Thanks for Twenty Years, ToolMan!

Twenty years ago, we stood in front of a justice of the peace in Huntsville, Alabama and said "I do". Today we mark twenty years of of love, trust, partnership, reliance, support, tolerance, and tenacity. Although the order varied some years, we have never doubted that we'd be together for many years to come. Our wedding was 20 years ago, but the celebration continues to this day. Thank you for the last twenty years, ToolMan; I'm looking forward to the next twenty with you.

Dog Days

I didn't make it to Westside Wednesday this week. In fact, I've hardley done any spinning or knitting all week. Andy Rooney has not been doing well; he ran into something last week (we don't know what) and scalped himself (he's going blind due to the diabetes). By Saturday, the wound was looking pretty nasty and he wouldn't leave it alone, so it was off the the Vet's office. They diagnosed an infection on his head and a secondary infection on some teeth. So they prescribed antibiotics to be given along with his insulin and recommended we schedule a teeth cleaning. As it turned out, that was the least of his problems.



Then Tuesday morning he started vomiting and refused to eat. Another trip to the Vet revealed his blood sugar was so high their machine couldn't read it (the machine tops out at 689). They think he may have Cushings Syndrome, which means his body is producing too many steroids, so his pancreas has completely stopped producing insulin so his blood sugar is high and is affecting his liver which is causing too much bile so he vomits. The Vet decided it was better to send him home with us, since no one is in the clinic overnight to monitor him. ToolMan and I were up most of Tuesday night with him, giving insulin, withholding food, forcing water, cleaning up when he got sick, and holding him when he got dry heaves.



Wednesday morning, he couldn't stand up, so it was back to the Vet's. They had to give him a "hot shot" of insulin (his blood sugar was still over 400) and put him on an IV to prevent dehydration. Since his blood sugar was down, but he was still refusing to eat or drink, the Vet had to keep him overnight in ICU so he could stay on the IV. ToolMan and I did get to go see him in the evening to try getting him to eat. ToolMan even cooked some chicken giblets and gizzards to put in his food but it didn't do any good. He even turned down chicken jerky.

We were hoping he'd get to come home Thursday morning, but no such luck. His blood sugar was down to 260; still more than double what it should be. He was still refusing to eat; but he had stopped vomiting and was drinking water . The Vet kept him on IV all day and monitored his blood sugar. We simply couldn't afford another night is IC for him, so he came home Thursday evening with pills to help settle his stomach and instructions to let him eat whatever he wants whenever he wants and bring him back if he acts like his blood sugar is out of whack again.

For the last 3 days, he's been one pampered pooch. He's had meals of chicken livers and giblets and thighs are cooked for him; jerky and biscuits are available whenever he wants them; he's had breakfast of scrambled eggs and buttered tortillas (another favorite); and he's been taken on strolls around the neighborhood to work up an appetite.



Although he gets his shots with no objections, giving him pills is another story entirely. I have to pry his jaws open (thankfully his 4 front teeth have been removed), ToolMan gets the pill far enough down his throat that he can't spit it out, then I clamp his mouth shut and hold his nose up, while Toolman rubs his throat to make him swallow then gives him a little treat of giblet.
Last night we went through this whole rigamarole, ToolMan held out his hand with the giblet, Andy lowered his muzzle, and took the giblet while simutaneously leaving the pill in ToolMan's hand. Second verse, same as the first. If he feels well enough to do that, then we're stopping the pills.

So far, he's been eating a little more each day, and acting a little more perky each day. Certainly not himself, but much better than what we've seen in the last week. Right now, he's sitting in my recliner, being hand fed bits of chicken jerky by ToolMan. We know we have hard decisions to make regarding his care, but at least we don't have to make those decisions today.

Not exactly progress

The Blob is still not blocked, but it has had buttons sewn on. Twice. And it still isn't finished. I went looking in my button can for suitable buttons; I thought I had some leather shank buttons in there. But after dumping the whole lot out on the guest bed and going through them all, I was one button short. I know there's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm saying it anyway. I did find enough leather buttons, but they were the kind with holes, not a shank, so I sewed them on anyway. But the knitted fabric is too bulky and I wasn't happy with the way it bunched up, so I took them off. Yesterday, I went to Joann's (Without the sweater, of course; what do you think I am, some sort of genius?), where I found two different wooden shank buttons so I bought enough of each for the sweater. Last night, I showed both of them, the small oak ones and the large mahogany ones, to ToolMan who proclaimed the large mahogany ones were perfect. So, I sewed on the small oak ones. To the wrong side of the front. The Blob is now taking a time out in the guest room until it decides to cooperate with my finishing techniques. Or until I am in a mood to take off the wrong buttons and sew the right buttons on the right side. Fourteenth time is the charm, right?

