Health Update

For those of you who saw my post about my blood pressure being up, I wanted to give you an update as to how I am doing now, about one month later.  My blood pressure at its last reading was back in the normal range.  I have dropped a few pounds and my clothes are fitting a little looser now.  Overall, I feel better and will continue to add more walking into my daily routine until I am at a weight that will allow me to run without pain to my hamstring.  I've been enjoying my walks around the local parks where I live and am increasing my distance a little each week so that I can be up to walking 5k on a regular basis again.  I'm hoping by the time another month rolls around that I will be up to that and will still be enjoying my now healthier lifestyle.

Knit on...

Spinning

I also have started working on the shetland roving I picked up from Yarn Geek this weekend.  This colorway is called Bob's Favorite Bird.  When I bought the roving, I wanted to make a laceweight yarn, but the fiber seems to have other ideas.  It will probably turn into a heavy fingering weight yarn by the time it's all spun and plied.  I'm still thinking it will be a shawl, but a heavier one than I had intended.  Here's the spinning process:

I really love the feel of this wool and the colors it has in it.  It's delightful to spin and I would totally recommend Yarn Geek to anyone.  Plus, the pair of them were fun to talk to and I always enjoy buying lovely fiber from lovely people.  They have an Etsy store, so go check them out!

Knit on...

Blanket Progress

I worked a little bit on the blanket this week and it's now grown decently.  I can definitely notice that one black square, so I'm glad some more of the black is about to get added after this last pink section:

And sorry for the very wonky photo.  This is what happens when you try to take progress pictures after having a glass of wine with your dinner (I rarely drink, so a glass will have this effect).  I'm still trying to decide who to give this blanket to since now it has come to my attention that several friends are about to have little girl grandchildren in the near future.  I'm leaning heavily towards one right now, so we'll see if that's who this eventually goes to.

Knit on...

The Goodies

So, I couldn't leave a fiber show of any kind without purchasing something.  I decided that this year I was only going to purchase fiber while at the show this year since I purchased mostly yarn at Stitches.  I perused the tents first, then went around and second, third, and fourth time before finally narrowing down exactly what I wanted.  The first purchase of the day was 4 ounces of Frabjous Fibers sparkle merino:

I then wandered around and decided on a challenge fiber that I had never spun before.  This is 4 ounces of nylon roving from LunaBudKnits:

Lastly, I picked up 8 ounces of shetland roving from Yarn Geek Fibers:

If you haven't noticed, there seems to be a trend in my color choices.  I hadn't even really noticed until I showed a friend the yarn on Saturday afternoon and she made the comment that those must really be my colors.  Yep, guess you could say that now since I also picked up nearly the same colorways from Dragonfly while at Stitches.  Go figure.  Guess you can call me an earthy blues person!

Knit on...

The Farm and a Fiber Fest

Hello, everyone.  No, I didn't drop completely off the face of the earth last week.  Rather, I left the city and went to the farm to house sit for some friends of mine.  While on the farm, I learned several valuable lessons.  The first is that if a horse wants to smell your hair bad enough, it is possible for him to inhale so hard that your head may get stuck in his nostril.  Or at least enough hair to feel like your head.  Also, when removing your hair from the horse's nose, remember to not scream out obscenities at it as this upsets said horse.  Thirdly, a shower is necessary after a horse inhales your hair.  Fourth, horses, or at least these horses, do not like the dinging noise a car will make when the door is open and the car is running.  Lastly, do not attempt to pet the pony after previous mentioned dinging noise has upset them as this will cause the pony to shoot you such a death stare that for a moment, you wonder if you might be having an out of body experience.

I ran away from the horses and back into the city to once again get around animals that have the ability to sniff my hair into oblivion.  Saturday was the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival and I went to that.  There was a wall of bamboo:

There were lots of vendors, including the lovely ladies of ReBelle:

There were sheep of all kinds:

There were alpacas, llamas, and cashmere goats:

And there were fleeces:

Oh my, were there fleeces:

And yes, I did manage to keep my promise to myself that I would not buy and process a raw fleece again after my last attempt with Charlie's fleece.  What did I buy, you might ask?  Well, that is for the next blog post!

Knit on...

