FiberTribe

Monsoon Quiet

So the monsoon arrived early this year. We've had so much rain that it feels more like the coast of Oregon than the high/dry edge of the canyons in southern Utah.  Even the non-irrigated fields are  bright green. And the ragweed will bloom early if my itchy eyes are any kind of indicator.

It's been raining up on the mountain for most of the day but somehow despite threatening grumbles of thunder, it hasn't yet rained on us. There is only this eerie kind of quiet and pale grayness with an edge of sky blue on the eastern horizon.  Even the neighborhood rooster is off his warbly crow.

A great day to curl up with yarn and wine.  Or maybe a fresh lamb's liver from a neighbor and Jacques Pepin's recipe for pate from Epicurious. Will let you know how it turns out.

And the Lacy Baktus is about 5 inches from completion. Pleeeze, goddess...

Should I stay or should I go?

whoa. Life, she do go by, yes?  Day follows day and wowza, it's  been some wicked long time since I posted here.  So how are you?  Yeah?  Me, too. 

Seems that the crescendos of life are peaking and forming a perfect storm of a wave.  Decisions on where to be this coming winter, what direction to take in life and work and relationship, what to do with the old house, etc, etc.  I suppose you could say I've been feeling overwhelmed and massively unsure of the next step in just about any regard.   So I've been lurking on all ya'll's blogs and taking good inspiration where I can find it. Crazy Aunt Purl Laurie is one inspiring stop on the blog roll these days, fer shure. 

Knitting, you say?  Yup. Finished a Citron in a lovely, lovely Malabrigo Sock yarn in color African Violet. I've gotten more wear out of that little wrap (I knit only one skein worth of Citron) than just about anything else I've knit in a very long time.  It took me 4 days of cross-country driving to finish it. Specifically from Asheville, NC to BTown, Utah this past March. 

And since then all I've done is crawl through the almost as lovely Lacy Baktus for an artist friend who admired the deep and lovely purple of the Malabrigo.  And you know that when an artist admires a color you got to jump on it, toot sweet.  I'm on a mission to finish it fast because there are about a jillion other beautiful siren song patterns calling my name.

Pictures of the purple loveliness next time, O my patient ones.  so what are you knitting these days? And am I the only one that thinks that $7 for a pattern (cough, Twist, cough) is too much when you get an entire magazine for just about that these days?  C'mon. It wouldn't be FiberTribe without a wee rant...Mwah.

New Look for the New Year

Blessings everywhere, O my faithful few. I'm starting off this new year (and arguably new decade) grateful for so many people, so many blessings large and small. No, I haven't gone all evangelical on your ass, not to worry. Come back soon for the new knits. And treasures plundered from the Stash That Ate Utah.

Easing Back

Here's a meme swiped from MizShoes (Girly Shoes blog).  One word answers only.

1. Where is your cell phone? Car

2. Your hair? blonde

3. Your mother? hellonwheels

4. Your father? dead

5. Your favorite food? Lebanese

6. Your dream last night? vivid

7. Your favorite drink? wine

8. Your dream/goal? healing

9. What room are you in? livingroom

10. Your hobby? fiber

11. Your fear? destitute

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? dunno

13. Where were you last night? here

14. Something you aren’t? dim

15. Muffins? meh

16. Wish list item? Bhutanagain

17. Where did you grow up? Miami

18. Last thing you did? chat

19. What are you wearing? turtleneck

20. Your TV? none

21. Your pets? kittehs

22. Friends? Scattered

23. Your life? interesting

24. Your mood? ok

25. Missing someone? Gomez

26. Vehicle? Subi

27. Something you’re not wearing? pants

28. Your favorite store? Bookstore

29.Your favorite color? RubyRed

30. When was the last time you laughed? LastNight

31. Last time you cried? LastYear

32. Your best friend? Gomez

33. One place you go to over and over again? SaltLakeCity

34. One person who e-mails you regularly? Marne

35. Favorite place to eat? Mazza

Bib? what bib?

We're having a population explosion here in B-Town. 1 new grandbaby and two new babies on the way. In a town of 200 or so,  3 TOTALLY counts as an explosion.  

So here I am cheerfully knitting baby bibs out of dishcloth cotton.  (Not exactly what I had planned when I launched myself wildly into Kaffe Fassett's sweater patterns in 1983).  Specifically, the Petal Bib from Leigh Radford's One Skein.   My gauge (and the yarn) is much larger so the bibs are ginormous.
Here's what they're supposed to look like:

Mine covers the entire book. Almost.  I persevere regardless. And you know what?  Leigh's simple and well-written pattern allowed me to learn how to:
1) Knit short rows
2) Hide the short row wraps on the next row
3) Knit I-cord
4) Jump for joy at how much immediate gratification can be had from baby-bound knits

Not bad for ye lowly bib, eh?  Btw, these bibs look waaay better in solid colored yarn. Trust me on this.

Implements go missing...

Like very expensive tweezers. Just when silver has decided to inhabit my brows. Grrrr. It's not like the house is that big, eh?  ahem. you came here for the knitting. right.

So I'm on to this:                                         In this:
                
Blurry (due to enlargement) Harvey Kimono from Natural Knits for Mothers & Babies.
Two issues with this: 1) Who names an innocent child Harvey????   2) Why wasn't it written to be knit in the round?  No way was I re-writing this pattern after having just re-written the Trellis and Keyhole Tank pattern. In its entirety. Twice.  I am Knitter, hear me curse.

