Two Sample Shawls Plus Unexpected Skin Surgery

 This weekend I added two sample shawls to my knitting basket.  Here they are:

The photo is not ideal but maybe you can enlarge it.

The brown shawl is sort of like the Outlander-Inspired Shawl for 18-Inch dolls.    I made a few small changes to suit me a little better.  The main change was that I slipped the first stitch purl-wise every row to get a nice chain-like edging.  Since I will use this as a sample, but also as a shawl for one of our Emotional Support Chickens, I knitted about 20 garter ridges then did the bottom eyelet edging, knitted one additional row then bound off loosely.  It came out okay.

The green shawl is also a sample for my friend to choose from when she chooses her shawl pattern.  This shawl is simply the increase rows of Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth then one row of eyelet stitches then binding off loosely.  It also is about 20 garter ridges and will be for another Emotional Support Chicken.  They need their shawls for their own emotional support!!  At least I like to think so...

This was a fun weekend evening project though it would probably have been better to spread out the knitting joy a little...

So about the unexpected skin surgery:  I spoke of it on The Country Wife From Vermont YouTube channel last week if you want to hear it "live"!  Here are the basic details: I went to the skin doctor for the annual "naked" appointment--my mother died of malignant melanoma which spread to her lungs and then to her brain, and since I have a ton of moles, I go every six months to be checked.  Once a year there is an ignominious full-body check.  Last week was the day.  I got there and was helped up onto the bench (I waited for help since good balance is no longer my middle name...) and he started the exam.  A minute or so into the exam he asked if there was anything  new or different.  Well, yes.  The day before my left ear was itchy so I scratched  it and found a smallish lump/bump which I scratched all day and into the day of the appointment.  He looked at it and said, "Huh!  Would you mind if we took that off?  It might be nothing, but it might be something."  Well, what would you do?!!  So I said go for it.  So he did.  

The wound is supposed to Vaselined and covered until it heals or until I hear from the office about the biopsy results.  Of course, you will know how well the bandage sticks to skin with Vaseline on it...so it is now healing in the open air.  If you are a medical person and think I should do something else, please let me know!  Many thanks.

So that is the newsy bits  front from the South today. I hope all is well with you and your family as you are reading this.

Lawn Renovation!

 There are a fair few empty bare spots on our lawn. I am not sure why though it might be because we don't water enough.  Maybe we drive over the lawn too often? I don't know BUT  several weeks ago I spoke with Chris at BC Mulch and More.  She told me how to fix the lawn when I asked.  This is her suggestion:

Dragon fly exploring the newly laid compost!

1.  Go to Southern States to get some Contractor Mix grass seed.

2.  Use a garden fork to aerate the bare spot.

3  Spread the compost I was purchasing from her over the aerated spot.

4.  Broadcast on the grass seed.

5.  Water several times a day until the seeds are established.

This seemed like an easy project.

Not so!

The first issue was that Southern States only had grass seed in fifty pound bags.  That would have been way overkill.  At least that is my thought.

Southern States was in process of opening bags on pallets from another location and they were going to have and open bag the next day...so I came back.

They did not have a bag open.  The nice boy at the desk suggested I call before coming so I could save my gasoline.  I agreed to that.

A week later I did go back to the store and they still had not opened a bag but did it on the spot and sold me two pounds of seed.

This is the bare spot on the lawn I decided to address first.

Now the real fun began.  As I was aerating the soil it seemed like just about every other poke into the ground hit a stone!  R-r-r-r!!  Well, I continued then spread the bucket of compost and aerated again.  Next I got the seed from the house and broadcast a good bit of it.  Finally I got the hose out and sprayed the  ground in good shape.  As I am writing this I am looking at the clock and need to go and water again.

Here is the lawn with the whole process completed...except for all the watering projects!

Let us all pray that the seed takes hold and the lawn improves.  If it does, there are more bare spots...

DIY Diz!

This week I learned something new:  it is possible to pre-draft wool fiber through a diz!  What is a diz?  It is some small flat or curved "thing" with different sized holes in it which you can use to pull roving through or pull smooth fiber off wool combs to turn it into roving.  I wondered if I could use a large button to pull fiber through.  Yes, you can!

This is a plastic button that is about 1.25" in diameter (is diameter straight across?  I seem to have forgotten some of the fine points of math!). I used a 2.5 mm crochet hook to pull a little end of roving through one of the holes.  I then pulled the fiber with my left hand and held the fiber on the other side with a bit of tension on it to pre-draft the roving and make it easier to spin.  This worked like a charm AND the spinning is much more consistent.  Makes me happy.

