I'm waiting for some yarn for a deadline project. The deadline is getting closer and the yarn (apparently) is not. It's making me twitchy.

When I learned the yarn was on it's way I decided not to get too attached to any other knitting project, and instead focused on my spinning projects. I finished the sparkly alpaca/bamboo blend.


And moved on to some pure cashmere.

But spinning (and yes I can spin on the bus) doesn't seem to fill the role of knitting very well for me. And all the other crafty/gardening/etc things didn't seem to be filling the void either. Yesterday I was finally given permission (apparently I needed someone else to say it) to pick up some knitting. I'm feeling better - but I still wonder where the yarn is!

Tonight (hopefully it doesn't rain) is orientation night for the Vermont Brewer's Festival. Which will be going on all weekend at the waterfront in Burlington (hopefully it doesn't rain). If you're in the area, you should definitely attend. I'll be there all day Saturday. (hopefully it doesn't rain)

In an effort not to be bored I was crazily productive over the weekend. I made some feta (needs to age for 2 weeks), baked some bread (note to self, flour is important for gluten), started a new batch of wine (apple/tart cherry) I finally have all the perennials IN the ground and not just sitting on top of it. I put stakes in for my tomatoes and sugar snap peas (I used some of the millions of shoots the hardwood stumps are sending out, thanks for the idea Mom!) I took all the animals to the vets. I was very productive!

I finished the other two skirts. These are the three skirts that I picked up fabric for at the quilting store last week. The major lesson with these skirts is: If I don't know exactly what I'm doing I should pick up 3/4 to 1 yard of fabric, not 1/2 to 3/4 yards.
The brown gradient on in the center would've fit perfectly if the waistband was 1-2 inches wide instead of 2-3 since I only had 3/4 of a yard. But I'm still really proud of it. I like how the waistband fades from lightest in the front to darkest in the back. And I like my solution for not having the seams stand out in a bad way.
The blue one with the lace is a 12 gore skirt (meaning it's made of 12 wedges that are narrow at the waist and get wider) gored skirts can flair out a lot, but I kept this one more tame as it's meant to be an office skirt. The lace at the bottom and the white ribbon that I turned into a waistband are from my stash (why yes, I have a sewing stash as well as a knitting stash. Is there a problem with that?) I ended up picking up an extra 1/4 of a yard to make this fit nicely (so 3/4 of a yard total). Luckily no one had decided to use all the bolt of fabric for the backing of a quilt or anything.
The last one makes me feel like I'm wearing a chocolate layer cake - in a good way. I knew I wanted it tiered with elastic at the top. But I didn't want to buy yet more fabric and I only had a 1/2 yard of this brown. And then I realized I had some perfect light pink floaty fabric in my stash that matched the tiny pink dots in the pattern of the brown fabric. One of the trickiest things for me (in sewing) is having randomly, but evenly bunched fabric. I'm much better and even, spaced, pleats. I think I did pretty well on these layers and I LOVE this skirt (it may be my favorite).


All in all three really pretty skirts that are exactly what I wanted. And I spent $17.98 total, for three skirts - I win! If I'd had to buy zippers and elastic and lace trim it would have been more, but probably not more then $25 total. Now I just need it to be warm enough to wear my cute skirts and not my nice clean sweaters.

Oh yes, I also did some mending and washing of the woolens. You can probably imagine this is no small task in my house. Usually mending and washing happens when I put them away for the summer, but this year I did the mending and washing and I'm still wearing them, but it was time.

It's like a where's waldo in my living room. But I'm not sure if you're looking for all the woolens or looking for the living room beneath them... I washed 5 sweaters, 4 hats, 3 vests, 3 scarves, 2 mittens, and 1 jacket (not hand knit, but still 100% wool) Not pictured is Neil's india sweater which needed major reconstructive surgery on the cuffs.

I had a reason behind doing this all at once. My awesome front loading washing machine has a spin-only option. So after hand washing all these things I can just put them in the machine and it wrings 90% of the water out. WONDERFUL. But the machine is smart and carefully balances the load by tumbling it a bit first, so it doesn't walk away (or break) during the high spin speeds. We've tried putting just 1 thing in the machine once. It spend 30 minutes before it (somehow, I don't know how) got the item balanced against the door so it was mostly centered with itself for the spin. The machine may be smarter then me. Now I make sure it has enough in it to balance easily before spinning the water out.

