striped shawl

Another prayer/healing shawl.
I used the same over all pattern as shawl idea with stripes that progressively get larger. I wanted just a bit of eyelash on the very end, to make up for the size difference in yarn I ( k2, yo ) to the end then cast off.

Garden time

Jorden has the garden off to a good start :D

Mint we thought we lost this one with the freeze :D

oregano going strong, garlic chives in the background

one of his thyme plants/bush hard to see in this photo but they have tiny little flowers on them

The raspberry sage still waiting on the white.......

little bitty peppers ( very strong ) :D the garlic in the background shows just how small they are lol

We got a bay plant :D been wanting one for ages

He also put in sun flowers, summer squash, tomatoes, potatoes and too many more for me to recall lol

So I've been playing with beads....

just got a new order in.... happy happy :D

Photos

I've been meaning to post a few photos.....

Our sage is up and running, this year we added raspberry sage and will be adding white as soon as it gets here in the post :D
The roses are doing good :D

Jorden took these

Nostradamus

This is our new family member Nostradamus

He's teething .... so he pretty much has to have something to chew on at all times...... I'm just glad it's not my arm or ankle ;) his breed are herders by nature, he is constantly trying to "herd" us....

At the kennel they said he is a Great Pyrenees blend, by all looks I'd say that's what he is mostly if not fully.....

He's just over 4 months and close to 30 lbs. he's grown almost 10 lbs. in 2 weeks, and he's not over weight....

He still has a hard time slowing down some nights.....he falls asleep in my arms....starting to get the hang of sleeping on his bed now......I'm guessing spending all that time in the kennel and vets gave him the real need to get out there and move lol

This is how he looked after healing up at the kennel


he's so cute

He ended up at the kennel after falling off the back of a farmers truck, he got hurt pretty bad....had to have a tooth removed, in shock.... the people behind the farmer stopped and saved him....the farmer never stopped, the people tried to get him to pull over......he was doing about 65 mph.

After that the poor guy got parvo and had to stay at the vets for a month....

That's when my parents got him the day back to the kennel..... as he was kept away from everyone he's a bit lacking on his "people" skills....

He was too much for their older dogs.....

He gets along pretty good with our guys....not all sugar and sweetness, but getting along....still don't take Buffy's chew bone lol

shawl pattern idea, mindless knit

I needed to do a mindless knit....

I grabbed the first yarn I came across in my odds and ends bag ( larger sized scraps and yarn without any plans ) ......when that ran out I grabbed more...... same with needles, used the ones that happened to be in the bag......

no counting, no gauge, no anything, just knitting.......

I put a marker in the center stitch to make things nice and easy....

did 2 increases in each row, stuck to the ends and middle

I stayed with a simple yo

no cares at all

it was great

I used worsted weight yarn as well as some fun fur and other novelty yarns

the needles were a size 11 US

cast on 5 stitches

1) k1, yo, knit to the last stitch, yo, k1

2 ) knit until the center stitch yo, knit center stitch, yo, knit to end

I kept knitting until I liked the size

bind off and weave in ends

I will admit to putting in a bit of thought but not much lol...... I knew I would be using at lot of different yarns so to keep things even ( sort of ) I added the novelty yarns on the "wrong" side as well as the variegated yarn....
by even I mean, not all of the ends of the added in yarns were on the same side, there for the thickness that weaving the ends adds was on both edges

windy weekend

The winds have been kicking up a bit ...... this is looking right at the mountain's!

on the way to town..........you couldn't even see the valley

Beads and Wire

There are a few things I just love to "play" with..........yarns, buttons, crystals/rocks and beads.

Now I can add wire to that list :D

I would never have given it much thought if I hadn't seen wire knitted up lol

I had to give it a go............. yeah well that was only so so..........do you know what that does to a set of needles :( I couldn't put my needles through it ........ the trauma

I made one button and knitted wire pin but gave it away without taking a photo, it was nice and felt good but not my thing just thinking about how it felt on the needles............ that scraping ugh........... until I saw it done with a crochet hook............not real damaging to the hook, this is where it shows that I'm a knitter not crocheter........

