Sharon's Blog

It's a Matter of Semantics

2008-12-11T10:03:00.003-06:00

It's a matter of semantics.

I was out of cracked corn. Did I tell you I have birds in my yard? I have all different kinds of birds in my yard. I don't even know what half of them are. Well, I know the colorful ones, the unusual ones and the exotic ones. But there are so many warblers which don't even come to the feeders and then there are the sparrows. When I was little I used to feed the sparrows much to the chagrin of the neighbors who thought only the colorful songbirds were worth feeding. My grandmother always said the sparrows had to eat, too. So they always got the breadcrumbs and they peeped their thank-yous.
Now that I have at least 7 bird feeders out at any given time I find out that there are all different types of sparrows and they are hard to tell apart. They say a lot more than peep.

Anyway, I was out of cracked corn which my husband usually picks up but he has been too busy. Right now we are also feeding the ducks. We live on the edge of a lake. Well, we like to call it a lake but we are actually on the edge of what looks like a mysterious Louisiana swamp or bayou. There are actually are two bayous that feed into the north side of the lake up here – a part of the lake called Mallard Bay. There are all sorts of exotic birds that come into our yard. I soon discovered that one feeder was not enough. In the summer I have a lot of hummingbird feeders and oriole feeders around but in the winter I worry about them freezing and since there aren't many hummers around during the winter I change them out of for tube type feeders.

I went to the feed store to ask for cracked corn. How hard can that be. The man behind the counter said he wasn't sure they sold cracked corn. Hmmm – this is where my husband gets it. The lady behind the counter said “she wants chops.” I do? So I paid for 200 lbs of chops. I went around back to have it loaded into my car. I told the fellow back there that I wanted cracked corn. He didn't seem to know what that was. I explained to 2 or 3 of the fellows back there that I wanted chopped up corn for feeding ducks. One of the said we have steel cut corn. Ok, that sounded like the right thing. Another of the fellows said she wants chops. I told him I paid for chops so I guess that is what I wanted. They loaded 200 lbs of chops into the car and I left hoping I didn't have 200 lbs of ground corn meal because that would make a big mess and would the birds eat it anyway? I got home and started to unload the 4 bags and what do I see on the tag at the bottom of the bag? Yep – cracked corn. Agggh!!!

Guess I'll scoop up a couple of gallons of it and go put it down by my dock – oops, I mean pier. That's what they call it in the south.

Pioneer Day at LSUS

2008-10-11T06:32:00.002-05:00

I will be out at LSUS today for Pioneer Heritage Day. I will be spinning on my spinning wheel and probably a spindle. There will be quite a few local artisans from the area demonstrating living history. There are expected to be spinners, quilters, weavers, woodcarvers, blacksmithing and people demonstrating what it was like 100 - 200 years ago in the area. In previous years the cannon was even shot off hourly. I expect that will be the same. It should be a fun day for children and adults alike. It is located on the edge of LSUS campus where there are several historic buildings that have been moved from other sites around the state. It will be from 10 am until 4pm.

Baby Doll Blankets

2008-10-07T09:33:00.002-05:00

I get to be one of Santa's elves. How cool is that? A group of knitters and crocheters from the Shreveport area are knitting (and crocheting) baby doll blankets for toys for tots. Santa finds help where he needs it. There are a couple of other groups involved in this project. I'm just one cog, er, elf in the wheel. I tend to do more spinning than knitting so I am not the fastest knitter in the world. Crocheting is faster but I have always liked the look of knitting better, except for fancy crocheted edges on things. I should probably learn how to tat.
I knitted one baby doll blanket which took a couple of days in my spare time. Then I crocheted one in an afternoon – much faster for me. It occurred to me that whipping them out on a sewing machine would be fastest so I got out my trusty sewing machine which I have had for 17 years. We replaced a belt and a few other things last year so I was surprised that it looks like it needs a new belt again. The replacement belt isn't the same number as the original but I guess replacement belts are made by a different company now. I am waiting for a belt to come in the mail probably tomorrow.
I got one quilted baby doll blanket done before the sewing machine started growling at me. I finished a couple more by hand – those probably took as long as they would have if I had crocheted them. Hmm, well itty bitty quilts are cute. They are easy to make if you find some material which looks like it is already quilted. I only had to put batting between and stitch the sides and then quilt a little square in the center. If my machine gets fixed tomorrow I will be able to whip out several more of these quickly.
Here are some pictures of the finished products. We are working, Santa.

Buttonhole, Buttonhole, Who's Got the Buttonhole?

