leaning towards lace

Tonight we attended the Pub knitters and we had a few people who haven't attended in a while. They are planning a Christmas Party with another knit group but we are having issues with where to have the gathering. The place we used last year was already booked.

The recent hand spun was washed and dried and skeined today and I'm very proud of the progress. Just a few uneven spots but I'm happy with the consistency.

Both of us prefer to knit with fingering and DK weight yarn so this is just the beginning of more thinner weight yarn coming from Lorelai. I have some lofty goals for my spinning. First is to dye and spin the sport weight Cormo for the Mrs' twin set after she picks the color. This should be a 3/8 weight yarn spun woolen to give the softness and strength. This is just a brief stop towards even finer spinning. I'm thinking about some lace weight in the Cormo. We had a chance to look at the new Knitting Lace of Estonia book and the patterns are amazing. I have two in mind already, one is the Estonian Triangular Summer Shawl. The Lily of the Valley flowers in the white lace is just stunning. This will be the second item but in the natural snow white Cormo. I'm hoping to get the 1,100 yards needed from 4 ounces.

Back to my knitting tonight. I realized that about an inch and a half ago I had the right side and wrong sides reversed. So, I need to rip it back but no problem. I'll focus a little more and press on.

Here is the Lower Trestles all braided up

See you all Tomorrow

Life Is Good

Some dye experiments.

I wanted to test dye the pindrafted ultra merino that I picked up a couple weeks ago. A little experimenting with color. I was shooting for ruby, a deep dark red with something more, you know that certain something special when you see a brilliant ruby gemstone.

A few months ago we sat on the bed very late one night and contemplated dye names that we could use if we ever opened an Etsy shop. Not that I'm ever going to do that but we came up with a bunch of names that meant something to us. Our first date was to the Seal Beach Pier where we ate lunch at Ruby's diner. So the first named dye color is Ruby. (click on the picture to get a better look at the color)


The second test was my first try at blended blues, yellows and teal. This was a lighter color surrounded by a darker deeper color. This looked like one of my favorite surf spots. Lower Trestles near San Onofre. The way the water looks when you are carving through the water and the light reflects the deep blues and ocean greens just over the nose of your board.

I wish I could surf here everyday but we have a life that doesn't always fit the surf lifestyle.

Here is my tribute to Lower Trestles, one of the better places to surf in California.



I may add a more blue but that's not far off. My pictures don't really show the fiber that well.

Yesterday or a few days ago I mentioned some news. Last year before we moved I was planning a blog contest. Yes the Twisted Blog-Jeopardy is going to happen. I'm close to 20,000 hits on my blog and it's going to be close to Thanksgiving/Christmas, so what better way to thank all of the wonderful people I have met, online and in person, since launching this blog. I'm also approaching my third anniversary of learning how to knit. If you are new to my blog or not reading it at my last contest, we like to go a little over board. (read here for some idea of what I'm talking about) Now we add hand dyed fiber and hand spun yarn to the potential gift items. More details to come soon.

Monday is for plying

Tonight we attended the Monday knit group and it was a little cold for some of the ladies. It was in the mid 60's burrrrrr. We sit out on the patio just because out group is so large and would flood the Starbucks if we went inside. Cranking along on the scarf and enjoying the nice chit chat.

Came home and finished plying the merino that I spun in the last few days. 6 ounces of merino in three ply fingering weight, about 358 yards.

All skeined up and resting until morning when it will get a bath.

Short post tonight but I'll have more tomorrow.

Life is Good

Happy Sunday.

I hope you all had a great Sunday. I did a little spinning of the midnight merino. I know it's taking a long time but I'm spinning the whole pound.

The scarf for Jen is coming along really well. One little mistake and some frogging back a row but it's looking good. It's made from Knit Picks Andean Silk in Navy & Slate.


It's hard to see the pattern while it's still on the needles. Maybe when I get a little further I will be able to open it a little . The pattern is Fishtail Lace Scarf.

I promise not to bore you with the daily update pictures.


Yesterday I found this beautiful pork roast that I slow cooked this afternoon.

