puffed up

And then we have the roving in the second box. You will notice that it completely fills the box. Beautiful stuff.

a tale of two boxes

Ok, the box on top is the box the wool came in; the box on the bottom is the box the wool went into, in a somewhat less compressed fashion. (The cat is still the Tiger cat, still fascinated by the smells).

bulgybox

The same day that the babies came, this long awaited box arrived from Wooly Knob. This started as a Corriedale fleece bought from Whitefish Bay Farm, which was shipped by them to Wooly Knob for processing and then, finally, to me. Wooly Knob started with a 5.5 fleece (Corriedale and fine = lots of grease - not as bad as merino, but pretty bad - this package weighed about 3 pounds.)
I was almost afraid to open it - it might go bang and explode out.
It must have smelled good - the Tiger cat was all over it.

babies

My babies arrived from Cathy yesterday - I whisked them into the nursery pot to get them settled in from their trip. Depending on how suddenly winter descends upon us (any time from now through February), they may get moved into the nursery bed, or they may spend the winter in the nursery pot in a sheltered area. I'm so happy they're here!

I don't often plug other people's blogs - mostly I figure that anyone who reads my blog is already aware of the ones I know of. I follow a large number of blogs, but these are the ones that I think of as "focused" - not all over the landscape as I tend to do. In case you missed any of these gems:

Beadlizard - Sylvia posts marvelous pictures of birdlife on the San Francisco Bay, and also of wonderful knits. She has a facility for 3D visualization that I can only marvel at (being a 2D thinker myself - it's no accident that my favorite knit project is a shawl).

The Doily Underground - jp is a recent addition to my list, with knitted doilies that seem to float in mid air. I tend to look at jp's work as any journeyman might a master-of-the-craft's - someday I may get there, but I'm not there yet.

Habetrot - Marcy has an incredible collection of pictures and postcards of sheep, shepherds, spinners and knitters. She posts descriptions and background information with grace and humor.

String or Nothing - The blog of the knitter behind wiseNeedle (an excellent resource of yarn reviews), her posts give interesting commentary on her own knitting, as well as interesting insights into the history of knitting, as she posts about her own researches.

Twosheep - June alternates between speaking about cooking and speaking about yarn - dyeing, spinning and knitting with. I have picked up a number of wonderful tips in each field from her.

Woven Thoughts - Sara is another master-in-her-field of whom I can only stand in awe. If I ever really get into weaving, it will be because Sara has dangled one too many pictures of weaving with silk. I have no interest in weaving in general, just weaving with silk.

Catching up on odds and ends:

1. Snowball has been unstapled. She'll have a scar, but after the shaved bits grow back, no one will be able to tell.
2. Fall is coming. The turkeys are wandering through the yard, much to the dismay of the dog. There were 3 adults and 11 youngsters when the youngsters were half the size of the adults. There are 3 adults and 10 youngsters now that the youngsters are pretty indistinguishable to the casual glance. I wonder what happened to the 11th one? Coyotes are around; someone may have decided on an early turkey dinner; the flock crosses the road every morning; who knows.
3. I'm getting some spinning done every day on the charcoal grey, but it doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.
4. School is progressing. I'm into my class for the fall and it's coming along. My first paper got an A - always a nice way to start class. A friend asked me if going to school was worth it, and I wasn't sure how to answer the question. I'm at the stage that's always awkward, whether it's a knitting project, embroidery, spinning, school (?) where I'm more than halfway, but only just. The shiny new is worn off, but I'm not close enough to the end to feel that second wind, that big PUSH to be done. This is the most dangerous stage of any project, the time when I'm most likely to abandon it and wander off to something else shiny new. All I can do is remember how I felt when I started, the goal which did mean something at the beginning, and trust that I will get to that second wind and be glad when I'm done.
So, yes I think school is worth it, even though at the moment, I'm at the stage where the annoyances and difficulties are all I seem to be able to focus on.
(Although it doesn't help that I found that a school in Syracuse is NOW offering a degree I would prefer to have taken than the one I decided on, although it wasn't offered when I started. Pooh! Shiny new, anybody?)
5. Girl Scout cookies are once again taking over my life - why did I say I'd be the service unit manager again? I'm training my replacement though, hurrah!
6. Spinning and knitting are happening, although relegated to the corners of my life. Pictures to follow soon.
7. I'm starting to gather the seeds from the Tango lilies that I've promised Cathy. The bulbs aren't quite ready to dig, but soon.

