another weekend post

I guess I must be feeling particularly chatty this weekend. Here's a pic of the second Tulip sweater I finished. It's in the Sweet Baby Boy colorway from Coldwater Collaborative.


And then tonight as I was spinning the first 4 oz of Big Yellow Taxi CMF roving, this is what I kept seeing through my wheel.


I had given her a new bone as a distraction from the ball of fiber rolling around on the floor, and every so often she would just look up at me through the wheel and wag her tail. Too cute!

It's here!!!

The first shipment for the RSC '08 came in the mail yesterday. Of course since I didn't get out of bed until almost 9 last night, I didn't see it was here until even later. It's really not my colors, but the pattern looks neat and it's top-down so my yarn is already wound into a ball and I'm getting ready to cast on.

I also spent a couple of hours working on the secret project. I've still got a few stitch patterns I need to find and then tonight I'll buckle down and try to write out at least two of them, maybe three and get them sent out to the test knitters. Now if I could just get the charting software to load onto my computer.

Off to snuggle the puppy and spend some quality time knitting.

so much for that brilliant idea

I had been planning on mowing my yard today. About half an hour before my alarm was due to go off this afternoon I woke up to thunder and the sound of rain hitting the roof. Guess I won't be mowing the lawn. Even though it's only 70 degrees out and for once I wouldn't sweat to death while doing it. Stupid rain.

Finished the first Supermonkey sock last night. Worked a couple of hours on Cindi's green blanket.

And I got to tease my friend Sarah about some yarn that I bought to make her some socks from. I'm such an evil roomie.

MS3 and the SSP haven't progressed any further.

Phoebe's learning not to bark when she has the shock collar on. She's only be zapped about 5 times. Yesterday some ladies that walk their labs went by and Phoebe was content to hang over the arm of the chair and growl. I'm such a proud mommy!

the need to vent....

So just went out and got my mail (yes, at 9:30 PM....I just woke up), and in there was an envelope from the Humane Society.

I'm thinking "Hmmm....it's not time to pay the annual pet registration fee. And I've never gotten mail from them before." Open it up to find a WARNING NOTICE!!!!

Evidently, one of the people who lives next door to me (I'm not calling her a neighbor because neighbors don't pull this crap on you) called the Humane Society to report that "your small dog was barking all evening on your deck". I'm pretty sure it's the bitchy lady next door to me who had never introduced herself until she came over to accuse me of stealing her garbage can in April. They are the only ones living around me who don't own dogs. Unfortunately, these complaints are made anonymously. But I'm 99.9% sure that it's her. Why am I sure?

Because the weekend of the HP7 book release (Saturday the 21st), I got up a little later (kind of like tonight) and let Phoebe outside. This lady and her teenage daughter (who has parties at the house when her parents are gone) were sitting on their back deck. Because of the different builds of our houses, her back deck is all of 2 feet off the ground. Mine is about 10 feet, so it's very easy for Phoebe to see over the fence and see people and bark. This particular evening, they were sitting outside and Phoebe would go out, go potty, come back up to the deck, bark and I'd let her in right away (repeat every 10 minutes or so for about half an hour). This is the ONLY TIME this summer that I've seen these people use their deck. And they feel the need to file a complaint against MY DOG!!!!

It doesn't even piss me off that I got a warning. What pisses me off is that they didn't come over and say something to me first. I could understand filing a complaint if they were out there every night and Phoebe kept barking and barking and I just left her out there for hours on end to bark at them. But for pete's sake!!! At least have the common courtesy to confront me to my face!!!

Oh....and one more thing. This warning letter I got also quotes the City Ordinance about public nuisances. Let me share. "It shall be unlawful for anyone to permit an animal to unreasonably obstruct the use and enjoyment of property held by others in the community by allowing such animal to habitually bark, howl, yelp, bay or make other noise which by loudness or frequency causes a breach of the peace." (emphasis mine) A one-time deal (which I dealt with right away by bringing her inside each time when she was barking) suddenly means "habitually" to these people.

I'm still debating whether to call the Humane Society in the morning to ask questions and debate this. Anyone have any ideas or opinions?

It's done!!!...and a loss

I have a yard!!!!! The landscaper people came back today while I was sleeping and finished off the last 10 feet or so along my fence, so I now have a full backyard of grass (minus the underdeck area that they weren't supposed to take up but did).

The parents were here this weekend and we did a bunch of putzy stuff around the house. Namely, redid the inner workings of the other toilet (without a recurrence of the exploding toilet we had last time), fixed the plunger in the bathroom sink, put up a tomato cage in my garden, broke out the watering tractor and watered the heck out of my new sod, and Dad used the new powersprayer to stain my backyard fence. The deck will get stained the next time they come down to visit if I can find the stain.

