Great Mail Day and Stuff

First, some Stuff. I have to put up another pic of the weirdo cat, D.O.G. Note his leg is wrapped in computer peripherals. He doesn't care.

Another non-mail item.

Diantha carded up a batt of hand dyed, soft as a feather Corriedale that we processed from raw fleece, a tiny bit of nylon, and brown mill-end wool, and spun it together.

She called the resulting yarn of 110 grams/146 yards, Bella Swan, and we are going to list it in the morning in her Etsy shop.

I have made pretty good progress on the Mossy Jacket I am knitting for DD#1's friend's baby Kyrie. Here you see, I have the jacket body done, the bottom seed-stitch border and the button placket done, and I am casting on the neck/left side border.

Today is day 6 of the project, with not a lot of time spent on it (mostly riding places in the car). WHY in the world I stuck to pattern in knitting seed st in the border I will never know. It looks good, but I hate seed stitch. Story about why, sometime else.

Bleh.

Kyrie has a brother a year older, about the age of my baby Beverly. He never really got a "baby" gift from me either. So I want to knit him some slippers and a beanie, but nothing too warm because they live in FL. So I hand-dyed about 1/3 of another skein of this green Cottontots, to a warm woodsy brown. I am going to use the green for the cuffs of slippers and the brown for stripes in a beanie.

Quite manly really.

Tonight we made mini-hamburgers, because I got a good deal on a whole bag of little whole-wheat rolls. We had fresh-sliced tomatoes from the garden (and other veggies) with them. I also made an antipasto with garden tomatoes, sweet red pepper, and basil (also black olives, onion, aged grated cheese, garlic, and olive oil). It was delicious!


Now for the Good Mail Day. I just LOVE to get interesting things in the mail!

Beverly came down with a fever last night. She was quite wakeful all night, which didn't help my killer headache at all. Today she alternately slept and wanted to be held. She got 2 new books in the mail, which she LOVED and then fell asleep.

I got a simply GORGEOUS hand-dyed sock yarn from SimplyTwisted on Etsy. If you have never seen her shop, and you knit or crochet, you should go there and buy something!

Now, I wonder what obligatory Christmas-knitting project I can neglect so that I can make my selfish-self a pair of socks out of this? LOL

Last mail call, something also for me, just lil' ol' me. I got a holster for my gun! I really wanted an inner-waistband (IWB), left-hand draw (LH) but they were out of them. This one was actually $5 cheaper anyway, and it is good, high-quality heavy leather. The weapon pictured in it is our Lorcin .380, since I am temporarily without my Sccy CPX-1 (no, I actually don't sleep with it).

Pistol-packin' Mama, Lay That Pistol Down. (For those of you too young, this was a song that was popular about the time my own mom was little, ROFLOL) Or, put it on the back of your pants. Anyway, on a scale of 1 being disgusted to 10 being orgasmic, I am at about 8 (very, very pleased) with it.

Last pic. We were walking our local big-box store this morning when we came across this Falling-prices fail. Out of curiosity, I bought a yellow onion to see what it would ring at (plus I needed an onion, LOL) and sure enough, it was the higher price. We thank them for being so dang helpful!

We Came, We Saw, We Tackled

Today being Tackle-it Tuesday, I had plans. Big plans. But my oldest son, being the thoughtful kinda guy he is, decided the night before that he was WAY too tired to do the dishes. This is what I woke up to this morning.

Yes folks, that is ONE day's worth of dishes in the Ross household. Not even a day's worth, since the dishwasher from 1974 is 2/3 full. I might add that I also have deep-bowl sinks.

So the first thing I got to tackle this morning, was the kitchen. Forty-five minutes later, I had done all the big dishes by hand and put them away, all but the one cast-iron skillet. Filled the rest of the dishwasher and run it. Cleaned both sinks and the countertop. Filled a sink with soapy water to soak small bits that could wait for the next dishwasher load. Cleaned the burner supports and stove top. It looked like this.

(By the way, yes, my cabinet doors are missing, because I am whitewashing the oak. Ditto the lower cabinets, where I tested only one drawerfront. And the ugly B/W tile countertops are little by little being replaced by stylish travertine tile. Stay tuned.)