Thoughts on Strawberries

In the next couple of days, I will be getting 5 gallons of strawberries from a local farmer.  I'm very excited about this as the strawberry crop has been early this year and my usual farmer is already out of her crop.  This year, I planned out the canning process based on the time the vegetables and fruits should be coming in season.  Well, they came early this year and I was totally not prepared.

I'm thinking that my Thursday night or Friday night activity this week will be making strawberry jam.  Last year, I made a couple of jars of a mixed berry jam that I have savored of the past year.  I'm down to the end of my last jar, which made me very sad when I thought I would not be getting any strawberries this year.

Do any of you all can or preserve your own foods?  Has your growing season started early or late this year?  How do you go about preparing for the summer bounty of foods?  I'm just curious and wonder if anyone obsesses about local produce seasons the way I do.

Knit on...

The Blanket Grows

The blanket is continuing to grow.  I didn't get a chance to knit very much this past week, so I did not meet my goal of having the turquoise panel completed by the end of the week.  I made decent progress on it though, considering how hectic the week was.  I'm really hoping this week will be quieter at work so I don't come home quite as tired and can crash for a bit and knit.  Here's the progress:

Sorry for the crummy picture.  I was just not taking the time to lay it out properly for a snapshot when it's a giant square at this time.

Knit on...

Derby Day

Since I live in Kentucky, the Derby is always an eventful day around here.  My family throws a party every running and so, once again, we gathered to watch the horses run on TV:

We of course had food.  Here's dessert:

You will notice a lack of Derby Pie here.  None of us are huge fans of this traditional dessert.  The horses ran, and none of the ones I placed bets on even came in the top 4.  Congrats to I'll Have Another and his jockey for taking the title.

Knit on...

Blanket Progress

I knit a little more on the baby blanket this week and now have block 5 completed and almost block 6.  Here is a progress picture:

I'm hoping to have blocks 6 and 7 done by the end of the weekend. 

I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to work on for the knitting olympics.  I am thinking about making a lace shawl out of the Dragonfly squishy lace, but I'm not sure which pattern yet.  Anyone have any suggestions for 875 yards of laceweight?

Knit on...

Plants!

Saturday, I went with Renee to the farmers' market where we quickly became depressed when we realized how early the growing season had hit.  While this might make some people happy, we were devastated.  Why?  One word: Strawberries.

Last year, late into the strawberry season, we discovered a lovely old woman selling strawberries out of the back of her truck.  These were the best darned strawberries I have ever eaten, and I grew up in Florida, home of the Plant City Strawberry Festival!  These tiny berries were sweet and tart at the same time and made the best jam I have ever made. 

She was there this week.  She was almost out of strawberries...probably for the season.

My jam making just went right out the window.

So, we decided we needed to get plants going for the growing season since who knew how long we would get given the accelerated nature of the market this year.  I live in an apartment, so I don't have much of a chance to grow my own produce.  This year, I am dedicating part of my living room to it:

I have one Old Time Tasty tomato, one cherry tomato, and three bell pepper plants.  I will have produce!

Also, for an update on the orchid:  One day after giving it some water, it is starting to perk up.  We'll see how it does after a few more days!

Knit on...

Verda

Downstairs in my apartment building is a sweet elderly lady named Verda.  She is always asking how DF is doing, what crafts am I working on now, and, like on Friday, she asked me if I wanted any of the furniture she was getting rid of.

She had two nice shelves, so I took those back upstairs after thanking Verda (and planning to take her cookies this afternoon as another thanks) and pondered the fiber usage of the shelves.  The big one went into the craft room:

The shelf even had little hooks that I decided were perfect for hanging sock and lace weight yarn to show off the pretty colors.

The second shelf went into my living room where the spinning wheel resides:

The shelf was just the perfect size to hold some spinning fiber and add some color against the wall.

Thank you, Verda for the shelf donation!  I'm just glad to be able to show off the fiber now.

Knit on...

And Back to Knitting

I was not expecting to get distracted with the orchid for my next post, but hey, it happens.  As a quick update on my knitting, you'll see that the baby blanket is growing:

Four blocks in, 6 to go.  At the time of this writing, I'm actually almost done with block 5, so I'm about half way there now.

Knit on...