The Calm Before the Storm

The man and I travelled to Bryce Canyon for a few days.  We did actually drive through the park and took a short hike to see the Bristle cone pines.

It's easy to see for 40 miles to the Paria Plateau.  Every picture I took is beautiful, there's more:

Coming to the end of the trail.  Live bristle cone pines.  Some weren't so lucky to make it for more than a few hundred years:

The one above had rings that were almost touching.  Probably a couple hundred of them.  This stump is about 2 feet across and had grown around a branch.

This is a natural bridge about halfway to the point which is around 20 miles from Ruby's Inn where we stayed.

That new project has been progressing nicely.  Fatter yarn makes for faster projects.  This sweater is very long, but it's still fun to knit.  I have the back done and am 2/3 of the way up the right front.  Sorry for the blurry picture.  I need to find a way to take pictures of it with more contrast.  Maybe take it from a lower angle and to the side so the flash will make shadows?  The bottom of the sweater is to the left.  The pretty Celtic pattern is at the waist.

Alas, I won't have so much time to knit from now on.  I am back to a real job tomorrow.  10 hour days, 5 days a week.  Yup, 50 hours a week, includes 10 hours of overtime at time and a half.   I have a feeling that this will kill me for awhile but hopefully will make me stronger in the long run.  :>)  It's doing my favorite thing, document control and a big enough company that I am getting paid very well indeed.  woohoo!!

later, friends
J

Ut oh, another new project

This is the last fleece that I spent time spinning.  It's Romney-Corriedale from Knowltons Farm.  It's soft and warm and this sweater pattern will keep my butt warm this winter.  I love sweaters that do that.

It's knitting up fast and the pattern is very easy to understand.  I did add more rows of garter stitch on the beginning edge to help it hang better than shown in the picture on the pattern.

The sweater shawl continues finally.  I have to be very careful when I crochet.  I did so much around 20 years ago that I started having carpel tunnel problems and tendonitis in my thumb.  Having a death grip on the hook really aggravates this problem so have to think about holding the hook like a little bird.  Nice and loose and relax!

You can see the first sleeve taking shape at the top of the picture.  I haven't sewn beads on the crochet yet.

Our weather is changing today.  Snow forecast for the mountains above 7000 ft.  Rain down here.  We received a wonderful downpour yesterday for about 10 minutes.  Love that.  The sun will be back this weekend so can get one lawn mowed and start cleaning up my perennials around the yard.  Yarrow will be cut and moved and especially cut back the Jupiter's Beard.  These plants got really tall this year with all the rain and are now blocking all of the walkways.  It's very annoying.

I will stay busy today inside and most of tomorrow, gloom outside gets me down sometimes so working on colorful stuff in here will help with that.  :>)
J

Too much to do and not enough play time

No pics today.  I know, I know, bummer.  I have been bored silly and finally made a list of things that I really need to get done and that fixed that boredom.

I have been production sewing my spinning wheel bags to get orders finished.  This week I am working on the last 4 orders that I have.  I will finish one today, whew!

The soft orangey/purpley sweater that I have been working on is sitting here staring at me.  I ran out of yarn and this is the beauty of spinning my own yarns.  I am spinning more.  Gotta love that.  I knew on some level that if I made the longer tunic length, I might run out of yarn.  I did.  Thanks, little voice.  I do love spinning the Blue Face Leister and did have some left over after Great Basin.  I might spin more than I need to.  :>)

I received the new set of Drops patterns the other day and one or two in the same issue grabbed me and fast.  They don't name their patterns so here are the numbers, 134-1 and 134-55.  Oh!  Maybe I can find pics on the web to post here.  Hang on....

Ok:

Is that not a wonderful pattern?  This is 134-1.  I have a bunch of gray handspun that will work very well for this sweater, in fact, I have it all set up in a bag already.

Here's 134-55:

And, I just happen to have some brown handspun that will be perfect for this pattern.  hmmmm.  It's that not enough time thing slapping me in the face again.  Just gotta knit faster.
J

Two not just one!

Fun huh?  I do say that a lot too.  The next one won't be so fast to do.  Another blue bird, yay!!

So, that's pretty much all I have been doing.  I did finish the front of the San Fran shirttail though.  Now I am on to the sleeves.  I will do those first before I put the whole thing together.  I am going to love wearing this one just like I love wearing the other one that I made.

The next spinning project that I have lined up is to spin some custom thrums that I had carded a bunch of years ago.  After that, a brown Knowltons fleece.  mmmmmmmmmmmm

Tomorrow the man and I are off to the Gem Faire.  Neither one of us have anything in mind.  ha!  He gets sucked in to the chunks of fabulous stone and who knows what will grab me.  There is this guy who sells bronze chains and findings and charms oh my.
J

Software is strange sometimes

I changed over to Internet Explorer and got my pics to load today.  I don't know why Safari wouldn't cooperate yesterday.  I have never had to change browsers to get this to work.  Smoke and mirrors.

