A Post about Wool

Dear Mom,
It may be 105 degrees out, but wool is still my preferred knitting and spinning fiber. Heck, we are so closed up inside lately that it might as well be winter. You know its been HOT when 85 makes you think about putting on a sweater.

I finished a couple of small shawls. I love them both.
The first is Color Affection, designed by Veera Välimäki. I used Fiber Optics' Siren Song yarns (Vitamin C, Ellie and Willow Batik) I purchased at the Greencastle Fiber Event this spring. The yarn was wonderful, the pattern was simple but not mind numbing- the perfect project for the past month's roller coaster of activity and emotions. 

I was overcome with addiction to this shawl and in a weak moment purchased enough Madelinetosh yarn to make two more. I've learned that grief makes me susceptible to comfort purchases. 
I also finished another Sunderland, this one in Jojoland Melody, I think. I can't find the ball band. I either tossed it, or Olive ate it. This one may be the prettiest one yet, and reminded me of how much I enjoyed the knitting of it.

So now I want to make more of these, too. 
Instead, I cast on for this and a pair of socks.
I am enjoying Tour de Fleece. Having the "excuse" to spin a little everyday could become a nice habit. My spinning stash rivals my knitting stash, which is alarming when considering the fact that I've been spinning only a few years in comparison to my decades of knitting. 
I just made myself sound really old. 
Anyway, daily spinning is using up some of that stash. Which adds to the knitting stash.
It's an endless cycle. 
My focus needs to include an effort at using that handspun for weaving. my mind begins to wander.....
I couldn't wait, and spun the sparkly batts I blended a couple of weekends ago. The sparkly part didn't sparkle as much as I thought it would, but they do show themselves in the sunlight. I wonder if they will show up more when knitted? I, not being a sparkly sort of person, have surprised myself with this whole sparkle business. When did I ever think I would want MORE SPARKLE? And yet, here I am, wondering where I can buy more of that sparkle to drum card into batts for spinning! Who am I again? Can I use the word SPARKLE one more time?

This yarn is so much prettier in real life.
And speaking of real life, I need to get back to it.
Love,
Kim

Taking it from the Top

Dear Mom,
Sorry. I can't help myself.
One more video of Olive sliding down the stairs.

I am knitting, too. I promise.

Love,
Kim

p.s. Don't you just love the way her tail wags all the way down?

Basic Training

Dear Mom,

Olive Goes Down Stairs......
a video montage.

Olive has rejected the Roll Down method and adopted the Belly Slide as her preferred method of descent.
I love how she looks back at her legs like she is trying to figure out why they aren't cooperating.
Love,
Kim

Dye Day

Dear Mom,
Last weekend MelissaWhoSpinsButDoesNotKnit and I spent Saturday in my garage dyeing wool and blending fibers.

We used thrift store crockpots and Greener Shades Dyes. We ended up with some beautiful results and colorful hands.

Melissa had some vintage wool to over-dye. In our excitement to get started, we neglected to take any before pictures.

While the crockpots were simmering, I blended some of my plain vanilla wool with two shades of the wool from my copper dye experiments. I added a little translucent nylon fiber for a subtle sparkle.

The photo does not do justice to the blended batts.  I cannot wait  to see how these spin up! (And let me digress here to say that the Tour de Fleece begins tomorrow. Much like the knitting Olympics, Tour de Fleece challenges spinners to complete a self imposed spinning goal on each day of the Tour de France. I haven't participated in a Tour de Fleece, but may, in a small way, join in the fun by taking a daily spin, even if it is for 10 minutes- nothing heroic or pressured- just pleasurable spinning. I learned my lesson from my first knitting Olympics. Making an adult sized, cable pullover in 16 days was challenging and exciting, but I don't think it is a coincidence that I had carpal tunnel surgery about a year later. Not making THAT mistake again! )

After blending all of the copper fibers, I took some of that same plain vanilla, blended it with some wool I had dyed a fuchsia color, mohair locks and a bit of nylon that were all in that same fuchsia family.
Melissa and I did a good thing, teaming up to purchase Fig, our drum carder. And our strengths in color sense, color understanding and dye math compliment each other. It was a good, productive, fun, educational day for both of us!

