I'm 10% redneck, strawberry ice cream

Your Summer Ride is a Mini Cooper

You are all about unique, one of a kind adventures. The only thing predictable about your summer is that it's unpredictable!

What's Your Summer Ride?

I also have a choleric temperament, just like Wannietta

Everytime she posts one of these quizzes I end up spending an hour over there playing the silly quizzes.

Was impressed with the Mini result though, I am a huge fan of mini's, I had a '74 Mini when I lived in England, my cat is called Mini, and I have promised myself that any future animals will be Austin, Rover or Cooper.

Progress

Well over due for a photographic update. So here it is.

First up is the tee I made for Baby doll.













I have had lots of trouble with the neck, I just can't seem to get the front neck nice, it puckered on my first attempt at crocheting, the neck was way too loose so needed some adjusting. I undid the first attempt and tried again, it looked much better, but was still too loose, so I have added another two rows of single crochet around it with some decreasing. Baby doll has yet to try on this attempt. More on this later....


Next, the estonian garden stole, what a beautiful stole this is going to be. this photo is of the centre completed, which was about 65% done, I am now at 75% done, which means I have finally worked some nupps! Oh what fun! NOT! Urghh, they may as well be freakin bobbles. I hate bobbles, and despite my better judgement I decided to try the nupps, knowing full well I would hate making them as much as bobbles. Ok, so the result is a lot nicer than a bobble, and I can see the appeal in them, and I am so glad I chose this instead of this as my first attempt at nupps.
One thing, if you ever decide to make anything with nupps on it, a) make the nupp loose, and 2) make sure them needles are pointy.















OK, just going to get a photo of the nupps.......

















Ok, finally, the peacock. Here is a picture from the early days, just in the very early stages still, back when it was easy to work a row, when there was just a few stitches per row.














That all seems so long ago.














Peacock is now at about 62% done, I know I fell behind a little with it, but will soon catch up. I was worrying about the colour, but the picture looks pretty good so far, it's hard to tell exactly how it will turn out, blocking may take away the look, or it could make it look even nicer, hard to say, either way I still love it, and if the colour is horrid, then I can just over dye it.


Ron and the girls spent a day out at our property in Mosport on Sunday which left me with a lot of time to watch football and F1, England of course won, yay England. Another few days to there next match, can't wait. The F1 was in Montreal last weekend, Jacques Villeneuve as usual didn't do very well, going out in the final few laps. Oh well, DC didn't do well either. Alonso won though, and that's really what matters as I want him to win again this year.

Ron bought an old truck for bombing around the property, he loved being able to get around in there, it's 5 parcels of 10 acres, 2 of the lots are ours, the other three are his brothers and sisters.

My mom and sister are going to be blessing me with their company this year, so I will be ordering some yarn from the UK for them to bring over to me. First on my list is rowan kildsilk haze, one of the night shades, Medici, I will be making the green moss shawl from Simply stunning for my sister, my mom, given free choice on the heirloom knitting site, picked the same thing as my sister, so I have two green moss shawls to make. The only time I have made the same thing twice was the Creatures of the reef shawl from fiddlesticks, I made one for myself, and my mom loved it so much she wanted one too, same colour. This time however she doesn't want the same colour, thank god. In fact she doesn't even want it in mohair, she would like a silvery grey, anything but fluffy shawl, so now the hunt begins for the perfect yarn for this. Any ideas anyone???
I had thought maybe if Misti Alpaca has a silvery grey colour that would be ok, but that is slightly fluffy too. Maybe I need a trip out to a yarn store.... Mary's in unionville, I love that store. Mary is so nice and friendly, I have only been there once, but Mary seemed like an old friend. Must go there more often.

I could spin something for the shawl, but again, a matter of finding the right fleece.

One more thing for now anyway, this is turning into a marathon post.

Our resident fat cat sleeps in the oddest positions,

















In this piccie she is doubled over, legs akimbo, what a strange cat, she regularly sleeps in the same postition. This one from last night had me running for the camera, which is now going to be perched on the table to get the latest wacky way to sleep courtesy of Maggie Moo.

















Mini, my first baby kitty has never been featured here , so I thought I should get a shot of her up, well getting a shot of her to begin with is nigh on impossible, she is one of the aloof kitties, you know the type, real regal snootiness, until she spots a paper ball, then it's baby kitty time.















She did add a helping hand on the first peacock photo though, very kind of her to hold down the paper, think she thought it was going to roll up and be thrown across the room for her.

Where I'm at.

Okay so almost two weeks have gone by on the FIFA knitting, no photo's today, but I will try for my next post, the Peacock shawl is difficult to photo, working on straights on a triangular shawl, it is difficult to get an anywhere near decent photo.
I am almost 50% on that now, about two rows shy of the half way mark. I am at about the same place with the wrap, but I did get distracted earlier in the week and finally made Baby doll's top, she loves it, it is finished, bar a few ends needing tied in. I also got back to working on my fair isle top, the Pi shawl for Eliz and the shrug for her too.

I went to the sale of Ann's yarn, fleece and equipment last week, I spent a lot, and got tons of stuff. I got a table loom and a really great score of six balls of filatura kid mohair in the most divine yellow colour. That has simply stunning written all over it. I have already made blue diamonds, pink puzzle and the dove shawl from this collection, 6 balls is enough for two of the smaller shawls, so I think Jade and lavender as I want to make the edwardian in the same colour as it is shown, and my sis wants the Green moss shawl made in blue for her. I may have to hold of on my decision as my mom might also want one, she is yet to decide.

