Only Nine Days Left!! Almost Finished Packing!!

I am still here but have been busy packing up the house for the big move.  Only have nine more days to get everything ready to go. The weather has helped the packing as it has been raining steady so am not tempted to be outside at all. Have not been that well so it is pack a bit and rest a bit, trying to pace myself. Have been having trouble with my Gall Bladder, why were humans blessed with such a thing if all it does is cause you grief. Ended up in emergency one Sunday and spent the afternoon on a drip getting re-hydrated, now have an appointment with the surgeon this coming Wednesday. Just kept hoping to hold off surgery until we got moved and looks like I will make it. So far so good. Another couple of days and everything will be all boxed up and then I can start doing some cleaning. We have moved a lot of stuff into storage so will not have that much to move on moving day, the hardest thing was to move all my fibre stuff out of my sight, still have not been able to move my spinning wheels and carder......I am afraid it will be in the car with me as I go....same with my sewing machines......is my car large enough......two spinning wheels...my big carder.....four sewing machines.....two cats....one dog.....All my houseplants??........ maybe I should be taking the truck and stock trailer. I think it will take more than one trip. The other problem....moving from a large house to a smaller house....will have to work it out. Good thing is the outside animals can stay here until we get the fences and a barn up.
   I have been doing a bit of knitting. Loved this sweater pattern and it only came as a kit with acrylic yarn which I am using. Would like to make it in a natural fibre.

Got the back finished and part of a front, just get the pattern going in my head and then have to set it aside for a bit,

Also have been knitting fingerless gloves, when I knit them for sale I like to just use the rib as it fits more sizes being so stretchy, just finished my fourth pair, in my packing I found a few balls of Kroy sock wool so thought I would knit it up into the fingerless mitts, don't need to follow a pattern so are an easy knit.

Here is one of the flowers on my large Hoya plant, it was just covered with flowers the other day, was so busy with the packing almost missed them, sneaky plant.
   Well better get myself off to bed, RH is off to the market tomorrow, yup we are trying to fit the markets into the moving etc. We are really getting too old for all this!!

Another month almost gone!! Have been carding Alpaca fibre and digging in the dirt!!

I can not believe it has almost been a month since I have posted!! Where has the time gone.....packing up the house to move that is what...how can I have so much stuff!! I am beginning to think that in my life time there is no way I can use all this stuff. I see a lot of garage sales in the future and.......large gift bags for Christmas....and do not say I did not warn you!! Besides sorting and packing things up I have been carding my alpaca fibre like crazy as you know...I just might run out of roving to spin and yarn to knit with and that would be a disaster I tell you. I have got all the white alpaca and llama fibre carded and pulled into roving. Jody wanted to see the process so I took a few pictures and it was hard to take pictures while I took the roving off the drum but here it is

The drum full of fibre

Starting at one side pulling some of the fibre through the diz creating the roving

Almost finished pulling the roving off the drum

And here is my roving ready to spin!! Love the Patrick Green Supercard! now to find the time to get the tan colored alpaca carded with some merino and silk, found I had a bag of tan cashmere (found all sorts of goodies while packing) and I might card a bit of that with the tan alpaca and see how it turns out. Don't know how long it will be before I get my workroom set up so am trying to get as much as I can carded before we move. Plus we will start shearing the llamas and alpacas next week so would be nice to get last years carded, shearing should have been done but with selling this place and finding somewhere else to live and packing time has gotten away from us.
   And finally the snow has disappeared and green grass is showing up!! Look what I found in the pasture!! I think this means spring is here finally!!

I could not believe it...Crocus's!! One day they are not there and the next day the fields are full of them! It just amazes me, they are so beautiful, when the sun was just going down when you looked down the hill the crocus were sparkling like jewels. Beautiful!! I spent today potting up the plants I am going to take with me, I have been storing them in one spot in the garden. When I look at my raised beds it is all I can do not to plant them but have to keep reminding myself the people that move in can plant them.
   Well am off to bed, had an enjoyable day digging in the dirt in the sun all day today even though knees are aching and feet hurt right now.

Where does the time go!!

I can not believe that it is already the 22nd of April!! I have lost a couple of weeks somewhere!! But we have been busy, we have had our farm for sale for the last year and never had one call from anyone, we were not in a hurry but wanted to downsize in the future. Well a couple of weeks ago we had a couple of out of province call and were coming to see our place and the same weekend we had another couple phone and want to come out. The second couple wanted to buy so that is what we have been doing, we have been back and forth to the lawyer getting everything signed etc. and then have been madly looking around for somewhere for us to move to. The places we had liked were already sold and the couple we liked the area and the houses as presented on the web but when we went to look at them( pictures are deceiving)....one I think will have to be demolished and the other one had a disaster of a floor plan. We kept coming back to this other place but hesitating as the house had no basement and the question was...can we downsize that much....   but the good thing was there are no neighbors right next door except for the ones in the cemetery across the road from us and I am sure we are not going to have a problem with them because of our animals, might have to make a little suit for our Jack Russell Maxx if he insists on attending funerals. We will have to build barns and put up safe fences but the people that have bought our place have no problem with us keeping our Llamas and Alpacas here until we get fences up. It is going to take some time until I get the garage set up for my work room so this month I will be busy sorting fibre and carding fibre to carry me over until I get a work space.
    Meanwhile back on the ranch this is what my garden area still looks like!!! We have had eight inches of wet snow twice lately and the temps have not been that warm so it is not disappearing that fast.

