Shortly after birth pictures of Inky

Here are a couple of pictures my husband took last night of Inky right after birth. Inky is still wet and not yet fluffy. You'll see some small eggs along with larger eggs near Inky. The smaller eggs are the Guinea Fowl eggs which aren't suppose to hatch until this Sunday, while the larger ones are the chicken (both Rhode Island Red and Ameracuna hens crossed with our Ameracuna rooster) eggs. Inky is an RIR cross, since the shell it came out of is the brown one.

-Myrtle

1st Baby Chick

Our first incubator chick has hatched. It arrived around 10 pm last night with the shouts of joy from the older boys who discovered it. Chick watch is going in full force as the younger two today keep watch to see if more hatch.

I happen to be out of town so I don't get to experience the fun, but I do get to give directions for setting up the new brooding box for this chick and possible others as they come out. I'm told "Inky" is now completely dry and active and looking for a new home outside the incubator.

Inky is a Rhode Island Red crossed with our Ameracuna rooster. Since I'm not there and I don't know how to vent sex a chick, I have no idea if Inky is male or female. I've been told there are several more eggs cracking and the next one to hatch will be Binky.

I personally was surprised this one even hatched. 21 days in the incubator was this past Sunday and I felt that I must have done something wrong since none hatched. Now, I'm just wondering if my chicks are like my boys and all liking to arrive in this world later than their expected due date.

-Myrtle, who wishes she was at home with the new chick instead of working on site.

CIC Socks

I've finished 10 pairs of CIC (Children in Common) socks. I've been knitting these socks with donated yarn and most of them come from skeins that have 10-40 yards of wool. It's made it interesting for me to try and find ways to use it. But I've enjoyed the challenge and especially the most recent 5 pairs which I did in various colorwork patterns.

Now it's off to the post office to send them in and I'll go back to other knitting for awhile.

-Myrtle

Gardening anyone?

My garden is finally in. I now have corn, beans, squash, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, carrots and beets in. Along with this I now have 6 new strawberry plants and my raspberry plant in.

The onions have grown by leaps and bounds and are starting to put seed heads out on them. And happily I got everything in 2 days ago before it started into major rain storms again.

Some of the seeds were really old (up to 10 years) while others were newer (this years). I'll see what comes up and go from there, but I'm happy to have it in and know that we'll start having fresh vegetables in a few months.

-Myrtle

First Pair of Toe Up Socks

So here are my purple rose socks. They fit fairly nicely, but I don't think I'm a toe up convert. I ended up modifying this pattern to fit my design desires and my foot shaping. I seem to do that a lot with Wendy Knits socks designs. I love her designs but I can't seem to help myself from tweaking them just a little bit (or sometimes a lot to better suit my needs.)


Here is a close up of the heel. I realized after I had totally completed it that I still have the same two lines, but the one up the back of the heel isn't as straight as normal. This is because the heel shaping I would normally do for the bottom of the foot, ends up on the back of the heel in this pattern. As it was I ended up having to start the gusset for the foot at 3.5 inches instead of the 2.25 inches the pattern called for. This meant that after every M1 round, I did two straight stitch rounds to get enough rows in before I hit my total gusset count. It also meant I had to change the other half of the heel shaping using fewer stitches to begin with on the heel shaping, to ultimately create enough length in the heels.


My final change to the pattern was the fact I made a two inch 1x1 ribbing versus the one inch it called for. I still don't think there was enough ribbing to hold the sock up, but I was trying to follow the pattern.

Note: The picture about makes it appear that the design goes down the side of the foot, but I've actually turned the sock sideways on the sock blocker to better show the pattern.

I will say I do like working with the Hand Maiden Casbah sock yarn. It's 81% merino, 9% cashmere, and 10% acrylic. Although it's labeled as fingering weight, it's heavier than most fingering weight yarn I knit with. The one downfall might be my ankles. I wore the socks for an hour this morning and my ankles itched most of the time. Not as badly as with other yarn, but enough to notice. I'm going to try washing them to see if it helps. If not, I'll be gifting them to someone else because I can't handle my ankles itching.

