Saturday, June 27, 2009

And Now a Fibery Post

First, for those of you who might be wondering, the ewe with the prolapse seems to be doing fine. I kept her in the barn in her own pen for about a week, removing the retainer after about 5 days. Another big dose of LA-200 and I sent her back out with the rest of her flock. And, although the weather has been very hot and humid, she seems OK.

Now, on to other, more fibery news. I knit a 12 inch square that I mailed off to another Ravelry member to be added to a blanket that he is putting together for one of the Paul Newman camps for kids. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was a nice waffle weave done in Caron Simply Soft in a nice dark jade color. Very soft, but I'm afraid I'm a wool snob. It is just so much nicer to knit with wool.

I have also been working on a lace scarf - my first real lace project. I did do a dishcloth with a lace pattern and have done a few swatches, but this feels like my first lace. It is a great "first lace" project. The design comes from the book Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders - the Nancy Pygora-Merino Lace Scarf - a Myrna Stahman design, no wonder it is so pretty (I just read the fine print to see the designer's name) - well, the design is pretty, I'm not trying to brag about my first lace! It knits up very quickly - although since I don't spend huge blocks of time on it, it will take me awhile. But I'm not getting bogged down in endless rows and when I do work on it for a bit, the length actually seems to change - the nice thing about scarves, I guess. But for those of you who hate to purl, all wrong side rows are purled. But I don't mind purling, it's just the switching back and forth, like when knitting ribbing, that I'm not fond of.

I am using a Fleece Artist yarn - their basic merino sock yarn in a colorway I can't remember the name of, but it is various shades of brown, with a few reddish highlights in spots. Obviously not blocked, so it looks kind of rumply - and I always seem to be trying to take pictures in the dark - some of the other blogs I read - well, you take such pretty pictures, in natural light, draping your knitting decoratively over a bush or a fence or some such. I grab a white mattress pad to stick under it, to highlight the holes! Anyway, here it is in all it's rumpled, artificially lighted glory . . . . .

And I got the rest of my birthday present from my folks today. A nice package from The Loopy Ewe, one of my favorite online yarn shops. (I must say, they have VERY fast service - I ordered some knitting accessories from two other online stores at the same time that I ordered the yarn from The Loopy Ewe - this past Thursday, yes two days ago - and I got the yarn today. The other two vendors - well, I'm still waiting on them!) I give you Creatively Dyed's Calypso yarn in the Coconut colorway and Dream in Color Smooshy in Some Summer Sky. The Calypso colors seem to be showing up quite well - mostly natural shades - beiges, browns with some dark purples, dark greens and bits of rosy colors. The Smooshy is showing up as mostly blue, but there is quite a bit of purple highlighting. Both yarns are superwash merino - see, I'm a wool snob - of course, seeing as we have about 200 sheep on the farm at the moment, maybe rightfully so!

The Calypso will probably become a garter stitch stole, the Smooshy is going into the stash for the time being.


Well, the weather forecast shows slightly lower temperatures for the next few days, so maybe I can start getting a few things done again. These last few days we have spent a lot of time in front of the fan and the TV. And speaking of the TV, a "new to me" Doctor Who is on in half an hour and I intend to be firmly situated on the couch by then. Not to be insensitive, but the news that David Tennant was being replaced as the Doctor was more shocking to me than the news of the death of Michael Jackson. I guess we all have our priorities!

1 comment:

Michelle said...

I think the photo of your first lace project turned out well; it shows off the beautiful yarn and the beautiful pattern nicely!