FiberTribe

(some) of Why I Live in Paradise (west)

We're presently between storms (that will change tomorrow per uncle NOAA) so while the sun holds I'll regale you with a few lovelies from last week.  Also between storms, heh.
Here's Long Canyon down the Burr Trail almost to the Long Canyon overlook...

here's another right before the overlook

and here's the overlook, a bit overexposed, though..
Those are the Henry Mountains.  Here's a better shot of them.

Knitting you say??? eh, if the sun holds I'll snap the continuation of Titicaca, the cardigan/jacket...
That is all from travelogue central.

ETA: The red rocks in front of the Henrys are the Circle Cliffs.  And in case you were wondering, apropos of St. Brigid's day and the blogiverse silent poetry thing,  I find my poetry in the rocks and grass and sky out here.       For a more traditional take, go see the Harlot's father-in-law's amazing poem on her blog. He's that good...

Boulder Weather Report*

That's what this is turning into, eh? It's blindingly sunny (try sun on a foot and half of twinkly diamond snow), windy as hell, and so cold you don't really want to know about it.

In sidebar news, I've put up a bunch of newly read (if not actually new) books.  If you try nothing else, try the Ask and It Is Given book by Esther Hicks. Woo-woo warning: it involves a channeled entity. so get over it and read the damned thing anyway. Need inspiration?  Though I know this stuff I routinely 'forget' it and get down in a routine wallow of feeling done-to and powerless over life details. And then I shake it off as I did yesterday and remember to send out a meditation-prayer-asking-what-ev-ah. In last night's case it was about financial matters as in send money NOW, financial betterment etc.  Non-specific, as it should be and not attached to how any of it arrives except that it be all good, as in nobody should croak for my financial betterment, right?  ok.

So about two hours ago I get a call on my cell phone from an area code I've never seen before.  Know that I presently live waaay off the sprint grid and my cell phone seldom receives signal. Yet it rings and on the line is a former roommate from more than 10 years ago.  I had lent her some money all those years ago and she wants to repay it, all $200. How cool is that?  Coincidence? You could call it that, however bloody unlikely this particular one is. Or you could remember the part above about "not getting attached to how any of it arrives."

Need a final push?  Try it on something small and unique enough that you would definitely know wasn't coincidence when it shows up. The grand what-ev-ah does not care if you test it.  Have fun and if anything should come your way, drop me a line, mmmk?  That is all from the frozen (but sunny) tundra.
 
*Idea cheerfully filched from the wonderful Alda Kalda over at The Iceland Weather Report.

Snow Day or Sleep on My Face and Tell Me That You Love Me

It's snowing a blizzard and life is good, eh?   Felix-boy (teh kitteh, not teh boyo) rules this roost.  We're cat-sitting Felix and Flo while former roommate enjoys Thailand.  Pity I didn't enter Felix's monster hind feet in the recent bunny thumper contest elsewhere in blogworld. And yup, it's come to that: cat blogging.

The world is white and straw and chocolate brown as you can see below. 

And I, O Patient Ones, have spent the day in a flannel nightgown and turtleneck prowling the web and ordering books, knitterly and otherwise. I was restrained, given the current financial outlook and wish-listed most. I did finally spring for Stephanie's Fitted Knits and Diana Abu-Jabar's newest fiction, science fiction actually, Origin.  I met Diana at a reading she gave at Books and Books in Miami for her wonderful memor (with recipes) the Language of Baklava.  I can definitely recommend that one.  And she's as warm and funny and literate in person.  I also broke down and got the Omnivore's Dilemma because I just can't wait anymore.

On my recent wish list are also:  Arabesque, middle eastern cooking by Claudia Roden. I am all about the preserved lemons and other moroccan delights these days. Must be the influence of the rocky soil here in the high desert. There's a certain resonance. And a slew of other knit books like KnitKnit, Sensual Knits, Veronique Avery's recent book, and Shobhana's Yarnplay at Home.  All delicious. 

Not to go all Calvinist on yer asses or anything, but when I look at the massive amount of knitbooks I own and the pattern wonders therein, well, er, a little forbearance wouldn't hurt the budget any. Besides, I need to save my pennies for 5 skeins of Zitron Trekking XXL to make the lovely Abotanicity from the winter Knitty.  It's raglan, it's variegated yarn, it's empire waisted...what's not to love?  Now if any of you lovelies happens to have 5 skeins of the same colorway of XXL laying about and would care to sell, let me know? right. As long as I'm dreaming let's go for the 86 colorway, deep variegated wines. yum.

ETA:  The above post was written 2 days ago. We're in the middle of an even worse blizzard today. Except for a red flannel sleep tshirt, it's pretty much been the same, same today. That is all from Siberia.

