Long Time No See

Been looking back over my blog, and I love being reminded of things I had forgotten about. For example, this post on snowman diversity. Or this one.

As such, I have decided I need to put time back into my blog, for myself, though I hope my friends and family will return to reading this blog and hopefully enjoy it.

So, what do I have to say for myself today. Not much it turns out, or perhaps to much to recap. I am viewing this post as starting new. There is no way I can recap everything that has happened since, what, June. So, I am not even going to try.

One fun thing this week - we completed the natural dye lab for my plant biology class. We used three dyestuffs: madder root, brazilwood, and logwood.


Here are all the yarns together - the brazilwood gave the pinkish colors, logwood the dark purples, and madder the orangish tones. I am looking forward to knitting this all up.

Really cool lace knitting website

Look what I found: a really cool blog about historical lace knitting.

House Photos

As some of my friends and family are aware, we are in the process of purchasing a house in the town where I work. I am incredibly excited about not having a 20+ minute drive each way to and from work. Despite the worries about being an owner instead of a renter (i.e. having to deal with the tree in you living room at 3 am yourself), I am also looking forward to having a house that is mine. To paint, to plant, to whatever however I want. Well, I will have to take Steve's tastes into account.

We have passed all the major foreseeable roadblocks (pre-approval, inspection, appraisal), and so I feel secure in posting pictures of the house here. We close on June 19th. By the way, where did May go to?

Anyway, here are the pictures.


The front door - Steve loves the "atomic" style of the 1950's and 60's, so he was really excited about this detail of the front screen door.

There is also a great shed in the back, built by the previous owner. It has electricity. In my dreamworld it becomes a dye-studio with electricity provided by wind or solar. I want to put a window or two in the side (Steve is unaware of this). It is painted to match the house and the inspector was really impressed with its quality.


In fact, overall the house is in really good shape.
The kitchen - love the wood cabinets, all appliances are staying. Hooray!

Most of the other rooms are pretty unremarkable - nice wood floors, white walls. All decent size. There are three bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. The dining area is small. Also, all the windows are new energy-effecient, easy-to-clean windows. After living in the draftiest house in Independence, this will be wonderful. Seriously, in the winter their is a breeze from our bedroom window strong enough to ruffle your hair. We kept our heat 0n around 62-65 all winter to prevent wasting too much energy. So not only should we see a major savings on gasoline, but on energy costs as well.

Another aspect of the house we love is the basement - I see great potential here.
The basement

Love the fireplace, the finished portion is about 2/3 the width of the house and runs its entire length. Oh - and that is not paint on the walls but some kind of ??? acoustical fabric, carpet? It sounds weird, but it looks pretty cool. I really want to turn this into a multi-use party spot. One area for dining, another for sitting.

The other really nice thing about this house is the neighborhood. We actually saw some houses I personally liked better, but the neighborhoods were not as nice. We will be in walking distance of grocery, post-office, library, and community center. There is also a greenways trail down the road. I think it will be too far to walk to school, but I will try it just once to see. Biking may be an option. But driving will only take me about 7 minutes, shorter if I find a way that does not involve so many stoplights.

So - hopefully this time next month we will be moved in!

Handspun Hats

I have not been documenting my knitting as well as I should - which is sad really, as I enjoy looking back on my past creativity.

That in mind, I present today two hats knit entirely out of handspun wool.

Handspun #1 - In addition to being handspun, all of the yarn in this hat is either naturally colored wool or hand dyed with plant dyes, with one exception. That exception is the lovely coppery orange that makes up the ribbing. The purples and yellow were dyed with annatto and logwood by my Plant Bio class last spring. I love the way this hat turned out and can't wait to wear it next year. I might have to make some coordinating mittens.


Handspun Hat #2 - This hat started with a special button for a friend who collects glass. I bought this button at SOAR several years ago. I had thought I would make her a sweater, but that has not happened.
Then one day, I noticed how great it looked with some blue handspun I had. Then I saw the cover of the book Boutique Knits and knew it would be perfect.


I love this hat. I am excited to give it to my friend. I may make one for myself (sans button), but the ruffled hat band was boring to knit. I also don't know if I have enough of my blue handspun to knit another one. Oh well.

My knitting has been a bit slowed this past school year, I hope to pick up the pace this summer. I have a couple of pairs of socks on the needles right now. A shawl from last summer that needs finishing. And suddenly many of my friends are having babies. So there will be lots of baby knitting in my future.

