A Faire, a hat, some snoods and a couple of socks

We had Faire in the Grove the first weekend in May. It was also unusually warm that weekend! I was there demoing spinning on my Ashford Traditional:

I tried spinning up some Icelandic lamb's wool on Saturday, but it really needs to go through a drum carder. Then I tried spinning up some cormo but it too needs to go through some combing. I didn't bring something like that with me. By afternoon it would be too warm to spin, so it would end up as a socializing time.

Brandon and Dawn-Marie ended up in the Oregonian:

In knitting, I knit up a hat for Micah for his birthday, he really really liked it. Brandon modeled for me before I gave it to him:

Its the Marsan Watch Cap. Knit three inches in black then switched over to the green.

I had also been trying my hand out in making some snoods to wear to events. I used some red yarn that I got from Jamie and some gold that Judy gave me. The gold is a cone, so I have a LOT!

This is a knitted square, then I did a crochet chain. I may take the chain out and try the elastic thread. Maybe a comb to attach?

Then I went back to Ravelry and took a look at the various snoods. A lot of nice ones out there in crochet.

Simply called a Crochet Snood, I numbered it #1. It also needed a crochet chain to cinch it in. I tied it in a bow at the top of my head for the photos and because I was putting on by myself at the time. I like this.

Renaissance Rose Cap - without the roses. Seems to also dimple at the top.

Renaissance cap in gold - still dimpling at the top and then sagging at the back.

The Renaissance caps may get donated as largess, I'll have to show them to a few more people to see what they think.  I had a bit more red that I started to make a second cap with, but realized I was going to run out, so made it smaller. I gave it to Ana to give to Anya. Will have to see if it fits her or not.

I owed my sister Jennifer a pair of 'socks' for Christmas, but she had mentioned that the wool pair I had given her were noticeably warmer and useful at football games. I thought she might like some house socks:

Lacy Ribs and Cables Lace Socks - Ravelry link only, sorry.

I also needed to make a pair of house socks for my nephew Garrett, so I went with the one that I was planning for Brandon:

Cozy House Socks from One Skein Wonders, also a Ravelry link

I have more knitting to get done for people, but I also have a week before Grand Thing and our first camping event of the season. I'm going to try to get a few things sewn for it. Not sure if I can pull off a kirtle or not, but I'll give it a whirl. Caterina was over last weekend with her dresses and while we have different bust sizes, her dress works for me with some small modifications. Her waist is higher than mine and I need a little bit more under boob support. I have that pattern, one for a slip and one for a period pocket. So about eight hours of work and a lot accomplished!

Spinning my way through May

I have a couple of hats that are done, but haven't photographed them. One of them still needs the ends woven in and a nice soak and block. Not sure why I haven't gotten that done. Then again, I haven't had the knitting bug much, which is really bad because I have a project I need to get done for Knitted Wit! Delaying that a bit has been good because there was errata posted and then last week at knit night, Cindy started one and used Judy Becker's suggested of JMCO with the mod she has for it. So mental knitting, if not physical has been going on so it should work up quickly when I do get it started. I finally finished up the Quince Blossom fiber that I had gotten from Stitchjones two years ago. She has it labeled as a merino/tencel. It was kind of sticky, so unlike tencel, that I wonder if it might have been silk? My 5.6 ounces spun out to a two-ply lace weight with 1055.2 yards:

Almost three years ago I picked up some Finn from Crown Mountain Farms at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. It was a lovely white that I knew I would ask someone to dye for me. Trish of Rogue Adventures had been dyeing some colors that I really liked, so I asked her to dye them. One four ounce bundle came out muted and the other the more vibrant colors I had hoped for. I started out with the muted four ounces and spun it up in three days. So much easier than the merino/tencel!

I just need to spin up the second four ounces, I'm really looking forward to spinning it up -

I'm going back and forth on whether to chain ply them as either one or two skeins, or do them as a two ply and have the barber pole. I'm not a huge fan of the barber pole, so most likely will go with the first. At Faire in the Grove I took my Ashford Traditional and spun for half the day on Sunday. I took along some Romney-Perendale that I've had in my stash also for three years. Starting to see a theme here - I'm stash busting! ;-) It's a natural brownish colored fiber that I'm just letting spin as it wants. The traddy has a lower ratio than the Lendrum so I have to make sure I get enough twist that it will hold together, and I'm not really trying for a thin yarn. I have a nice start on the bobbin, but I have eight ounces of this to spin up. We have another event this upcoming weekend, June Faire, that I plan to take the traddy along and spin at. So might get it all spun up.

