Friday.... At Last

Sigh... it's been a long week.... a hard week.... a cold week.... I'm really glad it is Friday.

Daughter #1 has been doing Drama at school this semester as one of her electives. She has enjoyed it but was worried that she would have to take a large part in the play... she really enjoys working on plays but in the background. she is not a front and centre kind of gal. She did manage to get out of being in a big part and snagged a small part in the play while helping to work on the background, lighting, and sound system. But now.... tonight is the big night. The name of the play is called Pom Pom Zombies and is a story about cheerleader zombies... (yes I know that's odd) Evidently the jist of the story is that the head cheerleader is at a beach party and eats some food that has been infected with nuclear waste and dies and turns into a zombie. (I know the spindle princess would love this!) Anyway Daughter#1 is playing a nerd which she thinks is awesome. It's a musical.... and from what I've heard not one of the kids can sing for beans.... but then they are all zombies so maybe that doesn't matter. However, I am looking forward to seeing the play... it should be fun.

So I didn't go to knit night again last evening... instead I stayed home and spun... as a result I have almost caught up with where I thought I would be. (But still not where I should be.)  I should, as of today, be finished section 1 and 2 in level 5 and section 1 and 2 in level 3. However, I have finished section 1 and 2 in level 5 except for the hemp and wool sample and I haven't even touched the section 2 in level 3. That means I have 8 samples to do today to catch up. I doubt if I can get that many done but then I should never say never. Even if I could get that done by Sunday I would be satisfied. So I will do what I can and see how far I get. I also have a warp to get on the loom... hmmm this should be another busy busy day...

Not as cold this morning at -23 degrees. It is supposed to warm up a little tomorrow and then it is supposed to warm up a whole lot on Sunday... we'll see. Sunday I have to drive Teapot to the airport so I am hoping for clear highways. Tomorrow I have to go to the NPSW meeting in FSJ. I hope the roads are clear for that too. But it's the 20th and there are only 11 days left of the hardest month of the year... and last night when I took din din into Mom and Dad at 6 p.m. there was still a fair amount of daylight in the sky.... I liked that.... it reminded me that this deep freeze that we are in will eventually lose it's grip and spring will come.

For now I had better get down to it and start my day with a quick shower.... a little breakfast.... and some spinning... Hemp... here I come.

Sitting With My Dad On A January Day... Brrr

So yesterday was another day of missed spinning time... I will have to stay home tonight from Knit Night in order to have a day of catch up. Yesterday afternoon I headed in to Pops house to check on him and ended up staying for supper and staying till half past nine last night because Mom wanted to go to her Crib Club and didn't feel like leaving Dad alone.... thus no spinning.  I was so tired when I got home that I went to bed pretty much right away. I'm not really sure why I was so tired since it was only 10 p.m. but I just felt like I couldn't keep going and when I crawled into bed it was the most delicious feeling you could ever possibly imagine. I do have to say that that memory foam mattress which we bought two years ago was the best money spent... ever. This morning I had a really hard time convincing my bed to let go of me.

Anyway, today I am getting down to my homework again... I have to finish the section in the level 5 books that I didn't get finished last weekend. So I have two singles of soy silk to ply first then I have a soy silk/wool blend. Then two hemp samples. That's way more than I would like to be doing, in one day. I will try my darndest to get them all done today though.... that is if I don't run into problems. I still have to go in and check on Dad and make sure that if there any things that he needs that he has them. But maybe I won't have to go for so long.

Warmer temperatures are on the horizon so the forecast says.... that is good because the dear one is headed off for a week of training for the JCRs. I will miss Teapot while he is gone. I will miss him because with these temperatures, it is a worry when he is away that there will be frozen pipes or something equally disastrous, (and remember I'm taking care of two houses at the moment) and I have to haul all our water. It really is a headache. I will miss him for other reasons too not just the fact that he does a lot of the work around here but I will miss him because I like his company at night after all the chores are done and we are sitting having our after dinner tea. It is the cozy time of the day, and it is a pleasure to enjoy his company.  Still the Daughters and I will manage if all goes well.

