Steam Engines, Chickens, a Band Organ, & Knitting

If you hadn't figured it out from this post or maybe this one, I love steam engines, and I usually go to the local antique engine and tractor show every year, to see what turns up.

This year, they had a pair of small steam traction engines sawing logs. Here's the first:Here's the second engine:And a view of the sawmill they were running between them:
Later in the day, they had turned the first one around, and I had to take a picture of that shiny blue paint.
Those were the little small engines, but there were bigger ones, too:
I love machinery where I can follow the logic and see how it works. And I love seeing it all so lovingly tended and kept in working order, instead of used and tossed out for next month's model.

A week later, we were off to the county fair, so I could practice my Occupation (see my Profile).


Of course, if there's anything geeky around (more geeky than figuring out the motion controls on the rides), I'll find it. I heard music and followed it to this Stinson Band Organ:Both sides of the trailer were open, so you could see the organ, and in back, the MIDI roll that controls the instruments. It was the coolest thing.

And did I promise knitting? Okay. Knitting.

My order came from Martinas Bastel- & Hobbykiste.I bought Spitzenstrickerei: Schöne Decken, ISBN-13: 978-3-89798-289-5 (five huge charts of seven Herbert Niebling designs) and Kunststricken: Decken, Garnituren, Spitzen (Bände 408 und 760), ISBN-13: 978-3-89798-269-7, reprinted this year by BuchVerlag für die Frau.

If you're not comfortable ordering direct from Germany, sometimes they show up on Powell's Books website. Powell's charges the Euro price at the current exchange rate, plus an import fee, currently $3 plus $4.50 per item.

Either way, the total price including overseas shipping ends up being about half what I've seen on other websites.

Someone reminded me that I had some older cones of size 30 cotton thread, and I pulled those out of the drawer to see what kind of shape they were in.

One was a 3000-yard cone, but it was brownish and spotted on the outside, so I went looking for a little pattern, 50 rounds or so, to use up the icky cotton on the outside and see how it knitted up.

I picked the small one on the upper left. (It's pattern 12, the upper photo on page 8, Fig. 28 if you have Bände 760.)

Nieblings always seem to have something I've never done in each one.This one has twelve yarnovers in a row to make those big holes. Ulp.

I don't know how that's going to block out, but I'll find out soon, as I only have a round or two left.

I'm Speechless

Chicken Breeds and Other Ramblings

The tag on the chicken cage just said "Polish", but from Googling around, I think those were probably Golden Polish hens at the end of yesterday's post.

I showed that picture to my husband, and his response was "Fraggle Rock chickens!"

We had our annual open-house/camp-out/pig-roast/bonfire thingie this past weekend. It started up the year our son was born, when I was getting too close to my due date to comfortably travel. Instead, my extrovert husband just invited everyone over, and we grilled out, let people camp if they wanted, hung out and talked and ate and so on.

However, our son was born in July, and it's usually hot and often dry in July in Michigan. This put a serious crimp in my husband's beloved fire-making. So eventually we moved the date into September. This weekend it turned so cold (30's and 40's F.) that the fire was welcome, and we had had enough rain the week before to keep it from being too dangerous.

So that's where I was most of the weekend: outside by the firepit, or walking back and forth between the house and the firepit. The cyser (mead made with cider, honey, and yeast) that sat in the house all last winter was bottled and sampled.

And I had the unique experience of having to follow about 200 feet of extension cord out to the very end, where the big 30-cup coffee pot was plugged in outdoors in chilly weather, to get my morning coffee.

Tomorrow I hope to have some actual knitting and netting content, after I wrench myself away from this darn computer.

Prizes! and Winners! and Chickens!

I'm giving away this little (~2-1/4" across) tatted motif. And the black netted bag I started earlier.

The motif pattern is in Tatting Patterns, edited by Julia Sanders and still in print from Dover. I've always found this little motif interesting in the way it starts with a five-ring center and ends up tri-cornered.

I must have tatted this quite a while ago, back in the days when I still ended with visible knots and thread ends, because these days that just isn't done, my dear.

The winners:

Tatted motif: Sharon in South Africa.

Black netted bag (which I'll be netting on frantically today!): psammeadred from the Knitty coffeeshop.

Sharon, I have a snail mail address for you if the one from your blogs is still good.

Psammeadred, you can send your snail address to the contact email in my blog profile.

And did I promise chickens?

Wednesday I posted about doing a drawing, and since then I've been quiet.

Thursday after school, my husband and I took our son and went to the county fair.

I didn't enter anything in the fair this year, mainly because the fairgrounds is a good half-hour drive away, and given the price of gasoline, if everything I had ready to enter took a blue ribbon, I would still have ended up in the red. Kind of a thin reason, I know.

But I did take my new camera and take pictures of what would have been my competition. Then I had my annual pecan pie and coffee at the 4-H booth before I went and took pictures in the animal barns.

I'm not allowed to give the title to this photo that it obviously deserves. But I think you can guess.

I have a fondness for the big draft horses, Percherons and Belgians and so on, but unfortunately I missed their events this year and could only take pictures of them in their stalls.

Another thing I like to try and get pictures of is the chickens. Chickens have a lot of personality, but it's a challenge to get a photo that reflects it.

I liked this guy's nice feathers, but I wasn't 100% satisfied that I'd captured his intent expression as I took the picture.

But this last photo I think is the best chicken picture I've ever taken in my LIFE. Words fail me. I might have to get an 8 x 10 glossy of this one: