Water of the Gods?

Ahhh Montana

I'm thinking I would like to go here this weekend...Norris Hot Springs. Water of the Gods. That is what the sign says. A woman named Doris used to own this Hot Spring (Doris of Norris). She would sit in the little building doing her beadwork and when you came in to pay she would inevitably ask if you had a bathing suite. Ummmm yes. Okay you can go in. One day Doris told me a story about a pair of earrings she had for sale made out of Rattlesnake vertebra. Yes vertebra. Painted green with glitter. Her idea was to sell them for St. Patrick's Day so everyone would be able to get into the local bar which had a requirement of wearing something green to get in on St. Patrick's Day. Good idea Doris. Fortunately and unfortunately Doris doesn't own Norris Hot Spring anymore. Fortunate because now the pool gets cleaned regularly and there is no longer a big garden hose fountain in the middle of the pool. Unfortunate because there are no more enlightening conversations with Doris.

Learn your lesson.

I spend alot of the weekend playing with my new loom. I got some books out of the library, pulled out my garbage bag full of yarn, and sat down in front of the loom ready to weave my first masterpiece. I'm usually pretty good at teaching myself from books, however I have the unfortunate habit of not believing what the book says. Yes, not believing. This book I have on weaving tells me to use a strong warp thread. This is relative no? What is strong? It specifically says not to use regular knitting yarn for warp while you are using. What is "regular" knitting yarn anyway? So I chose not to heed this advice and measured out 2 yards of warp using my "regular" one ply knitting yarn. Got it all threaded through the reed and heddles, tightened and tied everything up. So far so good. Start weaving. So far so good for about 6 inches. Warp thread #1 breaks. Not a satisfying snap but a slow pulling apart of the yarn. Fix broken warp #1. Weave for 2 more inches. Warp thread #2 breaks. Rip entire project from loom. Okay book I believe you now.

Lucky find

I was at the library Tuesday night returning some DVDs when I spotted this loom for sale on the community board. Yippee. Now it's mine! I got it all set up last night and then stared at it for awhile thinking now what the heck am I supposed to do??? This should keep me busy for awhile.

Now what?

Kapow-Part 2

Yikes. Here is an actual picture of Ryan holding an explosive between his legs. Note the gloves.

So I made a big purchase last night. I won't say what it is but I'm picking it up tonight so I'll post a picture tomorrow. I'm so excited!

Macho Macho Man

Progress

Here is the project that has replaced the gray sweater. I changed my mind about the Bird's Nest Shawl and decided on this one instead. It's looking really pretty so far and I'm enjoying the challenge of the lace pattern. Though I think I'll have to start on another project that I can take with me on the big road trip in April. Possibly Ryan's sweater as long as I can get enough yarn spun up to really get started. If only my new wheel was here.....

Kimono Shawl

Avalanche control day

Kapow!

Okay, so this isn't actually a picture of Ryan throwing an explosive. But it sure could be. The mountains around Bozeman have finally been getting some good snow storms rolling through the last couple of days and this means Ryan gets up at 4:30am to head up to the mountain and do avalanche control. So scary sounding but he likes it so much he volunteered to work today so he could go throw explosives. Too much testosterone for me. Next think you know he'll drive up in a truck with a gun rack in the back. But in all reality, he is helping keep the ski area safe for skiers by triggering controlled avalanches. Yea Ski Patroller Ryan!

Epiphany

I love blankets. We have at least four of them on our bed at all times. Where am I going with this...basically I'm going to rip out the grey sweater and make a shawl for myself. This came to me last night as I was trying to fall asleep. I feel uninspired by the grey sweater. I have the feeling it will never be finished. Yes. I'm going to make my self a grown up blankie. I'm planning to use a pattern from a book I got from the library that is called the bird nest shawl. Yippee. I can't wait to get home and get to work on ripping the sweater apart!

Swallow???

The real overachiever

Lest you all feel bad for the "other" sister take a look at some of Kelley's recent mosaic work. These photos are from a show Kelley had which I had the privilege of attending last July in Santa Fe. She is also working on a larger mosaic installation in Tuscon. I'd say she's a step ahead of Emiley and me in our artistic pursuits. Wouldn't you? How much are you selling those birds for Kelley???