While I wait (impatiently) for some new yarn, I've actually gotten a bit done on my Tour de Fleece spinning challenge.  There's a group on ravelry, and daily prizes, so I'm always motivated to actually take pictures of what I've spun up.  And sometimes I make them into cute little mosaics 'cause I think other people's mosaics are awesome:


See, pretty cool huh?  And that's probably what I'll be doing this weekend too!  Spinning, and making photo mosaics.  I hope to take the boys for a hike on Sunday, but saturday is supposed to rain.  Good thing more netflix is on it's way to me (The Lion in Winter this time, I admit to just randomly adding anything with Patrick Stewart in it.  Which reminds me, everyone who loves science should see The Eleventh Hour.  I was maybe a mini-series, because there are only 4 episodes.  But it's british, and Patrick Stewart plays a brilliant and ethical government scientist who tracks things like black plauge outbreaks and global warming cover ups and all they get the science right which made me happy, not angry like CSI.  Ok, runaway parenthesis over!)

The rest of my weekend list involves exciting things like "mow the lawn" and "bake bread" and "tie up peas" I'm really looking forward to my quiet weekend.  Hopefully I enjoy it and don't feel too isolated.  Oh yes, and I need to stalk the chicken coop in case the missing hen comes off her nest to eat...  I'm still hopeful!  And apparently a little scatterbrained this afternoon.  I blame work.

So I wore my new skirt! (and now my legs and feet are cold)  Here's a lovely self-photo from the gas station parking lot:


Yeah, taking a picture of the skirt I'm wearing with my phone camera = harder then I thought it'd be.  I really like the gradient in the fabric - it's quilting fabric from a store in Johnson.  I already had a brown zipper (convenient!)  The trickeiest bit was the thread - and whether to use dark or light brown.  I ended up using both.  I used the dark brown on the light sections and the light brown on the dark sections.  I like how the stitches stand out, it's a bit like the yellow thread trimming on denim jeans.  I used just about every inch of the fabric.  In retrospect I think a narrower waistband would have left a touch more fabric for the skirt.  But instead this is a skirt I can wear on skinny days...

And just in case you were wondering:


The baby chickens are now teenaged chickens.  They look just like the big ones, but in miniature.  And I have another arucana that's not coming in at night.  I'm choosing to hope that she's sitting on eggs somewhere and not that she was eaten by something.  We'll see in another 18 or 19 days...

And I'm still hungry after eating my lunch...  Yup, that's how exciting my day is!

I've had salmon, chinese food, left my sewing machine on the dining room table for 3 days in a row, and I'm tired of TV as a companion. I'm ready for Neil to come home!

Seriously, I've never really lived alone, and I'm just not cut out for it. I think if something horrible happened to Neil I'd have to join a commune, or get a housemate... I grew up in house with at least 7 people in it and shared a room for most of my childhood. I moved on to college where I always had roommates and/or lived in suite style dorms (I take that back, 2 semesters at BU my room mate was gone for days at a time, I was miserable there though, so my theory holds) Then I moved to apartments and houses with house mates, then I got married. I guess I'm just a social creature by nature.

I had a great 3rd/4th of July (it was actually a friend's birthday party, it was good) My parents' came to visit on the 5th (and we hiked to roundtop AND prospect rock, go Mom go!) So it's not even like I've been very alone.

I manage fine - I am, in fact, surprisingly productive. This weekend I:
Baked: an angel food cake, a loaf of bread, chocolate chip cookies
Gardened: finished the sunny tall perennial bed, worked on the shade bed, bought and put in big watermelon "seedlings" Weed-whacked the front lawn (including figuring out why the machine wouldn't run - turns out it needed gas, I like my reel mower better)
Sewed a skirt and cut fabric for a second, worked on some sweater knitting (the juno I'm reverse engineering) and prepped for my incoming big project.
And canned! I made pickled scapes, both standard and sweet and sour.
But I have no one to show all my successes to, except the dogs, and they just don't appreciate a new skirt. Moxy did, but only because she could sleep on the fabric on the table.