2008-01-29T09:19:00.001-06:00

Okay, so I found out I am having a beautiful little granddaughter. I have had my eye on that beautiful February sweater of Elizabeth Zimmermann's and was hoping for a girl so I could make that one. I think it is probably too feminine for a little boy.

I made two baby surprise jackets rather quickly but this pattern looks a little more complicated. I started the yoke and after 27 rows realized that I was supposed to put in a buttonhole approximately every 8 rows as I went along. Ummm, ooops. I checked other samples of this sweater on flickr and could see that I am not the only one. This is a common mistake made with this sweater. My fault for not reading the whole pattern first - lol. There are lots of clever adaptations I could make. After debating for a couple of hours I ripped it back to the first 4 ridges . I know I could have "fixed" it but with a baby sweater the whole thing shouldn't take very long.

I should write down step by step notes for this one. I should check to see if someone else already has notes. I should maybe buy the dvd. lol I love the way this cute little sweater looks. I should practice the pattern with some scrap yarn first. I can make some very odd mistakes. Sometimes they look great and sometimes they look -- interesting. I have already thought of a way to make the yoke a little different than the pattern calls for. We shall see what happens.

I have seen some very pretty adaptations I would like to try, but really, how many sweaters can one baby use? I should make some hats or booties. A girl can never have too many hats or shoes.

In The Night Kitchen

2007-12-29T08:18:00.000-06:00

My youngest daughter is a hit and run baker. That is not a bad thing - we reap the benefits. She has always been a night owl. When she lived with us very often she would get out the bowls and pans and make cookies or some such in the middle of the night when everyone else was fast asleep. In the morning the cookie jar would be brimming with fresh cookies. How cool is that.

Now she is married and doesn't live too far away. She still comes over and bakes or cooks something and leaves. This last batch of cookies (chocolate oatsies) was actually made while we were still awake. They didn't last very long. Hey, Courtney, our cookie jar is empty again.

Courtney is also a pirate. :)

Finished Baby Surprise Jackets

2007-12-29T08:01:00.000-06:00

I managed to finish both baby surprise jackets before Christmas. Then I decided to add collars to both. That wasn't hard with Meg Swansen's video to look at. I made collars for both jackets but don't have a picture of both together. I can see why people get addicted to making these. They are quick and fun. I have to get on to knitting something else now. Baby Anja needs booties and socks - and maybe hats.

No Time To Blog

2007-12-13T06:17:00.000-06:00

I admit it. I am a pathetic blogger. I have really been too busy the past few months. I have found out I am going to be a grandmother for the first time. How cool is that? It's about time at my age.

I haven't been spinning as much. I have been busy knitting instead. I am working on my second Baby Surprise Jacket. Elizabeth Zimmermann has a wonderful pattern here. All you have to do is look on Flickr to see all the variations - well, not all the variations because they are endless. I am almost finished with this second little jacket and want to start a third. This pattern must have some addictive qualities to it. I think I will move on to another pattern of hers immediately and see if the same holds true. For all of you on Flickr who are also on Ravelry, if you want to show your projects to the group but don't want a prospective giftee to see it, all you have to do is bury your photo deep in your Flickr stream. How do you do that? Thought there wasn't a way to organize your pictures in Flickr? There is a place to change the date that you uploaded the photo. I didn't figure it out - another of my brilliant children did. I know the preggers one doesn't have the time to digging back through my old photos for fun.

Dawn Adcock has some wonderful notes for this pattern and I have the pattern in two of EZ's books but I broke down and bought the wonderful DVD that her daughter Meg has showing how this pattern breaks down and some wonderful variations on it. I think I will have to get more of her videos from Schoolhouse Press. This is a truly wonderful DVD. This video takes all of the guesswork out of it. Not only that, it is filmed mostly in the upper midwest which makes me think of my wonderful Michigan. We were transplanted to Louisiana in 1995 and while I love the deep south in the winter, I miss Michigan in the summer. No fire ants. No fire ants. No fire ants. lol Sitting on a blanket under a tree just doesn't seem like an option down here. I can't complain too much, though. I was able to plant pansies and snapdragons a few days ago. The few nights we have in the 20s doesn't seem to hurt them much.

