Stitich marker comparison and yarny stuff

Today I'd rather be blogging.
But, of course, the laundry, the baking, the dinner, the phone calls--some of them are 'junk call'--the rest I like.
The sun is shining, and it's about 60F...so depressing...
Where are the piles of snow?  Where are the snow plows?  Where are the shawls, and the afghans...huh? instead I have to put up with this San Francisco-like weather...yikes! (are you serious?) However, and since I miss the fog horns from the bay, 'I've bookmarked me' some diverse recordings of San Francisco fog horns and I play them now and then.  It is very calming to me.

...I do LOVE winter with all the overcast skies, the piles of snow, the wind whistling by the partly opened window.  All of which inspired me to write--a few years ago--

"When winter doodles feathers on the windowpane,
and fire crackles in the hearth:
spare us, Lord, this year again, a winter flight" (c) PeasantHouse

So far this winter (?) I've seen only one window with 'winter feathers' on it, and only until 1pm that day.

 There is something nice about sipping tea or hot chocolate, baking bread or applesauce brownies, or pizza for dinner.  But no.  Instead we'll have a blog post.  Fried chicken with rice, garlic bread, and salad.  It's smelling nice...and one more load of laundry and I'm done...for a couple of days. 

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

I did lots of knitting again.  But I will have to go get pictures of 5c's scarf and wrist warmers cos I was so in-a-hurry to deliver them that I neglected to photograph them...later...

Instead, here is some other knitting.

This is my cardigan which I've designed, still need to sew it together.  I think it will be what I meant it to be. 

Washing Sir Peasant's older sweater again.  One can be glad that well made sweaters will last for a very long time.  The very nice wool is much resistant to pills. 

A bucket of water and Woolite removes lots of dirty dirt, and now the sweater is brilliant again.

Comparing stitch markers:  I mean the mass produced kind.

These coilless markers have intrigued me for a while.  I wanted to see them in person, but local shops do not carry them.  There are plenty of suppliers on line.  I chose PlumpyPanda.  They had tons of them.  My purchase was 100 pins (1 inch long--but actually 7/8 of an inch) for $5 and free shipping.  The more one buys, the cheaper per pin.  They work great, as markers with a huge caveat!  The tips are very sharp, which split the yarn, scratch the finish of the needles, and poke your fingers.  Also, since they are a gunmetal color they sort-of disappear on dark yarn, and are difficult to find. 
What to do?  Now that I have 100 of them--actually 115 in the package, thank you plumpypanda! 
So...I have people, so I gave some to each, and kept about 20 of them.  Still...how to make them better?  It came to me: tie a bit of brilliant yarn to each of them, so now they are very visible.

I still was not so pleased because of the pokiness of them...get some Susan Bates markers, the idea floated by, they are less expensive than the Clover brand, so there you go...but...not so much. 
They broke! actually I broke 3 in a row, just closing it on a stitch...sigh...the rest lasted two or three uses.  These are the only ones I have not used.  5 remain out of 24, they are called Stitch Pins.  But, whatever, I expected more uses, lots more...
The white one that's different (below) is one of those that hold shank buttons on a card.

Enter: the much more reliable, workhorse, durable-several years of my first package--albeit, more expensive, but worth it: Clover brand.  Yay!  I went to JoAnn's with my 60% percent off for one package and 40% off the other package, triumphant purchase! Double Yay!
Sir Peasant found a little plastic box for me, from his box collection (he does not like the word stash)
and there ye'go.  All's right with the knitting world of PeasantHouse.

Now, to real life.  The chicken is done, and the rest is about to be. 

So, then...

I'll leave you with this:

 "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shrew the salvation of God." Psalm 50:23

In His hands,   ^__^

knitting and knitting

Hello Girlies;
I must be in knitting mode, I've made several of those Sashay scarves.  Here they are completed
for some of the girls.  Two of the violet/orchid/lavender

 

One sparkly gold, and a red one...forgot to take picture...sorry, it is very sparkly and a deep red.