We have never had this much snow out here in April, when we get down off the hill the snow is almost gone but we must have our own weather up here. The little birds have been fighting over the nesting boxes, hope they wait until warmer weather to lay their eggs. have been putting out seed bells for them as they are so hungry, with all the snow cover is hard for them to find food.
   As I can not get out in the yard I have been busy carding my Llama and Alpaca fibre, mixing it with different wools. Cleaned up the carder so I could get some white carded, is a job getting all the black and grey fibres out of the carder, so while I have the white run going am going to try to card most of it then work my way down the other colors.

The grey I carded before starting on the white and I mixed some superwash Merino wool with it, the white I wanted to mix superwash Merino and silk with it but I had the Alpaca fibre washed and dehaired at a mill and the alpaca was so soft and fine it broke it down a bit so have carded it with a longer staple wool and it is working out great. mixed some with some BFL I had and then some with some Corriedale wool roving I had, wanted to get the white all carded up but think I am going to run out of wool to mix with it. Although I have some cream colored llama fibre that mixes well with the merino/silk. And...we still have to try to get our animals sheared before we move.......we have a lot of challenges ahead of us......we have done it before but we are a bit older now.

For some reason my Christmas Cactus are still blooming...maybe it could be the snow they see out the windows???

Love this plant as it is the original plant of my Grandmother's and must be well over fifty years old, I better start some new ones from it just incase. The flowers are so beautiful. The other problem when we move is where am I going to put all my plants!!

I also have about twenty-five African Violet plants too, they need to be repotted which means when I am done there will be more, some have formed extra plants in their pots, so glad it is going to be warm when we move.
   Have not even had time to wash and block my sweater. Everything should be final of the sale of the place next week so will hopefully get back to the fibre thing as it is going to take some time to dry up for me to get in the flowerbeds and then I better start packing!!!

Here she is.......almost finished...with my Sanity intact...I think??

Well we had another big snow storm, lots of snow and blowing snow to replace the snow drifts RH had just cleared away so he is at it again but this time the temps are up so snow is wet and heavy. Hopefully this is our last big snowfall!! Am more than ready for green grass and my flowers!!

On the weekend when the snow was coming down and wind howling I decided to just ignore the weather and get the sweater finished no matter what, what a knitting adventure I tell you!! As the gauge they had for the sweater did not work I had to figure out how many inches they got with their gauge and add extra rows as I went along hoping I would have a wearable sweater for someone, is really hard when you are working on so many stitches but I got it finished up to the shoulders and then picked up the stitches to knit all the way around the sweater opening to make the shawl collar and finish down the fronts and cast off and could not believe it almost fit, right now is a bit snug around the hip area but we will see after I get it washed and blocked, I did make it a bit longer than the pattern said so that could be the problem. The pattern was designed to be open with a tie belt but I am going to put a zipper in up to where the shawl collar starts. love the shawl collar. What a great feeling to finish it and see that it all came together!! Just have to get all the ends woven in and get it blocked.I just noticed the picture looks a bit out of proportion at the angle I took it, will have to get a better picture when it is blocked.

At one of the Christmas markets I ordered a yarn pot from a potter who had his table there and I just picked it up the other day and I love it! It works so great, now am not having my ball of yarn rolling all over the place. Used it when I was finishing the sweater. Pot is heavy enough it will not move unless you move it, he put two holes in it so I could put two small balls of wool in it if I was knitting with two colors.....I think...will have to try it.

No flowers outside right now but the African violets in the house are making up for it, could not believe the bloom on this plant, does this mean spring flowers are just around the corner......but then the Christmas cactus also have blooms on them.......who can I believe??????

Sanity Hanging by a Thread!!

Finally after over a week of can not see in front of your face fog we have sunshine and warmer temps, hope this is a sign spring is just around the corner. When we have fog that thick we have very week internet service or none at all, yesterday we had the sun come out for a bit but our power was off and on so much we had no internet. Now today hopefully everything is working again.
    Now to the Gallatin Sweater...........this is where I am now.

I had knit the sleeve without pattern but then decided it was too plain so I ripped it back and put a pattern in then knit what tan wool I had waiting for more that I had ordered, when the yarn came it was a different dye lot so I knit one row of dark brown just incase it would show the difference and now I am ready to knit the white with some pattern in it, now it has pattern in the back and on each front....................I am going to be juggling eight balls of yarn ...............yup....trying hard to keep my sanity!! plus have to figure out how many rows to knit as I am not getting gauge, so I have counted all the rows they knit on the pattern and figured out how many inches they got with their rows per inch etc. etc. hoping I am on the right track, if this sweater fits it is going to be a miracle. If I make this again it will be in pieces, if I had knit this one in pieces I could have completed a front and seen whether it was going to fit rather than do the whole sweater and then find it does not fit.  Will be so glad to get it finished!!

