hard to believe

I was reading blogs today and came across Franklin's The Panopticon. I couldn't believe it. I thought that we, as a society, had come further than that.

When I taught kids to knit at school, I had girls and boys knitting. Parents were thrilled. One even sent me a note at the end of the year telling me how awesome it was that I could interest 7 year old boys in knitting enough for them to voluntarily give up recesses.

I only had one tiny problem with the parents of a six year old boy who expressed concern that the other kids might tease their son if he learned to knit. I sent a reassuring note back home that there were plenty of male knitters at school but they still resisted until their own son pleaded with them that he really, really wanted to join knitting club.

Exactly how does knitting make a boy or man less masculine? They are learning a set of skills that produce something amazing and they are finding a way to relax as a bonus.

We think we've come a long way as women in our society. How did the men not get included in the new mindset? Oh, I know that men are better daddies now and are involved with things that are traditionally seen as feminine roles. And I know that there are many of us who believe that there are no standard male/female roles. But this one incident that Franklin describes shows us that there is still a long way to go.

onboard lazy kate

I went ahead and installed the onboard lazy kate on the Ladybug. I don't mind how it looks and it is handy for bobbin storage at least. I haven't tried to ply from it yet so I have no idea if that will work well or be a waste of time.

The more I spin on this wheel, the more I like it. It's very smooth. I like how I have a wide area to place my feet while treadling. My hips and knees are much happier if I can avoid having my feet right together for any length of time. I think that was part of the problem when I was spinning on the Joy.

Bentley isn't much impressed with my spinning time. I won't let him sit on my lap while I'm spinning (what with his total delight in killing fiber) so he has to make do with an empty, lonely chair for his nap. Poor boy.

He's learned that he has to leave my knitting alone when he sits on my lap. He will even let me eat without bothering me just so that he can remain on my lap. But that fluffy fiber is too much for him and he can't resist killing it gleefully.

my mid-life crisis (wheel) arrived yesterday

The nice postal woman showed up with my new Schacht Ladybug wheel yesterday morning. It was a gorgeous day so I took the box out to the sunroom to set it up.

Here it is right out of the box.

The first thing I did was look for my little ladybug. The Schacht people put them on the wheels before shipping and in any place that catches their fancy at the time. They say that no two wheels have the ladybugs in the same place. I found mine right below where the flyer fits the back maiden.

Here she is all set up and basking in the Spring sunshine before going for a test drive. She didn't need much assembly, just the treadles and the flyer.

And you can still see the little ladybug peeking out from behind the whorl with the wheel set up.

My wheel came with the on-board lazy kate which I haven't assembled yet. I'm not sure I'll like it anyway so I'm not in a hurry. There are a lot of people on the internet who don't care for it. There is also the option for double drive which I haven't set up yet either. I thought I'd play with the Scotch tension for a while first.

Dan came home just as I finished putting the wheel together and we went for our weekly grocery shopping trip so I didn't get a chance to spin on the Ladybug until later last evening. I'm impressed! She feels very solid and the treadles are nice and wide for easy treadling which is really important to me for health reasons. It's a very responsive wheel and rotates with surprising momentum for a lightweight drive wheel. I was able to comfortably sit in my Lazyboy chair and spin.

I can see why this wheel has received great reviews. It feels like a full size wheel but is easy to pick up and move around. It doesn't fold down so that limits its traveling portability but would be easy to just throw in a vehicle to take to a spinning meeting and its sturdiness would make it quite carefree to cart around. I wouldn't want to have to walk too far with it though. If I have to lug around a wheel for any distance, I'll take the Little Gem.

In my opinion, the Majacraft wheels still have some advantages over the Ladybug. I much prefer the sliding flyer clips rather than the Ladybug's hooks. Although the Ladybug comes with two whorls for four ratios, it is more of a production to change them and to remove bobbins than on the Rose with its wide range of ratios. I can see why both Schacht and Majacraft wheels have such devoted fans.

