Cookie Season

The weatherman is predicting snow - there's a storm watch on. It hasn't gotten here yet, but it doesn't matter. I'm hibernating indoors today anyway, for multiple reasons.

1) It's cold out there. Even the cat hasn't been in the mood for long walks the last few days.

2) I had a little fall yesterday, and did something to one foot near the big toe. I don't think it's anything serious, but it is swollen, and walking is a bit awkward, so I'm figuring best to rest it up for a day or so, and not do something like go out Christmas shopping.

3) Tomorrow I have a cookie exchange to go to, so I've been in the kitchen all morning. Christmas cookies are all about the pretty, I think, so I always make this my excuse to do something a little on the fancy side. This year it's stained-glass cookies, and twisted candy-canes and wreaths. Now I just have to do something about packaging them.

4) Last bits of school stuff I still need to finish. Business plan details, colouring the big plan for one design project, and getting the last of a second done on the computer, and studying for first exam Monday...

Dithering

Ever get that feeling when you want to start something (like a knitting project), but no clear picture of what, exactly?

Yeah. I've got about 10 days to do 2 Christmas gift projects, and I pretty much wasted all of yesterday trying to start one. I know it will be a shawl, and with some dark brown Malabrigo fingering that was gifted to me. And I want to do it in the shallow crescent shape that's popular. Couldn't find a pattern that really spoke to me, tried starting about half a dozen times with various edging patterns to do my own thing, looked through all my stitch dictionaries...ripped out again, thought I might print something today before class rather than winging it...then ran across the Oslo Walk shawl in the only Interweave mag. I have at the apt, and decided to do that one, but in fingering and without the beads. Maybe. I might still print something today, just in case. But Oslo is cast on, and I'm telling myself to quit dithering and JUST PICK SOMETHING.

I tried to start the second Christmas project while I was debating about the shawl. Gloves. Three possible yarn options after stash diving, two of which would require dyeing to get to a colour the recipient would like, the third is fixed as to colour and pattern since I had one glove half-done and sitting around. Restarted that glove, wondered if that pattern was really the best choice for the recipient, put it down...This time I put the onus on her - emailed the fiber options and said 'Pick one'. That way I know it'll be an OK choice.

Now to the next stage of dithering...which homework assignment do I work on this morning? Xeriscape design, business plan, HR research? All that's coming down to the wire too - next week is the last week of school already. Hopefully I'm done for good, this time!

Who's Got The Button?

Finished the pair of sweaters for a classmate's twins, but I wasn't really happy with the button selection I had here, so I decided to have a hunt through my mother's button boxes when I went down.

Of course, there was other stuff going on - Christmas baking, and homework, and laundry, and I had to meet Pumpkin, the new cat. Doesn't he look rather like Puss In Boots in Shrek2? He's a smart one - the only one of the cats that has found and used the dog-door in the mudroom - and has a taste for bread. He goes out with Dad in the morning and shares the chickens' bread cubes they get as a treat.

But by Sunday morning I got down to the hunt. And a hunt it is. You see, half the fun (and half the problem) is that Mom has a number of button-boxes.

And very few of them are in any way organized.

You can find buttons of all sizes, shapes, and colours, and you will frequently find a match for a button from box A in box C.

I have volunteered to organize the boxes over Christmas, so that at least all the buttons of a given type will be in one box. It makes life so much easier. The way it is now, after sorting through 6 or 8 boxes for possibilities, you have a result that looks like this:

At that point, you can start the elimination process by removing anything you didn't find enough of, and then proceed from there. Which is what I did - cut the field down to a handful of candidates, and then discussed options, with the happy result that the sweaters are now buttoned and cute and ready to present to the recipient.

Spin-Kabobs

The current project on the spinning wheel is a multicoloured, long-repeat yarn. I was weighing the required bits of a dozen colours out, when I realized that I had no recollection of how I kept the darn things in order the last time I did this sort of thing. I thought it might have involved stacking them in a plastic bag, but didn't find anything that looked to be dimensionally appropriate.

Then I had one of my occasional brilliant notions. Possibly suggested by my new needle-case, I thought of straight knitting needles. And it is working a treat. I just threaded each neat little bit of carded wool onto a needle, in the correct order. Kind of like a rainbow-colored shish-kabob, so I've taken to thinking about it as a spin-kabob.

And since I want 2 skeins of two ply, I have 4 needles, neatly and identically adorned, one for each bobbin of single-ply. Dead easy to keep track of where I am, and what colour comes next, and they're not likely to get messed up the way a bag of roving bits would. Definitely an idea I want to keep in mind for the next time.