Saturday afternoon/evening, a couple of losses almost happened. I spotted my dad's dog, Cozy, coming up the stairs with something red and fibery hanging out of her mouth. It was a piece of roving....my CMF roving that was still attached to the spinning wheel. She had DECIMATED close to 3 oz of the roving that I still had left to spin. I screamed, the dog ran, and that dog was very lucky my dad was there, or she would have been very dead. I was able to salvage most of the fiber and finished spinning it up last night. It was a pain in the butt, but it did get done. Now I just need to ply it.

I think that's it. I promise promise promise that I'll have pictures of the progression in the backyard tomorrow. I'm just too lazy to walk all the way out to the dining room and get my camera right now.

lots of pics!!

I don't know why I've been saving these up on my camera. Maybe I'm just getting lazy with the pictures.



First up is the ripple afghan out of Red Heart that I wrote about a few posts ago. RIPPP!!!!





Here's the bloody end. All of this got donated to my church's VBS along with other various skeins of stuff I'll never use.





And now this....last week I mowed my lawn. Then Phoebe wanted to go outside at 2 am. Pretty normal. Until she came in and I didn't have a white dog anymore.



Those are green paws people....green! My poor little tie-dyed dog. First she has a blue spot on her side from Miss V dripping dye on her, then her paws get tinged green from the cut grass. But she's white again after a much-needed bath.



Then comes the finished Jonagold roving. I haven't been able to find anymore of this. It's BMFA 50/50 merino/tencel in Jonagold. I ended up with about 550 yards of 2-ply. This is the stuff I managed to ply in the same direction I had spun the singles. But it came out okay!





And here's an indoor shot a little truer to color.





Finally. A shot of the Borg Queen Jaywalker. I'm calling these my One Mind, One Voice socks. What's more appropriate for the Borg than socks that pretty much every sock knitter on the planet has made?





I think that's it for now! I'm meeting k2p2 (Cheryl) from the LnV messageboards and some of her friends at Personal Threads in the morning, so maybe I should get some sleep. But I think I'll spin a little first.

No go for launch

Well, I got an email back from Blue Moon and was basically shot down. According to the lady who emailed me, they don't have any Sheep-2-Shoe kits and aren't offering any roving right now. Hmmm....then why did I just see over on Cookie A's blog that they're spinning up Sheep-2-Shoe kits?!? Very interesting.

I did manage to save the Jonagold roving. It's kind of lifeless right now, but it's not overtwisted at least.

I started my One Mind, One Voice Jaywalkers out of the Borg Queen sock yarn Miss Violet dyed up. I'm loving it. I showed the yarn to my pastor last night and once I explained it, he laughed. He actually talked about the Borg in his sermon on Sunday. I'm so glad I have a pastor who's a sci-fi geek!

Started spinning the Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop fiber I got around Christmas time. Decided to start with My Boyfriend's Back. Gorgeous!! If I wouldn't have been hosting a couple of college girls at my house last night (they're part a touring bell choir), I so would have been on my computer and ordering more.

And finally....I might get another puppy. I heard on the news this morning that the Humane Society had raided a puppy mill and rescued over 150 puppies overnight. They're letting people adopt them starting Sunday and they're only asking half their normal donation for them. I'm seriously debating.

Off to bed!!

promised pictures

Jonagold singles are still on the bobbins. Blue Moon Fiber Arts 50/50 merino/tencel blend, 10 oz in Jonagold.


And I had to show off some of my cool new shoes I bought out in Virginia. My friend, Sarah, is a shoe freak (about like I'm a yarn freak) and we went to four different shoe stores. I got these at Payless and they are so comfortable!


Tuesday, Dad took Cozy (his Brittney spaniel) to the former family farm (now some conservation prarie that they have to keep up) and she got tuckered out. These two dogs are used to sleeping all day and all night. You'd never guess that they're both just over a year old! Toffee happened to be sleeping on Cozy's pillow when Dad got home from the farm, so Cozy just went over, plopped down and used Toffee as a pillow. Mom was quick with the camera and caught the cuteness.


And since Phoebe was feeling left out....here she is hanging out at the top of the stairs. She spends a lot of time there. I'm guessing she likes it because she's about equi-distant between me and the foodbowl, and she gets to let her paws hang over the top step.


ETA: I just finished frogging a Red Heart afghan that I started a couple years ago. I was about 2 1/2 feet into it, but just couldn't find the motivation to finish it. There are before and after pics on the camera that I'll post later today. *sigh of relief* It feels so good!