Something Current Before Something Old

This sprightly chicken came to me in the mail on Thursday, he managed to make me very happy.  Just looking at him makes me smile.  His creator is a fellow blogger "Yetzirah" and she makes these marvelous cards and little pictures.  She sells them in the summer at a farmer's market in Etna, CA.  She is a friend of the heart, a fairly new one that makes me feel like I have known her forever.  She is very crafty and creative. Her felted purses are phenomenal, they are tastefully colorful and have special little touches.  She is becoming a very good gardener, and wants to actually own live chickens.  The little one on the card is a start.  She was doing some cleanup and when she got done she passed it on to me.  This kind of cleanup I will take on any time of course if you can't figure out why you don't know me very well.  Here are some hints. They are destined to make me use my brain and be more creative.

Great colors!

Soft and squishy, Yummy.

Did you guess?   What else would make my heart go pitty pat but yarny goodness.  I will take that kind of cleaning out any time.  I am still smiling 2 days later.  But of course I have all these other things in the works that need to be finished first, a shawl for a designer, a pair of socks for a friend, 2 of my Fake Fair Isle hats, a chemo cap, and a deadline gift that my daughter needs.  They are all languishing on the needles, waiting for me to get my act together.  The shawl and the socks are top priority and then the next things.  Oh dear not enough knitting hours in the day, and of course I have to do some reading in there somewhere.  Sometimes I can knit and read on my Kindle at the same time, lately not so much and that is the lead in to the continuation of "Something Old" (besides me)

It all started to snow ball the day before Thanksgiving, it was a kind of over cast day in the beginning and the Fisherman wanted to go fishing.  But first I had to go get my mammogram and we both wanted to get flu shots.  We got both done really pretty early in the day and went up to the Yuba River.  The Fisherman fished and Pippi and I sat in the car and I knitted, I was working on some socks for a birthday gift.

Before we left I had finished this short sleeve sweater as a test knit for another Raveler.  it came out great, too small for me, but was passed on.  But I digress.

As you can tell it was a little warm in the car.  Pippi and I did get out except for some reason I didn't take any pictures.  The Fisherman hooked a few and we drove home.  The best part of the trip was seeing all the migratory birds in the rice fields, there were swans and geese and of course ducks.  When they would take off and move in a group it looked like a huge wave in movement.

We spent the next day with the Bubber and his mm and dad.

The photo above the Bubbber is what I was working on that day, they were washcloths and so much fun to make.  I found the pattern through Pinterest.

The Bubber was his usually smiley self, always a joy to be with.  My SIL made the turkey the way we had made it the year before, we split it in half and put stuffing under the halves and roasted it that way.  It takes a lot less time, stays moist, the legs get cooked through and you have lots of crispy skin.  You know the unhealthy part.  I got to retell my story of the turkey with no skin.  My children were taught to cook very early and we ate turkey once a month at least.  So when I was Real Estating they would put it in the oven to cook.  I came home a little late one day and the turkey was resting, when I peeked at it I was a little surprised, it had no skin.  The two of them had been picking at it the whole time and picked it bald.  Needless to say this current turkey went to the table pretty bald too.  

The skinless turkey can barely be seen on the left.  

He was enjoying the caveman or Renaissance Fair approach and didn't put the drumstick down till he was done.  It was an excellent meal.  And of course it wouldn't be complete without PUMPKIN PIE! as my grandson says it.  He said quite emphatically as he actually helped make a PUMPKIN PIE from scratch so he gave us all the details and served the pie.

Finished Objects The Blogger Returns

 I kind of left you with my starting on a project.  This had been in the works for a while.  I found the plain orange-rust yarn, it is a single ply 4 weight 100% wool.  Then I found the same yarn in a multi stripe.  I had always wanted to make a Fair Isle something so here was my chance.  At first the yarn seemed too thin for a 7 or 8 needle, but when I worked on it, it bloomed.  And softened and became yummy.  It was neat to get into the rhythm of knitting Fair Isle, something I have probably not done since I was 20.  My goal was to work on this fake version ( I have 2 more hats in the works) to prepare myself to make a steeked (eeek) sweater.  Or maybe I will just make a flat version, sewing and cutting scares me.

I was really pleased with the finished project.  The hat is a semi beret and the pattern is on my Ravelry projects page.  The next ones I am working on are random Fair Isle patterns.

I also started on baby boy sweaters.  My only married niece was pregnant and we didn't know the sex.  I wanted to make sure to be creative in making boy sweaters.  

I didn't have any baby boy baby yarn kicking around so I got to look for yarns that appealed to me.

This was yarn that I got in a thrift store it is Caron Simply Soft and I ad just enough blue to make the sweater and a hat.

This is yarn from JoAnne's and off the top of my head I cannot remember what it was.

I got this yarn at a thrift store also and decided to make a hat.

And then we had some more company who also had a great time, and all too soon it was time to move out.  

I am very fortunate to have a copy of this picture.  It makes my heart happy and brings me joy.  It is a smaller version and I had enough copies for special people.  

This kind of takes us to the end of October unless I find some more pictures with stories, so good night all.

The Disappearing Mouse and the Disappearing Blogger

The Fisherman stole my mouse.  That is my story and I am sticking to it.  Not really, well he did steal my mouse and that was how this long, long, hiatus happened.  When we were at the lake the wifi would have issues.  And sometimes being on long enough was tricky.  I think every time more than 5 people were on someone was dropped and it always seemed to be me.

The mouse doing a disappearing act happened because the lap top the Fisherman inherited from me was hard to use unless you used a mouse.  And we only had 1 mouse that was wireless and I really love that mouse.  It is small for one thing and it can sit on the corner of a laptop for a mouse pad.  And finding a replacement became tricky as I am very parsimonious when it comes to replacing things that I already have.  When I realized the mouse was not returning home to my computer it was October, and a lot of things were happening.  But first I am going to catch you up.

This is the Pip squeek waiting to catch up.  She is doing the typical terrier sprawl.  It is one of my favorite things she does.  Our Schnauzer used to do it too and so do "The Boys" up in Seattle. 

In early August my Nephew JC and his mother, one of my Sister's in law came for a few days.  We had such a good time with them and we convinced JC to come back for a visit to go up to the lake.  Everybody loves the pictures with the tree so we had to showcase another one.  When he and his mom visited the Boober and his mom and dad had a conflict.  But the Boober came with his dad and spent the day with JC.  They swam, they had water gun fights and they just hung around.  The Boober told JC all about the bats at the lake, and how they came out at night.  We were heading up there that night and JC was really looking forward to sitting on the porch and watching them fly off into the night on their quest for bugs.

It was a typically beautiful night.  We had a goofy quick dinner and the deck and waited for the bats to appear.  And waited, and waited.  We had built this whole scene into a big production, flying bats everywhere.  Swooping on bugs soaring into the night.  OOps, guess who decided to migrate in the last few days we had been there.  We had a big no show.  We had a disappointed nephew, who told us that if the Boober hadn't told him the story about the bats he would have thought we were pulling his leg.  We went to bed.

The next day the guys got up and went to do a survey, at least the pelicans did not disappoint.  There were so many more than the last time we were there.  They were also obviously migrating.  Even the deer showed up to prove that they existed.  And the Bald Eagles, so he wasn't completely diappointed.

While they went off to do a survey I worked on a fake Fair Isle hat design.