Love,
Kim

Wordless Wednesday

TrAction!

Dear Mom,

Bumper has gone above and beyond the Call of Duty for a Senior Dog by patiently dealing with a second youngster. His wobbly Senior legs and arthritic joints were in need of some help if he were to have any chance in keeping a young Spot of Trouble in line.

Aunt Cheri to the rescue. After witnessing his struggles and his undignified Bambi mishaps, Aunt Cheri sent me this link. I never knew something like this existed.
Bumper is now sporting a pair of Ultra Paw TrAction Boots, for Senior Dogs struggling to live with hardwood floors. He is a new Mighty Dog. He sounds like an old man shuffling around in his slippers, and the kids are a bit embarrassed for him, but it is all worth it to see how much easier it is for him to move around and get up.

And his first steps in those new boots?
Just watch.

He can figure anything out if food is involved.

Love,

Kim

Wordless Wednesday

Smitten

Dear Mom,

Olive is the best thing I have done for myself and my family in a long time....
This house needed some Happy.

And Olive is just what we needed.

All is well.

Love,
Kim

Around My Backyard

Dear Mom,

( The End )

Love,

Bonnie Jo

Introducing

Dear Mom,
Olive Patsy Wagner.
Olive for peace. For mending our heartache.
Love,
Kim

KnitKickers

Dear Mom,
A new design flew off my needles last spring and I had hopes of it being accepted by Knitty, but it didn't make the cut. Ah well. I can debut them here, instead.

I'd been wanting a little boot topper, but something lacy. Something that could be worn as a dressy accessory and something that would make a dressed down work boot look pretty, too.

I called on Bonnie Jo and my Young Lady to do some modeling for me, and Bonnie Jo gets credit for the clever name.

More details about KnitKickers can be found HERE.

Love,
Kim

Wordless Wednesday

Before

Dear Mom,
Emotional events have a way of marking time as Before and After, or at least the sad ones seem to do. And when in the midst of a sad valley, the Before seems to have happened a long time ago. Maybe because life really was different, Before.
But Before I lost Patsy, there were some happy things I hadn't had a chance to share here. Lots of little happy's can help conquer a great big hurt.

I had the absolute pleasure of participating in a "yarn bombing" at The Village Yarn Shop in Zionsville. Yarn bombing is the fiber world's equivalent of graffiti, but ours is not permanent and does not deface public property. Many many many knit and crocheted swatches were donated by customers. One evening, after the shop closed, several of us gathered together to stitch those swatches together and then to  a variety of landmarks outside the shop.

Some of the swatches seemed to have been created exactly for the items they were stitched to.

Like this Stop Sign cozy....

And the pretty addition to the shop's mailbox.....

That mailbox deserves a close-up.

Even the historic fountain got in on the action!

It was interesting to note that while we were stitching the items to trees, posts, and bike stands, the passersby made no comments, and seemed to take no notice of what we were doing. As soon as we finished our "work", families stopped and took pictures next to the tree, shoppers and diners made comments as the passed and complimented the new art.

Love,
Kim

Wordless Wednesday

In The End

Dear Mom,
In the end, our love wasn't enough to save Patsy from herself.
To say we are shattered doesn't begin to touch the pain of the past 36 hours.

I love her.

Kim

Wordless Wednesday

Catch 22

Dear Mom,
The thing about blogging is when you are busy and have lots to blog about there is no time to actually do the blogging. Or you have the time and nothing to say. Kinda like getting a job to have yarn money and then no time to shop for yarn or knit.
Thankfully, I have had time to knit. And spin. And dye wool.

