Happy Birthday to My Favorite Sister

Royal Dying Day

Last Thursday was dedicated to mass amounts of fiber and dye, two babies, my mom, Sarah and I. It was F-A-N-T-A-S-T-C (and physically taxing- there was a lot of moving heavy water filled pots and running up and down stairs.)


Here is an overview of what we did.

A little something for the Duke.

Superwash Merino for socks.

BFL is our BFF



The Queen picked up some Socks that Rock mill ends a Madrona and dyed them, they turned out amazing!

This was the very ugly Hand Maiden sock yarn that I won in a blog contest. Much better now.

The Queen's other STR. Mmmmmmm.

Enough Patons Merino (originally natural) for a February Lady. (Ravelry link)

And the Queen wanted something bright and fun to knit a Wonderful Wallaby for Little Sir, so we whipped a little something up.

A sweater I bought at a second hand store and frogged. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, but I like it.

I also over-dyed the awful pink sock yarn and the panel of sock yarn. I didn't get good photos of them, but you can see them in the top photo.


Here are the boys. Have you ever seen anything so sweet?

3 of 20

Pattern: Nutkin (Ravelry Link)

Yarn: Not real sure what the base yarn is.

Color: super crazy Duchess Dye - It was two panels of sock weight yarn knit on a machine in stst. I dyed them and then unraveled them. It was lots of fun.

Love the pattern, love the colors, love the socks! YEAH

Pairs four and five are also started. I'll keep you posted.

Very Very Busy

The Yarn Queen (aka My Mother) has been keeping me very busy. Much too busy to blog, I guess, which is really too bad because I have a lot of GREAT things to blog about.

We headed down to Tacoma for a fiber fix at Madrona's marketplace. (I think it made my mom a little crazy that we couldn't take any classes.) Little Sir, on the other hand, had a great time running around the market charming the pants off of anyone he could bat and eye at.

The fiber fumes were a little overwhelming. The Queen added six pairs worth of sock yarn to her stash. She is now taking applications for "helper knitters". (She has so many projects that she has planned that she needs more knitters than herself to ever get them done in her lifetime.)

I, on the other hand, walked out of that market place with out even a stitches worth of yarn or fiber. No, my immunity to the fumes has become too strong, so they seem to have mutated to effect me in other ways.

Here is what was in my happy little hand as we walked to the car.



Yes, I appear to have become a little warped. . . (lame, I know- sorry) It's true though. I need another fiber obsession about like I need a herd of elephants in my back yard.


The set up was terribly interesting to me.




And here are my first attempts.


As you can see I'm not very good at it yet. My edges are not smooth and the weaving isn't terribly even, but I like it, none-the-less. My first attempts at weaving are a lot better looking than my first attempts at either knitting or spinning.

Anyway, this is just for practice (I'm thinking of felting it and making a scarf for little sir.) Of course I have some other fabulous projects floating around in my clearly deranged head. I'll keep you in the loop!

And look forward to more posts about the crazy fiber adventures we have been having. Knitting is just the tip of the iceberg!

Baby Love

A very dear friend of mine has a little boy. He was born six weeks ago. He was due yesterday. It's been a rough start for this little guy, especially since yesterday they all returned to the hospital because he had fluid building on his brain and had to have a shunt placed.

The latest report is that he has been released and is doing OK. I doubt the same can be said for his poor mother.

I live 800 miles away from where they are. I wish I could be closer. As it is I can only do two things for them, pray and knit. I do those two things pretty well, so that is what I have been doing.


I designed this vest for little C. It probably won't fit him until next fall, but that's OK.


The yarn is Dalegarn's Baby Ull, needles US 1 and 3.


I love you K. The Duke and I are praying for you and C. I can hardly wait to met him! Give him kisses from his aunt Duchess.


Also, pair 3 of 20 is coming along. I've got the heels turned and I'm ready to start the gussets.

Wow, you all came up with some great titles. There were no duplicates, only three that I had all ready read, and most of them I was not familiar with. There are some that I am very excited to read, and some I probably won't read, but that is how books go. There are some that I may read because one of you recommend it but wouldn't have otherwise read it.

I am so excited to get some quality reading time with no school to get in the way. I can hardly wait.

So, in case any of you want to read or learn more about the books I've created another widget that has most of the books listed here in it. That was easier for me than creating a link for each title. There were a couple that were not in Good Read's database, so they are not in there.

Now, here are the book:

1. Gambling With Virtue by Rosenberger (Sonya)
2. Hacking Matter by McCarthy (Sonya)
3. Color Photography by Henry Horenstein (Sonya)
4. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (Sonya)
5. The Edison Gene by Thom Hartmann (Heather)
6. Broken Things to Mend by Jeffrey R. Holland (Heather)
7. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Heather)
8. Appetites by Geneen Roth (Heather)
9. When You Eat At the Refrigerator Pull Up A Chair by Geneen Roth (Heather)
10. The Trouble With Poetry by Billy Collins (Heather)
11. The Last Lecture Randy Pausch by (Kelly)
12. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin (Kelly) So, I've read this, (AND LOVED IT) but it wasn't showing on my widget for some reason, so it counts.
13. Marley and Me by John Grogan (Kelly)
14. The Search for God at Harvard by Ari Goldman (Kelly)
15. Girl Meets God by Lauren F. Winner (Kelly)
Blink by Malcom Gladwell - I've read this and The Tipping Point and I have his newest one Outliers. It was on my widget, so it doesn't count for the contest, but you should all absolutely read it, in fact read all of his books, they are so fascinating.
16. The Parenting Breakthrough by Merrilee Boyack (An O. Mom)
17. The Simeon Solution by Anne Poelman (An O. Mom)
18. The Peace Giver by James Ferrell (An O. Mom)
19. The Broken Heart by Bruce Hafen (An O. Mom)
20. Becoming Christ by Stephen Robinson (An O. Mom)
21. Who Moved my Cheese by Spencer Johnson (Laura) I've also read this, a good quick motivating book for anytime you are feeling in a rut.
22. If Life were Easy, it Wouldn't be Hard by Sheri Dew (Laura)
23. Loving Frank by ??? (Lucy van Pelt)
24. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (Lucy van Pelt) Lucy, I'm glad you reminded me of this. I have wanted to read this, but some friends asked us to read his other book on Mormonism which was so wrong and so biased and so poorly researched and written that after reading it (about 50 pages before I had to stop) I didn't think about this one again. I know this one was based on a personal experience though, and I've heard it's wonderful, so I will try to put my bias aside when I read it.
25. The Omnivore's Dilema by Michale Pollan (Lucy van Pelt)
26. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey (Stacey)
27. The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (Rosie)
28. Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster W. Cline (Rosie)
29. Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks (Rosie) I can't wait to read this! Sounds like the perfect book for the Duke to read to me while I knit!
30. Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot by Richard Restak (Rosie)
31. Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon (Melissa)

And, without further delay, using the random number generator at random.org, we have a winner: #7 HEATHER!

Heather, I all ready have your address, I will get the book in the mail to you in the next couple of days.

Thank you all for playing. It was so much fun to see what titles you all recommended!