chickens, hats and so on...

they're booting it up the hill

thinking I'm calling them for

something yummy...

not a photo shoot!

someone's old car-cas is my garden treasure

this is Sheilagh, garden goddess

the chooks don't pay her any mind

Jackmo is protective of the shy Miss. Prissy, his sister

and Sarah is pleased with her new hat

meow!

too much to do...

Today there is too much to do. I've already written one thousand words on Earth Bound and want to get at least another thousand in. I need 13,000 and change to be where I am supposed to be! Argghh!

I have started knitting a hat for my step-dot from a pattern! Gadzooks! I feel the same way about knitting patterns that I did about going to school - just give me the basics and leave me be! But it is good for my brain and also - it does look good and I have to say that it is heartening knowing that if I just follow the damn instructions it has a good chance of looking like the picture AND fitting her head.

I wanted to try and sort out the garden and yard but it is a cold drizzle outside and unless that changes - I ain't gonna go there. I have to walk the dog - probably not in the woods but we'll see.

Our dear bud, Annie, is coming for a family dinner. We call it a 'family dinner' because there won't be anything high falutin about it. Potatoes and onions cooked with a smoked fish from Ron, fresh fresh haddock lightly fried in butter from me, maybe a ratouille (yep I still have zukes to eat) and the gang minus me can have ice cream with boozey fruit on top. Yum Yum! Jake isn't here yet - it has been nice to have the girly-girl on her own but I'm anxious to see how he survived the flu. He'll be here tomorrow.

So dear readers - when you feel overwhelmed with what you should do and what you will do - well, what do you do? I wish I had a house boss right now. She'd say, "Walk the dog at least Morrison! And rake that mess in front drizzle or no drizzle. What a sight!"

And I'd probably tell her to take a leap so there ya go.

mobius knitting

so...I had a long scarf but I wanted more! I picked up stiches all around the edge thinking that I could than knit a tube with the mobius band attached at the beginning but I don't think so...just more mobius activity. I want you to notice that there is just one edge. So I'm now knitting green on what appears to be one side but it is showing up on two edges. Why? Because there is only one edge no matter what your brain tells you. Next year I'm going to go to Nocturne with a mobius sidewalk that I'll knit from some kind of heavy duty cable on huge circular needles. If knit is knit why aren't needles Kneedles????
later my intrepid readers.
Please comment on one of my three postings today especially if you've never commented before! For those of you who have tried but haven't been able to do it - just keep hitting the post button or comment button even if it seems you've done it enough!

knitting moebiusly

I knew it would happen. Every summer I think - ah phooey - I am not a real knitter. I'd rather garden and read books and write and cook. Then it gets a bit crisp out and the colours I love most in the world appear at the end of trees and out come the needles and the stash and oh oh! Last year it was hats. This year it may be knitting moebius thingys. I got Cat Bordhi's second book of magical knitting out of the library then I took it back because I couldn't figure it out and I needed things I didn't have (really long circular needles) and besides it wasn't quite time yet. Yesterday I bought the needles and some wool - but the book wasn't available at the library and no one seemed to have it so I came home and hit the sauce. Nah! I can't have sauce remember? So instead I googled it and found a utube demonstration by Cat and by gum I got her figured. I just bound off an enormously long moebius scarf in rust and dark green. I may try felting it - it is Cascade so will felt beautiFULLy. And I'm thinking of other projects but I have to wait until I get the book again. I want to make these delicious looking little pots that look like fairies made them - all mossy. Yep.
Tonight, the man and the sullen ones are coming out with me to Nocturne when Halifax decides art is more important than sleep. We will see outrageous video projections and hear weird music and ride the bus for free and go into galleries at 11 pm and generally take part in a city rite that so suits my very soul. I can't wait. I'll wear my mobius scarf I think!
Here's the man - he's making dinner. I'll help. bye bye.

where has the knitting gone to?

knitting? what knitting? It is as if it had never been. I don't care about wool - I don't need to be holding needles and working madly to finish - what? A hat - ta da! Nope. It is as if it had never been. I can hardly bear to write about it - not because I feel tortured. No. The opposite. I never was in love with knitting - I don't know what you are talking about. What? Me knit? Nah! And it is snowing here so even though I feel like it is a seasonal thing it sure has nothing to do with the actual weather. Perfect knitting weather really. Only I don't care. My love is gone. I still want to cook and writing as you dear readers know is taking off like a wildfire but knit. Nada. Oh well. Sorry if any of you care. Probably attack me again in the fall though one summer I did knit as I recall.

