Tuesday...07/28/2009

A couple of days ago I was trying out the idea of free motion quilting on my machine and used a couple of small pieces of scrap that I had lying around. It took a bit to catch on, but I finally did and finished quilting the whole thing. It seemed such a waste to just throw it away, so I decided to make a book cover with it. I dutifully came inside and got a book, measured carefully, sewed it up and... voila'! ... it's too small... deep sigh

Not to be outdone by a measuring stick...



The book cover will now become a dpn knitting needle roll... VOILA' ! .... Of course, there is a little to be done. The divider seams for the different dpn sets have to sewn and another ribbon will be added on the other side so it will close properly.
There is another piece of this in my workroom that will be made into a book form with pages to hold my circulars. That idea just popped up, so we'll see how that works out... ;o)

The truth is that I have been wanting to make one of these for a while. I have been slowly gaining dpn and circular knitting needle sets for a while now and have had to continually hunt in my little case to find the sets that I need. So this is a good thing...



We finished the window film on the master bedroom yesterday...which also has lots of window space on the west and south sides of the house. After all the climbing to reach the tops of the windows and bending to do the cutting, I was ready for a sit down...

So...after supper I finished the spinning of the bamboo batts that I bought a year or so ago. There were two batts, but one was of a color that seemed more mud than anything else and I really did not like it when it was spun. I pulled as much of the brightly colored bamboo fiber out of it as I could (it was a wool/bamboo mix) and spun it in with the other batt. Getting the single onto the knitty noddy was as far as I got last night. It will be double plied, but that will have to wait until this evening.

It rained some yesterday and when I went out to take some pics of the flowers in the back yard it was very much like a really bad sauna. It is supposed to rain again today and tomorrow... and that's good as long as I am putting up the window film. (It keeps the windows from being too hot and the film holds better)

As for the pictures...


The trumpet vine is outdoing itself this year. It makes a perfect rounded top to the 10 foot tall stump we left of tree that died during the drought three years ago. It's a wonderful draw for the hummingbirds that swarm around it during the day.













The crepe myrtle is not as showy this year as it was last year, but it is still one of my favorite plants.


"All the abundance you want is already here. You just have to tune it in." ...

Everyday Wisdom by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

What's Up?

We are finally feeling better. Went to the grocery store yesterday because the cupboards were getting extremely bare. We have been using Agave Nectar instead of sugar...well... I have. He doesn't use sweetener in his coffee. Anyway.. according to the research I have done, the glycemic index is about 1/2 as high for Agave Nectar than it is for sugar.

I finished spinning the bamboo roving that I got a while back. It was definitely different from the wool. I then spun a bobbin full of wool and plied the two together. Then I over dyed using purple (grape) kool aid to match the bamboo. (As I was in the process of doing this, I pulled off about 20 yards of silk that I had spindle spun into a single and stuck it in the dye pot...by this time most of

the dye had been absorbed by the wool and this lovely robin's egg blue is what I got for the silk!)

Newsletter, Echocardiogram, Silk/Bamboo

There have been many ups and downs with the newsletter during the last year. We handed it over to someone else to do and for one reason or another, it did not get done.... so we are once again doing it. It will be in the mail this afternoon. This is a good thing...really wanted everyone to have theirs before Christmas. Our mailing list is now around 550, but with none sent out in a year, we are expecting quite a few to be returned as undeliverable as people move and don't send in new addresses.

Went for echocardiogram yesterday. It took quite a while, but not nearly as long as I was expecting it to take...lol (Didn't have to see the doctor!) My cardiologist has one of those doctor's offices where you make sure you have enough knitting/crocheting/nalbinding supplies with you to last for several hours.... you will need them. My DH has finally learned to take his own book with him...after he had read all of the magazines in the place at least twice in one visit. Go again next week for chemical stress test.

Made a trip to Durant, OK for some supplies and while there stopped at Ozark Mills. I got some silk roving and some bamboo roving. It's amazing the difference between spinning the silk/bamboo and spinning wool. The white in the pic to the left is the silk. The beautiful fuchsia/purple colorway below is the bamboo.

Mammograms & Lace Knitting

I grabbed my knitting as I raced out the door to my follow up mammogram appt. only to realize after I got there that the pattern was still sitting on the arm of my chair...sigh Oh well.. I had some nalbinding in a plastic bag, so I didn't have to sit there and twiddle my thumbs.

This is the follow up for the MRI I had about 6 months ago. It seems that one lump is quite persistent and this time when the sonogram was done following the mammogram it was not just the left side, but also the right that was checked. So will be a little antsy until I finally hear something. Hopefully, that will be today. [Hello, Pat... ;o) ]

This is a hand spun yarn from a bamboo, mohair and wool batt that I got in McKinney. It took me a while to realize that I really needed to card this stuff and I like the soft gold color that comes when I finish. After I knitted the "Linh's Ivy" scarf, I thought how pretty it would look in this thread, so I am trying it. I think I really need a much thinner thread to show off the stitch of this lovely pattern. I'm not sure that I like this and may pull it back out and do a broomstick lace with this yarn. We'll see....

Jim... send me pics of how you're coming with the quilt! Would love to see!