Cornball

I broke a dpn today. Damn. I thought I had another set of #2's but if I do, I don't know where they are so am forced to finish thumb on mitten with a size #1. I could try 3 needles, but you know how it is when you have a rhythm going, the littlest detail can blow it all and I have have been working on this mitten long enough. I want to finish and have it the mail Monday. No excuses, oh wait..@#!*, Mondays a holiday, so Tuesday. Ya'll bored yet.

Have finally gotten my scarf exchange partner finalized and the scarf knitting can begin. I look forward to finding the just right pattern and fiber and knitting something special for a total stranger. How cool an idea is that? I hope my receiver enjoys her scarf. I am so excited to get mine, and will treasure it no matter what. How special, mine is coming from Australia and my partner has been knitting for over 40 years. How awesome. She wrote to tell me that she has dyed the wool herself and begun knitting. So exciting, a gift in the dreariest part of winter.

Geesh, did I tell ya I was excited enough times. I'm a cornball for sure.

New Year, Best of Intentions

I have decided that this is a year of snail mail. I am so tired of nothing but bills and ads in my PO box and decided that I wanted to make sure that people I love get a sweet little note or art or treat in the mail on a regular basis. I am committing myself to this and know that I will let only myself down if I fail to do this. But for a yarn addict...

I also have set a goal for myself to read 24 books this year. That's not outrages. 2 books a month, doable, but for a yarn addict.....

I also have scored my self a Native American flute and lessons. I have a friend that makes the most beautiful flutes out of reclaimed wood. He is also an accomplished musician. So this year I am going to learn something new. I know how to play a traditional flute and a piccolo, but this will be different for sure. So I'll be practicing a new art, but for a yarn addict....


Well I have been a busy knitter, I am a tad obsessed you might say. It's become an old overgrowth forest of wool in my house, skeins and roving hiding in every nook and cranny, peeking out, just pooling up my imagination. A puddle of possibilities sparkling in the sun. I have a problem with organizing it. I did buy clear storage bins, I sorted and stored by type of yarns, subdivided by color, 2 bins just for roving, some for projects in the works..etc, etc..then I want to try this yarn for this project and that yarn for another, or do these colors go together?, how much do I have in this weight?, and well..before you know it, it's all over the place in different stages of processing. Sooo.. I need a more tactile approach to my stash. If I could just have direct access to touching it and moving it around. I need a little hut of my very own. With walls that are nothing but cubicles, cascading and dripping with colors, textures, dreams and possibilities. Project tables, a sink of course, a small stove for the dye pot, oh and a washing machine, hooks and drying lines, and plenty of room for the Wheel and oh I almost forgot..the Navajo loom my husband built me that I am dying to figure out. Am I alone out here? Who else dreams of a wool room? If you have one, how'd ya do it? If I could get rid of my furniture, I could maybe just convert the living room to my wool room, that should work....who needs a freakin couch? Well wait a minute, I could knit one, or knit a whole new cover for this one, or hell get rid of it and knit up some Hammocks, yeah that'd be cool ...


So for a yarn addict......wish me luck!!!!

Gifted yarn and a winter day!

So this is a scarf I am almost finished with. It is organic wool from 13 mile wool mill

www.lambandwool.com

It is hand dyed and spun by my friend Katey. A thick and thin single plied with a thin thread. A summer group we attended where we weekly tried a new technique out of Judith MacKenzie's book "The Intentional Spinner". I fell in love with this yarn so the day it was given as a gift, I couldn't wait to find a project. To me the color looks like pebbles in the bottom of a Montana stream, so I just created a simple moss stitch pattern. It seemed the perfect way to get the fullness of the yarn to show through and furthered the image of rocks under water. I am not sure who should get this one as a gift, but it is meant for someone artsy for sure. It is a series of pure imagination(s) so hmm... who to gift it too?

It is such a blustery day out there. This is curl up in your jammies witha press pot full of strong coffee spinning wool by the wood stove kinda day. Aahh, winter..oh wait..wtf??? it's freakin' the middle of June. I should just go back to bed and try this one over.

Spin,Spun, Done

This was such a nice project to do. I just completed my first spinning commision. This is a horsehair/wool blend. The pictures do not do justice to the color, it was more a warm cappaccino color. I spun a fine thread and then plied it with another. The result was a nice, fluffy looking two ply that is just a pleasure to look at. I am using an Ashford traveller, double treadle wheel, it works great for me, I would like to Buy a larger flyer and bigger spools. One day, one day!!!

