A View from Sierra County

Just A Teaser

We had a delightful time taking an overnight trip together... DH and I have gone through the summer not having the same days off from our jobs and with his spending four weeks on three different large fires away from home as well.  I also realized that though I am better, my next step is to regain my fitness....

We miss doing things together, and discussed some simple things we could do to fit more fun in that short time after work each day before we collapse from tiredness.  We each work over most of the holiday weekend, but hope the rest of you will be off having fun.  I will be posting some pictures of the cool places we visited here in our mountains.... can you guess from this photo with our red truck in the foreground where we went?

August Resurrection

August has almost come and gone and I really don't have much in the way of knitting to show for it... several projects in various stages of completion or anticipation.  However, finally, after languishing all winter, Bianca gets her turn at the top again.

Faithful readers will recall that I started Bianca last fall with high hopes of finishing and wearing her through the fall and winter seasons and into early spring.  She was the perfect little jacket, and I was doing her up in a nice little nubbly tea-colored Henry's Attic Inca Cotton that I could wear with anything.
 

I knew I would just love her, that is until I realized while swatching that the gauge my substitution was giving me would require recalculating the numbers for the entire pattern.  I used to do all of my knitting this way, calculating to use the yarn I had for a design I liked, but nowadays I hate the fuss...

I managed to make it all the way up the back, but not without tons of enticing distractions.  I checked back over my blog entries from last fall and was reminded about how I was lured away to make not one, but two Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawls, both exquisite and much prettier than the jacket.  Then there were the Anna socks, a purse, a few gifts, and some charity knitting.  Somehow, I just never got around to making those calculations needed to knit the curved front pieces, so now it is onward and upward to get to the pretty little lace yokes.  I was reviewing where I left off in my math project (yup, that is what a promising knit gone bad has turned into for me) and decided to proceed differently.  After all, one definition of crazy is to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results.  My re-start is to do all of the math in one sitting, in effect re-writing the yarn for the fabric I want to get with this yarn, and then jump back in, pattern in hand and charge forward.  This really would be the perfect jacket, after all!

While I was re-starting myself on Bianca and felting up my denim clogs earlier this week, I got to thinking about what it is that gets me to set aside a project and neglect it for a long period of time or even abandon it entirely.  My commitment to participate in the UFO Resurrection all year has really helped me to get back to several very worthy projects, but also led to ripping and reclaiming the yarn from two failed ones.  The red yarns I reclaimed back in January have only partially been re-purposed, but that means I have a few wonderful items still waiting for me in my stash (did you notice that Knitnana is promoting a new kind of 401K plan?).  I transformed CeCe into Lutea, with very happy results and have made slow but steady progress on Seraphim.  I was disappointed with the fact that CeCe's pattern stitch, which had seemed so easy going into it, had turned out to be a fussy one for me, not an enjoyable knit.  Would I go back and try again?  Probably not.  On the other hand, Seraphim had been neglected because she had grown large and complicated enough that I could no longer carry her around and work in a distracted environment... currently she has only about 16 rows to go, but each row takes something like 20 minutes and is over 300 stitches, so I am getting a few rows done a night, on the nights that something doesn't call me away from her.  I hope to have her off the needles before September ends.  I also managed to finish up a purse that was sitting around simply because the final details were daunting me, and learned that finish work is something to be proud of rather than shirk!  I even decided to take on a friend's UFO with my new-found appreciation of finishing skills. 

My denim clogs, July's UFO Resurrection, are now drying, though I am still thinking I may need to go back and felt them further to get the fit I want... the water and suds both cooled down in the lengthy period to get them felted to this point, and I opted to let them dry and try them on with a pair of winter socks to further check and adjust the fit, as well as be willing to go through the felting cycle again, if needed.

That vest is the lingering, nagging project, reminding me that sometimes a finished object might be a great idea, but the knitting thereof a real drag... choose your battles, wisely!

Coincidentally (or not, depending on your worldview), I listened to a great discussion about the value of making and writing goals and life lists for yourself on Talk of the Nation yesterday while driving to town for my first physical therapy appointment (it went well, but I was pretty sore afterwards).  I realized that I have done many of the things I wanted to do with my life, and that I have also been willing to change direction and abandon some of them in favor of new goals that better suit me as I am now.  I think projects can sometimes end up the same way, no longer suiting me, either as a knitter or an end-user.  Why do you let some of your projects, beloved at their beginnings, become UFOs?

