Squinty eye pictures

I need to take better pictures...case in point...my latest spin, Wizard Island...

This looks like the yarn is moving so fast that it is in motion...wait, you mean yarn doesn't move?  So that means my picture taking is well, awful.  In real life this is over 400 yards of beautiful two ply wool yarn.

So lets move on to my knitting project.  Yes I still knit, really I do.  While spinning is taking over more and more of my time, I still knit almost every day.  I found this great pattern, the atalanta scarf I fell hard for this one, the edging just about made me swoon.  I immediately favorited this on Ravelry but kept knitting away on other, now much less worthy projects.  Finally I started it, first in some on hand yarn because I couldn't possibly wait to go look for the perfect yarn.  After a few failed attempts to understand the pattern I got it, and worked away for several repeats until I came to the bitter conclusion that the yarn was too puny.  The knitting was lackluster at best.  So rippppp it went.  My girls love to "help" when something needs ripping.  In seconds they have undone what took me hours to do. 

I went off in pursuit of the perfect yarn to make my Atalanta scarf.  I found a couple skeins of Prism Saki yarn in the Copper Penny colorway.  Perfect yarn I'm telling you.  After another few false starts, clearly I had yet to fully wrap my head around how to execute a six row pattern repeat of the right edging with the eight row pattern repeat on the left edging.  What?  I confused myself again just typing that.  So a slight alteration, ahem, "pattern design" and I was on my way.  Last night I took a picture, laid my shining copper penny scarf on a white t-shirt for the BEST possible picture.  The result?

I know my tshirt is not new, but it is NOT yellow!  So clearly my picture taking is at an all time low.  I'm sure all of you are ju

I'm getting feed up, this is my third attempt to finish my oh so witty observations on why my picture taking is crappy.  I mentioned melting due to the sun (hence the yellow cast to my white t-shirt).  I mentioned future problems may be due to frost bite (it will snow here again someday).  Believe me it was funny.  Side splitting funny.  not lame at all.  nope not me.  But since neither the blog gods or picture goddesses are with me today,  I'm saving and moving on.  Watch, this will go up without a hitch! 

nope, this is my fifth attempt...maybe the pictures are so embarrassed they are being gremlins and trying to prevent this missive from hitting the world at large.  Ya, get over it, few people will see you!  Buck up buttercup, let your blurry yellow tinged glory stand proud.  POST for crying out loud.

Return of the knitter

We've returned from vacation.  I'm telling you, the last few months have been a bit overloaded and I really enjoyed our time away.  Just look at this....

Is that not the most glorious picture?  We were at Mount Rushmore, it was a beautiful day, I looked up and it felt like God's hand would reach out to me at any moment. 

We were gone for about 10 days, a lot of driving, but I loved the scenery.  We started in Vail, CO where my nephew and his wife live.  While the mountains were gorgeous, I decided it wasn't a place I'd like to live.  Does anyone else do that?  Measure places by deciding if you want to live there or not?  I do.  We had  a lot of fun there including the girls slid down a mountain top.  Yup, I said SLID.  There was still snow up there and combine that with some plastic garbage sacks and they can now claim they slid in July.  smile.  After a few days in Fail, we headed to Rapid City and had even more fun at Mount Rushmore.

Even though I've been here before, you forget how amazing it is until you are standing below the Presidents.  And the story of how they were chiseled out of the mountain is worth the trip alone.  Directly from there we went to the Crazy Horse Memorial.

This I had not seen before and even though is is not finished it is stunning.  And what I think they do better than the Mount Rushmore site, is there is a great museum and informational center right there.  The story of Mount Rushmore is explained in great detail in a museum in Keystone, a nearby little town at the base of Mount Rushmore, but not actually at the site.  Crazy Horse had a great informational center right there.  Now you may notice a difference in the skies, they were taken about an hour apart.  Maybe because in trying to get from Mount Rushmore to Crazy Horse, the driver (ahem, that would be me) somehow ended up going up a road climbing a mountain that was maintained by the Park Rangers.  Yup, that was one interesting ride, full of switchbacks, one lane tunnels carved out of the side of the mountain, and even wild critters crossing the road in front of you....like Bison!  Just an additional adventure on the way to Crazy Horse.  We left the Crazy Horse monument and in 10 minutes were pulled over on the side of the road as torrential rain and HAIL pounded our rental Jeep!  Fun times...the girls had plenty to say about that, let me tell you!

I only found one place on our travels that had yarn.  In a small town near Vail, there was a yarn shop.  I bought roving but was disappointed I couldn't seem to find more wool/sheep filled fun.  I did finish knitting a scarf out of my hand spun, but it needs to be blocked before any pictures can be taken.

But I'm back and have been spinning and knitting as much as I can.  So many ideas are floating in my head!  Just a few more pictures of our time away...

My mom and my girls.  Can't ask for much more than this.