I need a vacation!

Teenagers, uuuggg!!! My rant for the moment. God love em!

Haven't been too creative lately, at least not with the wool stuff, and to make things worse I must have pissed the wool gods off with my lack of creativity because today...this is hard...totally irresponsible... it's hard to believe this happened...I stepped on my Drop spindle. The cat jumped on the couch, bounced my can full of needles and spindles and all, and this being a BIG one, bounced out and I remember thinking, I do that occasionally, I better not forget to pick that up. Well I forgot and as I was in a hurry looking for something heard this awful snap/crack and my heart sank. I can hardly bare this. I keep looking at it hoping it isn't true. I have others, but this one was special, a gift, a fat yarn maker. Oh man...this has been a hard day.

Dyed some yarn, came out bubblegum pink. Like I was going for that. Found out I could over dye and tone it down a bit. But as we speak I am working on using one skein to make a shibori felted scarf just for s@!#s and giggles. I have a plan we'll see if it works out better than the last pink one I had. All for fun.

I need a vacation.

changes

Lots of changes happening. New beginnings, and endings. Is making me even more introspective.

The weather is still nice, but they say a storm is coming. Hard to believe. Last night Wade and I heard a loud clap of thunder and it was kinda fun. Not a cloud in the sky, only stars. I wonder how that happened? I live in such a beautiful place. I will never tire of the landscape, I am tired of the isolation. It's lonely. I have my boy's, I know they care, but it's different. Let's face it, I am just saturated with testosterone, and double teenage testosterone at that. I'll be fine and sad the day it ends, just challenging for now. I need a girls night on a regular basis. I might have to work on that.

Had to put my dog to sleep right before Christmas, I know it was time but still a bit sad about it. She was my girl, my pal. I hope she's happy where ever she is.

I am still trying to catch my wave. I need an art project and I want something new and different to try. It needs to be three dimensional what ever it is. A vessel. Something to hold my dreams, and made of them at the same time. Something with tile, or maybe a paper mache vase. Weird, not my mediums at all. Could be fun.

Spring Fever?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!


Is it too early for spring fever? I am dreaming about a garden. No thought of the VERY small container garden I had last year and was totally tired of it at the end. I dream of flowers and fresh salads and dinner party's. Right. I think in 18 years of marriage I have had people over for dinner maybe three times. I see my house as I wish it were. I have no idea how to pull that off. Well, all a girl can do is dream of spring and flowers and fresh salads and a perfect day.

Still am working on a Christmas present. I will remind myself this year that Christmas knitting starts now. No excuses, no putting it off. I am finding with the one I am trying to finish, that I love the elaborate. The exquisitly beautiful. No one wants an ugly acrylic anything. I like wool, blended with silks, angoras, cashmere. They are a pleasure to knit with and to watch fabric created before your eyes, oozing from your own hands is well, the best gift.

I have decided that 2010 is the year of creation. I can feel this wave of creativity swelling in me, in the air around me. I just have to figure out how to get on that wave. Ride it, believe in myself, follow through. No idea is stupid. Try that phrase on for size! I need to create for the sake of creation, not for outcome. I want art I can wrap my hands around.

This is going to be a good year.

Knitting my heart away

Well, do I have a lot on my mind today. I have been knitting christmas scarves, trying to knit my first sweater AGAIN!! and thinking of all kinds of projects I want to try. Crazy. So many ideas, so little time.
Funny how grieving hits you. It has been three years now since my sister died and today I am so sad. I have no idea where it came from, or why. When it happened I spent almost two years in a fog. It was like I was at one end of a tunnel, the tunnel being me. I could see the other side but insted of moving through the tunnel it was as if the tunnel was moving and I kept following behind. Just viewing my life from a distance and today I have that sensation again. When I first started knitting I thought of Kelly, how much she would love this yarn that scarf, that sweater, etc. Now when I knit it is for her. It's my link to heaven or something. I think of projects and designs in her honor, every gift I give is a gift for her or from her. This is a poem that is for her. It is perfect

i carry your heart with me
by e. e. cummings

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

I could have never imagined that someone would write a poem that fit her and I so perfectly. Maybe it is corny, but I don't care anymore. She meant the world to me.

