JenLa

The Central Park Hoodie? She’s done a-blockin’…

Actually it’s been ready to block for a couple of weeks now. Crying shame. I’ve either been too busy or there’s been someone staying in the guest/cat’s room, or I was just too damned lazy to block it until last weekend. Well, at least now it looks like it’s going to fit. Prior to blocking I was sweating the sizing, cuz it looked WAAAY too small. Also, I caught a little snafu on the shoulder cup of one of the sleeves, and fixed that. Now it’s all set for the seaming. Yikes! Sure hope I do a better job of it than on my last hoodie. Hell, blindfolded 2-year-olds could do a better job. Am I the last person to knit this sweater? I KNOW I’m still the last Crapotis hold-out, and damned proud of it!

Of course, as usual Sassy’s gotta have a say in things…

Looks like she’s standing guard, huh? Has you fooled. What she’s really doing is waiting until it’s less damp and WAY less stinky to flop her scrawny ass down on it and claim it as her own. I think she’s channeling Momoze now. I swear, she’s becoming more and more like him every day.

On my way to work today I was listening to one of my favorite knitting podcasts, Stash and Burn, where they announced that they’re holding a drawing for some awesome Stitches West loot! Just make any donation to The House that Yarn Built in the Make it Right fundraiser to re-build homes in the Lower 9th Ward. Then email Stash and Burn with the subject heading: The House that Yarn Built to let them know and you will be entered to win a prize package that they are putting together. It will contain all manner of Stitches goodies! You can also let Christy, the founder of the House that Yarn Built know that you donated and enter her drawing as well! To be entered into the drawing, donate by March 18th.

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Two-and-a-Half Men

Wanna know what’s sad? They’re watching NASCAR, and teaching my godson Levi to be all manner of redneck. Again. Proof positive that I’m adopted. I need to geekify that boy, and quick! Where’s there a light-saber plushy toy or a tribble or even a plastic dinosaur when you need one?

Stats:

Pattern: Kaylee, by Gigi Silva. Formerly available on her website (once called Socktopia, then called Monkey Toes, both now defunct.) It will be available again through Ravelry in the future.

Needles: US 1, Addi Turbo

Yarn: Rohrspatz & Wollmeise 100% Superwash Merino, Colorway Rhubarb (a gift from Claudia )

Mods: None. Oh wait, I did use 3 x 1 ribbing across the back of the leg, no pattern was indicated so I’m not sure it counts as a mod.

Thoughts: These were knit in the Up With Toes! Memorial KAL for Mamma Monkey, aka Gigi Silva. She passed away recently due to complications of Lupus disease. If you were familiar with her Socktopia and Monkey Toes sites, you will know that she designed many lovely sock patterns, most of which she gave away free of charge and a few of which she sold with the profits going to charities. At the time of her passing, most of her patterns had been transferred from her Socktopia site to her Monkey Toes site, but a few had not. (This one hadn’t.) And recently the Monkey Toes site has been made temporarily available, meaning none of her patterns can be downloaded for the moment. The Socktopia group on Ravelry is currently working with Gigi’s estate to have all the patterns available free of charge on Ravelry, but estate law and copyright is a tricky business. When this pattern is available again, I’ll come back and add the link so others may download it. In the meantime, I want to say a heartfelt, “Thank You, Gigi, wherever you are. We miss you.”
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We’re starting to feel the first signs of spring here on the mountain. There are daffodils in bloom (when sheep can’t eat them, anyway), the trees are setting buds, the barns have been mucked and lots of nice poopy hay put on the garden plot. We’ve even been seeing rain. It would take months of serious rainfall to get us back in the black again with the drought, but we’re ecstatic to see it in any amount. Most of us, anyway. Some of us are afraid of thunder:

Spring seeds have been ordered. Tomato, beet and basil seeds have been put snugly in nice little seedling trays. Spring lambs are expected soon, so sheep have been sheared:

The little blood spots are from her vaccination.

At least some of them have. Having completed Round Ears, Camille and Sadie and having begun Jemima, the clippers decided to explode. Not wanting to wait for shipping, we drove them to the nearest repair place in Atlanta and the extremely nice technician repaired them on the spot and sharpened the blades to boot. Having shot yesterday with that little errand, we were hit with a weather delay. You can’t shear wet sheep. We were surprised to find that Sadie was white underneath her armor of matted fleece. Even further surprised to find that she is not pregnant. Camille and Jemima most definitely are and clipping will tell the truth about Honey and Pie come sunny weather. The feral hay hens have begun laying eggs. They don’t like the little nesting box I made for them and instead use our brand new hay feeders that Jared built.

