Noolie Knits

Friday with Clover

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Fun with You Tube

Not much time to blog these days, so how about a little entertainment to hold you over.  I really got a kick out of these; I hope you enjoy them too.

 

 

 

 

Hopefully, I'll have a decent post for you in a day or two. 

Have a good one!

Friday with Clover

  "It wasn't a pick!"

Free Kittens

Little Mary Pat had a box of very small kittens that she was trying to give away, so she had them out on the street corner with a sign "FREE KITTENS" next to them.

Suddenly a big line of big black cars came up with a policeman on a motorcycle in front.

The cars all stopped and a tall man stepped out from the biggest car. It's Senator McCain

"Hi, little girl, what do you have there in the box?" he asked.
"Kittens" Little Mary Pat says. "They're so small, their eyes are not even open yet."

"What kind of kittens are they?" he asked.
"Republicans" says Little Mary Pat.

The  man smiled, returned to his car and they drove away. Sensing a good photo opportunity, Sen. McCain called his campaign manager and told him about the little girl and the kittens.

It was planned that they would return the next day, have all the media there and tell everyone about these great kittens.

The next day, Little Mary Pat is standing out on the corner with her box of kittens with the "FREE KITTENS" sign and the big motorcade of black cars pulled up with all the vans and trucks from ABC, NBC, CBS, BET and CNN but no FOX for some reason..

Everyone had their cameras ready and then, Sen. McCain got out of his limo and walked up to Little Mary Pat.

"Now, don't be frightened," he said, "I just want you to tell all these nice news people just what kind of kittens you're giving away today."

"Yes sir," Mary Pat said, "They are all DEMOCRATIC kittens."

Taken by surprise, Sen. McCain said, "But yesterday, you told me that they were republicans"

Little Mary Pat says, "Yes, I know. But today, they have their eyes open."

Actual Knitting Content

It's been a while since I've talked about actual knitting here, hasn't it?  Well, today you're going to get an FO, a WIP,  and  even a look at what I've been spinning.

The FO:

The Fogbuster Beanie Pattern by the wonderfully talented April
Yarn handspun by The Sheep

 

This was an easy and well written pattern that produces a great hat!  I'll definitely be making more.  Annie's yarn was a real pleasure to work with and produced a very soft hat.  How nice to knit a hat that was designed by one friend using yarn spun by another friend.  It's great to have such talented friends :-)

The WIP:

Metro Pullover
Just a sleeve and collar to go.

I'm hoping to finish this by the end of the week, but don't hold your breath waiting.  Seems I don't get in as much knitting time as I used to.  I blame Clover; she's just too much fun.

The Spinning:

I've spun about half of the 4 ounce bump that I bought from White Barn Meadows at SPA back in February.

I haven't been doing so well getting in my 10 minutes a day; as a matter of fact, last week I only spun on Thursday with my spinning group. Gotta do better.

My plan with this fiber is to Navajo ply it once I'm done spinning the singles. I know I won't get a whole lot of yardage that way, but I'm hoping it's enough to make a neck warmer. Only time will tell.

Have a great day!

Not a Rhinebeck Post

I wish it were a Rhinebeck Post, but alas, I was not able to attend.  The news around blogland indicates it was a good time.    I'm happy for everyone who was able to go; hopefully, I'll be able to attend next year.

Friday was the Annual Harvestfest here, which takes place right outside of Town Hall.  It really drives me crazy; we aren't allowed to park on site, there isn't any place for citizens to park if they want to come in to do any town business, all kinds of festival goers (is that a word?) come in and "go" in our bathroom, which pisses me off (pun intended), and all I can think about all day long is all that food right outside!  It's pretty safe to say that not a whole heck of a lot of work gets down inside Town Hall that day. 

The fact that Nancy of White Barn Meadows had a booth right outside my office window helped a little.  I happen to have some of her fiber that I picked up at SPA on the wheel right now and I love it, so I picked up some more.  Two 4-ounce bumps of a luscious alpaca/merino blend. 