We went out in the early afternoon, the smell when we came home and opened the door was soooooo good. The roast was tender and moist with just a little seasoning when it was browning. I found some new potatoes I've never seen before, red skinned Yukon gold. Hard to tell since I skinned them for the crock pot but very tasty.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Life is Good

Is it Summer again?

The weather here is a little out of character but I'm not complaining too much. Because it was so nice this evening we drove down to Laguna Beach to enjoy the sunset. So much nicer than the Summer months when their are so many other people doing the same thing.

Today I received a message on Ravelry about a fun fiber day from a local source that looks like a given for me to attend. More info to come later. Thanks Rainy

Not much visible progress on the knitting, spinning or reading fronts but I'm feeling good about my effort.

Looking through the grocery store ads tonight was not as inspiring as it has been. Trying to come up with some larger meals that will result in a dinner and lunch. Looks like a Tri-Tip roast is a good deal this week. Have you seen the reduction in package size lately? The half gallon ice cream is history. The cereal boxes are 9 to 12 oz now for the same price. Instead of raising the price of the item, they reduce the amount for the same price and gain the profit without the sticker shock. The only way to combat this is to cook from raw foods. I'm trying to remove the processed foods and cook more like my Mom and Grandmother cooked. The whole act of meal prep for me is usually 30 minutes or less unless there is a casserole. Even so, the foods that go into the casserole is prepped and in the oven in 30 minutes. The hard part is creating dishes that we both enjoy. I'm a self proclaimed picky eater and that's one of the reasons I learned to cook 35 some years ago. I never realized that there was so much of a difference in diet from Southern Ca to the New England States. I'm from here and she was raised 3,000 miles away. Much more comfort foods there in the cold months where here their is a lot of ethnic influence. The Mexican caliente is ingrained in what I cook. Red Pepper flakes find their way into so many meals. Most of the meat is seasoned with garlic and onion. I have a favorite rub that has some pepper flakes and various seasoning all in one and it's a staple now. The wife is quite happy to have me make the menus and scour the papers for sales and coupons. I tend to grocery shop alone because I will sometimes hit up to 3 stores and spend a lot of time at the meat counter selecting the proper cut for a specific meal.

Two questions for all you lurkers.

1. What is your favorite meal? It could be one you get at a restaurant, your Mom used to make it for your birthday, or it's one that you developed over time. Details are appreciated.
   
   
2. Do you have a meal that you haven't had for a long time because it's hard to prepare or you just forgot how good it was? Is it seasonal?
   

OK enough rambling about nothing of any substance.

Life is Good

Jules Verne, P&P, Spinning, Elvis Costello & Madeline Albright

Day one of the time management exercise and it went well. A little too much TV today but I spun while we watched back to back episodes of Kitchen Nightmares. After that was over I put in the latest DVD from Netflix. The 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightly and Donald Sutherland. Was very disappointed with this version. The A&E 2 disc version was so much better.

Not sure about the weather here. It feels like Summer is giving us one last hurrah. We're looking a 80F temps for the next few days.

I started the Jules Verne book today. "Carpathian Castle" takes place in the mountains of Transylvania in the 1300's. I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this out at our local library. After reading more about Mr. Verne it looks like this was one of his few romantic novels but it was written over a 40 year period. I also found out his books are the 2nd most translated novels after Agatha Christie. It's an easy read so far and looks to be finished in a couple days. I don't read for speed, I read to enjoy the travels the author takes me on.

Oh I wanted to share a picture or two. I'm spinning Ashland Bay Merino in Midnight.

An in process single picture. I changed my technique a little and made the yarn much softer but still strong enough for the 3 ply fingering I have planned. I'll have this single finished soon and start the 3rd single tomorrow.

I was watching a little late night Conan OBrian and Elvis Costello was one of the guest. I found out he is hosting a talk show "Spectacle" on the Sundance Chanel produced by Elton John. It's a show where he talks to other musicians. Times like these I wish we had cable TV. The 2nd guest was Madeline Albright, the former Secretary of State under Clinton. She had a book to promote but she sang a duet with Elvis at the end of her segment. What a great country where a former SOS will sing a duet with an angst filled new wave artist of my youth. They sang "Don't fence me in." Not the greatest song but it was entertaining to see these two sing together.

