In which I feed alpacas and buy yarn, because I can't not buy yarn.

Lately I've been thinking about how big the world is, and how many things there are to learn how to do - mosaic tile, stained glass windows, masonry, woodworking, welding....and how there are so many opportunities to go out and learn some of these things. 

So this weekend I was fortunate enough to have a bit of a learning-related adventure!  On Saturday morning, I met a group of fellow yarn enthusiasts (read: knitting nerds) for a tour of the Bluebonnet Hills Alpaca Ranch in Navasota, TX.  We had a great tour of the ranch, and got to pet and even feed some of the 70 alpaca that live there.  The area where the ranch is located is so pretty - hilly, lots of trees, and right now covered in wildflowers (including, yes, bluebonnets - the national flower of Texas).

The ranchers were super nice and showed us all about the caretaking of alpaca, which is in the camelid family (think llamas) that come from the Andes in South America.  They're known over the world for the awesome softness of their fleece.  And they're really cute too!

We saw some funny ones with derpy-derp haircuts:

And some whose fleece grows in wavy locks:

There were also BABIES.  I LOVE THEM.  And Noel is very proud that I did not, in fact, bring one home with me.

This one is called Sweet Talking Man.  He was a charmer.  :)   

The ranchers raise these alpaca to both sell to breeders, and for their fleeces for yarn (they shear them - no worries about alpacacide!)

There might have been some yarn for sale there.  I might have accidentally bought some.  It's hard not to, when you just fed the little guy whose fleece made the yarn!

So we had lunch there, and then went to a gorgeous yarn shop in Navasota called WC Mercantile - such beautiful stuff in there!!  And they have lots of supplies for spinning yarn as well, and that might be something I'll do in the near future (since I don't have any other hobbies - sigh).

Anyway, we spent the afternoon there learning how to dye yarn!  It was really fun, and honestly much easier in some ways than I imagined.  I can see how people get addicted to it.  We got to keep the skein of yarn we dyed, and I was so happy with the way mine turned out:

(Purple, blue, teal.  Of course.  I am in a very happy rut).

Now to find patterns to use for all this gorgeous alpaca fluffiness!

April Showers = Good Excuse To Stop Weeding

Happy April, and welcome to my newest readers!  Glad you decided to join us!

We've had an exciting week here at Chez Hairball, or should I say Chez Cat Indigestion That Mysteriously Only Happens In Carpeted Areas.  It's not been pleasant.  And here's one place where life with pets varies from life with children (as my sister pointed out): when you have a sick child, you can normally figure out pretty quickly which one it is.  When you have a sick cat, unless you only have 1 cat, it's hard to figure out which one is having the digestive issues.  Thus we had to take dramatic action yesterday by separating the boys into different rooms, feeding them, and waiting for...nature to take its course, by which means we could determine which of them had been having the problem.  (Side note:  You know you've gotten to a very special point in a relationship with another person when you can have lengthy, serious conversations about cat poop.)

And here's another thing about cats - when they feel like it, they can apparently hold in anything they want.  So while we never got a definitive on Samson, we think Poe is the one with the problem.  I'll take him to the vet this week to get him checked out.  Poor guy.  Also poor carpet.

Also about cats?  They do NOT like being locked away from each other if they're used to being around each other all the time.  Poe wouldn't shut up with the dramatic whining, and when I'd go in to see him for a while, Loki would start up.

Meanwhile, Samson was totally chill in the other bedroom, just hanging out all day.  Didn't hear a peep out of him. 

In other exciting news (because we all know you come here to get more than just riveting cat/litterbox stories), the garden is doing quite well, except we have lots of ants (bug powder coming out tomorrow - they're eating the spinach before it can grow!) and I've had to replant a few things that just didn't take from the (leggy) seedling stage, including cucumbers and squash, which most people will recognize as veggies a child could grow in an egg carton full of dirt from the side of a highway.  So.  I'm not going to take that personally, and will just keep on planting.

So here we go, picturama time!

(Please ignore the weeds in these next few pictures.  I really did weed today for a while, but then it started raining and I got lazy and went inside and watched some stupid movie on Syfy about these teens caught on top of a Mayan pyramid that was covered with some carnivorous vines that were trying to eat them, and then weeding seemed like an even worse idea.) 