Several people asked (over the phone) what a scape is exactly. It's this:

The flowering stem and head of any stiff-necked garlic. It grows in that crazy loop-d-loop.
Those are my garlic plants in my garden - but I got some extra scapes from my CSA on thursday:

the bag on the left is full of them. I was the second to last person there, and the farmer suggested I "take them all, please" when I mentioned I was going to pickle them he asked me to bring him a jar in return.

So I will! I did have a new kind of problem with this batch:

That's never happened to me before. It was one of my older jars, so I'm guessing either the glass was weak, or possibly I screwed the band on more then "finger tight" and the pressure couldn't escape through the lid like it's supposed to. I remember hearing a pop while the batch was processing, so that must be when it happened. The rest of the jars all sealed just fine.

For two years I've been pronouncing these scapies, but the CSA farmer corrected me - scapes like the second syllable of escape.

Neil's gone on vacation with a college friend for awhile. This means I'm in charge of all the animals. I'm looking forward to some alone time. My plans are big. I'm going to leave knitting projects all over the house (ok, I do this anyway, but it might get worse), eat seafood (he hates seafood), and watch movies that he always moves to the bottom of the netflix queue (merchant of venice is on it's way right now) I've also got my mom and sister coming up for a a visit, good 4th of July plans, and some really gorgeous yarn in the mail headed my way.

And, since I'm not committed to enough projects yet (don't laugh!) I'm joining the Tour de Fleece! The idea is to spin some fiber every day during the tour de france (spinning, cycling, see the connection?) some people set themselves major goals during this like "I'm going to spin enough for a sweater" But since I already have a July project with a deadline I'm setting my sights low. I've got that purple and gold 3.5 ounce batt of fiber that's been ignored far too long and I'm going to finish it by July 26th (If I had the time I could probably spin the whole thing in just 1 day - that's how low I'm setting my goals, 'cause I DON'T have the time) If I finish before the 26th I'll reward myself by starting in on the cashmere from NH sheep and wool.


See that red lantern in my new icon (go MS Paint skills, go!) Red Lantern is the term for the person at the END of the bike race. Yay for low expectations!

When did Amazon start selling scientific plasticware?

my body is getting better - but I'm having and "AUGH!" moment with my knitting (remember how Lucy always pulled the ball away from charlie brown?  well, my knitting is Lucy)  I've been knitting tiny squares like crazy again, and while it seemed like I had a long way to go, every time I did the math, I was almost to 20% done, and math doesn't lie, right?  Right?

Well - I've been counting the squares horizontally.  Tip to tip I have 26 squares across.  Figuring that a blanket is longer then it is wide, I knew I'd need 30 or 32 rows total.  And I've already finished row 6!  6 divided by 30 and multiply by 100 = 20% this is easy math!



Can you count the 6 rows there?  I've been counting my squares tip to tip - and my rows zig-zagging back and forth.  This means I need 60-64 rows.  I'm only just barely 10% done.  AUGH!

But it's ok, I've been distracted:


Three, THREE! Alice Starmore knitting books.  The shapes of the sweaters (and some of the colors in the men's sweaters) are a bit dated.  But the patterns - oh man.  Starmore's fair isle colorwork and cables are AMAZING.  But I'm not allowed to start a new project until one of my other projects is done.  Patience is hard sometimes!

Oh, and if anyone has a copy of Aran Knitting by her just lying around - feel free to send it my way!

My arms are so sore.  I spent most of this weekend reverse gardening - digging stuff out instead of putting stuff in.  It's been so rainy all those perennials are perfectly happy sitting on top of the soil.  Which has allowed me to do a thorough job of preparing the garden bed I want them in.  I've been threatening to remove all the non-blooming orange day lilies (ok, there was a handful of blooms last year, that's how I know what color they are)  When I went into the bed with a shovel I realized there were more day lily bulbs then dirt.  After a weekend of fun filled digging (and pruning dead willow shrubs, and pulling ferns and weeds) I have a nice, bare patch of soil where I can put all my new plants - just as soon as the rain lets up.  I also had this:

That's the back end of a full sized subaru - filled almost to the roof with day lilies.  Nothing else.  Just lilies.  I threw them all into the dtich on our property along the edge of the road.  This variety of lily usually grows well in such places - and hopefully they'll have space to actually bloom.

It takes a lot to keep going at a project like that all weekend.  So for breakfast on Sunday I made:

Ginger pancakes, fresh CSA strawberries, and home made whipped cream - with the cream scooped off the top of fresh milk from our neighbors and some honey.  Who cares if the whipped cream was a little runny, it was delicious.  I practically HAD to garden all weekend to work off the calories from eating a pint of whipped heavy cream though...