Where Have You Been?

I heard this question over the weekend from a handful of caring friends, and I haven't posted in a long stretch (at least by my usual standards), but I am fine.  Very busy, but happy.... my back is healing up and last week gave me far less trouble.  I start a few weeks of physical therapy tomorrow, and spent time last week getting caught up on tasks I couldn't complete while laid up.  Preschool started on the other side of our building, and even though our infant-toddler Headstart program is year-round, it added to our load, with extra energy and visitors abounding.  I now have a Sunday-Monday weekend, but took Saturday off from the LYS in order to attend a once-a-year event with DH and his fraternal 'brothers' of ECV... we had a great Officers' Dinner with friends out of doors in a lovely Downieville yard Friday evening, then I attended a fun ladies' tea on Saturday morning.

The ladies gather at Donna's house and have a fantastic brunch and visit while the guys are busy doing 'guy secret stuff' and I have gotten to know several fine people over the years.

This year, we had our dear friend Wit and his new sweetheart Nancy staying with us over the weekend, so I was her tour guide to Downieville for the day... we had a fun time, shopped 'til we dropped, and ate lunch in cool comfort at The Grubstake... the temps have been hovering in the mid-90s here and being outside just isn't as much fun when you are sweltering.

Nancy and Wit pose in our kitchen... we have known Wit for close to 15 years, and were happy to see him in love and thriving.  Wit is a beekeeper and also goes throughout the San Francisco Bay area extracting wild bee hives that have settled in peoples' walls, sheds, etc.  He will be one of my primary sources of information for the posts that I am researching on bees, beekeeping, and Colony Collapse Disorder.  These posts will accompany the progress reports on my Bee Fields shawl, which I plan to knit as a prayer for the health of bees in the face of a changing environment..... our food supply depends heavily upon creatures we either ignore or take for granted, so I hope to be able to enlighten my readers about the truly amazing work they do and the plight they are facing at this moment in time.

I have postponed starting until I can get truly finished with about three other WIPs.... most of those participating in the KAL will be done before I even get started, it appears.

Yesterday, I got together with much of our immediate family for a birthday luncheon to celebrate Nikki's 24th birthday today.... we had a fun time dining on Mexican food followed up by Coldstone ice cream.

I didn't take many pictures, but in this one, DS Jesse is entertaining Mason (DD's boyfriend's three year old son) by arm wrestling while we wait for lunch to arrive.  He also drew several entertaining pictures for him, and had 'marker races' with each of them using a different color and drawing as fast as they could, then trying to figure out which color had covered the largest area... I love to see how creative and compassionate my (adult) children grew up to be... they are my best FOs!

I have spent much of today working on the abundance our garden has given us.  The tomatoes are cooking up into a sauce out n the solar oven, while the chard was blanched and frozen for enchiladas later in the year...

We have been picking peaches all week, trying to get them off the tree before they fall off and go to waste... we have eaten peach smoothies for breakfast, peaches and cottage cheese for lunch and peaches and ice cream for an evening snack, and most will go in the freezer to become jam or cobbler when it is cool enough to cook!  That is some of my fresh peppermint in the background, as well as a honey bear from Wit.

There has even been some knitting happening around here....

Here's a before photo as these clogs are having their day in the washing machine as I compose this post between stops and starts... they have agitated somewhere around an hour total so far.  I can't count the frequent turning off, fishing out of suds, checking against my garden clogs, then getting to the stage of shrunkenness to be able to press out some of the water and try them on as part of the felting time, but it is much longer than the time it has taken for any of the bags I have made to date.  I just hope they will fit!

Diamond Square has been my carry-along project, and has grown steadily... I now have the two diamonds that form the V-neck in front done and am working on the same stage on the backside... this is
a fun knit and I am really loving the colors... if I didn't have so many projects waiting in line, I would probably want to start another Just One More Row pattern as soon as I finished the top; it is easy to remember the routine while making each diamond, yet exciting to anticipate each next step in the construction process... I have tried to weave in my ends as I go, but will probably be complaining about that step when I am done with the knitting, however there is NO sewing (sweet!)

