June's end

I managed to finish up my final classwork for the last class of my diploma the other night. It seemed anti-climactic, somehow, to end two years' work by clicking 'upload', but that's the way online learning ends! Last year, at the college, we had a day devoted to closing, there were all the goodbyes and hugs and promises to keep in touch...

So, with my classwork done, I've been indulging myself in the activities I was putting off - such as knitting. It's the wrong time of year to work on a big, heavy wool sweater, but I can't help myself! The colours and texture of this project have been whispering to me for months, telling me to put aside my schooling and immerse my hands. I was so good, and resisted - but don't have to anymore. Last night I managed to add another long chevron and am looking forward to getting back into the rhythm of this project.

It's sunny and beautiful here as we count down the last few days of school. Oldest has been done since last week, but Youngest and I (because we are in the Elementary part of the system) close out our year on Tuesday of the coming week. The close of this school year marks the end of this job for me. Being a school district employee at the level I'm at means some uncertainty at this time of year, as I don't really know what position I'll be in come fall...and most of the students that I spent my days with are moving on to other schools. If I stay at the same school, it will be with other students; if I stay with the same students, it will be at other schools. Change is inevitable.

I think my 'to do' list for summer might be a little bit unreasonable, but who knows? Maybe I can get everything done. All the little things that have been calling out over the last few months are on the list, plus new things seem to be emerging daily. Today, though, I will have another cup of coffee, knit a little, hang out with the boys and take it easy. Summer is stretching out in front of us, and I think we should begin by taking it slow.

:)
Lisa

Rock wall completion!

Boy, there's nothing like finishing a big project to make a girl feel good. Randy and I spent the morning working on the rock wall again, jostling those balking boulders into place.

DH was able to use his amazing tractor powers to move the remaining rocks over to the area under the windows where I'll build the perimeter of a flower bed.

Randy also dug and poured the footings for the deck today, and is in town getting more supplies. There's a real, honest to goodness deck in our future....

:)

It started raining just as we finished up. The timing could not have been better. Once the rain stops, I'll get out there and rake out the soil to level it and groom the grade a bit. Next step, topsoil and grass!

I guess while it's raining I'll just keep surfing the 'net for plants that would be happy growing in rock walls...

Hope you're having a lovely long weekend,

Lisa

The slow emergence of green

Youngest is feeling sick today, so I'm home. It's a bit of a blessing to be off work, in a way, as I got to catch up on my school work and write a test for my last course while he slumbered upstairs.

We've had a couple of lovely changes around here, not the least of which is the emergence of green.

DH has been outside every morning raking topsoil and chicken manure compost around the yard, seeding areas and getting them to grow. It's hard to explain how wonderful it is to come home to this particular colour of green every day after the last two years of nothing but sand. I love our home, but an especially wide smile spreads across my face as I pull in the driveway these days - it's like an unexpected surprise, all that green.

Yesterday I came home to a pile of fencing materials - apparently the fellas had come to drop off our gear and will start installing the fence tomorrow! Our big ol' dog has no idea the freedom in store for him once the fence is up.

I'll miss watching the coyotes run across in front of the house at dusk, but not the nagging worry that they may want to eat our cats or our old dog.

No more elk in the yard, no more deer. I can start planting my garden in earnest very soon.

On a completely different note, I'm reading a book called 'Spark'. It's about the science of the brain...on exercise. Dr. John Ratey talks about all kinds of different brain imbalances (ADHD, anxiety and clinical depression among them) and different research done about the effects of exercise on brain chemicals. Interestingly, he doesn't reject the idea of medication, but looks at multivariate situations in which medication and exercise (either or both in combination) are used to successfully treat individuals with various difficulties. The evidence is pretty convincing, and makes me want to get everyone I care about and work with out doing something active. If you get a chance to, you should read it.

Off I go, to dig in the garden.

:)

Lisa

Mother's Day weekend

Saturday was our second anniversary of buying the property here - the official start of the biggest darn project ever.

Last year on Mother's Day weekend, I got up on a ladder (at times supported by the bucket of the tractor) to seal the cedar shingles on the second story...this year I was back up there, sealing the shingles on the south side again! Hmmm. A tradition in the making?

:)

Hopefully not every year will involve me getting up on the roof for one reason or another!