And in chicken-y news I think the babies are officially teenager birds now.  Well, it's not what I think so much as what mama chicken thinks.  Saturday night she and the babies bedded down in their little shelter, sunday morning she led them out into the world.  But on Sunday afternoon I spotted her nonchalantly picking bugs out of the front lawn with the babies no where to be seen.  I admit to panicking a bit.  But when I brought out some tasty grain and called all the chickens the babies came running just as quickly as the adults - just from a different corner of the yard.
At bedtime mama chicken went up on the roost with the other adult birds, and when one of the babies followed her she actually jumped down again, walked back to the little shelter with it, ducked inside.  And ran off again as soon as the clingy baby had settled down.  (we called him/her the failure to launch bird all evening)
This morning (it's raining) the babies didn't seem inclined to run outside with mom still ignoring them.  And in an unusual move Looney (our rooster) hung out inside with them.  He usually doesn't mind rain, so I wonder if he's figured out he's got a confused batch of new birds to keep an eye on.

Neil and I had a lovely, laid back, anniversary - which has become the norm for us.  Neil made delicious steak au povire which has a brandy cream sauce.  It's delicious, and we tend to save it for special occasions.  After dinner we had cantaloupe, with vanilla ice cream, fresh ground nutmeg and chocolate sauce.  Neil's made this two years in a row - it's really really good.


And for second dessert (what, don't you always have second dessert on special occasions?) there was freshly baked rhubarb crumble.  Mmmmm......


On Thursday I went to a friend's house after work.  I "helped" her thin out her perennial beds so she'd have space for some new plants.  I got this massive pile:


I may not remember all the names but among that pile there's bloodroot, vivian, mahogany and pink daylilies, primrose, lily of the valley, ginger, columbine, bee balm, astilbe, wild geranium, and, um, at least 4 others I can think of but not remember the names for...  I had brought flower pots, but most of the plants were just too huge to fit in any of them - and they filled the entire back of my subaru with three pots on the bench seat as well!

So that's what I'll be doing this weekend - planning and planting some new perennial beds!  I'm very excited.  Oh, and also working on a new knitting project.  This is a big one with a deadline - and I'm not going to say any more about that, so you'll have to be patient for awhile.

I have no idea where the time went! Last weekend we had a fun saturday followed by a very quiet sunday to make up for it.


The Rattlin' Brook Bluegrass Festival was last weekend - we go every year. It was pretty nice weather (it didn't rain - which it almost always does for this poor festival) And the turnout was great. The bands were good, the company was fun. I didn't ace the boccie game this year but I guess I can't have everything.


I did have homemade snacks, beer, and some lovely knitting. This is the shrug for which I found The Perfect Yarn, and it's coming along wonderfully. I've made very few changes to the pattern. I'm about 14 inches across the 22 inch flat back, and I'm finally bored. Bored as in - too boring even for TV knitting. I know because I kept stopping without realizing it last night! It's not the project's fault, I just can't handle this much stockinette all the time. This will take a nap at the back of my closet - but the yarn is much too lovely for it to never re-appear.


The beetle thought so too. I think this closeup shows A) the subtle color of the yarn and B) how well the beetle matches.


See that? I've tried to take that photo three years in a row, but I've never had a camera up to the task of taking photos in dark corners of old wooden structures... Every year there's a bird nest in the lady's bathroom - and every year I worry about the little babies, 'cause mom seems to vanish while there are so many people around. But this year I decided that probably if she keeps returning she must be successful in raising the babies. I hope so too, because I think there are 6 in that nest.

And I've been collecting chicken pictures without every getting around to uploading them. So lets have a baby chicken update, shall we?

About 2 weeks ago their primary feathers started coming in (other then the ones on the wings)


And now they look like this - all their primary feathers are in, except for their fuzzy little heads. In my experience with both the araucanas and sussex their feather patterns will change once more before they reach adulthood - but on one of them (not photoed) I'm already starting to notice some sussex speckles coming through. They've started exploring more on their own, and mom has started letting them. She'll even eat some bread crumbs in the morning before she starts sharing. They're really mixing in with the adult flock now too, it's pretty cute watching them dive in and out between the big ones when there's a special treat to be eaten!


