Jumble Post

Kind of like a jumble sale, only probably even less organized.

Doggie News

Truffles' skin has finally healed enough to take her Elizabethan collar off, to her great relief, and mine, too.

After she got more used to wearing it, she started walking up behind me and when the e-collar hit the back of my calf, she just gave it a hard push as she turned her head. As a result, I now have two bruises on the back of each calf where she butted the edge of that thing into my leg! Ow!

Meanwhile, Ajax is reacting to the shorter days by shedding yet another layer of very short undercoat. If there is a way to remove light dog hair the length of baby eyelashes from dark carpet, I would sure like to know it.

Birdwatching News
The hummingbirds pollinated enough of the catnip flowers that now the goldfinches are coming and eating the catnip seeds.

In this photo, the hummingbird had landed after searching out the few remaining catnip flowers, but she turned her head to look up suspiciously at a goldfinch that landed above her.


Knitting & Fiber Festival News
I finished printing out and binding Miss Watts' The Ladies' Knitting and Netting Book: Second Series. It was so humid when I printed out the cover that the printer grabbed about five sheets of paper at one time, thus the streaky cover printing.

I ended up binding the second one the same as I bound the first, namely by drilling through the fold and lacing linen binding twine through the drilled holes. I love being able to turn the pages, put in sticky notes, and carry these around. They're like little windows into 1840 knitting and netting history.

I really enjoyed the Intro. to Orenburg knitting class I took yesterday. It's fun to learn from books, but it was great to have a live teacher, spend most of the day knitting, and handle gorgeous, I mean GORGEOUS handknit Orenburg shawls.

These things are knit out of super-thin thread plied of the Orenburg goat down? fleece? fiber, anyhow, and silk, about the weight of sewing thread. Although the lace is garter-stitch based, the thread is so thin that the lacy fabric doesn't have that ridge-y garter-stitch look at all. It is so light -- and so shiny -- and so lacy. sigh

Knitting my Sampler M gave me a good leg up on understanding the lace knitting and how it worked. We were not knitting with the Orenburg yarn/thread -- this is 2/18 Jagger Spun Zephyr, a wool-silk blend.

Typical for my knitting style, I had to "needle up" my swatch from US size 0 needles to US size 2. In the afternoon we knitted a bit of border and learned to turn the corner and pick up the straight edge of the border. I think I can figure out how to pick up the cast on and turn the other corner. Then the square is knit back and forth from border to border. Whew. I was actually glad for the half-hour drive home to let my overheated brain cool off a bit.

I'm hoping enough stuck that today I can pick it up and work the second corner.

(Meanwhile, I'm given to understand that I'm supposed to share this computer, and I've been using it for more than my fair share of time.)