-Myrtle, who is hoping the ground starts drying outside over the next several days so I can finish planting in my garden.

Knitting Update

I finally finished my Wanida socks. Yes, I've completed two other projects in between because I grew to dread knitting on these socks. I finally told myself either finish them or frog them and because I like the design and the yarn and the fact I was 3/4ths of the way done with them any way, I finished them.



I also finished my Estonian Lace Scarf that I knit to go with my classic lines cardigan. (I need to really retake this photo.)




Now I've started my Purple Rose of Loopy socks out of Hand Maiden Yarn in the W(h)ine the Rose colorway (which I received as part of the consulation package for those of us who didn't get into the Loopy Ewe's sock club). I used the Turkish cast on, because it was the only thing that looked like the Kitchener stitch when I finished it. But I'm not sure I like the square looking toe or toe up socks. We'll see if I actually complete the socks. I've never completed a pair of toe up socks. I always end up frogging them. But we'll see. I seem to be on a roll of trying new things and making myself complete them.

-Myrtle

It's Spring on the Homestead

These are the newest members of our homestead they are just a few days old. There are 4 black australorps, 4 sliver laced wyandottes, and 4 rhode island reds. We picked them up at the feed store today. We also are now the owners of a incubator and will be trying to incubate some eggs since neither the hens or the guineas stayed with their nests long enough to actually hatch anything. I'm hoping that with the incubator we'll actually hatch a cluck of chickens and a clutch of guineas. They'll have to be done as two separate groups since chickens take 21 days to hatch, while guineas take 28.

My onions are growing nicely, but I really need to weed that area and finish planting salad type things in it as well. My main garden is 2/3rds weeded, has part of the compost spread and still needs to be turned into the soil before planting. I have lots of tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, and broccoli plants to go in, but the weather doesn't seem to want to cooperate. We've had lots of rain and it keeping the ground very soggy.

I have also finally planted all but one on my mother's day plants. I received a plum, peach, and pear trees along with a blue berry, raspberry, and grape vines. I'm looking forward to having my own fruit along with all of our wild black berries.

On the knitting side of things I finished my classic lines cardigan and have started an Estonian lace scarf out of the accent color to go with it. My socks are still 3/4ths of the way finished and I really need to finish them. I'm not sure what I'll be knitting next, but I have to say I've enjoyed some bigger projects which I haven't wanted to do in the past. I guess I'll see what other big project I want to do since I don't seem motivated at the moment to do socks.

Have a great day all.

-Myrtle

A Successful Walk for Breast Cancer

Mavis and Myrtle,

I had a very successful Walk for Breast Cancer. My feet are still a bit tired, but all in all I had a great weekend. Saturday we walked a full marathon in very good, not too hot weather. The crowds and support teams were great so that even when we were getting tired there was some very positive encouragement to keep us going. And when I got to the Wellness Village where we were camping, there was a "tent angel" who carried my bag and the tent to the tent site and set up the tent for me. It was a good thing since my body and brain were out of it and I am not sure how long it would have taken me to do it on my own.

On Sunday we walked another half marathon in the rain. Inspite of the weather I really enjoyed that walk.

The upper photo is of me with my co-workers Latoya and Nancy who also did the walk as part of Team MOB. The lower picture is me with the other members of the K Street Team, Robbie and Maureen.

Maude

First Meeting of my Southern CA Knitters

My little group of friends (Bunnie and Kitty in the above picture) met for the first time to (re)learn how to knit. They are all making the candle flame shawl by Debra Bright using various lace weight yarn from KnitPicks. Only two of the original three were able to make it on Saturday, but we gained another member from the group they work with. So now our group has 4 learners.

When they first arrived, I realized that I had not brought my ball winder or swift, so the first thing they had to do was learn how to wind a ball of yarn from the hank. Then they spent the rest of the time learning how to do the long tail cast on (97 stitches) and knitting their first 18 rows of the shawl. We had a wonderful 4.5 hours laughing and learning together.