Again this morning I am looking out on the arctic type temperatures. It is cold, cold, cold! -32 again this morning and the sun is just rising over the horizon. I do hope it warms up some today. Yesterday it reached a balmy -18 during the warmest part of the day.  I hope it does so again....

One last thing.... Happy Birthday to my friend in FSJ... RG.... hope you are having an awesome day!

So now soy silk and other spinning.....

Nursing My Own Self Today

Today I am not so rushed... Me dear old dad is feeling a whole lot better today. The doctor came to see him last night after the clinic closed for the evening and drained fluid from his knee. Then he gave him a shot of Corticosteroid. His knee is much improved today and he has even been able to get up and walk a little. We are worried about him losing his balance after being so unwell for the last few days because he is so shaky, but I am picking up a walker for him from the clinic so that he can get around ok until he regains his strength.  Nursing Pops for the last few days has meant really buggering up my schedule for the MSP. I am not complaining just worrying a little. I will have to work really hard to get back on track. It makes me anxious. Still I felt that I owed myself a little down time today and so I have been knitting this morning. I have finally gotten the opportunity to put my feet up and knit on those silk socks. I am using a pattern from Knitting Traditions from Interweave Press. It is a men's sock pattern but I have a feeling that they will be a very small men's size. Remember I am using silk hankies to make these and the silk is pulled out to a certain size before knitting. I am a little worried that the silk will not stand up to wear and tear so this is an experiment of sorts. I will probably double the thickness in the heal and ball of the foot just to help add strength. But silk is one of the strongest natural fibres and I am hoping that it will be ok and these socks will not wear out too quickly. We will see. If this first pair fits me then I may wear them myself and do a little test to see how long a pair of silk socks will last.

Here let me show you how knitting with silk hankies works....

First of all, I bought a stack of silk hankies.

Each silk hankie looks like this... so you can just imagine how many silk hankies are in the stack. Hundreds and hundreds of silk worms have worked really hard to produce these silk hankies because each silk hankie is one cocoon, but the cocoon has been boiled in a solution to take the stiffness out and then the worm is removed and then the cocoon is stretched out on a frame in a square shape... thus silk hankie because it resembles a silk hankie.

Then I poked a hole in the centre of the silk hankie with my finger and began to pull.

 

The silk hankie will stretch and begin to produce a long circular bundle of silk filaments.

When it is stretched enough I break the bundle of filaments and wind them on to a toilet paper roll.

Then you pick your pattern... in this case it was a men's merino sock pattern by Nancy Bush.... only mine are not merino...

I then cast on the stitches and began knitting. There's the wee filament with which I am working...

When you run out of one hankie you stretch out another and overlap them by about 6 inches works best. Then you just carry on knitting.... and the nice thing is there are no ends to darn in.... I like that!

Here's what they look like so far....

I think they are going to be lovely... don't you?!

As far as I'm concerned a pair of silk socks is a good way to nurse myself.... even if I'm only knitting them... and not wearing them yet!

I will have to put them down soon as I do have to go to Pop's house and look in on him and make sure all is going well. But I will look forward to coming home again this evening and getting back to this easy and relaxing project.... it's a really nice way to nurse yourself.... for tomorrow I will be back at the MSP.... if all goes well with Pops.

A Little Nursing Going On

So... I just got home from a morning of nursing. Dad has not been well for a few days... his congestive heart ailment has once again been rearing it's ugly head. He has a severe build up of fluid on his leg. It is very painful and we are hoping the fluid doesn't move up on his lungs and heart. My mom is not a nurse... completely useless in any situation where Dad might need help... so I am doing what I can. It's really hard to deal with. Then when I got home... the ADHD s#%$%#head had gotten into a bunch of stuff in my studio. There are cotton rovings chewed and ruined. There are two balls of camel and silk yarn chewed to bits. There are wool rovings from one end of the house to the other and right now I am cleaning up the mess. Actually right now I am taking a few minutes to sit me arse down because I haven't sat my arse down this morning. I'm pooped and really did not need this fiasco to come home to.