This a crocheted wire and bead button pin, very quick to make, just string a few glass seed beads on some 26 gauge wire and chain stitch a few inches, I used a G hook, place beads as you go.

Attach to button and pin with wire, by 'sewing" them together through the button holes.

I like how quirky they come out no two a like :D

Playing with the seed beads again was fun. I had used them with my cross stitch in the past, but wanted to do more, so I got a bead loom.

I used this pattern in a knitted baby towel a while back, still need to test knit the pattern before posting :(

She's smaller than she looks in this photo, only a few inches long.

As you can see one thing leads to another.......wire, crystals, beads, buttons, pins... all go together so nicely

I was gifted some out standing beads, some old pretty leafs, crystals and hand painted glass beads........ they are so nice. I used a old button to match them, wired onto a pin. The crystals and beads are hanging from some wire work. Thank you so much Kelly :D

I used thicker wire this time. I made this pin to use with my skirts ( the wrap around scarf style )and thought stronger would be better............that lead to wire wrapping.....and these

brass and crystal earrings

as well as these crystal and copper ones, that lead to playing with stronger wire and this

stainless steel and lapis wire wrapped bracelet

Now how do I add knitting back into all of this.............

Seamed pot holder

I wanted a pot holder that was easy on and off, would work with different sized hands. Quick to make.........

Seamed pot holder
Size 6 US needles
exact gauge is not essential to this project, just keep it on the tight side and do both sides the same :D
about 100 yards of 100 % cotton worsted weight
Yarn needle for seaming

k = knit
k1 tbl = knit 1 stitch through the back loop
k2tog = knit 2 stitches together
k2tog tbl = knit 2 stitches together through the back loop
yo = yarn over needle

Cast on 5 stitches
1 ) k1, yo, k to last stitch, yo, k1
2 ) k1, k1 tbl, k to last 2 stitches, k1 tbl, k1

Repeat 1 and 2 until you have 41 stitches

Knit 7 rows

Decrease
1) k1, k2tog tbl, knit until the last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1
2) knit
Repeat 1 and 2 until you have 19 stitches left

There are 2 ways you can do the cuff of this pot holder
1) Done in the round = bind off stitches and make a second piece, seam them together. Pick up stitches across each side, knit 2 by 2 ribbing ( k2, p2 ) for about 1 inch, bind off.

2) Done with 2 needles = after reaching 19 stitches,
Cloth # 1 * k2, p2 * across ending with p1 for 1 inch, bind off.
Cloth # 2 p1, * k2, p2 * to end. Bind off.
Seam both pieces together.
　