The lower right corner of that picture shows a hole where someone has eaten the hay down. That’s the hole we find the eggs in every day. I suppose it looks like a nice safe and comfy spot for egg-laying, but I’m grateful that’s the only thing they use it for. This hay box, by the way, has cut our wasted hay to almost nothing and has done wonders to keep the VM off the animals. We couldn’t be more pleased with this. There have been barn renovations, including the expansion of the main stall and some additional gates. No more coyotes inside the barn! There is also a big new pasture full of nice grass that the llamas and sheep are thrilled about. Pearl, Gold and Copper went to live with Craft Monkey earlier this week and Carlina and Kitty celebrated the end of their oppression by running around, jumping and butting. The three who moved have gone to clear some ten acres of weeds where Craft Monkey, Monkey Husband and Monkey Baby are homesteading in a yurt with no electricity and no indoor plumbing. Take that, all you people who think I’m crazy!

There are other things going on here, too, like work and a finished attic, a new roof, new front steps and various other projects. I’m really looking forward to spring, but I have to admit I kind of always hate to see the end of the curl up and hibernate season. The frenzy brought on by warmer weather is invigorating, but tiring and sometimes daunting. Jared is still knitting. He didn’t much care for K2Tog or YOs, but has made some nice seed stitch he’s pleased with. He’s thinking of maybe making a hat soon. I’ve finished another project, but it needs blocking yet and this post is already too long. I’ll leave you with some pictures from shearing.

It’s going to be wool mulch for us this year!

I had a great weekend! The party was a total success, with the guest of honor being totally in the swing of things…

Bon Vivant!

As you can see, she had a blast. And my gumbo was a hit, even though mom insisted that the recipe couldn’t possibly call for an entire bottle of white wine. Ha! Little did she know that, it being a double batch, I used 2 bottles! Guess she’s not familiar with the Wineaux Epicurian. Glad to prove her wrong! Of course, (insert rolling of the eyes here) the DH wondered why I never cooked HIM gumbo. Well..Don’t know whatcha want there Ace, if you don’t tell me. Besides, it takes something special to get me to stand over a steaming pot of oil and flour continually stirring for over half an hour as it slowly becomes roux.

I knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish the hat AND scarf in time. In fact, while working up the hat I decided that I wanted the scarf to feel more substantial than the yarn was allowing, so on my way to my folks, I hit up a yarn store in their area I heard about. More on that later, and came away with 2 skeins of Cherry Tree Hill Super Sock in Indian Summer…

A perfect compliment to the Misti Alpaca, don’t you think?

I finished the hat Saturday evening, just in time to wrap it, along with the scarf yarn, and a book for good measure, all up to give to mom on Sunday, which, after it’s unveiling, I promptly took back, along with the yarn, to revamp the pattern and start knitting the scarf. But the book was hers to hold onto.

Stats: Clamber v.1.0
Pattern: My own, but created to compliment the Irish Hiking Scarf. Or, if you prefer, Ravelry Link
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Sport Baby Alpaca in “Red Fiesta Melange”, less than 1 ball
Needles: Size 4 [3.5mm] 16″ circular & DPNs
Started: Feb. 12
Finished: Feb 16
Mods/Notes: I’m not entirely happy with the way this turned out. It’s a little snug, and the bottom edge looks a little unfinished. Since it took less than 1 ball of yarn, I’ll give it another go.

In the meantime, I started the scarf, and I’m loving how the yarns are knitting up together. The colors really compliment each other, and they feel so soft and sproingy. I’m kinda hoping that I only go through 1 ball of the Cherry Tree Hill, so I can keep the other for myself…I know, selfish little bitch, ain’t I?