Not much further word wise on the book but great leaps forward in answering some of the burning questions I had and figuring out the logistics. One - or I should say I - am so reluctant to change things. It is like you are designing your house and you've actually gotten to building it or just laying it out. At any rate you've decided that the stairs goes this way. Then a whole lot of things need attending and you wiggle the plans and wiggle your desires to meet what you just willy nilly planned for no particular good reason in the first place. Does that make sense to you? That actually happened when we were designing this place. All of a sudden we realized that the stairs had to be opposite of where we had them and then everything was perfect. But the reluctance to change that original idea is amazing. So today, dear reader, I decided that the gallery that shows my protagonist's art is close to Peggy's Cove and not in Halifax. It has a sister gallery in town but one out where she is. This makes all sorts of things wrong and needing to be changed but it WORKS for the plot and right now plot is Queen. I was going to say King but I thought about it.
bye bye now. I have two chicken pot pies in the oven - thank you smitten (see left)!

mmmm...were they good - highly recommend! Also check new word count below - now I'm going to sleep. yep or read...

I'm writing a book called "egg by egg" - no I'm not...

But I could if I wanted to. It would be the tale of a plucky old heroine who battles ice and other folks indifference to her plight yet she perseveres. Yep, our white-haired freckle-faced gal goes out into the world with her wee basket of eggs (hats or poems...not sure yet) and finds that the city-folk (craft council, publishers) don't care for her home-grown (spun or focussed) work. So she trudges back home and crawls into bed (bottle or funk).

Whadya all think?

Today is supposed to be ANOTHER BIG STORM ACOMING day so trying to rebook my appointments and maybe I'll muck out the coop as dear one says it is starting to be a fire-hazard - apparently that deep-litter technique is working and the good stuff is all composting. So I might do that or at least heave it around a bit and wipe my brow alot and sigh and bond with the birds. And I'm on the home-stretch with Val's hat AND maybe I'll write a bit. Feel like getting back into the first one - Feckless - and seeing if I can't do another hard edit and get it out selling its ass to publishers. Yep, both the birds and the literary efforts are talked to like I'm their very own chain-wearing pimp. "What am I feeding you for? Make eggs (deals) Mama wants a new pair of shoes!" or something like that. Actually the hens are way ahead of the literary efforts. I'll show them - I'll show them all! or me. or nobody...

Signs of Impending Doom or Glorious Salvation!

I sat. I wrote. I have very nearly finished my taxes. I am still in fear of being a grown-up but I'm dealing OK. Maybe by the time I'm 60 I'll be a little friendlier with that side of life. I am going to knit a hat for Val so when she walks Hoagy in the bitter cold, her dear ears will be toasty. It'll be done in Kim's handspun in dark grey and chocolate with maybe just the tiniest bit of cherry popsicle. I'll do it in the style of the one I wear most often - the wooly mammoth. I can't wait to start it. The one I finished last night that I'm calling Heavenly Stash has been desired and promised to Gwen. It is very light but should be warm enough. I just need to sew the ends in.

My dear one is home because he pulled some muscle. Good thing because he definitely could help Trav and I with the stooopid tax shit. And I'll make him a fine dinner of baked beans and home-grown eggs - got 3 so far today.

Later dear reader...

Sunday with Perry Como

Where is Perry Como? Is he dead? I think he is. I loved him and his show so much when I was little. "letters...we get letters" or "yellow bird, way up in banana tree" I wanted to marry him - so sweet and gentle and handsome. ah....


