caracolina

We finally managed to drag ourselves out of bed early enough for a day trip. Our path led us first to Superior and Winkelman, a road we used to drive relatively often years ago, for its beauty as well as Maria’s Tortillas that we discovered for sale in the Winkelman general store. This time we planned to re-trace our steps as well as pay a visit to Cathy at Canyon Wren Ranch, to check out her herd of Navajo churro sheep. This turned out to be very interesting, since her place is in a beautiful lush canyon, very pretty. The sheep looked so peaceful. Cathy showed us around and answered a ton of questions while we watched the cute lambs scamper about. Of course we couldn’t leave without buying a bit of roving. Churro fiber is not very soft but I got some dark brown as well as some grey roving which felt quite nice. On a sad note: Maria’s Tortillas went out of business.

I finished binding off last night and blocked tonight. I can’t believe it! I started this about 6 months ago and must have ripped out mistakes 3 or 4 times, to the point that John thinks I knitted backwards more than forward. Anyway, I’m still kind of surprised how small it is considering I added the extra budding lace repeats following these instructions. Something else that is awesome is that I used up my skein of Knitpicks Alpaca Lace down to the last meters! I don’t believe I could have finished another row, what a stroke of luck!

Inspired by Kristin, another Yarn School alum, I got a book from the library that teaches sewing skirts without patterns. Since I already know I have to return the book soon (can’t extend it, it is that popular) I dragged John into Joann’s to go fabric and notion shopping yesterday. I didn’t really get started sewing until today, though, because we did some cleaning and sorting (yes, even me). And I also made some progress knitting my swallowtail lace shawl – I’m almost done actually.

I was so nervous about cutting the fabric I ended up procrastinating until noon today! And it was my first time inserting a zipper so that took just about forever! Well, by the end of the day I had a skirt shape that fits more or less (at least it is a little too loose rather than too tight) and has a working zipper, but since the fabric I chose is fairly transparent in the right (or, rather, wrong) light, I didn’t finish the waistline and hem and instead talked John into another Joann’s run – to buy cotton lining fabric. Now I’m in uncharted territory because the book doesn’t talk about how to add a lining and I only know what online searches have told me  so far. I suppose I’ll try to throw caution to the wind in the next few days. So far all I’ve done is wash and iron the lining so I can cut the shapes when I feel brave.

I think I’ll end up buying that book.

A few weeks ago I pulled a bunch of books from the shelves, and created two stacks, one that could go to the library right away, and one which I want to read one more time. Since then I’ve read a book about historic poisoners (think: Cesare Borgia), a biography of Isabelle Eberhardt, Der Vorleser from Bernhard Schlink (the German book on which the movie The Reader was based on) and a book about the Lodz Ghetto during the Holocaust. I finished the latter this morning, thankfully. It was a tough read.

Now I’m on to The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense (we used to go to book stores regularly where John would get into magazines while I would randomly pick interesting books from the bargain bins. I’m still on and off reading Pied Piper by Ridley Pearson (which we somehow came across by accident, found in a rental car or something like that).

I was about to log in and blog some more, but WorkPress wouldn’t let me in. That’s when I actually pulled up my site and saw the mess. A quick call to my hosting provider and 15 minutes later the latest backup was restored, and my blog returned with only a couple of entries missing. I was lucky.

What I really had wanted to write about was how much I like this time of year, when I can smell the orange blossoms at all these random places on the way home from work. There is just enough moisture in the air that all kinds of good scents travel. Even the horse place around the corner smells good to me.

Last year my mom brought this along when she came for a visit. She may even have told me then what it is for but I forgot. And she did, too, because I tried to describe to her on the phone and she can’t remember it at all. Before I toss it, I though… maybe one of the 3 people who read this blog on occasion can help me figure this out? By the way I already know what it looks like. I want to know what it is used for.

We had planned to make this an “away” weekend, but exhaustion overwhelmed us and we stayed home. John still working on sorting out all our audio files, me tinkering in the knitting and crafting departments. Today we visited Ikea to finally buy a replacement for our clothes drying rack. Would you believe that our metal drying rack has lasted over 10 years? Well, it is literally on its last legs now, the enamel is crumbling off and several welded spots have come apart. Target didn’t have what we wanted and online searches brought up hugely expensive items ($50-70!!!), until we found the right thing for the right price – at Ikea, for $19.99 (called “Frost”) and they were in stock at the Tempe location!

One drive to the Tempe store later, we made a dash for the drying rack but in due course also picked up an ice cube tray that makes heart shaped ice cubes and one bottle each of lingonberry and alderberry drink flavorings. I was really eyeing the fabrics (on sale,of course) but did not buy any (yet). Withstanding the temptation at Ikea is tough, but we did it!

On the way home we had an early dinner at Hodori, a Korean restaurant in Mesa where John enjoyed his favorite, daeji bulgogi (spicy bbq pork) and I had tofu hot pot with seaweed.

I woke up feeling poorly, with a headache and the beginnings of a sore throat, accompanied by that peculiar taste in my mouth that is the harbinger of a upcoming cold. However, except for the headache which decided to stick around until the afternoon, it didn’t get any worse than that. John felt similar and by the end of the day we were wondering if this was brought on by a change in the weather. The day started out crisp and sunny with some clouds but ended fully overcast and rainy looking.

In spite of the malaise I was very productive. I practiced spinning some naturally brown cotton, even managing my first cotton two-ply! I also spun and plied some practice lace weight, and tried navajo-plying the leftover singles. On top of that, I got more weaving done and am now down to the last 5 full rows (I hope) before the “special” rows (Navajo weaving technical term alert). Yay, I can’t wait for that thing to come off my loom.

Started walking at lunch again, with Karen, for half an hour, usually at 11.30. Today I also wore my blue tie-dyed silk shawl for the first time which I had dyed at the Fiber Frolic with indigo.

I finally walked around the corner to check out the white patches on the prickly pear cactus patches in front of the car dealership near my office – lo and behold, they really are cochineal bugs! Now the question is – can I harvest and prep them myself?