Now onto knitting.
I have found many wonderful cable knit scarves on http://smariek.blogspot.com/ I want all the girls to get one for christmas. Time wise the one I have completed has become second nature and by the middle I was knitting fast. So maybe I can just do that pattern in everyones favorite color and spare my self the agony of running out of time. Or maybe mittens. It is important to me to make my dad a pair of Selbuvotter mittens. I started one and it went great untill the tip. There are no instructions for decrease, only the chart and that was my first stranded, chart pattern I've done. Wish me luck. I am going to keep trying. Anyone out there have any experience with this?

Fall is on it's way and it is the perfect weather right now. I think we are going to enjoy a beautiful Indian Summer. I just love the sound of that. The images it conjures up in my mind. Almost day dreamy.

Well out of the dream and back to the drudgery of reality. Chores are calling, but my yarn and roving are screaming louder. Better get on it so I don't leave them waiting to long

Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918)

Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918)

Buy Handmade - Get Your Badge

Buy Handmade - Get Your Badge

Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!! The snow came yesterday. It has made some treacherous roads but it was so beautiful. It made it seem like Christmas. I have been knitting, knitting, knitting, knitting, and knitting some more. Almost everyone is getting handmade gifts by me others are receiving gifts made by others, but I am taking my handmade pledge seriously. I did even before the pledge. I urge everyone I know to do the same. Support your local artists. I tell ya I live in the middle of no where and there are plenty of options, even here. My nieces' are keeping my life exciting. I have one having a baby, Then I have another one having a baby, and now I have one moving to Norway so her Husband can receive his PHD. What a fantastic opportunity and honor that is. But all I can really think about is Norwegian knitting.



Call me crazy (most already do) I read all these blogs and they are about family, family life, mine is knitting and the psy-cosies that I suffer. I love my boy's, they are everything to me, but hey, so is my knitting. The giver of all escapes from reality. The mother of all imagination, freedom and if no one See's it it can still be the master piece that it never was. All mine, all consuming, totally gratifying, and what more could you ask for. I dreamt about Angelina fiber last night. Everyones' hair became glitzy, the very air sparkled. It was magical. Now I think I am certifiably in-sane. Who needs drugs when you can have fiber. Sometimes all I want is to look at it. Dream of the roving it could be, the yarn, the nothing. I just could lay it all out and roll in it. . The thought of it is sometimes better than doing anything with it. Thank God no one reads this. I would be so embarrassed.

Well I think that fall is on the way. And believe it or not I am happy about that. It somehow brings on a feeling of nesting for me and that induces that knitting fever. I am knitting my first sweater. I have tried before but life threw me a curve ball and I totally lost where I was. So I have decided to make the pattern "Salt Peanuts" by Veronik Avery out of the Spring 2004 issue of interweave knits. I think that it is a classic style and it seems to be the perfect first sweater. Mine is in a cream cascade 220 yarn. It is knitting up nice and well that was the yarn that I had enough of to make a sweater so it's cream and I will live with it. I am about a 1/4 of the way up the back and my time line is to be able to where it by the 21 of september. That seems a reasonable amount of time to accomplish this. If I don't put a time line on myself it will never get done.

I have joined a womens group out here in the mountains of paradise. We have only met once and will meet again on this saturday. I am happy to make conections with some strong women but I think maybe we have to find that strength with each other. To be silent in your heart and listen inbetween the sounds is true listening. I read that from Carlos Castenada's book a "seperate reality". Haven't read that since I was kid but ran across that blurb not to long ago. I will like this group and am excited to see where it goes. Maybe I can get them knitting.

Well the clouds are swallowing the mountains . A fine mist desending upon us like magic. I sometimes wonder if people realize they are in this mountain range when they drive through in the winter. You can go day's withoput seeing them and the one day the clouds lift and it's a new world. Amazing. I hope that winter doesn't drag on too long and swallow me. Nesting is one thing, disappearing is another. I think some people never come back. They lose their minds in the snow and can't get them back. It is truely an unforgiving enviroment out here. Not many paople make it. I see all these fancy homes that are lived in for a week or two each summer then abandon in the cold. Giant wooden dinasours on the landscape. I am ready for this. Autumn, deep colors, rich food, warm wine, tons of wool. (wine after knitting, I learned the hard way)

Now I am ready to weave

So I haven't done much of anything lately as far as knitting goes. I did manage to work with the drop spindle while camping this weekend. I spun some lilac colored merino wool. Was working really consistently as far as tension a size. Only problem was no shade and was on the shore of the lake and got way to hot to continue. Had to just get in the water and cool off.