Musical Yarn Chairs

This lovely but ancient (and discontinued) yarn is KnitPicks Radiance Wave, 77% superfine Alpaca, 23% silk in color Cardinal. It's aran to DK weight and at only 77 yds. per skein, a bit light on the yardage.  But the color is a deeper-than-the-photo bluey true red.  Yum.  I think KnitPicks came up with it to compete when the Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk that was all the rage. I have that in stash, too, somewhere.

I'll be knitting the Gathered Pullover (2nd from right) from the latest IK.  I swatched for it from Elann's Super Kydd in the disappointing color Brick.  On screen it looked red, when it arrived it was a rust color. Nice but not what I wanted. Also it most definitely would have had no drape. Le sigh. 
The KnitPicks stuff was to be a pullover for my Finland-living, wool-allergic best friend, Gomez. Different pattern, but I got gauge on the first try, the color is perfect for her...you know what's coming, right? When we were both in Miami over the holidays she pressed a skein of the Radiance Wave to her neck and announced "it feels like needles piercing my skin".  So. Shall we start a group on Ravelry:  Knitting Sadists?? heh. Rabbitch? Curmudgeon? are you listening??

Nah. Gomez is even allergic to cashmere, what fresh hell is that ?  My budget won't support a sweater out of qiviut so will have to find some cotton/silk blend. That, apparently, will work.  Picky bitch.

And speaking of picky bitches princessi (one princess, two princessi), whilst in Miami my friend Leni annouced that this yarn, Colinette Parisienne (fitting because Leni has the soul, body, and fashion sense of a Parisienne) would be acceptable...Lo, a simple garter stitch, fat needle-thin needle scarf is born...

Girlfriends? if you haven't yet petted this yarn, do yourself a favor. It has huge yardage, the equal of Kidsilk Crack Haze, and is arguably softer and silkier.  And comes in most of the wonderful Colinette colourways.
What's not to lust? er, it is a bit pricey given that the dollar is in the toilet in regards to most other currencies on the planet.  But, well, you know how we are...what's one more skein, right?

And yo, peeps,  no one wants to play with the Pay It Forward fun??? don't make me choose three of you anyway...hehe.

In weather news, the purported incoming storm has stayed to the north of us. we hope. sort of. because we do need the moisture in this the 11th of our mostly drought-ish years. But it's still cold enough that the woodstove can't keep up with the uninsulated concrete block nature of this house.  As I'm sitting at the dining room table (in the picture above) and my legs are cold. That is all from winter paradise.

The Heating Trend Continues...

or, A New Ax to Grind...

Yes, folks, that's my new baby ax, early Christmas present from neighbor/friend Steve. Ain't she cute?  and I've learned to split wood, woot!  Let's just say that at this point, if we had to heat our house only from what I'm able to split we'd freeze our asses off, wool stash notwithstanding. It's slow going since I'm kinda tentative on the downswing. heh.

And in other weather news, we've finally got a good accumulation of snow here in metropolitan Boulder (Utah). About 7 inches or so in the past week and another 1/2 inch last night.  The slickrock is now covered with snow and the drive from here to Escalante (next town over) is just amazing. Pictures later, lovelies.

And to hold up my end of the bargain, O Few And Patient Readers, I hereby open comments for the Pay It Forward plan running around blogdom since the tail end of last year.   I signed up on Erika's blog and now the few, the patient, the warped who read here can comment below and be the gift-ees for the Pay It Forward dealio.  The first three who sign up will receive sometime this year pay it forward goodness from me. If you sign up you agree to post on your own blog making the same offer. What say? Wanna play? 

In knitting news, I've finally found a project for Juno's long-ago wonderful gift to me for naming Ivana (Ivana knit, Dahlink), her dressmaker's form.

The project is the dreadfully named Titicaca cardi/jacket from the new Mirasol Project mag/book.  The Mirasol Project is a project to benefit the children and families of the Peruvian shepherds who tend the herds from which we get much of the less expensive and high quality yarn these days.  These families live in grinding poverty for the most part, no schools, no healthcare, eroding civil rights, no wait, that would be the U.S., heh. Proceeds from the Mirasol Project yarns and mags go toward amending these conditions.  The yarns are lovely and the Mirasol Project patterns are designed by Jane Ellison.  The sweater calls for Hacho yarn in the Jade Sapphire colorway.  It's lovely yarn (have squooshed it at my LYS) but at $9 a skein is too rich for my budget just now.  So lo, to my wondering eyes would appear (whilst stash diving), this loveliness from Juno:

the colors are a bit washed out by the flash but you get the idea.  The top two skeins are unknown but handdyed fingering weight merino and the bottom skein is Fiesta Yarns La Boheme in color Caribbean. In person they both really do look like the ocean off an island there. I'm likely to run out of yarn on this so will be using the La Boheme on the ends of the sleeves (maybe).  This might not work so stay tuned. You can see my progress above so far. Thats the back and the only mod so far is to make a garter stitch border (instead fo the called for rolled border) because it's cleaner in line hopefully will use less yarn. And Juno? Did I tell you lately how much you rock?  mwah...

oh. And for you Ravelers, I'm FiberTribe there.

