A Dash of Colour

I test knit a shawl for a friend. It is designed to use one skein of Noro or colorful sock yarn, but I did it in some barely colored handspun that has been marinating in the stash for some time. The pattern is available on Ravelry here.

It is a very easy knit, perfect for the beginning lace knitter. It is a shawlette that sits nicely on the shoulders due to the shaping. I made it a bit bigger, as I wanted more coverage, and had the yarn available.

These photos were the best I could do, as it has been very windy here. Spring on the prairie, you know.

Peg loom shop now open!

My friend Lynette made herself this lovely shawl on her peg loom.

She is now making peg looms for sale. They are generally custom made, to your specifications regarding peg width, distance between pegs, and how many pegs.

Painted, or not painted.

If you're interested, just drop her a line at daisyhillhandiworks at hotmail dot com. She has limited internet access, so your best bet is to send her your telephone number so you can discuss the specifics of what you want.

Waffles

I have a confession to make. I have a box of waffles in my freezer.

I'm sure plenty of people have frozen waffles in their freezer, so why the need to confess? They're over two years old. Towards the end, that was all I could get Mom to eat. I don't eat them, and they're taking up space in the freezer that I could use for something else. The chickens would probably like to eat them, freezer burn and all.

Yet, as I rearrange the freezer to make room for the day old bread that was on special, the box always stays, even as I am cursing and shoving and smooshing the day old bread to make it fit. I'm not ready yet. I don't know when I will be.

I can promise you this though. If you ever come for breakfast, I won't be serving frozen waffles. The French Toast might be slightly smooshed day old bread.

The Changing Landscape

A friend asked me the other day why I hadn't posted in such a while. I didn't know how to answer him. I don't have an answer. How about I just post something?

This summer, another wind turbine farm popped up near me.

I swear, one minute they weren't there, and the next they were, just like mushrooms pop up out of nowhere in the spring. I'm sure it didn't feel that way to the people erecting them in the blazing heat we had.

These turbines are about a mile away from me, yet I can't actually see them from my place because of the trees and hill between us. This disappoints me. I rather like watching them. They are mesmerizing, like sitting at my spinning wheel, I think.

Luckily, this view is just a short walk away.

Someday, I'll have one of my own. Not a big one like these, of course, just one that will let me generate some of my own power. Maybe one of these babies? It seems almost wasteful not to.

Hit and Run Post

Sorry, just wanted to show what I've been doing recently. This is yarn that I had mill spun with a friend. It is my alpaca, his wool, and another friend's mohair, a third of each. I've been playing.

A Conversation

I had a lovely conversation with Mom early this morning. It was raining and thundering, and I was in that half conscious state. It was wonderful.

We were sitting around the kitchen table at the family home. The radio was on 'CCO, and Mom was eating a piece of toast. My nephew, just turned 9, was there too. Mom told us this story.

She and her sister Mary Anne were 5 or 6 years old at the time, and their dad was driving them to my Great Aunt (their Aunt)Teeter's place in Wisconsin. The road to her place was gravel, and had a lot of hills. If you drive fast, your stomach does that rising up in your belly thing as you go over the top of the hill and back down. They were sitting in the back seat of the car, leaned back against the seat, heads back and staring up at the sky through the rear window, enjoying that up and down, almost falling sensation as they rode over the hills. All of a sudden, that falling sensation didn't stop, they were falling, falling, falling. They looked at each other, and asked "Are we gone?" (As in, had they died?) Nope, they had gone off the road and into the ditch, landing in two feet of snow.

This is the story as told to me in my dream. I have no idea if it is a real one, that Mom told me years ago, or if my head made it up. I do know that I loved going to Great Aunt Teeter's, and enjoyed the ride there, always urging Mom to drive faster so we could get that rollercoaster effect. I don't remember ever going in the ditch though.

It was great having a conversation with her about our shared past, whether she was sharing her love of riding to Teeter's too, or I was just remembering mine, which she was a huge part of.

Anyway, how have you all been? I've been busy trying to keep up with the mowing, both of the yard with the riding mower and of the pastures with my scythe. I rode (on bicycle) the Tour de Pepin, 32 miles half way around the lake, and then a paddleboat ride back across the lake. It was great fun and amazingly enough I wasn't even sore the next day!

I love this color.

This is a giant hyacinth getting ready to bloom in a flowerbed right outside my front door. I have never noticed the green shading to blue shading to deep purple. It makes my eyes happy.

I sense a colorway coming on. I am imagining it in felt, not yarn, to get the subtle shading from one color to the next. I'll have to pull out the dyepot some other day though, for tomorrow is Shepherd's Harvest! There is a Cormo fleece with my name on it (They've got a beer named Jeff? I know at least one of you will get that!) waiting for me there.