My Stash

If I'm going to knit from my stash in 2007, I need to show my stash at the beginning of the year and than again at the end - we'll see if it deminishes.

To start with, in my bedroom, along the hallway, across from the bathroom and the walk-in closet, are these IKEA shelves. There are four sections, each about 32" wide, 11" deep and 6' tall. They contain mostly yarn, including in the plastic 'beach-totes' on top of the shelves. However, they also house my stashes of buttons and beads.

Also along that wall, but in the other corner, are some matching shelves that are 19" deep. On top of the shelves are my granddaughter's wedding dress, and most of my fabric stash (it's small, because I hate to sew), and under the area I photographed are my 'out of season' clothes. You can tell that I've bought storage containers at different times over the years as my stash has grown.

Moving on to the weaving room (the loom is out on loan) this small bookcase contains cones of yarn and thread. Many of the large cones are from a carpet mill. A (fairly) local carpet store got them and was selling them really cheaply, until they started putting them on eBay and discovered what people were willing to pay for them. The bags on the floor are different projects, either in progress or planned. All of the pictures in this room have sheep in them, including one of my father and a sheep when he was shepherd at West Central MN School of Agriculture in Morris MN in about 1930. What was then known as Morris Ag is now a branch of the University of MN (or 'the U' as all Minnesotans seem to call it).

Opposite the small bookcase stand two more sections of the 11" deep IKEA shalves with my library of fiber books and magazines, plus more cones of yarn and part of my sheep collection. The red pillar on the right and the blue one on the left are stacks of jersey fabric 'wheels' to be used for weaving rugs. They came from a pajama factory (cuffs, neckbands) and a friend rescued a truckload from being taken to the dump. She then gave some to me and other weavers she knew. There are more towers of it in the opposite corner of the room.

Now to the dining room. I've just recently been able to move some of what was here onto the bedroom, so all that is left is two shelves in this small bookcase. This is all worsted weight acrylic - mostly what a friend calls 'dead lady yarn' given to me when someone has died or gone into a nursing home.

The blue basket with the red flower is one I made in a class a few months ago. It was meant to have a nice natural finish on it, but I decided to stick it in a dyepot. Then I knit two flowers and several leaves to decorate the sides. I filled it with handspun and a pair of wooden needles with a small project on them and entered it in the Arts in the Community exhibit at the Mayfield Art Guild last August. Anyone can enter whatever they want in that show.

And finally, in the living room, my basket of sock yarn on the hearth.

There's enough there for at least a dozen pairs of socks. I do plan to start a pair for my granddaughter soon, to match the ones I made for her daughter recently.

So you can see that I'll probably not run out of yarn in 2007, even if I do a bunch of machine knitting. From a recent thread on the LK-150 Yahoo list, I realize that the problem with my LK-100 is probably the sponge bar. While I'm ordering that I will get one for the LK-150 (they may take the same one) as well. Then I should be ready to knit up a lot of the worsted weight yarn quickly.

Of course the first thing I have to do is finish the stuffed toy for the baby shower on January 9. And if I crochet one motif a day on Yvette's bedspread, perhaps I can give it to her for her third anniversary in Sept/Oct.

Christmas two

I had trouble this morning getting some pictures from my camera. Therefore, I'm making two postings on one day.

When I looked in the cupboard this morning for a Christmas mug to make my coffee into, the only ones I saw were too tall to fit my one-cup coffee maker. But way in the back, I found this one that I had forgotten about. Not Christmas, but I think I'll use it for a few days. It reads: Official Member Society for Stress Management Using Natural Fibers. It's good for spinners, knitters, dyers, crocheters, felters - who else?

It's been raining all day. This is what it looks like off my back porch, which was really meant to be a carport. There is a drainage system there, but sometimes it doesn't work as fast as the rain falls.

When I realized this morning that it was raining, I wondered how many parents in the area were telling their children that it had snowed during the night for Santa's sleigh, but then the rain had washed it all away.

In the last few days, Midnight has decided that the top of the monitor is a good place to rest. She has slid off the back several times, but keeps coming back. It's not annoying until she lets her tail hang down in front of the screen.