Last night, dear reader, my one and I went to the Taj Mahal! Well, the restaurant with that name. It was so good and fun like it always is. Today we did a blitz on the house - dog hair - euuuhhh - I made scones, yummy, and Ron started his bread. Bones, Cal and the boys came over.

I took Riley out to the hen house and he found an egg. We sat around shooting the biz and drinking coffee and juice and eating warm scones. Very nice Sunday activity. The dog is now giving me the look - because - hey - it is still maximum ice and I haven't walked him yet. oh.












I fell down yesterday aft. carrying the newly cleaned chicken watering thingy - went down - smacked my head, dropped the water which ran under my and pooled to make even more ice in front of the coop door. Meanwhile the chickens are looking at me like this is some sort of new entertainment they are supposed to appreciate.

(Did I mention that I'm just the wee bittest tired of ice? I won't go on though.)

Calvin decided that my favourite hat was just right for him and he is my dear boy so with a little tugging I let it go. It looks very nice on him - the turquoise bits are good. I'd like to make another one similar to that one. Going to look through my stash and start another one - oh oh forgot to mention - I felted the tam o'rasta or the rasta o'shanter or the whatever it is and it did felt a bit but instead of the band getting tighter - it shrunk up so that it is narrower but the opening is wider if that makes any sort of sense. I wore it last night folded and pinned and now call it a rasta o'turban.

I'm not finished yet!

Rasta O'Shanter

Ta Da! ends not sewn it yet or blocked if I'm going to which I very much doubt - I am liking it and it took eggfreakenzactly two balls of Noro.

Crazy Jane knits again...

New Hat alert! I've been working for a couple of days on a new hat - a tam o'shanter or a beret or a Jamaican rasta hat...who knows? I've never made one of these before and that is basically the thing with my hat making. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!!!! I just start out and then get quickly bored and try something weird and half-way through look at some utube thingy on how to increase or whatever and voila - la chapeau is born! I'm loving working on this one because it is Noro Kureyon and the colourways are exciting (thank you dear Kim for gifting me from your stash). The pattern is sort of this if you care! Cast on round needles until you think it would fit your head - you might have to undo it several times if you're me but hey! Then making sure not to twist - work in the round k2 p2 until you have a band about an inch to two inches wide then start using all your new found ways to increase or even just one that you like. I did the knitting in between initially but I find that fraught so I switched to making a little knot with my right hand and slipping it on the right hand needle. So I randomly added stitches unitl I had over 200 then I looked at Purlbee site to find out how to make it flat and that is what I'm doing now. I'll show you how it looks when I'm done. the decreasing with the pattern I'm looking at goes sort of like this: k3 k2tog for a round then seven rounds of knit but I used only five cuz I got chunkier wool. then k2 k2tog for a round and five, then k2tog all way round and then five and then keep doing that until you're switching to dp needles and then ta da!

I'll let you know...

You Morrisons think you're so smart....grrrrrr....

you Morrisons think you're so smart....

really I thought I'd given this up but then...

I'm trapped in my room because I am so effing fed up with my so-called family.

When I was a teenager my mother used to, on occasion, exclaim "you Morrisons think you're so smart!" and we would all roll our eyes and smirk and go on being whatever we thought we were being - clever I suppose - or smart asses or indifferent for sure to any emotion our mom might have been feeling. And as clever as we were - we actually thought that she was a Morrison and so that comment was inherently, well, stupid. And now, seventeen years after her death, I long to phone her up and tell her I get it. I really get it. Because those damn B**gells think they are soooooooo smart. They are so smart that they will refuse to understand you unless you get the word exactly right. They are so smart that if you say "irony" when you mean "hilariously inappropriate" they will look beautifully blank as if you were speaking some other language - maybe trailer park trash talk or menopausal woman speak.
And so, I sit here in my office unwilling to start another hat (I've knit about eleven hats in the last few weeks) or meditate or work on one of my novels. I'd rather sit and stew and write about that.
Perhaps I'll post a hat photo or two. In this photo is the brilliant Sally - my dearest step-daughter who is 13 - what a gorgeous patootie wha?

This one is called "The Bloomsbury"

and this one is "Wooly Mammoth"