Happy Halloweenie!

I am SO close to having an FO to report I can almost taste it! The second sock is almost complete and then it will be time to start something new. WEBS was having a sale the other day so, of course, I couldn't resist and got a fun box packed full of yarn on Monday. Oh yeah, I really needed that.

Wayne made some ghosts for our front yard for Halloween. We will be hanging around for the kids for a bit then off to the neighbors house for a party. Wayne isn't dressing up. He went in drag as a woman last year and I think he is still traumatized!! You can enjoy those pictures HERE if you are feeling brave!!

We have been spending LOTS of time getting the online lessons up on the website. We have a few of them up now and a few more just need pictures and then they can go up too. These things have been HARD work but I am hoping people will enjoy them and get a lot out of them. I have people writing to me almost every day thanking me for the videos and/or asking me to teach them something or do a video on something else. I hope the lessons will be filling some of the gaps!!

I'm going to have some of Melissa's stitch markers on there too! Hopefully they will be up today or tomorrow.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!! :)

Fence Fixin'

As I logged in I noticed that my last post was on Tuesday. TUESDAY! I haven't posted since Tuesday! Sorry 'bout that. Ironically, my last post was about how slack I have been on posting. Well, at least I'm consistant.

Back to fence fixin'. Yep, that's how the Mr. and I spent our day today. We headed out to the farm for a day of work. Honestly, it does not even feel like work because we love being out there so much and we work so amazingly well together. My step-mother's mom has been in the hospital so we figured they could use and hand out there for a day or two.

Our morning started off with visiting dad and Gail. Which we LOVE. Actually our morning started out with a trip to Target but that's boring. These two are truly a couple of our favorite folks. I have been blessed with an amazingly wonderful family. I'm talking BOTH parents AND my husband AND my kid. You might hear me mumbling that I do also have a brother somewhere in there but HE is another story...................

Then we were given our list of chores. Water. That was our list. We were to fill the water buckets for the pets out in the pastures. Seriously? We drove out here to help and the only thing you have on our list is to water?!?! Gimmie a break, we will FIND stuff to do. And find we did....................

Watering - check. Done. Didn't take long. I played with "Little Toot" for a bit - a teeny tiny goat that Gail has been hand feeding because she is a triplet and is getting skanked on the milk supply. So she is tiny and follows you around bleating and runs after you and she is SO DAMN cute! She followed us back to the barn bleating for a bit of goat feed. Done.

Then we discovered the stalls still weren't done. GREAT! That is the kind of thing we were looking for. Do the stalls so they are all clean by the time Gail gets home. So we busted our butts getting them cleaned. The trailer we dump the stall stuff in was kind of full so I called her to ask her if we could dump it. No, she said someone comes to pick it up and he would be there tomorrow. Fine, Wayne and I got busy finishing the last stalls. Then she calls back. This was the conversation:

Me: Hey!

Gail: Hey, you two aren't doing the stalls are you?

Me: Yes, of course we are! We are here to help!

Gail: Damn! I should have told you that I have a guy that I pay that comes to do stalls! He will be there at 12!

Me: ...................................................................

So shit. We didn't make it easier on her at all which was our whole point for going out there!! So, we are in search of yet another project. FENCES!! There were several fences in need of repair so we loaded up the golf cart with wood and tools and got to work fixing all the fences that had downed boards!! YAY!!! We finally did something useful! Geez....took us long enough.

I didn't bring my camera out to the farm today darnit, otherwise I would have a picture of cutie patootie Little Toot for ya. :( But, she pretty much looks like this one.

OK, so I'm slack........

Yeah, yeah, yeah.....I hear ya. I haven't blogged in a while because I have been slack. Well, I'm not going to deny it, it's true.

So, this is a special blog. One where you get to listen to me whine.........I WANT TO GO TO SAFF!!!!!!!! So does hubby and we are STUCK this weekend because we are doing something with our neighbors on Saturday. Don't get me wrong, we WANT to go with our neighbors to their son's birthday celebration in Suchess (N. GA) because we LOVE Winn (their son). Winn is a great guy who has built his entire house himself up there in the hills of GA. He's very earthy and just a super nice guy and one hell of a musician. I'll have some pics for ya after the weekend.

HOWEVER, does it have to be the same weekend as SAFF?!?!?! If I had known about SAFF beforehand, I would have never accepted the invitation. AND we are driving our elderly neighbors up there and back so there can't be any of this "Well, let's go stay in Asheville for a day or two and then we will just drive to N.GA and meet them". DAMMIT!!! Ugh....double dammit!!!!