I am supposed to be cooking food for my parents for supper so that Mom doesn't have to cook... I'm not sure it would be fit to eat if she cooked. And Dad can't get up at all. I'm sort of thinking that he should be in the hospital or at least have some home care.  I wish they were living here at the farm.... (in their own house cause I'd be in a straight jacket if they were in mine).... that way they would be close enough that I could keep an eye on them.

It has suddenly turned into that awful winter weather that I was so longing for last week. It is sunny and beautiful.... but damn cold. -32 degrees this morning when I got up.Why oh why did I want winter weather..... actually I was quite alright with the temperatures... I just wanted some sun... Slap me up the side of my head the next time I complain about warm and wind.... please.

So I am off to the kitchen for an afternoon of cooking casseroles to keep mom out of the kitchen where's she dangerous... and keep both mom and dad fed. As for the ADHD s#$%#%head..... she's outside where she can stay for a wee while!

A Little Trouble

Pops is not well. He may have to go to the hospital... Since Saturday he has not been well at all. But we are hoping that things will be better... I am sorry that I haven't had time to write... will try later today to get a few words down.

Time's Awasting

Here I am on Sunday morning. What did I do on Saturday. Nothing! N-o-t-h-i-n-g...nothing. I cleaned up my house when I should have been spinning. And I cleaned up my studio which was beginning to look like a wool bomb had hit again. In digging through this and that to find fibres related to level 3 and 5 over the last few weeks I have noticed that baggies of fibre have been landing in my room in alarming amounts. So yesterday in a fit of frustration I figured I had better make a path through the mess so that I could get to the loom which I will need this week when I start the Shadow Weave challenge for the Fibre Academy (more on that in a minute). In making a path through the reams of fibre on the floor, I decided it was time to clean up, and so began the day in which the whole house got shipped out and then re-neatened and believe me, the studio is still in a ree raw. We are building shelves under the steps and we have once again moved around the dining room and we are adding shelves above the TV for DVD storage. We took the coffee table to the shed for the next few months while I work on my levels since I find it was in the way for my spinning wheel. So in the end I can say that I never got one thing done on my homework, and I still have a long way to go before I'm ready to spin today.

Now... to go back to that bit about the Fibre Academy. So here I sit with 2/8 cotton on hand, given to me by the one and only RG who has encouraged me to try my hand at Shadow Weave on my new loom. The Fibre Academy (which is part of our guild) in doing a Shadow Weave study for the next few months. There are eight of us and we all got together to pick a colour that we all agreed on, which happened to be blue. So all of us will receive blue. Then we all had to pick a colour of our own choice to go with the blue. Shadow weave is a weave structure that involves alternating rows of two colours using patterns that bloom as you weave these two colours together. If you are really interested in checking out shadow weave then you can look at the latest installment of Hand Woven magazine... it is full of information on Shadow Weave. We have chosen our colours and we have ordered the cotton and while we wait for our cotton to arrive we are weaving in any two colours that we have on hand, a test piece that has to be so big by so big and which will aid us in making sure that we are doing things right... because at the end of this when we thread our looms for real we will be weaving blocks that will have to match in size. Each and every one of us has to weave eight blocks and then we will share our blocks with the other eight students so that we can build a blanket of some sort. I'm looking forward to this challenge... but I have to have my sample block done by Saturday! Argh!!!!So I have to have my wee studio cleaned if I am going to get this warp on the loom in the next day or two and then weave off my block. Already I'm stressing.... The whole thing has to be done by June... that's two blocks a month.... I can do that right..?

Now today I think I need a picture or two... I haven't posted any for a while... so let's see what I've got...

Shadow weave colours.... the blue at the top is the base colour that we will all start with and then the other colours are our choices to go with the blue. This will be a really cool project.

My disaster of a studio as I try to clean up the mess.

Studio spillage onto the dining room table.

This week's unwashed samples... from left to right you can see them below closer up.

..