spindle spun

Do you suppose it might be time to do some plying?

more wild raspberry

Ok, so I've been working on bobbins of this stuff sporadically for quite some time. I've got two pounds of it, ok?
Despite the possible suspicion that I just keep taking pictures of the same singles in different configurations, this really is a single I finished this weekend at Fingerlakes Fiber Fest and the one I started while waiting for my son's Scout Master to arrive.
Targhee, dyed in Wild Raspberry, from Sweet Grass Wool, spindle spun on a Bosworth mini.
It was funny - I was wandering around the fairgrounds at FFF and getting stopped by people who wanted a five minute potted lesson on how to spindle spin. I obliged, and sent people off to see Jonathan and Sheila. Some of them apparently arrived at the Bosworth booth.

Artisan's Vest

This is the Artisan's Vest. With ends not tucked in and unblocked, but I have finished the actual stitching. The actual knitting started in about February of 04, when I moved to a colder clime than I had lived in for some years.
Unfortunately, this was a victim of combined circumstances - the weather was warming up about the time I finished knitting, I had a slight error that I needed to correct, I needed to switch gears into crochet and all my hooks were in storage, and we moved from the rental house into the permanant dwelling with all the attendant confusion that implies.
By the time I was ready to think about fixing the error and moving into crochet, this poor thing was nowhere to be found. Consequently, I moved on to other things, and have only recently had this one start nagging me. It was covered with dust.
Sometimes I wonder why I get stuck on things like this - it took five minutes to fix the error and an hour to finish the crochet edgings around the front/neck edge and the armholes. I still do need to weave in ends and block it, but I'm on a roll and it may very well happen this weekend. Depends on how the homework goes. I'll keep you posted.
Artisan's Vest, Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book, Lamb's Pride yarn.

Poor Snowball

I really haven't decided what I'm going to do with the charcoal yarn. It's fingering/laceweight and I'll probably get about 4 skeins like this one out of the fiber I have. That would be about 2000 yards I think - enough for one of the larger shawl patterns I have waiting about, or maybe a vest? Lacy T-shirt pattern?

I know a lot of people spin for specific projects, but I never really have. I tend to fall in love with fiber of color (not so much the pure whites or ecrus), and sit down to spin it. I wind up with yarn I like, which is an end in itself.

In the meantime while I'm spinning, I'm busy knitting with yarn I bought or yarn I spun a year or two or five ago. Sometimes I never do figure out a project I want to use a yarn for. It's perfectly good yarn, I just don't have a reason to knit it. Those yarns eventually get passed on as gifts, given to the busy charity knitters, or sent to SquidKnits for her high school students.

first charcoal skein

This skein is probably something less than 550 yards of the charcoal merino/silk and the tussah silk dyed by Just Our Yarn. I don't know the exact length because I measured it before washing and I don't know how much it shortened yet. It was 556 yards before washing. I do like the way that the bits of tussah silk glint among the charcoal.