The next phase of the yard work has begun in earnest - the rock wall. The top picture shows where we stopped on Sunday afternoon. It took DH and I all of our combined efforts on both Saturday and Sunday to get it to this point. Thank goodness for our big-ass tractor.

DH was able to move the rocks over using the tractor, and between the two of us we leveraged, shifted, budged and swore these stones into place. All in all, rather satisfying.

The wall will continue out as far as the near edge of the photo on the right. I think we may have, in two days, accomplished about 1/3 of the wall's total length.

Part of what made it so difficult is the size of the rocks we had delivered (I picked out some humdingers!).

The idea is that we'll be able to walk out the double doors onto the deck (not yet built) and have a level exit to the upper yard. The rock wall will diminish in height over the length of the courses and curve gently toward the soon-to-be lower lawn so that we can have a gentle slope of lawn from upper to lower (for ease of mowing, etc).

You can get a bit of an idea from the picture of the house on the right. In my mind it's already finished. I can look at the photo and see it with the grass in and growing, some wooly thyme and other rock loving plants growing in the wall, and the deck all finished. Maybe housebuilding requires that one be an optimist. Or delusional. Or somewhat of both.

The final photo here is to show from what is the existing mini-deck the point at which the real, big deck will meet the soon-to-be lawn. The garbage can (actually a compost can) gives you an idea of how big these pesky rocks are!

Things am learning while building this rock wall:

1) Rocks like to stay put. They don't want to move, it is not in their nature; thus the saying, "solid as a rock"

2) I don't like being brought up hard against my physical limitations, and am not used to being unable to do something I've set my mind to. No matter how much I try, how hard I think, how much I push, some of these rocks will not budge. (See item #1).

3) Much as I like low-tech solutions (leverage involving crowbars and shovels), the diesel-powered solutions can make life easier.

Of the things I've learned so far, I think #2 is the most important one. I'm used to being able to tackle problems and shift them or change them, or find some kind of solution. Not possible when confronted with a rock that weighs as much or more than I do! This particular building exercise is not just to exercise my muscles, but to exercise my ego control. Hard to do, but worth it in the end.

Hope the weekend was lovely in your part of the world,

Lisa

Garden and yard changes and a dramatic haircut (photo heavy)

Surprise Grandma and Grandpa! After what we think is five years, Oldest elected to get his hair cut short....

And we were amazed to see that he had grown into a young man under all that hair! A trip to the barber can not remove his sense of humour, though (and we're so glad!). Nice pose, eh?

And because there is no natural segue into what else is going on in our lives I will just jump on in:

Little greenhouse joy:


All the seedlings that I started at the end of March and the beginning of April are stretching up...even the ones that I didn't think were going to!


Everything that has shown true leaves has been transplanted over the last week or so, with the last of them being finished today. I'm new to this whole gardening thing (I have kept other gardens, but not with great degrees of success...) and am trying to learn to do it well.


I grew up in a gardening household. Both my parents and my sister have green limbs, not just green thumbs - and to my eye, they have the Gardener's Midas touch - everything that they touch seems to explode into jubulant, lush growth. They can tease growth from plants that not even the plant knew it was capable of.


I'm doing my very best to forget everything I thought I knew about gardening and learn, as a complete newcomer would. I'll make lots of mistakes, I'm sure, and some of these little guys will probably make the ultimate sacrifice in my learning curve.


My little greenhouse of seedlings seems very modest compared to my family's beautiful gardens and wonderful indoor plants. I've always loved the smell of growing things, of soil - and love the humidity and heat of the greenhouse. Although I'm in a bit of a seedling frenzy right now, I'll be happy to eat one or two cucumbers and tomatoes, and to have a couple of tall sunflowers...




On the home front, we're getting ready to put in the lawn. Randy pushed a LOT of dirt around today, and we had our first load of topsoil delivered. It doesn't look all that big without anything to give it scale, but that big pile at the bottom of the yard is about 14yd of topsoil. We'll need to do quite a bit more raking to get everything smoothed out to the level we want, but a greener area is on our horizon!

Now if it will just keep raining, the other grass will germinate.