As you can see, there has been quite a bit going on to keep me away from the computer!  However, I have been working on another post (trying to find some before and after pictures has kept me from completion) that will appear later this week, and DH and I are taking a mini-vacation Wednesday and Thursday, so I will have nice mountain photos for you by the end of the week.  It's not that I don't love all of you... really!  I am so grateful that so many people even cared enough to write and ask "Are you all right? Where have you been?"  What a charmed life I have.

A Friend in Need

Rita has always been the best-mannered and best trained of all my burros... here, she is out hiking with a young friend back in the summer of 2004.  She is patient and kind, but also assertive and was always a real "go-to" kind of grrl. the one who could be counted on to lead the string, brave the water crossing or the scary-looking metal bridge.

In her youth, she competed in driving competitions and won many ribbons and trophies with her original owner, Mac.  He won Rita in a raffle at the Oregon Mr. Longears Show, on a ticket he bought as a whim.  She was 2 years old and already well-trained; Mac was so unprepared to win the raffle that he had to fly back up to Oregon to drive her home.  They had a special bond for 20 years; while she became an adult donkey, he slipped from middle age into his seventies and declining health. 

I met them because Mac had asked a friend to help him find places for Rita and Louise, the BLM burro he had gotten as a companion for Rita a decade before.  Mac had undergone both heart and back surgery and had not gotten significantly better.  He could no longer care for his two donkeys and his friend had conveyed his request for help in finding a good, permanent home for them to one of my Yahoo critter lists.  I responded because I knew in my heart I would one day be in the same place, unable to care for the animals I loved and needing someone to help me out.

We got packing gear and hiked with Rita, who turned out to be our lead donkey.  Even Rose, younger, bigger and pushier around the food, would yield to Rita's skill and good judgment on the trail.

This photo was taken in September 2005, on a trail hike with our fellow members of EARS, the Equus Assinus Recreationus Society.

Rita looks vibrant and healthy here, and happy to be out in the woods once again, working.

However, she has not adapted well to the foothill environment in which she now lives... it took over a year and a half to diagnose what seemed to be simple seasonal allergies but in reality was Chronic Allergic Dermatitis... which means on a practical basis that she is allergic to something present on our land year-round.  Her nose was constantly swollen as a result and it was difficult for her to hike, as donkeys breathe through their noses.  She also ate much more slowly than the rest of the herd and we began feeding her separately as much as possible and giving her special nutritious boosts, like molasses-coated oats and sunflower seeds, as well as an equine supplement.

This constant pressure on her immune system has worn her down... the veterinarian had her take prednisone for her allergies over the fall and winter, but told us when he came to float her teeth in late May that we had to gradually wean her from the medication, as it was also causing muscle wasting.  She has gotten thin over the past year, but hasn't lost her interest in life around her. 

He also advised us to search for a new home for her, one not located in the red clay belt of the Sierra Nevada foothills, since it is likely she is allergic to something in the soil, since her problem persists year-round.

I turned to the same critter lists, without any success.  We have watched her symptoms slowly return as the medication wears off.  I want to see her live the long and happy life she deserves, so am turning to my readers to ask for help.

If you know someone who lives within 200 miles of Nevada City (or further if they can come and pick her up themselves) and would be able and willing to provide a long-term home for a perfectly-mannered pasture donkey who would make a great pet, please ask them for me.  I would be able to trailer her to a new home that was within that distance.  What would make Rita and I the happiest would be to have her move to an environment that restores her health and lets her get out into the hills once again... Donkeys routinely live to be 35-40 years old and she is only 25, so has a lot of good years ahead, provided I can help her get her health back.

thanks for listening...

love,

me n' Rita

Nevada County Fair

I promised to share some photos from the Nevada County Fair with all of you, especially the animal photos, but somehow life has had a way of getting in the way this past week, and here it is Thursday night and I am finally getting around to it.  This week marks the official 'end of summer' for us at our infant/toddler center, as the preschoolers will begin their session on the other side of our building on Monday morning; in fact, the local high school resumed classes yesterday.  It seems way too soon, if you ask me.  I haven't gotten to swim enough, or camp, or do anything except work this year....