Beverly and I made homemade Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins (recipe at end of post). While I was putting the muffins in the oven, she picked up the stirring spatula, licked it, and said, "Mmmm! Dish-us!" Cute.

The next Tackle-it that greeted me was the sight of the rest of the unfolded laundry from yesterday. I might say, most of the laundry from yesterday, since I got a late start on my Monday Laundry Madness. After this pic I actually added 2 more loads to fold, which were out by the dryer.

At some point, I had to stop folding and run after car and motorcycle parts that were ordered last week and finally came in. We also went to a big-box warehouse for olive oil for Richard's soaps and ate a pizza while there. When we got home, Artemas spread a slice of Meat Lover's pizza with marshmallow and Raisinettes, for a snack. Disgusting! What a teenage boy won't eat is a short list, I'll tell ya.

So after dinner and a nice ride in the car, I finished folding the clothes. Once again, relief. Here is Beverly, "helping." Some lot of help too. I do have a load of stored baby clothes to wash for the big yard sale Des and I are going to have the Fri. and Sat. after July 4th weekend. But other than that, no more laundry for the week. Yee-haw!

I have a pic to show. I did a couple new yarns in the last couple days, for my My7kids Recycled Yarns. One of them sold in less than 24 hours, and I have recreated it and relisted it. Here is a B's Eye View of the other one, being reskeined to mix the colors.


One last Tackle-it! I am in a Mini Quilt Swap that is due in a couple weeks. The lady I am assigned to likes wild animal prints and Africana, also traditional quilt patterns and Kaleidoscope. The Kaleidoscope block is rather challenging because of the many pieces that meet in the center. I have cut the pattern down to a 4" finished block. On the left here are my fabric selections this morning.

On the right, are the fabrics tonight, cut into 300 little bitty pieces, which will make a 20" square "field" for the quilt top. The wavy-lined piece will be a little border around the quilt. I haven't decided yet what piece the backing will be, though I have two in the running.

Alright, muffins! These are SO good! And blueberries are in season in most of the USA right now, so take advantage of them!

Recipe makes 12 decent sized standard muffins, or 6-8 Jumbo muffins, or about 18 mini muffins. They freeze well, too, so if you are single or your family is small, make a batch anyway. Freeze them, get one out in the morning for a morning-commute breakfast that will make your fellow mass-transit travelers absolutely jealous! MUCH better than any overpriced thing out of the case at Starbucks... and a great way to economize, too!

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease muffin pans or use paper cups. Make sure rack is in the top 1/3 of the oven.

Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins

1 Cup Sour Cream (we use Lowfat) (Yogurt would do too)
2 large chicken eggs or 1 duck egg
1/3 cup (5.6 T) butter
1 cup sugar
~~~~
2 Cups unbleached flour, divided (1 Cup + 1 Cup)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
~~~~
1 Pint fresh or frozen blueberries or 1/2 cup dried blueberries

Mix all the sloppy moist ingredients and sugar in a large bowl until they are homogenous and pale yellow. Add 1 Cup of the flour, the baking powder and soda, and salt and stir in. Toss the other 1 Cup of flour with the blueberries, add to the batter, and gently stir until barely mixed in. Spoon into prepared muffin cups (2/3 full) and bake 16 minutes for Jumbo, 12 minutes for standard, or 10 minutes for mini muffins. So easy and tasty! Enjoy!

Soap and Second Sock Syndrome

Beverly likes poptart-type toaster pastries. See? Mostly she wants me to break off all the crust with no jelly in it. Then she likes to eat half the body of the pastry and then get little blobs of indeterminate flavors of jelly on the floor. On her hands. On the soles of her feet, and on the side of the refrigerator. Oh and on her face. See?



I FINALLY got a new listing up. "Misty," one of the Floozy Girls. Misty's parents named her for the morning mist rolling in off the ocean at Cape May, where Misty liked to play under the boardwalk when she was little (and a little bigger too!). She is aptly named, because that is about what she has inside her head. She makes up for it by the size of her bust, which she stuffs into fluffy, pastel color sweaters that are 2 sizes too small.