I learned multiple things in this process. Never assume anyone will come with their patterns printed off. Luckily for me I had one of them print off extra copies. Two remember to bring a ball winder and swift. It's a long process to get everyone a ball of their lace weight yarn balled up when there is an odd number of people present. Three what seems obvious to you will not be to others.Today we worked at fixing dropped stitches and knit two together's that happened while they knitted on Sunday. One has her first 18 rows completed and will be starting the actual lace pattern. The other has a few more rows to go before starting the lace. However, Foxy joined us today with her yarn, so Bunnie helped Foxy learn how to ball her yarn. After work I'll be helping Foxy learn how to cast on and knit.

As for my knitting, I finished my Caricia shawl using Damsel Imagination Hand Painted yarn. I only used 2.3 balls of my yarn, because the remaining 2/3rds of one skein was so bleached out looking that it looked awful on the shawl. So I tinked 5 rows out and bound off and made the medium sized shawl. It's smaller than I originally wanted, but I like it. I will say it's warm. I wore it to work today and ended up taking it off in the office I'm in. The AC is out and it was extremely hot wearing the alpaca.

I now am working on a pair of Wanida socks by Cookie A. using Paca Peds Mixed Berries colorway. I've already frogged the socks twice, so hopefully I will finally get them into socks. Otherwise, they'll be like the Damsel yarn and find a new project.

-Myrtle

Emotionally Exhausted

I feel emotionally exhausted. Probably caused by just being physically drained, but I can say today is not the day I want to interact with people.

Yesterday was a travel day for me from MO to Southern CA. Part way there I found out my schedule was redone due to a clients server crashing and causing their data to be corrupted. So instead of being in the LA area, I took the 3+ hour drive out to the Palm Springs area (through rush hour traffic). Today I'm sitting at the client site trying to get their database restored using an old backup. Luckily for me, computers don't require me to interact with them as humans do.

Maude, you asked how I find time to knit. The really found time tends to be airplanes, airports, and hotel rooms. It's amazing how much you can do when you travel all the time. I also will admit that I spent the past several weeks working to get it finished off because I was afraid it would become a UFO and I really didn't want that to happen. I enjoy the mentally challenging projects as long as I can do some mindless ones periodically. I have to also admit I like the photo I put up even if it's not of great quality. There is something about a guy wearing the shawl that just seems quirky to me and I enjoy that.

Currently I'm knitting another shawl, but the lace design is much simpler and it's on a thicker weight yarn, so I'll probably finish it this business trip. It's the one Mavis posted about the other day. I'll get pictures up when I finish it. I've knitted 1.5 skeins of the yarn so far and figure I'll get maybe the mid sized shawl in the long run after blocking. I like the yarn in this project better than the socks it originally started as. Yes, I frogged the 1/2 way completed socks and went the green route of reusing the yarn. If I ultimately don't like the completed shawl, I'll frog again and find something else the yarn desires to be.

Mavis, I'm thinking I might have to look at another Anna Dalvi pattern for another more complicated (highly challenging project). If so, I'll probably use the Misti Alpaca again. Do you have a link to the shop with the sale so I can view colors of yarn? Otherwise, I'll just look for colors on line and figure out what might work.

Oh, Maude, I forgot, congratulations of working out in the inclement weather. I will admit I'm willing to go out in the misty stuff, but serious rain tends to keep me home. I'm working on week 4 of the Couch Potato to 5K running plan. I'm sure this week of the plan will be like the rest with me taking 2 weeks to finally feel comfortable running the runs, but I am getting back into shape. I forgot how much I enjoyed running. I'm still taking walks around our property when I'm home, but this gets me out when I travel more than I normally do.

Have a great day all.

-Myrtle

checking in

Maude - 18 miles and in inclement weather. - I'm impressed!
Too bad about the socks. How about a Claptois found at Knitty.com? You probably don't have enough yarn for a full size Clapotis, but I am hearing of people making them narrower and maybe not as long. Ravelry would be be your friend in working on this process.

