Today

Ian is still in his vampire existence, avoiding heat and sun. I am thankful to Benita for all her help, support and suggestions. She too is married to a Scot who probably was mean to live on the moors. She said Scott's heat sensitivity has spoiled the meaning of "go soak your head" because when she says that, he replies - Good Idea - and dodges back into the house.

And so this morning I ended up making a run to town in Ian's 16-year-old truck with no air conditioning for a couple bales of hay to tide us over until ours is delivered next week. And while you're at it, he said, how about getting a lube and oil change? Sigh. He's terrible about these things so I had all the fluids changed for a huge price tag. The only fluid I forgot was gas - serious problem. I'll have to run up to Doyle in the morning and fill the tank - for .15 more a gallon that I could have paid in town. Sigh.

When I got home, I got onto my agenda, which today was making more pesto from the gorgeous basil I bought from the Hmongs on Tuesday. Our garlic cloves are pretty small and I was pretty generous with the cloves. I sampled and my eyes watered - just the way I like it!
I only got 16 cubes from my batch, and I figure one cube is a nice modest lunch proportion with linguine. I have some cubes already in the freezer from my own basil, but I think I need to go back and get more for at least one more batch. Basil is insanely expensive in the winter and is synonymous with pesto to me, so much that I find myself using the terms interchangeably.

My waiting room knitting has begun to look like a sock. Ian's kidney ultrasound took over an hour and I simply cannot concentrate on a book in a waiting room. I was so happy to have my knitting and avoided the bewildered stares - I knit pretty fast. I'm going to have a lot of yarn left over. I could make a third sock! Four ounces of wool makes a pair of socks. This is a silk blend so I'm getting more yardage. What a waste!
This is my yarn from the other roving I bought at Black Sheep. It too is 4 ounces and it will probably be just enough for a pair. I'm half of a mind to frog the semi-sock and look for a more suitable project for that gorgeous yarn. I know for a fact that this is socks. It told me so.
Ian helped me lay the rug tonight and I'm frustrated to see that it's only half as long as I'd like. The optimal length would be 10' and this is a 3'x5' rug. I'm not sure I can muscle a 10' rug so am wondering about making two 5' rugs on the same warp and just abutting them. After book group on Saturday I'm going to hit thrift stores and look for potential rag rug material.

For you rag rug weavers, I've been thinking about using orange in the warp on my next project with jeans. I see that Hilary's jean rugs use all-blue warp, but Levi Strauss has that orange thread running throughout and I have a tube of orange that came with Goldie. Has anyone incorporated orange in the warp? I'll probably do it anyway since I'm not sure I have enough blue. Just curious. I really do need to tell you about Goldie. Evelyn is right - there is a story.

Fixin'

I'm fixin' to get ready to send fleece off for pro-
cessing. Of serious and nagging business are the dozen (or more) fleeces in the garage which are becoming an increasing storage nuisance. Skirting is a warm weather business and unpleasant at best. I like to have some sun on the fleece as it warms up the lanolin and makes shaking out the nasty bits a little easier.

I've set up my skirting table on the west side of the garage and I'm started with this years shearing of Mickey. When I've skirted all of Mickey's fleeces, I'll box them up and ship them off for processing and start on the next group. I'm fixin'.
It was a day of fixin'. I'm soaking fleece here, fixin' to wash it. Mim told me she'd gotten a tip from Judith MacKenzie - put your fleeces in a cold water soak before you wash them, leaving them in the water for several days, and a week is even better. I guess something happens in the nasty water that helps break down the lanolin? Anyone, anyone? Ferris??
I carded the dark gray fleece that I had washed. These are great things to do on a laundry day since you can get them done in between loads, and it does make laundry seem a lot less thankless. I was fixin' for my spin-in today at a noon fiber play-date in town.
There were a half dozen of us at Allison's today. I spun this while we chatted and I cannot tell you how much good that did my heart. She has this in her home every Tuesday, from 11:00-1:00 and I realize just how important it is to make time for it. I left feeling like I had taken happy drugs. It was good medicine. I finished the day with a long over-due pedicure. I have to take Ian into town in the morning for an ultrasound and x-ray. He's still pretty rocky, but a much more compliant patient than he was a week ago. Thanks for all your comments and concerns on that front.