One is for me and the other has already been gifted to Patti.  Aren't the colors beautiful? I also bought Clover a stuffed Llama but there's no picture of that yet. It is so incredibly soft and cuddly; she loves it!

I  picked up some great glass buttons from the Malabar Glass booth. 

(click for bigger)

I'm going to use the set on the right for my Metro Pullover sweater if they aren't too heavy.  The colors are perfect for it.

The only other thing I bought was  a HUGE order of sweet potato fries and onion rings and I ate every last bit.  Hey, they're vegetables aren't they?

Friday with Clover

Never Long Enough

Long weekends never seem quite long enough, do they?  What did I do with my three day weekend?  Saturday and Sunday were spent enjoying the company of good friends and Monday was spent at home with my family.  Couldn't have been better, unless of course, it was longer.    

Saturday was the NH Wool Arts Tour.  Patti, Sharon, and I headed out around 8:30  in the morning for a beautiful drive to Antrim, Washington, and Henniker, New Hampshire to visit the five farms/shops participating in the tour.  It was a beautiful drive; check out the gorgeous fall foliage we enjoyed:

This picture doesn't do the colors justice; they were just spectacular!

There was a lot to see, but my favorite thing had to be at the second stop where we were able to see Mandy Fraser spin directly from her bunny. 

When I told Samm that I was going to see someone spin right from their bunny, she thought it was mean and that it would hurt the bunny.  I told her that having had bunnies, I couldn't imagine that one would sit still if it didn't want to.

Here's a closeup of Harriet the bunny:

 
She was happy as could be; she just sat there and wiggled her cute little nose.

Actually, what Mandy does is pull the fluff that's starting to shed and gets a handful of that and spins it, then gets more and spins it, and so on. So she's not really spinning directly from the bunny (which I imagine would hurt a bit).

The two cuties in the next picture were the prize of a raffle that was being held at the third stop.

I don't think they liked me much; every time I tried to get a picture of  their faces, they turned around.   No,  I did not buy any of the raffle tickets but I know someone who did.  (She also got some much better pictures than I did.)  

This is what my trunk looked like after the final stop:

Only a very small part of this is mine. Patti did the most damage out of the three of us. (Ooops, you didnt' read that, Roger.)


This is the extent of what I bought:  8 ounces of Louet Northern Lights wool in colorway "Burning Bush" from The Wool Room (stop 1);  8 ounces of Romney/Border Leicester fiber "Emily and Zebediah" from Brimstone Hollow Farm; and 12 ounces of 100% Merino in a gorgeous yellow from A Hand-Spun Yarn. 
The yellow merino will hopefully become a sweater for Clover.

 

Sunday was spent shopping and eating and sharing a pitcher of Margarita's with a non-knitting friend and yesterday was spent enjoying time at home.  Like I said at the beginning of the post, the only thing that would have made the weekend better was if there were more of it.    I hope all of you enjoyed your weekend!

 

Friday with Clover

"Peek-a-Boo!"

WNBP

It's time for another Wednesday Night Bullet Post.

Knitting:

~ The majority of my knitting time has been spent on the Metro Pullover I'm knitting for myself.  The weather has turned a bit chilly here and I find that I am sorely lacking in sweaters that fit me comfortably.  Progress so far:

~The left front neck shaping and a couple of sleeves are all that's between me and a new sweater.

~Well, that and a "bit" of blocking to change this from a close fitting sweater to a comfy sweater.

~It reallly is a good idea to check gauge before beginning a knitting project.  Just saying.

~The Fogbuster hat is about half done and it's looking good.

~You'll have to take my word for it as I have no photographic evidence.

Spinning:

~I finished spinning Brian's singles last Thursday night at spinning group.  As a matter of fact, I finished it much quicker than I thought I would and had nothing left to do but gab for the last half of the time there.

~As planned, I used Alice with the jumbo flyer & bobbin to ply the singles together.

260 yards - heavy worsted to bulky weight (forgot to do wpi)

~It's much darker than the pictures indicate; it's really almost black like this photo.

