The Afghan Project

Years ago Allison developed a program to develop our knitting skills, modeled on one the Foothill Fiber Guild did. We would use the book, Learn-to-Knit by Barbara G. Walker, to teach us stitches we would never try otherwise. In the end the sampler of squares would be assembled into an afghan. I found the schedule in my book today. The first squares were due on June 2000 and the last on September 2001. It’s a good thing this project was in a box because the yarn would have been as dusty as the box lid.

I completed 30 of the squares with a growing uneasiness at the accumulating weight of the project. I stopped when my squares filled a Xerox box and I wasn’t done. Part of the problem is that I selected Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted. It’s a great yarn, but not for an afghan. I spent the better part of today frogging 14 squares, starting with the ugliest and then ending with squares with purple. I realized that I hadn’t purchased the colors evenly and I have a definite shortage of purple. These are my worms, which I soaked and hung up stairs to dry.

I decided to try dyeing some of the knitted squares as well as some skeins of the natural color. I used Gaywool Dyes in cornflower, hibiscus and mulberry. I applied dye to the two squares and steamed them, though so far I can't see that the dye affected the periwinkle square at all. I dipped the natural square into the three colors and it’s pretty, but a little pastel. I hot-poured the rest of the dye on the skeins, and the pot is sitting in the garage overnight with the dyebath. Tomorrow~


These are two of the ugliest squares left, if that gives you any idea how ugly the ones were that I have already undone. Granted, it wasn't the best color selection. I called Kate Painter who owned Paradise Fibers at the time and we did it over the phone. I was limited because I was buying whatever she had as seconds.


On the other hand, these are two squares that I think are really pretty. As for their application to wearable garments, I'm thinking, not so much.

Icy When Wet

This is the sign our county roads department has posted at the beginning of the windy little canyon that goes into our valley. Every year people drive too fast for road conditions and pay for it, some more dearly than others. When I'm driving home after work in dicey condition, I'm always alarmed by the tire tracks in snow showing where vehicles have left the road. I don't want that to be me.


Can you see the ice on the stream? This is what the guardrail is guarding against. And if the road were wet, it would look just like this. I guess I'm just dreaming of wet roads as it has been dry to date in January and December wasn't much better. I start to fret about this time when the jet stream pushes storms past us. I am reminded of Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when he complains that it's always winter but never Christmas. I feel like it always winter and never wet.




Entering the canyon from the other direction is this personal warning, delivered up by a resident sculptor/artist. He means it.

Read Anything Good Lately?

And I have - also some that I didn't care for so much. Here are a couple that I enjoyed as part of my book group. I discovered this one from the website of Nancy Perl, the NPR famed librarian from Seattle Public Library. She is a prodigious reader and it would be a huge challenge to read a fraction of what she reads and recommens. Mountain City by Gregory Martin caught my attention because it’s a biography of a Nevada town. To date this is the only book that everyone in the group loved.

Mountain city, a small boom-and-bust mining town in northern Nevada, a ghostly speck on the map, is the quickened heart of the universe of Gregory Martin. The center of the story, and of the town, is Tremewan’s, the general store run by Martin’s extended family, which serves the 30-odd residents of Mountain City and others from the outlying areas. A keen and witty observer, Martin captures the local characters with humor and nuance, never averting his eyes from the small flaws that make this community real. People bicker, the town widows form a tight-knit clique and his Basque uncle Mel, hits the Black Velvet one hour before close every night, which sometimes turns him downright mean. Throughout, Martin shows how frailty is woven into the fabric of relations; he maintains an immediacy that highlights the humanity of his subjects and frames the steady press of time that is forcing an era of the American West deep into memory.

The group was split in half on The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elizabeth Robinson: Olivia Hunt is unemployed, living alone, and working on the fourth draft of her suicide note when she gets a phone call that lets her know what real trouble is. Madeleine Hunt is her younger sister, the annoyingly happy one who married the hometown guy while Olivia set out to conquer Hollywood, ha, ha. And Maddie is in trouble. Pulled home for the first time in years, Olivia gets a painful dose of real life as she tries to help her sister, keep her parents from running off the rails, and reconnect with the boyfriend who left without a word but might still be the love of her life. And, of course, the movie she’s been trying to put in front of cameras for years heats up just as leaves town. Racing between Hollywood, hospital rooms, and film sets in Spain, Olivia has to do the impossible at work and at home—and learns that love will let her do no less. By turns charming, heartrending, and hilarious, this is a novel for anyone who has ever loved a sister (or a great story).