50/50 bamboo/wool

Corn fibre....

I just realized that this sample is a complete waste because I buggered up and made it 70/30 wool/corn silk when it should have been 7030 corn silk/wool... Blast! And it was my favorite. : (

Let's see what else do I have for you....

Here we have a bunch of discarded samples that are not good enough to make it into my books.... and the previous one will be joining these. Argh!

....so this is the library under the steps in the works... shelf brackets are up and the shelves are measured and ready to go in too.

Bamboo ready to be blended with cotton for my socks for the level 5 homework.....

These are the stockings/socks that I want to knit for the level 5 homework... I'm not sure if I will make them this long.... teapot thinks they're sexy but I'm not sure anything will make my legs sexy... maybe I'll knit them for him to wear... har dee har har!

Failing the above.... these are my back up plan.

So that's it for me today.... I'm outta here... I got some cleaning to do before I redo the flippin' cornsilk and wool sample and ply the soy silk singles I have on my wheel. Then maybe just maybe if I'm really good I might get that warp on the loom for the Shadow Weave sample.

Happy mid-January to you... it won't be long now till the worst of the winter is over..... : ) See I'm not depressed!

Oh Dear... What's That!?

So yesterday as things turned out I did not stay at home. I, on the spur of the moment, got into my truck as the Dear Ones were leaving for school and took my spinning wheel and headed into FSJ for a day of spinning with some friends. There wasn't a whole lot of spinning going on but we did have fun. It was a lovely day full of sunshine and happy talk and laughter. It was the epitome of good friends getting together for a mid-winter pick me up. RG and SK and SC and moi chatted and gabbed and we even did a little spinning (a very little though). It was great. RG showed us all the things that she was working on or had finished... and made us all completely jealous and SK showed me all the collectables that she has collected recently (like the most beautiful bobbins for bobbin lace and 18th century pin cushions) gorgeous and wee glass spinning wheels... awesome. The SC came by for a quick lesson on the Inkle loom and soon the day turned into a show and tell fest. Along about 2:45 I figured it was time to get going and leave for home.... besides I had a quick stop at the grocery store to make before heading out over the road. That took a little longer than I had planned but I was on the road and headed for home by 4 p.m. By this time the sun had gone behind the clouds and the sky was starting to close in. I had Narmin with me in the truck and I knew he would need to stop somewhere for a quick pee break. I figured this would be best done once I got back into the valley and there wasn't so much traffic on the road. Well this turned out to be a stupid thought since it was Friday (the 13th) and every Tom, Dick, and Harry was headed in to town from the oilfields for a night of heavy drinking no doubt. (There have been a number of accidents around here of late with drinking and driving and oilfield workers : \)It was only after I got back into the valley that I was able to find a place to pull out and give Narmin a little walk about. He did his pee in short order and we were back on the road in no time flat. But it was then that I realized that I now needed to pee too. Only we had just past the only bathrooms between FSJ and HH. Oh oh! Well I carried on for a little while in the hopes that I would make it home before my back teeth began to float. But I knew before too long that I was defeated. Damn! I would have to pull off somewhere to relieve myself. It was then that I thought of a fairly private spot. I could pull in there and it would be far enough off the road that I would be able to do what I needed and nobody from the road would see me. I started to scheme.... I would pull in with the driver's side away from the road... I would open the door step out and do what I needed really quick between the two doors of the truck. That would work.

By the time I stopped I was almost desperate. Very quickly I did what needed to be done, and pulled up my pants in short order. I jumped back in to the truck, and that's when I noticed something different about the roadside pullout that I had never seen there before. There was a new sign..... a sign that said something about the BC Hydro group doing monitoring for moose, elk, and deer for studies related to the new Site C damn. And that's when I notice the strange looking little divices on the front of the sign attached to the mesh wire... Oh Dear! I thought.... what's that!???

I drove away in a rush knowing full well that the next time someone checks the monitoring device in front of which I had just pee'd, they will probably need to go to hospital from the shock of it all!

And me... well I laughed all the rest of the way home!!!