Happy Thursday!!

Happy Thursday Everyone.

I'm not sure how this blog the day after everything happens is working. Are you confused? Sometimes I'm confused about what today is because I write these post at about 2:00 to 4:00 AM each night. Just before I head to bed. I'm writing about what happened earlier the same day and most of you read it the next morning.

I had some issues with the stitch count on the lace scarf but that was resolved and forging ahead well ahead of schedule for Christmas. No WIP pictures yet but soon.

On the reading front, I finished a book today.

Not really happy with Steinbecks style but it was interesting reading about the life and times of the people and the social economic layers of the characters.

I had wanted to read one book per week but either my interest have wained a bit or too many other things have interrupted my plans. The library has so many good books that I can't wait to read but the problem is what to read and in what order. I wanted to read "The Last Lecture" and I just received the notification that my request was filled. So I have that along with a Biography on Tesla, Short Stories of Marcel Proust, Carpathian Castle by Jules Vern. I'm leaning towards the Jules Vern right now but I'll decide later when I have time to read. I never knew he was so prolific of a novelist. I remember reading 20,000 leagues when my son was 4. (fifteen years ago) We took turns reading a chapter at a time. He was an amazing early reader and it was fun to see him enjoy the theater of the mind so early in life. We would stop when we came across a word that we didn't know and look it up in the Compact English Dictionary my parents bought me years before.

Next is to try and push myself to be more disciplined and focused. I do enjoy TV but there is very little that I really want to watch everyday. Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 PM 6 days a week when it's not being preempted by stuff I don't want to watch. House and Fringe if I'm home. OK I love Poker After Dark but that comes on at 2:00 AM. So my dilema is to be realistic but push myself enough to spin, knit, read each and every day and when that's under control also add the return of playing my guitar. I know I can easily fit in an hour of each. I have easily 9 hours to schedule this activity but I need to work this around fixing dinner, knit nights and various other distractions. Imagine if you could read a book a week, knit and spin 7 hours minimum each week. There is so much I want to read. Hundreds of books and so many projects I wish were in my grasp of knitting. The 50 pounds of fiber begging to become usable yarn for these projects. So many songs I wish I could play, or techniques that would make me a better player.

I know that these times are not that impressive to you power knitters. I know I could add an additional 3 to 4 hours a week of spinning and knitting over the 7 I'm already planning and this would be huge to me. Some of my knitting can easily be done while the TV is on and the spinning is always done with some white noise.

Here is a question to all my blog readers; Do you need to read with silence? Do you hunker down and turn off the TV? Can you have the TV on in the back ground and tune it out? I've been reading with my headphones on for years. Too many hours of reading on planes or at lunch where I drown out the background and enjoy the hard fast music of my favorite artist. My mind just compartmentalizes the music and I see the story in my mind and the outside world disappears for a while.

Well, it's after 4:00 Am and I should crawl into bed for a few hours.

Moving ahead.

Not much happened on the knitting front. We did a little celebrating because my wife voted for her first time today.

The returns are still not in for the West Coast as of 2:02 AM. Some of the races are still close while others were a land slide. It's amazing to see people actually go vote and show some sort of energy instead of the apathy that filled them for so many years. Hopefully these same people will not follow blindly but question authority and stand for what they believe.

And yes I even had a glass of wine tonight.

Life is good

The voting ranks adds one more today.

Today my wife votes for the first time. Not sure what it was, I've asked her to register and vote in the past but she decided to step up and make her voice heard this time. We plan on voting together tomorrow morning for the first time as a couple. Our state is crazy and people forget that not 6 weeks ago we didn't have a signed budget and the spending is out of control but here they are trying to pass more state/local bond issues that are other words for tax increases. So much attention is focused on the Governor and President but the bulk of the politics are in the control of the local , state government and your state representatives to Congress and Senate. When you vote for these individuals remember that they are the ones who are writing the laws that we all live by and are responsible for the spending of our tax dollars while the one at the top only signs the bill unless it has a 2/3rds vote and then it doesn't matter who is in office. So these individuals have more power than you think.

