silva soxes 2011

ta-da! pair no. 10!

i have enough left over for another pair and maybe a half, but i’m done for the year!  it’s may!

ten pair at silva gallery! yay!

Flickr Tags: silva soxes

latest soxes

Flickr Tags: soxes

air!

at last, the air conditioner i bought last fall for the front of the house is in!

i did it myself, all 75 pounds/12,000 btus  of it!  it wasn’t hard at all, see it peeking up there in the painting space, behind the table?  no longer will i be forced into the bedroom for two/thirds of the year;  the energy saver thing says it costs around $100 per year to run. we shall see.  but it’s cooler already! :)

Flickr Tags: home,ac

spring break easter morning

deanna reminded me yesterday to start the bread, so i thought i’d document step 4.:

this is just after it rose for the final 2 hours and i poked a hole in it to see if it was ready.

it was, so i and threw some cornmeal over it and  pulled the hot pot out of the 450F oven

plopped it in

put the top on and baked it 30 minutes.  then i took the top off

and baked it another 30 minutes, then pulled it out.

et voila!

not bad for the first loaf of the year, and it couldn’t be easier: three minutes yesterday, two more this morning while making coffee, and this last bit done while pouring another cup (including pictures.) it takes more time to go to the store!

 

(i gotta get that countertop grouted…)

Flickr Tags: food,bread,boule

der blaue spinnrad

a norwegian blue (!) slanty i bought from the bradenton craigslist for $70 and gas money:)

obviously, while a great color, the horrible cobalt paint has got to go: i’ll be spending spring break getting it gone.  finnsheep has almost her twin, painted in proper blue.

i can use it for a guide, although i may change up the shade a bit…

but most importantly. it has forced me to take mystery back down, so i can replace bonnie on the perch.  maybe i can bring myself to try again.

Flickr Tags: spinning wheel

whoever painted this…

really needs to be shot, only they’re probably dead so why bother? but my spring break, in just over a week, looks like it will be spent rescuing this blue slanty, making her truly blue,

not ghouly blue!!’

      

Flickr Tags: spinning

the latest soxes

  

sending the latest silva soxes to the silva gallery tomorrow.  it was gonna be just two, but then the green stripedy ones also finished themselves.  these are in shorter sizes, for more normal folk.

Flickr Tags: soxes

just hosting again…

this has nothing to do with anything.

silva soxes seven

Flickr Tags: knit

how cool is this??

my ball winder arrived from etsy!  can you believe they once made these and somehow they died out??  it’s just perfect:  it’s pure vintage, i’d say somewhere from the 1920s-40s?

i had never seen one before and always wished something like it existed; i’ve been winding my yarn by hand as the winders i’ve seen were either aesthetically atrocious or/(and)  cost hundreds.  but this vintage tool was reasonable, and not a spot of plastic on it. just painted wood and a metal gear with a rubberish washer, it works (and looks)  just like hand rotary eggbeater:

and makes this yarn-egg!

yes, center-pull if you want that.  what could be sweeter?  why on earth did they ever go away and, even curiouser, why isn’t somebody making them again now?  in exotic floofywood, anointed with hand-pressed fleen juice, even?

 

eta:  plus, operated strategically in its yarn-free state? it could make such an eloquent gesture for those times when words simply will not suffice…

Flickr Tags: knit

the last day…

of my 4day weekend.  today i must clear stuff away, do things like change the linens, plan my observation lesson for thursday, and get some knitting in, as well as practice spinning before i forget again. somehow i lost an entire day yesterday when i just never got up, but instead read in bed all day and kept falling asleep for long periods.  the day before i’d spent all day learning about spinning and making a total fist of it, which is apparently normal. (i was supposed to go to the spinning group again yesterday, but i was asleep…)  friday, of course, was sitting around waiting for the car day.  and that was my 4day weekend.  so today i  must do sunday chores.  sigh.  the real spring break is just about a month away…perhaps i can get the painting on the front door and kitchen wall done then.