So this is how the garden looks right now - kinda hard to see stuff, but it's there!

Our salad mix is doing really well!  This is arugula, raddichio, and spinach.  (And potentially carnivorous weeds, just sayin').

Our lima beans are doing great! 

Here's Gottfried at his post by a sad little okra plant that is actually getting stronger, despite looking anemic right now. 

On Friday we were looking at some of the plants in the rest of the yard, including our cacti (who are growing too!), the lantanas that are coming back nicely, and our sad (dead) hibiscus.  And then I noticed something - down at the bottom of the hibiscus, close to the soil and partly buried underneath some old leaves, was a glimmer of green.  I dug through the dead leaves and found some bright little green leaves sprouting out of the very bottom of the hibiscus!  Apparently that part of the plant survived the hard freezes we got this year because it was insulated.  So I dug it all out and chopped back all the dead wood.  It looks really sad right now, but hopefully now that it can get more sunlight, it'll grow fast. 

Yay!  i was worried we'd lost the hibiscus forever, and it was so pretty with its humongous red blooms. 

In other updates, my job continues to go really well!  Except my boss just took a new job in the corporate office.  Which is great for her, and I think may open up doors for me as a trainer to do more work in the corporate office, which would be cool.  Funnily enough, the same exact thing happened to my last manager too - I started the job, 2 weeks later he told me he was getting promoted!  But other than this little minor hiccup, my job is going extremely well.  I'm really happy there. 

Next week will be more exciting adventures as I tour an alpaca farm!  So excited!  Will try not to get bitten.  Happy April everyone!  Enjoy the springtime!

March Is Almost Over - Where Did It Go?

Hi everyone!  Can you believe I'm actually blogging again!?

It's been a few weeks, and just to give you a few updates:

• Noel's been working night shift, so we haven't seen much of each other lately, except on weekends!  But he's between jobs just for this weekend, so we've had a nice time hanging out, getting some stuff done around the house, and going out for fantastic Indian food.  Yum. 

• My new job is going extremely well.  I'm enjoying it so much!  The people are nice, the work is challenging, fun, and exciting!  It's invigorating to be doing something different - and I'll be involved in LOTS of face-to-face training, which is one of my favorite things to do.  I'm lucky I get paid for it!  :)

• It's already warm here - I took some pictures today to share with those of you who are looking forward to spring, to remind you what it looks like!

So I might have taken a secret picture of my neighbor's house, just to show you how pretty the azaleas are.   Don't tell them, ok? 

We don't really have much of anything blooming around our house yet except for the little wildflowers growing in our yard.  We call them grass, even though our entire yard is basically just a variety of weeds.  I'm ok with that.  Green = Grass.

 

But!  We will have lots of pretty blooms!  Our canna lilies are coming in nicely - we had to cut everything down to the ground level with all the freezes we had this year, but it's growing back nicely.  So are the lantanas.  So far the only thing that isn't growing back yet is our monsterous 8-10 ft tall hibiscus.  I fear it didn't make it.  At least we have the cannas:



 

 

And you can't really tell, but our little peach tree in the background is greening out all over.  :)


So Noel and I will readily admit that we are...not the most diligent about watering our yard.  Which is why we have weeds and not grass.  We have pots by our mailbox that have contained over the course of 2 years:

- Sweet potato vine
- Little purple flowery things
- Mexican heather

All of which died because they dried out.  So we decided this year to just embrace our laziness and go with a safer option:

Cactus!  These are calling Boxing Glove cacti, because the little new buds look like boxing gloves/fists.  We'll see how they work.  We feel like official Texas homeowners, having cacti in the front yard!

Also - for those of you who may be slightly clumsy and/or like to try touching things you shouldn't (Examples: Is the stove hot? Let me check! or Eew...that looks slimy.  Let's find out!), you may want to either (1) get super-thick gloves when planting cactus, or (2) hire someone else to do it for you.  Because these little guys HURT.  They'd be awesome to plant under windows to prevent burglars getting in that way.  I still have little thorns in my fingers. 

