It's a Tea Cozy!

If you start with three balls of wool yarn:And knit them carefullyAnd Decorate accordingly:

and then felt the project per directions you get this:

It's a tea cozy!

Cool huh?? And now my other yarn has arrived and I get to start on the felted purse (in turquoise blue!) I just can't stand it!

I have a problem...

I've become obsessed. Addicted? Compulsive? I need a 12-step program for knitting.

I took my knitting to work with me today (well.. duh!) and I knitted on my break. I knitted on my lunch hour. I knitted at my desk when no one was looking. On the way home, at a stop light, I considered grabbing my knitting and knitting a few stitches.

I'm in the middle of a really cool project (pictures will come when it's done) and it's going really well. I'm very excited about it. I have yarn on order for a felted bag which I can't hardly stand waiting for.

I want to knit ALL THE TIME! I knitted last night while de-fragging my hard drive (ooooh baby!) I dream about knitting.

In fact.. I must go now.. because I have knitting waiting for me.

Talk to you again as soon as I've got this out of my system.

Mead me in Salem

"We" made mead Sunday. For those of you not in the know, mead is a wine made with honey - rather than grapes. The picture to the left is 15 pounds of orange blossom honey.

Mead making proved to be an interesting experience. Peter has been the wine maker amongst us. He has made wine at his house when I'm not around and I have had very little to do with the actual making. He's experienced. I'm the novice.

Here is what made this process interesting: "We" were going to make mead. It was a "we" project. However - Peter, being the expert, just went for it. Having nothing to do, I watched TV (the 2009 Strongman competition - the US did quite well). At some point Peter asked me to hold a spoon. Then he let me finish stirring the honey, with clear instructions and supervision on how NOT to contaminate it. I also got to hold the funnel while he poured.

Then, as he held a measuring cup of water in one hand and a thermometer in the other he asked me what temperature I thought the water was.

I won't give the details on what happened after that other than I will say my response was unhelpful. In fact, I'd go so far as to say uncooperative and a bit unreasonable. Being the incredibly perceptive person that he is, he picked up on my crankiness and thus began the process of discussing the situation. We had a wonderful opportunity to practice the fine and precious art of communication. Like.. for instance, it mighta been helpful if I'd communicated my feelings of frustration before I got all pissy and he could have communicated to me about jointly making the mead.

Although we started out making mead - I think we made excellent progress on that communication thing. It's new. It's scary. But I think it's a good thing and I'm sure this will be the best mead ever.

In two weeks, it'll be completely up to me to test the specific gravity of the mead and transfer it from one bottle to another.. all by myself! Here's a tip.. be careful what you ask for.

To the right is our large bottle of future mead. Rumor has it that this will make about 25 bottles of the stuff.

Knitting

On the knitting home front I've completely fallen in love with felting. I think I shall only make felted projects from here on out. The problem with that is wool yarn is quite a bit more expensive than man-made yarns (I think the sheep and alpaca have to work harder) and I needed a "rug weight" wool yarn for a felted bag I want to make and I can't find it locally. I had to order it on-line and now I have to wait. I hate waiting!

Success with knitting - I felt it!

For Christmas I got a knitting calendar. Inside was a pattern for a "Stash Buster Bowl." According to the directions it is THE thing to make for your man to prove to him he likes knitted things. I'm not so sure about that - it seems like such a chauvinistic comment, but whatever! I wanted to make that bowl despite the description and the "intermediate level" stamped on the pattern. It looked intriguing and it involved felting.

Felting is where you use wool yarn, purposely make the item too big and then purposely shrink the crap out of it. The shrinking changes the properties of the wool yarn and other technical stuff I don't understand but was really interested in.

So I made a stash buster bowl. It turned out EXACTLY like it was supposed to. I'm so excited! I'm making another. Below is a photo of the finished product, next to the wool yarn I used and the beginnings of the next one. After I finish this I'm going to make a felted purse (pattern courtesy of my calendar and listed as an easy project).

It's all so exciting!

Spa Day

Again.. not spa day for ME ~ some day it will be I hope. Today was spa day for my mom.

She has been doing much better the last week or two. Ever since Christmas really. It's very exciting and encouraging.

I picked her up for lunch and to get her hair cut today and she announced she wanted her nails done too. My mother has NEVER had her nails done. She was a manicure and pedicure virgin. But not any more! She even got her nails painted a lovely shade of pink. I don't think I've ever seen her with painted nails before in my life. I guess that means you're never too old to try new things.

After it was all over she said it was a much better experience than she had thought it would be. She said she thought it would be boring. But it wasn't.

She reallly liked the foot massage and the hand massage and she wants to go back!

512 days

I spent the day going through my Mom's stuff today. I was supposed to get my oil changed, take her to the hair dresser, take her to lunch but I got started and just didn't want to quit. I tried to make progress.

Amongst her stuff I found stuff like this which I must find new homes for:

And this very scarey thing which I threw away without any guilt at all:
Then I sorted through all my knitting projects and actually finished my third coffee cozie. The first was straight knitting. Then it was knit two, perl two. Then it was knit one, perl one with some color added. I think I'm getting better! I think I am. Please don't tell me differently.

2010 already!

Jill, her friend Zeke, and I went up to Peter's for the holiday.

New Years Eve we worked (as always on a farm). This time we gathered broken branches and sticks. We spent hours gathering sticks and branches and barely made a dent in the overall quantity of them. The reward for our labor was a bonfire from all the wood we gathered.

Peter's Mom made us "ollie bollen" - a Dutch fried bread that is traditionally served on New Years Day. This one looked like a warthog. It was kind of creepy.

On New Years day we went sight seeing. We went to Bellingham Bay and then to Deception Pass. Honestly, the kids had had enough sightseeing after freezing in the wind and rain at the Bay that getting them to agree to a trip to Deception Pass was a lot of work. We had to convince them of magnificent vistas and breathtaking heights and historic significance and how this would give them something to brag about to their friends. It was an hour-long drive to the Pass. By the time we were 1/2 way there - they were both sound asleep. Just before the actual Deception Pass, we crossed a very unremarkable, small, concrete bridge over a tiny little stream right next to a road with a great big signpost "Deception Rd."

I whispered to Peter, "We should stop here and tell the kids THIS is what we were talking about."

We stopped the car, woke them up and announced our arrival at the famed Deception Pass. We got out, Peter grabbed his camera, I walked toward the bridge and proclaimed, "Wow Peter! It's just as beautiful as always!"

The kids looked confused.

Peter was no help at all because he could not speak. He was desperately trying to hide his laughter by leaning over the railing. His laughter caused me to start giggling and pretty soon the two of us were laughing so hard at our own joke we had tears in our eyes. Zeke thought it was funny. My daughter proclaimed us both stupid at first - but then got into the spirit of the moment.

5 minutes later we were at the actual Deception Pass. Definately worth the trip. It's so very beautiful. We spent an hour or so scrambling about on the rocks and admiring the view.

Then we went bowling. I lost. I hate it when that happens!