I'll be interested to see how they look as grownups - the araucanas have pea combs while the sussex have pointy standard combs. I did notice in just the last 3 days their legs have started to go from yellow to the green tinge that the araucanas have. There's a lot of feather variety in both breeds though, so I'm sure we'll get some unique looking birds.

Oh, and hey!  It's our 4th wedding anniversary!  Craziness huh?

I love how scenic VT is. Lots of times Neil and I will be going somewhere, and I'll think "Gee, it's so beautiful, I wish I lived here!" And then I remind myself, that where I live is also beautiful. So the other day, just to remind myself of that (and to show you) I left early for work, and took pictures all down my road. I did have to get to work, so these aren't really setup photography photos, I just hopped out of the car, took a shot, and climbed back in (seriously, you can see the car antenna in the bottom of at least one)

Larger photos are on flickr, so you can click through if you'd like!

Right at the end of my driveway we and the neighbors both have trees along the road to separate our houses. But about 10 feet up the road (an east/west road, and we're driving east this morning) if you south you get this view:

We pretty much live on the shoulder of the green mountain range - and we're pretty sure that's whiteface in the distance.


I did just mention living on the shoulder of the mountain range - the long trail crosses our road about 2 miles from our house. It's just a 1 mile hike from the road crossing to roundtop shelter.

Just around the corner from there is an awesome plum colored house, with an even more awesome perennial garden.

I don't know how they keep enough soil for all those plants on what is actually a giant rock sticking up through the topsoil, but it's wicked pretty and there's always lots in bloom!

Now that we've cross the mountain ridge, we have an even better view of the range looking south:

It was a bit hazy that morning though...

and there are some geese that live at the small farm that goes with that field:

Why do geese seem to enjoy causing trouble on roads?

They also have an orchard, with a really gnarled old apple tree


We also have a really spiffy old abandoned brick house

Which I love, but also worry about, 'cause the chimney edges are starting to look crumbly...

And of course, COWS!

That's the mountain range looking north. Also, I can only imagine how yellow the milk from those cows, grazing in that field of buttercups, must be!

What I didn't get (because I ran out of time) is the really cool stream/waterfall in a gorge, or the view of johnson village from the top of the hill. Or the horses. Maybe next time.

A potato mystery that is...


On the outside it looks like a standard, russet potato.  On the inside it looks like maybe the standard russet potato got crossed with one of those red or purple flesh potatoes.  It came from a bag of russet potatoes from the grocery store - not from a farmer's market, or anything unusual like that.  My best guess is that it's a hybrid (but aren't potatoes usually grown from little potatoes - not from seeds?)  Points for anyone who has a better reason, or can explain how a hybrid potato ended up in a bag of standard potatoes.

Oh, and I don't think it was poisonous, 'cause I ate it already.

And in completely unrelated crafty new!  I made underwear.  Why?  Mostly to prove that I can.  But also because Cast-On has been doing a series on Make do and Mend.  They talked about re-making clothes in your closet that you don't wear because of one or two little things.  Thinking through my wardrobe I realized the only things I have that I don't wear are thongs (bought years ago, I just can't handle the but-floss feeling)  Anything else I can't wear gets donated - but since you can't donate underwear, and they're in good shape I can't throw them out (or even use them for rags, stupid things are too small)  So I remade them! into underwear that covers my butt.  The funny beer saying on my new underwear is totally an added bonus.

I started with:

1 t-shirt too small for Neil
1 uncomfortable pair of underwear
1 worn out ratty bra

And I finished with:
 
Back and front!

They're really comfortable (the bra turns out to be one of the more-supportive I've ever tried)  The hard part was definitely taking the old things apart.  Salvaging the elastic was a pain, sewing the underwear took mere minutes.  Sewing the bra took a lot longer especially dissecting the old one for the underwire and hook and eye bits - but may have been worth it!

Would I do this again?  Maybe, I do have more thongs I could take apart...

Another thing I did this weekend was a stash toss (think like tossed salad, but with yarn)

It all started the weekend before in NH when I was given a glass front cabinet - I've been looking for one for awhile to hold things that would otherwise be in danger of death by pets (between the cats and the dogs few of my open shelves are safe for really breakable things)  But this cabinet is deep - and I had been thinking that a glass front cabinet would also make a lovely place to store pretty yarn, and have it be visible!