That said, the kimono, re-named Winter Sky Kimono (it's for a new baby boy named, yup, Winter Sky. I know...),  has been a quick, fun knit so far.  I had to Kitchener stitch the entire back garter stitch border in order to attach a re-do after ditching a heavier matching yarn. Just way too much contrast. Do I get extra points for kitchenering the entire 51 stitches with a headlamp in the dark, in the wind whilst camping at 9,000 feet or so up on Boulder Mountain?  Not saying it's perfect but it's donedonedone.

I've also just finished a petal bib from Leigh Radford's book, One Skein.  Pictures next time.  Now I'm off to paint 3 cows.  wooden ones, that is. When I volunteered to do this, what was I thinking?

Pictures of teh cows later, too. maybe. And the precogs have settled down. thank goddess.

Something Wicked This Way Comes*

It's not always fun and games chez FiberTribe when the intuitive powers kick in.  Last night around 9 o'clock out of nowhere a violent headache started to grab the left side of my neck and head.  Dennis and I were to take the new wildlands fire truck over the mountain the next day to have a two-way radio installed.  Something vague had been bothering me all day about that trip.  I found myself increasingly thinking of reasons I shouldn't go. And there really was no compelling reason NOT to go. Just this escalating reluctance.  Finally, as the headache increased I finally got it. We shouldn't take that fire truck out of town and furthermore, we should go over to the firehouse in the morning and be sure the tank was filled to the brim. 

I told Dennis that I had a very, very bad feeling about something happening on Monday and I couldn't tell when, what, or to whom it would happen or even be sure anything WOULD happen.  And bless him, he believed me and instantly said, ok, we'll stay and we'll be sure the truck is filled.   Immediately, and I mean from one moment to the next, the headache was gone.   I still felt the waves of whatever it is washing over me.  I finally sat down and typed a status update on FaceBook to ask everyone to be very, very careful on Monday. As soon as I did that, it felt like the probability of something bad happening decreased.  It continued to decrease throughout the day today. 

I could feel foolish as if I cried wolf, but I don't. That's the way this thing works. One never knows unless by blind luck whether what one is getting is A: correct and B: if it's unchangeable or if the probability of occurence can be altered, diminished or totally negated.   I'm hugely relieved that nothing (that I know of) has happened.  I've had precogs (precognitive events) since I was a child  but haven't had one in a very long time. And I've never had physical symptoms from it.   Strange.   All that I can think of that might have heightened my sensitivity is that I spent a fair amount of time with a gifted intuitive this past weekend. We tend to amplify each other's abilities. That's my best guess. 

So if you're reading this, do let me know that you and yours are ok. Yes? 
Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

* title from a Ray Bradbury story

Back in Blue...Sky, that is...

Been a while, eh?  Life rolls along and yeah, Facebook and Ravelry do take the edge off my urge to post to the blog.  A couple of acquaintances have vanished recently off FBook abruptly, no explanation.  That's the immediate prompt for resuming here. Also, I've been knitting up a storm lately and reading again after a hiatus with both.   So I've got a bit of blog fodder if anyone is still out there?

Playing a bit of catch up, my wee, elderly kitty of 21+ years died a few weeks ago.  Blind luck that we took some pictures of her about 2 weeks prior to that so here she is in all her little ballerina glory.  My friend Leni always called her Ballerina because she walked with her feet turned out in 2nd position.   If you're a horse person you'd have said she was cow-hocked, heh.

I do miss her furry butt. And yeah, that's one blue eye and one golden eye. 

In happier news, I've started my first garden here and the weather has finally warmed up. Hopefully we'll have a long, warm fall and the veggies will have time to mature from their late start.  So far, only the jalapenos are flowering.

Knitting you say?  I'm so virtuous it's disgusting.  I'm currently about 90% done on the Trellis and Keyhole Tank from the latest issue of Interweave Knits. The yarn is recycled linen/viscose from a too-large tank top I harvested from the Boulder Mall aka the free box. What a pain in the ass it was to frog that.  Note to manufacturers: step away from the serger, plz. I had to cut the yarn into lots more bits than I would have liked, but the large skeins seem to be enough for the pattern I'm working on. 

The color is growing on me.  It's a bit bleached out by the sun in the above picture. Have never thought I looked good in green but maybe this will be all right. If not, can always gift the bugger.  I was looking forward to the Hindu Pillar stitch after the long bits of stockinette but after the first couple of rows, meh. It slows you down considerably and as usual, I'm ready for this sucker to be done and on the body.
The above pic is the back.
Here's another of the entire back and partially knitted front.

Mods:
-- MUCH thicker yarn, had to completely rewrite the pattern. S.L.O.W.L.Y.  Many stoopid math errors here
--Didn't wash and weight the yarn after re-skeining because I like the kinky-crunchy look of the once-knitted yarn. That crunchiness shows up well in the ribbing. See above.
--Had to decrease sharply after the ribbing due to completely different gauge knitting in the round vs. swatching flat. Forgot about the waist shaping and decreased all in one round. also very visible, hoping  blocking will minimize the visibility. NOT ripping it out.
--Gauge got larger again once I separated for the front and back at the armholes.  So this may be too large/too long for me. 
--Forgot to take into account the weight of the yarn. Great drape but again, may be too long due to weight-of-yarn related stretching.
Yawn. Next...