Up on the Housetop, Quick, Quick, Quick*

This green wall is why I strung all those strings up to the roof a while back.

Just as the sun reaches an angle where it would shine in the west windows in the afternoon and evening, the hops leaves have expanded enough to shade the room at the end of the house. (This would be the sheep's chest.)

Summer heat and a butterfly called the Hop merchant, Polygonia comma, will thin out our green wall, and by autumn it will look thinner and more tattered. Then I'll cut the vines back down to the ground and the sun will be welcome to shine in again all winter.

I tried to take a picture that showed my bright red car through the leaves, but it is overcast and dark this morning, so the picture shows glare instead of redness.
Sitting down and knitting bits of Niebling doilies seems to have stirred up the knitting mojo.

The purple waffle scarf had been sitting for a long time. I finally realized that every time I picked it up, I was struggling with the heavy metal single-point needles. I like the slipperiness of metal needles in the fuzzy yarn, but they were just too gosh-darn heavy.

So I finally gave up, and bought a circular needle for it. Since I knitted it onto the circ., I've knitted about a foot more and have a good feeling that it will be finished well before next winter.

The TLC Fizzy socks were waiting as well, still sitting on the knitting pile waiting for me to do the swatch calculations for the heel. Yesterday I finally did them, and in an afternoon the pair of socks that had been sitting sitting sitting had half the heels knitted.

It looks like it's going to be rainy and dark for another couple of hours today, so I can go and knit without guilt.

^*Hops vines don't click.

I Need a Goat Lady

We had a second school field trip last Friday. Less driving, no pictures. No blog post.

I was happy to just stay home this weekend. No demos, no big errands except grocery-shopping in the rain.
Sunday we had a beautiful, gentle, soft rain that just kept coming down. Leaves expanded like mad overnight. Newly-mown grass redoubled its height. I need a goat lady, as seen on Rose-Kim Knits, so I can tether goats on my walking path!

Five days ago, I could look down on the hops vines climbing their strings to shade our west windows. Today I have to look up! The vines on one string will be up to the roof in a day or so.

I've been knitting, garage/estate-sale-ing, reading and staring into space. Usually that means the part of my head that comes up with things is germinating something. It hasn't let the rest of me know what the "something" is yet.

Saturday I went to a sale. The ad listed knitting, so of course I had to go. The needles were all either plastic single-points or bamboo double-points, and I didn't find any yarn, just some thread in a box of other things marked "All $2".

I wasn't interested in the other contents of the box, so after casing the whole sale I went back to it and said to the woman running it that I was only interested in the thread.

She said diffidently, "Fifty cents?" which I handed her immediately. (I probably would have given her the $2 and left everything but the thread.)

A dozen 100-yard balls of DMC size 8 perle cotton in silvery gray, lavender, dark green, dark blue, and baby pastels.

And tonight I'm off to probably buy more thread at our West Michigan Lace Group meeting: Kathy Kirchner's trunk show at the Hampton Inn, 500 Center Dr NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49544, open by 4PM. Ask in the lobby and the receptionist will direct you to the room the show is in.

Our meeting is from 7pm to 8:30pm, and you are welcome either to shop or join us at the meeting or both!

If you prefer pictures, my 2006 purchases are here, and the 2007 ones are here.

Martha Stewart I'm So Not!

Because somehow I doubt she ever used an MRE hot beverage bag as a frosting bag.

(Hot beverage bags come in "Meals, Ready-to-Eat" along with flameless ration heaters. You pour a little water into the ration heater, snuggle your hot beverage bag up next to it filled with drinkable water and instant coffee, tea, or cocoa, and the ration heater heats up. They get hot!

If you took classes at the Michigan Fiber Festival this year and saw a woman heating up her golabki lunch with one of these, she probably was me.)


And although the kids thought eating brownies with faces for Halloween was great, I somehow don't think Martha would claim these guys.

Officially they are "brownies with pumpkin faces." At least that's what I pitched them as.

The kids paraded around the school yard in costume, came indoors for treats, ate, and played a couple of games. Mostly they milled around, talked, and looked at each other's costumes.

I love this costume! Can you see what this boy is in the blurry distance? He's a table-for-one spaghetti dinner, complete with meatball, a drink, and salt and pepper shaker.

Wow, talk about creative.

In the evening, we took our son trick-or-treating with his friend and the friend's mother. It was strange to have it so light outdoors, since we haven't switched back from Daylight Savings Time yet.

We saw a live bat flying around as it got dark, which I thought was really cool for Halloween. Then we got sprinkled on, and saw a beautiful rainbow. I don't think I've ever seen a rainbow while trick-or-treating. Usually it's been dark.

We took the kids home after it started to rain. The child sorted his candy (I got the Tootsie Rolls), and then it was back to working on the homework.