In spite of the fact that the cabinet ended up in the kitchen, this project involved rearranging most of my living room.  I love the new arrangement with the couch along the north wall.  Anyway, back to the stash,  The cabinet now contains all my "sweater quantity" yarns (also including shawl quantities of lace, and some vest quantities of yarn)

After I got everything in I said to Neil - look at how much more space I have for yarn!  To his credit all he said was "yep"  and not "aaaaaahhhhh, more yarn, run away run away!!"  </monty python voice>  All this had been living in my closet, so I'm glad of the new room too...

And my sock yarn got a new home in a fabulous old fashioned hat box:

Pretty spiffy huh?  Oh wait, here's the outside, and the final setup of the cabinet:

My mom kept it for me for yarn, which is awesome because I'd ben eyeing it all weekend wondering if whoever had claimed it was willing to give it to me for yarn.  Great minds think alike!  Oh, and yes, I decorated the cabinet to fit in with the rest of the kitchen.

And the rest of my stash still lives in the wonderful old sea trunk. 

These would be smaller projects amounts of yarn, and the magical leftovers box - also all kinds of good stuff for swatching when I have a new design in mind.

And in other amazing knitting news:  I'm really REALLY excited about some knitting books headed my way.  I tend to buy yarn whenever I have knitting money - which means I don't have many knitting books (seriously, I don't own a single stitch dictionary, or anything by the yarn harlot.  It's kinda sad)  But last time I was in NH I mentioned the Alice Starmore saga to my mom*.  Mom likes rare book searches, and she mentioned to me yesterday that she'd found "a few" of the out of print Starmore books for sale at decent prices - and they're headed my way.

I'm pausing so any knitters reading can catch their breath.  Finding these books for decent prices is pretty unheard of.  I bounce any time I think of getting them, and I don't even know which they are!!  (not Aran Knitting, of course, she mentioned that, sigh...)  My mom has amazing powers of The Internet.  Thanks mom!

*I was going to point to the wiki for her, but I shouldn't be surprised that it's the shortest wiki ever.  In summary - there were some copyright issues, she felt she wasn't being fairly treated, and pulled almost every one of her books off the market.  There were cease and desist letters to yahoo groups, emotions are still raw about it in the knitting community, and it's been about 10 years.

It was absolutely wonderful to have a weekend at home!

The lawn clearly missed me and was beginning to send out scouts...  When the grass is tall it can be cut with the reel mower but it takes some creativity.  I figured out how two years ago.  The first pass merely flattens the grass.  Then I pull the machine back towards me across the grass and it ends up pointed directly into the mower blades.  On the third pass it is cut, hooray!  But it's a very time consuming and sweaty process. I did contemplate the weed whacker instead of the lawn mower except I was reminded how much I hate small engines.  I got out the machine, pulled the cord, and nothing happened.  I wasn't convinced I was doing it right, Neil came over and tried, he couldn't get it to start either.  Eventually we got it to the point where it'd start, sputter along for a few seconds, and die as soon as you asked the whacker part to spin.  After ten minutes fighting with the machine I realized how much lawn I could have mowed in that amount of time - and went back to the reel mower.

I also finally got my tomatoes planted!  I'm not convinced it'll stay warm though, so I'm fully prepared to cover them if the nights start getting really cold (hopefully by being prepared I won't have to actually do anything, like carrying an umbrella to keep the sun shining)
My burgundy (green) beans are doing pretty well, as is my corn:
 
If we could get some good sunshine to go with all this lovely rain it might even get to be "knee high by the 4th of July"
I tried to plant edamame (soybeans) too, and they may be the failure of the season, only 3 plants (out of two rows) have come up.  I'm wondering if it was too cold and rainy and maybe the seeds died.  If they don't come up with a few days of warmer weather I'll re-plant and see if they can do better.

And I planted sunflowers!  I've tried to grow them several times - but the chickens always get the seeds.  Or if they don't get the seeds, they like to eat the leaves of the young plants.  This year I planted them along the north edge of my garden (so they won't shade the veggies) inside the fence, why has it taken me so long to figure that out?

Did I say chickens?

