Random

It's too cold for me now to go swimming, but the pool is still open until October 16th, since the dogs are no wimps, when it comes to cold water. They still enjoy swimming, when the sun is shining during the day, and I open up the gate to the stairs. Denny has definitely learned to jump in, whenever he's hot, from the side, but still only from HIS certain spot.

Happy IS his name, if you know what I mean.



Wet, and happy, and tired.





It's not often you can see Denny moving at a fast pace like this.



And Maggie is like a Chipmunk on caffeine. She's always on the move. 



Some time ago I bought  myself this yarn bowl. Used it every day from the day I've got it, but about a month ago, I picked it up to move from the deck where I've been happily knitting, inside the house, when it broke in my hand, and cut my left pointy finger in the process. I was sad, and angry at the same time, since this bowl didn't last long. I love to use a yarn bowl, it's really handy.
So, after seeing a lovely one made from wood, I went and got myself this beauty.



I stuffed some fiber in it, so it wouldn't look so bare, but it's already in use now, holding my yarn for a cowl I'm knitting.



It was a pleasure to deal with Tim of  Twisted Timber Woodturning. The bowl is worked beautifully, and hopefully will last a lot longer then the first one.

And I did say this is a random post, because really, I have to show you these:



They are called "Bora Bora Fire Balls", the recipe is from the book Well Fed. I've tried many recipes from this book, they are ALL wonderful. They are a combination of savory and sweet. Made with ground pork, and crushed pineapples and rolled in toasted, shredded coconut. The fire comes from Cayenne pepper, and Jalapenos, used in the meat, the shredded coconut mixture, and in the sauce too.

I made these with my daughter, who gets me to try new recipes on her weekly visits. If it were just me, I would cook the same thing over and over, not wanting to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. But it's worth it, those balls were delicious, especially with the "sunshine sauce" also from this book.

Alright, that's it for today!

♥

Handspun Friday - Noah

I bought this fiber in 2010. I had to go looking in my files for a photo of the braid. I'm just glad there's some kind of order in my files, or I would have never found it, since I didn't even know what year I bought it.

Here it is: Noah dyed by FatCatKnits, a Merino/Bamboo blend, 8oz.





I've spun it earlier this year. I've seen others felt Merino/Bamboo blend handspun yarns on purpose, so this was my experiment. I wanted it to look "frosted".

Here's a photo of the yarn before I handled it roughly in hot/cold soapy water. It's all smooth and shiny.



Then I put some muscle into it, and agitated it for a long time, until I saw the bamboo coming to the surface.





I've got two skeins, a total of 266yds, 2-ply.


Now I've that out of my system. It's squishy yarn, great for a hat I think.

And of course there's a glimpse into Denny's attachment to me. When I'm sitting at my desk, he's often sleeping very close. I have to be careful not to hurt him. I've heard saying, that an umbilical coard would be too long for him and me.


Oh, and that's Maggie there too. She sometimes wants to be close to me too.

I'm wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

♥ ♥ ♥

Galactic Melt Mittens

I've been resting my shoulder (a little), doing stretches, and so on to keep it moving. I feel very lucky that my frozen shoulder healed so quickly, from what I've been hearing, that can take ages, and a lot of physiotherapy, and pain. Thank you all for your well wishes.

I couldn't look at my Galactic Melt left over yarn from the socks any longer. Once I pack it away it will not surface any time soon, so I was looking for a mitten pattern to use it all up.

I found the Muckle Mitts by Mary Jane Mucklestone, which was a free pattern some time ago, when I saved it.









I think they are cute, whether you do them in two colors or three or even four. What I don't like is the after thought thumb. The fit is not so good.
I also dislike knitting mittens with fingering weight yarn using 3.25mm and 3.5mm needles (for colorwork). It makes the knit fabric so loose.
I've knit the socks with 2.5mm if you remember, a fabric I like much, much better.

But, these are tiny mitts as it is. I had a hard time getting it on my hand. If I were to knit these again, using fingering weight yarn, I would add 6 sts (one repeat of the colorwork), or use thicker yarn and larger size needles. Anyway, I like how they look, and I know already someone with small, slender hands, which they will fit much better.

♥ ♥ ♥

Galactic Melt socks

To continue the Galactic Melt saga from last post.
I arranged the fiber into little balls, and spun them one after each other. I had two of those fiber balls assembly lined up, but the camera malfunctioned when I took pictures, and before I noticed, I  had started spinning. I did divide the far left blue-ish ball into half, and put one of them before the second to last on the left, so that there would be three blue stripes throughout the sock, but I never got to the third blue stripe in my sock knitting; the sock was done before that.



Lovely yarn cakes.


And here are the finished socks. You can kind of see the little cable I've knit down one side of the socks.


They are not totally machty-machty, but I don't care. One can see that they belong together. I weight the fiber, once divided up for both socks, and some of the balls were off about two grams. That's' a lot in fiber, and you can see it in the difference of the length of each stripe, plus of course I'm not a machine and the spinning isn't as even as it could have been.