Odds and ends:
1. No knitting and not much spinning is happening chez nous.
2. Cat 1 is currently sporting an E-collar and 4 shiny staples on her right flank. She is trying to slink through the house, but said slinking, being usually carried out right next to walls and under chairs, is being impeded by the E-collar scraping on everything.
3. Cat 2 is a nervous wreck. The scraping and bumping noises are driving him nuts. S scraped his bowl a tiny bit on the counter, and cat 2 jumped a foot.
4. My fall class is now 11 days old. I've turned in my first 2 page paper with research citations, etc and am halfway through reading the other 16 2 page papers with citations, etc. with an eye to making comments on as many as I can intelligently do and today I only need to finish that and read 8 sets of instructions from my instructor to decide which project to work on for the rest of the class. Hence #1, along with other impedimenta.
5. After a week, the soccer coach has finally given the potential team members a schedule for practices. It says he has practice or a game every weekday from now until midNovember, but at least we know this, rather than having him told each day "show up tomorrow" with no apparent end in sight with the possible exception of being cut on Wednesday or Thursday or maybe Friday depending on which parent one talks to.
6. The drama coach, having promised the parents on Tuesday that she will not keep the students late, then kept them five minutes late on Wednesday and 20 minutes late on Thursday. Hmmmm.
7. Fall is starting to happen. The maples are changing color, except for one small tree locally which has seemed stressed anyway and which has taken the first opportunity to dump its leaves and is standing there in all its naked glory. A couple more nights of chilly weather and I may have some fall pictures to take, not to mention needing to put the quilt back on the bed.
8. We're finally getting some rain. Just in time to turn the parking lot field at Fingerlakes Fiber Fest into a mudhole. O Goody.

I have a lot of grumps right now, and I dont' seem to be able to write a post without whining. I should have my camera back tomorrow and will be able to take pictures of things that actually are going well. Maybe I can write about those in a more pleasant frame of mind.

You know, mostly ignorance is bliss, but occasionally it gets downright puzzling. Our eldest offspring started high school this year. Among the avalanche of paperwork attendant to such an event, we received an invitation to join the local group of parents dedicated to keeping underage students and alcohol separate. Since this is a topic we tend to believe in, we started reading through their list of things-to-pledge: I won't serve alcohol to minors (check), I won't allow students to congregate at my house without keeping an eye on them (check), I won't allow anyone else to serve alcohol to minors at my house (check), I will notify other parents of alcohol misuse that I become aware of (well, ok, check), I will lock up all my alcohol (well, ok, all three bottles of it - we don't tend to drink much, not because we're dedicated teetotalers, but just because it doesn't happen very often, check, I'll figure out something), I will lock up all my cleaning products (huh?).

Ok, we're talking about teenagers, not toddlers. When I had toddlers, all the cleaning products were kept in my bathroom on upper shelves with the best childproof lock I could find. Presumably we're not talking about childproof locks (teenagers, remember?) we're talking about lock and key. What on earth are teenagers doing with cleaning products that the stuff has to be kept under lock and key? And if it's under lock and key, how am I supposed to carry out my parental duty of torturing my children by making them learn how to clean the house on a regular basis?

I could figure out how to lock up the liquor, although short of putting it in a combination safe I don't really see any way of ensuring that a key couldn't be found by a dedicated individual seriously bent on locating it - I'm not taping it to my person for the next six years. But locking up the cleaning products? Why?

Never mind, I don't really want to know.

spindle wild berry

We're back into school mode and that means I'm back to spindle spinning at various points in time when I wait for kids to get out of doctor's appointments, out of music lessons, out of after school activities. This is Wild Raspberry Targhee top from Sweet Grass Wool. On a mini Bosworth of course.

spun silk skein

In the category of "I've been working on that. Slowly." we have Bombyx silk, dyed in peacock colors (the green and purple don't really show in the picture, but they're there). This is a three-ply yarn and this is the third skein. One of these days I need to measure the skeins and see how much yardage I have and how that compares to what the peacock feathers shawl wants. Memory says about 1500 yards of laceweight, but we all know how flakey my memory has been lately.

