February and March Journal Pages and RAIN!!!!!!!

Yep, it's finally raining.  We haven't had much weather around here lately.  I love, love, love rain.  I should be living in the Pacific Northwest.  

The images below are from my 9x9" Aquabee Journal.  It has brown craft paper pages.  I used gouache and a Pentel pocket brush.  

I made a new journal with 90lb. Fabriano hot press watercolor paper.  I'm ready to go back to white.  I will say that I am obsessed with having the perfect journal: perfect size, perfect weight paper, perfect surface.  I like to write with fountain pens and use wet media and collage on my pages.  I haven't found the perfect paper yet.

 Ed Schultz

 Eschiveria

 Imaginary flowers

 Chris Matthews (but I'm not a liberal or anything)

Nora's fruit bowl (Oakland, Ca, 2-25-12)

New Drum Carder

"Kitten"

I sold my Patrick Green drum carder on Ravelry to a nice woman.  I met her in the San Fernando Valley, halfway between her house and mine.  She gave me cash and I handed over the carder.  I bought a motorized Fancy Kitty Kitten motorized carder with the proceeds from the PG carder and some money I had been saving.  I wanted a motorized carder because I like to have both hands free to feed in fiber.  Plus the Kitten has longer teeth on the carding cloth so it makes bigger batts.  It's pretty cool although a little hard to clean because of the long teeth.  I ordered the doffer brush that goes with it but it really doesn't reach down and get all the fiber out.  I like a clean carder!

batt from the Kitten

Swatches I knitted from the navajo plied worsted weight yarn I made from the batt.

Knitting and Dyeing

 This is the Daybreak Shawl by Stephen West.  I used hand dyed yarn by Alexandra's Crafts in the Baby Silver Falls color way, and Lorna's Shepherd Sock in the Hermosa color way.

 Then I got seven skeins of Knitpicks 100% merino dk weight yarn that I had to re-skein for dying.  I needed longer skeins so I could tie knots in the yarn to create a resist.

 Here's the dyed yarn wound up into cakes.  It was impossible to capture the colors with my camera.  I divided each skein into two balls so I could mix them up while knitting.

 I started knitting the Calligraphy Cardigan by Hannah Fettig.  This is the ribbing for the neck.  Notice the size 6 Signature needles that Mark bought me for my birthday.  Yay!

In my next post I'll show off my new Fancy Kitty Kitten Motorized drum carder!

Wrendog

We left our dog, Wren, in the yard early on December 30th.  We gave him a Kong with peanut butter and a couple of dog treats.  We knew that Ann and Liz would be by soon to take him on "BIG DOG WALK FRIDAY".  Maggie was going to come later to stay at the house and look after him.  We drove to Oakland and got Nora all moved into her little apartment.  We checked into our hotel and drank coffee.  We decided to eat dinner at a place down the street from the hotel.  We were eating a delicious dinner when we got the call from Julie that they were at the vet with Wren and that he was in cardiac arrest.  Apparently, when Maggie got to the house to feed him dinner and spend the night she couldn't find him.  Finally he came out from under the deck and collapsed on the ground.  She couldn't move him and he couldn't move himself.  She tried to give him some water but he couldn't drink it.  She said he was covered with debris from being under the deck.  She called her parents (they were at a movie) and then somehow our other friend John and his son Will arrived on the scene and they carried Wren to the car and went looking for a vet.  When they found one they took him in and the vet took him back right away.  The vet came out and told them that he was in cardiac arrest and that it didn't look good. By then, John and Julie had arrived. Then the vet came out again and took all five of them back into a little room and told them that Wren had died.  His body temp. was 6 degrees below normal and his gums were very pale.  He could have had internal bleeding from a burst tumor, but he didn't really know.  

It is just so sad and we felt so powerless being 400 miles away from our dear dog.  We loved that dog so much.  He had the best personality and he was one of the family.  He was also a pain in the ass, dirty, and high maintenance, but so is everyone else in our family.  We miss him.

Today I took the tree down and he wasn't there to hang out with me.  Nora's gone and the house is very still and quiet. I went out to prune roses, but I just couldn't. 