And of course, one of laundry day tasks is putting fresh linens on the bed. But there seems to be something under the covers. Will laundry day never end?!
It's the chief snooper-
visor! He's checking to see if I made mitered corners and if you can bounce a quarter off the sheets. Yes and no. Oh, and I am going to bed tonight with lime green toenails which still make me giggle.

Big Rug

I finished the rug finally late this afternoon. I ended up having to sew more strips and almost exhausted all the fabric on hand. I read somewhere that you need to plan on 3-4 pounds of fabric for ?? size rug. It was a borrowed book I read, and I wish I would have made a note of what that measurement is. Sammie is all over it - really. I weighed the rug, with me on the scale, and without. It weigh in at a little over five pounds. What did the scale way without the rug? None of your bees wax!

I managed to resist my Libra urges to make the stripes symme-
trical and am clapping myself on the back. I love the way the warp turned out. I washed it - it's a Libra thing - and it's hanging upstairs to dry. I can't actually use without an anti-skid mat anyway. That will come home with from my Tuesday trip to town.
I've also started washing fleece. This is Limerick whose fleece is not quite black and not quite gray. I bought a pound from Mim and have another pound of red/brown soaking. I really want to knit a sweater with the different colors of Shetland this winter. I realize that I have conveniently spaced all of my own fleeces that need my attention in the garage. Sigh.
I've tried to stay in the house with Ian as much as possible - he still can't tolerate any heat. This evening we've moved to the front porch and are reading when I see this. Do you see it? The tip of an ear?

Eddie does love his hidey holes and has a number of them in the yard. He's such a funny dog. I had to turn the camera on in the house in order to get this picture or he would have run away. I wish I understood dogs better. I'm headed to bed - long day. Tomatoes and pines fed, trees soaked, weeds pulled, 'nother trip to town. I'll update my reading later.

Raggedy Anne - that's me!

These are all the strips I have left and I'm starting to worry that I won't have enough to finish my rug. I made my first rug from cotton SIL Rochelle gave me. She said it had all been given to her by well-meaning people who knew she was a quilter but it was just too ugly to quilt with. I need to meet more of those people she knows! I knew I didn't have enough for a second rug so purchase four or five yards of the cheapest cotton at Hancock's, which kinda negates the idea of "rag" rugs.
Once the strips are stitched together, I have to wind them into balls, folding them in half as I go. There are five balls-worth of strips in the bag. Compare that to the wound ball on the table. I don't know how you production rag rug weavers do it, weaving three rugs a day. I'll be lucky if I finish my rug this week!
This shuttle is awe-
some! I recently found it amongst the stuff that came with Goldie. She's in mothballs right now, stuffed in the dormer. I really do need to get her back to work. I was surprised when DS Matty hinted that he would like dish towels or place mats. Gender presumption on my part!
I've got all kinds of warp colors going on this rug because this rug warp also came with Goldie. If traffic round-abouts were in place where her owner lived, she would not have been killed, t-boned in an intersection where someone couldn't read "stop." Maybe that explains my fascination with Bend's rotaries.

Quick trip to town today, returning Ian's sample to the lab. By quick, I mean the usual two hours but with an extra treat - lunch with DD Chrissie!!

Knitting in Public

I have only seen public art in online photos and magazines. I have never come across amy myself. It's one of those things that I kinda get but not quite. There was so much going on during the Bend Summer Festival that I walked right by this.
I would have completely missed this in the hoopla but Missy saw it ans called me back. It's pretty amazing. Do they knit the strips and then stitch them to the tree? It's awesome. Once we stopped, others did too.
This is also knitting in public, if you call a waiting room public. Ian had heat exhaustion four years ago and ended up in urgent care. He tangled with it again four weeks ago while cutting firewood in the Sierras. He wasn't better, so I took him in to the doc two weeks ago and now again yesterday. Lots of tests, lots of knitting. Mixed diagnosis, but hypertension was once of them and already he's responded to that medication. Huge sigh. The knitting is fine. Meanwhile on the ranch,
The temps were starting to push 100 and were miserable, then the clouds started to roll in. This was a big surprise since thunderstorms weren't in the forecast. I consulted my in-house weather forecaster. Nope, he said. No electrical activity.