 

to do:

put away laundry

launder linens

change linen

swif floors

clean bathroom

unload dishwasher

straighten up kitchen, etc.

spin

plan lesson for observation

“new” toast!

my “new” toaster arrived, and the ongoing purge of plastic from my home continues.  it makes two normal sized pieces of toast (have to cut our modern slices of bread in half! so what does that tell you?) by turning that knob on the side to open the flappy doors.  to turn it on? plug it in!  what a concept!.

the second best part, apart from the aesthetics, is its footprint is about 1/4 of the cuisinart 4slice box it’s replacing.  wish i could get rid of the microwave it’s sidling up to there, too, but even though it’s more than 15 years old it still works fine (except its carousel) and there’s really no need to replace it.  and, of course, i do use it more than just about anything else (quick boiling water for coffee, etc.) so it makes no sense to get rid of it.  i’d like a much smaller one, if not less powerful, since this one takes up the whole of that counter, really.  needless.  but until this one conks, it’s here for the duration.

4day weekend

they moved spring break to just before summer because of testing month (yes, month) so they gave us a 4day weekend in march so we wouldn’t run amok.  whatever.  can’t fool mother nature:  aunt eleanor’s lilies have come up in front of my house this year—sometimes they do, sometimes not.  this year these came back.

pardon me…

just parking this here so i can share it with the gang on ravelry, move along, move along…

NOT ONLY A GRAPEFRUIT…

but a beautiful pink grapefruit, so juicy and tart, i’m eating it for my breakfast today, since this is a day i hadn’t expected in any way, as i wait for the verdict on the car.  signs point to good…

Flickr Tags: food

it was supposed to be a lime tree…

it’s about 10 years old, but this is the first time it's ever fruited.  perhaps the neighbor cutting down the tree in his yard had something to do with that, all the resultant sunlight.  but anyway, this is what’s hanging off it now:

   

they’re not ready yet, but those blossoms smell incredible!

i brought one in and washed it off.  i ask you, does this look like a lime to you?

 

Flickr Tags: garden

kathleen spinning on the magical mystery wheel!

she made her spinz! :D

Flickr Tags: spinning

this one took an amazingly long time to finish

mostly because every row is a different strand of yarn which means every row X 2 ends to weave in up the instep arch and back of the leg.

not nearly as long as  did the first batch of silva soxes, however, currently residing somewhere, we know not where, between here and brigadoon.  light, will ya, soxes?  you’re making me very nervous!

 

Flickr Tags: soxes

remember these? (planning ahead)

i stumbled across these two years ago in a central florida antique mall, on the way back from my first little/middle folk school.

they looked so cool, i grabbed some of these antique mill bobbins to make knitting spools with the kids at the next year’s little/middle, and then grabbed some more on the way back up last year.

i figured we could make these “bookworms”:

but, unfortunately, before i even introduced them it became clear that they wouldn’t really work for that purpose: the gauge was way too small for the kids to even try to knit on!  and so this  year we’re going to make our own knitting spools out of toilet paper rolls and popsicle sticks,

(courtesy birdlouise)

and warp some $15 ikea nightstands into four weaving looms each,

(courtesy ikeahackers)

in addition to the knitting looms and the ever-popular finger knitting…

“tom and huck”…?

and so, last year at little/middle, my wonderful antique mill bobbins ended up being picturesque scissor holders.

once they had “mastered” the few little techniques we were learning,

i made up, on the spot, a little ceremony wherein the kids got their “own” scissors (for the duration of the class period)  which symbolized my blessing to go forth and create whatever they wanted to, and i stored the waiting stubby, blunt-tip scissors like this:

much later on at home, my knitzi made me realize that they could make cool DPN holders for me, too, simply by stuffing a bead in one end.  but now that i’m being an antique wheel owner and have met all these cool antique wheel fiends folk, i’m thinking there’s probably a purpose for them that they might want to exploit, too? 

 

i think i can make my dozen bobbins do multi-duty!  after all, little/middle is just one glorious week each year…

 the “littles” fiber station at little/middle folk school

my wonderful volunteer assistant, teri, held some impromptu crochet workshops that i plan on exploiting further this year!  teri is a teacher from another state, too, and volunteers because she brings her granddaughter (neither of these kids:) to little/middle.  this is a fabulous thing all around!

 

i’m even thinking i should leap in the car right now and go up and buy whatever they have on hand, they always seem to have some kind of these old mill bobbins, after all.  these were only a buck apiece, so even if the price tripled, it wouldn’t be such a bad deal.  of course, the gas would cost me an extra $50 or so, so maybe--unless there’s major acclaim?-- i should wait until i’m already on my way through again in june…

Flickr Tags: little/middle,spinning