Although it's hard to see in the house picture, Randy has moved a LOT of soil/sand over to the front end of the house (the far end in the picture). We're hoping to get a load of large rocks delivered so that we can dry stack a retaining wall the height of the sonotubing (that's the concrete cylinders that the deck roof posts are on). The idea is that we can then backfill the front yard area to be level with the hight of the eventual deck. There will probably be stairs down from the deck into the lower yard (the one that is shown here on the left/south side of the house).


Bit by bit, it's all coming together.

We probably won't get the deck built this year. Our next big adventure is going to be fencing the whole acreage and gating the driveway.

Anyhoo, I'm off to start some more seedlings...maybe some broccoli and parsley, hmmmmm. Maybe some monarda, and some nasturtiums and some....

:)
Lisa

Spring joy

Armed with a magazine that was given to me as a leaving Nakusp gift (Hi Beth!), we started a little hothouse project this weekend.

We had the wire left over from the stucco debacle, and lots of wood kicking around. The foundation blocks are ones that were poured when the fellas were pouring the cement for the second floor of the house (each block has a piece of rebar embedded in it). I only had to buy the pipe and the plastic.

So far, this little project has cost about $60.

The footprint is nice; it's about 8' square at the base. The top of the hoop is about 6' from the ground. (Being a shorty, it's just right!) There's enough room that I might be able to fit a table in there for the seedlings that we've started in the house.

Once the wind dies down (or it stops raining long enough - or both) I'll wrap it in plastic. This week has been pretty blustery so far! Two trees have come down on the land next to ours, one onto our place from the neighbour's.

Sunday we spent the afternoon over at my Mom and Dad's, celebrating what would have been my paternal grandfather's 100th birthday. It was a lovely afternoon, and a great way to remember Poppa.

Oh, and I spent some time with Youngest yesterday going through back blog entries...these last few years have certainly seen some major changes in our lives! I'm grateful for this place to record and remember, to share - and to those of you who read, for taking time out to come and look in on our little lives out here in the mountains.

Lisa

Reflecting on the last week

I spent most of this week in a workshop on Applied Behavioural Analysis...and it reminded me of how much B.F. Skinner contributed to the whole field of psychology. I recently read a book that talked about how true Darwinian philosophy (extrapolated into modern day) was anti-Skinner: that behaviouralism is a crock of s****.

I found that point of view to be pretty darn shocking, considering that my whole education is predicated on the idea that as individuals, we can learn new things based on the way these things are reinforced. If I were to stick with the idea that our genetics are all that makes us who we are (considering I've been a life-long evolutionist), then there is no reason to do the type of work that I do.

I'll have to spend some time thinking about all of this.

Maybe it's about the idea that the individual has potential, within the parameters of the genetics. Maybe we can each learn to be the best potential self we can be...but then we can not pass that down through our genes, only through our memes. Hmmm. Yes. I will have to spend time thinking about this.

:)
Lisa

Beginnings and endings

Let's start with the endings, shall we?


I realized as I was starting my new journal that I'd not yet finished the last few pages in my old journal...something I'm notorious for. I have many, many journals that don't end, but rather sort-of peter out. In my mind I rationalize that it's because the journals themselves really are only sections along a continuum, not fixed points, and that to have them end would mean that I ended!

This last journal, the one I finished yesterday, is especially close to my heart. In it are recorded the last 3+ years, and it was a gift from my Oldest for Christmas, 2006.


These have been some busy years, on many, many levels. This book travelled all over with me (even to New Hampshire and back, twice) and was comforting in it's weight and heft as much as in its pages. It deserved a proper ending.

The pages are creamy and thick, I was able to do almost anything to them. To close out the book, I did several pages of quotes about endings of various sorts, and this is my favorite. You can click on it to see a larger version (that goes for all the photos).




I couldn't leave yesterday's page alone (it just felt 'unfinished') and went in with one of my sepia toned pencil crayons with dictionary definitions of and synonyms for 'begin'. It's a good exercise to meditate on one word like that, to explore it fully. I'll have to remember to do that if I find myself in need of creativity exercise.

The page feels much more finished now, if still a little unbalanced.

And (because I'm completely hopeless once I get going) I added a bookplate page to the new journal. This piece of paper has been kicking around for at least a year, and it's high time that it found a home. It's in need of a much more elaborate frame than it has right now, and that is coming. I learned a little with this page (don't paint over glue, it cracks and then can't be written on), and am looking forward to working it up into something much more elaborate over the next while.