They getting much bigger, and have primary feathers everywhere except their fuzzy little heads.  There was a baby chicken tragedy - but I'm not sure what kind.  All I know is I let them out one morning - and there were 7, not 8.  Our coop is pretty much predator-proof, and mama always tucks the babies away early enough I don't get to count them in the evenings, so I'd guess it probably happened the day before.  The day after we kept them inside to whatever predators there are from thinking our yard was a daily buffet.  And for several days after that mama and the babies played Jungle Chickens all day - which makes me think it might have been a flying predator...

Let see, what else?  Oh yes, the rosa rugasa bushes that Neil hacked back last year are thriving:

And completely covered in buds.  These are basic sea roses.  A single set of petals and a wonderful scent.  The hacked-back shrubs are still a foot or two taller then me...

Oh and Neil was busy this weekend as well:

He installed track lighting in our kitchen.  It's much MUCH better then the dim, 70's syle globe fixture we used to have.  And it turns out track lighting is one of those things that's really pricey to have an electrician do - but doesn't cost any more then a living room light fixture if you do it yourself.  Who knew?  Of course with that success he's now threatening to go down into the basement and change the switch on the circuit breaker that needs to be upgraded.  I suggested he call 911 first, that way the ambulance will already be on the way when he electrocutes himself.  It's not that I don't trust him - but when you're changing a light fixture you start by flipping the appropriate circuit.  I don't know how you kill the power to the entire circuit breaker box before working on it - and that makes me nervous....

It's not that I'm not knitting - I just have more interesting things to talk about! Here's a run down of the active projects (things I'm knitting on frequently - there are also the projects on the top of the pile that I might grab at any moment - and the projects I haven't given up on yet, they're just taking a timeout in the closet)

Eleonora:

I tried to follow the pattern - I really did. I wanted a simple project! But I also wanted a lightweight thing for summer. So I knit the whole cuff on size 4 needles with the yarn held double. Then I switched to the size 2 needles and knit an inch. Then I stopped, pondered the fabric, considered the weight of the doubled lace... And ripped the whole thing.
Now I'm knitting the lace on size 3 needles with the yarn held single. It's very light and airy, the fabric is way too holey for a garment, but perfect for the lace cuff. I've finished the sleeve and am working on the back now (I changed that a bit too - I added an inch of length to the bottom half to make it a touch longer). This is my TV knitting - all stockinette all the time.

Ornate Sapphires:

I wonder how many people are out there, taking off their shoes on the bus so they can try on half-knit socks. Or is it just me?
I CAN NOT get over the blue of this yarn. It's fabulous! This pattern I haven't changed a bit - well, I cast on for the medium and may be going a bit smaller for the foot - but otherwise no changes.

I did change my needles though. This project started on a basic set of inox DPNs. Last weekend I switched it to my shiny new set of Signature Needles DPNs (5 needle, 5", stiletto tips) I Love Them. The colored bits of the needles have just enough texture that they don't slide out - but they don't really grip the yarn the way wooden needles do (which can be good and bad) The tips are SUPER smooth and they make these heavily cabled socks an absolute dream to knit. I cable without a cable needle and it goes so smoothly I hardly notice crossing cables at all with these needles. It makes me wonder if they're maybe working a little magic into the metal...

Blanket:
I would've sworn I'd taken a new picture - but apparently not. It's up to 5 rows of squares now - which makes it solid enough to believe it might be a blanket someday. But I'm barely at 10% finished. This project got switched over to a beautiful set of straight, size 2, 7", midi tip, signature needles (these needles have stats - like athletes or something)

Lilac seas throw:

It's heavy-lace so of course it doesn't look like much. But I've finished the first skein of yarn - so I must be half way through! I'm jamming charts together in a way the designer did not expect, and I'm making it round, not a half circle. I did two rows of cones, one row to increase my stitch count a bit, and then a row of sand dollars. I managed to make the scallops fit on top of that. Now I've got another increase row, and hopefully from here I can attach the second row of scallops and the starfish the way the designer expected - hopefully.

In new projects - I'm plotting a little sister pattern for my Kingdom gloves. I've heard a few people on ravelry wishing the gloves were fingerless, or a bit less fiddly - so I might do something with a similar construction on slightly bigger needles. I'm going to swatch this weekend and see if I can come up with anything.

I'd like to take a break from your regularly scheduled dose of chickens and veggies for a knitting update!