OK enough Politics, I'm sure you are as tired as I am with the commercials and the crud that is filling the mail box lately.

Tonight (Monday) I went to the Monday Knit night and brought some of the fiber that I picked up Sunday. Everyone was awestruck with the Redfish silk merino. One of the other ladies bought some in another colorway but she said she would have bought the one I had if were there when she went to the booth. I love to see what everyone else buys at these fiber shows and yarn crawls just because they look at things differently than I do. I heard that some other people had bought sweaters worth of fiber and I felt good because I know they paid more than double, triple or four times the price per ounce for their fiber. I guess it depends on whether you want to dye your own or how much control you want in the fiber. Most of the colored fiber I buy now is for my inspiration for future dyeing.


Two rounds on the skirt completed today and I spent a few minutes reviewing the Russian join because I'm at the end of a skein. These skeins are 550 yards each. Amazing to knit right through the skein change in lace without having to weave in the ends.

Have a great day and please exercise your rights and speak your mind in the best way possible.

Yes this is the same picture on Stale Peeps blog but I'm not sure everyone reads both . Another good use of Malabrigo Silky.

Life is Good

Fiber Fun on day three of NaBloPoMo

Today (Sunday)was another busy day. Bright & early I was in Torrance for the annual Weaving and Fiber Festival. As I parked the car I noticed Gene from my Friday knit nights. Gene started spinning a few months ago and we discussed the show last week. It's funny who many people you meet when you craft. The line to get in was about 50 deep and friends waved me forward. I had to get in and out quickly because the Mrs had an appointment, so using the free pass in line didn't bother me too much. The was hosted by the local hand weavers guild and while paying the entry the lady looked up and said "hi, aren't you in the spinning guild?" It's turning into a very small world when it comes to the fiber crafts around here and I love it.

My plans were to make a quick sweep through the vendor halls and head to the Morro Fleece Works booth to pick up my fleece. As I entered the first hall I stopped to talk to Lori Lawson from Capistrano Fiber Arts and catch up since her trip to the Taos Wool Festival. I peeked across the way and saw the Redfish booth and had to look at the amazing fiber. One 4 ounce hank of 50/50 Mulberry silk and extra fine merino stood out to me and I debated leaving the booth and picking it up on the way out but thought nooooo because I knew it would be gone if I did. Yes it's that special. The picture doesn't do it justice.


I made a circle through the room and headed for the next room and took care of the business of picking up the extra hank of Malabrigo Silky bringing the hank total to 8. Safely enough for the sweater/top the Mrs has in mind. Thank you Cathy for bringing this specially for me.

Next was the reason for the trip since I really don't need more fiber. Sheri was sitting there at her booth helping other friends from the Tuesday night spin group when I walked up she was busy so I looked over the other fiber she brought. I picked up some really pretty bamboo/silk and it too had to come home.
These two just screamed at me "buy me buy me now!" I'm not an aqua kind of guy but it looked like Caribbean seas and you know the purple was perfect.

On the way out I saw Gene looking over Lori's hand dyed hanks so I walked over and introduced them. Not sure what he purchased but I found some dyed Cormo locks and had to have them too. I know it wasn't required but soooo pretty and again almost oceanic; looking like inside of the curl while morning surfing at Huntington Beach.


I found the door and made my way home in time to meet the North County Sunday group because it was a special day. One of the ladies wanted to introduce her new guy and asked us to come. I also had a chance to meet Laura AKA KnottyLa. I started reading her blog a couple years ago and this was our first face to face visit even though we live so close to each other.

Later in the day I opened the box to check out the new fiber and was very happy to feel the softness of my latest fleece purchase.

This was a 7 pound raw fleece and weighed in at more than 5 pounds processed. About 74% yield is a testament to how well the sheep are cared for.

Life is Good

Knit Knight Yarn Crawl

Today we had a little yarn crawl with the Monday night knit group. We found each other on Ravelry and recently formed our own group there, Knit Knight. We had plans to hit four yarn shops in the Westside/Southbay area. Twist Yarns of Intrigue, Beach Knitting, A Mano Yarn Center and Concepts in Yarn. Mrs Twisted had something scheduled at 3:30 today so we cut it short with the first three.