More of Bend

And so I'm back in Bend Oregon. Have I mentioned that traffic in the unincorporated areas is managed by round-abouts?

Each rotary has it's own land-
scaping and each one has its own sculpture. All sculptures change in perspective; if you have the passenger advantage you can catch it.
This is one of the rotaries on our way to the river walk. I think it beats the heck out of a stoplight. We're headed to a little hiking and a little throwing stones in the river.

This rounder is adorned with a bronze sculpture of a soldier. I think what saddens me is that at home I have traffic signals by light and here it's managed by art that is ignored.
My grandsons know this rounder as the "flaming chicken." I'd have to say they are tough critics. That they even know this rounder is an "applause all around" for the artist.


I realized when I snagged this shot that it 's time for me to get a new purse camera. I drove onto the rounder by the time the shutter closed. There's a lot of technology between my four-year-old camera and now. The other photos I took as passenger with a DSLR.

Why I drove seven hours to Bend - four grand-
children - and why it was worth the seven-hour one day drive.

World Cup Spinning

Quite a few years ago now, Laura and I took a class from Judith MacKenzie at Black Sheep Gathering on spinning yarn for socks. Judith said that the less we looked at our spinning, the thinner we would be able to spin our singles. I've found this to be true.

I dyed this Blue Face Leicester several months ago and took it Black Sheep this year, hoping it would like garlic against vampires, and protect me from purchasing more fiber. I had also been using the drop spindle a lot, which seems to have given me more control on my wheel. I ended up spinning this so thin that when the World Cup started, I decided to spin it while I watched.
I stripped the roving to make the colors blend evenly since I was working with three different dye results. I have 12 ounces - haven't calculated the yardage though. I usually like to spin to a project and feel a little lost with this yarn.
These are the braids that I bought for socks. The bottom two are different colorways - Artemis and Art Deco. I thought the medium blue in common would make interesting yarn. I spun it without stripping the roving so got long runs of each color.

I was certainly surprised at how the colors married. The fiber is Blue Face Leicester, bamboo and Tussah Silk from Blarney Yarns. Oh. So. Soft. I finished this skein as Uruguay lost. I had so hoped they'd go on to the finals - the smallest country in FIFA, with a population the size of Montreal. It would have been a fairy tale.
I started spinning the last two braids during the Spain and Germany match today. The colorway is Chestnut and it's 100% Blue Face Leicester from the same vendor. I'm so disappointed that I'll miss the final playoff on Sunday.

I'm leaving in the morning with my daughter and grandkids for my oldest son's home in Bend. My youngest son and his girlfriend are coming up as well. Even though a short visit, my children and four of my grandchildren will be together, and I am absolutely looking forward to it. We'll be driving back on Sunday, at the same time as the final match. Though I'm retire, they all have jobs. Darn it. I'd love a longer visit!

Firecracker Day

Amy pulled her little vintage 1953 trailer out here to spend the 4th of July weekend. We've camped together many times and this was a little quiet in-house camping trip.
She recently had the trailer renovated. Much of the interior space is wood-
burned and decorated by her. She also burned her Sisters-on-the-Fly membership into a plaque.

We spent much of the time on the front porch, with the water fountains plugged in, accompanied by birds singing songs of love.


Our temp-
eratures are still abnorm-
ally low. Amy is knitting to a deadline. This is a log cabin lap blanket for her nephew's wedding next month. The white is from our wether Robbie, very cool.

I'm knitting to a deadline of sorts myself. Diane asked me in May if I'd knit for her. She emailed me the pattern but I've been slow to get the yarn. I'm on it now and will use it for my trip knitting when I go back to Oregon the day after tomorrow. It's kind of weird to knit a sweater without a picture, only directions.