It's a little like comparing apples to oranges and, when all is said and done, they're different. I love them all. To me, the Rose and the Little Gem are beautiful while the Ladybug is cute. And then there's the Elizabeth that is so traditional and lovely. I feel fortunate to be able to own them all!

as the kids would say, "My bad"

Cue the band....

Call me irresponsible
Call me unreliable
Call me undependable too.

I have been pretty sensible and responsible all of my life. My sister says that I was 15 going on 50. Maybe it's because I was the oldest child in the family. Maybe it's because my father died when I was young. Probably it's because I was born that way.

But....

I sold the knitting machine set and it is now heading to Oregon. The money from it felt a bit like mad money as it hadn't been earmarked for a particular purchase or payment.

Now I am really 50. So I decided to spend the money just for my own selfish pleasure. I don't need what I bought. I just want what I bought.

Some people buy red convertibles for their mid-life crises. I just ordered this:
It's a Schacht Ladybug. I ordered it from Shuttleworks.

Hey, it may not be a convertible..... but it's red!

need a good laugh to start your week?

Regina may be an urban center but, lest we forget that we are an agricultural community, something like this happens.

Dan's comment about it:

"It sounds like a Monty Python sketch."

a bargain for machine knitters!

Due to my ongoing issues with TMJ and Fibromyalgia, I am selling all of my machine knitting items. I just can't use them very much or parts of my body complain loudly. I'm advertising them on Ravelry and some yahoo lists but thought I'd put them here too in case anyone is interested. If you are local, contact me and we'll make the deal even sweeter because it would save me the bother of shipping.

All items were purchased within the last year and are like new in original packaging with all original accessories included unless otherwise noted. Current approximate retail prices are in brackets. If bought new, these items would total over $1200, not including taxes and shipping.

To save myself from selling and packaging each item separately, I am offering a terrific bargain to anyone who would like to buy all of these items as a lot! For $800US plus shipping from Canada, they're yours! I accept Pay Pal.

If I don't have a buyer for this as a lot I will list the items separately later.


Silver Reed (Studio) LK 150, including instructional DVD by Susan Guagliumi ($400)
Knit Contour KR11 ($275)
Knitting Any Way Transfer Tool including book ($25.95), never used


Intarsia Carriage AG10 ($99), never used
Fair Isle Carriage FC6 ($219), never used - not being made any more


Books:
Hand Manipulated Stitches for Machine Knitters by Susan Guagliumi - hard copy (various prices on eBay, etc. - I paid $75 for it)
Tricks of the Trade by Mary Ann Oger ($27.95)
50 Ways to Love Your Knitter by Mary Ann Oger ($27.95)
Mid-Gauge Classics by Mary Ann Oger ($16.95)
Mid-Gauge Magic by Mary Ann Oger ($27.95)


The following Patterns and Grids for the Knit Contour KR11 (worth more than $75):
Knit Patterns
1/4 Scale Grid Sheets
1/2 Scale Grid Sheets - some sheets have been used and carefully erased, still very usable
French Curves -new, never used
Half-Scale Ruler that I made using a transparent ruler and rub-on numbers - see this link - very handy for copying patterns onto grid sheets

recent spinning

My knitting mojo has sort of evaporated the last few days and I've been spinning instead.

This is a really beautiful merino/silk top from Zebisis Designs. I love the colorway (Dark Monet) and the top is easy to draft and spin. Just gorgeous! I will be frequenting this Etsy shop to see what else Maiysha lists in the future. The service is also top-notch.

This lovely soft superwash merino is from Blue Ridge Silk Works, another superb online shop worth checking out. The colorway is Cool Breeze. I spun it a little thicker than my usual ultra-fine singles. I'm thinking about making Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise cardi with it (Ravelry link). I don't have a baby in mind as a recipient but it would be nice to have a little sweater tucked away for quick baby gift.