 

~I lost several yards of Brian.  There was quite a bit left on one of the bobbins and I tried to Andean Ply it.  I've never used that method before and apparently I did not wrap it correctly because it knotted all up!

 

~Brian isn't going to stay with me long; I'm sending him to a friend.

 

Contest:

 

~Thanks to those of you who jumped through all the hoops to vote for Clover in the Great American Photo Contest. 

 

~Anyone who hasn't yet voted but would like to (and can handle the stress of clicking through MULTIPLE screens), you have until the end of the month. 

 

~There will be a prize drawing on November 1st and I promise it will be a very good prize.

 

Flickr/Clover:

 

~Samm and Jay have asked that I make Clover's flickr sets private (friends and family only).  I will still be posting her pictures here; we just think it's better not to have the Flickr photos public.

 

~I've sent e-mails to many of you, but I'm sure I've missed some of you.  If you'd like to be able to see Clover's sets and haven't received an e-mail, please let me know.

 

~If you notice pictures missing on old posts, it's because the links will be broken when I change the sets to private.  I plan to fix the links, but it'll take some time.

 

 

Politics:

Clover likes to stay informed.

Vote for Clover!

Go here and vote for Clover.

You'll have to subscribe to something in order to vote, but you can then go back and unsubscribe.

Because the process of voting is a bit tideous, if you go through it and vote, your name will be entered to win a prize.  Just make sure to come back to this post and leave a comment letting me know that you did vote.

Prize to be determined later, but I promise it'll be good.

Friday with Clover

 
Can you believe this little Bug in a Rug is 10 months old today?!

Here's a little action shot taken a couple weeks ago:

I'm Doing Brian and Damn is He Good!

Get your mind out of the gutter; I'm talking about this Brian. 

We had our first Spinning group get together last Thursday night at The Yarn Sellar.

Starting in front of the door and moving right, we have Patti, my empty chair,  Brenda, Sharon, Carol, and Eileen.  It was a really fun group; I can't wait to go again tonight.  It's amazing how much spinning you can get done while yakking it up with friends!

 

Since I had finished the Campfire yarn, I needed something to spin.  I decided that I'd like to try Brian for two reasons: 1) I've never spun Coopsworth before, and 2) it didn't need any pre-drafting and I wanted to spend my time spinning, not pre-drafting.  I'm enjoying spinning this fiber; it pretty much spins itself.  I filled a bobbin with one of Brian's 4oz. balls in just a few days and have started on his second ball. 

 

I'm hoping for a 2 ply light worsted weight yarn when I'm done. I'm not sure what I'll make with it, I guess that depends on how much yardage I get out of 8 ounces.

A coworker of mine  happens to enjoy woodworking and offered to make me a bobbin for Lucille.  This was really good timing since I was planning to order a couple more bobbins anyway.  He finished it just as I was ready to begin the second bobbin of Brian.

 
Isn't it pretty?

 

Hopefully, this will be full very soon and I'll be ready to ply it.  I plan to use Alice with the Jumbo flyer to ply it. 

 

There has been a bit of knitting going on around here, too.  Don't get too excited though, it's not a lot, but it's something.

 

Look at this, I started a sweater for myself!

 

It's the Metro Pullover from Oat Couture

I'm using Plymouth Galway Colorneps Yarn and I'm really happy with this choice.  I'm  making one teeny weeny modification to the pattern; I'm knitting it in the round because I don't want to finish the knitting and then have it hanging around for days weeks because I don't feel like seaming it, which is exactly what would happen!

The other project that I'm actively working on is a hat.  

Fogbuster Beanie by April

I know it doesn't look like much in this picture, but I've completed another couple of inches and hopefully, mine will resemble the one in the pattern when I finish it.  I'm using some beautiful yarn that was handspun by my favorite Sheep and was gifted to me when we first met in person.  It's been waiting for the perfect pattern and this seems to be it - what better use for a yarn spun by one friend than a pattern written by another? 

I think this post pretty much catches us up on what has been happening around Noolieville lately, and I'm darn near caught up on blog reading.  Anyone want to place bets on when I'll fall behind again?

Have a great day!