And now on to the garden proper!  We've worked hard this year to amend the "soil" in our yard, but with limited results.  I set out the little seedlings a few weeks ago, and sadly a lot of them didn't make it.  Some of them did, and for some plants I just put seeds straight in the ground.  And things are coming up!  We put out a soaker hose today hoping that would help with the onslaught of heat we're getting ready to see in a few months.

The watering is working!  Look!  Lima bean plants!

 

And the little seed bonbons that my friend Lisa gave to me?  Have started sprouting!!  Neato!

 

 It was so pretty out today that we decided to grill!  Noel got the grill started and then sat down with a Shiner Bock (National Beer of Texas) to relax for a few.  Here's our patio with the pergola we built (not yet covered with fabric because...um...laziness?)  And our fancy table and our brand new patio chairs! 

But lest you get too jealous of the salad days we're already enjoying here in the suburbs of H-town, remember that we technically live in a town called Spring.  For a reason.  We are swimming in pollen.  This is at a seam on our patio - the light yellow is pollen that's still remaining AFTER we had 1 1/2 days of rain. 

Everything here is tinged in yellow. My car? Yellow. Noel's truck? Yellow. Our house? Yellower. When it rains we have yellow puddles. I now take an allergy pill with my vitamins every morning.  Want blonde highlights?  Go stand under a tree for 20 minutes. 

But it could be worse, right?  At least we'll have lima beans!

A Little Lip

Today's post starts off on a melancholy note, but it picks up fast, ok?

(Also, can I just say how proud I am to blog 2 days in a week?  WOW).

Ok, so today I went to a funeral for the father of my former boss.  (That's the melancholy part).  The funeral was at a Lutheran church, so I was expecting some funky architecture.

(This is probably where I should jump in to say that, as a Scholar of Religion and also a Ritologist (yes, it's a word) with the student loans to prove it, I have a theory on church architecture that I won't get into here.  Basically it's this:  You can pretty much wager successfully on a church's denomination by the way the church is built.  It's hard to put into words.  Maybe I'm just denomination psychic.  Anyway.  Lutherans = Funky Architecture, usually heavy stone that looks like something either built in 1347 or something built in 1975 that was trying to look like it was built in 1347.)

So this funeral was in a Lutheran church.  Guess what the church looked like?  A monastery from 1347, with upper modern stained glass windows straight out of the Age of Aquarius.  It was actually really lovely, truly.  Also the service was very nice - upbeat, optimistic, and full of really pretty music.

Now, as many of you already know, I have a penchant for sacred spaces - churches, synagogues, sacred stone circles, you name it, I like to be smack in the middle of it.  They're usually very calm places, quiet and peaceful, and I can't help but look around and decipher symbols and such.  So when I go to weddings, funerals, anything in any type of religious space, my inner ritologist comes out in full force.  The amusing thing about this is, even my former boss (whose father's funeral we were attending) said during the reception afterwards that she figured I was enjoying myself looking around at everything and studying it.  Um...busted.

This church was set up in a very interesting way, with the Communion table smack in the middle, and parenthesis shaped altar rails around it.  There were congregation chairs on 3 sides, with the choir and organ on the 4th.  Very egalitarian.  Martin Luther would be proud.  :)

I really wanted to get pictures, but figured that would be horribly gauche of me. 

 - Side note:  Also gauche?  Wearing a stupid Bluetooth to a funeral.  TAKE IT OFF ALREADY, YOU ARE NOT THAT IMPORTANT.

Ahem.  There was a lovely model ship, about 5 feet long, hanging from the ceiling off to the side.  I actually stopped an acolyte after the service and asked about it, because I had never seen that before in an American church.  She said a Dutch model maker had made & donated it in the tradition of churches from where he's from, where model ships would be hung in churches to bless those who work on the sea.  Charming! 

The holy water font was chalice shaped and made of dark marble.  It was also like an infinity pool, with the water even with the very top of the bowl.  I honestly thought it was a marble table at first, the top was so smooth and still. 

The coolest thing though?  Relates directly to my master's thesis - a real page turner about the construction materials used for ceremonial chalices for communion in the medieval period in Europe, and the laws against using certain materials for fear of (1) contaminating the wine, or (2) spilling the wine.  If you're interested in reading the entire thing, let me know and I'll send you some valium instead, because it'll accomplish the same purpose. 