Hazardous Waste Recycling

2007-09-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

One day per year our city has a hazardous waste pickup at the Fairgrounds. It was today from 8am - 12pm. I'm pretty sure they stayed later than noon. I was in line to drop things some things off at 10:45 and didn't get to the front of the line until 11:55. Wow, it was encouraging to see all those people recycling but I couldn't help but wonder how much gas was used sitting in that line. The line was as far as I could see and was two cars wide. I got rid of batteries, fluorescent light bulbs and an old computer monitor. I wish I had brought my camera. One person was doing a survey to see if I recycle. Well, duh. As I left, I went past the point where I had gotten in line and that line was still double-wide and as long as it was when I started. I hope they all got in.

Ravelry Rocks

2007-09-15T08:06:00.001-05:00

I just got invited to ravelry after being on the waiting list for a couple of months. It is the best site ever for knitters, crocheters & spinners with computer skills. I have also been a member of Flickr for over a year. I spend a lot of time on Flickr looking at others photos of yarn, knitting projects and fibery pursuits. Ravelry is a wonderful combination of the two. It is a way to get organized. I now know how many knitting needles I have and what sizes. So I wonder how I ended up with 3 sets of double pointed needles in size 5. Maybe I was thinking of pick-up sticks. I actually know I have more needles than are listed on my new handy-dandy chart. There are some in unfinished projects (hehe). Good thing I don't have to list those. Now I can log in my new fiber as I buy it, wash it, card it, spin it - and oh yeah, knit it. There are so many wonderful knitters on ravelry who have actually finished their projects, posted pictures and listed where they found the pattern. I see I have more books to put on my wish list. Organization is a good thing. Going back to card some alpaca now.

Cashgora

2007-07-03T09:19:00.000-05:00

This is some cashgora fiber I bought from Fire Ant Ranch. It is so soft and the color is gorgeous. The red is a romney mix from cmwools.

2007-07-03T09:06:00.001-05:00

Back to Blogging

2007-07-03T07:57:00.000-05:00

I have been neglecting this blog since I discovered Flickr. I have been posting most of my pictures there but I have still been making yarn and got another spinning wheel. I do love those Kromski wheels. Here is a picture of my new Symphony with some cashgora that I have since finished spinning.

Louisiana Bullfrog

2005-10-12T12:07:00.001-05:00

Here is a picture of the bullfrog. They are very loud at night. Very beautiful anytime. The kayak just drifted toward this one until it was just a few feet away.

Alligators in Cross Lake

2005-10-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

When my daughter visited from Michigan in May she was asking if we ever saw alligators during the day. We said No, just at night they will come up to the pier (dock for Michiganders). We sometimes see alligators about 4-5 feet long at night. We almost never see them when we go kayaking unless we are very quiet. They probably see us long before we see them. So we were sitting out in the backyard at the picnic table discussing why we never see them during the day when my daughter's friend, Jay said, well, there's an alligator right now. Sure enough, this one was about 10 feet long, in broad daylight. Had to grab the camera. It was a little unnerving when the gator turned around to look at us. It was a couple of hundred feet out. Then it calmly swam away. A few minutes later we could hear excited fishermen yelling from boats out in the bay. They had obviously sighted it, too. Yes, there are alligators in Cross Lake up on the north side. It was probably looking for a tasty turtle.

So, what did we do next? We jumped in kayaks and went looking to get a better picture. We did get some great pictures of birds, though - and of a beautiful Louisiana bullfrog.

Louisiana Spindling

2005-10-12T11:10:00.001-05:00

I bought a beautiful hickory butterfly spindle from Wendy, who makes these gorgeous pieces of art. It spins beautifully. I am spinning some romney and alpaca that I mixed together. Of course, there is a bit of Louisiana in the background. This is my newest "portable" spinning wheel.

2005-06-25T17:33:00.000-05:00

Here is a leatherback turtle that was laying eggs in our yard a couple of days ago. Don't know if she has been into my flowerbed but the crows were sure interested in her eggs as soon as she laid them. These turtles are as big as hubcaps out here. Very interesting. Lots of turtles on the move right now.

2005-06-25T17:26:00.000-05:00

This is the turtle we caught eating my impatiens. We started picking the flower petals off his shell but then thought we would get a picture of the culprit with the evidence. Ha! Bad Turtle.