The County Fair really is sort of a 'last hurrah' of summer in our parts, so at least I got to enjoy some fair fun.  I visited with the fiber-bearing animals, and even considered getting an angora rabbit...

especially after admiring this fluffy white bunny.

Then, I had to work my way through all of the chicken exhibits, being quite fond of chickens.  The fact that foxes visit my place every night has kept me from returning to chicken-keeping, a practice we had established in our family for over a decade.  However, we lost a lot of hens to marauding dogs, and one or two to coyotes over the years.

Perhaps the chickens that Amy, Sharon and I found in the Textiles building would bring me less grief....

We did have a wonderful time perusing the quilts, handknits made from other-than-handspun, and various garden and produce exhibits, the heart of any county fair.

I was especially pleased to see that our local fair was promoting eating locally, and offering the new and improved 2007 version of the Eat Local Resource Guide, which started as a map to local farms last summer and has expanded into a much more comprehensive catalog of local foods available in Nevada County.  There is hope for a revitalized agricultural tradition in our area, with a growing interest in organic foods, CSAs and farmers' markets.

Another favorite of mine... this stately tom turkey.  He might not be fiber-bearing, but I do have to remind you that Ben Franklin thought the wild turkey so noble that it should be our national bird, and this one is a prime specimen.  I don't have one at home because I would eventually have to face the decision to eat him, and they are actually quite attentive pets.  Especially to women; somehow they think we should be part of the harem of hens they desire to have surrounding them, and with such fine feathers, why not be a bit vain?

There were a few more exotic fiber-bearing animals though....

In the baby and mama display, I found this young camel... someday to provide the fiber for a nice camelhair jacket?

Next, I was enchanted with this baby bison....

When I learned that I could get a bison calf of my own, for only $800, buying yarn from Buffalo Gold suddenly didn't seem so extravagant... it's all a matter of maintaining the proper perspective.  If I buy the yarn, I won't have to buy feed or try to train a bison to listen to me, either....

This year's fair theme was "Pirates of the Barnyard", which seems a little silly, really, and a bit too much like trying to tag along with a certain popular summer film... however, the fair committee wanted some theme decorations and offered goat plywood cutouts to local organizations who wanted to enter their display contest.  Our home-based program coordinator, Stormy, dragged one home to our center a few weeks back, and parents and children helped her decorate him in the pirate theme.

I had to search high and low at the fairgrounds to discover where 'our' goat had been put on display, and was delighted to discover that he had won First Place and a $100 prize for the home-based program.  The evening light makes it harder to tell all the fine details of his attire, but those boots are made of black beans glued to the board, with glitter tops, while his horns are decorated with glued-on macaroni and string.  He is wearing recycled fashion earrings, a scarf from fabric decorated with skulls, macaroni 'gold chains' around his neck strung by a few of my tiny students, and other authentic pirate details.

Pretty cool, huh?!

We hauled him down to our inservice training today, and he will be spending a few weeks on display at our central office.  His head will probably grow a few sizes with all that admiration.

While I wish that summer could go on several weeks longer, I am glad that the frenzy surrounding getting ready for and working at the fair is behind me now.

The exciting news for me was that my fingerless gloves won a Second Place for Novice Spinner Project, while my skein spun from Spinderella's thrums won a Second Place for Novice Skein... nowhere to go but up to First Place next year, right?  At least I have many months to ponder that ....

In the meantime, I discovered earlier this week that there is a KAL going on to celebrate the Bee Fields Shawl, and I promptly joined... I plan to dedicate my shawl as a healing prayer for the bee colonies suffering from sudden colony collapse, and provide you all with some background about beekeeping and the crises facing bees today... yes, I have even kept bees in the past.  I pretty much can honestly say that I have found few animals I didn't like:)

I will be getting to meet a knit blogger I have only known online for the past year or so this coming Sunday.  Erica and I discovered last summer that I had known her Aunt Lila and Uncle Mike for years (it really IS a very small region around here...).  The occasion is a very sad one, though, and I ask you to hold us both in your hearts whatever you are doing on Sunday... Erica's husband's Uncle Mike died early yesterday morning, while out on a rescue call for the Sierra City VFD, of which he was the Chief... he had a sudden heart attack and fell down the ravine where he had just helped to extricate a fisherman with a broken leg... his wife of 30 years, Lila is devastated.  We will both be attending the memorial service for him, with the full honors a volunteer fireman deserves, on Sunday afternoon.  I know I will appreciate being surrounded by the cloak of your loving spirits.