Nice cozy shop with so much wonderful luxury yarn.

The last three faithful shoppers paying for their goodies.

Part of the group waiting to head to the next shop.

Our motley crue

Yes I am on a yarn diet but yes we did buy some yarn.

We already had 5 of these beautiful Malabrigo Silky Merino hanks.
The project now under consideration takes 7 hanks. Well, I'm picking up another hank tomorrow at the fiber fair from the same shop owner to bring it up to 8 hanks just in case.

Couldn't pass this one up either.
Dream In Color Smooshy color way Butter Peeps for my wife Stale Peeps

That was the end of our purchases but tomorrow is another day.

Life is good

Happy November everyone

Hi everyone. I'm going to try and do something here to get the creative juices flowing and get my writing mojo back.



I thought I would try to post everyday for a month.

Baby steps and little updates just to keep my thoughts flowing.

The last few days have been a little busy. I dyed some Cormo as an attempt to refine the multiple purples and sent this off to a fellow spinner.
About 4 1/4 ounces of heavenly fiber......


Monday was the Anaheim Hills knit night. We tried to settle on departure times and order of shops for this weekend's LTS crawl.

We'll see how that goes in a few hours from now.


Tuesday we attended the Huntington Beach knit group and met three new knitters, two of whom were casting on for their first time. A sewing teacher came by the group last week and made some inquiries and these ladies came this week. So nice when we can pass on the fiber fun.

Wednesday there was an opportunity to go meet another group in Diamond Bar. One of the ladies in our Monday group also knits with them and mentioned some of them wanted to talk spinning so one of the other ladies brought her Lendrum and I came with my Fricke. I wasn't sure what to expect until I walked into the coffee house and realized I knew some of the ladies already and two of them were at last Saturday's spinning guild meeting. Small world huh? Well, a couple of them are doing some wheel shopping and just wanted to test spin a couple wheels. They even had their own fiber to spin (I brought some BFL just in case). After they each took the wheels for a spin one of the other ladies had an impromptu lesson. To see the look when the new spinners get that ah ha moment and you see they just got it is so much fun.

The weekend is going to be busy so off to bed I go.
See you all tomorrow.

one down twenty nine to go...

Life Is Good

Long time no blog.

Hi everyone, I know it's been way too long and lots has been going on here but not everything I care to share on such a public forum but we're doing fine. I want to thank everyone who e-mailed when I seemed to be blog MIA.

A few scattered thoughts just to get myself off center;

Last week I turned 49 and I'm looking forward because the past is behind me now. I cant change what I've already done but I've made a few changes to make the future better.

I stopped drinking soda on September 4th, cold turkey and have only had a few since. This came about when we went to the recycling center and they handed me more than $15 the last two months for all the empty cans. It was kind of an eye opening slap in the face. How could we be consuming so much that we were getting $15 for the empties in a month. We attended a house warming last month where I fell off the wagon and had a few ginger ales at Pubknitters but I'm holding steady. I was drinking at least 60 to 72 ounces every day before stopping. I'm still drinking iced tea but no sugar added. Each morning I'm having a large bowl of Quaker oatmeal and the results are wonderful. My BP is down and I've lost about 15 lbs and I feel great. The greasy, fattening but great tasting food on the catering truck is gone too. This wasn't an all out diet change but a little modification that has had some positive results. I promise This won't become a diet blog but it's nice that my clothes fit better.

We had a package of those amazing Dove Dark Chocolate Promise candies and this was one of the thought provoking statements. "Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently" This sort of sounded like frogging back a project and re-reading the instructions and trying it again.

I did some dyeing last month and the results were very good. Targhee and Cormo.

Some Targhee in a new process that worked out pretty well.

The Targhee after it dried and all braided up.

4 ounces of Cormo

On the knitting front, I'm still working on the Flickering Flames skirt.