Sylvia, I think you're right about the mixed single needing more twist. It's an artifact of the mixing of fibers - the merino/silk paired against merino/silk is fine but the merino/silk paired against the pure silk isn't. The pure silk wants more twist than the merino/silk does and I'm putting the same amount into both. I'm not sure what the effect of adding more twist to one part of the single vs another part of the single would be - any insights?

silkstripes

Here's the merino/silk with silk stripes. I'm planning a 2-ply yarn, one single of merino silk; one single of merino silk alternated with the tussah silk. I'm hoping for a muted shading of color here and there in my yarn.

tussahsilk

Marcy, don't hate me when I say I'm adding this to the charcoal grey. Tussah silk I picked up at Fingerlakes Fiber Fest last year. It looks like it would be slightly matted but I realized after I started spinning it that it's just the tussah vs. the bombyx I've been spinning most recently. In actuality, it's a lovely prep and spins very nicely. I need to find what I did with the label so I can tell you who it's from

merinosilkspun

Sylvia, I think you're absolutely right.
This is what the merino silk looks like on the bobbin.

merinosilk

It's been a long time since I've had spinning on Saturday Spin-in, but today, I have, for your delectation, 50/50 merino/silk in color charcoal. It's lovely stuff to work with.

bsj

Last year I worked on a dye experiment, taking a bump of white Rosemary wool (from Dunnose Head Farm in the Falklands), putting it successively in a navy blue dyepot and a crimson dyepot (rewrapping it from inside to outside between times) and then spinning the resultant dyed fiber into five skeins that ran the gamut from navy through various shades of mixing and pales to crimson.
I then spent about six months looking at the skeins trying to decide what to do with them.
Baby surprise jackets seems to be my answer. This one starts with the navy blue section (at the ends of the sleeves and across the top of the back and heads toward the pinker shades.
The next one will start at the crimson end and head for blue territory, and then I'll see if I have enough yarn left for a third in the center section.
Garter stitch, she do eat up the yarn.

hyrna herborgar

Bad news and good news.
You may (or may not) recall that I mentioned I forgot all my patterns at home when I went on vacation and that I was working from my memory of glancing at Sylvia's notes the day I left.
The bad news is that I didn't remember correctly. It's not 15 fans in the expansion, it's 15 repeats of chart B. That is, I don't need 540 stitches on the needles before I go into the fan section, I only need 443.
The good news is that when I stopped to count last night, I'm only up to 13.5 repeats of chart B; I only have 433 stitches on the needles.
Phew!
And Hurrah! I'm almost ready to start the fans!

tiltingladdersblock

When I got back from vacation, I took a break from knitting and did a bunch of spinning. Having finally eased back off from that, I am slowly picking up my knitting again.
When I looked at this block again, I realized that I had three rows (all garter stitch) to go. Humph. Why didn't I finish this up before?

About a month ago (more or less), someone (June?) posted a link to a recipe at epicurious that sounded good, so I printed it out and last night, I actually got around to giving it a try. Let me start by saying that I'm a lazy slob of a cook, so I didn't actually follow all of the directions (big surprise there, eh?). However, even given my shortcomings along those lines, the dish was delicious and I highly recommend it if you like you a salty, savory dish.

The first thing I didn't do, was use boneless chicken breasts with the skin on. These are not available in my average grocery store - the best I could do would be to buy bone-in, skin on chicken breasts, but I hate removing the bones myself (falls under the category of "more trouble than it's worth"). (I notice that they don't include deboning in their time estimate. Humph.) I was worried that this might make the meat a bit too dry, but I seem to have worried needlessly.

The second thing I did was buy the already chopped olive mix from the olive bar at the grocery store rather than buying olives-in-brine and chopping them myself. What is lost in that the already chopped olives dry out a bit was gained in having several different flavors of olives available in the mix.

The last thing I didn't do was bother to "stuff" the chicken. Without chopping the olives finer than they were already, I didn't see that stuffing it was going to be a winning proposition. The directions in the recipe weren't clear (to me) on exactly where to make the incision, so I abandoned that part.

My version of the recipe came out like this:
4 skinless boneless chicken breasts, salted and peppered
1/3 cup almonds, skin on
1 cup chopped olives from the olive bar (mix of several types of green olives)
2 T butter
3 T water
2 T parsley, chopped

Melt one T of butter in a skillet. Add almonds; cook over medium heat for 7 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove almonds from pan, set aside to cool on cutting board.