SO, I assume that SAFF is the same time, same place next year???? Yes???? If so, I'm booked for the weekend and will not allow any birthday plans to interfere no matter how much we like someone. We'll visit them on another weekend. Surely most people are like me and celebrate their birthday for an entire month, right?? That goes for birthday celebrations, funerals, weddings, births, graduations, work bull-shit, hoe-downs, alien invasions, child interferences, nobel prize winning, whatever! Sorry, I'm BOOKED!

Perhaps I should clarify

What I meant when I said that my stash does not look any different was that even though I had removed all of that yarn from the stash and put in neatly in the boxes - the rest of the stash looks the same!! It looks like I haven't removed anything and it is STILL filling up many baskets around our home as if they were decor. In other words, what was the point...........All I did was put the stuff like the fun fur and the (gasp) acrylics away from the good stuff!!! :)

Truly Pathetic

We went to Garden Ridge today. That place is impossible to not spend money at because everything is so darn cheap! It's great for just decorative type things. We got some decorations for Fall. I also got some plastic containers to tame down the stash. I got 4 of them, filled them to the brim and the sad thing is........you can't even tell!!! The stash looks exactly the same! What's up with that?!?

We got some fall decorations for the front.

Everything I do is under the watchful eye of Ponce as you can see.

I may have overdone it on the bags..................

Hey! I don't think a single one of them was over $3! You can always use bags, right??

Remember that pic of Mr. Man I promised you modeling my crochet hat? Well, here it is.......

That's right, just the hat. Typical. See that wad of green yarn in the background? Ponce did that when we first got him. I yelled at him big time and then the next day we took him to be neutered. He hasn't touched a ball of yarn since.

I was going to try to wind it but it is beyond help. For some reason I simply can't bring myself to get rid of it...........seriously, I think I have a problem (or two).

North Georgia Tour

We have literally spent the last two days in the car. Yesterday, we drove to Georgia Mountain Fiber (www.georgiamountainfiber.com since I can't seem to get the damn link to work) in Blue Ridge to drop off the alpaca fur. They were SUPER nice and showed us all around their operation and helped us figure out what the heck to do with 30# of alpaca fleece. Then we went and visited friends in Ellijay and then we went to buy some apples, apple cider and fried apple pies since it is that time of year - YUMMY!!!!! Then we went to my dad's farm for a while to wait out the nightmare Friday Atlanta traffic before we headed back to the city for home. Here's a couple pictures of the herd.

Today we drove to Chattanooga to meet Tiffany who graciously sold us THIS..........

Wayne can't wait to get started!! The 6# of alpaca/romney roving that we ordered from ebay was waiting for us when we got home yesterday so Wayne is all set!

On our drive home we took the long, scenic route (on purpose!). It took us about 1.5 hours to get to Chattanooga and about 5 hours to get home! We stopped at Sloppy Floyd park north of Rome and took these pics.

Then we stopped at Berry College in Rome and took these pics. If you have never been to Berry College and you live in GA or nearby you should go!! It is an absolutely AMAZING campus!!

Aren't the deer SO cute????? Now we are happy to be home with our pets who are feeling neglected from the past few days of parent traveling.

S is for Sock

Here's me knitting my sock this afternoon..............

OK - time for the heel flap.

K, k, k, k, k, k - oh wait.....I forgot to slip the first stitch - T-I-N-K

Slip, k, k, k, k, k - oh crap......I fogot I'm making a reinforced heel (which I almost ALWAYS do)and I'm supposed to slip every other stitch - T-I-N-K

Slip, k, slip, k, slip, k, slip, k - wait.......I think you slip every other stitch on the purl row, not the knit row - T-I-N-K

Slip, k, k, k, k, k, k, k, k, k - damn.....hang on a sec - that just does not seem right - yeah, I think you DO slip every other stitch on the knit side - T-I-N-K

K, slip, k, slip, k, slip, k, slip, k, slip - ah SHIT! I forgot to slip the first friggin stitch again! T-I-N-K

Slip, k, slip, k, slip, k, slip, etc - GREAT!

P, p, p, p, p, p - Holy Mother Mary!! I forgot to slip the first friggin stitch AGAIN!!!! T-I-N-K

Slip, p, p, p, p, p, p, etc

K, slip, k, slip, k, slip, k, slip - God dammit!!!!!! T-I-N-K

Slip, drink, k, slip, drink, k, slip, drink, k, slip, drink, k - Much better..........