I have more pics to show:

The San Francisco Shirttail is growing.  I have the front almost done now.  The next step is to join the back to the front at the shoulders and then finish the neckline.  Then, on to the sleeves.  I have more of Jill Vosberg's patterns and will probably work on another one soon.  The gods know how much yarn I have in my house. 

This is what I am spinning at present.  Gorgeous, no?  I have enough for socks or maybe a small shoulder warmer, or fingerless mitts, or ??

I have gotten back to my stitching.  These are the first two blocks of twenty for "My Whimsical Quilt Garden".  I love this project.  I just finished the third one, but will show that tomorrow.  So cute.  It's a blast to throw crazy, bright fabrics together.  Piece O Cake is having a sale on their fabrics so I couldn't resist a few of their scrap bags.  Can't wait to see what I get.  I have been out searching for more dots and turquoise for the birds and was successful, so I have a great stack to choose from for the rest of the project.

This should probably be on LOL Cats.  She was laying down and was looking up at me and the camera didn't function like it was supposed to.  She finally got tired of me telling her to "look" and got up to give me this WTF look.  She has been sneezing for 3 days and congested.  I don't know what was in that last storm, but the both of us have been all allergied up this week.  Sick of it.

Show and tell is over for today.  Well, almost anyway, WWH meeting tonight with a huge show and tell, so will drag some stuff there for a change.  :>)
J

Peaches and surprise

The surprise is mine when I read the last post.  ha!  I did get the lawns mowed plus the dog run (large) that day.  I am still all about moving railroad ties and moving the black soil.

Aren't they gorgeous??  What I do with them is peel them, remove the pits, then I go back and slice them up (like each half into 4 or 5 pieces).  Then I mixed up some acid, today I used a bit of citric acid in a quart of water.  I used a quarter cup of acid, but it might not have needed that much.  It's very concentrated so maybe a couple of heaping tablespoons in a quart of water would have been enough.  I have used lemon juice in the past and it really doesn't take that much just to prevent discoloration.

I then load the peaches into zip lock bags, say enough for a pie, so half the bag is full.  Then freeze them.  I also put about a peach worth into sandwich size bags to try on cereal.  I will let you know how that works out.

Doing peaches this way lets them taste just as fresh as the day they were picked.  I just don't pack stuff in sugar anymore.  I may use Splenda Half and Half, but don't do that until I have the peaches into the pie crusts.  I add a half cup of either the Splenda or sugar, dot some butter (2 tablespoons or so) and some flour sprinkled on (1/4 cup) to thicken the "gravy" sauce so it won't drip out of the crusts when it bakes.  I use Pillsbury or Kroger (acutally better than Pillsbury but they could be made at the same factory for all I know, cheaper is sometimes better).  I bake them for 10 minutes at 425 degrees and then turn the heat down to 350 for an hour.  Perfect.

Still spinning and knitting and sewing but will wait until tomorrow maybe so I can add pics.

Sunny skies all week.  yay
J

Lots of work to get done before winter!

Today, mowing of lawns, moving of soil, start to move railroad ties.

Railroad ties were such a great idea, but if I had lined them with heavy plastic, it would have been a better idea.  The problem is that they leach creosote into the soil and the dampness encourages ants to tunnel and eat the ties.  The creosote discourages plants.  So, my plant production has dwindled to nothing over the years.  I will cut up and discard the damaged ties and move the others to the perimeter of the yard in front of vines.  I have silver lace vines on my west fencing in the back yard and then grapes on the west side.  And, also, Virginia creepers on the back that are getting a great start and a couple of Trumpet vines as well.  Beings the ties won't be touching the vines and a bit away from the roots, they should be fine.

I have also been working in the garage to rearrange and organize all of the stuff that accumulates out there.  I have had some yard sale stuff under a tarp for a few years and it needs to go someplace else.  A lot to the Thrift Store.  I hope all this activity today will make my 2 pound weight loss for the week.  :>)

So far I have lost 10 pounds in the last month and a half.  It's kind of hard for me to wrap my head around because my thyroid deficiency has stopped all weight loss for the last 5 years and caused a lot of weight gain in the mean time.  It's been so frustrating to try to lose weight and it just     won't      go.   Finally!!  I feel like my metabolism is back to my normal.  whoohooo!!

The knitting continues.  I have been working on the new mitered squares sweater and the dark blue sweater.  And, I finished the new green blocks for the 2011 civil war quilt.  I picked up the new month edition from last month and will get started on those blocks today.  I am now 3 months behind on the 2010 civil war version, but will take a look at that today as well.  And get the next block of the Whimsical birds quilt going.  It's so nice to have traveling and fiber fairs over with.

I don't have any new pictures of anything.  The yard is messy and there isn't much progress on anything else.  Maybe next week.  :>)
J