Lutea Goes to the Fair

Lutea accompanied me to both the Nevada County Fair and the LYS for my workshift over the weekend, receiving oohs and aahs, but not really a 'proper' photoshoot.

Here, she and I are getting Sharon's praise...

though I believe that Sharon was more in awe of Craftylilly's fantastic lariat-stitch holder necklace than my Lutea.  The necklace did also gather a lot of praise, and if you didn't check out Jennifer's Etsy shop the first time I mentioned it, I think you should do so now.

This photo, taken by Amy, does show that Lutea is a classy fit, with pretty lace detail to raise her above the rest of the shells and tank tops out there.  She looked just as lovely with slacks at work as she did with my jean capris at the fair, though she had a very fun time running around with Sharon, Amy and I to look at the exhibits.

Sharon also got a good view of Lutea...

well, there is a bit of glare from my glasses, but you can see the lace panels a bit better here...

Amy and Sharon both got lots of good photos of the exhibits, and on my way out in the evening, I got some photos of fiber-bearing animals to share with you later this week, but for now I leave you with this funny photo, taken by Amy, of bloggers captured in the wild.

Now, excuse me while I get back to my knitting!

A Little Bit of Knitting

I seem to have spent most of the last two weeks either working or sleeping (or trying to sleep), and can only say I am 'somewhat better'.  I am disappointed with how little I have been able to accomplish while recuperating, and have very little in the way of knitting content to share.

However, I have now made twelve diamonds of my Diamond Square top, and knitted together they look like a weird and interesting ring, but are actually the bottom several inches:

Once they were joined together, I could 'try it on' as well as compare the results with the width of other tops I wear, and determine if this was going to fit or be too big... I think there is a inch or so more ease than I want, so I am going to drop down a needle size and aim for a flared tunic shape.  I have to pull out clothes that fit in a way I like to keep myself from viewing my body as larger than it really is, and don't want to wait until I get all the way through to decide that I loved making this but hate wearing it.  Which brings me to the good news that Lutea will be getting her debut today as I plan to wear her to the fair to demonstrate spindle spinning.... she fits wonderfully and will serve as my reminder to make items that fit and flatter.

My other bit of knitting has been to work up one of the Manos blanket squares... the Spider Web.

This square was the class for one of the three ongoing Manos Club groups at the LYS where I work a  few Saturdays back, and it gave even the best knitter in the group a lot of woe.  I hadn't made it yet, so while trying to sort things out for a few of the students, promised I would make it up myself and see if I could find the trouble spots for them to be on the lookout... I didn't have any problem and thought it would make a nice laceweight stole pattern, but could see that most of the students were getting off-track on the 7th row, where the first 'crossover' takes place, a SSK, K2tog, PSSO convergence that shifts the visual record, just when the knitter is beginning to see what comes next in their knitting.  I have the last inch of pattern and the top border to finish after working on this last night, and feel better prepared to help out our students.

I am hoping for steady improvement so that I can sit and knit with no pain and have more to show after the weekend.  Have a lovely summer time!

A Fair Winner?

I will have to wait until later in the week to hear if I won any ribbons at the county fair for my two entries as a Novice Spinner, but you can get a peek at my mitts here and now:

This WIP photo shows the novice-ness of my spindlespun blue mohair yarn.. while workable and not over-energized, it is still a long ways from being a professional-quality single.  However, I think I will be happy with these gloves for my own use.

The pattern is in Alterknits, a fun and interesting book by Leigh Radford, which stretches the possibilities of knitting to include non-traditional materials, finishes and embellishments.  I get re-inspired every time I look through it, and that is helpful when I consider what to spin for... currently I am finishing up the Coopworth grey roving with the intention of using it connecting the squares and making the sides and handle of my Larger Than Life Crochet Bag.  That bag is really going along very slowly, but one thing that spinning all the yarn myself has done is to help me detach from 'hurrying' through.  It will be done when it is done, and I will probably have smidges and bits of handspuns leftover to put to tiny purposes later.  My long-range goal is to enter the finished bag in NEXT year's county fair.  Which brings me back to the gloves....

