless they wanted to. The door was not secure and we had a wide window in the bedroom that was open to the roof. We left that open most all the time. There was a skylight in the bathroom that allowed a cross ventilation.

What do I have to say about the Wool Festival? It was wonderful. There were 60 vendors this year. Some were new and some were old and familiar. The weather was hot during the day, and I got a little red burn in the face. I went to a class on how to start a business on etsy. That was very good.

Sunday we went to Espanola and Chimayo and returned to Taos on the High Road. They now have a brochure to promote the artisans and galleries on the High Road called The Art Tour of the High Road. Of course, most everything was closed since it was Sunday, and many of the studio require prior notification. We just enjoyed the twisting mountain road, and the coolness up at higher elevation.

Then we left our fantasies behind and returned to the real world.

Food was wonderful. We tried to eat outside as much as possible. We tried all kinds of stuff, but I don't do as well with strange food as I used to. My friend can eat peppers and hot stuff better than I can.

On the way home we stopped in Granada to buy some produce. My friend bought 50#s-yes, 50#s- of onions. I bought some melons. There is a town called Rocky Ford that has a reputation for melons. This is the last crop and they are smaller than previous crops. They smell wonderful.

So now I am back home, trying to get several things done before I have things to do this weekend. I have a load of clothes on the line outside, and I did a small permanent press wash that is in the dryer. I ran some errands in town earlier. I need to wash and vacuum the car, but I haven't done that yet.

Patty and Noodles were ecstatic to see me, needless to say. Noodles brought me a live rat sometime in the evening. I made him take it outside to eat it. When we went to bed, he got under the covers up close to me. Patty slept with her head on my feet.

I got up early and spent a lot of time in my studio. I love to brainstorm with other people about problems with different dye jobs or spinning problems. One lady gave me an idea this past weekend, and I wanted to try it out.

So now I must buckle down and get back to work. I need to finish some sewing. But I am still tired from my trip. It will take a while, I am sure.

More details later. Just to let you know I am back!

Friday Updates!

Yes, this is Friday. A day that is unlike any other day this week. Just when I think I am getting ahead, I am reminded that I am behind.

Plus this Blogger goof is constantly editing itself. I lost one whole paragraph when I hit the space bar.

I finally finished the stupid linen stitch scarf of 450 stitches across and knitted long-wise. I tried 4 different bind-offs and I do not like a single one of them. I was told at the Knit Group that a standard bind-off is fine, and that when washed and blocked it all works out somehow. Well, I did not like that chained effect that conflicted so harshly with the cast-on stitches.

This morning I finished the bind-off, and I hate it. I tried my 4th one, and said to Hell with it. I am just going to finish this thing. I hate it. I am afraid it did not "work out" in the wash and block. Right now it is pinned and drying. I do not know what to do with the thing now that it is finished, and not to my liking at all.

I am on the home stretch with fingerless mitt #1. I decided to do something easy and fast to make up for the scarf debacle. I am using some fat merino yarn gifted to me, and #7 needles. Works up FAST!

I have been contemplating what knitting to take with me to Taos next week. I know I will take the feather/fan scarf, and what else? Actually I thought of not taking any knitting and giving my hands a break for a while. So what I will probably do is take the scarf, and not work on it much. That would give my hands a bit of a break. My arthritis is screaming today (we had rain this a.m.) and I have a sore tendon in my L thumb.

Our sock group meets on Sunday. CJE is coming over early so we can catch up on news. A lot of people are still busy, so it will be a small group.

Patty has certainly taken macro-steps this week. She has discovered the hunting and catching and gumming to death of grasshoppers! It is so totally gross, and I will not go into any details to anyone. But this has made her want to go out on her very own, and I have left the back door open for that purpose. Anything to encourage her independence. She is so intense with the hunting thing. I see her looking into bushes and plants. She pounces on them. It is funny to watch, until I see the legs sticking out, etc.

The babysitter for Patty and Noodles is coming tomorrow evening to get her key and to meet the animals and get the routine down. Yeah! for babysitters!