Oh yes, and I finished both of my school papers yesterday and sent them off. Whew.

I'm losing my steam for being a student right now, mostly because I'm not all that well suited to being an on-line student...there's something about a classroom full of people that makes it all more interesting, makes the subject matter make more sense. I'm a little past halfway on my current courses, then one more and I'll be done!

Happy Sunday, happy end of February. Bring on March!

Lisa

:)

Begin....

A gift recently got me going on something that I've wanted to get back to for a while now: journaling.

I spent a little quality time (in between working on the papers that are due this weekend) painting up the first pages. I find it's hardest to start, and I really didn't have a direction for this page until I got really going. It seems to reflect a lot of things that I have going on right now:
my work, the academic work, and the learning I've done in the last years about myself. Every day I have to remind myself to begin, not to avoid.
I've also recently had an opportunity to do a little illustration, which makes my heart happy. The little detail photo below is from a doodle I did during some quiet minutes at work yesterday - while thinking about the illustration op.




The piece ended up being about starting the new journal (and ending the old one), but also about many other starts...the commencement of learning to read or count, the start of the day, the movement forward, the taking of risks.

From a technical point of view, there's a lot more I could play with (and perhaps will, over the next day or so). The space in the final piece does not quite seem to be effectively used, and I would love to have a sepia toned pen with which to fill in more of the background. Perhaps the art supply store is not yet closed......?

Cheers,

Lisa

Update - Speed Skate Kamloops

We spent our day yesterday at the Speed Skate meet in Kamloops. Both boys skated a 333 (333M - or 3 laps), a 500M (4 1/2 laps), a 222 (222M) and a 111. I've placed here, for your viewing enjoyment, both of their last races...the 111. First, youngest:

Not his best race of the day, but certainly his best 1 lap time ever. He started in position 4 for this race, on the far outside and came in 3rd. He had a great start, and we've learned that this is one of his strengths. His best race of the day was his first...

And Oldest's last race. Also a 111:

He is the one in Green - out in front. Best time ever for him, best race ever. Funny though, when he saw the video, he said, " I could have been lower...."

What a great day.

Here are the warriors, pre-races with their armor on:

Cheers!

Lisa

Surprise guests

A little Sunday morning "where's Waldo" exercise...can you find 3 deer in this picture?

(*HINT*) They're all leaving....

This is the only one that really came out of the weeds so that we could take a picture of it yesterday. So pretty. They came up quite close to the house. We usually see their footprints, and their -ehm - droppings, but not themselves - except on the road!

After it was dark out last night, we were sitting in the living room together. SOMETHING BIG walked into one of our picture windows...I could see some light and dark shapes, but couldn't make out what it was. I turned on the outside lights to find that it was one of our neighbour's cows! He was here with several of his closest friends, probably quite disappointed that we don't have much around here by way of grass. They didn't seem to like the light on, and didn't hang around long.
Other wildlife here? Youngest and I saw a brown bear with two cubs in the last week or two, heading up toward our area from the road down below. We haven't seen too much evidence of them in the yard, but I haven't gone down the hiking trail in a while, either. We've had some bear poops up at the top of the driveway, but no fresh tracks around the house.

There's a flock? gaggle? murder? of wild turkeys that is often on the side of the road as I head up the valley to work in the morning. I almost hit one a few days before Thanksgiving weekend...we joked that I could just wrap it in tin foil and put it on the manifold to cook it up for dinner! In all honesty, though, I'm as afraid of hitting the darn turkeys with my van as I am the deer. I don't think it would cause as much damage to the vehicle, but I don't want to stand in for the grim reaper with any critter, no matter how big or small.

No elk sightings yet this fall, but there is evidence on the south side of the property that we're still on their daily path. I'm surprised that our big dog has not ensured that they find a new route.

Happy fall weekend,
Lisa

Apple abundance....apple pie filling

My Mom and Dad shared their apple bounty with me - THANKS!

I spent a couple hours last night and this morning making Christmas gifts of canned apple pie filling (be forwarned, family and friends) and thought I'd share the recipe...

4.5 C white sugar
1 C cornstarch
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp salt
10 C water

Combine in a large pot, mixing well. Cook until thick and bubbly. Remove from the heat and add

3 Tbs lemon juice.

Meanwhile....