last few weeks

Let me tell you about our last few weeks….. You might want to get a cup of tea, as it is a long story………
This month started well enough……… okay it started well for about 10 hours lol
In this part of the world we are unaccustomed to truly cold weather, we tend to freak out if we have to put coats on…… so when we heard a big storm was coming…. no one was really concerned about it, even though we were seeing what it was doing to the rest of the country. We tend to worry more about the 100 plus degree weather for weeks on end with no rain…….. you know desert and all……. until last week I have never seen snow last more than a day down here …..
So while we bundled up and got the extra heaters out of storage…. never once did I think to store water……..
Coming from Wisconsin I did know enough to try and keep our water from freezing, couldn’t do it….. froze while it was running……… it was coming out like a icy machine…..
Not only did our sink pipes freeze but our toilet lines did too……..we were some of the lucky ones…..our family next door were able to keep some of their water running…… and while our sink drains froze our toilets could still be flushed with buckets of water……..
One of the reasons we couldn’t keep our water from freezing besides the sub zero weather, was the power kept going out….yep we heat with all electric…..couldn’t even keep the gas oven on ( electric ignite )….. for two days between power outages Jorden keep it from going below 44 degrees with his candles… he was making them as fast as we were burning them……he keep a dozen or more candles going….and kept the cats away from them, not even a whisker lit up :d
Brent was also able to get more hay for his dogs and my sisters as well as my aunts dog. With the tarps, warmed up food and defrosted water, they did pretty good. Better than I thought they could be, when this all started we had just had a party at our place, the girls got so excited I thought we were going to lose them that day….Pretty Girl wouldn’t stop walking around for hours until her hips started to give out, and Coco wouldn’t stop trying to bark and was paying big time with her allergies……I should have realized they were having too much fun to slow down……the weather took care of that lol they are doing good now….
After three days of frozen pipes we saw how that clearly wasn’t the end of our issues…..as our pipes slowly defrosted…..the leaks started to show themselves……..
Over the course of the next few days Brent spent every minute he was awake trying to get us water……he was soaked to the sink more than once in below freezing temps crawling under our trailer in the dark most of the time….. We had a total of 5 breaks….most of them were the pipes split along the length of them……..as I said were are among the lucky ones……not only can Brent do work like that….but he had most of the parts to do it……it was only $30. for a few parts…….. It did cost him in his work hours as the whole town came to a stand still…… however we have water and some people in town still don’t…..everyone else had the same issues going on….the few parts Brent needed to fix things were hard to come by……stores were selling out of everything from water pipes to water…..the only time Brent stopped was to help fix my Dad’s furnace……
After a few days he got water to the yard so we didn’t have to haul it as far…another few days and he got it to the house……just past midnight……he was able to take a long bath and go to bed before Jorden woke him saying something was wrong….that Brent should turn off the water heater….. Brent couldn’t see any reason to do it but did it anyhow……..when we woke up he went out to look, the water pipe to the heater had burst while we were sleeping, we could have not only drained our propane tank but killed the water heater as well….pretty lucky in our eyes……after coming in soaked to the skin again he called his voice mail as he had missed a called while we were asleep…… that’s how he got the news his father passed away….
We are not going back to Wisconsin this time ……..…..and I must say another life and death trip across country didn’t sound like the best of ideas to me…..so we did our own little thing down here in honor…..
there is a good side to this as hard as it is to say, I believe his dad is happier now….he was in bad shape for a number of years
All of this is going down when we discover we are missing the guys “papers” good thing were not headed to Arizona lol …………they may have been tossed with some old mail…….good thing we don’t get a chance to take the trash to the dump yet, even better that it’s been pretty cold so not as many bugs to dig through lol ( knock, knock, knock ) so there is a bit of hope we still have them……. I can tell you for sure they are not in this trailer…..I have gone over every inch of it twice…. it wasn’t easy…..no water for a week can really trash a place……just coming up for air now…..
As of right now we are coming down with a cold… Jorden is right in the middle of his…….but it seems to be moving fast thank goodness for Reiki
Speaking of Reiki before I had Reiki I couldn’t stand the cold at all….. my knees would go out and I would be in such pain it was unbearably from the cold alone ( that’s one of the reason we left Wisconsin ) … while the last week or so was hard it wasn’t undoable I was cold but not in pain….
Going through things like this can make you take a good look at how your spending your time, getting things done……
We have decided to call off all but the next workshop out of Pi Yoga. Life is too short to spend a day or two of recovery after every workshop or share….. We are doing the master workshop as we have people signed up for it already and don’t want to go back on our word…..I would have been very upset if it happened to me lol
We have had a lot of fun working out of Pi, Ellen is great, we now count her as a friend……with these new hours of Brent’s we get about 3 hours of sleep before workshops and shares, that makes our allergies even harder to control, we end up getting very spacey…..than spend the next day or so unable to go about our everyday life as breathing becomes a issue…….it’s not that Pi smells bad, it smells great, it’s just that it smells at all lol we can only take a limited amount of any smell not just nasty smells……oh that would be so nice to only have to stay away from ugly smells……
We will still be doing Reiki workshops and shares but out of places we have more control over the environment and can do later hours…. ( I will not not spend time with Brent every night :D )
We will miss going to Pi….. We wish them well……
All in all I’m really looking forward to Spring :D
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

Brent's folks

Melva and Neil Szabrowicz 1955