Retro Table

Mosaic Rug

The knitting prodigy strikes again

Just got this photo emailed to me by none other than the knitting prodigy herself. Seeing this photo reminds me of the "purses" Kelley and I used to make when we were Emiley's age. There is no comparison here. What I remember is little calico squares with horrible huge running stiches and of course we couldn't think of a way to attach a handle. Do you remember this Mom? Emiley...you are way ahead of us.

Little yellow purse

Knitting tips (for Emiley)

I was looking at my sweater progress last night and realized I really didn't like the look of my cast on row. It just doesn't have a nice edge to it. Now I'm not about to tear all that work out considering how long it has taken me to get 6 inches completed but I thought I'd put little tip out there and share a great website. There are several different ways to cast on. Some are better for certain situations than others. When I first started knitting I used the cast on method that is sometimes called knitting on. This produces a fairly loose edge which is sometimes undersireable. Anyway check out this website for a variety of cast on methods.

Big mistake

Well I've been having kind of a bad day at work so I thought I'd try and find out something about when my new wheel will arrive. Bad idea. I was told four weeks when I ordered it and I just called Schacht and they have an anticipated ship date of March 21st. This is six weeks from when I ordered. So now I am sad but what can I do?

Good trade

Navajo Loom

In preparation for the arrival of my new wheel I've sold my old one to Debi and part of the deal is that I get this loom we built last summer. Okay, Debi built the loom but I sure wanted to help. See Debi in the picture working on our first project which turned out horrible. We started to get the hang of it the second time around and now I'm excited to have it live at my house so I can play!

Population of Montana - 900,000 (the whole state)

Fisher Ferrier

Didn't I mention this blog would also be about life in Montana? One of the greatest things about living in Montana is that one of your friends might do this for a living. Ahh look at Tuli shoeing horses in the country. Tuli also makes beautiful gardening tools. My grandma has one of them. You can't get them unless you come here as he doesn't have a website....yet. If he did I would put it up here on my blog in a special links section called "good things" and maybe Martha would feature him in her next publication.

Links added

Thanks for Susan to helping me figure out how to put links on my sidebar!

I've added two sections...Fiber Links and Knitting Links. I plan to add to these in the future but this is a start. Knitty.com is a great place to find tons of patterns. I think they publish 4 times a year online and it's free!! Free patterns, how can you not like that? (Emiley, this link is especially for you!)

A word about my personal philosophy on buying wool, or anything for that matter. Buy as local as possible for whatever you are intending to purchase. Not only are you supporting local small businesses (hopefully) but you are saving precious energy on the shipping. The two farms I buy my wool from are local to Montana. The Thirteen Mile Farm is about thirteen miles from Bozeman and Sweet Grass Wool is about an hour away. With either of these you can go see the sheep being sheared and interact with the rancher which is super fun. Interacting with local businesses also creates community. Try it and see.

The day drags on

Sweater update

I'm so uttely bored at work today I thought I'd post the most recent picture of the grey sweater. Progress is slow and I'm afraid I might get bored with the whole thing rather soon. It is the weight I would like to have I just wish it wasn't soooo slow to knit up. Doesn't help that I designed this sweater to wrap around the front so it essentially has a double front. I take it everywhere with me and never manage to get more than 2 or 3 rows completed at a time.

Spinning experiments

Molly Yarn

I got tired of carding all the blue and orange fiber last night so I decided to experiment with the Molly fiber and produced this fun yarn. Its interesting to see how the yarn comes out, it looks different than how I imagined. I'm sure once I knit something with this it will look totally different than what I pictured also. I'm having trouble taking good pictures of my yarn. I'm not sure the colors are really representative here.

Useless fun

Minis

I love little things. These are mini skeins made from spinning leftovers. When I ply yarns there is almost always some leftover on one of the bobbins. I don't think these are good for much of anything....but they sure are cute!

Confession of a Type A knitter

I designed the sweater in progress in AutoCAD. No, graph paper wasn't accurate enough for my liking. I drew all the sweater pieces to scale in CAD so I could manipulate them and see how they would EXACTLY fit together. Maybe I should have titled this post confession of an Engineer turned Knitter. Either way, I might be heading down a slippery slope that involves Excel spreadsheets for the sweater instructions.

To my many fans

See right below this post where it says "0 comments"? Well if you want to say hey or tell me how you liked that post you can click on this and send me a message. Then I feel loved and know that someone is reading this. It will post a comment that others can read and also send me an email to let me know that someone commented on my blog.