No honey, I don't need a break..........

I know but knitting really IS relaxing............

What? Sure, I could use another glass of wine - thanks!

So, I got about 3 rows done in about 30 minutes. Geeezzzzzzzzzz

Second post of the day

HOLY COW!!! Check out what I just got in my email!! If you are a nurse and you want to come work at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta you MUST contact me!! I'll split the $$ with ya! It's a great place to work!!

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Candidate must be an experienced Registered Nurse (1 or more years of experience)
Candidate can be hired to work all nights or a combination of day-night rotating shifts
Have a minimum of an Associates degree and a Georgia RN license - or eligibility for Georgia license

This special offer of a $10,000 Referral bonus is good until the end of the year.
You can earn from $500 - $3000 for all other referrals.

What to type when you have nothing to type

It's true. I really have nothing fun and exciting to report. Oh, well, I AM on vacation as of NOW so that is definitely exciting for me - not that any of yous really cares though! We aren't really doing anything terribly exciting - just going some places we want to go and hanging out together. I know, it's pathetic isn't it?? Mr. Man and I are together ALL the time practically and we just never seem to get tired of each other or wear on each other's nerves at all. I love being able to hang out with my best friend all the time! Life is great!

Friday we are taking the Alpaca fleece to Georgia Mountain Fiber for processing. They have been so wonderful over the phone and invited us to call and let them know we were coming so that they could show us through the place and show us some of their products. We are both really looking forward to it!! We did a rudimentary weigh in today and figured we probably have about 30# of fleece. I'm sure we'll be going to visit our friends in Elijay and then stopping by dad's to hang out at the farm for a while afterwards. Then Saturday we go pick up the spinning wheel. I had a dream last night that Wayne was teaching me to spin!! That must be a good omen.

I have been looking through the Spin Off magazine that we got a Knitch a few days ago. Wow! What a great and informative magazine! I ordered a subscription for Wayne! Yesterday we ended up at Michael's because I needed to buy some cheapie wool. Wayne asked me if I needed a basket and I said no that I just needed two balls of wool. Well............$107 later..............he got me a basket. To go with the two baskets that I bought and also filled with yarn. DAMN! Why does that happen?!?!

IF YOUR NAME IS TIANA STOP READING NOW!!! Thank you for stopping by.................

Nathan, my son, mentioned to me that Tiana, his girlfriend, was running out of space for her yarn. Huh?? I've never heard of such a problem!!!! Right..............anyway so he said that she needs baskets for her yarn. Soooooooo - I got her two baskets for Christmas. However, I couldn't resist the temptation to fill one of them with yarn and goodies so she really is only getting one storage vessicle out of the deal. I LOVE having a knitter to shop for for Christmas!! That has never happened before! It's so easy!

IF YOUR NAME IS MOM (my mom specifically) STOP READING NOW!!!! Thank you for stopping by..........................

So my mom is getting socks since she claims that you can't get anything USEFUL from knitting. Well, I'll show her!!! She's gonna LOVE 'EM and be begging me for another pair for mother's day!!! :) I think "low key" is best for her when talking about socks so I figured I better have a low key sock design since the yarn is kinda busy. I am just doing some subtle cable types around it.

WIP - obviously....................

Well, I guess I had plenty to type afterall. Hmmmm......what a surprise.......

Holy Cannoli!

WOW! We have a BUNCH of alpaca hair! Here's what we came home with.

We sorted and labeled it all to take to the fiber mill. There is simply too much of it for us to clean, card and spin ourselves. We will just go ahead and get most of it spun and then we will have some made into roving for us to spin. There must be at least 50#. It is gorgeous too! I can't wait! I called a place up in Blue Ridge today that specializes in alpaca fiber so Wayne and I are going to drive it up there to drop it off probably on Friday. Here's all the fiber after it was sorted.

Here's some pictures from the farm yesterday. Baby Harmony has grown so much already!! She is precious!!! Dolly, the pony, is preggers so we should have a really cute baby pony sometime around April!!!! :)

This is Dolly's last baby - Rayna. Sadly, she met an unfortunate demise - it was terrible.

This is Sissy. She is our favorite goat and SO sweet. I think she would be a "lap goat" if we let her!

Happy Sunday!

We are off to go spend our day on my dad's farm. We are SO looking forward to it! We'll have some pictures for ya later. Should have more pictures of the alpaca baby, Harmony, for tomorrow's blog!