 

 

This is the crew neck gansey for #4.  It is Paton's Moss color, Classic Wool, worsted weight

 

This picture shows the color, almost true.

 

In this picture, taken with the flash, the color is washed out.

 

I really like the sleeve seam which shows off the increase.

 

I used the super stretchy bind off by Tillybuddy (Stretchy swing needle bind off)  it stretches to approximately 95% of the neck band and bounces back. Awesome! Check out her video!

 

Then, I knitted this camo hat/cap with Paton's Classic Wool, worsted, but it did the 'camo' thing only in the ribbing, when I got to the cap part it began to stripe, which I did not like.

 

So I took it apart and reknitted it a couple of times, trying different stitches, it striped regardless of the stitch.

Then I knitted a couple of these.  The yarn is Cascade Alpaca and Cotton.  It is very, very soft, but horrible to knit!  It has no stretch, no give...but the recipients, loved them

 

That's all today, back to knitting...mwahaha...

 

I am working on granny squares for a blanket.  I'm using Cascade fingering, and I soooo looove that wool, it is very silky, I could just switch to Cascade fingering for the rest of all time, but I have like 40 lbs. of wool to process.  I washed and dyed a little bit of it to see how it works, oh, so lovely...

 

 

Carding it was so nice, sorry for repeating myself, but wool is awesome.

 

my Ashford Elizabeth was so happy--I could tell.

 

I shall show you more at it happens, today is great for all this wool work, we got about 3" of snow and it will be in the 20sF for a while, I think that winter is here, YAY!

 

 

I'll leave you with this,  

"And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD." Ezekiel 34:31 
In His hands,  ^__^



 

Sweater for Sir Peasant aka DH

Hiya girls,

During the many months that I did not post a blog I was knitting.  I knit ev-ery day.  I have lots of stuff on my needles.  Double pointed for socks, circulars for hats, straights for all manner of sweaters, and currently, on my giganticly long needles I have a Wonderful Wallaby. (picture later when it's more recognizable).  Sir Peasant always wears one of the sweaters that I knitted for him, but I had not knitted one in a couple of years.  When JoAnn's had a huge sale on Paton's worsted wool, I took advantage and bought yarn for 3 sweaters.  One for hubby, one for me, and one for #4 (who had not had one of them since elementary school.) 
So then, first DH.  An oatmealy color which Paton calls Natural. 

 

 

it is a V neck with six buttons

 

and two cables on each of the fronts

one cable on each sleeve

this is the sleeve seam showing the increases

 

 

and, three cables on the back

 

I'm happy with the results

 

hugging my BFL (blue face Leicester, which is not blue but black, but I can dream)

 

I had a ball and 1/3 of a ball left so I made him a cowl, I made the pattern as I went along.  I measured his neck to the size he liked.

 

9 knit, 1 purl for 12 rows and then offset by 5 sts, and repeated.

 

 

the bottom band is 24 rows of garter st

 

the top band is 12 rows of 2x2 rib with the mock rib

 

this is the reverse side

 

there y'go.

 

Sir Peasant is very happy with his new sweater, but really, really likes the cowl.

 

 

Hope you enjoyed the show.  I have a video of me 'blocking' the sweater, which I'll have to download.  It takes an actual 'forever' to download 10 minutes videos.  Someone we know goes to the library to download, it takes only 5 minutes to download 50 minutes videos.  So it takes me about 3 hours for a 10 minute.  If you know a quicker way--without going to the library--let me know.

 

I'll leave you with this:

 

"Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits..." Psalm 103:2

 

In His hands,  ^__^



Preserving fresh lemon juice

Hello girls,

After buying a bag of lemons last week, it was time to squeeze the juice and preserve it.
My method is relatively quick and very simple.

