HighFiber: growing

Showing posts with label growing. Show all posts

Monday, June 19, 2023

Contrasts

If you read last week's blog post, you will remember that I finally got the loom dusted off and warped for placemats. Not a lot of progress has been made, but at least there's something new to show, which should give you an idea of what it will be like. After a few picks of grey cotton waste yarn, I started weaving with the turquoise yarn for the edge. There will be a fringe formed by the warp, and the grey waste will be removed at that time. Now the weft, 1/2" wide cotton fabric strips, will make the body of the placemat. I had some commercially cut strips, inherited with my loom. They are cotton batik. The label says "Princess Mirah Designs" from Bali Fabrics, www.balifab.com, but they don't seem to be around anymore. I'm also using fabric strips made from my stash.

When I reach 19" from the beginning of the turquoise, I'll stop using the cotton strips and finish the first placemat with another inch of turquoise, finishing with fringe. I'll have to put in some kind of spacer between the placemats. When I made the trailer rugs, I used cardboard strips.

I'm making quilts for the grandkids' beds, starting with Soren and Johan. They each have one wall in a special color, and I'm using these color samples as my guide.

I planned to use the "disappearing hourglass" and the "disappearing pinwheel" as patterns for the blocks, just because it's fun. There's a tutorial for the first block here, but I came across it first in a Missouri Star video. The second one is also available online.

I had a lot of fabrics that would be compatible with these colors, but many of them are very busy and more medium than light or dark, so the contrast doesn't show up very well. I like to take a photo and switch it to black and white to show the contrast. This is what I was getting. That could make the quilt very interesting, as long as some of the blocks are easy to make out.

I think the quilting could make the design show up better. I will need to see what I find out about the quilting when I find a quilter to do it. In the meantime, I'm having fun putting things together.

I've started on the colorwork section of the Kultainen Käki Cardigan. My Ravelry page for the project is here. The pattern is for a pullover, but I'm knitting it as a cardigan by adding steek stitches in the center front. As with the quilts I'm working on, there isn't a lot of contrast between the fabrics, but I think it will show up well enough.

In this closeup, you can see three tan stitches. When there are a lot more rows, it should become more obvious. It should go faster, now that the foundation row is laid down.

I had a little help in wasting time this week from Sandy, who snatched my ball of the tan yarn, right from under my nose just as I was starting this row. He would have pulled my knitting out into the yard, but I quickly broke the yarn and let him have the ball of contrast color. When I finally got it back, it looked like this.

You can't really tell, but there was a lot of dirt, grass and other vegetation mixed up with the yarn. It took me half a day to get it untangled. It took forever to find an end, and it turned out that there were four ends, as there was another break in the yarn.

Here's a mugshot of the culprit. (I didn't bother with fingerprints.)

Sandy has grown like a weed! I weighed him on Friday, and he was up to 14.6 lbs. Just for kicks, I decided to measure him, too. He's now 15 3/8" at the shoulder, so no longer officially a miniature. As you can see from this photo, Dusty is still taller, but not by a lot. You can also see how much more hair Sandy has, even though they were groomed at the same time. Puppy hair grows faster. They both go back to the groomer on Tuesday. I'll try to get a photo of them then.

Sandy doesn't need as much supervision as when he was younger, and both dogs are now on the same mix of kibble. This has simplified our lives a lot. Sandy found out that, although I'm the one who fills his bowl, Daddy is the person who fills the canister. He thought it was very interesting to watch.

We dismantled the big playpen. We were expecting the Oregon grandkids to come to visit, and all the playpen was good for was keeping Dusty out of Sandy's kibble. Charlie had a difficult time figuring out how to fold the playpen up. It took him longer to do that than it did for me to straighten out my tangled yarn. (It's like one of those raincoats that come in an envelope.)

I did some tidying and cleaning in preparation for the kids' arrival. The chest of drawers in the guest room is useable now, so I put some freezer paper down in the drawers, so clothes could be stored there without coming into direct contact with the wood.

The kids didn't come his week, though. One of them had a digestive upset that would have made travel difficult. They will try to come soon, though. Cleaning the house should be easier, since it has been done so recently. That would be a nice contrast!

We stopped in Eugene on Tuesday on our way back from Florence, to have another look at the trailer we think we're going to buy. We're pretty sure it's what we want, and we put down some $$$ to have a first right of refusal, in case someone else wants to buy it. We mostly just need to figure out if we want to finance it or pull money from savings to pay for it.