Add chicken to skillet, pour in olives. Cook over medium high heat for 5-7 minutes, till golden brown on bottom. Turn chicken breasts over, cover skillet and cook for another 5-7 minutes, till cooked through. While chicken is cooking, chop the almonds.

Remove chicken from skillet, add second T of butter and water. Stir till melted and blended. Add almonds and parsley, stir. Pour mixture of olives, almonds, etc. over chicken breasts. Serve with sourdough bread.

This was easy and well appreciated even by the pickiest eater I have.

Vacation does something to the gardening mojo. I keep on top of the weeds for most of the summer - and then we go on vacation. Weeds instantly sense this and go into hyperactive mode.

I have an allergy to working in the heat and/or humidity, which means this delicate flower doesn't handle east coast summers very well. My only chance to stay on top of the weeds is to keep weeding every day, for about half an hour each morning or evening. When I leave for a week? It takes me another week to work up the moral fiber to get back to weeding. (Yes I know, that means it's been TWO weeks since I did any weeding - your point is?)

I started tackling it about three days ago and the worst of the worst is almost over. Knowing that this was about to happen, I did take steps before I left to minimize the problem, but there's always one corner of the garden that gets left becaues it isn't really that bad and because I've run out of time. Not that bad. Right.

oriental

This is the last of my oriental lilies to bloom, and my favorite. Tall, graceful, fragrant... This is actually a picture I took about 10 days ago. When leaving on vacation, I suddenly realized I didn't have a picture of this years blooms and went scooting down the drive to get one. I didn't have time to upload and post then, so here it is now.

outunwiti

Lac Brompton is a lake very like the Finger Lakes in New York. On a sunny day, it looks gorgeous from up on the hill top. There is a cabin on Outunwiti, dating to the 1940s, but sadly, nowadays a magnet for teenagers looking to make mischief. This year's damage was worse than the usual smashed beer bottles and trash, and we got little maintenance done except for clean up.
The lake is a lovely place to go visit and we always enjoy ourselves. If you click on the picture, you'll be taken to the flickr set and you can look through the rest of the pictures, taken on a day much more typical of our stay this year. It was cool and occasionally rainy, with some thunderstorms.
I got very little knitting done; what I did get knit was finishing up the Baby Surprise Jacket I had started before I left, and in working interminable rows on Hyrna Herborgar. I made the monumental mistake of carefully gathering up all my patterns into a notebook to take with me, and then misplacing the notebook before I got it packed. The BSJ pattern was with the knitting-in-progress, so I was ok there, but for Hyrna I had to go by memory and calculation (15 fans in the expansion x 36 stitches per fan [I hope I remembered Sylvia's notes correctly on those points] divided by 6 stitches per diamond repeat = more stitches than I have even yet on the needles). I haven't had the heart to go check to see if I remembered correctly or not.
I got nothing done on the afghan blocks, having no patterns to work from, and I didn't get started on MS3, ditto.

paramount

This is the last of the new (2006 planting) Orientals to bloom this year, and I think at this point I've seen what all of the new ones will look like. The others will be duplicates of ones I've already seen.
I've also posted all of the afghan blocks completed to date. I'm going to be disconnected from the computer for a few days and I hope to have more blocks finished by the time I reconnect!

Crossword puzzle clue: Weave (yarn)

Crossword puzzle answer: Knit

Me: Huh?

rose elegance

Rose Elegance is another of the 2006 planting and I'm quite happy to see the way that they are all turning out. A couple of the bulbs did not send up blooms this year, but by next year they all be in good form.

pink pearl

Some more of my new Oriental lilies have been blooming - this was the freebie tucked in with a mixed bag. It's not a color I would have bought separately, but I'm glad I have it.

Twisted Checks

This is a very simple pattern, easily memorized, with short cable runs alternating with plain knitting. Again, a pattern I could see using for an all over pattern on a cardigan or pullover.

