Happy Halloween

Pumpkin Pile (Vertorama), originally uploaded by Panorama Paul.

Medicine Park on Sunday

Unlike the Falls of my youth in the great Northwest, with large mountains covered in huge ancient Fir trees and the foothills full of bright fall colors, fall here is painfully short and lacking the color. We tried for a little fall foliage and headed out to Medicine Park, a strange little community just north of Lawton.
First of all Medicine Park is tucked away between the two Lakes collectively know as LETRA. It's a funny little art community which is best compared to a very small Vashon Island. Its less artsy than totally nut-jobby.

We headed out to checkout the Bath Lake area, which is about downtown, after a piece in the local paper caught my eye.
We couldn't have asked for a better day, cool wind, bright sun, very few people.

We even ran across a bale of turtles warming in the sun (look it up, a group of turtles is called a bale, that's what wiki is for)

Not much Going on

These days it seems like nothing is going on, and yet not a lot is getting done either. No pets that need walking or have funny attachment to thing, thought the parakeet loves the remote control. Other than trying to track down where in the world the part to my dishwasher is since it hasn't work in the two months I've lived in this house and have had to wash EVERY single plate, dish, cup, soup etc by hand. The finally agreed that the 10 year old contraption had to go and I got a brand spanking new one. Granted its about the size of a suitcase rather than the newer larger types but it's a working dishwasher none the less. BUT! It leaks, from the back, into the carpet. :( Wet socks are really gross. I needed to go to the grocery today, get things to eat, to make dinners with but now I get to call the rental people and wait for someone to check on my wet carpet. GOODIE! But its not all bad, I can get some more spinning in and work on my sewing project.

So far the spinning is going well, I do predraft and all that, but I think my very first try at making yarn was a good one. It had some really thick spots but that seemed to get better, and the twist is a little tight so that the yarn will do something a little funny when I knit it, I'm sure, but I'm okay with that. Only problem now is that I have to get some more fiber. If I was back in TN I could go to the up coming fiber fair but alas I'm here. I should just get on it and order more of the same since it was well priced and only faintly itchy. I do have about 4oz of undyed silver alpaca. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

COOKIE!

Since I've been home during my stay-cation (aka unemployment) I've been releasing my inner Martha Stewart. This includes crafting, cooking and more importantly COOKIES. See the Hub loves cookies and power through a bag of chips-a-whatevers in like 3 days. I started out with those just add an egg and stick a butter type cookies but recently moved up to see what the COOKIE of the day was at Martha Stewart.com.
Now you can go back through the past few days and see the other cookies. Lots of those too may ingredient kinds of cookies, even more of those too complicated for cookies which will be consumed in one bite kind of cookies. But every now and again, you get a good one.
When I was a weee little Claire my gram and I would go to the bookstore on friday (after lunch-bunch but that's another story) and then go two stores up the hill to the deli and I'd get a snickerdoodle and milk. Never failed for years. Mmmmm they were those big snickerdoodles, that are a little crisp on the bottom up soft too.
I just had to make them, and when the Hub asked "whatsa snickerdoodle" I was sure if I'd have 3 dozen cookies to myself or if he's eat them too.
The dough even tasted like right, just like the cookie but unbaked. These are quite possibly the tastiest cookie I've cranked out in a long time.
I highly recommend this particular recipe, You'll find it here! They are best served with Milk or tea, and are not half bad with coffee, water, soda, or just after dinner.

Welcome home

So after I went to the grocery store on Friday, I made it home just in time to see the UPS man in the back of our housing development. OOoooooo, could it be! It was he was there with my wheel just as I unpacked the groceries.
Hub packed it into the house for me while I spent a little time with a friendly puppy who had a bit of a jail break. Groceries, lunch and then my spinning lesson from Woven-Spun. She showed me some of the little ins and outs of spinning. After that I went home to attach the treadles and get started.
I've been spinning a few hours everyday just to get the timing right and the magic pinch, release, give pattern. We're working on it. Right now it's more predrafting then spinning but that's okay with me.
Still no name for the wheel it's self or the ladybug.

It has been done

Hub gave me a lovely gift, the chance to buy my Wheel. I had said that I really never wanted to learn to spin, that I didn't need another hobby that needed me to sit on my butt. I was never thrilled with the way most wheels looked, the darn Alpaca looking at me on some, the total lack of anything on others. I knew if I ever spun I wanted a double treadle, and something slightly portable since we move every two years (either state or house) like clockwork. While at the Dickson Fiber Fair I saw it, THE WHEEL (insert angels and lights here), but then I fell on my face when I saw the price. $925! Ugh. But a Schacht Wheel, with all it's lovely wood work, and art deco appeal, the way the wood aged and the the way the treadles worked! I was smitten. I couldn't even use a drop spindle, how would I have get a Matchless. Not long after I went head over heels for the Matchless Schacht introduced the LadyBug, and my heart leapt again! *SQUEEEEEE* It was affordable, for any wheel, painfully cute, and well just want I wanted. Thing was I was working full time, and drive roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes round trip daily. Which left me NO time to spin, and barely enough knitting time. Fast forward a year or two, new town, no job until January (adjunct at the college to teach lab) and some new friends who spin and weave. What's a girl to do? After an evening breakdown that focused on "I didn't get to BS's to wash dishes and make house" Hub looked at me and said "well do something you've always wanted to do but didn't have the time, so get your wheel." After a wee bit of hemmming and haaaaaaing, and me trying to make excuses in my head for why I didn't REALLY need it I broke down and ordered the thing.
No idea when she'll be here but Friday is my first spin lesson!

Wrap

PATTERN: Strangling Vine
YARN: Fiber Denn Sport Weight 1 large-ass Skein
NEEDLES: Knit Picks Options US6
SIZE: about 63", so me sized
Before being Blocked
I loved this yarn and this pattern, which was super easy to remember and the pattern was easy to modify, I added a few repeats to make it more wrap than scarf. It was a lot of yarn.
I bought this yarn some time ago, when I can't quite remember. I do remember that I was going to split the yarn and share with a friend who purchases the more purple of the two. It would have made a great chevron scarf. Well it never happened and I needed to knit some lace!