I was on a roll brushing out dogs finally after being sick. I got through everyone except Pocus who is long overdue for a haircut. The day that I was going to shave him down is the day that the spin dryer arrived in the mail. As I lifted the dryer up I felt a muscle in my back twinge and, sure enough, another sprained muscle. So Pocus still looks like a rolling dust bunny while I wait for my back to heal. The weather got really cold again so I figure fate was telling me to leave the old Bichon with fur for another week or so until it's warmer outside. I wish that fate had been a little more subtle about it though. I would have listened to a gentler message instead of being completely unable to lift anything because of this muscle injury. Just saying.

Happy Birthday Darcie and Christopher!

My sister Darcie and her son Christopher share a birthday today. Christopher is 10. Darcie is (ahem) older than that.

We had them over for supper yesterday and I took this picture. Happy birthday both of you!

Yee-Haw!

See this?

It's the OPEN door from my kitchen to the sunroom. Yes, that's right, it was warm in the sunroom this afternoon!

We had a sunny, mild, calm day here in southern Saskatchewan. The temperature climbed over the freezing mark and the air held a touch of spring. It was like manna to starving people.

It was so lovely and warm in the sunroom that I sat and spun. The dogs enjoyed getting into the sunroom too and had soon parked themselves in various sunbeams around the room.
The warm weather isn't supposed to last and we'll be back in another cold weather system in a couple of days. But, at least, it feels like spring is a possibility after all.

everything old is new again

I went to Golden Willow (my lys) one day last summer and noticed a curious machine in use. It was a spin dryer that had been hauled out of storage from years past and was being used to spin the freshly dyed fibers before hanging them to dry. I had never seen one before and I thought it looked much easier to use than the old wringer that I remember my mom using when I was little.

I have a front load Maytag washer that I love. It is so much more energy and soap efficient than my top loading machine had been and is gentler on the clothes. However, because it loads in front, spinning woolens in it is a bit of a gamble due to the risk of clothes tumbling as they spin. I've been using a salad spinner to spin the woolens but the spinner can only handle a wee bit at a time (a pair of socks is about as much as it will do without getting cranky and refusing to spin evenly).

So imagine my surprise when I read a discussion on the spin-list about this very subject and found a link to an electric spinner. The price was reasonable so I ordered one.

It came today.

It's the countertop model from Laundry-Alternative.

It's very simple and very basic but I'm looking forward to its help both when I'm washing woolens and when I play with the dyes.

why you shouldn't knit when you're recovering from pneumonia

I had started this sock (Shadow Ribs Socks from The Little Box of Socks using Socks That Rock mediumweight in colorway Stonewash) before I got sick and worked a few rows on it yesterday before I realized that something didn't look right.

I realized that I had knit a round that should have been patterned so I patiently tinked it back. Then I noticed that while most of the sock looked fine now, there was one section that had been purled instead of ribbed. Now this is a very easy 4 row rib pattern - I had the pattern right in front of me and a counter on the knitting. Normally it would be a pretty mindless knit but I guess my brain was still addled from the whole deathly sick incident.

So, one small section of knitting to fix - it actually was only 2 stitches. No problem, knit to the section, dropped the offending stitches and prepared to pick them up properly. Couldn't do it. First I reknit the wrong row, then ended with each stitch on a different row and no thread behind it. I finally decided to give up and stick to stockinette socks until I could think better.

So last night I picked up the stockinette socks I had on the go in the living room. I had worked a bit on the sock on Thursday. They looked like someone had pulled out all the needles and just stuck them back into the knitting haphazardly. It would be possible that one of the dogs had pulled the needles out but I'm pretty sure that none of them have the dexterity to stick them back in, never mind that some of the needles still had the stitches on the right rows. I had started the heel flap the previous day and it was the instep stitches that were messed up so I tried to tink those stitches back to where they should be. I finally got them back on the needles, counted to make sure I had the right number of stitches, and with a sigh of relief went back to knitting the heel flap. As I did I saw that I had done one slip stitch row around the entire sock instead of just the heel flap. So I just pulled out all the needles and ripped back past that point. Jeesh!