I've knit them toe-up, as I like to do with handspun yarn. Even though I had a lot of left over, with ~ 556yds, that didn't surprise me either. I'm planning on using it for fingerless mittens eventually.



When knitting toe-up socks, I use Fleegle's toe up socks pattern by Susan Glinert Stevens. They are just the perfect fit every time, no matter what yarn or needle size I'm using.

I've added three garter ridges before I started the cuff, just so I didn't get bored, but there was not much chance of that, because they went so fast. I used 2.5mm needles, if anybody wants to know.


This was once again a fun project. I'm having a hard time sticking to projects made with commercial yarns at the moment.

♥ ♥ ♥

Handspun Friday is back! - Galactic Melt

Thanks for your warm and kind thoughts, and wishes for my bum wing. One day rest did a lot of good, but I'm definitely going to take it easy for a while. At least I was able to lift the right arm by itself, without the help of my left hand. Anyway, don't want to be too whiny! Denny is a lot better too, thanks! He "buried" the same bone several times today, and was very pleased with himself. I can still see it through the window from here. Heh!

There is a spin along/knit along going on in the Nest group on Ravelry. I couldn't say no to it, so I joined in on the fun, grabbed Galactic Melt from my Nestfiberstudio stash, and some red Nestlets, and started spinning for socks. Did I mention the SAL/KAL is called Warm Toes?

Here's the fiber: Galactic Melt on Falkland, 4oz



and some Nestlets on BFL, and variegated BFL (Nestlets are 1oz balls from different colorways coming in one bag between 4-8oz I belief). I've used some of it, and had some red and yellow ones left over in the amount of 1.7oz.



I must admit I love the yarn I made from these:



I spun one skein for each sock, since I wouldn't have had space on the bobbin for 5.7oz in one go.


There's a little bit of yellow sticking out.


Here are both skeins: a total of 556yds, chain plied.



Next time I'll show you the finished socks!

Have a wonderful weekend!

♥ ♥ ♥

Crap!

What do you do when you can't use your arm? My right shoulder joint, as well as the elbow, and wrist have been acting up lately. This time however, even with pain killers, every movement is painful.
Just twiddling my thumbs is just not going to happen. For one day I thought I could do without knitting, and spinning, to give the old shoulder a rest. But it's hard! Since I can't knit, I ripped out a WIP. Also very satisfying.

What's left is reading, and eating. I baked something. It was an experiment. It was delicious!



I made Italian Prunes & Ricotta pies! I used an Almond pie crust, no gluten in any of it. I mixed together ricotta cheese, eggs, cinnamon, maple syrup, a little coconut flour, vanilla flavor, salt, put some halved prunes on top of it, and topped it off with some almond, butter, salt, maple syrup crumble. Voila!
It started out as a pie, but turned into some delicious crumble on the plate. No matter.




Denny didn't feel so hot either. He's got tummy troubles, started during the night. I keep telling him, to stop eating crap, and stealing from the counter, but does he listen? NO! He still cracks me up, because he dragged the one mat beside the other, because it was clearly much better to sleep there.



The Whiteies relaxed in the studio, watching the world go by through the window.Maggie doesn't look very relaxed here. That's because I called her, and there was something going on outside as well, as you can see how she has one ear on me, and one tuned to the outside.



I hope my right arm improves fast, because right now it hangs there like a limp noodle, and hurts with each movement. I didn't know how much a shoulder has to work for an arm to function. It really sucks.

♥ ♥ ♥

Before Summer is over!

Only a few more days left of summer. Yesterday we got a taste of Fall, it was wet, and cold. But we've got pictures to remember a beautiful summer by.



I don't need to tell you who that is.




That's Maggie. She's turned out a real water rat too.



But Happy is the happiest of all, when there is water involved.



♥

Spice

Some time ago, I can't remember exactly when, but it was earlier this year (I'm almost positive), I spun this yarn. I wanted to do another cabled yarn, which means you ply two 2-plies together for instance. I love the outcome, and the colorway, which is FatCatKnits Spice on variegated BFL.



So here it is: 4oz, 156yds, cabled yarn





I've no idea what I'll knit with it eventually.

♥

What the ....?

After our good Robin parents raised two sets of chicks, three each in this nest,



they decided that it was too gross to raise a third generation in it. That tells you something, how nasty it must have been.

So, one early morning, I looked out on the deck and saw this!



There was nothing there the night before. I forgot to close the sun umbrella. It was amazing how fast they built a nest in there.





I felt so very bad that I could not let them have their nest, it was just not possible.

Happy was intersted in the nest too.



For a couple of hours after I've closed down the umbrella, and removed the nest, the two Robins came by with hay in their beaks, and a confused look, tilting their heads this way and that. So sorry!

♥ ♥ ♥

Hello, my name is Goofy!

"I want you to play with me, but I don't want to give up my very attractive headdress!"







Happy is off to his yearly check up at the Vet's today. The other two have to stay at home, nobody is amused.

♥ ♥ ♥