Peel, core and slice
6 lbs apples ( I used about 8 lbs for each 7 L of finished filling, but many of the apples were small)
I put mine into a sink full of cold lemon-water as I worked so that they didn't get too brown.

Pack 1 L jars with apples, leaving about 1/2" head space.

Fill the jars with the hot syrup and gently remove air bubbles with a knife.

Put lids on and process in a hot water bath canner for 20 minutes.


Whew!

I made a pie from the leftover bits of yesterday's jars and this morning's jars using a pre-made pie shell.

If you wanted to do this with pre-made shells (from the grocery store freezer section), make sure you buy a 2 shell, deep dish box.

Let the two shells thaw on the counter for at least 15 minutes, then pour the contents of one jar into one of the shells. Unmold the other shell onto the counter top so that it flattens out a bit.
Place the flattened shell on the pie , pinching all around the edges. Cut a few vent holes in the top, and bake in a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees, then bake another 25-35 minutes, until the pie is lightly browned on top and the crust is flaky.

Let it rest for 15 minutes or so before cutting into it...serve with ice cream, or cheddar - or, with my dad in mind, BOTH!
:)

Happy Sunday,

Lisa

Back to school, on a couple of levels...

I got a job!

I've been working in an on-call capacity since the beginning of the school year, but was not caled very often...that is until last Thursday. On call last week for Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday at the same school. Tuesday afternoon I learned that I obtained the position I was substituting in! Wednesday, I went to work in my new position - same as what I'd been doing since the previous week. Hooray! I'd applied for 5 positions, but this was the one that I wanted!
It's an elementary school, and I'm in the position of Education Assistant. I love this work.

Life is good.

In that nailbiting 2 week period of NOT having any work, I put the wheels in motion to start my next year of schooling - online through the College of the Rockies. If I were to go there, it would look like this:














But instead, because it's all online, it will look like this:


Yep, I'm in school as a teacher, and as a learner.

The courses I'm taking online right now are about crisis intervention and conflict resolution. Very timely considering some of the issues I've already come across on the playground!

Life is good, is busy.

(Doesn't she look so incredibly hip? How much hairspray does that really take?)
:)
Lisa

More knit love

My Mom-in-law recently finished a gorgeous aran knit sweater for my DH. In the parcel she mailed us, she included the 3 skeins of yarn that she had not used for it...and surprise, surprise...I had a project in mind that takes exactly that much yarn!

The project is from the Fall issue of Interweave Knits, and it's called the Every Way Wrap by Okmin Park. If you click on the link in the name, you'll see several pictures of the model for the magazine...something to notice is that the cabled area is actually reversible! I'm learning how to do a cabled area that can be enjoyed from either side.

Also, this is the first knit I've done using the technique that has no cable needle - in all honesty, I don't think I'll ever go back. No way. This is just too slick. I can cable MUCH faster this way than I ever could before.

Anyhoo, that's what's got me busy in the evenings right now. That, and looking for renters for our house in Nakusp.

Cheers,

Lisa

Summer green, finally finished

It's been moved from place to place, unfolded, refolded, moved again...and now it's finally finished.

I posted a picture of this sweater back in July, when I was still actively knitting it. Sadly, it has been shuffled about, claspless, until last night.

The main thing was that I thought I'd need to reinforce the front bands with ribbon, but, after trying to sew one on last night with no real success I thought, "finished is better than perfect" - and just put the pesky clasps in place.

I love it.

I loved the yarn to begin with (Ella Rae wool from Romania? I think?)

I spend a silly amount of time just enjoying the weight and texture of the sweater. This is done on 4mm needles, much smaller than the leftovers vest of a previous post. Somehow this needle/yarn combination just hits that textural 'sweet spot' that can be so elusive.

Hopefully I'll get called into work so that I can wear it out! Classrooms can be chilly, you know, and shorter sleeves ensures that I don't drag them through a student's (or my own) work.

And it fits.

Hooray!

The little clasps are from Fabricland (which a friend of mine not-so-affectionately calls "the F store")... *blush*

Cheers,

Lisa

Change - long (photo heavy)

For a while now - about a year - I've been contemplating a big change for the blog. It is not what it began as, and has been bothering me that I've not changed it to reflect that.