Today I dug up my four-o'clocks roots, then some hops vine roots for Donna Allgaier-Lamberti at White Oak Studio and Gallery.

I usually dig up the four-o'clocks after I notice that frost has killed off the morning glory leaves. Here it is, November 1, and we've finally had a little frost. My tomato plants still have not frozen!

And quick before I forget, take a look at this 1800's knitted dress (anyone want to translate the Danish for me?)

And guess what, Bells? A yarn store near me just started carrying Malabrigo! Doesn't that make the world feel small?

It's All Too Beautiful

Spring, that is.

I spent some of yesterday outdoors, shovelling the finished compost out of my cinder-block bin and hauling it over to my garden bed.

I was distracted by the rhubarb, which was suddenly big enough to pick, not to mention the lilacs in bloom.

Asparagus is popping up, columbines are racing into bloom, and the hops vines are climbing up the net as fast as they can grow!

I meant to enlarge this net, but I decided I better hang it up before the hops vines started climbing the window screens.

Before I know it, the hops will be up to the roof, and their leaves will be shading our west window from the evening sun.

They also block the dogs' view of any rabbits that come and nibble the grass right outside the window. Argh. Ajax pawed the window so hard at one bunny this spring that he broke the glass!

Luckily for him, he was not hurt (not even by me!). I replaced the pane with acrylic, which already has a couple of dog toenail scratches in it.
I did sneak a little knitting time in, though. I used up one color on the latest Pi bag, and have only a little left of each of the others. I can hardly wait to get this knitted up and thrown in the washing machine.

I have Sampler CM (the continuation of Sampler M) pattern 6 almost done, and pattern 7 corrected and printed out, ready to knit. I like to put the photo and the graph right into the Word document before I print it out, so I have them all in one place.

I am much more likely to knit a pattern if I have a photo to look at. Rows of typed-out YO's and SSK's don't say as much to me. A graph is a little better, but a picture is best of all.

Blog-i-versary

Has it really been a year already since I started this blog? How weird. I know some bloggers hold contests on their blog anniversaries, but I am not that energetic.

The hops net is down, and I'm happy to report I did not fall off the roof. On the left, the hops nets all enmeshed with hops vines, and on the right, the freed hops net ready to be washed, repaired, and enlarged for next spring, now that I know that this string shrinks in the wash!

The Pi shawl is getting so big I can't fit it in one frame any more. Eight repeats done, number nine started.

Unfortunately as I reached the center of the cone, I encountered some defects in the yarn.

This yarn is like LB Homespun, a soft poufy fiber wrapped with a thin black fiber. In several places I have run into sections where all the "pouf" has accumulated in one spot. I tried distributing it out over several yards, but that didn't work particularly well. In a couple of spots I got mad and just knitted the whole pouf. It doesn't show on the front, but on the back it looks like a big purl bobble! Darn it.

Well, at least it is at the back of the shawl, on the wrong side, and towards the bottom edge. Given where that will hang when I wear it, I'll be very surprised if anyone picks up the back of the shawl and looks at it. "Evil Death Glare" does not begin to cover the look I would give them.

I did the math yesterday. Yards per ounce, shawl's weight in ounces, and number of stitches knitted so far: then stitches per ounce, and remaining ounces on the cone. It looks like I should ju-u-ust be able to make it to twelve repeats and my knitted-on border. Barely. With maybe half an inch of yarn left.

I am dithering over whether to quit at eleven repeats and make sure I have enough for the border, which will be knitted on a size or two bigger needles, or be a dinghoot and try for twelve, risking running out before finishing the border. I have a couple of repeats and a couple of days to decide.

I'll be trying it on to see if I like the length at eleven repeats. I don't want it to be so long I am sitting on the back edge of it and pulling it off.

Hops on Net

Q: How do you actually make a net? Is there a loom or frame or something for making them?

A: The best website I know of for learning to make a net is Rita Bartholomew's "Beautiful and Practical Netting" website. This website has instructions for both the string method (used for making nets out of heavier materials) and the thread method (used for making doilies out of fine thread). Check out the eye candy under "Patterns & Images"!

Nets are made using two tools, three if you count the extra loop of thread you start on. No frame or loom is required.

The first tool is the netting shuttle or netting needle. It carries the thread or string, and has to be long and narrow, even when filled, in order to go through the meshes of the net.

Here is part of my collection of various netting shuttles. The white plastic ones on the left I purchased from The Mannings. They were very cheap! They sell four sizes, from 5 inches to 10 inches long, and the big one is only $1.60. I load the big one up with garden string when I make nets like the one for the hops vines in the picture.
I bought the wooden netting shuttle to the right of the ruler on eBay years ago. Although the end looks fragile, I've used this one a lot, and it's very sturdy. The other homemade one was made for me by my brother out of a piece of brass welding rod. He pounded the ends flat and sawed slits in the flattened ends, then sanded them smooth.