I also got the Elsebath Lavold bookViking patterns for knitting I am going to be busy this fall making a number of the sweaters in that book.

I am going to buckle down in the two shawls, try to finish the Estonian one this week, I need to get back to more spinning, I acquired a lot of fleece recently and none of it is getting worked, my storage space shrinks quickly with the addition of fleece. I did try more natural dying this week and was succesful in getting something other than a variant of tan, I got a green!!! Woohoo, quite a nice colour too, a nice olive colour. That was with rhubarb and iron, I want to try rhubarb by itself as it contains oxalic acid which is a mordant, if that comes out like the olive green then no loss, and I haven't been spinning up the fleece for the dying now so even less time into it if I am not satisfied with the colour. It's getting to the point that I should be out in the garden harvesting the plants for dying, but got so carried away with my knitting I totally forgot, plus I haven't got any more mordants yet, I may well just cave and order online.

England has advanced, I am happy, even happier they won't meet Germany in the next round!

GO ENGLAND!~~

Dear Kenny.

Where have you been hiding yourself?

This is pomatomus

This is the yarn I used,












Lovely socks by Cookie A. She also has a pair in the new issue of knitty. Really cute too.

Just to let you know Kenny, I had to go digging around wool shops looking for the vogue issue with the twisted float shrug in it. I got totally absorbed in your talk of the shrug, and now just simply have to make one.

On knitting news, I felt the need for instant gratification~~~~~

I was so fed up with things not going my way, taking too long, whatever, it was time for something to work up quickly, so I made a pair of socks, for DD#2 Katherine. She has little size ten feet, so they work up very quickly, I started first one last night, and this is where I am with them now.













I haven't started on my world cup knitting yet, I want to actually finish the socks first. But this is what I am doing,



















The estonian garden wrap.


And the peacock shawl from Fiddlesticks, my adventure in dying took a very weird turn, I have no idea if this yarn will look nice or not, but I thought it was worth trying.

I started with this












And ended with this.













Here is the pattern, for those not familiar with it.











Of course once I had finished dying it I found another ball of the skacel merino that I should have dyed, so hopefully I have enough in what is there otherwise I will be trying to dye a single ball the same as the skein!!!!

Anyway, in the time it took me to write this I could have been finished the flippin sock.

Can't wait to see the footie tomorrow, England's first match, and then the following day the British Formula one from Silverstone England. A good weekend. Hopefully I will get to go shooting too, haven't been in a few weeks, got itchy fingers to blow away a target, my Ruger 10/22 is good for that as it is a semi automatic with a scope. I have a magazine that holds 25 though so I can blow away the target.
I usually use the Bruno though for target shooting, I feel much better with that gun for accuracy. Ronnie loves the Ruger for accuracy. I haven't fired a gun in three weeks, and was told I could use the club directors hand guns if I was there the next week, last time I was there, so I hope he brings them tomorrow. I really loved his 22 revolver, but he sold that. I am very tempted to get my restricted license just so that I can get a 22 revolver, it was a very clean smooth gun, have to find out what it is for when I get one. Knowing the director it is a colt.

Hmm, I am also going to be participating in a small way in the executive committee for my spinning guild, the Burr house spinners and weavers. I think I am like first or second assistant to the VP. Nothing terribly exciting, which is exactly what I wanted. I am looking forward to a very exciting year with the guild, we hope to turn things around this year, and make things work better again. It was a rough year last year. We will be getting a website soon, a member is setting it up for us, and we should be online in a few months.

Karen, a relatively new member ( 2years,I have been there 3 years) of the guild is going to be the president, thankfully lots of members have stepped forward to offer assistance in many varying forms. All the executive positions are filled now, and some have assistants. We really need this level of help to get things moving again I think. Our President this year had two other members helping out, a shame really, I don't know why others wouldn't take the postitions a help out a little.

Anyway, happy weekend everybody.

Rip....

Pomatomus is off the needles:(
Too small, mistake after mistake.

This was not the way I intended to get a project off the needles by friday.
Things aren't going my way, one other project close to completetion that I ran out of wool, now this, I seem to be going backwards.

FIFA

Well, the world cup is coming up rapidly, this week see's the beginning of the show. I am not a huge football fan, but always watch the FIFA world cup.
I have no intentions of joining any knit along for it, I just plain and simple don't want to this time. A month is a long time, I may have many changes of minds in that time, a bit like wurzel gummidge changes his head.

Given my British heritage, the fact that I was born in Britain and lived there for 21 years, football is pretty much in my blood, as is cheering for England if Scotland doesn't qualify, or as usual doesn't get very far.

So instead of joining a KAL I will just decide on two shawls to knit, already decided actually. The peacock shawl and a fibre trends shawl, I think it is garden of eden, have to check though. I have dyed some skacel merino peacock feather colours, and have some Misti alpaca for the fibre trends.

I decided I will bust a gut trying to finish up some things leading up to this, I want to cast off two before I cast on these two. I thought the mystery Pi would be one, but I ran out of yarn close to finishing, I am currently negotiating getting more of the knitpicks merino needed.
The fair isle cardigan could be cast off if I get back to working on that today, I also started a pair of pomatomus on friday, about half way through one already. They stand a chance of being finished. I will get around to posting piccies later, haven't got time right now, so will be back soon, or later at least anyway.

Yarn store review too!!!!!