We went over to Mim's at dusk. Her ewes and lambs don't come back to the barn until sunset. They were still up at the top pasture so we visited "the boys." This is Duncan, her ram. Check out those horns! Four of her beautiful boys are already purchased for freezer lambs, sigh.
And here come the flock, running back in for all they're worth. A lamb came in early, got separated and is over on the right, bleating his heart out for his mother, who is calling out for him in return. All in a days work for Mim. It's kinda sad and sweet at the same time.
Mijo, Mr. Person-
ality, is getting bigger, but he's still not old enough to come live with us. He's posing for us with his mom and sister. Goofy. You can see why Mim is attached to him.
Man, Mim has a lot of sheep, which translates into a lot of fleeces to be skirted. Wait. Do you see that goat?! A goat with no ears. I'm confused. Why make goats with no ears?
We didn't have fireworks for our July 4th, just this firecracker of a sunset. It was a real popper.


The color was so over-
whelming that we had a double sunset, of sorts.

Mim's Emus

I had planned to go over to Mim's after lunch today but that darned Uruguay and Ghana soccer match went into over time. I realized I couldn't finish the game, catch the mail lady and visit Mim. I missed the end of the match and the mail lady, which means I had to drive the 30 minute round trip to the post office in Doyle. Mim was changing water when I finally got there and her pair of emus were enjoying the overflow from their water tank.
Mim said they make her think of prehensile creatures. Their the legs and claws make me think reptilian. She said they have teeny short wings with a claw on the end. You know this is an animal that didn't get on the right evolution track. She's had this pair for 15 years and they're supposed to productive layers for 30 years.


Here's a short video of emus enjoying a water bath. Who knew these dinosaur-looking creatures love to wallow as much as pigs!

July 1st

This is Amanda. I just met her today. Actually, I met her earlier in the week by phone when Jeanne Giles called and said she was going to loan her wheel to a friend who was using a drop spindle, but who wanted to move on to a wheel. Jeanne said it had been too long since she'd used the wheel, would I show Amanda -yes I would - followed by Sharon, this is Amanda. Amanda, meet Sharon.
She arrived right on time for our 10:00 date and we spent three hours spinning and getting to know one another. She started spindling just one year ago, having purchased a CD spindle, wool and short instruction at the Bay Area Maker Faire. We worked on getting more twist in her singles and less tension on her wheel. I told her the Judith MacKenzie quote, "You don't want any more tension on your wheel than you want in your life." Note the photo on her phone.
I also showed her how I like to full my yarn, again from Judith MacKenzie. I wash the skein in hot water with Dawn and rinse in cool water, repeating 2-3 times. I use a baby plunger and vigorously work the skein in the bath to get a little fulling action going. Then I blot the skein in a towel and thwack it four times on the kitchen counter, rotating the skein four times until I've thwacked the entire thing. It looks great after all that abuse. It's scared of me!

Amanda was thrilled and so was I. I forgot to get a picture of the completed skein as I really needed to head to town. Amanda was so pleased and what a difference between the skein she did today and the one she brought to show me. I'm so proud of her work and had an absolutely wonderful time. Thanks Jeanne!!!
I had another date today - with Melissa, the new owner of Walden's Coffee-
house. She's a spinner and weaver and initially emailed me for guild information, saw the soap on my Etsy link and one thing led to another. My soap is now on sale in an area she has set up to sell locally made items. I brought her the soap in this ammo box I have had for years and she's going to put my sign in a holder. I'm pretty stoked.
Advice please - I have three balls of the colored silk/
merino and two of the straight brown merino. I think I've figured out a way to use the yarn in a cohesive way for the bolero. I originally planned to make the bands and sleeves in brown but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it. I've finally decided to make the banks in the color ply and then knit two rows, alternating each yarn.
While I like the bright bits of color on the stockinette side, I'm leaning toward making the reverse stockinette the right side of the garment. It's a little more subtle and also more homogeneous. What do you think?

Oh, and this is a significant date for me. Eleven years ago today, I was a delivery coach for my daughter and welcomed my grandson into the world.