A day at the prairie

Yesterday my husband and I went visiting a couple prairies in central Missouri. It was great weather - perfect for being out in the field, though the sun was a bit bright for photos.




Here are some of the plants that we saw:

Dodecatheon meadia (Shooting Star)


Castilleja coccinea (Indian Paintbrush)

Lobelia spicata (Spiked Lobelia)

In addition to the ugly socks (which are probably destined for the frog pond), I have been knitting on successful projects.

Some fingerless gloves: my husband calls them hobo gloves. The pattern is Berry Hill, which I found through Ravelry. Both yarns are left-overs from other projects. The tan is alpaca and the slate blue is Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport. I am very happy with this color combination.



Next up are some socks, now finished, made from Tofutsies sock yarn I bought when I was botanizing in New Mexico a couple of summers ago. The yarn is made with soy fiber, wool, and chitin. The chitin is supposed to provide antibacterial protection. The colors pool on the leg, which is not really visible in this picture. I like the yarn, I am less happy with the pooling. This is the third pattern I tried with this yarn. Overall, I am pleased with the results.

Finally a pair of socks made with yarn I got for my birthday. If I remember correctly, the yarn is from Pagewood Farms. The pattern is called scrolls, and it is from the book, Knitting More Sensational Socks, I recieved for Christmas.

Currently I am working on another pair of socks: Blackrose from knitty. They are being knit in a rusty red sock yarn.

Ugly or Cool

I can't decide if I like these socks for their funky color combination or if they are just hideously ugly. What do you think?

The secret hats

In the last post before my prolonged hiatus, I mentioned a couple of secret hats I was working on. The hats have long since been delivered to their new homes and I want to share them here.
The idea came from CosyMakes - she started a word-along on Ravelry. The basic idea was to knit a hat and to embroider a word on it that was an action. So I chose to create two "Think Caps" for two of my friends who are professors at different universities. I know sometimes I need a "thinking" cap.

So I present
Think 1

and Think 2

Still hanging on

Blue Sage (Salvia azurea) - a reminder of warmer days.

It has been a while since I have updated. First, I was preparing for classes. Then, I got caught up in the elections, then the holidays, now school has started again and I have been busy, busy, busy. I have seen three beautiful sunrises from my office window the last week, an indication of how busy.

I am stating here my intention to get back into blogging, as I like having this recording of my thoughts and I enjoy sharing these thoughts with my friends and family.

We will see how it goes. Off to prepare for class, but I will offer a more, satisfying post soon.

Over-indulgence

This weekend, I allowed myself an extended weekend full of knitting, Friday afternoon, most of Saturday, Sunday evening, and Monday afternoon /evening. In all, over 18 hours of knitting - enough time to completely listen to Anne Bronte's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" and begin listening to "The Monsters of Templeton" by Lauren Groff. All that knitting had a price. Last night, my elbow was too sore to play our new Wii (a birthday gift for my husband from his parents) and today I woke up with very sore shoulders. I have to remember to take breaks and stretch. Oh, and not to over-indulge.

So what did I accomplish is all this time.
1.) I have almost completed the Icarus Shawl. I just have the few border rows, which are not charted for some reason and, from what I have heard, the never-ending bind-off. I started in on the first row of the border, but messed it up somehow.

2.) 1.25 hats, of which I do not currently have pictures. Plus, they are a bit of secret, shhhhhh.

3. ) Metaluna Mutant Mitts - I have been wanted to knit fingerless mitts for a while. I have had some Frog Tree Alpaca sitting in my stash for a while and when I recently checked out from the library this book, it all came together. While in the throws of creativity, I saw my husband's Metaluna Mutant Toy, and the colors reminded me of my mitts. Thus the name. Here are a couple of "In Progress" pictures.




Hmmmm, those really don't give you a sense of the overall pattern. At this time, I have actually finished knitting both mitts. But some of the fingers are too tight and need to be re-knit. Oh, I forgot, I still have one thumb to do as well.

4.) Re-knitting cuffs for my husband's alligator or lizard or baseball socks. I don't remember what we ended up naming them. I had the same problem with my stuffed animals as a kid.

Anyway, these socks were a birthday present for my husband last year.

After he wore them a couple of times, they developed holes in one sock, mostly in the cuff. I think the yarn was weak in places. I have fixed the hole in the leg and cut off the bad cuff. I am now ready to re-knit the cuff.