Myrtle - Wow! good work on Mystic Waters. A local yarn store has Misti Alpaca on sale for $5/skein this month. Want to do another laceweight shawl? ;-) The Anne Hanson Caricia shawl in the pinks and lavenders of the Damsel colorway will be beautiful.

Me (Mavis) - I am waiting to hear whether I have interviews in this go round of nursing school applications. I'm halfway seriously thinking of moving to a more rural area where the competition for nursing school slots is not as great. I think Coos Bay, Oregon looks nice. Too bad my kids are so entrenched here.

On the knitting front I still have far too many projects going. I am trying to be a bit more monogamous and finish a few. I am also thinking of frogging a few more. I did frog one scarf I had in the works because it was becoming quite clear the yarn/needle size/pattern combo was just not working. Now I have to decide if I want to begin it again on smaller needles or finish the orange/green chevron scarf I posted about earlier. The intended recipient saw both and while she liked the color of the yarn in the now frogged scarf she returned her attention several times to the chevron scarf. My coloring is not appropriate for me to think of wearing the orange myself. I guess I have made this decision - haven't I?

Finally - Does anyone have a handyperson that would jump at the chance to do some projects around here in exchange for a place to use as a homebase during a trip to Oregon? Must be able to competently work on plumbing related chores. I know I am capable of doing these things, but it would go so much faster if an experienced being did them. :-)

-Mavis

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to everyone!

We woke up to a really cool, but very sunny morning. I just about froze in my Easter clothes. Fortunately the day warmed up enough for everyone to go out and hunt for Easter eggs at Grandmommy's in the afternoon. Grandmommy would have been very disappointed if that had been canceled. I think she searches for hiding places all year and she is thrilled when there is a long search for the last 2 or 3 eggs. Today the small childeren (6 and under) beat out the older kids (up to 30 under grandmommy's rules) in finding eggs.

Yesterday J and I set out for an 18 mile training walk. By mile 2 it was raining pretty constantly, but mile 5 (and about 1.5 miles short of a nice dry Starbucks) we decided to turn around and head back for another 5 sloshy miles home. It was pretty fun all in all.

Myrtle that is a beautiful shawl you made. It does look like a pretty complicated project and I am impressed that you have completed it as quickly as you did. I am not at all sure where you find the time to knit.

As for my projects ... I came to the realization on Friday that the sock I started in January, and restarted in late February will never be finished and even if it was, it would never be part of a pair. I was just not that into socks. So yesterday I ripped it out and today I restarted it as a scarf. A scarf I can finish ... I think. If not, I guess I take it apart and knit something else. That is actually a fairly standard practice for me. My family teases me all the time about restarting projects. I think of it as going green by reusing the same yarn until it eventually becomes what it was meant to be.

Spring breaks are over for the kids so it is back to the grindstone for C and K. C is looking forward to his last term of high school and has decided on Longwood University for the fall. K is doing well at her "new school" and is regaining confidence that she is really pretty smart. I guess that she believes it better from her teachers than when her parents tell her the same thing.

- Maude

It's finished!

Yes, I've finally finished my Mystic Waters Shawl made with Misti Alpaca yarn, which I started for the first time over 3 years ago. In January I frogged it entirely and started again. I then knit on it for several weeks in January to only put it away again. I decided at the end of March that if I didn't start knitting on it again it would never get done, so it's the only knitting I've been doing for the past several weeks. Today I finished it and blocked it with my new lace blocking wires. I'm so happy and tomorrow I'll be wearing it for Easter.

I'll take pictures of it outside tomorrow, but for tonight I had DS2 model it, since he's only a few inches taller than I am. I was surprised by it's size and I didn't even stretch it much as I blocked it. On DS2 the shawl comes about 8 inches from the floor.

I love the shawl and it was well worth the effort and time I put into it, but I'm ready for an easier lace pattern for awhile. However, I'm sure I'll try another pattern by Anna Dalvi again.

