Crazy

Still hanging out with my crazy - and it may get worse. Looks like the investment company that bought Sweetie's workplace last year was a "strip and flip" sort of outfit. In other words, squeeze as much money as possible out of the operation and then dump it. If the company is to be sold or merely closed, we don't know yet. We are both, at the moment, being philosophical about it. I mean, if you would ask Sweetie where he would want to be in five or ten years, he would say, "Not working for these people." Me, I'm kinda happy about not having to work. But I will if so needed. There's no reason to get our panties in a bunch until we know what all is going on.

In the meantime, I'm knitting my anxieties away on the green shawl. I'll have pictures next post.

I also took in another refugee bunny. Sigh. The owner got pregnant and they moved and blah blah blah. She is a cute, grey and white Netherland dwarf and acts much nicer than the boy dwarves. Claudia is currently caged and in the kitchen until Sheila warms up to her. She may or may not be the third house bunny, depending on Sheila. I know that Heizen will take to her.

You know, I get such a deep satisfaction out of taking care of the bunnies. They keep me calm and sane. (Except for when they make me nervous and crazy. Which isn't often.) The bunnies are such quiet, soft, contained little things and they will sit mostly patiently in my lap for grooming or clipping. I hope that they sense goodness from me; that I won't harm them.

On the shameless self-promotion front, I'm working on packaging for the 300 goodie bag items for the SOAR retreat. (Presentation is 90 per cent of sales after all.) The acronym stands for Spin-Off's Autumn Retreat. Anyhoo, it is an opportunity to distribute samples and promotional material to 300 dedicated and socio-economically gifted hand spinners from across the country. My "goodies" will need to ship Oct. 1. What with Sweetie's work situation, I am now hoping that it will generate a few sales.

It's still hot and dry here, but it's not such a horrible heat because it cools down at night to the 50s or 60s. We had 4 inches of rain in August, so our grass and greenery is not completely dead - but I can't remember when we got that last inch. Water holes for cattle are almost completely dry. It's worse further south which I noticed on the drive to the family reunion. No rain is forecast until Tuesday. Did you hear that the ice in the Northwest Passage has melted for the first time in 350 years? Fuck. I'm glad I'm old.

Older Brother has corrected me about the first known date of our ancestor, Ambrose H., Sr. He has been tracked to 1750. His son, Ambrose H., Jr. settled in the Tennessee county that I was born in c.1810. That still sort of freaks me out. My parents once told me that if I threw a rock in that county, I would hit a relative. Now I know why.Crazy

Here are some lovely lace patterns to buy. I especially like the Dragone.

You know, I do work - every so often, that is. Lately I have been cranking out fiber sausages like these.





I'm really digging the saturated jewel colors! This blend is equal parts merino, alpaca, angora and silk. Delicious. At the end of the month, I'll be sending 300 little packages of Fuzzarelly Fibers for the goodie bags at SOAR (Spin-Off's Autumn Retreat.) Hopes are that some sales will be generated - just not too many! I don't want to work all that hard.

The weather has turned comfortable. It was 50 degrees this morning and all the bunnies are feeling fine. The four little outside babies have grown. They also dug out of the back yard enclosure and are now true yard rats. Well, I kept them safe during their most vulnerable months and I still put out pellets and water for them. It's amusing to watch them ass around - chasing, eating, playing and humping. Pretend humping so far. Once in awhile, Millie Cat stalks them or Buster lopes around but the bunnies ignore them both.

Today I am a gui-tard. Ha Ha! Lessons are going well except for my total lack of practice. In school, I never practiced the clarinet or the oboe and was good enough to get As. I want to do well but without any effort - like the total slacker I am. However, I do get my money's worth because even if I am a slow learner, it gets me out of the house every week for something not grocery related.

Right now, my crazy is here. The hermit/anxious/phobic sort of crazy. The sun, all of a sudden, seems to plummet to the western horizon every evening. That's the precursor to my fall/winter depression. Which probably explains the crazy anxious. feeling.

Here is a tutorial for weaving in ends as you go. Photo heavy, but clear instructions.

I have been knitting a little bit. Finished the latest pair of socks, which took a little longer than anticipated because I changed a few things.



Removed the little stripe up the back as it was too bulky and it pooched out in an unattractive manner. Also reknit the cuff because one was too tight for comfort. Seems like I need to practice the tubular cast on some more. I needed a very elastic bind off and I used on I found online. I am sorry that I don't remember where I found this - was it Fleegle's blog? - but I saved it for just such an emergency. It is quite stretchy but cute.




I have also begun a cape/shawl garment. It is essentially a shawl but with shaping for the neck. Gave myself a headache trying to find some pattern in my several books and magazines that rocked me. Something not too hard but not too mindless. I have always liked this leaf motif and so worked up a chart using it, working from the neck down. It seems to work well with this yarn, a lace weight merino from 2 years ago when I was first trying to knit lace. I figured that if my idea sucked, I could just throw it away. No, not really. I am too cheap to throw away much of anything of value, however marginal. I do think I will over dye the yarn in deeper shades of green.



Buster says "Hi!"

Ah, Family

Hope you all had a nice day off if you got one. Sweetie had Saturday and Sunday off, but as usual, he worked the holiday performing start up at the plant.

He stayed home Sunday to mind the live stock while I traveled 41/2 hours to my paternal family reunion. My first but it was the 87th annual. I have such mixed emotions about family, especially my father's side, but despite my misgivings, I made the trip if only to see two of my three brothers and their families.

The event was in a rented hall, and the first person I saw greeted me by name! I hadn't seen that second cousin in over 30 years. Her three brothers knew me right off, too. I met more cousins than I knew existed and most of them knew my dad. They were all related to him. There were maybe 50 to 60 people there - all of them my family - and I was welcomed warmly by everyone. It was a strange feeling.