And I am still knitting on the Big Black Things, so progress is being made on that front. Thankfully they need neither buttons nor blocking; they do however require duplicate stitch. We shall see how successfully, or not, that goes.

I did knit something that I can actually show you. Except, I didn't knit them.



I have to confess; I crocheted. I know it's wrong, but I just couldn't help myself. I haven't been happy with the way the bobbins turned, or didn't, on the lazy kate so I decided to make some felted "washers" for it. Some leftover Dale of Norway, a size G hook, and 15 minutes later I had some round things; then a couple spins through the washer and dryer with the dirty towels and they were well felted. Hopefully, this will quiet the noisy plying. And they didn't need buttons.

I did finish that batch of roving; it's in lace weight singles, resting on the bobbin. It's not as brown as I had anticipated. I was hoping for "New England Autumn", but it turned out more like . . . .



"Brady Bunch Kitchen." Barbara suggested plying it with something else to make the colors "pop"; I'm not sure any color in there is capable of "pop." I'm going to Andean ply it because I at this point I already don't like it, so I have nothing to lose. If all else fails, I'll over dye it and cable it with something else.

After all knitting on The Blob (which is not exactly vibrantly colored), the Big Black Things, and spinning all that brown, I needed some COLOR to work on. StitchJones to the rescue!



Would you just look at those colors! Sharon's colors are highly saturated, and even though she's not a spinner (but I'm working on her), she knows how to dye roving so the colors stay true when spun. This is 4 ounces of Corriedale in her "On The Vine" colorway.



These colors are making me of someone on the Christmas list. I'm thinking this will become a hat; I have a skein of Sharon's kettle-dyed semi-solid that would make a great scarf to go with this. And I won't have to sew on a single button.

I've been working my fingers to the bone.

I've been working my fingers to the bone on knitting for the Christmas present box. Because the two projects currently on my needles are with yarns that are certainly not my favorites to work with. The black things are coming along, slowly; they're big, they're black, and they're boring. The Blob, however, is finished! Well, mostly. It's cast off, blocked, and sewn up; it just needs a final blocking and buttons. It, I like; after the holidays, I just might make one for myself.

The other things I've been working my fingers to the bone are are some techniques I got from Barbara while she was here. First, the crack silk haze knockoff.



No, I didn't spin the silk thread for the middle; I bought it at a nearby big box craft store. This is 2 plies of silk yarn with some kid mohair caught in the plying.



Not bad, but certainly not as consistent as the commercial stuff, but it IS addictive to make. So much that I gave it a second shot and added a twist.

For the second batch, I tried adding some glass beads. I learned that trying to add beads AND kid mohair all at once was possible only if I suddenly sprout as many arms as Shiva.



I quickly abandoned that idea in favor of plying with the beads first, in order to control their placement, and the plying again to add the kid mohair.



Pretty, but the beads are lost in the haze. Next time (Oh yes, there will be a next time!), I'll either add larger beads or leave them off completely. Not technique I'll use frequently, but a good one to have in my toolbox, nonetheless.

Inspired by Barbara's ability to spin sewing thread (Can you believe it? Freakin' sewing thread!), I wanted to see how thin I could go with The Incredible Hulk roving.



Not bad; it's not sewing thread, but I'm working my way there.



That's a 2-ply; this is a pretty coarse wool so I'm pretty happy with it.

And I did finish up The Incredible Hulk roving! WHOO FREAKIN' HOOO! Jeez, I'm glad to see the end of that stuff! And finishing it up put me at 3.43 miles for this year. Me and Robert Frost, we have miles to go.

Encouraged by minor successes in spinning thin, I dug some roving out of the stash that been lingering a while to spin in laceweight. The weather has turned chilly and damp, as usual for the Pacific Northwest in fall, and the colors in this roving were definitely autumnal. I thought I'd do a laceweight and then knit up a shawl in a leaf lace pattern, similar to Branching Out.

First of all, this roving was from an indie dyer that I had never purchased from before. It came twisted up in a skein, similar to the way yarn is packaged, and I really liked the colors that showed up. Beautiful gold, deep burgundy, some mossy green, and little bits of fiery red; the colors of a maple tree in fall. Only 3 ounces, but if I do a laceweight, I should have enough for a small shawl or stole, just to cover the shoulders when it's chilly outside.

But, when the skein was unwound, what I found was that there really wasn't any pattern to the dye job. Hmm . . . I had envisioned subtle striping but that obviously wasn't going to happen.