It reminded me of a simple afghan that my grandmother had crocheted for my son. My grandmother was a very accomplished crocheter and had made heirloom quality afghans and doilies in the past. She had just had her leg amputated, was moved into a seniors' home, and was bored. She was delighted to have something to work on and just roared through that afghan. When it was done, it was hourglass shaped. The tension and stitch count varied from row to row. She made a little comment about having trouble keeping the stitch count but she didn't seem to really notice how dreadful it was and we didn't have the heart to tell her. And it still matched Geoff's room and kept him warm on chilly nights.

My advice if you're recovering from an illness: watch TV.

I am finally back

Boy, I have never been that sick for that long before! It wasn't until yesterday that I started to feel like I was back on my way to be with the living. I was even able to pick up my knitting for a little while. Life is starting to look good again. Thank you all for the many well wishes while I was ill; they were very much appreciated!

I finally got around to using the random number generator on the comments and it picked Little Miss S. I have emailed her and the Sea Wool will be winging its way to Denmark soon.

Thanks to all of you who left a "tiny indulgence"comment! They were so much fun to read and I learned that a lot of people have similar ones. Many, many indulgences included time to knit in a favorite spot (no surprise there), hot baths or showers, favorite beverages, chocolate, TV, and warm furry companionship (no, not the husband kind). If you need any ideas for pick-me-ups, go and read all the comments for lots of ideas.

still no contest draw

Sorry folks, the draw is still going to have to wait until I'm feeling better. I went to the dr. today and was diagnosed with pneumonia. I hope the antibiotics work quickly. The contest is still open until I can do the draw.

draw postponed due to flu

Sorry, but I am flattened by the flu. Not your garden variety virus but the real, honest-to-goodness influenza. Until I have the energy to find a random number generator and count comments, the contest is still open to new comments.

tiny indulgences and a contest

I've spent this winter trying to be kind to my ailing body and trying to find ways to nurture my soul. It's been a struggle. Chronic pain and fatigue can take over if you let it. If I stay at home and maintain a slow routine, things aren't too bad. But if I do anything, even fun stuff, I pay. I woke up in the middle of the night after the Jeff Dunham concert with a migraine. I have no idea why. Yesterday, I had to go for fasting bloodwork so I made arrangements to have lunch afterward with a friend that I hadn't seen lately. When I got home I was hit with a brutal bout of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and then my blood sugar crashed to a frightening low. It's very discouraging.

So I was reading Barb's post on her "So, the thing is... blog" today about how we need to make sure we take of ourselves. Barb discusses her battle with chronic pain and I can certainly relate to that. She also makes a very good point that we all need to find what makes us happy and nurture ourselves, even if it's just a tiny indulgence.

Here's one of my indulgences.
It's a rocker/recliner in my craft room. I crave sunshine these days and it's much too cold to sit in the sun room. The living room is on the north side of the house so it doesn't have any sunbeams. My little bedroom-turned-craft room is on the south side of the house and the light there is lovely. I found this chair at a great clearance price. It fits my body perfectly. Although it wouldn't have been my first choice for color, the craft room is hardly a designer affair anyway so it really didn't matter. I can knit, listen to my ipod, and even spin on the Little Gem. It's lovely! My own little cozy space in the sun.

Now for the fun part:

to celebrate my third blogiversary, leave a comment with your contact information and tell me what your tiny indulgences are. You have until the end of this Saturday, Feb. 21/09, to leave the comment and be eligible for the prize. I will use an online random number generator to pick the winner on Sunday.

And the prize is a nice little indulgence -
this skein of Fleece Artist Sea Wool (merino/seacell) in the Nova Scotia colorway, including a pattern for Bordello Socks. Now that's indulgence!

(Don't forget to include your contact information in your comment! Your comment won't be eligible for the prize if I can't contact you.)

mid-winter pick-me-up

I have been suffering from the winter doldrums. There hasn't been anything exciting happening lately, the weather stinks, and I'm bored but not energized to do much about it. It's a common affliction around here these days. It's been a long time since we've had such a cold winter and everyone is so tired of it.