I am getting really excited about leaving on this trip. For the longest time I really dreaded the whole idea of packing up and driving and all the hassles. But the more I think about the cooler weather, the energy from all the fiber folks, and just being in Taos again, the more excited I get.
Just to be around people who speak the same language helps.

Well, Happy Weekend! Stay cool and remember it is never too early to knit for Christmas!

Is It Really the Middle of September?

My gosh! I looked at the calendar just now, and yes, I will be in Taos in two weeks! Wow! Two weeks! I better get high behind and get this piddling knitting done and get something portable on the needles and get ready.



I am sorely tempted when I go onto blogs or etsy sites to buy something woolly, but I am holding myself back for the wool festival. I know that I will find something really nice there. I mean-who wouldn't find something nice there?



I also will make my regular trip to LaLana Wools and to Rachel Brown's store. I don't really have an agenda this time. I just want to go. I just want to be away. I just want to smell the sage and chimisa and all the desert plants. I want to have some different scenery.



I did get my car serviced this a.m. bright and early. They even washed it and vacuumed out the interior! I can strike that off the list.



I am really tired of the knitting I am doing right now. I want it over and done with. I have really found out that I am a process knitter. Once I have figured out the pattern and casted on and knitting is going smoothly, I am bored. I think that is why I like colorwork knitting. Lace is good too, but I get distracted easily and I don't always know how to read the knitting to figure out where I am on the chart.

I am disgusted with myself over the handspun sweater. I started decreasing for the armholes-no problem. I started with the lace pattern, and I thought it was no problem. Then somewhere about 2 inches into the lace pattern did I remember that one has to mark off the repeats so it lines up right as I decrease the armhole. Duh! How stupid! So now I have to unknit all that and start that over again. SIGH! Some days I could just scream at myself!

My friend's kitty that was sick did not die! Whew! She is eating again and is doing so much better! I am so relieved.

I did get a call from a long-distance friend that her mother had passed away yesterday. She has been in hospice for three months, and she passed in her sleep around 12:30 a.m. without pain or anymore suffering.

The weather is in that in between state of coolish mornings and 80's in the afternoon. Just now I could hear the woodpeckers calling. So it is getting close to time to put out the birdfeeder. I noticed that the finches are turning colors, too, into their winter time plumage. They are still eating on the sunflowers that are left. I made sure the manure tea has plenty of water and will age some more over the winter.

I had a huge garden spider in the compost bin for quite a long time. The biggest storm we had lately made her lose her web. I did notice another one attached to the shed wall and the comfrey stalks. I don't know if this is the same one or another one since I didn't get her name when I tried to put compost into the compost bin. When I was a little girl I called them letter-writing spiders.

Patty is wanting to go outside, so I guess I will walk out with her. Have a good weekend.

Weird Friday-Random Thoughts!

Yes, the weather is changing. I read other bloggers and many up further north of this state are actually have coolish nights. Enough to actually be unsure about plants outside. We still have one more solid month before we begin to worry about plants outside.

The blackbirds are migrating. I toyed with the idea of putting out the birdfeeder so the finches would have enough seed to molt and fatten up for winter. But when I looked out and saw birds on the power lines like in the Hitchcock movie, I thought the birdfeeder can wait. If one of those pesty birds gets an inkling there is choice feed, all the birds will come around.

The light is changing. Normally I wake up around 6 a.m. and stay in bed as long as I can before Patty realizes I am awake. Lately I have been waking up around 7 a.m. instead, and I am always surprised that it is later than I think when I look out the window.

I am listening to a Deepak Chopra tape-The New Physics of Healing-while I am spinning. I decided to blend the two dabs of wool that I dyed with the brazilwood. So this yarn will be 50% romney, 25% merino, and 25% angora. The bunny is almost greasy feeling-certainly harder to spin than other fine fibers.

I am now decreasing for the armholes on the sweater. I haven't been knitting as much this week. My arms ache, and I decided to give it a rest. Last night was Knit Night at HandHeld.