This is what the "nest" looks like after dizzing it off:

So light and fluffy!  It makes really nice yarn.  Doesn't this make you want to take up spinning?!!!

NOTE:  If you want to watch me actually using this diz, I do a short demo on The Country Wife From Vermont  YouTube channel which will post on Saturday, 26 July.    This link might take you there, or you can just look for it by name.

This is the address for last week's episode:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzy5keNE5_c

Active Bird Nest In Our Tree!

 This morning Dear One was sitting on the front porch waiting for the police to come check up on us to see if we actually did have burglars or what. (We did not have burglars...someone just forgot to turn off  the security system before opening a door...fortunately the police are very nice about it.  I guess coming to a home where there are no actual crimes being committed is a restful thing for them.)

As I came out to see what was up, he asked if I had seen the birds in the tree. I had not.  I hear them every morning before dawn but figured they were sitting on the eaves of the house.  Not so!  There is a bird's nest in the tree!  I guess they are pretty happy I did not prune that high up in the tree last week!  I guess that makes me feel like a dolt that I did not spot the nest...

Can you see it?

Of course you can!  I love having birds around us.  They counterbalance the "other sounds" we hear from the pond...!

Tour de Fleece: First Completed Bobbin

 Here is the first bobbin of 2-ply yarn I spun for this year's Tour de Fleece.  I am taking things a little easier this year.  Last year I was stressed to the max trying to spin spin spin.  This year I am committed to fifteen minutes a day or at least five yards of Thetford Roving spun by the end of the day.

This yarn was the result of the blending board rolags I made at the first Tour de Fleece event this year.  I have now used up much of this thick and thin yarn on a project which I will unveil next week when it is completed!

The singles were spun on the Ashford Traveler that my angel friend Elsie gave me twenty years ago.  When it was time to ply I used the Ashford eSpinner 3.  That worked so well!  Of course, I only have two bobbins for that eSpinner so I had to first unwind the singles  on the full bobbin.  I am hoping to order another two bobbins from WooLee Winder for this eSpinner.  Then I will be set.  Famous last words, of course!

Beach Boy Skeleton!

 Here he is in all his beachy glory:

Don't you just love his adorable watermelon inner tube floaty thing?!!!  Of course, on principle I am against watermelons because they gag me but, I still think this  is cute.  

The library here in town is going to have a crafternoon tomorrow where they will take colorful buttons and craft a watermelon card.  Pretty cute.

And yes, you are correct, I do not like to eat watermelon.  Every year I try and every year it gags me.  Someone told me I just need to eat a really ripe local watermelon and I would love them.  Not so far...

Tour De Fleece Started on 5 July

 The Columbia Spinning Ladies who took me in last year and have helped me tremendously in improving my spinning have a wonderful plan for Tour de Fleece this year.  Every Saturday in July will have an event/workshop to improve our skills.

On Saturday just past we learned how to create our own self striping yarn!  TJ, our leader, had a big pile of fiber and instructed each of us to take three colors that appealed to us to make the yarn.  I chose red, yellow, and blue.  Not very creative but...that is what I chose.

These are the rolags I made on the Ashford Blending Board I purchased earlier this year.  I had only tried blending on it once or twice before.  This was what I made on Saturday.  The next thing we did was to spin up the rolags into singles.  I did that.  When I came home I spent about ten minutes spinning some white singles to ply with the colorful striped yarn to tone it down a little.  I have not plied yet as there was more red, yellow, and blue to turn into rolags and spin into singles.

Today I finished blending up the remaining red, yellow, and blue fiber into rolags and now have six more rolags to spin plus a big fat "rolag" or maybe better call it a sort of batt.  I will spin that last.  If all goes well I will get this done tomorrow.  The spinning of these rolags, I mean.  I expect that the following day I will get to plying. Hopefully.  I will show the yarn off  after that.  One of the Columbia Spinners has already finished her spin and has knitted it up into a swatch.  It looks so good.  In my heart of hearts I hope to complete my spinning, plying, wet-finishing, skeining up, rolling into a ball, then knitting a swatch by next Saturday.  I will let you know how it goes.  At this point...not too sure that is a reasonable expectation, but I will try.  Will let you know!

The Ashford eSpinner 3 which is upstairs is where I am spinning the white Thetford Roving to use for plying.  Last night I spun up 5 grams of roving.  Today I spun 10 grams of roving.