This picture is a little old but according to the Excel sheet I have set up it says 35% of the rounds complete out of the 130 rounds. The issue is when I get to round 47 I double the stitches again. I'm at 18.675% of the 89,640 stitches or 16,740 stitches complete.

The Mrs and I have enjoyed the public library a lot lately. I'm looking for the perfect list of books to read before you die not that I'm on a time table but trying to fill that void that only reading does. It's hard to find that balanced list of classics and contemporary authors. The more I read the more my eyes open. We just watched "Sense and Sensibility" today and I loved the story and the books of Jane Austen are high on my personal list now.
The deep imagery playing out in the mind each time you turn the page. The Mrs. wonders how I can listen to music with noise canceling headphones and still concentrate on what I'm reading but I can close off the outside world with pseudo white noise and still bebop to the music.

Right now I'm reading John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and on deck are The complete short stories of Marcel Proust, Carpathian Castle by Jules Vern, a biography of Nikola Tesla and one of Andy Summers from the Police. the plan is to read a book per week or more. While looking at digital books they give estimated minutes to complete the book. I know it's just a range but it looked like 5 to 10 hours of reading per book for most of the books I have on my radar.

I'm looking at E-book readers so I don't have to lug the books around but $130 -$350 seems a lot to give you just a little convenience. I like the idea of instant access to a dictionary and multiple books in case I feel like I want to read something different that day without having multiple books with me. The Kindle looks good but the Sony seems better to me and the Ebookwise reader may be just enough for a lot less money.

OK I have so much to say but I'll continue this another day.

baby steps ...

Last week I was swatching for the lace skirt just to try memorizing the lace pattern. Tonight before pub knitting the math was done for the appropriate cast on for the skirt and off I went. The first rounds are for the gathered waist. The skirt is 130 rounds and I have 6 1/2 rounds complete. It doubles in diameter after 24 rounds of pattern and again after 48 more rounds. I just set up a little excel sheet to track the progress and I see that I have 5% of the rounds complete and 2% of the stitches. It's probably not a good thing for me to see but the pattern is quite clear so I summed the stitches and it works out to 89,640 stitches for this project. We are at 1,755 st complete. Baby steps and I will complete it in time for the next ice age. WIP pics to come soon.

I had high hopes for the Ravelympics but I didn't completely fail. I spun some Cormo that was dyed earlier in the month.

I did get one project complete and hopefully I will have more time to focus in 18 months when the Winter Olympics come around.

Last but not least I received a shipment from my upstream SP 12 partner. She contacted A Mano Yarn Center and had them to ship me some pure silk roving. Two lovely hanks of beautifully dyed Bombyx silk by Nancy Finn of Chasing Rainbows. The colors are perfect! I'll post pics tomorrow when I can get some decent pictures.

OC Pub Knitters, alive and well

Wednesday night we returned to OC Pubknitters. Bree, the young lady with the pink hair made a suggestion to try the Goat Hill Tavern in Costa Mesa/Newport Beach. We arrived a few minutes before 7:00 and it looked like a high traffic establishment at other times of the week but subdued when we walked in.



We walked around the multiple rooms and looked for a good place to sit thinking of at least 4 or 5 would join us. Within 10 minutes, the group of six had met us and joined us at a well lit table away from the pool tables, foosball, and out of sound contact of the multiple big screen TVs showing every possible sporting event on the airwaves.


For those partaking of the "libations", their are over 121 beers on tap with mixed drinks for the non beer drinkers. Peanut shells on the floor and classic rock playing on the sound system but not too loud so we could still carry on normal conversation. Quite happy to have free soft drinks for the DD (me) Many would consider this place a dive but we all enjoyed the atmosphere and people watching between stitches. Bree, the organizer of this came back to the table after getting a beer and shared a comment from the bar tender; "I cant tell you all the things I've seen happen on that table, but never have I seen anyone knit." We all just laughed.

As the night progressed the age group got younger and the music changed in content and volume until we called it a night a little after 9:00. What a fun time! Yes I was knitting too. Swatching the flickering flames lace pattern to try and capture the repeat in my aging memory.

Complete spinning projects and dye experiments

Not much knitting going on here but some dyeing and spinning.

