I am a little frustrated. I was knitting my February Ladies Sweater on my KnitPicks Options needles when a cord come apart at the join, not where it screws in but where the plastic attaches to the metal. I changed the cord and after a while it happened again. This is so disconcerting because then I have to pick up the stitches that fell off the cord. In lace, for me, that is not easy. I then switched to the only other size 8 circular I had which was wooden. Not a good idea – dull tip. Soooooo. I stopped and bought a size 8 AddiTurbo 40 inch. I am much happier now.

Here is something that happened to me while I was attending a woman in labor. This woman came in in active labor, 8 cm, with her first baby. She was from Sudan, although has lived in this country for a number of years and had a good command of the English language. Her labor progress fast and she was soon pushing. She only pushed a total of 1 hour, but when she was just about crowning, she said “I can’t push anymore, I want the surgery.” THE SURGERY!!!!!!!!!

That says a lot for our culture. And the fact that the C/S rate in this country is pushing 40%. Shameful.

By the way. A few minutes later she push out her howling son.

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” Mother Teresa

Peace

Cynthia

UFO to Finished projects

I decided to make a few changes in how this blog looks. Just one column. The side column with finished projects, links and such seemed like a waste of time to keep it up, I will keep my projects current on my Ravelry page (if I can get my Flicker to work). I am also going to try to post a little more often. Instead of waiting until I have a lot to say, I will post smaller bits.

I finished the Swallowtail Shawl , Nupps and all.  It is beautiful. It really bloomed when I blocked it. It did not soften up as much as I had hoped, but I do like it. Here is a picture:

 

I have actually been quite productive the past few weeks. I also finished the Laguna Blouse (it even fits) and started a February Ladies Sweater. I am using  Elsebeth Lavold’s Classic AL,  an Alpaca Merino blend, colorway is Beechwood.

David and I just returned from Texas again. We were there only a week this time, and specifically went to attend Texolan, an alpaca show in Fort Worth. It was Peeka Ranch’s first show. We took two alpacas, David showed them both. Aries got a third place and Aquarius got a Sixth. Interestingly, Aquarius got a blue ribbon for her fleece.

One of the vendors at the show was Helen Hamann. She is the author of Andean Inspired Knits , a beautiful book with “a collection of patterns inspired by pre-Columbian textiles from the culturally-rich Andes in South America”.  Several of the patterns are knit with Classic Alpaca by The Alpaca Yarn Company. They are colorful, some look challenging but others look like they would be a fun knit. She uses embroidery in some of her designs to add the color and texture. She is a delightful woman, very animated when discussing her designs. She had beautiful garments for sale, her designs knit by knitters in Peru.  I bought a couple of balls of her alpaca yarn to see if it is something I want to carry in my store.

Here are a couple of pictures from Peeka Ranch:

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience..” Eleanor Roosevelt.

Peace

Cynthia

Reflection

I am working on the Swallowtail Shawl (which really isn’t a shawl – more like a scarf). I was going along nicely when I hit the nupps…………….. It took me awhile to get over the purl 5 issue and now I think I am going along fine. I can no longer carry it with me because I need to pay attention to each row.

I finally blocked and added the fringe to my Montego Bay scarf. Here is a picture (it is hard to take a picture of a long scarf):

 

 I also made another Fidget. My friend, Debbie, liked the one I made but wanted it in black. She also loved the alpaca buttons, which I harvested from mine to put on hers.

 

I thought I would look at my “resolutions” for 2008 and see where I stand. As I said in that post, I usually do not make resolutions but I did anyway.

1. David and I will probably buy a couple of Alpacas this year. We own a 1/3 share of a male but want to get 1 or 2 females. Our ultimate goal is to have a farm of our own, but that probably will not happen this year with the housing market what it is (we could buy something but then not sell out current house). So we will board (agist) on my friends farm. We actually sold our share of Midas. It was purely a business decision. We still hope to buy a piece of property so we can raise our own. We will have to see what happens to the economy.
2. Learn to knit a moebius. Did not do.
3. Try my hand at dying. This I did do. And love it. I dyed alpaca yarns. I want to continue this. I also took the class with Lynne Vogel last sumemr and learned a lot.
4. Spin more. This did not really happen. I have spun more since January 1st though, so maybe 2009 will be the year I actually spin more.
5. I would love to get two Angora Rabbits. This kind of goes along with number one.
6. Knit a cabled project bigger than a hat. Nope. If you look at my previous post, I remembered saying I would knit a bigger lace project, which I am doing. Cables – no.
7. Open an Etsy shop to sell alpaca roving and yarn. I did this AND opened an online store (I guess you call it a dot com). Jury is still out on success of both of these.
8. Submit one design to a publishing source. Nope
9. Have a more successful vegetable garden this summer Nope – there was so much to do last summer, and I ended up working extra to cover maternity leaves and vacations – excuses, excuses, excuses.
10. Accept and live with the major changes in my current job (I will post about this in the near future). I guess yes. I am not happy with the changes in my current job but I am going to work every day. I still do want to post about this, the bitterness is less so now is probably the time.