Yesterday we made Lavender Baby soap. Mmmm! This morning I cut it into bars, and took a picture, because it was pretty. Smells pretty, too. Baby fragrance with just a little Lavender EO. This is my daughter's favorite to use on her kids. Available in Richard's Rossoaps shop in a week or two, when it's cured. I love it when we make soap, because my house is a good-smell-o-rama.

Ok just a little more stuff about soap. Richard decided we should do a plain Lard and Lye soap, just for the tourists and ignorant people. Not that it is ignorant to make soap out of lard. On the contrary, lard actually makes a very hard, white bar of soap with a creamy lather that is soft to the skin, and, unlike beef tallow (which is in ALL commercial soaps... the label will say, "sodium tallowate"), does not contribute to eczema or acne. What I mean is for the tourists who come here to Eastern TN and expect all of us to be barefooted, wearing our hair in a bun with a long dress and apron (or bib overalls), and chickens running around in the yard. Hey, just because I have chickens doesn't mean...

But I digress. We will go to craft shows and people will pick up our wonderful, beautiful soaps, and the conversation will go like this:

THEM: "Don'tcha have any of that there LAAA soap?"
US: "All soaps have lye in them. It is what turns the oils into soap, and isn't active in the final product. All our soaps are just soap, with no remaining lye in them."
THEM: "No, I mean, you know, LAAAA soap, like Mee-maw usta make, with lard 'n' such."
US: "No, all our soaps are made with vegetable oils and goat's milk, which has amino acids like human skin, and so they are very good for your skin."
THEM: "Waaaaall, I don't know about all that stuff. I jest remember ma Mee-maw makin' Laaa soap, and I shore would like to get hold of some of THAT stuff."

So we made lard and lye soap. We were going to call it Granny's whatever whatever, but the grandkid that can talk calls Richard "Grumpy," so we called it Grumpy's Back Porch Lard 'n' Lye Soap. Actually he mixes the lye on the FRONT porch, where this picture was taken. But who wants to split hairs? This is the label I came up with. My daughter says he looks demented, which should suit the local crowd just fine.

On my last note of the night: I am knitting a sock again. Last Spring I knitted a pair of socks for Diantha, which she loves. Then I started on a sock for Veronica, and knitted it in June and July. I might note that I would knit on my daily walk but no other time because I just don't have much sitting-around time. Anyway I finished the first and started the second, and had to lay it aside to do Christmas presents in order to get them done in time. Which I didn't, for all of them. ~~ sigh ~~ Anyway, in all my delay in getting back to knitting the ssssssssSSSecond sock (do I actually have Second Sock Syndrome? I think I do! Horrors!), some little person around here took my needles out. Size ONE needles. In Tofutsies yarn, which is the splittiest little yarn you ever don't want to knit on. So I have understandably put off messing with it.

The other day Veronica, my good-naturedest child in the WORLD, walked thru the kitchen and somehow her completed sock was laying on the corner of the island. She picked it up and looked at it, then wistfully said, "Mommy, I LOVE my sock. And I will love the other one when you are finished, even if you don't finish it in time for my birthday."

Her birthday is May 5th. I am knitting quickly.

It's Been a WEEK?!?

Where did the time go? What do I have to show for it?

Well, I don't have a new motorcycle. We looked into getting a 900 v-twin last weekend but someone just beat us to it. His buddy might have a 650 Honda, will get back to us. Hmmm.

Beverly has done some more Photography. Again, from a 2 yr. old's eye view, here is An Evening In With Mom. Also titled, B's Eye View 2. Wow, dust on the laptop. Who would think?

I have 5 loads of laundry in my living room to fold. We are in the throes of the Weird and Ugly Fabric Challenge #15 deadline-approach. It is actually tonight at midnight. So not much else is getting done right now.

That isn't the only reason things are really piling up. We decided to open a shop at Etsy for fleece, carded fiber batts, and handspun yarns and let 14 yod Diantha run it as part of her high school curriculum. So we have spent the last several days washing raw fleece, dyeing, carding, spinning, etc. Her shop is up and running, with over a dozen shop hearts, item hearts, and one sale already... in 3 days. She applied and was accepted to SHEteam... but we haven't heard back from Etsyknitters. Stop on over and take a look... Fluff4Ewe.etsy.com.