I finished the fiber needed for the Hush Hush Handspun Hootenanny swap. We had to swap 4 ounces of fiber unspun, 4 ounces of hand spun and goodies as you see fit. The unspun fiber was easy because I have plenty to spare. I wanted to do something special with the handspun, I chose Rambouillet because it's not commercially prevalent and wanted to hand dye it myself.
The spinning was different than what I was used to but after a little experimentation, it spun very well.




The colorway is made from four graduated one ounce segments and 2 plied into the semi-monochromatic "Malachite" yarn.

For some of you this will be a re-run. Mrs. Twisted shared some of this but I will share a few more details. She had an idea for a yarn colorway and I asked her to show me and with some crayons. I took the colors we had and blended them to match the swatch the best I could. The inspiration was pansy inspired.

The base yarn is Henry's Attic superwash merino. I tried three different dyeing styles, the left is all blue and splatter dyed with the plum. The center was dyed blue, steam set and dried. After it was dry I carefully over dyed the dry hank with plum. The right hank was normal space dyed and steam set. The goal was to see the end result in stockinette for future reference.

We liked the center version because it looks like each stitch is a different color sort of like the Araucania brand coloring.

Many of you know me pretty well, I tend to share a lot of my feelings and outlook on life here. some of you may not know I'm left handed. the only reason I even mention that is because Wednesday August the 13th was World Wide Left Handed Day. My son is a lefty too. The only two in all of the extended family. I'm not surprised though, it seems like there is a "world wide xxx day" for everything now. So to you lefties out there high fives all around.

SP Qustion for week # 9

This weeks SP 12 question came a few weeks late, or so it seems.

Question of the Week #9

This week. our question is about your knitting... In many communities, "the fair" is a great place to visit and spend time with your family. It's also where many have entered one product or another (jams, cakes, even knitting)...


Have you ever entered your knitting (or anything else) in the fair? Would you ever consider it?

Would you ever consider entering your knitting in a competition?)

I've only been knitting for a few years and never thought about entering my knitting at the fair. Our county fair has a competition here where you submit your table setting around a theme of your choice. I thought about doing that, or maybe some sort of cooked item but my meals are more consumption than exhibition. When we attended the fair this year we walked through the items submitted for judging. Lots of quilts and crocheted afghans but only a few knitted items and only three hanks of hand spun yarn. I'll definitely will be submitting some hand spun yarn as well as a hand spun, hand dyed, knitted object next year.

Have a nice Friday everyone.

Sheep-less Shepherd's Pie

Question of the Week #8

What is your favorite supper for a hot summer evening?

For added flavor (Get it?..."flavor"...I crack myself up!), post a photo or recipe link.

Really, the weather here is pretty moderate year around. I don't really have summer or winter meals like you would have in the North East so I just thought I would post what I cooked tonight. I do most of the cooking in the house and we cycle through about 20 favorite meals. Occasionally I remember a meal my Mom used to cook or one that peeks it's way out of the deep recesses of my aging brain. The hardest part is to cook for 2 people. Most of my recipes are for 4 to 6 and this is for three very hungry people or four adults.

The Sheep-less Shepherd's Pie

10 ounces of lean ground beef
2 cans of condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
8 servings of mashed potato
Just a sprinkle of shredded mild cheese.

I use instant potatoes in this recipe because you can achieve the right stiffness
Idahoan is my choice of instant potatoes.

2 2/3 cups flakes
2 2/3 cups water
1cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
Prepare the 8 serving method on the box in a medium saucepan.

Brown the ground beef in a skillet and drain the excess fat
open the cans of soup (do not add water to the soup) and mix over a medium flame.
Add the peas and bring to a soft boil.
Remove from flame.
At this point I transfer the meat filling to a glass mixing bowl and rinse the skillet.

Spread the prepared potatoes in the 10" skillet to form a pseudo crust.
I use a tea spoon to lift the potatoes and give it peaks. This helps to brown in the last step.

Take the skillet and put it in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.

Add the garnish of cheese for taste and color and serve.
MMMMMM good and very filling.