Ex and Sale, Sheets, and a Pumpkin

Weaving and Spinning Guild Ex and Sale done for another year, and it was a great one. My only regret is that I completely missed getting photos for a few of my things before they were sold, so now I will have permanent blank spaces on those project pages on Ravelry :(

But I did bring home a really neat something, completely unexpectedly. On Saturday I was chatting with an older lady, also of Dutch extraction, about knitting, and the patterns from various countries, and dyeing, and we had a nice time. Sunday she showed up again at my booth and gave me a huge wooden knitting needle holder. Painted and carved, and likely Dutch; she said she'd enjoyed it for years, but was trying to cut down on the things she had, and she wanted it to go to someone who would appreciate it! I was just about bowled over.

The painting reminds me a bit of the folk art my Dutch grandmother used to paint. So special, and yet kind of sad that this lady had no one in her family who would want it, and it came to me, who she'd just met. It's a common issue, though; my mother has a lot of things - vintage clothes, quilts-in-progress - that came to her from someone she knew whose family would have tossed the things out if they inherited them.

The night before the show, I was ironing my tablecloth, aka a navy-blue bed sheet, and it occurred to me that, like vinegar, bedsheets must be one of those household items that have 101 uses. My coloured bedsheets have served as chair slipcovers, frost blankets for my plants, tablecloths for shows, a costume sari for Halloween, floor covering when I'm picking or carding wool...we used sheets for tents or to mimic a canopy bed as kids, Mom uses old ones for weaving rag rugs, and my living-room curtains are patterned sheeting we bought as a remnant. Very useful things.

It seems the next time I go to the parents', there will be another cat to get acquainted with. Mom said she wasn't looking for another cat, certainly not a male, and not an orange one, since her Abby is orange. And Halloween night, an orange male cat decided to adopt them. He apparently has a big round head too, so he has been given the obvious name, Pumpkin. The other cats have done the feline equivalent of shrug and go about their business, but the dog is getting a lot of exercise, constantly needing to look for That Cat and discourage it from staying. Pumpkin just sits and watches from a higher vantage point, but doesn't seem scared, (and the dog gets tired easily), so that should resolve itself pretty soon...

Lots of Colours

I've got a new acquisition which I love. Seems one night at knitting, one of the coffee-shop regulars, Mike, mentioned he'd seen something at the second-hand store next door that some of the knitters might like. So Teresa went to check it out the next day, and decided it would be perfect for me, wrapped it up in shiny paper, and delivered it as a gift!

And she was right, it is perfect. It's a dye sampler, inscribed on the back as being from New Mexico. I recognize the plants used as southwest US, and the language as Native American, probably either Hopi or Navajo, since I know both groups have lovely textile traditions, and I think both from that quadrant. And I love the concept of using the little tapestry loom to show off the colors. In any case, I am now extremely curious to know how they got that gorgeous green from the red onion (my efforts have been more yellow-green, if anything), and whether some of these other plants can grow here... I know Johanne has a book on the Southwest dyes I will have to consult, but since she loves the dyes and tapestry weaving as well, I shall have to keep an eye on my sampler!

Not that I have any shortage of colours about. Packing up and labelling  has begun; it's only a few days now to the OVWSG Ex and Sale. Friday at 4 is door-opening, and I'm hoping it doesn't rain. The suitcases are on loan, and I don't want them to get wet or dirty. But they make a great dual-purpose carrying and display tool for the yarn.

Fiber Factor

Just to let you know, first off - we found the mouse that escaped. He was hiding behind the flour bin. One of the cats drew our attention by staring at that corner, and we saw the mouse, managed to capture him in a sour-cream container and let it out in the field. He may still be running, or he may be telling tales to all his mates at the mouse pub; we don't know, but it's a happy ending for all (except for the cat, who didn't get to eat the mouse).

Anyway, my holiday is over. Back in the city, back to school. It was a gorgeous, fiber-y week, though. Got a lot done. Two classes (spinning and dyeing) at the ranch, with enthusiastic students. And a lot of prep for the OVWSG show, which is now only 2 weeks away.

 Who says prep is work, though? It was gorgeous weather, warm enough to pick fleece or spin on the front porch, and admire the scenery.

Never any shortage of helpers for making sure my wool didn't escape, either.

Got several skeins of wool spun, and did two days of dyeing, got some lovely colors out of it (not that purple and pink stuff, but the rest is this week's work).

I did a bit of knitting also - finished the yellow and teal mitts and started the brown and white ones, and did a pair of booties in-between, except I haven't taken pics of those yet.

That is brown on the mittens, even if it's so dark it looks black. I dyed that last week with the new crop of black walnuts, and they are definitely strong. (My fingernails will be attesting to that until they grow out, probably. It looks like I've had a French manicure but in black instead of white).