Chickadees on the porch

Every spring the chickadees nest in a birdhouse on the front porch.  

They raise 2 or 3 clutches and then they're gone.

They scold us severely whenever we're on the porch,

but if we're still they will go about their parenting business.

 

 

 

Spring at UW

One of the most wonderful things about the UW is the care given the landscape.

Everywhere I look, flowers are bursting through the green foliage. 

Our landscape crew is the best.

 

This Samsung camera is awesome. 

The only thing I changed from the original is resizing.

No color change, no cropping, nothing.

I think this is a dogwood.  

Photos taken at 6:45am, 48 degrees, overcast and a little misty sprinkle.

Weekend in Redmond

The Friday Knitters spent the sunniest, hottest* weekend so far this year (May 4&5)

in a Pat Brunner class on Designing Knitwear to Fit Your Body (One Size Does Not Fit All.)

Lisa welcomed us to her Redmond home:

The view of the house and garage/shop/craft loft coming up from the pasture.

The Juliet balcony of the loft.

 

From the balcony overlooking the pasture.

 They have 16 chickens.

Two shy sheep,

and Wedding Cake,
a very friendly SallyBill** wether who loves cookies.

We spent quite a bit of time outside at the breaks and lunches.

Michale took advantage of Wedding Cakes' appetite 

for a close-up photo opportunity.

This is just a small part of the potluck as it was being set up ~ it was dee-licious!

 Trixie was riveted.

Henry was riveted.

Matilda: not just riveted.  She was fascinated by all the food.

Lisa has remodeled the upper floor of their garage 

for fiber related activities.

This is the classroom end,

and in this end there are 5 looms.

It was a wonderful weekend.  If we had to be inside for most of it, oh well! 
Spending time together, knitting and laughing: priceless.

*It was 87 on Sunday afternoon in Seattle.  It didn't get quite that hot in Redmond, maybe only 84.

**SallyBill: a flock of sheep from Island Fibers on Lopez, one of the San Juan Islands, started about 70 years ago by Sally Bill, blended to the originators' handspinning preferences.  Nobody knows quite what the mix is at this point, but the fleeces goes for about $16.00 a pound, unwashed, in a bag.  That must be a pretty good fleece.

It's not just resting, part 2

This was on my desk at work this morning.

It has hair.

That is just not right.

It's not just resting

  Don't leave the dead in the garden.

It's so easy.

Just do it.

Car Spinning

On our way to the Whidbey Island Spin-In the first weekend of April, I tried Car Spinning.

The Hansen Electric Spinner has a car adapter,

 and there was plenty of room on the floor of the front passenger seat.

Peggy drove and I set it up.

There are two glove boxes and the upper one was perfect for holding excess fiber.

It was a short trip, less than two hours, so I didn't get a lot of spinning done.

The only problem seemed to be 'spinner error' ~ I kept allowing the fiber to break.

Trying to reset the system with a seat-belt on was awkward.

This is not very good Jacob fiber.  

Along with the vm, which is abundant, there is an amazing amount of kemp.  

Even though I have one full spool, I have to consider the wisdom of continuing the project.

So what if I end up with enough two-ply for a sweater?  Who wants to have all that kemp sticking out?

If you enbiggify* this photo, you can see the loads of kemp, those white wire-like bits.  

Ick.

*Thanks to LindaK for this word.  Is it a Portmanteau or a Sniglet?

Breakfast in Mt. Vernon

Last Saturday we drove north on I-5 toward the spin-in at the high school in Oak Harbor,
the annual event sponsored by the Whidbey Island Weavers Guild.
We always stay in the same motel, usually the same room,
which we share with Evanne and Natasha.

Stopping for breakfast here was Evanne's idea. 
It was a good one!

Calico Cupboard

I order French Toast 99% of the time.

 It was excellent.  I could eat only 3 of the 4 pieces.

It was crispy on the crust and custard-y on the inside, as it should be.

Peggy ordered the House Granola and Greek Yogurt.

It is a lot of food.  The yogurt was very sweet, the granola filling.

Evanne chose the Huevos Rancheros.

Looks yummy.  She said it was very good, but she couldn't finish it all.

Our opinion: we'd go back!  

There's an antique shop next door which we may check out next time.

Spring snow

We managed to get through the winter without snow this year and then came the first day of Spring.

  Lovely. 

 Then came the second day of Spring. 

Snow.

 This is what we woke up to, 

and of course the cars are in the garage at the bottom of the steep driveway.

doh.

We waited for daylight.  It snowed for several more hours.

The squirrel was not amused.

The birds flocked.  One at a time, sometimes.

The Hummer food wasn't frozen.

The sun finally came out and it all turned to slush.  

We got out of the driveway,  out of the neighborhood and into the park-n-ride.  

I was only 2 hours late to work.

The next camera

It's a Samsung Smart Camera WB 250F.  OMG I love this camera.  Look at what it can do, all by itself:

An original photo, on the auto setting;

nothing done to it except resizing,

(because resizing means faster uploading.)

The next photos are internal settings on the camera,

accessible via touching the view screen, yessssss!

Just choose special effect and snap your photo.

I am going to have so much fun with this camera!

I've had it for less than a week and already feel more comfortable with it than I did
with several of my former cameras, no matter how long I owned and used them.
This camera is very user friendly.  Experimenting with it will be my next obsession.

Of the at least 100 photos I took today, only 2 were blurry.  That is AWESOME!

Back to the sweater:

  This was the second sweater I ever knit, probably back in 1990 or 91.
It's oversized, as was popular in the '80's, and since I was always 'thrifty',
I probably bought the pattern on sale.  But not the yarn.
I remember falling in love with this yarn.