Yes, that is a foot on top of the monitor. Actually, there are two of them, but Midnight's tail is wrapped around one. They're stress relief/hand exercise 'balls' that were in goody bags at health fairs. We taped them down so they wouldn't walk away (at least that's what I told Lexi). There was a brain, as well, but it wasn't taped down so Midnight knocked it off.

And finally, some children's art - the 'card' Lexi made for her gift to me. A few weeks ago, when she asked how to spell my name, I spelled my given name for her - it's a lot shorter than Grandmother. She still calls me Grandmother when she's talking, but she writes Adele.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Yesterday was the Christmas pageant at Grace Church, Paducah. I took these pictures during the dress rehearsal Saturday morning. The first one is my great-granddaughter - isn't she a beautiful angel? With apologies to my Jewish friends - she has Ashkenazi hair. Her mother did brush it about an hour before I took the picture, but you'd never know it.

Next is the group of angels on their second or third try of running out and saying their line. The first time, some of the taller ones got in front of the short ones. The lady at the bottom left is the director, April Cochran. She is the Education Director at the Market House Theater in Paducah (http://www.mhtplay,com). I was really well-impressed with the way she worked with/talked to the children. She usually does the 'Good News Time' with the children in the children's library during the sermons on Sunday mornings, and I know Lexi loves to go to that.


And this is the cast listening to April's instructions prior to the rehearsal. Of course, she was also asking for adult volunteers to corral the kids during the performance and get them out of the 'holding area' at the right time. I figured some of the younger ones would be better at that, but I did help some with getting costumes on.

The donkey had a really good costume, complete with large head. I think the boy wearing it got bored standing beside the manger so long (he's only 5 years old). He kept putting his head into the manger, which drew some laughs. Oh well, every performance needs some comic relief, doesn't it?

I needed a knitting/crochet project to take with me Saturday morning, and the ones I am in the middle of were either too big or too fussy, so I started a pair of children's mittens. Finished the first one last night. I need to get back to the other projects though.

Another Rainy Day

It's raining again today, but is a few degrees warmer than yesterday, so I'm not cold.


I finished my red socks this morning. As you can see, they're fraternal rather than identical.

I put a small cable down each side of the socks. The second picture sort of shows it - sometimes details are hard to photograph.


Midnight has decided she likes to sit or lie on top of the radio/CD player on the living room. The CD-door on top is spring loaded, so of course she opens it whenever she jumps up there. I just leave it open, but Dominic insists on closing it whenever he sees it up. I figure she'll just open it again before long, so why bother to close it.

Knitting from Stash

I've decided to join Wendy and Donna in knitting from my stash in 2007 - it could keep me busy much longer than that. The rules are here. There are some nice buttons there, as well, but I haven't figured out how to put one of them on my blog.

Today was Social Security day for me (third Wednesday of the month), so Dominic and I went shopping. First to Big Lots, who often have interesting, unusual things in their food section, then to Kroger for our big monthly grocery shopping. With my Kroger Plus Shopper's Card, I've saved almost $200 this year. As Dominic said, that's a month's worth of groceries.

We've been having very nice weather recently, but I think winter is back with us. It's 53 and cloudy. I know that doesn't sound cold to a lot of people, and if the sun were out it would be quite nice, but I'm cold.

Gee, it's been a week since I posted. I must be busy! Not really, just didn't feel like writing.

CROCHET CLASS

Friday was the last session of the crochet class. I finally took a picture of the group. Unfortunately, two girls and their mother were not there. I gave them each a certificate, which I called a Crochet License, giving them permission to crochet any time and any place (within reason, i.e. probably not in school or when Mom or Dad wants them to do something else). The lady in the white sweater is the director of the Art Guild where the class met.

KNITTING

Saturday afternoon I asked Lexi to put away some of her things I had washed (one shelf in my closet is hers). She came back wearing this sweater I had knit for her last week. The yarn is 100% polymide and I did not enjoy working with it, but it is very soft and she likes the sweater - wore it to church on Sunday, as well as the green socks with the brown heels and toes. When her mommy saw those socks, she said she wants some like them, except with longer legs. I was going to make them for myself, but I already have over a dozen pairs of handknit socks, so I'll make them for her.

Sunday evening, when I took her home to put her to bed, Lexi told me that a certain package under their tree was for me. I said, "I don't want to know what it is until Christmas." She kept trying to give me hints, but I kept insisting that I don't want to know.