Demon spawn and Fibers

Leeloo went in for a follow-up visit to check on her laceration. It was healing fine, but the scab was resistant to being removed. Dr. Yung had to take her back and shave it off. Tiny little mark, lots of scab material. We also did a weight check and she's up to 2.9 pounds and on track for her growth. From the vet's we headed to Forest Grove for the Faire in the Grove.

We saw Rachel, Owen and Hazel as we were coming in and they met up with us at the canopy Brandon had set up. Leeloo had fun playing with Hazel. Hazel quickly learned how to use Leeloo's harness to bring her back into reach.

Rachel took a photo of Brandon and Hugh playing (recorder and ocarina):

After the babies had fun playing with each other we headed out in separate directions, they'd already seen most of the booths. Once Leeloo's size is set I will probably have to make her a sweater or something for the fall, I had to keep her bundled up to keep her warm (sun in my eyes, so a frown type look):

I was able to find a nice chemise for a dress that Caterina gave me. I still need to make one of course, along with a skirt, but I have more clothes to wear Memorial Day Weekend this way. Caterina took this pic of the three of us: 

Friday afternoon I had taken Leeloo over to Sharon's house to meet Toki. She was a little worried by Jimmy barking outside, she was slow to warm up to Toki but was very calm with him. He loved crawling over me and getting scritches, I know all the 'right' ones. ;-) There was a little bit of play, but I think more would happen if we had them over for a visit. This week though is a week of rain so not a lot of playing outside with visitors. Darn it. I picked up a pretty pale pink merino/tencel roving that Sharon had on sale, and I couldn't resist getting eight ounces of it. Yes, even though its pink.

On Ravelry I had Cynthia contact me about my half skein of Malabrigo Lace in Bobby Blue. She's making a Citron and needed it to finish. She offered up a skein of her Azul for it and since I didn't have anything definite planned for it, I said sure. Funny thing is, she lives in Portland Maine, and I bought the skein from Knit-Purl, in Portland Oregon. I didn't ask which Azul she had but hoped for the Profundo, and that's what she sent:

So wondering about the 'demonspawn' part? ;-) Leeloo has been here for three weeks and definitely comfortable with the household now. She can be very sweet and snuggly but she'll have bursts, usually late in the day where she'll become a little evil land shark attacking hands and trying to tear you to pieces - thus the demon spawn. She also becomes sensitive to being touched and tries to attack you for doing it. I think the second part is from being a 'toy' sized dog. 

I still carry her out to go potty, but she is starting to get to play down on the floor and has been going to the sliding glass door to let me know she needs to go out. I just need to hook up a bell for her to ring to let me know as a back up. I'm trying to show her how to get around the house by following me, but sometimes her puppy brain gets distracted and she doesn't always make it.

Norbert still follows us to the door if not outside for her potty trips. If I put her in her crate, she still shrieks and he whines about it. (We're working on making the crate a good thing.) He is doing a concerted effort to ignore Leeloo for the most part. He'll let her zip around and bump into his backend and ignore it. He just looks at her if he's laying down and she's trying to get him to play and she backs off. He just has growled at her if he has a toy that he's guarding or like tonight has a rawhide stick that he's taken back from her. He's even gone and laid down near her while she's napping, but I'm still keeping a close eye on their interactions. Leeloo has a tendency to be a little suicidal in trying to get him to play with her. 

Having this tiny of a puppy is also causing better housecleaning. She finds any tiny little bit on the floor and of course its in her mouth. I've gone through the toy bucket and cleaned out old toys and bones and washed everything else. More cleaning and organizing of various of the house will be happening - hey - 'spring cleaning' at its finest. I always used to tell the puppy group that they make us better housekeepers and I'm reliving that fact. 

Busy Weekend!

There was a sample sale at work on Friday and Brandon scored and found a wooden folding rocking chair for only $10. Other than the arms being just a smidge low for me, it fits great! I can sit in it and watch the fish in the pond.


Saturday was a full day! We got over to the Tualatin Valley Gardener's Plant Sale shortly after 10am and the only thing we could find to haul plants around in was a large wheelbarrow. We immediately put in the pretty little Japanese Maple for the pond in it and then proceeded around the different areas. We had tomato plants (Roma and a yellow variety), three kinds of veggie starts (green, yellow zucchini and a yellow round one I haven't seen before) and some herbs (dill and thyme), with four kinds of hot peppers (two kinds of jalapeno, Anaheim and some other I can't find the label for), and last but not least a handful of Walla Walla onions. While we were there we ran into Trtlgrl and her DH also doing some plant shopping.

