Am I bad?

I desperately want to have a friend saunter into Darn Knit Anyway and scope out if anyone bought any of my yarn yet.  smile.  And I'm too chicken to call and inquire.  I of course am waiting to get the call saying the yarn flew off the shelves and they would like me to bring more!  grin...someday.

In anticipation of such a call I've been spinning this week.  I have two bobbins filled and ready to ply tonight.  I promise I'll take pictures.  And I ordered and received 3 more rovings to add to the que of unspun fiber.  Again, I'll take pictures.  I've been really bad about not taking pictures lately.

I'm leaving work early today to take Emily to her first orthodontist appointment to start the widening of her jaw to prepare her for bone grafting surgery the first of the year.  Today should just be a quick look and decision to actually start the process.  So no hurtful procedures today.

And yesterday, I had to really force myself to acknowledge Anna is growing up.  For the first time, I let her bike alone to a friend who lives reasonable close, but still farther than I've ever let her go alone before.  I think she was thrilled.  I was a wreck!  I think this growing up is harder on the parent than the kid.  But she is trustworthy and has earned this stretching of the boundaries.  But I'm still a wreck.

When I went out to check the pumpkin mass I actually found the first sign that amongst all the leaves and flowers and vines, there is at least one pumpkin trying to grow.  Hang on, there will be more farm reports later.  Along with pictures.  Are you noticing a theme here?

And just in case you don't read the Yarn Harlot her description of her adventures in throwing out the first pitch to the Toronto baseball game during its Stitch N Pitch festivities is one of the best things I've read in a long time.  And she even has pictures!

New Adventure!

Last night I brought this lovely basket of my handspun yarns to a local yarn shop darn. knit. (anyway) to sell!  I'm very excited!  I worked most of Sunday getting all the wrappers on the skeins and naming the yarn.  Now that was interesting.  I always said I wanted to be the person naming the paint colors, but I realized as I was labeling my yarn that it wasn't as easy as it looked.  But I ended up with everything labeled and ready to go.  Aimee looked it over and seemed very excited to have my yarn in her shop.  So if any of you readers are near Stillwater, MN, and are looking for some handspun yarn please head over to Aimee's shop and ask to look at my yarn, I labeled it Knitting My Way Home too. 

I made yarn with wool, alpaca, wool/silk, and wool/mohair blends. The yardage ranges from 50 - 350 yards in a skein.  I also made 2 Fair Isle sampler sets out of 3 different skein colors in small yardages that would make a nice stranded baby hat etc.  Or just some swatches to practice your stranded knitting. 

My handspun cubby is now half empty.  Yee Haw!  This means I can spin more!  Can't beat that.

Ice Cream in Texas and swimming with the Dinasaurs

One of the things that you forget when you move from Texas to Minnesota, is that no matter how fast you try and eat a Dairy Queen ice cream cone in the heat of a Texan summer, you will get dripped on.  You can't lick fast enough without some drips cascading down your hands.  smile

We had such a good time in Texas.  The temps were moderate (at least for Texas), only in the mid 90's.  Several days it rained which rearranged some of our plans but we still saw fireworks on a mosquito infested night.  Anna found a unique way of trying to fend off the blood thirsty critters, she put her legs into the arms of her sweater, pulled the hood up and tucked her arms in and lasted oh mere moments before gasping for air.  But it made us laugh while we waited for the festivities to begin.

The drive to and from went well, 16 hours can be a chore, but the girls are great for the most part and it is freeway driving for me so easy enough.  I loathe to take 2 days as I don't want to lose any time that I could otherwise be spending with our friends. 

We drove to Glen Rose and crept through the animal preserve, Anna was brave and had the giraffes feeding off her hands, Emily decided to wait until next year to try that.  Emily however, fed the ostrich and that is not an easy feat to do without getting pecked.  After trolling through the animal presevere, we went to Dinasaur Valley and the kids played in the river and saw dinasaur tracks.  It was fun for all of us.

I promised to knit and while I did, I don't have a picture yet of what I worked on.  I worked on the tiger from the Cyd designed balloon animals.  I need to knit the ears to sew on and then embroider on the eyes before I will show him on the blog.  But it is an amazing feat of engineering I think how you twist and fold the critters together.  So watch for that in the next installments.

I have finished an UFO though.  Thank heavens. Here is the Inga hat, I like how it turned out, although Anna didn't like that it had a "poufy" top.  I think it is fine.  I still need to give it a good soak and block it but I'm happy with the end result.  I used left overs of yarn used to make Kyle's Anna's mittens last year. Anna's mittens were very cute and since I bought the yarn at the Yarn Harbor in Duluth I wanted to make sure I had enough yarn, so I overbought the amount I'd need.  But as you see it did not go to waste!

I also completed a new cowl and have 1 1/2 fingerless mitts done that match it.  It is a very simple ruched pattern for the cowl and the mitts are the Fetching pattern in Ravelry.

And finally, we can not have a garden at our house.  We live in a twin home with a home association.  They are very strict on rules on the outside of the homes.  And one of those rules is no gardens (except for the people who have the pond in their backyard, somehow they are exempted and can have gardens?  don't get me started).  So we have containers of flowers every summer on our patio, but no garden.  For Emily's birthday, my sister gave her a round fiber type basket that is made for vegetables to grow on patios.  Who knew?  So we planted carrots in the middle and ringed it with pumpkin seeds.  I was hoping we would get tasty carrots as that is Emily's favorite vegetable and at least 2 pumpkins for fall for the girls.  Well look at this. 

I fear that we will have slightly more than two pumpkins! In the center of the basket I counted 24 blossoms. TWENTY FOUR. and that does not count the at least equal amount of blossoms coming out on all the various tendrils hanging off the edge of the basket. I see the girls hauling their wagon full of pumpkins up and down the neighborhood streets selling them for a dollar! But it has been fun, say if anyone has any good pumpkin recipes, let me know!