This is the angel on top of their tree. You didn't know angels play guitars? There's a whole string of guitar lights on the tree. Her daddy plays guitar, and she has a real one, too, plus a couple of toy ones.

LAFA

Yesterday was the December meeting of the Lake Area Fiber Artists. I picked Shirley up in Mayfield and went to her old place near Cadiz (pronounced Katies), where we met two others and went on to Jean's house. This is the group I made the dishcloths for. (I have two left, which I think I'll let Lexi give to her Sunday School teacher and the director of the pageant.) I should have taken pictures, but didn't. The house is on the hill above Lake Barkley - lovely!

On the way home, we spent a few minutes in Shirley's barn, which is filled with fabric, yarn, blanket selvedges, etc for the rugs she weaves, plus parts to make several looms, I think. She has gotten mostly moved to Mayfield, but I don't know where she is going to put that stuff.

TODAY

Today is the last day of school before Christmas, so they had their program for the parents - two performances. I met Alyssa there this morning. The first picture shows most of the pre-school and kindergarden kids.

This is the small section where Lexi is - second from the left, third row up. She fell off the risers during one of their practices, but didn't get hurt.

After the program, I went to the Senior Citizens Center (where I used to work) to visit and eat lunch. Nice building, huh? It's six and a half years old.

I've been retired almost a year now, and don't go back there nearly as often as I had thought I would. It's seventeen miles away, and I find I'm keeping busy with other things.

The dining room was sort of sparse today. Several people had already finished and left by the time I went back to eat (I spent some time talking with the receptionist), and at least a dozen plus the Director had gone to a Christmas party at another agency that they do some volunteer work through. The dining room seats 100, and they average about 70 diners, I think. They also deliver meals to about 80 homebound seniors throughout the county. I think there are still five meal routes - I have done three of them at various times - that's an experience!

When I left this afternoon, there was at least one table of some card game, and several of the men were playing pool.

I need to post this and get back to my knitting.

Alzheimer's hasn't set in yet!

Your Vocabulary Score: A+

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary!You must be quite an erudite person.

How's" Your Vocabulary?

Ghost?

When Alexis spends the night with me, she usually sleeps on a camp cot in my bedroom. She always wants the light in my closet (down the hallway past the bathroom on one side and shelves of yarn on the other) left on. That light bothers me, so I don't sleep very well. Saturday I suggested to her that she sleep in the weaving room, since my loom is out on loan, and use the light on the shelf as her nightlight. She liked the idea, but wanted to make sure the door to my room would be left open. She also wanted to know if could be her sleep place until the loom came back. Sure.

I put her to bed about 8 p.m. About 9:30, I decided to get ready for bed, too. As I was putting on my nightgown, she called out, "Grandmother, I need you" in a rather frightened voice, and came running through the doorway. I asked what was wrong and she said the nothing was. She calmed down and I put her back to bed and went to bed myself. About 1 a.m., she again called out, "Grandmother, I need you." Again she said nothing was wrong, and lay back down. About 3 a.m. she called out, "Grandmother, I want to be near you." So we moved her cot back into my room, and she slept until her normal 6 o'clock wake-up time.

After the 1 a.m. incident, I wondered if she had seen the ghost her mother and a friend of her parents both saw at different times when they were living here. Alyssa saw him in the doorway to that room, which was Lexi's bedroom at the time, and Cory also saw him in that room. Lexi never slept well in that room, but she was so young, they thought she was just a poor sleeper. She hasn't said anything about seeing anyone Saturday night, but I wonder . . .

I've never really believed in ghosts, but I can't say Alyssa didn't see anything. When I took Alexis home Sunday afternoon, and told Alyssa about the night, she had the same thoughts I had.





Knitting stuff



I finished the dish/washcloths for the LAFA group. I knit half of them and crocheted the other half - crocheting sure does go faster!

The yarn looks sort of like terrycloth. It's some I got years ago at an auction of a yarn store in Collingswood NJ that had gone out of business. I got 496 balls of cotton and cotton-blend yarns for a nickel a ball - it filled 18 paper grocery bags. I've used a lot of it over the years, but there's still more.