It wasn't all about the veggies though. I also found some pretty violas, a couple of Bleeding Heart plants (always loved them and reminded of them after seeing Michele's) and a pretty Columbine to add to the ones we have. I found a couple of late bearing blueberry plants. Got home and realized I had one of the ones that I bought, it just didn't do well last year - oh well! I now should be able to have blueberries through the summer to nibble on. Brandon was also very happy to find a Ginko tree start, he's always wanted one of them, and now has one. Just to keep all plants together, on the way home we stopped and found a nice sized Apricot tree that is hardy for the pacific northwest. Here's the photo collage of everything plant:


We brought the plants home and then headed out to Faire in the Grove at the Grand Lodge. It was much larger than the previous years that we've attended. Since they had the space to setup they used it all. The other change was having it over three days. Not sure if that helped them since it was also earlier in the year from previous and of course there was rain. The vendors had to camp on site to protect their wares. Lots of lovely wares to be found too! I came home with a coffee mug in a soft purple with a delicate lady dragon etched into the side with the usual saying of 'Here there be dragons!'. She also had some pretty Celtic knot buttons and I found three of the same color/design. They had a leather vendor that was selling belts fit to your size and a very good price. Since Brandon had been saying he needed a new one some time was spent there letting him get one customized. He also found out that the then current one had a very nice buckle on it, so instead of it just being tossed its being kept for possible future belt use on new leather.

The place next door also had some shirts and the one we found for Brandon had an oddity so they knocked $5 off. He's happy now that he has a shirt and I'm happy I don't have to sew the pleats (not a lot but enough). Brandon insisted I get some hand jewelry in the form of a bracelet/ring. It's in stainless steel and crystal beads. We thought the giant of a man selling the Celtic knot hair and shawl pins had some nice handmade stuff so I came home with two types of hair pieces - small and large. We were about three-quarters of the way through when we ran into Trtgrl and DH again about the time that Brandon's co-worker/D&D player Brent showed up. We all decided that food would be a good idea so headed in to the Grand Lodge for some lunch.

Once our blood sugars had been restored to proper levels we headed back out to finish our wanderings. While inside the rain had decided to be a little more persistent. Rachel liked my hair pieces and so we directed her off towards where they could be found. I wanted to head towards the basketman. I let Brandon and Brent do some of their own wandering while I headed back in for some cash to buy my basket - awesome deal for $20! It was interesting to see that the vendor also did woodworking and was selling the same tool that I had just read about in the Piecework magazine for doing a 'square knot braid' or Lucet braid.

I walked out and ran into Tiggywinkleknits and Toolman walking around and while chatting with them had Trtlgrl and DH come back from getting the hair pieces - she'd found a cool shawl pin that he had. Brandon and Brent caught back up with me and we all continued around the various booths. Since we were doing another loop and the candlemaker was no longer busy I was able to pick up some wonderful smelling beeswax candles.

Not too long after we all headed home. Except that we didn't go directly home. First there was the stop at Home Depot to pick up a new electric lawn mower. It was even marked down a bit off of the price shown so even better! We drove through the parking lots to the nursery next door and found that they had a nice sized Apricot tree that we had to figure out how to get into the Outback with the lawn mower box. It ended up in the back seat. Then finally home again! Our Faire stuff minus Brandon's shirt (its a pretty forest green) and belt:


I worked a few more rows of the Arrows sock sample for the shop and headed to bed early. Sunday was a slow start going until we got outside and I got started on some long needed weeding in the backyard along with planting everything from Saturday. Brandon had to shuffle a few plants around in different areas but we had everything in the ground before it really started to rain. After cleaning up and dinner we spent the rest of the evening watching shows and I finished up the Arrows sock.

Things done, things started, things coming up

I finished sock one of the Wisteria Shur'tugal and after a few days of other projects in the middle, started sock two today.


Wednesday evening at Haggen's I finished up the Opal Huacayas Baby Alpaca batts. It looks light and dark on the bobbin. It's about 4.8 ounces and a single. Since I didn't have much of it, I'm going to ply it on itself and see how much I come out with.


Monday during a lull at work I started a 'Bows' Little Feet sock sample for Stitchjones. The samples will be used at the shop, so 'work' knitting. I found out Wednesday what a confusing direction in the pattern meant, so may end up taking out the toe and making the foot longer (okay, I will but this is what it looks like now):
I already have its 'mate' "Arrows" on the needles or I'd make the correction first.