Now, for those of you who live in or around the Inland Empire, aka the IE, aka the 909, or if you’re passing through on I-10 (yes, Pacalaga, this means YOU), you must check out The Yarn Deli in Redlands, CA. Becky, the owner was very helpful and friendly. She immediately broke off from the group of knitters to come help me. We chatted for a few, talking about blogs and Ravelry (she’s YarnDeli1 there) and her store. When she found out it was my first time there, she gave me a little welcome package, with a tape measure (can you have too many of those? don’t think so) and an adorable hand-knit lavender sachet that smells amazing! Her shop is filled with mostly natural fibers. In fact, I didn’t see a single hateful wad of novelty anywhere. She had a good assortment from basic traditional wools to the higher-end luxury fibers, and everything in between. I will definitely go back there again. Had I not been so pressed for time, I would have taken her up on her offer to stay and knit and have some chips and dip. As it was, I had an appointment with a non-teflon coated pan, some olive oil, flour, wine, lady fingers and shrimp, and hours of companionable chit chat with mom.

Mom’s 70th birthday is this Sunday. We’re having a party that’s sure to be lots of fun. It’s Mardi Gras themed, with all my mom’s closest friends coming, the little nephs making and wearing masks, Zydeco & New Orleans’ Jazz, and with me making gumbo…like I learned how to make when I was stationed in Alexandria, LA…you know, the real stuff.

The only thing that was vexing me was not knowing what to give mom for her birthday. Well, when she and dad came to visit last weekend, she put an end to that dilemma. She saw the hat I made the neph out of his garage-sale yarn, and decided how nice and toasty warm one of those will be. Just PERFECT, actually, for her Alaskan Cruise come April.

So I sent her stash diving, and she triumphantly resurfaced with this…

All 5 glorious balls of baby alpaca goodness to be exact. (I swear she should have been a knitter, she’s got a keen eye for the yummy stuff.) And I thought, hmmmm, that should be enough for a hat AND a scarf (not to mention it’ll fulfill one of my MP 2008 goals!) And I could teach her the modified loop-de-loop (third method Gracee models) method to wrap the scarf so it stays put while she’s out clambering around on glaciers and such. Yes, at 70, the woman STILL clambers. Amazing!

And I’ve got a whole week to do it in…woo! Good times, huh?

Speaking of birthdays, guess who turned 1 last week?

Dang! Wasn’t it just yesterday that Marina was born? For more birthday pics along with yesterday’s post, go here.

Yeah, so I’m knitting my ass off.

Gather round little ones and let me tell you a story about two gullible chicks with sticks.They’re letting me (yes, me – darling, sweet Purling Dervish ) post on their blog.Please know I’m using “they’re letting me” quite loosely since I am subject to allowing them to post at my blog. Let’s also not forget to mention that it DID involve a lot of negotiating and “parties of the first part” and some “here into referred to” and signing away first born yarn stashes. Hopefully, I don’t end up with this nasty looking thing posted on my blog.Yeah, yeah…La’s going to say it has something to do with her tagging me with a meme as payback for me tagging her or something like that. There is nothing quite like selling your soul to the devil and her minion… and her minion’s minion. (WHEE! Ellipses… on the JenLa blog…how many do you think I can get away with? I mean really. No…really…for real!)

*ahem*

Since it is Thursday, that can only mean one thing:

What is going to make this FOAD? It’s what I’m going to hear as soon as they read this.Since Jen and La don’t do memes, I’m going to invent one just for their blog. So they can see evidence of how much fun they are! And how many people like to play along! ***Disclaimer – This in no way is evidence of Jen or La participating or condoning the use of memes. It also DOES NOT entitle anyone to tag them***

Apparently, all of us fat, lazy Americans are not doing enough to support the economy. So, our illustrious and forward thinking president is giving us $600. WOO!! Recession averted, mother fuckers. Or something like that. In honor of that bright shiny $600 check from the government, list six ways you plan to stimulate the hell out of this here economy.

1. Vegas baaaaay-be! No, I have not been yet. Yes, this is a problem.
2. Hire a maid to come in every week for ::::counting on fingers :::: 20 weeks. This is California, yo!
3. Or maybe buy one of these since it will last longer than 20 weeks. I hope.
4. Eat the best sushi 15 times.
5. Go to Disney! Apparently, if you live in So Cal, you get special rates ant the “non-blackout” dates include my birthday. WOO! Shit. Why not skip Disney and just spend a weekend yarn crawling with La? They’re both in the O.C. and really? Nothing says stimulation like $600 worth of yarn.
6. Buy 353 cans of anchovies.

eta - I just realized that it’s V-day. What better way to celebrate than a
blogjacking? Share it with your loved ones.

etaa - for those of you who are misguided enough to actually miss La’s drivial posts, she’s done one over here