This blog began as a way to connect with people in the quilting industry, to be part of that network, and to let my customers (at the time) know that I was working on things for them, and to announce things that were coming up within my career as a professional quilter. I've been very lucky to have met many, many lovely people through this strange media, most of them connected with quilting or crafting in some way.

We lived very rurally (in a way we are more rural now, but have greater access to services) in a small community, and this blog gave me a way to connect with others of similar interest in a place where few shared my passion with the same intensity.

Now, life is very different. I spent last year completing a certificate program in Classroom and Community Support Work through Selkirk College...living in the garage...building the house. Now that we are in the house, the children are back at school and we have all the conveniences that modern life can afford us, I've had a little bit of time to look back and reflect on just how much our lives have changed.

It's pretty dramatic, really.

So, this is the post that will mark the transition between a blog that has been written as much for work as for pleasure to one that is a little more personal in nature. I didn't want to lose the name of 'Lisa quilts', as I still hope to do that in my life, but wanted the header to reflect a little more of what I do in other aspects of my life.

The sunflower in the header is the only one we have left that has survived the elk that wander through...probably because it is about 11 feet tall. All the leaves have been stripped off up as high as I can reach! Oh, well. We've been promising ourselves that NEXT year we'll landscape (and put up fences). This year is for building. It's tremendously hard for me to focus like that.
:)

Because of our life in the garage, I've become reacquainted with my love of knitting. This is partly due to it's tremendous portability, the lovely textural sensation and technical challenge that knitting can be.

I've come to love the look of a well stacked firewood pile - and the stacking itself! Living here has necessitated my being more active outside, something that I love more and more.

Our boys are settling (after a year at this property) into what living out here is like. When we want to, we can go to the city - but we can stay home, make forts with friends and jump on the trampoline, too. They are happy to have room of their own now, and to have rediscovered all the possessions that they had that had languished in storage for a year. Moving into their rooms was like Christmas and Birthdays all rolled together. It was a gift for me, as their Mom, watching them create spaces that are as distinct as each of their characters.

In all honesty I feel a little at sea this fall. I'm ready to launch into the next phase in my life, but unsure what it will be at this time. Right now, I have one on-call position (which is not keeping me busy), and have just applied for another. I don't know what role I'm in unless all the family is at home in the evening and I know that I'm Wife and Mom. I miss being Student - that was a lot of fun and challenge. I look forward to having that role again, but know it will be after I've spent some time sharing the title of Breadwinner with my fella.

Our property is really to our tastes. My fella gets to drive his tractor, we get to build and explore, to dream and grow. We had the most wonderful experience on the labour day weekend of family arriving to help us with building a roof for our 10' X 40' tractor shed...we are truly blessed with love and willing hands.

We are closer to my parents, now. Among many little favours, they did us the tremendous favour of taking our boys to their house for the week that I was in an Autism course at the end of August. We get to see and play with them more often than we did when we were in Nakusp and I love the relationship that's growing between our boys and my parents. My sister and her family, while not physically closer, cross paths with us much more often - another lovely gift. Our boys love to be with their cousins, and it is a joy to me to have a caring relationship with my neice and nephews as they grow.

Life is finding a rythm again. There's a little more room in this rythm for contemplation and personal writing, for socializing and other things that feed our souls.

I feel like we're at a confluence point right now - a place where the path of our lives and relationships from Nakusp come together with the friends and experiences of the past year to create a much larger river. Our lives are richer for the experience, though at times it has been very hard. The joys have been as intense as the difficulties, and we strive to find balance in life each day.

It's a gift to be here, in this moment, looking forward and looking back.

I can't imagine what will happen next.

Lisa

Knit love...

I'm waiting for some wool to come in. While I do, I've been using up odd skeins that have been hanging around...


This is 'Leftovers' from Knitty. My modifications include the fact that I didn't realize there were any body increases - whatsoever - and had to 'make up' the neck decreases and armhole shaping! It's not blocked yet, and there are a few ends to weave in, but it's pretty much ready for going back to school/work next week.




My winter coat will be Heroine, in red plum colour. Currently I'm biding my time waiting for the wool by making a Lucy bag. Chances are I'll have to make something else, too...there's got to be some sock yarn around here somewhere...

:)
Lisa

Fully fulled - ready for winter...