This photo was taken late at night last Thursday, as I finished up description cards for my project and my novice handspun skein (no, I don't have a photo, but I submitted a two-ply, wheelspun skein of Spinderella's thrums in mauve).  I had to ask eldest son to meet us at the crack of dawn and get my packets to drop by the fairgrounds later in the day, as DD and our co-workers and I had to head off to a day-long first aid refresher course and I would have missed the window to drop off items.

I am rather pleased with the way the dark crimson ribbon looks against the smoky blue yarn in real life.  I think I will have to buy a dress to match now:)  These reach to my elbows and would help me stay warm while wearing a strapless formal gown to a winter event, don't you think?

Steady As She Goes

Spending time with friends over the weekend was really good medicine for my soul.  For my aching back, a bit less helpful.  I felt much better through the weekend but had to stay close to home today so have a ways to go yet.

Here is a photo of our spinning group, with lots of chatting artists in the background.  It was really wonderful to spend the day with other creative types, discussing our various methods and interests.

Jan is on the far left, then Stephanie (with the beautiful Kromski), Sue F., and Sara.  My Ashford sits in the foreground.  Sara is spinning up some of Stephanie's lovely hand-dyed merino roving; she gobbled up most of it and got to work right away.

In the background, Suzanne and a member of one of the quilt guilds to the west of us...(I think it was Golden Valley Quilt Guild) are admiring a pile of quilts, but this view is my favorite...

The Back Report and a Contest Winner

Thanks to everyone who has given me encouragement as I suffered with my back this past week.  A visit to the doctor yesterday sent me home with meds and an explanation.

Good News: only muscle involved
Bad News: will take up to four weeks to heal
Good News: we have drugs to treat you
Bad News: pretty much the same thing, though the side effects are less than in the past and I can use over-the-counter remedies during the day, when my pain is less severe and I need to drive, work, etc.
Good News: I can walk as much as I want
Bad News: better avoid most other exercises, including any stretching, until I am pain-free so as not to re-inflame the area

The really good news is that I got a decent amount of sleep last night.  While listening to his explanation about how easy it is to hurt your back, I realized that the aggravating event was picking up windfall apples in the yard and throwing them into the donkeys' pen.  I must have lobbed 50 to them a week ago, just before our sale day..... too much, too close together and my back said "Ouch" very loudly.  Lucky for them, DH will be back home tomorrow and can take over that job.

Contest Winners

I did get a chance to use a random number generator to pick the winners of my contest... Kim will be receiving the lovely Harvey Farms yarn and Hogwarts House stitch markers, and Carrie K. won the 'accessory' pouch.  Thanks to everyone who offered intriguing design ideas... I will be finishing Miriam Felton's Seraphim design charts, but doing the bottom two border charts in my Kool Aid red, then adding fuzzy little tassels made from Mango Moon's Capelli, a carry-along yarn we have at the shop, in Aubergine. 

This idea came to me when I saw a picture of the Gypsy Lace Shawl, one of Fiber Trends' newest patterns.  I love Seraphim just the way she is, but also loved the idea of accentuating the folkloric aspect of wearing shawls by adding color to my black and embellishment to the bottom... I considered adding the little bells that Middle Eastern dancers have sewn to their costumes, but then that would limit some of the places I could wear it (like inside libraries or churches).  I have a tassel maker that will speed the process along, leftover from my dancing days, and have to wait until the shawl is finished to count how many I will need to make.

I spent the day spinning with Jan, Stephanie, Sue F., Sue V., and Sara of the Foothill Fibers Guild up in Forest City, as a part of the first-ever Sunflowers and Art Festival, put together by my long-time friend and neighbor, Cheryl... there were also quilts, handmade paper designs, paintings and pottery on display and cards, crafts, honey and some of Stephanie's hand-painted rovings for sale... I will have to post pictures when I go back down the hill as I get to spend the night at my house here, have a computer and telephone but not the camera cord.  Sara managed to swoop down and buy up most of the rovings, then proceed to spin most of what she got, as fast as I have ever seen anyone spin... for mittens, she says.  I did get a beautiful blue-white-lavender bundle, just over 5 ounces of merino roving that I hope to spin and make into a nice winter hat for moi.  I even managed to sit for long stretches and spin, but it is early to meds and bed for me today!