I've also finished the first sock and started the second one of another pair for Alexis. I'll make matching ones for me. She likes them short, but mine will be longer. The yarn is Brown Sheep Company's Wildfoote in Desert Grass, with brown something else (lost the band)for the heels and toes. I'm using size 0 Rhodo-Cristal Nacre needles. The company is no longer, but now Pony is making the same needles. They are a plastic made from wood, and the small sizes have a metal wire in the center. I really like them for socks. Some people wouldn't like the length (over 7"), but I do.

Busy Friday

Heartland Lace Guild

Earlier this year, I joined the Heartland Lace Guild. This is a group who make bobbin lace, or who are interested in lace. I do not make bobbin lace, but it fascinates me to watch the others making it. I do sometimes knit or crochet lace, and I have even done some tatting. The group usually meets at Grace Church in Paducah KY and members come 75 miles or more every month to the meetings. For the December/Christmas meeting we went to Cape Girardeau MO to the home of the treasurer/membership chair, and had a delicious lunch cooked by the historian, who is also main teacher and lace designer.

I left my house about 9 a.m., stopped at the local post office to mail a letter (I paid attention to the mailboxes this time - there are 110 of them), and then continued my 60-mile journey. They are working on the bridge across the Ohio River between Wickliffe KY and Cairo IL (that's pronounced kay' ro). They have temporary traffic lights set up part way up both ends of the bridge. I had to wait about five minutes each time, although it felt like longer than that.

The bridge across the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau is new. This was the second time I have been across it. I noticed today that they have dismantled the old bridge - it was still there, but blocked off last time I went to Cape.

Crochet Class

I was the first one to leave the party, because I had to be back to Mayfield (75 miles) for the crochet class I'm teaching. The girls and ladies had practiced single crochet during the week enough to be fairly comfortable with it, so we moved on to double crochet. After practicing that for about half an hour, they started their scarves. I had written out a very simple pattern of one row single crochet, followed by as many rows of double crochet as they need to get the desired length, and ending with a row of single crochet. After they got started, one of the mothers asked if they could just do it all in single crochet. I said, 'Certainly, or alternate rows of SC and DC, or any combination - design your own.' It will be interesting next week to see what they've done.

After the class, I went to Wal-Mart for coffee and half'n'half - can't run out of those thimgs. I got home at 6:30 p.m.

Mailing Packages

This morning I got two packages ready to mail to my decendents who live in New Jersey - some Christmas stuff, some not. I took them to the tiny town post office which is less than a quarter mile away. Probably about a tenth of a mile if I walked through my back yard and out the water tower's driveway.

Our post office is very small. It has a few mailboxes, but does not do home deliveries. My mail comes out of the county seat, eleven miles away.

After the post office lady weighed the boxes and told me how much the postage was, she put two turnips up on the counter and asked if I like turnips. Someone had given her a bagful and she was giving some of them away. Only in small towns!

The turnips are really quite large. for comparison, those are 1 x 8's that my father used when he made that table 60+ years ago.

After leaving the post office, I decided to drive down to the river to see what it looks like now. That's the Mississippi River - about 15 miles away. This is at Columbus KY. You can see some barges there. I'm sure there were people around, but I didn't see any of them.

The embankment on the right is at the Columbus-Belmont State Park. It's the site of a Civil War battle, with the trenches still evident. It is also where a gigantic chain was strung across the river from Columbus KY to Belmont MO to keep supplies from reaching the troops - I can never remember which side strung it. Several of the links of chain and one of the anchors are in the park. Each link weights something like 28 pounds.

I finished the crocheted socks, but haven't taken pictures of them yet - maybe when I wear them on Friday for the next crochet class.

The dozen dish/washcloths I've added to my projects list are for one of the groups I belong to. I learned at the meeting last Monday that everyone gives a token gift to everyone alse at the December meeting. I have some 'terry' type yarn that I've had forever ( 5 cents a ball at an auction - each ball makes at least two cloths) that makes nice washcloths, and they're pretty quick to do. I'd better get back to knitting.

Twas in the moon of wintertime . . .

My Weekend

I don't know the history of the 'Saturday sky' thing, but this is what it looked like from my front porch about 9 a.m. Saturday while my second cup of coffee was brewing. (I love my one-cup coffee maker that makes the coffee into the cup.) I wish the banner had shown up better. My sister made it for me; it has a spinning wheel on it. I'd go out and take another picture of it, except that I replaced it with a Christmas banner later that day, after Alexis got here.