Mama Nature Calls Our Bluff

Well, so much for posting snow pictures from a week ago. Mama Nature came down with rain, sleet, and snow not necessarily in that order and alternating pretty much at random today.  We did go back up the mountain for more firewood (twice) and came back with the motherlode, oak. O my small woodling gods, I had almost forgotten the perfume that is slowly burning, dense oak. Now if I could get that aroma into all my yarn and get it to stay there...what fresh heaven would that be?

No pictures, the camera stayed home given the lowering sky and the filthy job that is humping cut aspen logs and uncut and heavy oak trunks into an ancient but trusty Suburban. It's a fine night for freshly made red lentil soup with orzo, crusty bread and a glass or three of decent wine. 

Knitting, you say?  yah, yah...in front of the woodstove, maybe.  I love me some 80 degree (F.) living room powered by the sweat (and, ok, the chainsaw) of my brow. 

We may be small and we may be remote out here, but by goddess, we are wealthy tonight in all the ways that matter. Love and warmth to ya'll.

First Snow of the Season

Ok, I'm cheating. The first snow was a week ago yesterday and totally NOT in any of the many and varied weather forecasts available online or otherwise. Huh. So much for precision, eh? It was the proverbial warning shot across the bow even though there was no trace of snow by mid-afternoon.
About 3 days before this snow the temps dropped to -1 degree F. breaking the record of 0 F. set in 1979. Weird. Then it popped back up into the 60s during the day and then snowed a day or two later. 
The weather, she is riveting, yes?  Hey, you try living in a town of 200 souls. Sometimes you WANT the  weather to be the most interesting thing going.
Here's another shot looking due west out the same dining room window.

Don't you love that slickrock just past the tree and field?  That's actually the road out of town heading toward Escalante. 
We've been running the woodstove now for several weeks and the thought has dawned that what we thought was a huge mountain of firewood is really woefully inadequate for the months ahead.  Here's a wee bit of warmth.  What's keeping you warm these days?

Little Baby Punkinhead

Yes, O Patient Ones, that is a pumpkin modeling pumpkin cozies, er, baby hats.  The correct size of hat for a newborn was a matter for loud debate Chez Hell's Backbone Grill (where I work from time to time).  In an attempt to get the right size, I commandeered a selection of baby pumpkins from the Hell's Farm pumpkin harvest and then ran around pestering all the mothers/grandmothers on staff to tell me which pumpkin was about the size of a newborn's head. 

For the record, I'd have picked a smaller one, but what do I know?  (And that mug supporting the pumpkin is a ginormous one holding about 20 oz. of coffee.) The universal selection was the one you see above.  And the universal comment from the under 30-something, childless women on staff was "Ouch!". Accompanied by a newly appraising eye cast at their beloveds' heads, heheh.

So, clutching my pumpkin, off I ran.  Both hats are Sandi Wiseheart's Vine Lace Baby Hat, a freebie on Knitting Daily.  I am not so much with the traditional baby colors, as you can see. Specs are:

Blue Hat:    Colinette Jitterbug, color Jewel, much much less than one skein. Destination: Madison, WI

Harvest Hat:  KnitPicks sock yarn, discontinued color Daffodil, much less than one skein.  Destination: ....................Lander ,  Wyoming

Both were knit on a combination of size 0 and 1 DPNs.  I also knitted a matching pair of baby socks from the same skein of Jitterbug but those, alas, ran off to Madison, Wisconsin with the mother to be before their closeup chez FiberTribe.

Review of Sandi's pattern?  Beautiful result but a fairly fiddly if easy pattern. Bear in mind that I rilly, trooly don't like knitting lace.  If I'd been knitting with solid color yarn I'd have shot myself before finishing. Out of boredom.

Review of the yarn?  Jitterbug sock yarn will ruin you for anything else except maybe Koigu or STR or handspun/hand-dyed stuff. Dude. Get thee hence and pet some. The KnitPicks stuff felt like badly spun arse after the Jitterbug.
Here's one more shot of the lovely star-like pattern on the top of the hat.