Then, as I'm looking at this to decide if I'm going to split this lengthwise and try to maintain the color changes, I notice that some of the color sections don't go the entire width of the roving; some of them are just "blotches" where the dye has been randomly splashed on. Meaning that it's going to be nearly impossible to maintain the variety and intensity of the colors.

Then, I see this:



A single blob of purple. What the hell? WHY is there this single glop of a totally random color in the middle of this roving? Then I realize it's because the dye wasn't thoroughly mixed. In fact, as I look closely, there are areas where the green and and red have overlapped into a barfy brown color, and other places where the greens weren't mixed well so I get blue-greens instead of mossy green. This is a Blue Faced Leicester with a fairly long staple; the fibers are probably 4 or 5 inches long. But this dyer has splashed them in in such small areas that the fibers often have 2 or 3 colors along the length. Which means even more muddying of colors.

I suspect the reason the fiber was twisted into a skein, rather that loosely looped or coiled as most dyers do, was to hide a bad dye job. I don't mind buying an "oops" now and then, as long as they are marked and priced as such. I've had some really nice yarns come of an "oops" roving. But I really dislike paying full price for someones experiment.

In the end, I decided to just start at one end and spin, then eventually I'll Andean ply it which should give me a marled yarn over the entire length. It'll be pretty, but not what I expected or what I paid for.



I just wish it was what I had thought I was buying. The colors which drew me in the first place will be entirely lost in this yarn when it's spun and plied. It's too bad that this indie dyer has lost a customer.

Great S.E.X.!

No, not THAT kind of S.E.X.! Last weekend was OFFF, was a Stash Enhancement Xpedition, silly! Anyway, here's the fiber p0rn:

First, from Barbara, who always brings assorted goodies in that Mary Poppins bag of hers, four mystery batts straight from her drum carder:



Last winter she sent me four batts in exchange for a pair of ToolMan's cedar sock blockers. I didn't think anything could be prettier than those batts, but these are!

I decided that this year at OFFF, I was going to buy from vendors that I hadn't purchased form before and fibers that I had not spun before. And not green. Green, the color, was off the list completely; "green", as in ecologically sound, is OK. As long as it wasn't green, the color.

So, my first stop was at Crown Mountain Farms for exotic fibers. The first thing I picked up was a 50/50 blend of Baby Camel and Merino.



This stuff is sheer heaven! I bought 8 ounces (there were only 4 of these on the shelf when Klaus opened on Saturday. SCORE!), which is so light and fluffy that this hank is almost a foot across.

Next, a 50/50 blend of Yak and Merino.



This is possibly even softer than the Baby Camel. It's combed into streaks of greys and a tiny bit of white. It's 8 ounces and should spin up beautifully.

And the last thing from Crown Mountain, purely on instinct because of the colors, was a 1 ounce of silk hankies, hand-dyed in the "Aztec" colorway.



It's hard to see in the picture, but the shine of the silk makes these look almost metallic. But after fondling them a few times, I know I need to REALLY moisturize my hands before I start on these. The silk is so fine that it catches on every little rough spot.

Having acquired the "new to me" fibers, I went in search of "new to me" vendors. I found Lisa Souza's bouth and dove in head first. I surfaced with this:



Another 50/50 blend, Silk and Merino this time. I know it really doesn't show up in the picture, but this really is NOT white. The colorway is called "Mother of Pearl", and with good reason; the colors are subtle and varied, just like the inside of an oyster shell. And the silk gives it a beautiful shine. There's 8 ounces, and I want to stretch this stuff out into laceweight; it'll make a gorgeous shawl!

I was on my way to find a new indie dyer, recently discovered through Ravelry (Where else?), when I stumbled into a booth of another "new to me" vendor, Puffy Mondaes. I swear this jumped right off the shelf into my arms!



Another 8 ounces! (I sense a theme here. Apparently, I am no longer capable of buying anything in less than 1/2 pound increments. This could be bad. Very bad.) This time it's Louet Black Diamond; Carbonized Bamboo.

Then, right across the way was that new indie dyer I'd been stalking! Recently, all the indie dyers have been doing dark, intense, deeply saturated colors. Walking into Lorajean's booth was like landing Somewhere Over the Rainbow!



This is a nice, soft Corriedale in lovely soft colors. All her colors were soft and inviting. Must be the influence of that new baby (who was asleep, or I would have nuzzled him).

Last, but not least, a bag of Young Adult Mohair Locks from Barbara. I don't know if they wouldn't fit in her bag, or if she was just tired of packing. And she knows that I fall down at the syllable "mo".



A lovely jumble of raspberry, china jade, wild iris, and pine green from Frene Creek Farm. I have to confess, I've already been playing with this stuff and it is fabulous!

Next time, some results of the spinning with new fibers. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.