Today is a provincial holiday but Canada Post is under federal jurisdiction so the mail arrived. It was a lovely surprise - just right for a mid-winter pick-me-up!
There's the new Interweave Knits magazine, several sets of Hiya Hiya double points in fine gauge sock sizes from The Knitting Zone*, and Mini Mochi sock yarn from Jimmy Beans Wool. The rainbow colored yarn is already wound and ready to start a pair of socks. I was craving color and here it is! I really like the colorways of Noro sock yarn but I know that I'd never be able to wear socks made with it because it is scratchy. The Mini Mochi is new from Crystal Palace Yarns. It is washable merino/nylon single ply and is very soft. I don't know how well it will stand up to sock wearing but I will knit it tightly and hope for the best. I'm not very hard on socks so it will probably be fine.

The mailbox also brought a pick-me-up for Dan...

the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

Not a lot of knitting/spinning to share. I did finish a pair of Cat Bordhi's Little Coriolis socks for the baby girl that my massage therapist and his wife are expecting in June. I used stashed Patons Decor which is acrylic/wool and is quite nice and soft for a washable yarn.

My third blogiversary is coming up in a few days. Stay tuned for details about a prize to celebrate!

*The Knitting Zone is closing the retail part of their business to concentrate on the wholesale side of supplying Hiya Hiya needles to stores. I stocked up because Hiya Hiyas are my absolute favorite needles.

ice fog

The brutal cold left us last week and we had some nice sunny days. Then there were winter storm warnings yesterday. There was a nasty system that dumped rain and freezing rain to the areas east of us but all we got was this ice fog.

It was pea soup thick all day and hasn't let up at all. It's pretty but I'm glad that I'm not traveling on the highways. The city roads were fine but, according to the news, there were lots of vehicles in ditches between here and the Manitoba border.

housetraining a puppy

Lynne sent me a message asking for information about training a puppy. She's having problems with her six month old Yorkie puppy. I sent her an email but I thought I'd post it here too in case anyone else might be interested.

For some reason, it seems like the smaller the dog the more housetraining issues exist. I would definitely recommend confining the puppy when you can't keep an eye on him, either in a crate or in a small area like a bathroom. Dogs don't like to mess in their sleeping areas so most will try to avoid an accident in their crate. My dogs love their crates and will often crawl into them during the day for a nap or a quiet time. I crate them in my bedroom at night so that I can hear if they need to go outside in the night. I don't usually need to take them out in the night when they're adults but puppies and geriatrics sometimes need to go.

I really believe that it's best to train a puppy by going with him outside whether it's snowing or the middle of the night. It's worth doing in the long run. Praise him like crazy. The neighbors will think you're nuts but it works. Some people use food rewards but I just make a big fuss over successes and it works fine. You can also use a word to label the action. That way you can put the action on cue. This comes in very handy when away from home. My dogs will eliminate on cue when we travel to dog shows. I astounded some people at one show - it was pouring rain and I had my sheltie groomed for the ring when I realized that he needed to go out before being shown. There were people smoking under an umbrella just outside the door of the building when I carried my dog outside. I set him down beside a weed in a tiny dry area of gravel under the building's eaves and told him to piddle. The people started laughing and said that he wasn't going to pee just because I told him to - then he did and they were amazed. I picked up my dog and carried him back into the building and he didn't get muddy at all.

I don't recommend using piddle pads or other means of teaching a dog to eliminate in the house. I did it once and will never do it again. That dog was never fully housetrained because she made the connection that it was okay to pee in the house. If you go outside with the puppy, it only takes a few minutes so the cold weather isn't a problem. Dog coats can be used in extreme weather if necessary.