Back to the point.  Am a bit rambly today.  So when the acolytes & ushers were prepping for communion, they had the big silver chalices (love chalices!) and then trays of small little communion glasses.  Communion single-serve shot glasses, if you will.  They look like this:

 

The ones they had today were glass.  When I was a kid, we had plastic ones and I used to go around and collect them after church and take them home for tea parties with my stuffed animals.  Um...looking back that seems a bit sacrilegious.  Apparently Alexander Bear was very devout.

 

The people today had three options: drinking straight out of the big chalice, intinction (meaning they dip the bread into the wine), or using the little cup.  But the cups weren't pre-filled with wine.  I was confused.

 

Then I saw this - a new evolution in the world of communion, designed to avoid spilling the wine, but still allowing people their single-serve, germ-free communion experience:

 

A chalice with a pour spout.

 

Seriously.

 

 

 

How brilliant is this!? 

 

Also, I just realized you can buy these online:

 

 

Isn't the internet great? 

 

So that's a taste of religious studies for all of you non-anthropology types.  I could go on and on about the symbols on the liturgical robes, the windows, how the lyrics of the hymns were different from the Baptist or Episcopalian ones I'm familiar with, etc. but I won't bore you.  Anymore tonight, anyway.  :)

It's that time of year!

So yes, it has been ages since I've posted anything.  Yet again, I apologize.  We've been going through a lot of changes here (positive ones!) that have taken up a big chunk of our time. 

So let's do a quick run through of updates since the last actual post...

- We drove to my cousin's wedding in Canada and had a blast!  Eh?
- Went to the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY! 
- Saw tigers on the way back at the Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge in Tyler, TX (very cool place)!
- Thanksgiving was great! 
- So was Christmas and New Year's!
- We actually got SNOW in 2014!
- I had a birthday.  Woo.
- The Olympics were on and I may have yelled a lot at the tv when bobsledding was on.  Noel is a patient man.
- I published my first book, Things In Sky: Life Looking Up
- I got a new job (but I haven't started yet!  I start Monday, March 17th!) 

I don't want to go into my new job on the interwebs, but will just say (1) it's a major industry change (from healthcare to food!) and (2) I am super excited.  :) 

Life has been really great lately.  Noel and I have so much fun. 

I've been working on crafty projects, including welding caps for Noel, tons of Christmas knitting (stupid phone SD card deleted itself and now I have no pics of the Weasley sweaters I made for the nieces - bummer), quilt for Noel (STILL not finished), and a sweater for me (finished!). 

For those of you in the Western NC mountains, in case you didn't know, there's a fiber mill in Weaverville now that sells gorgeous yarns! It's called Echoview Fiber Mill. My mom bought me some as a gift and I just finished knitting this sweater with it. It was so silky and has a beautiful sheen to it. And it's 95% wool but isn't itchy! Miracle. :)   I actually had enough left over that I'm also making a loose mesh scarf with it too. 

 

Noel and I also worked on the garden last month to get it ready for the weather change that normally happens in mid February.  However, something did change - the Arctic showed up.  It was bizarre how cold it got here!!

Now before everyone starts whining about how much colder it is where they are, let me just put it this way:  normally by mid-February, the heat is off and the occasional A/C is running.  We have no salt trucks.  We have no snow plows.  We have no winter coats (although due to my knitting addiction, we do have a surplus of scarves).  So having a real winter here is surprising to say the least. 

So I started planting seeds AGES ago.  We rented a tiller in early February and turned the soil (actually making the garden bigger while we were at it) and mushing in about 400 lbs of compost too.  Did I mention our yard is clay?  Because it is.  Know what grows well in clay?  Nothing.  That's what.

The little seeds sprouted, started growing, and the bottom fell out of the thermometer.  Again and again.

So today I was finally able to plant the garden!  This year I'm growing:

•  Okra
•  Cucumbers
•  Corn
•  Snap Peas
•  Cotton
•  Lima beans
•  Sunflowers
•  Herbs (basil, thyme, parsley, chives from Garden Bon Bons)
•  Bell peppers
•  Arugula
•  Spinach
•  Summer squash

You may have noticed something a bit different on that list - yes, I am growing cotton this year!  I've never grown it.  But Southern Exposure Seed Company, who has a bunch of really cool heirloom seeds (here), has different types of cotton seeds that grow fibers in different colors!  They were usually (according to the catalog) grown by slaves for their own use in pre-Civil War days because they're considered not as good quality because the fibers are shorter and not as smooth when spun.  They also said in the catalog they feel that everyone should grow cotton at least once in their lives, if for no other reason than to realize what backbreaking work it is to harvest.  But they grow in neat colors like yellow & green!  How cool is that?

Anyway, so yes, I'm growing green cotton (pic here) and hopefully will get enough off of it to spin it on my antique spinning wheel (thanks, Aunt Betty!) and can make...I dunno.  A pot holder?  A hat for Loki?  I probably won't get much of the stuff.  It'll be fun, if nothing else, to see how well it does.  :) 

Alright, time to go feed the kitties.  Hope everyone's doing well!!  Take care and Happy Spring!

Knitting Patterns: Ribbed Stripey Arm Warmers

Savvy Needle Knitting Patterns

Ribbed Stripey Arm Warmers

Sock Yarn: I used Berroco Sox – 50 g will give you 2 arm warmers

Gauge: 7 Stitches x 10 rows = 1 inch on Sz 3 dpns

Instructions (note, these fit a small to average woman's wrists):

• Cast on 56 stitches and join, being careful not to twist stitches
• Knit in 1x1 ribbing for 4 rounds
• Round 5 - 10: Knit all stitches
• Round 11:  At beginning of round, k2tog, knit all stitches to stitch 30, k2tog, knit all stitches to end of round
• Round 12 - 20:  Knit all stitches
• Repeat Rounds 11 - 20 until 50 stitches remain on needles
• Round 21: Rep Round 11 (48 stitches remain on needles)
• Round 22 - 41: Work k2 p1 ribbing
• Round 42: Knit all stitches
• Round 43: Kfb of 1st stitch, Knit 24 stitches, kfb of next stitch, knit all stitches to end of round
• Knit 4 rounds even
• Repeat Rounds 43 & 4 even rounds until 56 stitches are on needle
• Knit 3 rounds even after last increase round
• Next round: Knit 23 stitches, put next 12 stitches on waste yarn, knit remaining 23 stitches
• On next round, knit 23 stitches, and join to remaining 23 stitches, creating a tube with those 46 stitches and leaving the 12 thumb stitches unworked
• Knit 10 rounds even
• Knit 4 rounds of 1x1 rib
• Bind off loosely (I bind off using 2 needles held as 1, since I tend to bind off very tightly.)

THUMB:

• Pick up 12 thumb stitches on 2 dpns  (if you pick up more than 12 thumb stitches to fill in any gaps, be sure to decrease to an even number, so rib stitch will work out correctly.)
• Knit 2 rounds even
• Knit 4 rounds of 1x1 rib
• Bind off loosely and work in all loose ends

Work opposite arm warmer the same.

Knitting Patterns: Simple Textured Scarf

Good evening, everyone!  I'm finally updating my blog!  (Again!  Finally!).  Someone on Ravelry.com asked for me to make some of my knitting patterns accessible again, so here is my pattern for a simple textured scarf:

Savvy Needle Knitting Patterns

Simple Textured Scarf

Yarn: Wool-Ease Chunky - I think I only used 1 ball for it, but you might want to get 2 just in case!

Gauge: 11 Stitches x 12 rows = 4 inches on Size 13 needles in stockinette stitch

Instructions:

Cast on 18 stitches

Row 1 - 10:  Knit all stitches
Row 11: Knit 3, Purl 12, Knit 3
Row 12:  Knit all stitches
Repeat Rows 11 & 12 twice more
Row 15 - 22: Knit all stitches
Row 23: Repeat Row 11
Row 24: Knit all stitches
Repeat Rows 23 & 23 five times
Row 35 – 42 : Knit all stitches
Repeat Rows 11 – 42 until piece measures approximately 6 feet in length.
Final 10 rows:  Knit all stitches.  Bind off loosely.

NOTE:  Once you have the pattern down pat, you can change the length of each section by simply adding or subtracting the repeat rows.  This creates a variety of texture down the length of the scarf.

Enjoy!