Cable Lace

The Cable Lace pattern was another of the ones that was very easy and quick. Obviously, it's also one of the ones that draws in a great deal vertically rather than horizontally. I think this is the most extreme of the vertical draw-in sort.

I could see having a cardigan with this pattern...

Changing of the campers: Last week I was running around getting K ready to go on a weeklong canoe trip. She's been away, getting back tonight. S leaves tomorrow morning for Boy Scout camp with his troop, so this week has been running around getting ready for him to push off. Busy times.

Rice Stitch Diamonds

Another potato chip block, the Rice Stitch Diamonds are a lot of fun. I liked doing the rice stitch, and of course cables are always good. The reverse stockinette background wants to curl badly of course, but this block and the previous one are the ones I will probably use as models for blocking size when the time comes. If you look back through the blocks shown so far, you may notice that some are extremely long and skinny, and a couple are squat, depending on which way the pattern stitch draws in.
My plan is to block all of them first to a fixed size, then add the edging. Someday. When I finish knitting blocks. I only have 7 to go (plus the last border on the one on the needles).

Winterberry

This is another block with those pesky knots. Aside from the knots, it was a fun knit, watching the traveling stitches wavering back and forth.

redorangedaylily
Originally uploaded by zinlizzie

This is one of the 2006 planting that survived, and only one of two that's going to put up scapes this year, it appears. I was anxious to see what it would look like, and then wound up missing the first bloom. Grrr. That's what comes of sending kids to camp - I get a lot done while they're gone, but I lose that time the week before they go, running around getting their oddments together.

casablanca
Originally uploaded by zinlizzie

This is one of the 2004 planting as well, scheduled for moving this fall.

stargazer
Originally uploaded by zinlizzie

This is one of the fall 2004 planting. This is one of my favorites. I put these in down by the mailbox, but have decided that they don't seem to do as well there as I hoped. This fall, I plan to move them to a new bed farther back from the street, so that they won't get the salt load in the winter.

tangerine
Originally uploaded by zinlizzie

This is the first of the new daylilies I added this past year. Only two of the five are putting up scapes. I suppose I'll have to wait at least another year for the other three.

These blocks for the Taste of Aran Afghan are ones that I enjoyed doing - potato chip style. They were quick and fun. This first one is the Triangle Lace Cables pattern, a single cable twist with a lace V.
The second one is Smocked Cables - a clever idea on someone's part. Just as with smocking woven cloth, one has to keep an even regular tension on the smocking part, but it really is fun.

Post script to previous post: K has now been reminded that if she lets go of the book for a total of approximately 3.5 hours, her mother will finish it, thereby allowing her to now discuss matters that arise as she gets to them, as long as it's not in her brother's hearing. She is both satisfied and pouting about this development.

K is learning that being the first to read a much desired book (Deathly Hallows, of course) means that you're not allowed to discuss any of the interesting details when you get to them.

Spinning guild was yesterday. 25 people showed up. Of those 25, six were among the 7000-odd people world wide who have signed up for MS3. We were trying to figure out what that meant. Aside from the fact that we need to have a fashion show in October, of course.

This next square is an example of what I like best about Aran knitting - cables. This is the Chain Link Cable - all cables, all the time. I could see having this on a sweater of mine.

And this fourth square is an example of what I like least - bobbles! I don't care whether they are termed bobbles or knots, I don't care if they are executed in knit or crochet, I have yet to meet a bobble I like to execute, or really, one that I would like to wear. This is Briar Rose, and in this photo, it looks like nothing much of anything. In person, it's a clever little pattern with knots for rosebuds, but I disliked knitting it (both times!) and would never willingly use it for anything. Having to re-knit this square was one of the major drawbacks to reworking my original concept for this afghan, and one of the reasons why the project sat untouched for two years while the memory of the horror faded enough to allow me to try again.

ETA: This square proves that one's parents advice about "doing something you don't like because it's good for your character" is true. At least, if it isn't good for my character, it did teach me something. I tend to do things without examining how I do them or why I do them, until something brings it to my attention. I never have had difficulty in understanding charts or reading them, and I don't usually pay any attention to complaints about differences in convention between one designer and another. When I pick up a chart, I look to see what each symbol means, and then I'm on my merry way.