If you have to leave the puppy for longer than it's reasonable to expect them to hold it, a small room or x-pen (like a metal playpen) can be used with bedding or a crate (without the door) on one side and newspapers at the other. At six months, your puppy should be fine for 4-5 hours as long as he has voided before you go out. If that doesn't seem possible, I would recommend a visit with the vet to rule out physical problems that could be interfering with the training. Females have more urinary tract problems than males, just like in humans.

Be aware of the times when the puppy needs to pee. These include just after waking up, after eating, and after a good play. If you notice the dog sniffing, scoop him up and take him outside. I also recommend set meal times for the dog. I feed my dogs twice a day. With a puppy, I feed three times a day. Free feeding makes housetraining really difficult. If your dog is used to having food down all the time, you can retrain him. Set the food down for ten minutes and pick up what wasn't eaten in that time. He'll figure it out before he starves to death.

I don't wait for the dog to ask to go out but just take them all out regularly. Some will develop ways to ask to go out and that's fine but I don't rely on it. I once tried to use a bell attached to a rope near the door to teach the dog to ask by bumping it with his nose. The dog figured it out really fast. I thought it was working really well until the third or fourth time he did it. I came running to take him out and he thought it was a great game as he walked away. Apparently he was delighted that he could get my attention any time he wanted and was doing it just for kicks. He was smarter than me, obviously. I put the bell away.

If your male puppy is lifting his leg in the house, you might not have a housetraining issue. He could be marking his territory. This isn't usually a problem if the puppy is neutered before 7 or 8 months of age. It is an issue with a couple of my dogs. Show dogs must be intact so my dogs don't get neutered until their show career is over. That can go on for a few years so hormones are involved and marking happens. This issue is breed-specific to some extent. My shelties are rarely a problem but the Bichon and Dachshund are spritzers and they can be sneaky about it. So they wear belly bands in the house. It just makes my life easier and keeps the carpets cleaner. You can see examples of belly bands on this Etsy site. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5746691 I have ordered several from Patrice and they are beautifully sewn and affordable. I could sew them myself but haven't bothered. I put a sanitary pad in them so it's like having a kid in diapers but much easier than being stressed out about accidents in the house all the time.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment. If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

Hope that helps!

I wish

Son Geoff emailed us this picture of him today. He is in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic for two weeks with his birth father Glenn and family. Doesn't that look hard to take?

Je Fuh Fuh Dun HAM (dot com)

We had fuh fuhn tonight!

I gave Dan tickets to Jeff Dunham for Christmas. We went with our good friends, Rhonda and Al. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Jeff Dunham, you can check out some of his silliness on You Tube. He's a ventriloquist/comedian and I defy you to not laugh when he gets on a roll! In fact, I laughed so hard this evening that I got my asthma worked up. But it was worth it.

Guitar Guy did the warm-up act. Unlike on the DVDs, Guitar Guy gets to talk in the stage shows. He's a great musician and comedian on his own but most people think he is Jeff Dunham's brother. He's not. He's also not gay or a druggie (inside jokes). After a short intermission, Jeff did a comedy monologue and then brought out the real stars of the show.

I took my camera and got some pretty good photos. Here's Walter. Walter did a lot of material about Regina, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and Winnipeg. It was naughty (make up your own Regina jokes here as I'm not going to give away any punchlines).

My favorite - Achmed (that's Achhhhh med, spoken with phlegm) the dead terrorist. Silence! I keel you!

Achmed and Jeff get carried away and start improvising to make Guitar Guy crack up.

The irrepressible Peanut.

Peanut and Jose Jalapeno (on a steek).

For the encore, Bubba J made an appearance. Bubba J wasn't really supposed to be part of the act on this tour so Jeff had to have crib notes to remember Bubba J's jokes. Things got a little out of hand when the audience yelled out Bubba J's dialogue before Bubba J and Jeff cracked up! Let's just say that Regina loves Jeff Dunham and the crowd had seen the You Tubes and DVDs enough to have the punchlines memorized.

At the end of the show, Jeff got out some air shooters and sent t-shirts flying through the air into the audience. The crowd had people from about 10 years and up and everyone left laughing! It was great!