The netting needles that you can't see very well in this shot came from Lacis, but I bought them from Mielke's booth at the Michigan Fiber Festival. They are fine metal netting needles that I load with fine thread to make bags.

The other tool needed to make a net is the gauge or mesh stick. The mesh stick keeps each mesh of the net the same size. My brother made the maple burl and curly maple gauges to the left of the ruler, and Georgia Sietz made the small walnut ones on the right. I have also used heavy cardboard and rulers as gauges.

These gauges are flat. Rita Bartholomew uses round gauges for her doilies, and often uses a knitting needle as the gauge. (The other thing that sneaked into this picture is a Norwegian-style netting shuttle.)

When you make a net, you bring the shuttle around the mesh stick and through a mesh of the last round of netting, and tie a netting knot. This is the sheet bend or weaver's knot. It's also the knot used to tie a bowline knot, which I learned to tie as a Brownie scout. The big deal about the netting knot is that it doesn't slip or capsize, and your meshes don't change size. It is possible to make a mistake and end up with a slip knot instead of a netting knot, and then the new round will slip back and forth on the last round. Rita has a great picture of the slip knot that you don't want.

The hops are almost to the roof line already. They make great summer shade for our west windows. Last summer, we had some warblers that never come to the bird feeder hopping around in them, hunting insects. I was too slow fetching the field guide to identify them beyond "warbler".

Honey, I Shrunk the Net!

Yesterday I stretched out the net I made for our hops vines and repaired it. I didn't use the netting gauge I had made it with. I just matched the repairs to the size of the meshes I already had.

When I climbed up on the roof to lash it to the roof support, as I stretched it out, I found it had shrunk in the wash! The net that I made to be as wide as our west windows and to hang just below them is now about a foot narrower and shorter than last year.

Oops. I guess I'll have to make myself a note (and a slightly smaller mesh stick to match), and make it larger again after I take it down in the fall. I'd go out and get a picture, but it is chilly and sprinkling rain, and I'd have to show you our weather-beaten west windows, the ones that get battered by winter storms and summer sun. Which is to say, the ones in the most need of a paint job. I'll wait until the hops vines have colonized them a bit more.

I don't know what strain of hops they are. My husband is a home-brewer, and had had no luck with hops roots he ordered through the mail. Then one day we were taking a walk on the neighbor's property kitty-corner to our own, and I spotted them growing wild over an old shed/storage building. When my husband went to his house to ask permission to dig some of them up and transplant them, he (the neighbor) said, "Is that what those things are? They sure are hard to kill! Round-Up didn't do it."

They are very vigorous, and would like to take over. They make great shade for that window, and sometimes they even sprawl on the roof and keep it cool. And in the winter they are pretty easy to cut down. I just hit them with the lawn mower when they try to spread out of bounds. I wish myrtle was this easy to control.

Not much knitting yesterday, just a few of the plain rounds on the Pi doily. I am definitely starting to see the advantage of putting a lace pattern in those plain rounds to keep myself alert! And now I've started to think about a half-circle Pi shawl, but at this stage it's just one of those ideas simmering on the back burner of my brain.

Not My Normal Monday

My normal Monday usually consists of getting our son off to school, my husband having left an hour before for work, sorting and catching up with laundry, reading my email, doing something "fiber-y", and posting to my blog.

Today my husband stayed home. His Honda Civic, which took us the hour's drive up to his aunt's for Easter breakfast, across town to my parents' for Easter dinner, and then another hour home again, started overheating when he tried to drive it to work early this morning. He couldn't nurse it up to the Honda dealership for repairs, and had to have it towed, or whatever they call it when the car rides on one of those flatbed trailers.

It turned out to have a stick! in the radiator.

Since he didn't drive the car up there, this left him at home, at somewhat of a loose end, mourning the radiator and the brand-new pinch in his bank account. He has already been urging me to get another job now that our son is in school all day. (And I have to admit I miss having my own money after working until I was downsized the day after 9/11.)

So I ended up with a stick in my Monday, being reminded that it would be a really, really good idea if I got a job, in a state that has lost something like 30,000 jobs this year alone.

I didn't get to knit a stitch. I went outside and pulled out the over-enthusiastic myrtle, also known as periwinkle or Vinca minor, which was overrunning my white scented violets.

I saw that the hops vines are coming up, and remembered that I need to repair and hang the hops net. Quickly, before they get any taller and start climbing over the cars. (There's a lost art for you, at least in Michigan: mending nets.)

And I need to plant my sprouted tomato seeds before they outgrow their little sprouting dish!