One convention that is often followed, whatever the exact symbol used, is that the same symbol is used for knit and purl stitches and the knitter theoretically interprets the symbol differently depending on whether a right or wrong side row is being knit. I say theoretically, because what I discovered about myself on this particular square, is that I don't interpret the symbol differently depending on right or wrong side. The symbol always means the same thing to me: - means purl and means knit in this chart. Instead, I mentally rotate my knitting so that I am always visualizing the right side of the knitting, whether I am knitting a right side or a wrong side row. Rather than redefine the symbol each time, I just always "look" at the right side of my knitting and perform whatever knitting stitch is necessary to make the right side of the knitting match the chart.

Ok, so my weird mental processes might best be left unexamined, even by me, but here's the gotcha on this pattern: All patterning is done on wrong side rows. The cable crossings and the knots are all presented in the chart as they look on the wrong side, but I'm busy mentally swinging around to look at the right side for all plain knit or purl stitches. Honestly, when I do this, it's like watching a little 3D visualization of my knitting rotating back and forth and frankly, it was making me dizzy. If I'd been home when I was working for this, I think I would simply have recharted this puppy to show all wrong side rows as they would look from the right side, but as it was I was in the car on the road with no paper or pencil, and I simply had to memorize the pattern as quickly as possible so that I quit having to look at the chart.

When I work up the mental strength to think about it, I am going to rechart this pattern a couple of different ways and see if it makes any difference to the ease of knitting. I'm still not entirely positive I understand why the patterning has to be done on the wrong side rows.

Coming to terms with my second childhood

When I was young, I adored being read to. I wanted to listen to someone reading on all occasions. When I was four, I learned to read and then had the magic for myself. By the time I was in second grade (about 7), I was coming to the realization that I could read some books as fast or faster than someone could read them to me, and by the time I was in fourth grade, I was reading over my mother's shoulder, skimming ahead of where she was reading and being obnoxious about wanting to turn the page when she was only half way through the first side. This was not well received on her part and I gave up on being read to. I wanted to hurry through the story, getting to the good parts.

For many years, I was told that when I got older (pick a time - when I got in middle school, when I got into high school, when I got into college...) I wouldn't be able to read as much, I wouldn't have the time. But, while it was true that I didn't have as much time to read, my reading stayed constant or even increased, because I simply forced myself to read faster. By the time I got to college, I had hit my own natural limit for reading faster, but that was still fast enough to allow me plenty of time to read.

I had plenty of time to read throughout my early working career, and even into early married life. Then... I had children. For the first time in my life, I truly didn't have enough time to read, and the amount of reading I have done has slackened off over the past ten years. The type of reading I have done has changed, and I have picked up hobbies that don't lend themselves to reading at the same time. While I can knit and read, I can't do much more than stockinette.

A couple of years ago, my sister recommended books on tape, with a particular author and narrator. I had read the books already and enjoyed them, but the narrator was said to be a good one, so I tried one. And then I tried another. Barbara Rosenblatt reading the Amelia Peabody stories by Elizabeth Peters is wonderful. And... I can knit at the same time!

This has been a wonderful revelation - with a few minor caveats. 1. The narrator has to be really good. 2. The narration can't be rushed. 3. The book has to be one that I've read before and know well. I still have to know how it turns out, or I want to dash to the end of the book, shoving the narrator out of the way so that I can turn the page sooner.

And so, here I am in my second childhood, listening happily to someone reading to me while I doodle, this time in yarn.

Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer, narrated by Sian Phillips. Most excellent.