So, here's the sweater again, natural light, no flash.   

I'm considering frogging the sleeves to the elbows (maybe) and redesigning how they end.  

I think the body could be shorter, too.  I love the cowl, always have, so may have to keep it,
although I'm considering frogging the whole thing and re-purposing the yarn.

Because, really, who needs a 1980's sweater with puffy cuffs?

Starting the new year without a camera

Normally I would have a photo-heavy entry on any given day, but my camera slipped out of my hand, bounced on the deck and landed in the ivy, which was wet.  Don't know if the bounce or the damp did the damage, but it's definitely not it's old self.
 

Speaking of old, it's at least 8 years old, which in camera-years is about 80, with the way technology is leap-frogging into the future.  It's a little Casio Exilim, very reliable when not bouncing and it did lovely close-ups of dew-damp dahlias.  It wasn't very good for zooming into the distance, and I had some jiggle issues, plus the sound on the movies would include a little 'chunk chunk' when I'd zoom in or out.  

I thought of getting it fixed, but it's time for a new camera.

I'm going with something a little more sophisticated but not something that costs a kidney.  I think I won't use it if it's too big to fit into my (small) purse or if it's too complicated.  I don't need to change lens's and I don't need stop-action sports shots.

I need a nice little point and shoot that gives good knitting/spinning photos for less than $300.00, including tax and shipping.  I'm open to suggestions.

Wishing everyone a gunfire-free holiday

"We simply must keep in mind that the NRA hasn't represented or lobbied on behalf of gun owners for decades.  It is a shill for gun merchants.  We must shout this from the hilltops loudly enough to drown out the drone of "opinion respecting" drivel that is already emanating from commentators across the airwaves.

The NRA is an industial lobby for weapons and ammunition manufacturers that, with astonishing cowardice, hides behind the US Constituion and dupes well-meaning Americans into thinking that the goat is actually a lamb."

Walter Borton,via Facebook

It's been 19 weeks since my last haircut

A haircut is not all that important, in the whole scheme of things, although a bad one can ruin your life for a week or so.  This one was all about how I was feeling about my hair, which I wanted to change, and my job, which I wanted to keep.   I've been doing this job as a temp for almost a year.  It was posted, finally, early last month.  I applied, was interviewed  awhile ago but still hadn't heard if I would be hired or not.  Plus, growing out my hair was problematic.  I was told to wait at least 14 weeks before getting it cut again but went well beyond that because of one thing and another.  I was feeling paranoid and frumpy.  Only one of those things could be remedied immediately, or so I thought.

We visited our favorite stylist last weekend and by today I had the job.  It was magical.

Here's the Magic Maker's business info:

Hillary's Beauty Parlor

DEDICATED TO KEEPING YOU GORGEOUS

Hillary Sittig

Stylist

hillarysittig@gmail.com

206-383-7809

Call or email to book cuts and color.

Snohomish area, where Snohomish and Mill Creek meet.

Oh, the job? 

 Reception at the Computer Science and Engineering department, University of Washington.  

HA!

The Market at OFFF

Saturday, Sept 22nd, came in bright and shiny, if a tad cool.  The weather just got better during the day, never too hot but hot enough to burn off the heavy dew and allow us to leave our sweaters in camp.

Shopping at OFFF is something of a contact sport ~ the event officially opens at 9:00am but the crowd gets there at 8:00, growing by at least 300% by 9.  You can't walk fast from one booth to the next ~ it's more like swimming upstream, gradually insinuating yourself into the actual environs of the booth of choice while about 25 other shoppers are attempting the same thing.  In short, OFFF is very like every other fabulous fiber festival and it's all good.

Well, most of it is good.  We get there early so some other knitter or spinner doesn't buy 'our' stuff, and unfortunately sometimes we're not early enough and we see someone carrying off the exact thing that we wanted.  Darn!

In spite of that, this year we we're very happy with our shopping experience.  We did Toots, Carolina, Clouse, Michael & Sheila, Lisa, the other Lisa and then all the rest or at least most of them.  There seemed to be hundreds.  They were in two big buildings, the barns, the grassy plaza, everywhere.  It was awesome.

Michelle LeBlanc of Toots LeBlanc, purveyors of fine and rare yarns.

Sheila & Michael Ernst, makers of awesome glass needles, buttons and more.

Cheryl Newhouse of NewHue Handspuns

Lisa of Dicentra

We were buying for ourselves and also door prizes for the upcoming early November Knitters Retreat at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA.  Our plan was to not go discount but to go with quality over quantity, hence the above mentioned vendors.  It's so fun to spend other peoples money!

We did manage to find some of 'our' stuff in there, so we bought:

Mystery Fiber from Fantasy Fibers ~ P

Shetland Fleece from Whistlestop Shetlands ~ P

 

 This is Brandy Chastain from Whistlestop Shetlands & a good shot of the Sunday Fiber Sale

 

Corriedale Fleece ~ R

Cashmara Sock Yarn from Fly Designs ~ R

Corriedale Fiber dyed by Lisa of Dicentra ~ R

Merino Bamboo from NewHue ~ R

By the end of the weekend we were ready to go home.  The awful traffic at/around Tacoma is becoming an annual ritual, not something we look forward to but at least it means we're only an hour (once we get through it) from home.  Sometimes that means 90 minutes, sometimes 2 hours, but we have our books on cd, snacks from the cooler and plenty of patience. 

A very satisfactory way to spend 4 days.

We must do this again sometime.
Maybe next year.