The story is told through letters that Olivia has written to different people in her personal and professional life. I wasn’t sure I liked that style of story telling, and those who didn’t like the book said that was the reason they couldn’t stick with it. I didn’t have that option. I facilitate the book group – its part of my job. The question is, would have I continued reading if I didn’t have to, and the answer is I don’t know the answer to that question, because I did. The further I got in the book, the more engrossed I became. I found myself actually liking Olivia. I thought it was a stroke of author genius that the movie Olivia was producing was Don Quixote, a story seemingly paralleled in her own life—her quest, the impossible dream. I laughed, I cried, I loved it.

What a Difference a Day Makes

This is one jealous cat. Right outside are two dogs, and since he thinks he is one, he doesn't understand. The hillock in the background is where we often see coyotes working a wedge to snare a meal. This is Saturday. When I woke up it was zero degrees on the house thermometer and -5 on the porch.





And today, two days later, the snow is gone and the sheep and llamas are venturing out. I took the dogs for walk this afternoon. It was above freezing this afternoon, bundle-up time for me, but these guys have to coats for it.



What to do indoors - I dunno. Knit? This is the reincarnation of "the" hat. I lost the acorn tip. Sometimes I like it, today I didn't. I have some purple and more the multi-colored yarn so think I'll give the hat another go, substituting purple for black. Then I won't want to see this yarn for a while.

Cat and the Hat

This is Charlie. We adopted him from the SPCA over a year ago. He had some funky name like Rochester so we waited a little before renaming him. He had such an air of entitlement that we named him Sir Charles, and had we realized how much entitlement he actually felt, we should have named him King Charles. He mopes all evening until Ian sits down to provide lap. I put my feet up when I sit on the sofa and that doesn't make the lap that Charlie wants. Ian crosses his legs - that's Charlie's lap.


He has a unique talent, besides being king of the house and bossing the dogs. He knows which pile of laundry is the dark load and climbs into that basket. I hide my black things on the bottom of the load, and even though my black pants are underneath Ian's shirts, I know that when they come out of the drier, they will have orange cat hair on them.


And this is the hat, or what was the hat. I couldn't see any alternative to frogging and reknitting. I thought about Sara's suggestion to toss it the washer and drier, but the black is Shetland and the multicolor is Brown Sheep wool/mohair blend. They would felt at different rates and the hat would be warm enough for Arctic wear. I really really love the colors in the yarn and want to love the hat as well. Years ago I knitted a sweater with a huge neck and was looking for a quick fix. I decided to crochet around the inside to snug it up. Diane Soucy asked me if I really thought I'd be happy with that after a couple of wearings. I thought, oh probably, but she was right. I still have the sweater and it's been years since I've worn it. I'm going to felt it and cut it up for a bag or slippers - maybe mittens. I knew I would never be happy with the hat either. Not all shortcuts are shortcuts.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Fourteen degrees by the house thermometer, ten degrees on the porch. None of this seems to bother the llamas too much - they're kushed at the bottom of the picture. Ian leaves for work before me and called to say that traffic was at a standstill and Chrissie said she drove ten miles before being able to shift into second. I called work and said I would be coming in an hour later and took this picture while I waited. It was a good call as everything had sorted itself out by the time I went in, heater blasting on full. No bumper cars for this chickie.

Sad Tale of Woe

I love this hat - I think it turned out great, but when I tried it on, it was much much too large. I remeasured the gauge and it was still 5 stitches to the inch, but when I measured the hat it was 24 inches! Both my boys have huge heads,so at Christmas I asked Matt to try it on. I think I saw a whole new definition to head cover. It covered his head, right down to his nose. So reasoning out what the gauge must be, not what I measured, I knit another hat and got this.