We managed to walk every day after our return from Florence.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Placemats, but I had to dust my loom first.

What's on my sewing machine: Disappearing whatever blocks.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: We revisit Jolena's first month after she was released from her box in Adventures of a Busy Doll. It's another rerun, but I'm working on some new stories.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to White Silence by Jodi Taylor. I thought I had listened to it before, but I don't remember any of it, so I must have marked it "finished" by mistake. It's very good. I love Taylor's snarky dialog!

What's in my wine glass: Viña Crostata Macabeo 2020 from Valencia (Spain), a nice, crisp white.

What's my tip of the week: Puppy kibble make great treats for any dog except the puppy who eats it all the time. It's small, tidy, doesn't need refrigeration and doesn't add empty calories.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes.

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Monday, May 29, 2023

Adventures in Puppy Parenting

Obviously, Sandy has grown.

He's also getting better at staying put for photos, but not as good as Dusty.

It only took seven or eight tries to get this photo of Sandy.

I took them for walks a couple of times by myself this week. It's a little like trying to drive a buckboard standing up, but it's getting easier. I've been working with both of them on "heel," which I expect will help eventually. Dusty has the "heel" part down, but not the "sit" when you stop. Sandy doesn't get the point of "heel" but is great at "sit."

We have managed to walk every day this week, taking varying routes. Usually we put harnesses on the pups. Sandy has already grown out of the puppy harness. The one he's using now needed a lot of adjustment for him, but fits better than the one we use for riding in the car. When he grows out of this one, I should be able to adjust the other harness like Dusty's so it's small enough for him.

I keep finding Snowball in different places around the house. I thought this was Snowball doing cat yoga.

Sandy has grown so much, we keep moving things, and he still manages to get something he shouldn't have, either because he can destroy it or it might be harmful for him if he swallows some of it. The other day, I caught him like this. (It's too bad the light wasn't on in the room, because it would have been a great photo.) We don't know who put that stool there, but neither of us remembers doing it. He couldn't have done it himself, could he? What was he after, the coasters or the fly swatter?

This morning, I heard what sounded like rummaging in my purse, which was in the middle of the dining room table. Could it be? Yes! When I checked, Sandy was standing ON THE TABLE! I wanted to laugh. I wanted to grab my phone and get a photo. I didn't want to give him the idea that it was OK, though, so I told him no and took him down. Then I made sure all the chairs were placed right up against the table, so he couldn't use one to climb. What a monkey!

I've written a new story, the first one since April 7th. When each story is written, I copy it into a word-processing program, edit it to fit to use less paper, if I can, and print it off. I make notes about what kind of photo I want. Then I take photos or sometimes find things online and check them off on the script. Well, Sandy got my script. He took it outside, but brought it back when I didn't chase after him. However, it wasn't much good when it came back. Fortunately, I only had two photos left to take, and I remembered what I wanted them to be. (I wonder if he's a literary critic in a fur coat?)

Dusty has had his paws full, dealing with the growing little brother. They get along great, unless Dusty has to correct Sandy, who doesn't always take correction from Dusty well. They often look sweet together.

We are well into spring here, with wildflowers blooming. Plant.id says this is probably flixweed. If so, it's edible. We need some of it in our yard. This photo was taken on one of our walks.

This was growing on a slope next to the Larkspur Trail, on someone's property, and probably planted, but also a wildflower, most likely Basket-of-gold, a type of Alyssum, and related to the flixweed.

I managed to get some progress on the new book. Now it's time to walk the dogs.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultaimnen käki, but not much progress, just a few rows of ribbing, and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: I really hope to warp for placemats soon!

What's on my sewing machine: Also plan to start working on some quilts.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Dipping into Art...Again, a rerun from 2018. Jolena and Veronika do some finger painting and have a look at what art is.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Didn't get a chance to listen to White Silence this week.

What's in my wine glass: Bordeaux Supérieur 2019 from Kirkland, Grand Vin de Bordeaux. Not bad.

What's my tip of the week: If a recipe calls for lemon juice, you can substitute lime juice. If you don't have lime juice, you can substitute orange juice, but it isn't as acidic. I used half orange and half white vinegar in a recipe that called for 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and it worked fine. However, if the lemon is a major ingredient, this won't work.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

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Monday, May 22, 2023

Bigger Puppy, Same Old Lady

The Talvinen cardigan is finished.

The buttons arrived Monday, as anticipated. I was delighted with how they look with the colors in the yarn.