Those would be my mystery project.  That knitting project that I haven't really been able to say much about forever and ever.  Now that the pattern is finally PUBLISHED I can talk about them all I want!  Seriously, you can go check it out, right here.  It may be published online only - but knitty gets over a million views an issue - and that's no small audience!

How about a castle picture?

Pretty cool, huh?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go lie down.  I've known this was coming for months, and I'm still shocked it actually happened.

Please don't let it be said that I don't try to give you what you ask for!


See the fuzzy baby legs sticking out from under?  It's getting much harder for all 8 to fit under mama.


I know, I know, still no pictures of babies riding on mama.  Only one tried it this morning, and mom was scratching for food so it fell off again.  Maybe I should try and figure out how to do video.

This one found something tasty and stood still long enough for a nice closeup.

I've heard you can tell whether they're male or female based on how quickly the wing primaries grow in, but they all look about the same to me right now.  And since several people told me they thought all four aruacanas were male I really don't trust that system.

I'd like to point out that in most of the pictures I take, even with this nice new camera, I get a lot of this:

I actually really like this one, because some of the babies are standing still, and some are being speedy.

The babies are pretty skittish right now.  Mom has taught them to be careful of anything big.  And while mom doesn't mind me at all, the babies hide from me a lot.  I have a plan though.  It may involve crumbled hard boiled egg and lots of patience.

Dan and Kat's wedding was absolutely wonderful! I loved seeing people I haven't heard from in forever.

Friday was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. I had my hair in rag curls that night so it would be properly curly by Saturday morning for a fancy updo. It was worth all the extra work for me because my hair is so long and the ends can get dry and crispy easily. I really didn't want to have it curled and stuffed under a blow drier. I haven't seen any rag-curl pictures, so you'll just have to imagine me with a bed sheet torn into strips and tied into little knots all over my head. Yes it's exactly as weird as you're imagining. I like to operate on the principle that if I act confidently no one will question me. That's a lie - lots of people questioned, but I didn't let it get to me.

Saturday morning bright and early (7am) we all reported to the hairdressers. My stylist was clearly worried about the rag curls, but once she started taking them down, it became clear I knew what I was doing:

She only had to use the curling iron once, on one curl that was still a touch damp.

I haven't had my hair done since prom in high school. It was fun getting it done up pretty.

I was the only bridesmaid with some braids (I think?), it was really the best way to get all my hair to stay UP. The whole thing took "only" 32 hair pins (including one with a fishook style barb that was close to impossible to remove)

Even with the immediate pre-wedding stress, it was lots of fun, especially getting the bride into her gown. It was a trick getting all the petticoat layers down into the dress!

(photos from Caitlin)
And I may have stitched several bridesmaids into their dresses, so it turns out it was good I was carrying a needle and thread.

The wedding went off beautifully, I didn't notice a single problem. And everyone got a good laugh when we all exited to the imperial march at the end:

Dan and his brother wore their family tartan while the other groomsmen wore blackwatch. Men in kilts are awesome. The reception was perfect. Saturday wasn't too hot or too cold and there was a nice breeze. Children played badminton, I tried to play horseshoes in my dress, but the skirt was too poofy. There were lots of awesome UVMers. Some people I haven't seen since the last wedding (I miss you guys) and some people I may not see again for quite awhile (good luck on the boat Jen and Dave!) The cake was delicious (all the food was amazing) Neil even wore a tie for the event:


So congratulations Kat and Dan!


I want more pictures of ostrich poop... (they're at animal kingdom/disney for their honeymoon)

This weekend has been great. The rehersal dinner and wedding were awesome. After the wedding, I ended up at a bbq at my sisters, with more alcohol and food - also great, but it's been a long time since the last time I was awake for that many hours in a row.

I'll talk more about the wedding once people have pictures up. I didn't have a camera with me, so I have no pictures of my own to share.

That's kinda funny, since I have a nice new camera so I can take nice photos! (thanks to Caitlin, yay for friends!)

And since it was made clear to me that people want more chicken pictures, I present to you: my parents chickens:

See? Inside chicken coop pictures with good color, amazing!

And some of the healthiest meat birds I've ever seen:

Standing up and walking around happily at 8 weeks. I think I want some from this hatchery because they could be pastured.

And speaking of meat:

Piggers! So cute when they're little and so tasty when they're big.