2ktog

There have been a lot of non-yarn FOs around here lately. There were the products of my spinning class, but due to secret projects, a lot of my knitting is not bloggable. So what's a girl to do?
There was a problem with the site last time I posted, so you may not have seen the entry (with my white+color yarn) or been able to comment on it. I also need to photograph my other skien but I am in a rush today so this will have to do. I got a new job that is a 3 hours a day at an after school program, and I start today!
Well, I baked some bread from an awesome recipe at All Recipes, Grandma Van Doren's white bread. It was very fluffy with a nice crust. I made a regular loaf and a cinnamon loaf. I made cinnamon rolls from a third of it, too. Highly recommended.

Then the weekend project, inspired by Adrian's fantastic terrariums and living in the desert, we made terrariums. I posted the recipe over on livejournal, so I'll put it in the extended entry.

This is the first one, my high concept "Diamond Mine" terrarium which I accomplished using an empty, unused (!) tampon applicator to create the mine shaft, and some glass seed beads.

The second one is more straight forward, and this really is the best picture of this one, I'm not just trying to include more gratuitous cat pictures:

I really want to make another one, since these are so small. I want to get some moss because I'm newly obsessed with moss. It is the cacti, they will do that to you.

Next time I will aim for some bloggable knitting and spinning stuff. In some ways, though, it's nice to have FOs that don't take weeks and months to complete :)

2 glass containers
2 tropical plants from home depot
1 bag peat moss
1 bag potting soil
1 coconut fiber mat (disassembled)
1 carton activated charcoal
rocks from outside

Mix soil: 1/2 peat, 1/2 potting
Wash containers. Put rocks in as drainage layer. Cover with a layer of activated charcoal, followed by a layer of coconut fiber or whole sphagnum moss (not peat moss). Place plants and build up soil around them. Water or mist lightly (2-4 oz depending on size of container) Put in something cute. Cover. Voila! You should not have to water your terrariums very often, once or twice a year, I'm told.

Posted by Miz Boots Valentine at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I started a two-part spinning class at Tempe Yarn and Fiber last Thursday. I dug out my old Babe wheel and shined it up nice and tried to remember what my hands had forgotten. It was a great class with about four others, much better than the one-on-one lesson I had in Boston, although perhaps not as fabulous as spinning with Miss Hello Yarn herself.
I actually dug out some old roving that Adrian dyed and plied it with the squishy extra fine merino that I started with.

i am now ahead of the class, because I was supposed to just have an extra bobbin for plying on Thursday. That means I need to spin two bobbins by Thursday now. I have started spinning up the rest of the Hello Yarn roving.
TYF is nice, nice, nice as always, and lets you use their shop wheels once you have taken a class there, so I will perhaps finally get to spin on something made of wood. NOT that I'm hatin' on my Babe, although the treadle situation is pretty annoying. Look how pretty she looks, though.

Posted by Miz Boots Valentine at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I am not a fisherwoman, nor do I like live fish. The only way I like fish is unrecognizable on my plate, with a twist of lemon! So I hope you'll be amused by the fishing props I was able to dig out of our stuff.

This is my first FO of 2007, and frankly my first FO in quite awhile! Dad is turning 60 next month, and I'm turning 28! I'm a shameless Daddy's girl, still. Here's my dad showing off a fish he caught in the creepy created ponds in our subdivision. Every few years he packs my mother onto a float plane and goes to the most desolate place in Canada he can find. My poor mom.

Specs:

Pattern: My own, stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks
Yarn: Donegal Tweed, leftover from Omar's Irish Creel <1 skein
Needles: Clover Takumi DPNS, size 4

My parents are going to be staying with us for a week in February, so I will be able to give him these in person.

Omar update: He has embarked on a secret project of his own. Only our knitting group knows for sure!
Also, he found a scarf pattern thanks to our secret knitting weapon! We bought the Lacey Lamb on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, we got to meet up with Tipper and her mom for some knitting time at TYF. Fun! It was great to meet her, she is talented and I know her babe's going to be the best dressed one in Minnesota.

Now if we could only catch up with the illusive Illanna! I think we missed her by a hair's breadth on New Year's Day. (I had to stop and think...a hare's breath? a wheezing bunny?) Everyone assures us she exists, despite seeming too adorable to be true.

I haven't decided what is next for me besides the secret project. I just want to bask in my FOglow.

Posted by Miz Boots Valentine at 7:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Please scroll down to the bold section to help Omar with my birthday gift!

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house reading Redbook and McCalls and other such magazines. Nothing racy, just homey and heteronormative. Nothing that questioned the gender roles I would later, in college, learn to deconstruct. I remember vividly the wooden magazine rack filled with "Hints from Heloise" and "Can this marriage be saved?"
When I got much older and wiser, I vowed that i would never be like the women who wrote those articles, women who believed in the great divide between men and women, and who spent most of their energy trying to bridge it and explain the mysterious other side.
But now that I am an old married lady (6 months at the end of the month!), and my partner happens to be male, I find myself coming to terms with certain eternal truths about straight men. Perhaps the most unfortunate one being this: they can't pick out gifts for their female significant others worth a damn.
I am trying to train Omar. Let's talk about him like he doesn't share this blog, like he hasn't blogged here in months! He is sweet in so many ways and does many things for me, but after five years I have finally taken a gentler approach and am slowly teaching him the art of gift selection, which is one of the things I pride myself on.
February is a rough month for the boy, as I was born on Valentine's day, there's a double whammy of gift-giving pressure.
Thankfully for him, I have a suggestion. As I was knitting away at Tempe Yarn and Fiber on New Year's Day, my eyes alighted on something so amazingly red I can't stop thinking about it. Now when I was a teenager, I hated everything associated with Valentine's day and pink and red. They did not jive with my goth image. But I have grown up to love these colors, although it still takes a lot for me to wear a true pink.
But we don't want to talk about pink, we want to talk about red. A red so dazzling, it is too real for roses. It's Chinese lacquer and expensive, coveted lipstick on floozy blondes. And I must have it!
This red is of course Lacey Lamb. The picture does not do it justice. The coral had almost captivated me as much, my mind would drift to it. but I know knitting obsession when I feel it, and it's red, red, red.
The thing is, I don't have the time or inclination to knit lace right now. What I do have is a deeply romantic streak. How wonderful would it be to receive a baby soft blow-your-mind red lace scarf knit by my darling boy? He is hankering for a new project. The others he has started as gifts for me are on hold for various practical reasons. (Need more yarn, lost pattern). Omar has the soul of a lace knitter, I can tell. How much different can it really be from php?
But he needs your help, fair readers. I have told him what would make Feb. 14 special, but I want him to choose the pattern for his first lace project and my gift. We don't know much at all about lace and aside from a little feather and fan action and maybe a little eyelet, I haven't touched it. He has done less than I have (but is better at patterns).
For your reference, here are some laces that I like. You can email him your suggestions at wbmook@dadahero.com. Sometimes it doesn't do any good to fight the Redbook reader in us all. Boys need help with presents.

On a sad, wistful note, we located the last and only picture of the completed Noro garter entrelac scarf that was lost in the move. I think there are 7 or 8 skeins of Silk Garden all in gorgeous cool tones that he lovingly selected. He has looked everywhere and we don't think we're likely to find it. We just have NO idea what happened to it, could it have been left behind, or accidentally donated? Some things are in our storage space but most everything has been unpacked. So here's the last tribute to this lovely FO from 2006, barring a miracle recovery. I wish we had a better picture so you could see all of its glory.

Posted by Miz Boots Valentine at 1:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)