Our sock club will begin again in a coupla weeks. That will be a nice intimate group of knitters, and I like that smaller group better. It seems we can share and talk about things better than a big group of people all knitting different things and talking about everything under the sun.

One of my knitter friends has a sick kitty, and it makes me sick to my stomach. It sounds just like how Baby got towards the end, and it makes me cry more. I know she is really hurting and trying to do everything for her kitty, and I can only hope the best. It is so difficult to lose one's fur child.

I finally made up my mind to go to Taos to the wool festival. I signed up for a class on Saturday morning, and that will be fun. I made reservations last February for a B & B downtown near the Plaza. Everything will be within walking distance, and I can just park my car. I found a sitter that will take care of Patty, and that's a relief. It will be very difficult to leave her, but it is not feasible to take her. If I was just traveling around, I would take her along. But since I am parking and not traveling for a few days, I can't take her along. I feel guilty, but I know I will get over it by the time I get through Tulsa. That sounds awful, but it will be good to be away for a while.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of 9/11, and it seems a lot of people are working themselves up into a tizzy. I just shake my head, and wonder what is wrong with people?

This morning at 3:30 am Noodles got in a big cat fight with someone traveling through. I ran out to the deck, quickly assessed the situation, and threw a big bucket towards them. It broke up the fight, but the intruder still had a hard time getting away. Now I just hope Noodles doesn't get sick from something he might get from the fight.

I think everyone is beginning to feel the need to knit sweaters and other garments since the weather finally broke. I am thinking about socks lately, but I have too many projects going right now. I kinda like the new group on Ravelry called Frankensocks. I have been using my leftover yarn for a lot of projects.

Have a great weekend. Get out and enjoy the weather while it is nice. I know Fall sports are starting, and don't forget to take your knitting with you to the game. We can root for our kids in all their games and still knit.

Don't forget that it is getting close to Fall chores in the yard, too, before the Frost. And don't forget to have your lawn mowers serviced at the end of the season.

Keep knitting and have fun!

Whew! The Drought Broke!

Yes! It is Pre-Fall! We have had some rain, a little thunder-booming last night, and a cool front blew in with a lot of north wind! It is one of those glorious days of listening to the wind chimes and bells, and letting the wind blow in through the open windows and doors.
I boiled up some marigolds that were stashed in the freezer and made a wonderful dye. Although the color looks washed out in this photo, it really was a golden mustard yellow. Really nice! So nice that one of my little friends decided to visit. I had to wait until it left before bringing in this skein. I didn't want to disturb him/her.

I am having a hard time concentrating today. I just want to do stuff. I guess I just hunkered down waiting for the weather to break during the whole month of August.

Yesterday I took Patty with me to Knit Night. The LYS has some really gorgeous yarns in right now. A sure sign that Fall is coming soon. It was really noisy at some point, and I just packed up and came on home.

I am in the mood to sew right now. Don't know why, but I am. I haven't actually cleaned up that room since I did the floors way back in the Spring. I still have stuff just stashed in there, and I really need to clean it out. That seems to be the one room Noodles likes the best; I guess because there is less traffic through there than the others.

Speaking of Noodles, he is on one big ole rat-killing spree. Every night he tries to bring one into the house. So far I have managed to way-lay him and keep them out. I found one decapitated on the back doormat, and a whole one on the front doormat the other day. These are field rats-like pocket rats-not those ugly big ole Norwegian sewer rats. They are not too repulsive. At least he has laid off the birds for a little while.

Speaking of birds, the hummingbirds have slowed down. Maybe they are going to migrate soon. I have noticed a change in light lately, so maybe they will take off. The earth is rotating again. Another season is approaching.

I did get out and repair and remake my post birdfeeder. It seems the bottom was totally not savable. With Noodles and the raccoons jumping up on it, it had finally decided to give up. Noodles will jump up and hook his arm onto the feeder and swipe out to catch the bird. It is quite a feat, but doable for him. I put a new bottom on and got it all ready for birdfeeding season.