I really like this hat too, and best part is that it fits me. I have to tear out the first one because it's just not functional. I just haven't been able to make me do it.



You can see the problem for yourselves. If the hat right the right fits, then the much prettier hat but huge hat on the left must be redone - sob.

After the Storm

Yesterday afternoon I looked out our bedroom window to watch all the birds at the feeders. Then I noticed some activity at the base of the one of them. There's a rabbit behind those twigs. They hide so easily. They're like the coyotes - unless they move, I don't see them. I'll bet the rabbits wish the coyotes didn't see them. Those are ground-feeding Junkos in the back on the left.


The rabbits have eaten the perennials down to sticks. The two little pines are inside rabbit guard to protect them, so I think it’s ironic to see this little guy is munching the fallen bird seed, next the rabbit guard. I guess that shows it works. It's also ironic that he's behind what's left of a lavendar plant that the rabbits have pruned for me. And they fertilize while they work.




I tapped the window to see if he'd move so I could get a better shot and he obliged me.

This morning he was back at the base of another feeder, this time sharing the seed with doves. This is all the snow left, after a storm to remember, just the day before yesterday.

The newspaper today said there were 95 reported accidents, one fatal, from the frigid temperatures that followed pouring rain. Both Ian and my daughter called me to report the road conditions from where they were, and even with their help, it still took two hours to get home from work. I passed a single car rollover at a curve on our two-lane road just as the ambulance was leaving. Several times I was the only car able to negotiate through the mass of stalled vehicles. Even at 20 MPH, my car would slide when I applied my brakes, so I quit using them. I liked my Subaru Forrester before, but now I love it. It needs a name.

Grey Gardens

Not long ago I was checking in materials at the library and ran across a documentary called Grey Gardens. The cover wasn’t particularly catchy but the subject of Jackie Kennedy’s eccentric cousin living in the Hamptons caught my attention. The DVD was on reserve for someone else so I added my name to the reserve list, and when one of my co-workers brought it to me last week, she wanted to tell me how unique and arresting she had found it. I watched it Friday night when Ian went to play cards – there’s a poker game in this valley. I made him watch it with me again on Saturday and would have watched it a third time but it was already on reserve for someone else.

Hilton Als, a reviewer for the New Yorker writes, “What draws the viewer in are the stories around what we cannot see: Miss Beale lamenting the loss of a scarf. The suitors turned away. Mrs. Beale's infatuation with a man whose minor musical talent is better remembered than heard. Money spent. The dream of New York on summer nights filled with jackhammers and the moon. Regrets and recriminations: the language of lovers, the fabric of family life."

Not only did I watch it, I watched all the supplementary material and found myself completely captivated by Little Edie, mentally unstable but absolutely charming. And her clothes! Two of the men interviewed were designers who had created lines of clothes influenced by the way she put clothes – make that costumes – and colors together. And then there's the headcoverings and accompanying jewelry.

The Maylses brothers made the documentary in 1975, so it has the grainy quality of film and you can hear the clicking of the projector in the background. I Googled Gray Gardens and found that it has it’s own webside www.greygardens.com – a fan site and homage.


It was written into a musical which opened Off-Broadway in October and On Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in November. It is scheduled to be filmed later this year, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. Finally, I looked up the film in Wikipedia and learned enough factoids that I have decided to order the double disk set from Amazon. It will go in my small movie collection, next to my other fan movies like Young Frankenstein and So I Married an Axe Murderer. I find myself already repeating some of the lines – I’m a fan! I look forward to seeing both the play and the movie, because after all, I am a fan, but as a fan, I will remain loyal to the orig.