I'm always a little sad to see the first of the Oriental lilies to start blooming. Somehow, it signifies the beginning of the end. The Asiatics bloom first, then the daylilies start, and then the Orientals and then... they're done. This is of course, being much too gloomy as some of the daylilies are barely putting their scapes up and the Tangos aren't quite done yet, but still... This yellow beauty is first out of the starting gate, but only by a day or two. There's another that may open tomorrow, and that's one I just planted last year so I'm anxious to see it.
C, I'm glad you like the Aran afghan, but I left it at my parents-in-law earlier this week, so I'm not getting anything done on it. I had to rip back about 8 rows of Hyrna, and have just gotten back to the point that I had been. I started a cotton scarf when I needed some mindless knitting and, having dropped a stitch about 5 rows before I noticed it, I need to rip that back as well. All in all, this has been a dud week for knitting chez nous.

Taking pictures of this project has been problematic but I've finally got the solution I think (at least for the first go-round of pictures). These are the squares from the Taste of Aran Afghan , done in Daletta, charcoal grey. Finding some combination of lighting and position that would let me show at least a little of the texture has been and interesting problem.
I have about 11 or 12 squares done, out of 20, and I have developed definite opinions about some of them.
This first one is one of my favorites. Grillwork Cable:

And this second is definitely one of my un-favorites. Star Stitch, presented as an alternative to Trinity Stitch, is a pain in the finger joints. I suspect it may also be a pain in blocking, judging from the skew of the unblocked square.

More of apricot daylilies have opened up, slightly less skewed than their predecessor bloom.
And the lemon daylilies have started blooming as well. The bees are crazy over these and I often find two or three bees in the bloom arguing over who gets to get the nectar first.

When I first moved into this house (3 summers ago?) I started a bed of lilies. In the front of the bed were the asiatics pictured previously (in yellow, pale orange and dark orange). In the back were daylilies which are now starting to open. Well, the stella d'oro have already been and gone, but the rest of them are now starting. These were a mixed bag and I've no idea which is which. Someday I may have time to peruse through catalogs and put names to them. (This picture looks warped to me, as though taken with a fisheye lens or something, but it's untouched. The bloom just looks a bit warped in person, that's all.) And as you can see, Hyrna has moved into the chart B phase. It's not a new observation that it is difficult to photograph lace in progress on a circular needle, but there you go. I like the chart B section. As with chart A, there is a mathematical placidity about the pattern that is pleasing, and there're only two rows to alternate between; extremely easy lace.
I need to find where I put Sylvia's notes about expanding HH - she worked it all out and I'd rather not muddle through the process again. Having expanded the first section (which I noted on my copy ) I think I also want to expand the second section to keep the proportions of the original the same. This I didn't note on my copy because I didn't get that far on my first stab at this pattern. Time to rummage through the stack o' paper.

I finished another couple of new (to me) books this week - Salt a World History, and In a Sunburned Country and thoroughly enjoyed them. It struck me as noteworthy while I was reading each of them that they had tie-ins to other books I've read recently, and then it dawned on me that if one is going to read books that talk about history, it doesn't really matter whether it is geological history or anthropological history, they are probably going to touch on some of the same topics. (duh!) (I know, there's probably some head thunks going on right there. I'm sorry.)
Of course, the book I'm reading now A Short History of Everything actually references not the same historical time but the same (other) book I'm reading, Annals of the Former World. And this leads me to the next book I'm planning on requesting from the library, A Guide to the End of the World. What fun!

Skein number 5 of the Beast. Only two more to go. Maybe. I think I'm ready to be done with it. So... I'm easily amused. A little history: The ladder ordinarily leans against the wall in the garage and the white cat climbs it, perches for a while, and climbs down. The tiger cat has never climbed the ladder before that we know of. The ladder was brought into the house (for dusting purposes [the house, not the ladder]) and the Snowball ran up the steps, perched for a while, then ran down the steps. Tiger observed this and decided he could do this too. While he perched, the Snowball tried again and was most disconcerted to find her perch taken.
Snowball having abandoned the field in disgust, Tiger then amused himself chasing his tail...
and then discovered he really didn't know how to get down. Oops!

Tango lilies: Capuchino
Dot Com
Kentucky
and Olina.
These pictured are all in their second year here, although I've babies of several colors.