Have rented a book from the Livingston library on Navajo weaving. It is a basic manual on how to build your own loom and basic weaving instructions and definitions. I am excited to give it a try. I thought for my fortieth year I would build the loom and try a tapestry. I would love to dive in and make a huge beautiful rug, but hey, lets get real here. I need to learn how to weave first. And of course I am on my own in teaching that to myself. Wish me luck. I also have to figure out the camera and putting pictures here and on raverly. I hope to chronicle my endeavor. My hope is that I will experience the oneness with the loom and have inspiration for my first project come out of that. But making a rug would be the best.

Oh what a week this has been. I am so ready to be done with this job and have the energy to really knit again. I have so many half finished or even just started projects that NEED me to finish them. The collective energy in my little village is very intense right now. Not all bad but a little overwhelming. This really is the best place for me to live. I just want to be at home and melt into the mountains around me. I am seeing knitting patterns in nature and want so badly to find the expression. How far can knitting go? Stay tuned!

Wish me Luck!!!

So I have had a weekend. Have been knitting the tam. It actually has hooked me and I can't wait to see it done. Hats are my favorite and by the way the colors are coming together I already have an idea of who would love this hat for christmas. Thinking ahead. If I stay on task I will have some nice gifts for people this year. I always wait till it's almost here and can never pull off all my ideas. This is the year to do it. I quit one of mty jobs Yeah!!!! I am so relieved. I gave till June 30th. That seems ample time to find someone to replace me. Not that it's a specialized job just finding another warm body to step in is the hard part. Not much of an employee pool out here. This ,hopefully, will work out so that I have more time to spend with the boy's and more time to devote to m,y art. Whatever that is at the moment. I am feeling the need to get a canvas together. I have that wave swelling inside and have not felt it for years. I mean YEARS. So I want to be prepared for when it hits the shore. It feels like a biggy. Well am going to go soak in tub and mentally prepare myself to get to work. I'll find out how well my notice went over. I was kinda chicken shit about it and put it in a card and shoved it into the owners reciept bag. ish me luck!

So another rainy day in Paradise. I suppose this would make it a good day for knitting and spinning. I do have high hopes of working on the felt bag but for some reason am totally discouraged by the looks of it right now. The color I like the best has run out. Actually ran out fast it was the hand spun in a beautiful muted, smokey type blue. The rest so far is yellow but will have to swwitch to another color soon. I guess you could say I "mis-calculated" what I would need. I just eyeball stuff. Especially bags that I am making up and hope they organically come together in a cool way. More then anything I hate thinking things out in knitting. It is my release from the rest of the world and the way that works. I am so detail oriented that I can almost go backwards. For some reason the bags move away from that and float on some ethereal plane. A plane wear no rules apply. One where only needles and wool and hope exist. Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy detailed patterns and cables knitting but my bags are different. They are these vessels and before someone uses them they are only pure possibility. It is not the walls that make a room but the space in between. Just like the body it is the movement of space in between even the smallest cells that create the shape. Pure potentiallity. Thats how I feel about the bags. I might change my mind about this when they put me in the padded room for these wierd analogys I have. Well time to clean up and take the boy's to "town". They are bored and I can knit anywhere.

I can't believe I am doing this

This is the beginning of what I don't know. Project of the moment is a felt purse. Using 13 mile organic wool. Some hand-spun, some mill spun. Mixing that with some wonderful baby mohair I bought at the LYS in Bozeman. This, I am hoping, will have a more tailored shape than previous bags. I started with a bag of love for a gift.That inspired me to make more, never knowing for sure how the end will turn out. Hopefully I've noticed enough variables to have a little more predictability with this one. I'm also venturing out into the world of massage therapy again. I took the last four years off, and am wondering if I should go for it. Which, I tell you is a bigger bite than then I have ever done. I also want to get this idea of fiber arts off into the world too. Found a local graphic artist( which in my community with no population count is a freakin' miracle) to help me design some cards and brochures. Oh boy here we go. One hour to my appointment and I am totally unprepared. I guess I work best under pressure.