It's Back to Socks

Christmas is over, the decorations are coming down today and I'm back to socks. I think it's because Eddie ate my sock that I'm fixed on making socks from all wool - they just feel better. I got caught up in the craze of knitting computer dyed, self-striping socks, but they abrade the soles of my feet when I walk. I dug through my stash of handspun and decided that these two yarns would make nice socks together since I didn't have enough of either to make anything else. The green was some Polworth that I had spun white, so I squeezed green on to the yarn then just dotted it with The Purple and steamed it. The Purple was from a dye day years ago when too much purple was added to a pot and we all had bottles of it for a very long time. I also had a number of white skeins that I had done when I was just learning - this Polworth was the last of those. The lavender I bought at Lambtown. Amy was buying beautiful batts from some ladies and I desperately wanted to buy something too, but didn't really like anything. I bought one Cormo/silk batt and this was it. The results are great - almost looks like I planned it! Years ago when she still worked at the Truckee Variety Store, Diane Soucy had given me a sock pattern which I have since memorized. She also told me that eight inches was usually a good size for a sock, so I calculate my gauge to that and knit all my socks from the pattern in my head.

At lunch with Amy last Friday, the subject came up of the yarn that she had given me a couple of years ago. I told her that I had looked for it and couldn't find it. She remembered that she had given it to me because she didn't like it but couldn't remember why. She dyed it with KoolAid and didn't like the pastel results. Amy doesn't like pastel and she especially doesn't like pink. This yarn was a little of both. I found it yesterday while looking for something else. I'm really happy with what I see so far.

Socks aside, have you noticed how young people say "no problem" when you thank them? At least I think it's a generational thing. When someone thanks me, I say "you're welcome" because I'm glad to have been able to help. I thank a young person for assistance and I get "no problem." That suggests to me that I had been a problem but they're assuring me that they're letting it go. I'm not liking this new version very much. Am I turning into an old crank??

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve our Reno family gathers at our house, and then on Christmas Day everyone goes different directions. But for this one evening, one loud and crazy evening, we love and celebrate Christmas and us - our family. I think this gathering is my favorite Christmas present.






~The Little Cousins~












~The Big Cousins~








My daughter-in-law is getting ready to read the traditional Christmas Story. Kiernan is absent as he's upstairs with his uncles' Legos - they refuse to take them home with them so we have tubs and tubs of Legos. Kiernan only came downstairs to eat and unwrap presents. I like Legos - they don't require batteries.


Allie is in her pretty Jasmine costume parts. The actual costume was a Christmas Day present yet to come from her parents - all packed in our luggage from Disneyland. Her slippers have genie-like pointy toes and she carefully shuffled around in them all evening. I love the look on her face - she is Jasmine. Chris, her mother, is a bellydancer so the costume has special significance. We also brought back from Disneyland the dreadlocks of Captain Jack Sparrow and a giant three-point pirate hat for Kiernan, Allie's brother. Aaargh~



I read in other blogs of all the wonderful and thoughtful Christmas presents being lovingly and slightly frantically knitted. I didn't knit a thing this year - I didn't want all that pressure. I've been taking fused glass classes over the past year and Ian suggested that I give some of the ornaments that I had made as gifts. I really enjoyed the fun of making different Christmas trees and that's what I gave.


I don't understand why I love the glass so much. It's like antithetical to wool. I just hope I don't keep loving it because kilns can cost as much as looms. And there's the thing about time. From one junkie to another - you understand, right?

And please note that the pumpkin in the picture on the right is the same as Amy posted to her blog. I think that means I gave her one and me one too. Is that so wrong?

And long story short, this Christmas I got to meet my youngest son's girlfriend for the first time. I thought that was pretty cool



Probably the most unexpected present ever was that my children in Reno had arranged to have a professional photographer take pictures of themselves and their families on the main UNR campus, all of them dressed in white. Just months ago, Ian's children had presented us with an astounding picture of them taken last summer on the beach by the Seal Beach pier by a professional photographer, all of them wearing white. The locations of the pictures are significant, and while our children know each other, they did not consult each other. It couldn't have been a cooler Christmas.

Almost Christmas

I went into town this morning to finish up a couple of last minute things and met Amy and my daughter Chris on campus for lunch. It’s so much easier to park on campus when school isn’t in session. My granddaughter Allie is in on-campus daycare so Chrissie brought her to lunch too - it's a condition of having lunch together. I took Allie's sweater that I had crocheted four rows around the whole thing twice. I was nervous that the neck was too big but I just couldn’t bring myself to redo the crocheted edge yet again. I just don’t love to crochet, even though I can. We all decided that the sweater will do.