On the left just above here you can see one of the handspun yarns we put up in the shop... Candylicious! This is 100% Montadale lamb that we processed from raw fleece. We dyed it and spun it into a lumpy, bumpy, fun self-striping yarn with just a tiny trace of the lanolin still in it.

On the right is her first sale... a carded batt of hand dyed pink Corriedale, black Alpaca, and green Merino, called What A Melon. Yum!

We've managed to nab a couple Treasury Wests, including this one on the left from Richard's Rossoaps shop, called Leather Up, Guys! and featuring all leather items. Most were made by men on Etsy. I think a lot of people think of Etsy as a ladies' marketplace, but that isn't necessarily so. Once in a while it is nice for the guys to have the spotlight.

Diantha got a T West right off the bat (savvy, or what?) She called hers Fluff n Stuff, in honor of her new shop.

She is, at this writing, in THREE treasuries that our own family did not make: Isn't SHE lovely (with the Candylicious yarn above), and SHE is Diverse and SHE Loves Her Jeans, both featuring her Oceana yarn.

My My7kids shop is an alternate in the SHE Loves Her Jeans treasury, and my HeartFeltFun shop has an item in a T called Song Sung Blue.

I have been in an incredible lot of pain with a kidney stone that seems to not want to pass. Almost 3 weeks now, and it is wearing me down. Well maybe tomorrow will be a better day!

2 Pink Ladies

Des kept Artemas last night so sometime today we had to go get him. But first (I have that syndrome a LOT)I did some yarns for my my7kids yarn shop at Etsy. Here is a peek at a couple of them... on the left we have Size Doesn't Matter, Baby (a mini skein of course, LoL) and on the right we have Date the Smart Girl. There are a couple more, but you will just have to go see!

This morning I caught Beverly with the camera. She took a 2-yr.-old's eye view of... something. When I asked her, I think she said Feet. I don't take pics of my own feet, but it seemed important to her. I can see a real artist emerging here, can't you?

Richard and I also made a new soap... it has chlorophyl for color, finely minced alfalfa, and is fragranced with essential oils of Lavender, Cedarwood, and Spruce. Very herbal and deep! And since it also has a little bit of hemp oil in it, we are calling it Great Grass.

I have been working on a TOP SECRET project... my Weird and Ugly Fabric Challenge Quilt. My online group has this challenge twice a year, and it is really fun! We have to sign up for the challenge and receive the fabric without knowing what the HECK it is going to look like. Then we have about 5 months to make anything we can out of it (one lady even duct-taped hers to cardboard once). You would not believe the artistic quilts that come out of this! We get menial prizes for arbitrary categories. It isn't the prize that matters, it is the stretching of our quilting muscles! Well anyway, it has taken the place of the block-a-days for the time being, since I have 3 other burgeoning quilters to help out with this... and it is due Apr. 1st. I am not allowed to show my quilt until after the voting, but here are 2 sneak peeks. LoL!

This evening at Des' house, we had homemade waffles and sausage for dinner. The two babies (my Betsy at age 2 and Des' Hannah who will be 1 on the 10th of April) happened to be wearing the same color pink, along with pink cheeks from being out in the sun Friday. Beverly was playing under the table, to be close to big sister Des, who was sewing at the table. Not to be outdone, Hannah had to venture under also. So I took pics of the two Pink Ladies.

And if that weren't enough fun for everyone, Des decided that Jeremiah and Hannah should have a bath, and naturally Betsy would NOT be left out of that one. So last of all, here are the Three Redneck Babies in a Tub. Gooooooood night, everybody!

Until Then...

I have other stuff to blog about tonight, but until then, I thought you might enjoy this Shine article on The Top 10 Worst Foods of 2009. I am happy to report I didn't eat a SINGLE one of these. But that's not sayin' much...

Well today I reached 200 sales in my My7kids Yarn Shop at Etsy, less than 9 months after my first sale ever! Woo Hoo! My current series of recycled yarns I am putting up is called Man-swers... things like Put The Seat Up, Walk the Stupid Dog, Mow the Lawn, Be Nice to Her Mom. I could probably do this one for a while.