We also hung this on the front door - of course we rarely use the front door, but I know it's there. It's a needlepoint I did years ago and gave to my mother. After she died, I claimed it for myself.


Since Wednesday is St Nicholas day, we also got out the box of Santas and Lexi arranged them on the hearth. I especially like the one that looks like a tree. It and the purple one were done by a local carver.

While I'm showing pictures of collections, here is some of my sheep collection, joined by a couple of cats, and of course, a guard donkey. I have sheep in a lot of other places, as well (had to take some off the hearth to put the Santas there). Most of them have been given to me. I had a boss for years who was always buying things for other people. She was forever leaving sheep on my desk. One time when we were at a conference, we stopped in the gift/snack shop off the hotel lobby. They had a display of Ty animals, one of which was Bam, a pastel sheep with curly horns (at the left of the lower shelf here). After admiring him, I realized that I had to buy him myself, or my boss would sneak down later and buy him for me.

And above those shelves hangs this. It was done by a dog. It's one of the paintings I 'won' at the Graves County Animal Shelter's animal art silent auction several months ago. Alyssa claimed the other one. They take dogs and cats to the Art Guild and let them walk around on watercolor (?) paper with paint on their paws. Then the ladies at the Art Guild select the portions to use as art. I think they mat them, and then a local business frames them. They had this one hanging 'portrait' at the auction, but I like it 'landscape.' I think it looks like a bouquet of flowers.

Saturday night, Lexi and I discovered that we had on matching socks, so we had to take a picture of them. I know you've seen one of mine before, along with the matching ones for Rose. Here they are again, this time with feet in them (except for Rose's).

Yesterday was a big day for Lexi and the other kids at Grace Church. To begin with, they left their shoes in the parlor. Then, after the gospel reading, St Nicholas (Bishop of Myra) visited and told them about himself. After service, when they went to retrieve their shoes, they found 'goody bags' in them. Finally, they had the first practice for the Christmas pagaent, where they each got a copy of the script. Lexi told me that it's very important that she not lose the script. She's afraid that she won't be able to memorize her lines. She's one of the angels. Her only line (along with 7 or 8 other kids) is, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men." The stage direction says they are to shout it. Somehow, I think she'll manage that.

Now I need to finish the second crocheted sock for myself - only about half a dozen rounds to go on the toe. I also need to bake the cookies for the Ewe-nique Knitters' cookie exchange tomorrow night; I put the butter out to soften before I started this.

Crochet Class

Today was the first session of the beginning crochet class for some girl scouts and a couple of their moms. It turned out to be five girls and three moms. It went even slower than I thought it would (although the time went quickly). We spent the entire session on the single crochet stitch; I had thought we'd get to double crochet, as well. I had started swatches for them - 15 stitches by 7 or 8 rows. That way they had something to hold on to while working their stitches.

One girl caught on very quickly, but she sometimes missed the first or last stitch of the row, so her piece got narrower - common problem. The other girls were getting it by the end of the session (approx 1.5 hrs), but their tension was very loose. The mothers did well, although one of them kept trying to put her hook through the stitches from back to front instead of front to back. And another one worked two stitches in most of the stitches on one row, so her swatch was starting to ruffle.

I told them to practice during the week, using what they remember from today's session, plus the handout I gave them with drawings of how the stitches are made. I hope that next week we can move on to double crochet, and then get started on the scarves they want to make.

A cold front came through yesterday. I have The Weather Channel desktop minimized to just the temperature at the bottom of my monitor. Yesterday, the temp was lower every time I looked at it. Right now it reads 30. At least all the precipitation had fallen before it got cold, so we didn't get snow. When I checked my rain gauge this afternoon, there was 2 1/2 inches if ice in it - that rain was from Tuesday night through about noon yesterday.

It's been so warm recently that my forsythias were starting to bloom. I hope this cold snap doesn't damage them. My father once told me that lilacs didn't do as well in KY as they did in MN because of the changeable weather here. I wonder if the same if true of forsythias.

Hey! I've had a comment - someone's been here besides my family! Thanks Joanne!