One of these is not like the others

The guinea fowl like to take turns sitting on the eggs. At times you'll see up to 5 guinea hens on the joint nest. Today when DS3 went in to feed and water the birds he saw one of our chickens helping the guineas out. We'd seen it once before with this hen, but weren't able to get a picture of it. It's really funny when you consider the fact that chickens don't let other chickens onto their nests when brooding, so seeing this one share a nest if strange. At times, she's been known to sit onto the guineas to be able to share in the fun.

Note: Shortly after taking this picture she moved off her pile of eggs and a guinea hen went back on.

-Myrtle

Yarn Update

I talked with KnitPicks this morning and they will be sending me a new skein of damsel yarn. Hopefully it will match one of the other two skeins I already have. If not, I've decided I'll be making a scarf with the yarn instead of socks. Not what I'd originally planned to do, but a good alternative and I do like the colors of both skeins. I just wish they'd matched. I'm glad they are such an easy company to work with.

As for weather, today we are bright and sunny and already 54 degrees. It's suppose to be mid 60's today and seems like we'll easily make it. What a difference one day can make here.

And one last update on life here on the homestead. The onions are now about 4 inches tall in the salad garden. I don't see any beets yet, but I'm hoping they'll start peeking through the ground this week. The tomatoes, cauliflower, and broccoli are coming through nicely in my indoor containers. We're still waiting on the peppers, but they do take longer to germinate. Maybe this week I'll finally go out and buy the rest of my spring gardening seeds so we can move along with the gardens, which currently are too wet to work in, but it would be nice to have the seeds ready.

Have a great day.

-Myrtle

Winter doesn't think it's over yet

It's March 29th and this is what I woke up to this morning. It was raining when I went to bed and I awoke to a pretty white world. It's now all melted, but I enjoyed the beauty while it lasted.


I finished these on the last trip, but I'm not sure I ever posted about them. They were made with Regia yarn.This is what I started my road trip with this past week. I forgot how much I hate knitting plan 2x2 ribbed male socks. But I do like the final outcome, so I guess I'm glad I made them.I started this midweek and it didn't take long to finish them. They were done before I even had a chance to think about them. Maybe because I was so tired of plan 2x2 socks, that these were fun to just knit. I also worked on my mystic waters shawl while I was gone. At the time this picture was taken I was at row 231 and I'm now at row 246. Another 100 rows or less and I'll be done. :)And finally for my disappointing knitting that I did on the way home from my last business trip. I am knitting with Knit Picks Imagination Damsel, both skeins from the same dye lot, but they are definitely two different colors. I'll be talking with KnitPicks tomorrow to let them know about this situation because it made for some extremely hard airplane knitting when I knew my work wouldn't look right but I needed something to do while I was on the plane and this was the only yarn I had other than my shawl which isn't airplane knitting.

And then for my other news. I will be teaching three ladies in Southern California how to knit lace shawls. This should be a fun change. All of them have knit at some point in their past but haven't knit for years. It all started with one of them admiring my shawl and wanting me to make one for them, but I finally convinced her to knit her own. As her co-workers found out I had requests to teach two more, so we'll be starting this endeavor later this month when I travel back to Southern CA.

-Myrtle

when two colors collide

The Chrevon Scarf pattern is quite fun when looked at as a color activity. The idea is to use two different colorways of yarn and knit two rows of each in the 4 row 'feather and fan' lace pattern. (This pattern is also called 'old shale' in some references.) Very many examples of this scarf can been seen on Ravelry. I am using Kary's Chevron Scarf pattern. I added a 2 stitch garter stitch border to each side of the feather and fan pattern

I am using Imagination Merino/Alpaca sock yarn from KnitPicks. The orange colorway is "Munchkin". The green colorway is "Frog Prince". There is one green that is common to both yarns.


-Mavis

handpainted yarns day

Saturday the 21st was handpainting day with some good friends. This was to have been a pre-Christmas activity. The weather here and the closed freeway between our homes changed the plans for the holiday period.

Sarah, Eva, my daughter and I handpainted sock yarn (fingering weight) from KnitPicks. Merino/Silk Bare and Merino/Nylon Bare. We used Jacquard Dyes. I was lead on this project and we did pretty well. I can't say I recommend the level of prep I did (reading 2 books 3 months ago and 3 websites the day of) but still...