Turtles are eating my impatiens

2005-06-24T07:46:00.000-05:00

I started out with a beautiful flower bed but the impatiens have been doing poorly at one side. The flowers have been disappearing from the stems and then the stems were being chopped off. I thought maybe there was a rabbit around although I haven't seen one this year. This "disease" has been slowly spreading from the south end to the north end. I couldn't find any evidence of insects. This is along the back side of my house so I thought it was odd. Now I could understand if there was a turtle living in the flower bed but we caught him red-handed, er, I mean, with impatien-breath. Ah ha!! Well, actually he was high-tailing across the lawn with impatien flowers all over his shell. I asked my daughter what she thought he was doing in the impatien bed. Well, that's obvious - eating them. Good grief - I guess he didn't care for the hostas, fatsias or sedum we had in there. Now what do I do to keep a turtle out aside from putting up a little fence which I think would be tacky. I like turtles, but I like impatiens too. We have had lots of turtles coming out of the lake to lay their eggs in our lawn. Another daughter took a picture of a leatherback turtle laying eggs in our lawn yesterday. A few minutes later, the crows were trying to get to the eggs. I thought all the holes I have been finding in the lawn were due to skunks trying to get at grubs. Life is different living on the lake.

2005-05-22T16:24:00.000-05:00

This what the fleece looked like before I washed it. It was a beautiful silver and taupe. It makes a beautiful heathered yarn.
Lizzy's fleece before washing

2005-05-22T15:54:00.000-05:00

This is a skein of yarn from each of 2 different Romney fleeces I am working on. They are both heathered yarns. The fleeces are from cmwools in Oregon. They are very soft.
Yarn from Frosty and Lizzy

2005-02-15T16:38:00.000-06:00

When my kids were little I gave them a "sitandspin". Nowadays when someone spins they usually mean a form of exercise having something to do with a contraption that looks like a bike going nowhere. This is my favorite place to sit and spin. Times change - or maybe they are reverting back to the "olden days". It is strangely comforting to realize that my great great grandmothers probably spun their own wool, and their mothers before them and their mothers before them. Wish I could get a sheep or two now but no "farm animals" allowed in our subdivision. My daughter says tell the neighbors it's one of those fancy new dog breeds.

2005-02-12T09:58:00.000-06:00

Look at the beautiful color and luster in this wool. It has such a nice feel to it, too. I'm not sure what to make with it. I have one more skein of this to ply. Not enough for an adult sweater but maybe a shawl or a scarf and mittens.

2005-02-12T09:55:00.000-06:00

This was the beautiful romney-mohair mix that I bought off ebay from cm wools. They have such beautiful fibers. It looks so pretty sitting there on my mazurka.

2005-02-12T09:53:00.000-06:00

I was trying to take a picture of my beautiful romney-mohair mix when MacGyver decided to claim it as his own.

Romney-Mohair mix

2005-02-12T09:36:00.000-06:00

Here is the newest yarn I have been working on. It is SO pretty. I'm sure the raw materials have a lot to do with how this turned out. This Romney-Mohair mix came from cmwools in Oregon. It was beautifully colored, soft and has lots of luster. I have to buy more as I just finished this bump. Every skein looks better than the one before. I think I am getting the hang of this. Sure wish there was a spinning guild around here. I think the closest one is about one and a half hours away in Texas. It's supposed to rain for the next couple of days so I guess I will be getting more spinning done. I bought a couple of rose "trees" to plant. I will have to take pictures of those as soon as I get them planted. I didn't plant a garden last year (our first summer in this house) because I was too busy with other things and when you can look out and count 20 squirrels in your yard at one time (I know - I have too many bird feeders) I figured the garden would be for them. Hmmm, wonder what I can plant that squirrels won't like. Maybe I need to get a dog.

2004-11-26T12:35:00.001-06:00

My third yarn. Spinning is fun. This from some alpaca roving I bought. This alpaca is SO soft. I just ordered some more. Not sure what I will do with it yet. It is supposed to be too warm for a sweater. Maybe scarf or hat. Maybe mittens.

2004-11-26T12:33:00.000-06:00

Two skeins of my second yarn. This came out really nice. I think this was from some Copper Moose roving that I got. Still just a tad bigger than I want - almost a bulky yarn. Practice, practice, practice.

2004-11-26T12:19:00.000-06:00

My first yarn. It turned out way bulkier than I wanted. Made out of corriedale.

Blogging

2004-11-01T17:37:00.000-06:00

Starting my own blog. How cool is that? It has been raining here all day in Louisiana. I suppose that's better than snow. We are supposed to get a cooldown within two days. I love this time of the year. I was worried that when we moved to Louisiana we wouldn't have the leaves changing colors the way they did in Michigan. I love fall colors. Louisiana is every bit as colorful as Michigan - we just don't get the snow very often. That's okay. I can do with just a couple of weeks of cold weather and the chance to plant flowers for the winter. I have to get busy and get my winter flowers in the ground during this next week or two.