I was happy with the fit, too. Putting in the steek adds the width of one of the bands to the overall bust measurement. It will be loose enough to wear over a couple of layers, if I need to do that, but isn't too big. (I had to stand on the bottom rung of the utility ladder to take the photo in the bathroom mirror.)

The pups went to the groomer on Monday, too. Dusty doesn't look much different, but Sandy sure does! They both needed a nap after they got home, but I got this photo first.

After the nap, they had to go out into the dirty backyard and try to undo some of the groomer's hard work.

Sometimes we can get a glimpse of what our adult Sandy will look like, although we know he will lighten up a lot from this.

In anticipation of the next rain, Charlie had covered the lawnmower (already waiting in the backyard) with a tarp. The pups thought they had a better use for the tarp...or maybe they thought they could mow the lawn for us and were just distracted from their task by the removal of the tarp.

Sandy is still trying to get his friend Snowball to come outside to play. Eventually, he should make it.

Sandy really enjoys the sidelight. He can look out and see some of what's going on, although his view is partly obstructed by the front porch rail and a big bush. We have since removed the metal dog play yard, because Sandy doesn't go upstairs to potty anymore, only to look for something interesting to investigate, so we just keep the doors closed now.

Wednesday was a nice day, so I took some photos outside.

Friday marked a week since Sandy's final Parvo vaccine that should give him immunity to this dangerous disease. Our vet thought a week was all we needed to wait before taking him out on the trails, which are used by lots of dogs. We still cleaned paws and took off shoes at the door one last time, but have since stopped. We had to take a photo to commemorate the event, so we paused at the fence with the Bigfoot signs (also mentioning that they had a baby dragon). Sandy has outgrown his harness, and the second harness like Dusty's is still so big one of the front legs comes out.

We're minimizing contact with other dogs for now, because Sandy hasn't had the canine flu vaccine yet. At the groomers, they were treating him as an unvaccinated puppy, by cleaning surfaces and keeping him in his kennel except when he was being worked on. It has been a week, so if he caught anything, he doesn't have any symptoms. That's good. Here's what our Walk for a Dog app showed for the walk.

Saturday we just took our usual walk around the block, to fit it in between rain showers, thunder and lightning. Sunday, though, was pleasantly warm and sunny, so we walked through the neighborhood to the park by the Recreation Center and came back on the Larkspur Trail, taking a side trip through the Juniper forest adjacent to the trail. It was a little longer than Friday's walk.

My computer glasses were missing most of yesterday. Charlie found them in the grass in the backyard. They're dirty, but probably not any more so than they were. I can't believe they don't have scratches from Sandy's little piranha teeth, though.

Speaking of piranha teeth, Sandy (like all puppies) likes to bite our feet, shoes, socks and pants. The breeder recommends Grannick's Bitter Apple, which we have used with success in the past, but it didn't seem to deter Sandy. I don't know if it loses its effect over time. The bottle we have is one we've had for years. I decided to look for something I could concoct at home. I found a recipe online that called for apple cider vinegar and white vinegar with a little chili pepper. I didn't have any cider vinegar, so I made it with only white vinegar. It didn't work. I'm trying with cayenne now, but the spray bottle has broken.

Sandy also moved up to larger-sized kibble this week, as recommended at four months. We switched him over several days, because we're using a different brand with a different formula. It's the puppy version of something Dusty is getting, so eventually they will be able to free feed from the same bowl. Right now, I either supervise their mealtimes with an open bowl of Sandy's food in the playpen (where Dusty won't go) or I fill their Kong toys with the kibble and make sure they don't swap.

I have a start on a new book. I'm working on the layout now. Stay tuned.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Just cast on the Kultainen käki sweater, again as a cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Dust, but I still plan to make some placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready for back of T-shirt quilt and quilts for Soren and Johan. I washed the backing fabric for the T-shirt quilt this week. Progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Still doing reruns, while I cope with puppy. This week's reedited story is Insomnia. Jolena tries everything to help her go to sleep but the one thing all Happy Kids need. Mandy helps her out.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to White Silence by Jodi Taylor. Still haven't gotten very far.

What's in my wine glass: Monte Plants Breedekloof Pilotage 2020 from South Africa. Not bad.

What's my tip of the week: I discovered that I can use the air fryer to make cottage fries without mixing everything in a bowl first, since I spray the cooker pan with cooking spray first anyway. When the pan has heated up, I just put the cut-up potatoes in, sprinkle in the seasonings and give it a stir. No added oil. Worked fine.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

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