Well.
Perhaps blogger and I just plain disagree on how photos should be presented.
Perhaps something fundamental has changed in the software since I was a regular blogger.
Perhaps I just have lost my 'touch' for these things.
Regardless, here is the story of fulling my slippers (shown in last post) in reverse order:

Finished!

It's a good thing that I looked into the washing machine when I did, as the slippers were fully fulled to fit my foot. There is absolutely no stitch definition left, and they have a delightfully squishy, nubbly texture. I had given up hope on them by the time I'd thrown them in the washer with a bunch of pairs of jeans for agitation.

The photo above is the penultimate desperation point, when I gave up on being gentle and just went for it with the plunger and HOT water in our bathtub. The slippers were seeming to just stretch at this stage, so I thought I could put them in the washing machine as I had nothing to lose by it.

Here is the cold shock I gave them, hoping to make them start to lose stitch definition - or SOMETHING.

The photo above shows how gently I started. The bucket is filled with crazily hot water and a little bit of mild soap. Having accidently shrunken knitwear before, I thought it best to start with caution. Somehow the idea of abandoning the slippers to the front loader seemed a bit too rash...

At this stage I was still thinking it might be safe to throw DH's new sweater into the washer (these slips are using up a couple of the last skeins from that project). Now I know that would be disasterous.

And this, last and first photo, shows how big they were in proportion to my feet before I started the fulling process. I love the not knowing part, the excitement and anticipation that's all part of projects like these.

Now I'm ready for winter. Which is only 3 months away...

:)

Lisa

No, I really do still make small stuff, too....

I've been knitting a little over the past month since school let out. I started with these socks just around exam time - they're going to take a while. I'm actually further along on them than the photo records as I would work on them during breaks at work. I was calling them my 'grad socks', but I think they're more like my 'lunch break socks'.


While DH was away on a five day motorcycle trip over the Canada Day week, I knit a skirt:




And before that, I tried my hand at knitting a shrug:


Right now I'm working on these slippers (they'll be fulled down to size) using the leftover wool from the sweater I finally finished for DH. I put the book in there for size reference. These badboys are knit on 7mm needles - I feel like I'm knitting with cordwood!


My main project, though, has been this little 3/4 length sleeve cardigan. I really started the slippers as a break from the seed stitch (don't enjoy doing it, but love the way it looks once done). I'm in love with the colour, and with the texture of this particular knitted fabric. It's knit top down based on this pattern. I've made quite a few mods, though, and will probably pick out the cast on row at the neckline and do something different there. We'll see, I haven't decided.


What do they say...idle hands are the devil's..what? Idle hands don't get sore? Idle hands still have nice fingernails? Hm.
I just can't remember.
:)
Lisa

Pole Barn action....

(Please note, these photos are all out of order - blogger and I are disagreeing about things this morning)



Because we just don't have enough to do inside on our house, we thought we'd build a pole barn. Well, DH actually wanted to build it, and last year.


In order to build a pole barn, you need several things: a shovel, level, a chainsaw, a tractor, logs that you cut the year before, gigantic bolts, adoring fans, ready help, a good head for problem solving, and a lot of brute strength.


Optional things to have include:
a chair, a stack of wood to build the barn around, a drawknife and a beer.


We've been having the most amazing loads of firewood delivered. It's salvaged from an area that I wrote about here. The logs are huge, some a little burned, and all 2 years seasoned.


What you cannot see from the photos here are all the times spent, with DH and I sitting, looking at this - trying to figure out how to get the big*** tractor between the two buildings in a way that would not damage anything, that would be reasonably easy to navigate, that we'd be able to get it out again (I say 'we' but the tractor is driven by 'he'. I've not learned that particular trick yet).

DH built the front side with a bit of help (I emphasize 'BIT') from me on Sunday, then half of the back on his own on Monday. Apparently we started at the toughest corner to negotiate...a good thing, I guess, as everything after that is more straightforward.

DH dug the holes by hand, and we placed each of the poles in their posthole by hand... sounds easy, right? DH had the herculean job of lifting the log, and I had the job of guiding the end into the posthole (without allowing the hole to be filled by bumping the log against the sides too much). I felt VERY left-footed about the whole thing. I know there are places in my life where I have strengths, but this is not one of them!

Funny - although the photos didn't come out in the order I wanted, one thing did work. The photo I wanted to end with is here at the end:



:)
Lisa