We don't want another dog yet.  It's just too soon.

On the positive side of all this is the fact that we a wonderful friends who went above and beyond trying to save our dog.  We are so lucky.

THANKS FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year, Wren, where ever you are.  

I thought I heard your toenails clicking on the floor this morning.

Winter Solstice - Happy Holidays!

The weather is beautiful and I'm almost done preparing for Christmas.  I don't like the stress of trying to work and get everything done, but I love the ritual of holiday preparation once vacation starts. Here are some of the things I've been working on:

Xmas card

 Handspun shawl for my sister's birthday on Christmas Eve.

Vintage plastic Santa that the neighbor gave me.

 Felted pillows for the girls.

Sweaters for twin boys due in February.  Sorry about the ugly green blocking mat.

Santa's Workshop

My daughter says I never go anywhere.  That's because I'd rather stay home and make stuff.  I can't help it. I got it from my mom.  

Finger painted person by one of the kindergarteners I teach

 2 shawls and 2 baby sweaters waiting to be blocked

 Cute dog just about ready to knock over a stack of gifts.  

 Pile of felt I made to make gifts for the sisters.  Shhhhhhh!

 Guy gifts in hand-folded boxes.

 Xmas card hot off the printer

My desk in a state of disarray because of doing 20 things at once.

This is why I can't go anywhere.  If I do, watch out because the outfit will be odd and messy. Token lipstick will be applied to try to appear normal.

End of the holiday weekend

It's Sunday evening.  Time to go back to work tomorrow.  Here are a few images from the weekend.  We ate leftovers at the beach on Friday.  It was an "astronomically" low tide (according to the US weather service).  I haven't seen a sandy bottom at this beach since I was a kid!

 These starfish

 were on this "Spanish Wall".

Here's the sandy bottom that's hardly ever visible.

Pages from my current journal:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Mermaid menu from Solvang and writing per Lynda Barry

Angels are overdone, don't you think?

This is what I've been up to lately.......

I always forget to blog.  I want to do it more, but I just don't think about it.  I cruise other peoples' blogs every day and I get a little indignant if they don't blog or make Youtube videos on a regular basis.  I'm all about the double standard: high standards for other people's behavior, questionable standards for my own.  So I'm going to try harder.  Here's some stuff I've been doing:

 I found a lovely love note from Nora on my desk today.  

 Roving I dyed on Sunday to spin and knit into tiny cardigans for some twin boys.

 Hand spun and dyed hat for a friend named Will.

 My adorable spinning wheel with some batts that I carded up.

Spinning some yarn for a long cowl for Liz.

My Talented Family

I just wanted to share a few things that my daughter and my sister made.  My daughter, Nora, barely started knitting and already she can read a complex pattern.  She spent two hours sticking blocking wires into that scarf.  She's so smart.  My sister, Rebecca, is a bookbinding whiz, and even teaches book arts at Otis (not to brag or anything).  Her books and her color sense blow my mind.  

I also knitted some socks, and I've been working on a set of baby cardigans for some twin boys that are still, you know, safely tucked inside their mother.  I was inspired by Yarn Harlot's baby knitting rampage. I'll post them when they're done.  

Summer is officially over and I will begin teaching for real on Monday.  Art teachers need to have lots of meetings and force themselves on baffled schools who have no idea how they're going schedule all the itinerant educators.  An embarrassment of riches, if you ask me.

Guernsey Wrap

 handbound books

Kew Socks

The End Is Near

Yep, summer is coming to a grinding halt and I'm feeling a little bitter.  Oh well, I've got to work.  How else am I going to pay for all my supplies?  I got my new spinning wheel.  I'm still getting used to her and I have a bit of buyer's remorse.  It's all about the obsession, the acquisition, and then the let down.  

Here are some more alphabet pages.  

 J is for Jenny Superfine

N is for Nude in Solvang

G, H, I

G is for glasses and girls, H is for hen with dwarf wing, and I is for igloo.  I'm getting a little sick of this alphabet business.  Can I finish before school starts?