Meanwhile I also put a new item in my HeartFeltFun Boutique at Etsy. It is a little felted basket or bowl with a rolled rim, built-in handles, and beads. I knitted and felted it out of one of the handspun yarns that were sent to me from Japan to donate to our Youth Center. I hope it sells quickly so that some little girl can have a darling Easter Basket!

Yesterday in our rainy-day travels, I took some pictures out of the car windows. This picture on the left is the Bull Run Steam Power Plant run by TVA just on the North side of Knoxville. It is HUGE... the building alone (at the base of the taller tower) has 12 stories of platforms on the outside, and it is dwarfed by the steam stack and tower. The steam was such a great contrast to the dreary sky I couldn't resist this pic, even through the windshield!

You may notice across the bottom of the stem plant pic, the continuous "cloud" of fluffy white. These are the dreaded (or coveted) Bradford Pear trees that are so ubiquitous here. These trees do not bear edible pears, but in the Spring they bloom entirely white. The fall of the blossoms could, I guess, be referred to as our last "snow." Then they are covered in the most audacious chartreuse new leaves... which develop into glossy deep green, wonderful shade. In Autumn the leaves turn scarlet red to deep plum.

They are all over the place, as evidenced by this picture of a major intersection in Knoxville, at Cedar Bluff Road and I-40 Eastbound. And, there are 5 of them in my yard. Oh so beautiful but I think the flowers stink (smell like vitamin B1) and the pollen has me acting like a mouth-breather for weeks. Hey, beauty has its price.

One more picture of community beautification for those of you not lucky enough to live here. All over the place, on the sides of highways and overpasses and in medians, some soul with foresight planted (or caused to be planted) millions of daffodil bulbs. This hillside isn't in full bloom yet... that will take a couple weeks. But for several weeks in the Spring we are treated to these cheery yellow blooms, just about everywhere we go. Guess you only have to take the time in your commute to actually notice them.

Where Was I?

Night before last, by the time I got pics loaded in and new listings up in my Etsy shops, and my blog written, and Betsy put to sleep not once but twice, it was after 2 AM. Betsy woke again at 3 AM. I put her to sleep and since I was up, checked on some stuff I had a eye on, online. Got back to bed at 4, had an alarm set at 5 to check again, my dh turned it off and woke me, but too late. Back to bed for a few minutes, as I had to be up with him at 6 to put his contacts in for work. Back to bed another few minutes, to be up at 7 for the kids' 4-H meeting.

We took the stuff along to do their demonstrations, and found out that not only is it NEXT month, it's only hands-on for Veronica. The older kids have to do story-board exhibition-style presentations. Bah.

On to my brother in law's house, to have Artemas and Russ work on my brakes. I was supposed to take him my palm-grip sander. Halfway to his house (and 12 miles from my house) I remembered the sander. Had to turn around and come get it. Basically my whole day was like that. And if I had had an IV of Mtn. Dew, I don't think it would have helped. We got back home at 4 oclock and I took a 3 hour nap.

While making dinner, Taco Salad, Beverly decided to come down with the same puking flu that Veronica had 3 days earlier. The difference being that B is not even 2 and doesn't have an extra ounce of weight on her body. But this is the first time she has ever been sick and vomiting so I guess that isn't too bad.

During the evening I started processing some of the handspun yarns a lady sent me from Japan. She said she is at an APO and they frown on people using them to ship for business. She had all these handspuns that she would love to sell and contribute to the Youth Center that I give a percentage of my sales to. So if she sent them to me, would I sell them and give the money on her behalf? I agreed to do so for 100% profit donation. Here is the box as I received it. Fabulous. LoL.

And THIS is what was inside. Well, all but the baby, the bed, the pillows, and the quilts. There were:

20 skeins of handspun art yarn

7 skeins of a 50/50 wool/nylon ribbon yarn

2 large skeins of a bulky black chenille yarn

2 little floral picks with ornaments on top

a hand knitted poncho with handspun, glitz, and stripes of eyelash yarn in bright turquoise, and

some scrolls of antique concept paintings of kimono fabrics.
An incredible treasure trove really. There is a picture of me holding up and hiding behind the poncho, below.