Merino/Nylon on the left and Merino/Silk on the right soaking in vinegar water getting ready for the dyeing process


Here are the results:

All of these are Merino/Silk






These are Merino/Nylon




-Mavis

Broodies?

These are two of our Guinea Hens who have decided to brood in the hen house. We tried getting them to brood in brooding boxes, but they became extremely nervous and kept knocking over their eggs, so we put them back into the hen house minus the eggs. Well they and the other 5 females laid many more eggs this week (over 40 by my best guess) and now they are brooding in the hen house. They'll leave the eggs only to eat or drink, but push their eggs under the other female until they return so they don't get too cool. It's been fun to watch. So maybe in another 24-28 days we'll have a few more guinea fowls at our place.



These are just two of the remaining 9 hens in the hen house. The other 4 are in the brooding boxes in our garage. I'm not sure the ones which have been removed are really brooding, but we'll see. At least one seems to stay on her eggs all the time. The other 3 are on and off more than I'd like, but I really don't know what I'm doing, so maybe it's normal. However, the ones in the hen house are enjoying a little more space and seem to be sitting in the laying boxes more than normal, so maybe one of them will try to brood as well without the constant interruptions of the other hens.

Sorry for the color of these pictures, but the red from the heat lamp (only source of light near the broodies) seems to really change the color of the photos.



These are the socks I finished up last week while traveling.


These are all the key chain blocker socks I've made so far. The pair on the right are the ones I made on the plane as I headed back to MO from KY on my last trip.



And these are the socks I'm now working on. I started them on the hour drive home from the airport and then continued knitting on them yesterday as I worked with the boys on their homeschooling.

I'll be off for Southern CA in the morning for 6 days. I'm still not sure what I'm taking for knitting, but ... I'm sure something will ultimately get packed. I was going to plant seeds outside today for the salad garden, but we had rain last night that stopped those plans. So I guess it will be another week before anything more gets into the garden.

Have a great day.

-Myrtle

Quick Update

Hi All! I just thought that I would give a quick update on my life and my knitting.

This past week I spent at a client site in south eastern KY. It was suppose to be a 3 day site visit to do hands on training with the financial aid department. However, it turned out to be more work than I was expecting since the software had not been completely set up. Hence, I'm leaving in an hour for the airport to head back for another 3 days.

Last week I worked on socks during my down time, which wasn't much since I was also working after hours to prepare for my next day on site for my client. But I finished them as I drove home from the airport on Friday night. They are made from Paca Ped's Singin' the Blues yarn with a sock pattern I design knit on a size 0 circular needle doing two at a time. The top has a picot edge, while the main portion has an 8 stitch repeating lace pattern over 12 rows.

Then Friday evening I started a new pair using the same lace pattern but having a 2x2 rib for the first 1.5 inches instead of my picot edging. These are knit using Regia yarn color 5033. I'm working on the heel flap now, but thought I'd also include a picture of those.



For knitting I'm taking my shawl again along with some fiber to work on a drop spindle. I'm not sure what I want to do. I also have enough yarn for another pair of socks just in case I just want to knit socks.

We now have 4 chickens set up to brood eggs. Two chickens will be brooding chicken eggs, while the other two will be brooding guinea fowl eggs. I tried the guinea fowl in the boxes, but they tend to be high strung birds and weren't coping with limited freedom very well, so they were replaced with 2 Rhode Island Red hens. I'm not sure how successful we'll be, but we figured it would be fun to try. We'll know if we are successful in about one month. If this doesn't work we are considering getting an incubator or purchasing more chicks or a combination of both. I'd really like to raise two or three turkeys, plus we are thinking about adding a little more variety to our current flock so chicks would be the way to go.

I wasn't able to get any more planting done, but I should be home Thursday afternoon. I'll work on planting starter plants and spring veggies before I leave next Sunday for California.

Have a great several days.

-Myrtle