So what did I learn? I think having goals is important, but maybe more attainable ones. I am not going to make any “resolutions’ this year except for one: I want to find happiness and joy in every day. It may be a small thing but I will find it.

Today the joy I found was hugging a 6 week old baby.

“Mind is everything; muscles are mere pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind.” Paavo Nurmi.

Cynthia

Lace

I have not knit much lace. Except small sections of larger projects. One of my goals in 2008 was to knit a lace project.

My sister and I saw a Swallowtail Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark at the Knit and Crochet show in Manchester, NH last summer and we both thought it was beautiful and we wanted to knit it. I finally started mine in November. It was the project I decided to take on my recent trip to Texas.

When I left, I had just started the Budding Lace Repeat. I spent the whole travel day knitting and tinking! My SIL could not understand why I would do something that was so frustrating. I could not understand why I could not get it right.

Throughout the 2 weeks in Texas, I knit mostly on other projects I had brought with me, but a few times I took out the shawl. There were two things I realized. I could not knit lace and talk to anyone and I was not “reading” my knitting. Once I realized the second point, and really looked at the knitting, I was able to knit without error (most of the time). And now I am one repeat away from finishing the center section of the shawl, and I can talk and knit at the same time. I am not sure what will happen when I move to the next pattern, but I feel ready. I think I will knit from the charts to get a better idea of the pattern as it unfolds.

The shawl is pretty. I am using Kauni - a wool with long color repeats. The shawl is going to be fairly small (27″ X 54″), but I am afraid to deviate from the pattern by adding more repeats of the main section because I am afraid I will not have enough yarn. The yarn is a little rough feeling, I hope it softens up when I wash it. And I could not find the center end so I am unwinding from the outside, which makes it awkward.

Here are a few pictures:

I am pleased with my progress so far. I’ll keep posting about how it is coming along.

“Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.” Michael Burke

Cynthia

A Christmas Story

Christmas morning at our house when I was growing up went like this:

We could not wake Mom and Dad up too early, so my oldest brother went down to the living room to get the stockings. He would come back with reports of what he saw. We opened the stockings and ate the nuts and fruit, complained about the coal in the toe of the stocking and opened the small gifts.

At about 7 or 8 ( I can’t remember what the appropriate time was), Mom and Dad got up and we were allowed to go downstairs. We opened gifts and then ate a big breakfast.

This particular Christmas morning, we opened gifts as usual and when Mom opened her gift from Dad it was a box of Fanny Farmer Chocolates (do any of you remember Fanny Farmer?). When she announced it was time to eat breakfast, we all protested. We told he we wanted chocolates. She said no, but we insisted (just one chocolate then we’ll eat breakfast, we promise), so finally she took off the Fanny Farmer Chocolate wrapper and opened the box. In the center of the chocolates, a few chocolates had been removed and a small box was in their place. My Dad had bought her a new ring and brought it to the candy store to have it placed in the box of chocolates, then the clerk wrapped the box as usual.

My Mom still has that ring.

And Christmas was bright

I just found  these stats.They document the hard work these men and women did to restore power to everyone by Christmas morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Storm Stats – incredible numbers from an incredible storm

• Wire    Restrung more than 120 miles of power cable (the distance between Nashua and Littleton on I-93)
• Phone Calls    Answered more than 435,000 customer calls in 11 days (equivalent to 4 months of calls, normally)
• Poles    Reset more than 250 broken poles
• Fuses    Installed more than 16,000 fuses
• Transformers    Replaced about 1,500 transformers (almost a year’s supply)
• Crews    Deployed more than 1,200 crews, including workers from Maryland, the Midwest and Canada

THANK YOU.

Is Mother Nature mad?

All over the country there has been extreme and often unusual weather. Snow in Central Texas and Vegas?!? Here in the Northeast we had a record breaking ice storm the night of December 11th. By Friday morning the 12th, over 4000 homes were without electricity, mostly in the southern tear of the state. Our power went out at about 10 pm on the 11th, we got it back on the evening of the 15th.  Friday morning it took David and I several tries to find a road out of town that was not blocked by trees or downed wires so we could get to work. My usual 50 minute commute was 1 1/2 hours. This storm was followed by three snow storms (17th, 19th and 21st) for a total of about 2 feet.