The skeins were wound really small, making it difficult to twist them up to get standard pictures for my esty shop, so I started last night reskeining them. Then while I was at it, I took pics, soaked them all just to be sure the twist was set, and went to bed last night with multicolored damp sheep hanging here and there all over my house. Well I say "went to bed"...

But Beverly is still being sick. What a good natured baby, of course she doesn't understand what is wrong with her, but she figured out to use the bowl if she had to be sick and would actually sit up in her sleep and reach for it. But, it was another sleepless night.

Today I have gotten a few more skeins prepared for sale, but it is slow going since she wants to be held the whole time. The bigger kids help but of course none of
them are mommy either. And Artemas found out the hard way, don't let a sick baby eat grapes. LOL.

So! I haven't gotten any more quilt blocks done, but I do have a couple more pics to share. Do you remember the yarn I had a lady special order from me, that ended up taking like 3 days of my life to make? 100% silk in hand-dyed red over tan. Well she sent me a pic of this most excellent and luxurious scarf that she made from it. It is so gorgeous, it almost made all that trouble worth it. I hope she can enjoy wearing it for many long years to come.

And, one more pic... long ages ago, last summer, I sold a skein of yarn that I had hand-dyed and called Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein. I was looking at feedbacks today and noticed that the lady who bought it, had posted an appreciation picture of the hat she knitted out of it. Here is it, a work of art in itself. Very nice indeed!

Since I have hardly known where I am for 2 days, tonight, I am hoping for sleep...

A Colorful Yarn, or 4, and Treasures!

Tonight I got my first ever Treasury West from Etsy. Go see the gorgeous items I picked!

Thinking about today, seems like it was uneventful. But really, we walked 3 miles (Artemas and I), mailed out Secret Pal packages, and got a lot of school done, being as it was just me and the boys and Betsy.

While they were doing school today, I did yarn. I put one new yarn up last night, but today I re-took the pic, re-skeined the yarn for another pic, and re-named it to go with the Lord of the Rings series my daughter thinks I need to do. I actually think those movies are stupid and make fun of the characters' names to the point where she almost wants to throw up on the floor like the guy in Mooby's in Clerks II. LoL. The yarns shown here are Arwen Undomiel on the left, and The Eye of Sauron (on the right). The Eye of Sauron is sock weight, Arwen is lace to light sock weight... both with some or a lot of wool in them. I don't have the Eye one listed in my7kids at Etsy but I will in the morning!

Here are 2 more yarns I got done! On the left is The Shire... very green and earthy in a bulky weight 55% wool blend. On the right is Aragorn. He is bold and strong, so he is done in Man colors of royal blue, silvery gray and charcoal. This one is a sock weight in 70% wool. I will be listing this one in the morning too!

I was a bad girl today and didn't get a block done. My choice really... I want to do the block they showed today, on another day when there is not a block to do. And yesterday I cut out 2 blocks that I need to do to finish my Morelli quilt top, but didn't get them pieced. But I read with Josiah during that time, so.

Beverly wore her new red dress over her clothes most of the day. It was really cold in the house. When she put it on, she got on the coffee table (an old trunk), stuck her arms out and said, "Tada!" Oh also Betsy decided to "do" her hair today. I gave Artemas a trim so I guess she had to do something too... she got into a tube of yellow hair super stick-um that I got Josiah when he had a mohawk, and put it all over the top of her hair. Pretty!

Guess I don't have much else to report. Des and Tony, their babies and the girls will be down in the morning sometime. We are going to go walking and then get some work done here, probably on the porch. Hoping for a slightly warmer day tomorrow!

I do want to make an Thank and Praise offering for the fact that Tony gets to go back on 2nd shift as of Monday. It has been hard on him, trying to balance wanting to be with Des and the kids with needing to sleep during the day. And it has been really hard on Des, to be alone with the babies all night, especially with Hannah still waking during the night... and then to be the only parent during the day and try to keep them quiet so Tony can sleep. She has been having bad headaches and I am sure that is part of it. We have been praying for a change so I am so thankful for the news!