So stay focused and enjoy this glorious weekend. It is wonderful weather again for a little while. So enjoy!

Busy Week!

Well, this has been a busy week! It has gone by fast, and when I look at the calendar, I wonder where the month has gone.

I have been knitting a lot, and I have been spinning a lot. But there does not seem to be a lot of progress made. The linen stitch scarf is on the last two inches now, but it is such a slow-knitting scarf. I have to finish it this week to avoid humiliation. Everyone else has finished at least one, and TR is on her second one already. I have lined up a fair-isle scarf as the next one, but it is waiting patiently for its turn.

CP brought a pair of socks she is working on in a knit-a-long that incorporates the linen stitch in the pattern. I really like the idea of using the linen stitch for the heel flap. Seems a nice sturdy heelflap that would take the wear and tear. You know, I do not have a sock on the needles! How strange. I am socked out right now.

I was honored that SDH asked me to play with dyes with she and her granddaughter yesterday. We did splatter-dyeing for t-shirts and we ended up dyeing two skeins of yarn for me and three for her. I do not take dyeing very seriously, but I am always amazed at dye results from first-timers. I think that it is always interesting when one has never learned the rules and feels no fear to try something that is new. And a child always thinks a lot of dye is better than a little bit of dye.

My neighbors have gone on a little trip, so I am getting their mail and newspaper. It is a chance for me to catch up on news. I quit reading the newspapers a long time ago, and I seldom watch news on the t.v. But I grew up reading the paper twice daily and discussing it. But the newspaper here is dull and repeats the same old news all the time. But I do like to read the local reviews of movies and get the happenings around town. Not that I go to movies any more.

JF went to see Eat Pray Love and said it was definitely worth going to see. I trust my friends reviews. I read the book, and I am sure Julia Roberts integrity would not allow a sleazy movie.

I am presently reading a wonderful book about a guy that blew up the Glen Canyon Dam and a smaller dam downstream. He is -gasp!- an environmentalist that was tired of the bureaucrats and other politics in the organizations he joined that he hoped would save the Colorado River. Of course, they were a waste of his time, so he concocted his own scheme to save the Colorado River. I think I shocked the others in our knitting group when I told them that one of my fantasies as a young girl was to blow up Hoover Dam and save the Colorado River. That's why I like the book, I think. Someone else had the fantasy, too.

I just made a cable boo-boo on my handspun sweater. It is really difficult to unknit cables. I am not happy with it, but I think it will be okay. I am not going to rip it out again. Pooh!

Patty went to the groomer this week, and he skinned her good. I am trying to let her go back to the Schnauzer look, but it will take a while to undo the mess I made in my haircuts. Luckily her hair does grow pretty fast.

It has been pretty cool at night, and she is sleeping pretty close to me at night. I get too restless at times, and she moves away. But I will wake up with her attached to my back or my butt or my legs. I may have to make her a sweater this winter.

Well, must go. Have a good weekend. I still have some marigold dye left, and I am going to dye a coupla more skeins of yarn. Nothing else is planned.

I know CJE and AE are back from Borneo, so we will probably get together some time this weekend. Nothing else going on.

Talk at ya next week.

I Finished the DAMN Socks!

Yes-as one can see-the DAMN socks are finished!!! This started as a knit-a-long with the sock group. I don't like toe-up, so I started at the other end of the chart and did top-down. I rushed to finish a goodly part of it so others in the group could see what it looked like. As I looked down at the instructions, I noticed that I was supposed to use one unifying color as the background color. Oh, no, I was being so "smart" and using up scraps of leftover yarns and ended up with this totally weird pair of sampler socks. It kinda reminds me of the "scrappy" quilts that just uses up scraps and bits of fabric. Oh, well-they are done and finished! Oh-and yes, they do not match. Some of the patterns I just had a time keeping up with the charts. And the second sock had to use a different shade of the color that was on the other one.

Yes-it is still really, really hot and dry. I am trying to keep up with some of the plants, but mostly they will have to survive on their own.