Some homes in our area are still without power, they will have a dark Christmas. At one time there were 750 power and tree crews from far and wide to help restore power. Roads were impassable for days, schools have been closed and will not open until after the winter break. Some homes sustained damage from falling trees, cars were totaled and, unfortunately, people died. A 75 year old man refused to leave his home, fell and died of hypothermia on the floor. Some have died of carbon monoxide poisoning from generators and other portable heaters not properly set up or ventilated. Food poisoning was a common complaint of ER visitors (food spoils in a refrigerator in 4 hours). People stayed in shelters or with family but unfortunately some empty homes were broken into: copper pipe stolen from one and Christmas presents opened and some gifts taken.

Not all that has happened this past 2 weeks is bad. Neighbors helped neighbors (even ones they did not previously know). My father refused to leave his home (Mom came to stay with us – we have a wood stove and generator). Dad is 81, an old Yankee, who wanted to protect his home and did not want to move his two Siamese kittens. On day 3 of the power outage, a neighbor from up the street came knocking on the door, offered hot tea and the intermittent use of his generator. This man brought the generator over every afternoon for three days for several hours to warm the house, allow Dad to cook and shower. Their power was restored the evening of the 16th.

In one of the small towns not far from here, there is still no power in many homes. A very prominent business man (contractor) sent his biggest truck south to find as many generators as he could (no generators within a 50 (100?) mile radius). He parked the truck in his parking lot and offered the generators at his cost to anyone who wanted one. He did not sell them to make a profit, and I bet some families got one for nothing.

Shelters have been open in fire stations, town halls, schools and such. They are manned by volunteers who often did not have power in their own homes. Fire and emergency personnel have come from other parts of the state not as badly affected to help out so that our volunteer firemen and EMTs could go home.

The local hospital was on generator power from the 11th to the 18th (do you know how much gas that is?). The Wellness center was open 24 hours a day so hospital employees and their families could shower. The kitchen fed everyone who came in over the weekend for free.

The local store in my town found a generator to run the gas pumps. They lost a lot of perishables in the store, but the two women who run the store were out there filling gas cans and gas tanks well into the night.

I feel fortunate to have been able to stay warm and safe. We could not shower at home or do laundry, but my house did not sustain any damage. My family all weathered the storm pretty well. I feel bad for local businesses, they lost 7 days of Christmas sales and those that are already struggling will probably not survive.  

Here are some pictures:

Trees missed my garden shed.

Ice is at once both beautiful and destructive.

Here are a couple of images for comparison. The first was taken December 13th the second December 21st.

I am sure there are more stories like this around the country, wild weather is being reported everywhere. I hope everyone is safe and able to celebrate the holiday of choice with family and friends.

“May all beings everywhere with whom we are inseparably interconnected,

be fulfilled, awakened, liberated and free.

May there be peace in this world and throughout the entire universe,

and may we all together complete this spiritual journey.

                                                             Mahayana Prayer

Peace and be well.

Cynthia

Time Passes, Paca Poop and Knitting

I know I say this a lot: Where does the time go? October and November were very busy (see previous post) but are now in the past. Thanksgiving in Texas was great. We spent two weeks helping David’s brother and sister in law set up their alpaca ranch (what is the difference between a ranch and a farm?). I loved being on the ranch everyday, working with the animals, scooping poop, cleaning garden beds (I could have done without the copper head!) and pastures. The ranch is Peeka Ranch in Burton,Texas and now has 14 alpaca. It is a very ambitious start but they are doing very well.

I have done a lot of knitting. Small projects but it is so satisfying to have finished objects in hours or days. Here are a few items:

This is the Baby Sqash Hat by Tamara Del Sonno. (Yup that is a gourd it is on)

 

This one is the Garter Stitch Loop-through scarf by Marci Richardson. (both done in same yarn – a 100% alpaca, hand dyed).

 

This one is Blanket Buddy by Mary Anne Thompson (I actually made 2 of these), this is The Alpaca Yarn Company’s Snuggle. All of these patterns are in 101 Designer One Skein Wonders.

Other knitting I have done: I started a Swallow Tail Shawl (I’ll post pictures and tell the tale next time) and I am making a pair of fingerless gloves (gauntlets really) for a woman who will give them to her husband for Christmas (he has MS and his hands and arms are always cold in the house). My own design and very easy. I promise to post pictures of these also.

My on-line store (www.Nightingalefibers.com) is beginning to see more traffic. I advertised on Ravelry in October and November and will probably do so again in January. I would like to do more fiber festivals next year, some are very hard to get into, they have limited space and the vendors who have been doing the festivals are locked in. I will get my name on the lists and see what happens.

David has healed well since his surgery to repair his Achilles tendon. He wore his air cast until last week and is getting around fine. He sees his surgeon in a few weeks and will probably not tell him what he has been doing the past few weeks (working on the ranch). But I think he was very careful and except me dropping a heavy barn mat on his feet he did not do anything to jeopardize his recovery.