I’m done with the cute sweater idea. I like Birdsong’s little animals and I realize they have much more kid appeal than a frustrating sweater. In the future I’ll stick to the Knitting Pure and Simple patterns of Diane Soucy. They’ve done well for me in the past and the sweaters fit for a long time. I do think I’ll order some superwash roving since the real fun for me is in the spinning.

We ate at the Overlook, a student restaurant that is in the top level of the old student union and overlooks Manzanita Lake. “Ana see the ducks,” said Allie. So we went to see the ducks. The “ducks” are actually Canadian Geese and a some swans, but it doesn’t matter to Allie. She loves to watch the ducks. It’s so cold, they’re mostly “on” the lake.

And speaking of cold, we got some snow last night. Driving home was so difficult that I had to follow the tire tracks of the previous vehicle for about seven miles because I couldn’t define the edge of the road and because the swirling snow was so disorienting. Today it’s hard to believe I’m not making that up. We just have a dusting on the mountains, like powdered sugar.

Testing, Testing

This is the first picture on my blog from my Nikon Coolpix. The color seems nice but I'm not sure about the detail. I'll try it for a while but if I'm not happy, will go back to Ian's DSLR. It's just too big to haul around Disneyland.
I took this picture last night with Ian's camera of Buster with his toy in front of the fire. He thinks he's a tough guy, but he plays with dolls. This is not the dog who ate my sock.

Back from Disneyland

We’re back from Disneyland, broke, exhausted and happy. We went with son, DIL, DIL’s mother and two grandsons. Christmas, Disneyland and grandsons doth a merry medicine make. Also broke, or so we thought, was the camera. I set it down too sharply and it responded by refusing to take any more pictures, as if it decided 264 was enough. I felt terrible – it’s Ian’s baby – and so I decided to spend soap money on a new point-and-shoot camera for me when we got home.

This is my new baby and the good news is that the delightful folks at Gordon’s put Ian’s camera back into working order in minutes, at no charge. This is our second Nikon Coolpix, the first we purchased about four years ago and have since moved it on to live with son-in-law-equivalent, Michael. He likes it and I don’t feel guilty about not using it.



That camera was nearly as large as Ian’s Nikon DSLR, so I took a second shot of my new camera with my cell phone for scale. It’s tiny and still has 8.1 megapixels. I think it also has video – not sure.


Since we were flying I took two knitting projects, just in case I ran out of knitting. I was thrilled to finish the socks from my Navajo-plied yarn (earlier blog called Navajo Plying) and was even more thrilled how much alike they came out. I have found that socks from 100% wool are comfortable where the nylon/wool blends tend to be abrasive.

This is my second pair of all wool socks, or so I thought – until I found one of the socks from my first pair on Eddie’s dog bed. I got the message – he loves to go to the kennel but he really missed me.

Cutting the Soap

The soap is ready to be cut into bars after it has been in the mold for at least 24 hours. I had my mold custom made by The Soap Saloon in Sacramento. The end is hinged and opens to allow me to slide out the bottom tray. My cuttings tools, which I purchsed on the Internet, are on the counter to the right of the mold.

One tool slices slices the slab into five bricks.

You can see how the piano wire cuts through the brick.

The second tool slices the brick into individual bars. The bars will need to cure for three weeks before they are ready to be cleaned and wrapped with the Campbell label. I also purchased a tool to finish off the sharp edges, but I’ve found that a potato peeler works faster and better. So my edge finishing tool is an aluminum potato peeler that I received as a wedding present in 1968. That and my “goofy” knife, as Ian calls it, are my favorite wedding presents. He, the retired butcher, has teased me about my goofy knife for ten years, then admitted the other day that he uses it. Hmmmmm.

Morning Visitor

This is the visitor in our back yard this morning. We put up this partial barn loom as a place to hang bird feeders, but we've never attracted anything but songbirds and quail - until today. I don't know what he is, but he's big. He didn’t stay long, but that’s okay. I had to leave for work. I’m just glad he came at all.