There is one major sign that Fall is coming soon. Tomorrow is the Full Moon for August. In one month will be the Autumnal Equinox. Whew! It cannot come soon enough. We had a lovely display of planetary alignments this month. I never saw the meteor shower or any aurora borealis during the huge solar flare-up. There is just too much light pollution here. I know the real reason for the constellations in the sky, but I like the solace of the Big Dipper holding all the water in and therefore we are getting no rain. Soon the earth will rotate again and the Dipper will allow some of the water to spill out.

It is weird how sometimes these things come to my mind. There were so many taught me by grandmothers and grandfather. I remember a particular dry spell like this one, and my grandfather went out and killed a snake. He hung it over the garden fence with its belly up. It rained after that.

Another story that came to mind this week was the one about my older brother. Since I was a baby, I don't have a memory of it. But I remember being told this by my grandmother. My older brother-like most boys-played with frogs. We lived on a fish farm, so there were lots of frogs. He particularly liked tree frogs. One day a snooty woman from our church came out to visit my mother. My mother worked on the farm, so she didn't encourage visitors during the work week. As they were sitting around talking and drinking iced tea, my brother came running in the house. He had a tree frog attached to his forehead, and he was so proud of his frog. Mother dismissed him and told him to go back outside and play. After he left, the snooty lady said, "Orel Lee, I know it is none of my business. There are doctors who can take that birthmark off of Bill's head. He would look a lot better without that mark, and you need to do that before he starts going to school. Other kids would make fun of him, you know."

I finished the orange, red, yellow yarn. It is quite vibrant. Since I worked on my handspun sweater again this week, I thought I would spin a coupla ounces of that wool so I would have another ball of that. Instead of digging through the sacks, I reached into the bin and pulled out some roving of the Jacob I had premeasured and put in zip-lock bags. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I had gotten the wrong fleece. One has more charcoal gray in it, and it was the wrong one. But I finished up that little dab today and it is blocking out on the yarn blocker.
Now I just need to find the right fleece and spin up a coupla ounces and put it with the sweater. Then on to better things. But I will be diligent and finish this little project. Luckily it is easy to spin and works up quickly.

I am about half-way through with the linen stitch scarf. My friend GK gave me a ball of Noro sock yarn, and I started a feather and fan scarf with that. Otherwise, my knitting has been going rather slowly. For some reason my arthritis decided to hurt a little bit in my hands, and I have been careful with that. Just now I washed my dishes and washed my skein of yarn. The hot water for the dishes helped more than anything. And the yarn wash was warm. I always told my patients to save their dishes to wash for the mornings. And to wash them in the hottest water they could stand. And now I am doing just that.

Patty's hairdo is looking a little bit rough. I have been keeping it short for the summer, but I do not know how to do a traditional schnauzer cut. I think she must have a problem with her skin, because if I let her go over ten days without a bath, she licks the top part of her feet a lot, and I find her licking her stomach a lot. Enough that her stomach turns pink. A friend suggested she could have a grass allergy. We don't have much grass left, but there is some. Once she is bathed, she is fine. No licking for several days. Around day 7-8, lick, lick, lick.

Noodles is laying under the ceiling fan right now. He knows where the best air movement can be. He tried to play a little bit with Patty the other night. He crouched down behind a cosmos plant, wiggled his butt, swished his tail, and jumped out towards Patty as she trotted past. He made a chirpling noise and danced sideways with his tail crooked. Patty skittered sideways like a scared pup, which she was. Since Noodles attacked her week one of her stay and ripped open her tongue, she has avoided any close contact with him. I patted him and tried to explain that Patty doesn't know how to play kitty-play, and that he would just have to forgive her this once. He just looked at her with scorn and tried to ignore her snub.

Well, I am going to vacuum the area around the spinning wheel. Then I will dig around in the stash and find the right fleece. And on we go, around and around.

Have a good week! Faith is knowing that Fall will be here soon. Hope is waiting for rain to come. Keep on knitting. Keep on spinning. It all keeps us sane until the heat breaks.