The coolest thing, though, was learning about the ancestors, (although I didn't learn nearly enough in the short time I was there.) The family tree begins with Ambrose H., Sr. in 1810. He was Generation One and lived in South Carolina. I am Generation Six. I hope someone can eventually trace our roots back to England.

Another very cool thing was what one particular second cousin said to me. When we would visit every summer, one of the few of my dad's people that we would go see was this cousin's family. All of us kids were about the same age and I remember that time fondly as there seemed to be no underlying tension, no amorphous anxiety. Anyway, this cousin looked me in the face and said, "You look so much like your mother." I was touched to the core and delighted at the same time because I always admired her looks - tall, slim and blond. For someone to say that this short, chubby and brunette woman looked like her - well, of course I was delighted.

My package from Yubina arrived Friday, a brown paper package decorated with a variety of Chinese stamps. I had ordered 150 grams of cashmere lace weight yarn and 100 grams of cashmere and silk lace weight. Soft and luscious stuff for Future Shawls.

Knits and Notes

It’s SCATTERGORIES, and is harder than it looks! Thank you, JenLa:

Here are the rules:
~Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following.
~They MUST be real places, names, things…NOTHING made up!
~If you can’t think of anything, skip it.
~Try to use different answers if the person before you had the same 1st initial.
~You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Have fun!

Your Name: Fuzzarelly
1. Famous Singer/Band: Freddie Fender
2. 4 letter word: Frog
3. Street Name: Fourth Street
4. Color: Fuchsia
5. Gifts/Presents: Fingerless Gloves, French Perfume, Faberge Egg
6. Vehicle: Ford Fairlane
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Figurine
8. Boy Name: Frank
9. Girl Name: Fredna (this is my aunt)
10. Movie Title: A Fish Called Wanda
11. Drink: Flaming Hurricane
12. Occupation: Fire fighter
13. Celebrity: Franklin (The Panopticon)
14. Magazine: Forbes
15. U.S. City: Ft. Wayne, IN
16. Pro Sports Teams: Falcons
18. Reason for Being Late for Work: Flat
19. Something You Throw Away: Fag end
20. Things You Shout: Futhermucker!
21. Cartoon Character: Fred Flintstone

Knits and Notes

The purple and white socks are at the heel flap, and I did dye the "over twisted and over plied," second-place merino a fire engine red and I'm using it for the heel and toe.




For the heel, I using what Nancy Bush calls the Shaped Common Heel because I am tired of the other heel methods. Why not live a little? This method knits the heel flap extra long and it is then folded in half and grafted together to fit under the heel. (The Shaped bit means that the middle/back edge is decreased slightly to achieve a rounded shape.) Stitches are then picked up along the sides and gussets are created by decreasing - just like a regular heel flap. I got tired of the Opal yarn, too, and that is why I put in that funky red line up the back.

I have solved my dilemma concerning how to dye the 1350 yards of lace weight merino several different colors/shades - I'm just going to skein it and cut it. I tried the Russian Joinwith this yarn and was well pleased with the technique. Life is too short to agonize. Only now, I have to agonize about what colors/shades to use. I don't know...maybe purple and fuchsia?

I knit in the continental style, and Norwegian Purl all the time. I thought some of you might be interested in a short You Tube video of the technique.

Let's have a moment of silence for

Iduma Best, 76, Elizabeth, died Sunday, Aug. 26, 2007, at Floyd Memorial Hospital and Health Services in New Albany. She was a retired burnisher at Bruce Fox in New Albany.

For me, the worst part of the colonoscopy (aka The Roto-Rooter Special) came the day before, when I had to drink 4 liters of a purgative, 8 ounces every 15 minutes until done. It didn't taste too awful, but it seemed heavy and thick and it was hard going sometime to get it down.

The second worst thing was having to be at the hospital at 7 damn o'clock. In the morning.

I remember being wheeled into the operating room, greeting the doctor, being told that I could watch the whole thing on the TV. Fade to black. Two hours later, the nurse is trying to get me to stay awake. "Honey," she said, "You're going to have to get up soon to go home." My reply was to snuggle deeper into the cot. Get me up, they did, though, and Sweetie drove me home. For a nap.

Nothing was painful, even though one polyp was found and removed. (Because of that, I get to go through this again in two years, not ten. Lucky me!) So, if you are due for this procedure, let me say that it is nothing to dread.

As if that wasn't enough for one day, we drove to the Kentucky State Fair grounds to pick up my entries. Actual ribbon count was 4 red/second, one white/third, and one pink/fourth. All of the skeins were critiqued, which was nice and I wish that were done for all entries. On every one of my skeins, though, my singles were said to be uneven although the plied yarn was balanced. The merino was spun and plied with too much twist, although it was "nicely balanced."

So. I see what I need to work on.

Sweetie goes back to work today after having a week and a half vacation. He also celebrated his 45th birthday last week. He's such a kid! It was a pleasure to have him home but I won't mind having my evenings to myself again.

I've begun a pair of socks out of Opal in an interesting purple and white print. The resulting pattern is a subtuttle swirl of solid purple and heathered purple. I had planned to make the heel and toe from some pink but now I'm thinking of using the overtwisted merino. Maybe dyeing it. Red?

Another day to explore the great indoors! The forecast high today is 98 degrees. Our "normal" temperature for this time of year is 85. So, I'm stayin' inside.

Had to venture forth yesterday to guitar lesson. Here is my cute gifted instructor, Chad.



Yours truly, getting that G chord thing goin'.



Wednesday, Sweetie and I finished painting the front living room. All except for the molding at the ceiling and the quarter round molding on the base boards. But first, we need to buy, paint and install said molding. We are getting there, though, and may well have it all complete by my birthday. In February.