Meanwhile have been carding some alpaca fibre and llama fibre and pulling it into roving. The grey is the alpaca and I carded it with some grey superwash merino and the brown is the llama carded with the same grey superwash merino, it is so soft, can not wait to spin it up.  Have lots of fibre to card up, love my Patrick Green Supercard!!

This is my kitty T.V. I hung a seed bell right outside the window so the cats can sit and watch the birds, the cats are so brave when they have the glass between them, they sit there chattering at the birds but if I let them outside they are afraid of the birds which is o.k. by me.
   Well here is hoping I can post this as I have been having a terrible time getting the pictures onto the site which means my internet is not that fast yet. Hopefully this is goodbye snow and hello spring!!

Spinning and Knitting!!

The weather has warmed up a bit so have been out in the garage sorting some white llama fibre to wash before sending it to the processors. Fingers were frozen by the time I had enough fibre in the wash bags but got it done as it is soaking in the washer. I wanted to card some fibre down in the workroom but it is so dry down there the fibre is flying all over so thought if I wash some fibre and have it on the rack it will give me enough humidity.
     Meanwhile I plyed the singles I finished spinning last night from the roving I got for Christmas from daughter M.J. For the first bobbin I spun I had just divided the roving into two but was getting long stretches of white so the next bobbin I divided the other half of the roving into two before I spun it and the colors worked better, but who knows what it will look like knit up. She has been washed and is now drying. Out of the 220/4oz roving I have 290 yds of yarn, now to look at a few patterns and decide what to knit out of it....thinking of a lacey scarf....will see. 

Now onto the Gallatin Sweater..............I managed to find a size six small round needle to knit the sleeves in the round, had to borrow it from something else I was knitting, so got the sleeve knit putting the same pattern as on the bottom of the sweater on the bottom of the sleeve, I had decided to knit the sleeves in the tan color with no more pattern but when I went to wind another ball of tan into a ball found I only had one ball left, not enough tan color to finish the sweater but had a lot of the natural color so knit the remainder of the sleeve in the natural......am deciding whether I like that or not.........finally I went onto Raverly to check and see if anyone else was knitting this sweater and if it was only me that was having problems........17 people knitting the sweater........

Ravelry: Project Gallery for Gallatin Coat pattern by Nina Isaacson      everyone is having problems and unless they had ordered more yarn they were short too......so have decided that I will knit up what tan yarn I have and have ordered more of the tan yarn to finish the sweater. It can have a little time out while I am waiting for more yarn. I am also having gauge issues with the rows per inch...and so are other people.  I had increased a few rows in the length as I went along for the body but have been concerned with the arm length. I have been making notes as I go along as I really like this sweater and the yarn they used in the kit so would like to knit another one......who knows who this one will fit when I am finished.
    I know this is crazy...........but I did control myself...........when the workmen came to replace the shingles on the house yesterday (that the wild wind blew off a couple weeks ago) one of the workmen was wearing a sweater knit with the heavy yarn with neat patterns on it...........I don't know whether it was that it was so cold out.........or I quickly regained sanity...........but I put down my pencil and graft paper and went into the other room............I really wanted to go out and quickly copy the patterns he had on his sweater............What can I say........there are enough stories going around about the crazy lady who lives on the hill...........but you know.....if it had not been so cold out.........

Does this look like Spring to you??

It looks like Christmas to me!! All my Christmas cactus are in bloom. It is -20 here right now but the sun is shining so you can fool yourself into believing it is warmer. We were supposed to get a warm day during the last week but do not know who got it as we didn't. Hurry up Spring!!

I have the Gallatin Coat from KnitPicks knit up to where the sleeves are supposed to join and then you finish the sleeves as you knit the yokes. The owl chart knit up fast as it was a non-directional pattern, it is just really heavy when you are knitting the back and fronts together, hard on the back. I started a sleeve which is knit in the round on four double points, got the cuff finished and just realized I have to change to size 6mm needles and do not have any in the house (that I can find) so do I continue with the 5.5mm needles or wait until I can get somewhere to buy some 6mm needles, trying to think of somewhere near that would have needles that I do not have to drive over an hour to buy them.......what would happen.....if I just increased a few more stitches to make the gauge....am off to measure the difference in my knit gauge between the 5.5mm and the 6mm needles. I changed the pattern in the sleeves as I think the original pattern is just too busy for me, makes just too much going on in the sweater, so will match the sleeves to the bottom of the sweater past the first pattern knit and then knit in plain stocking stitch in the dark tan.  Anyway....that is the plan...will see as I knit along. Off to measure the gauge difference between 5.5mm needles and 6mm needles.