This is that time of year where planting the garden and keeping up with the outside has a negative impact on the messes inside the house. Once the inside is almost caught up the lawn needs to be mowed again and I need to get out there and water the flower boxes. (Current flower box count is 55, and Patsy still finds a gap where she can jump over the fence. We are closing in on her, though, and hopefully one or two more flower boxes will do it.)  And then I sit down to knit and it is time for bed. But, my veggies are planted. The beans and corn are emerging, the tomato plants appear to be very healthy and the rabbits have already found a way in and eaten one of my cabbages. I am afraid to go out there and check to see if anything else disappeared overnight.

In the last month I've had a life-changing diagnosis.Don't panic. It is good. I've spent most of the past 6 months feeling very tired despite getting plenty of sleep. I needed a nap (or two!) just to get through the day. At first I blamed it on a sinus infection, then decided I was still recovering from a sinus infection, then that I was probably just affected by the winter's lack of sunlight, and then decided I was just in the Habit of Napping and being Lazy. During my annual physical, my doctor asked the right questions, listened intuitively to my answers, and after ruling out any other causes for my fatigue, sent me off for a sleep study.

I'll just pause here to say that the result of a night's sleep in the sleep lab is NOT a Good Night's Sleep.

Anyway, the results of my sleep study revealed I have sleep apnea. Not something I ever considered, but easily remedied without drugs. The cure? A CPAP machine. CPAP is an acronym for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. While I sleep, I wear a mask hooked to a machine that delivers enough constant air pressure to keep my airway open. The result is good, restorative sleep, through all phases of the sleep cycle.

Two weeks ago my CPAP machine was delivered. I feared that I would be sleeping like this.

But if this is what it takes to feel better, then I would make it work.

Fortunately, this is what my mask really looks like.

And let me just say right here, that the mask is PETITE!!!!! I have something that is size PETITE!!!! I was feeling pretty good about that mask already!!!!!

The PETITE mask fits comfortably over my PETITE nose, and the straps hold it snug to my head. As you pointed out, it is a good thing I didn't want anymore kids, because this thing is not sexy, but a tired woman taking naps all the time isn't sexy either. And at least a well-rested woman is happy.

First night with mask? Good.
Second night? Better than Good.
Third night? WOOHOOO! I feel great! I feel like Kim again! (pretend you hear James Brown singing "I feeeeel good!") REALLY good. Like CPAP is my new crusade and I want everyone to get Real Good Sleep.


Because I like to give names to just about everything, and especially since I will be sleeping with this every night, the mask and machine deserved to be called something better than "my cpap machine".

I've named it Johnny Depp.

Just so I can say I sleep with Johnny Depp every night with My Hero's blessing.

Love,
Kim

Celebrating the Life of a Chicken

Dear Mom,

On March 26 , Golda was buried under the maple tree in the backyard.  She would have been 4 years old in August.  Her death was not a surprise, as her health had been declining for many months.  It is my belief that she had ovarian tumors, but I'll never know for sure. 

As her outlook worsened, I made the decision to allow her to remain in the coop with her sisters rather than move her into a hospital cage.  To my surprise, Marge and Gloria allowed her to keep her positon at the top of the pecking order.

As Golda grew weary and reclusive, her sisters lovingly tended to her.  The day before Golda died, I watched as Marge cleaned off Golda's beak and straightened her feathers.   The following morning, Marge and Gloria remained in the coop with her lifeless body.

Golda was my Blog Star!  She was the first to lay an egg (on Christmas Eve!) and later produced the much-talked-about giant egg. 

She received regular spa treatments, complete with shampoo and blow dry.

She loved tomatoes.  She lurked in the shadows as we harvested, waiting for the chance to grab a cherry tomato!

She was quirky and silly.  She was bossy and strong-willed.

 

She had the biggest and floppiest comb!

She wore a purple sweater.

If anyone ever tells you that chickens are stupid, don’t believe it for a second!  Chickens are inquisitive and interesting little creatures with intelligence and personality.  I have witnessed a social structure, communication, and distinct personalities among my backyard chickens. 

Love,
Bonnie Jo