Here are a couple of pictures of Peeka Ranch to end with:

 

 

 

 

“Not to do any evil, To cultivate good, To purify one’s mind – - This is the advise of the Buddhas” Dhamma pada

Cynthia

Time Slips Away

I cannot understand where time goes. My life is getting busier, I really want it to get less complicated. David and I have so much going on all the time. Here are a few of the things that have happened in the past month: David ruptured his Achilles tendon, David’s brother and sister in law visited from Texas, , we showed alpacas at The Big E, David had surgery on his ruptured Achilles tendon (and has been in a non-weight bearing cast for past two weeks ——- can’t really do anything, soooo I have to do everything), I was a vendor at the New Hampshire Wool Arts tour. And coming up: Showing alpaca at Empire State, fly to Houston while David and his brother drive with 7 alpacas, enjoy Thanksgiving with family in Houston, drive empty trailer back to New Hampshire. And work. And clean garden and yard to prepare for winter. And bring in wood (remember cast). And keep house reasonable clean. And keep web site up and current. And knit. And spin. And Red Sox are in the post season. Whew.

I really do enjoy my life and I feel very blessed.

I have not been getting much done in terms of knitting and I have not been spinning. I am working on a pair of socks because they are easy to pick up and put down. Although I had a heck of a time getting started. The first pattern I tried I could not get the twisted rib stitch right so I just started a 2X2 rib but wanted a pattern on the leg. I finally used the rib pattern from Heart Strings Autumnal Equinox sock pattern but I had to adjust because I had more stitches then the pattern called for. But they are coming along, I am almost to the toe of the first sock. I am using The Alpaca Yarn Companies Paca Peds in the Singing The Blues colorway. Here is a couple of pictures:

 

 

 

I work on my Log Cabin Blanket occasionally. I want to start a sweater or a shawl but need to finish a few things. I still have the Landscape Shawl that I pick up and work on for a while then put away. I think it is pretty but I am not in love with it. I just feel it is too far along to quit. I will probably give it as a gift if I ever finish it. I will certainly have a lot of time to knit when I am on the road at Thanksgiving but I want something that will keep my interest.

I have so much fiber to spin. After my Thanksgiving trip things should slow down and I want to set aside time to spin and also get out my sewing machine. I have three fleeces to get ready for show and get them out of my way. Once they are gone I will have more room to set up my sewing machine. I have some great fabric and want to make some project bags to sell. I am doing a Vendor Fair at a local organization the beginning of November (I forgot to list that) so if I can get a couple done I can see how they will sell. I plan to have “Gifts for Knitters and Spinners” at my booth. I’ll put together some kits too.

It is a cold Saturday morning in New Hampshire. The foliage has been beautiful this year, but we are at the end of the season now. I hope to get lots done on the “clean up and put the gardens to bed” list today.  I think we’ll light the woodstove tonight when we settle in to watch the Red Sox.

 ”Stopping at third base adds no more to the score than striking out.”  E. Joseph Cossman

Cynthia

Fall is in the air

Wow, where does the time go? It is already the middle of September. It is cool in the morning, beautiful during the day. We are expecting a frost tonight, so the garden is done. I picked the last cucumber and summer squash today. The potted cherry tomatoes on the porch probably will still produce until a real heavy frost.

I was feeding the goldfish before I went to work one morning last week. I was watching the fish come up to the surface to eat, and I saw a small little flash of orange! Yup, a baby fish. There are actually two of them. So, I guess, more goes on in the pond than we know of!

My knitting has been hot and cold. I have worked some on the Log Cabin Blanket and the Landscape Shawl (which I realize is not listed) but have not seamed my Laguna Blouse.

I have been doing a good amount of dying. I have enjoyed experimenting and coming up with a few Nightingale Fibers colorways. I am mostly dying alpaca yarn, but have used wool to exhaust some dye baths and to absorb or use some dyes. Alpaca takes color is such a different way, the colors are more subtle, softer. I really like the colors I am seeing. Here are some examples:

 

 

 

 

 

As usual, these yarns will be on the web site  (now or in the future). I am a vendor at the 2008 Wool Arts Tour Columbus Day weekend , so I may not list them until after that weekend. (You can always contact me if something strikes your fancy!). It is all 100% alpaca, fingering weight. I did dye some lace weight today.

Here’s are a few new alpaca baby pictures:

 

 

 

 

They are sooooo cute when they are babies.

Please visit my on line store: Nightingale Fibers. You will find yarn, spinning fibers, accessories, patterns and gifts.

“Always do what you say you are going to do. It is the glue and fiber that binds successful relationships.” Jeffry A. Timmons