You'll need:  Lemons
                      an old fashion lemon juicer
                     an ice cube tray or two
                     zip lunch bags
                     a measuring cup.
                     a fine mesh strainer

I wash the lemons with soapy water  

Now squeeze the juice using the lemon juicer

 

 

Strain the juice to remove the pulp 

 

 Discard or reuse the lemon 'shells' these went into the compost bin

 

3lbs. of lemons (minus 2 lemons used for something else) yielded 2 cups or 16oz of pure juice. 

 pour into ice cube trays.  These trays hold 2 tbs. each.  I had a total of 24 lemon cubes, which I think is a great yield. 

 The lemon cubes have lasted me as long as 2 years in the freezer and still retained all their lemony goodness and sourness. 

To use, I remove a cube from the zip lunch bag and place it in a cup for later use when it thaws.  If you are in a gigantic hurry, place the cube in a glass measuring cup and in a small pot of hot water.   I do not recommend using a microwave as it messes with the enzymes and renders the lemon juice harder to digest.  You may research microwave yuckiness on line, you shall be amazed which may prompt you to be rid of the convenient 'appliance.'

I used my new camera for these pictures, but am not savvy yet. 

On a knitty issue, I've been buying several knitting books from amazon--great values--many of them I got for one penney--.01c of a dollar.  I can afford good books that way.  I'll show you when they get here. 

I'll leave you with this:

"Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman..." Proverbs  7:4


In His hands,   ^__^

Soap making video, not a tutorial.

Hi everyone. I just posted a video on my youtube channel about making soap.  Well, actually, about mixing the ingredients and the rest.  I may post the recipe, which I made up as I went along.  I used what I had.  It is made of fresh goat's milk and other wholesome ingredients.

 

It's been a while since I've posted a video so I'm a bit rusty.  

K, I'll leave you with this,

        "...and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger."  Job 17:9b

In His hands,   ^__^

Wow!, 'tis been over one year

How can I summarize one entire year...ok, life, family, relatives, appliances, trees, etc, etc.

However, after all the 'interruptions' I'm still here and whole--sporting a headache currently because many neighbours are burning leaves.  It is very nice and cool weather, so we have the windows opened--smoke comes in--everything smells of those burning colorful leaves--need new furnace filters--and so on.  But DH just went to get new furnace filters, in the hope that the house will smell clean and nice, rather than the fire pits of gehenna.

My little cameral was left out overnight a while ago, and it drowned.  Did the rice thing, and did it again, and once more...still, rigor mortis of cameras (whatever that's called)  So, after several weeks of looking and asking, and viewing, I decided on a white contraption by Samsung.  My friend has one and does marvelous work with it (actually she has a natural eye for photography, and I probably don't.  However, the nice camera should aid me in my attempted photography.)

 I made this bunny using the instructions from    Diana Sullivan It is easy to make, so I made this bunny some siblings, aren't they cute?

Got some Cascade fingering yarn in several colors for a granny square blanket, which I've just begun making.
 

I placed them on an orderly row on the table and just looked at them for an entire day.  Just love wool yarn, and this one is so silky.

Scrumptious colors.

every one of them!

They skeins rested here for a short while until I made cakes of them with my wool winder. (will post a picture of the cakes in my next post--with the new camera! yay!)

Found this gadget called a Lucet.  It is something my Dad used as a little boy to keep him occupied and out of trouble.  I found this one at Hobby Lobby, and then found a more sturdy one at Paradise Fibers (4 times the price--picture later) Made several cords already and several of my people have them now.  The cords are fun and (pardon the expression) brainless to make)  My intent was to make some shoes...yeah, sure.  Very laborious work...so back to utilitarian cord making.

I was needing a pencil case, and looked for a long time.  I found this one at Walmart, but it is sooooo booorriiiiing, I had to do something about it.
 

Took my markers, and away I went!  Little flowers--ivy-like,

Some ants going home,

Some forget-me-nots,

Some imaginary flowers, and some ladybugs or ladybirds.  Sorry about the blurr, I hope the new camera will focus (I know it does an infinite better job of focusing,)

I think this will be all for today.  Have much more to show. 

So, as always,

I'll leave you with this,

"Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."   Ecclesiastes 10:20


In His hands,  ^__^