Have a great Sunday!

In case anyone cares............

I hate 1x1 ribbing on DPNs.............just thought I'd share.

If you vigorously wash a sheep.........

will it felt???

Alpaca hair is................

all over my house. Seriously - it's everywhere. We have been cleaning and carding it. I have already learned that we need a drum carder because if we hand card all of this stuff with brushes we are going to be here until next Christmas.

Here's what it looked like to start out with. This is Paco. Actually, the hair is already off but use your imagination here..............

Here's what it looked like when we brought it home. This is Paco's dirty hair.

Here's some pics of hubby working on it (pay no attention to the many bottles of wine on the counter). This is Paco's clean hair.

Here's what the first batch looks like. This is just Paco's leg stuff. We wanted to start with the "not so good stuff" in case we screwed it up. We haven't broken into the "good stuff" bag yet.

Not too shabby, eh?????

Oh yeah, and we bought a spinning wheel. We are going to TN to pick it up next weekend. Here is what it looks like.

We are getting it for $275 from someone who bought it and just hasn't really used it because she has 3 other spinning wheels. It's an Ashford Traditional with a walnut finish. We are excited!!!

This morning when we woke up we were talking about what we wanted/needed to do for the day. I told him I wanted to go by Michael's and pick up some yarn because I didn't have enough to finish a project. He started laughing uncontrolably. He was like "What do you mean you don't have ENOUGH?!?! For God's sake woman I couldn't even find a place to SIT the other day because there was yarn everywhere!!". So I patiently waited for him to finish his fit of hysterics and explained to him that I did not have the right KIND of yarn. I need the yarn to finish some swatches for some sample work I am doing and I want to use CHEAP yarn - not good yarn!! Well, he didn't exactly relent but he eventually stopped laughing......

We bought 48 oz of alpaca/wool roving to learn on for $81 on ebay. Is that a good price??? Seemed pretty good to us so we went for it. So, Hockey Mom if you are reading this, we are ready for lessons REAL soon!!!!

Yessssssssssssssssss...........................

Woo hooo!!!!! Knit Picks delivery day!! Our mail lady stopped us while we were out walking the pooches and told us she put a package on our doorstep. I of course knew what that meant and could hardly wait to get back to open the goodies!!! Here's how it looks..........

Here's a closer-up of the yarn. Can you tell I like earth tones????

I got the sock yarn needles that I am so excited about, some pockets and such for my Knit Picks carrier thingy and a variety of yippeeee skippeeee wool (obviously, I'm giving it my very own brand name). Monkey socks are in my near future - I know, shut up, I'm behind.

Thanks for all the spinning book advice! We are going to try to clean up the alpaca that we have today and see how that goes. We have one bag of "the good stuff" and one bag of "leg and various asundry stuff". Can you use both to create roving with??? There are still 2 bags of good stuff each for the grey, white and silverish alpaca and 1 bag of good stuff for the black alpaca. They each also have a equal amount of bags of "leg and other stuff". So, we have plenty for a while. I guess the alpacas get sheared again in April?????

I have one FO (or 1/2 of an FO however you see it) to report. It isn't blocked yet but still, you can clearly see that it is a finished sock. I changed my piss poor attitude about the sock and cast on the mate. I'm about halfway through the ribbing. Hopefully I can cuss considerably less on this one.

Know what my favorite part about knitting socks is?? Kitchener! I know, I'm a weirdo but I just love it and I love how perfectly it finishes the sock!

Here's Slim sleeping on top of my knitting stuff with said sock before it was finished. I know it looks like a DPN is poking him in the nose but really, he appears extreemly comfortable.

Calling all Spinners

OK kids - I need some help. I am in search of the "Spinning Bible" but as of yet I don't know which book this is. I need someone to let me know the title of the "Spinning Bible" as I know there must be one out there. I'm looking for something that covers fiber preparation and wheel spinning in an easy to understand and detailed manner. FOR BEGINNERS!

We found a woman who is selling her Ashford wheel that she has had for 6 months and never even touched! I guess she thought it was something she wanted to learn but just never got around to it. She is selling it for $275 so we are pretty excited about that. The only problem? She is in another state so I guess we will need to get her to ship it to us.

I looked at Knitch for a book - no luck. I looked on Amazon for a book and just didn't really see anything that looked like it was worth the shipping price. SOOOOOOO - help me out!! Much appreciated!!!