Wednesday at Westside spinning I picked up from Gail the Natural Cashmere/Silk that Susan from Abstract Fiber paid me for the Dundee Babydoll. It's two, two ounce bundles of delicious roving:


I'm trying to be good and instead of diving into some of the lovely new stuff, using older things. So I'm going to work on the cormo/silk next:


This afternoon I finished Eileen's Iroha Foliage hat. It combines Noro Cash Iroha and Frog Tree Alpaca. I knew that I wouldn't have enough of the Iroha and bought the Frog Tree because it matched colorwise. I think it came out okay, but did have to transition in the middle of the last pattern repeat. I may go back and rip out that pattern repeat and just have it be the ribbing in the alpaca:



For those who may have been wondering about the 'missing' new fish. It stayed missing for a whole day. The next day it was there in the pond. Where it went I have no idea. This morning when I went out to look it was again gone. I even got some floating fish food to try to lure them all out. After watching for fifteen minutes and all the other fish eating most of the food, it finally came out from under an overhang area. Tonight when I went out for the regular feeding, they were all present.

Working in the shop Friday, Saturday plant sale around 10am(veggies, japanese maple, blueberry, creeping thyme, who knows - great buys!) then lunch at the McMennamin's Grand Lodge and the Faire in the Grove. William is planning on bringing school friends. Trtlgrl mentioned that she and her awesome husband were going, as well as A Little Weirdo and her partner. I'm bringing a camera so I can try to record who shows up. ;-)

Faire in the Grove

Brandon's D&D group (Will, Luke, Nick & Jesse) all stayed the night Friday. Okay, Will doesn't count for 'staying the night' cause he lives here. They stopped gaming just before midnight and the four of the 'younger' group headed over to Beaverton to do some Cosmic Bowling. They apparently got back around 2:30am and then stayed up until 4:30am playing Munchkin. They all obviously forgot that Brandon had told him we were getting up and out of the house before 10am.

So by 8am the showers were going with people being woke up along the way for their turn. By 9:45am we were headed off to iHop for breakfast. I didn't want to cook for the group and also do the dishes. Much easier to do it elsewhere. From there with Will driving to iHop and on to Pacific University in Forest Grove to go see this year's Faire in the Grove.

We arrived and quickly ended up splitting into two groups. Brandon and I wandering in one direction the rest in another. I found a nice beaded bell anklet that fit, after finding that the amethyst one needed another half an inch to fit. We looked through all of the tents at the wares offered. The person selling the mustard last year appeared to be absent this year. I went back to the tent with the woven baskets. I think they were made by them, rather than those that can be found much more expensively at the Saturday Market. Brandon helped pick out one that now contains many skeins of yarn. I could use another basket or two still.

I pointed out a dragon ring to Brandon that I had spotted earlier through our lap around the tents and he found one that fit his pinky finger. I thought that if I was pointing it out to him, I must like it too, and found one that fit me. Brandon liked the idea of matching rings, so we both walked out with new rings.

I'm still on the hook to get the patterns and with Brandon's help, pick out the fabric, and he did say he would help cut out, for some 'authentic' faire type garb. I'm not really interested in sewing like that though. Maybe later this summer?

We sat and watched the sword fighting. Nick spotted an old co-worker that he'd been trying to find a contact for, so was very happy. After three hours of walking and watching and some purchasing, we headed back home. You can view the photos that Brandon took here.

Everyone else to continue gaming, me I ended up napping. A combination of restless sleep the night before and walking/sun was starting to cause a migraine. So I thought a nap would help. It did some but I ended up walking up on Sunday with the same migraine.

I did take out my sock and worked on it. I've done the heel flap, picked up stitches for the gusset and currently working it. I think I may be able to get one pair of these socks from one skein of yarn.

I made a pot of chili and baked some cornbread for dinner last night. Plenty leftover for lunches and the like. I do enjoy chili though it often doesn't enjoy me later. I think its the cause of my restless sleep last night with a stomach that wasn't quite settled. No acid reflux so it was a good night. Still woke up this morning with a migraine and no job calls that weren't in an elementary school.

Before heading to bed last night though I pulled off the camera, took some more pictures, and then processed all the photos that had been waiting to be posted. I think through the previous posts, you've had opportunity to click to those photos.

There! That catches me up on things going on around here. I'm going to try to check out Kathy's Knit Korner to see if she has some of the Paton's Kroy sock yarn in stock and take advantage of her 50% off moving sale. There may or not be a trip tonight to the Men's Warehouse to get Will's tux rented for the Spring Prom. Apparently they might try to have another practice for the Talent Show, since it is on the 1st. They are going to try to do their own version of the Ohio State Wrestling Team's Talent Show act. Will is the guy in the yellow polo. Luke will be one of the other 'dance' team members. I'll be a good mom and record them at the Talent Show for future sharing. ;^)