Now before you think that I have gone completely off my rocker, let me say that living poop does not make me happy. This is a different kind of post all together.
It goes something like this...
After supper this evening, Bill was washing dishes and I was putting food away when Mira comes in and says, "Mom! You've got to came see this!"
Wary of the interests of my children, I ask "What?"
Her reply, " The chives have bloomed and they are HUGE!"
"I've seen chive blossoms before and I am in the middle something here" (I was picking the roast away from the fat and my hands were just a tad greasy)
"No! You really have to see these! They are so BIG!"
"I know how big chive blossoms get. They get really big, right?"
"But these are HUGE! They are all big and poofy! Like this big!" Accompanied by vague hand gestures.
Now, before we go any further in this tale, let me explain about chives in my yard. I cannot tell you how many chive plants have been killed in my yard. Everything else can grow and thrive, everything but chives. The reason? Mira. Liam and Simon to a lesser extent, but mostly it is Mira. The kid
LOVES chives. Mom has a pretty healthy chive patch and so when Mira would kill of a plant, I would beg another bunch from Mom. And there is also usually someone who is dividing their garden who is looking for some poor innocent to foist some chive plant on. Most people have too much chives. Most people do not live with Mira. She normally will level a chive plant. Just snack it away until it looks like it just joined the army. Brush cut city. Until last year. Last year was different. Last year, she found a chive plant growing on the river bank by Mom's house. Mom had tossed it there a few years before when she could not find any other gardener to take it off her hands. Mira sought and received permission to get a pot and dig part of it up. This became HER chive plant. No mother was ever as protective of her offspring as Mira is of her chive plant. Knuckles were rapped and boys were sternly warned to stay away from HER chives. Mine, of course, were fine to plunder. The same thing happened this year with her shooing all away from HER plant. And so it bloomed. For those of you who know chives, this comes as no surprise. For MY children, it was a wonder!
It took about three minutes to convince her that I had actually seen chive blossoms before, and, yes, they were rather large. I explained that I had chives before she was born. That was enough to convince her.
A few minutes later, Liam comes bursting in and exclaims "You've got to come see this!" You may be beginning to get a feel for why the phrase "You've got to come see this!" is often followed by me saying "What, exactly, is this thing of wonder that I
NEED to see?"
Liam's reply was much more ominous than Mira's earlier one.
"There are bugs on your plants that look like living poop!!!"
O.K. That got my attention. This was new. This, I will go check out. And sure enough, there are bugs on my lily plants that look like living poop. Having picked a fair number of lily beetles
off my lilies this year, one quick google search later and I was looking at the larva for lily beetles who, for some reason, cover their backs in their own excrement.
I guess that it is probably to discourage hand picking them. It certainly worked for me. But these little guys can really cause some serious devastation! I may have to pull out all of my lilies and spray the whole area with some dreaded poison. I am going to assess the situation in the bright light of day tomorrow and armed with rubber gloves and a bucket of bleach water, pluck and drown as many of the disgusting little buggers as I can. And there are many! Thankfully my lily patch is limited and the lily beetles only eat "true" lilies and not day lilies.
But still. Covering themselves in their own poo? Ick.
Blue wool scarf that was stuck on the loom for so long. It's nice but it didn't inspire me.
Mermaid dreams. Straight of the niddy noddy. 4 oz, 340 yards. The finest that I have spun so far.
Hand spun scarf. Once the uninspired scarf came off, this quickly went on and was off by the next day. I love weaving with the slubby hand spun. It works up so quickly.
Flowers.
Irises in this case. The peonies still haven't quite bloomed, but are really really close.
F is actually for many things in my life. Like Family and Friends and my Father. And yesterday it was also for Finishing.
Yesterday I finished off this warp. Finally! One scarf was already woven, cut off and fringed. I wasn't all that thrilled with the finished product. I had experimented in over dyeing some grey and brown yarn and it turned out a little dark for my tasted. I can't tell you the number of times that I sat down to weave and only made it for about two minutes before I had to get up. It is a relief to finally get it off the loom. Unlike knitting, weaving requires a bit more equipment and it is kind of hard to have too many UFO's. Unless you are talking about the final finishing. Sewing in ends and what not. I'm not. If your sweater is not working for you, it is easy to pick up another set of needles and another ball of yarn. Add a new pattern and you are all set! Harder with a loom.
Too late now because all 8 ounces were made into a warp yesterday and wound on the loom. The scarf is about half way done. I may have a chance to finish it today and if I do it can go on my table at the market on Saturday. Because it is that time of year again and the Carleton Artist Market is happening again this summer.
Evening.
DONE! Finally I am done my six month socks. And when I say done, I mean DONE! Including sewing in the ends. All done, except the blocking, but I think that we discussed that issue a little while ago.
And here they are posing with my Birks. So happy!
And even more important, I also did my very first Kitchener Stitch toe! Well, this is actually my second one. The other one had a few slight errors. But we won't talk about them.
off my lilies this year, one quick google search later and I was looking at the larva for lily beetles who, for some reason, cover their backs in their own excrement.
I guess that it is probably to discourage hand picking them. It certainly worked for me. But these little guys can really cause some serious devastation! I may have to pull out all of my lilies and spray the whole area with some dreaded poison. I am going to assess the situation in the bright light of day tomorrow and armed with rubber gloves and a bucket of bleach water, pluck and drown as many of the disgusting little buggers as I can. And there are many! Thankfully my lily patch is limited and the lily beetles only eat "true" lilies and not day lilies.
Colour! I think that I have enough fleece to last the summer! And speaking of colour, I have taken a wee break from the white roving to get a little colour fix.
This is mermaid dreams. I am spinning it fine and I am going to attempt (gasp) to knit a lace sample. And for those of you who think that white might be boring, go take a look at Valarie's Blog. All I have to say is WOW! I am inspired to keep spinning the white!
Ants on my peonies. Along with big fat buds! They will be out and blooming in about a week.
Birkenstocks with new soles and foot beds! I've had the upper's for about 15 years now and they still look as good as new! I am ready for summer.
And earlier today, I was sorting through some photos that were loosely sorted and I came upon these. They are from last year, but this years peonies are just a few short weeks away. They are my favorite flowers second only to irises.
Spinning white is a little on the boring side. Especially after all of the playing with colour that I have been doing. But I am enjoying spinning it none the less. Leigh suggested that I keep working with colour else where. I am definitely taking that as sound advice. I also dug out my shawl pattern and reread it. And I am going to need a few more yards of white than I thought I would. About 300 more. I really don't know where I got the idea that I needed about 450 yards for the shawl, but I was off a bit. And it needs to be a bit finer than what I had assumed. No worries. The more that I have to spin, the longer I can put off that cast on. With provisional yarn. Oh, the learning that is going to take place then!
And here is the merino that was going to be part of the shawl and is now just a lovely bundle of yarn. I am quite pleased with it. I split the roving far finer that I ever had before in attempts to get shorter colour runs. And in the process, I found that it is easier to spin finer with a finer split roving. Who knew? Oh, most of you? Chalk it up to more learning on my part. I'm learning all sorts of things about spinning these days.
And I discovered that I don't mind spinning it on the drop spindle. I seem to have much more control. The splitting of the roving and the pre-drafting helped too.
I started my shawl yarn. Again. This time it is going to be just plain old white. Shocking, I know, from the queen of colour. Maybe I'll dye it all one colour when it is finished. Or maybe I won't. I need to get the fool thing knit first. Not to mention, the yarn spun.
