Yummy!

The Recipe For Lara

3 parts Originality 2 parts Desire 1 part Glamour Splash of Tolerance Chug!

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

I thought this was cute. I love that my recipe gets to be chugged.

Knitting and spinning continue apace. I've decided to stitch a mystery sampler from Papillon Creations. It looks like a nice, small, fun piece to do.

The hubby is doing well at his new job. It offers many great benefits (besides the higher paycheck.) It has been nice having him home in the evenings. I was feeling sorry for myself yesterday, and when the major activity of the day was done, I just wanted to curl up on the couch and watch Ugly Betty (and maybe some Celebrity Rehab. Shhhh.) He took it upon himself to make a list and go to the grocery store all on his own. And the stuff he bought actually makes sense. He didn't come home with 18 bags of chips and a candy bar. He actually bought milk and bread and lunch meat and cereal for the kids. Shocking! Then, he made the kids help put it away.

Then, he accidentally turned on the wrong burner on the stove and exploded my new casserole dish, which was holding the cooling brownies my oldest daughter cooked while he was gone. I can still smell the lingering odor of brownies afire.

But he put it out and cleaned it up and apologized. Nobody's perfect. Certainly not me.

Spinning Wheel!

Over the weekend, I finally found time to put together my spinning wheel. I love it! All the kids have taken turns treadling.

It's a Fricke S-160-DT.











And a box of fiber, waiting to be spun!





I haven't yet gotten fiber and wheel together, but I have read my book and just need to find a little time to focus and try it out. I'm so excited!

(Sorry for the blurry pictures!)

Four finished or frogged.

Over the weekend I finished or frogged four projects. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! By the time the Christmas knitting was done, I was feeling used up and a little overwhelmed by projects. I had a wicked case of startitis brewing, too. All of my projects seemed to require too much of me. I started knitting the Celtic Tote from the Winter 2007 Issue of Interweave Knits. I started a star shaped baby blanket. I wanted to start a sweater for me and a sweater for the husband, and almost anything where I could get yarn and needles to connect. Startitis! Too many projects!

But look! Finished Celtic Tote.





Finished star baby blanket! (I keep typing that start baby blanket, like an instruction. :p)





And finished Ninja Turtles! (Okay, they need eyes, but I need to buy matching black buttons, apparently. He's playing with them eyeless.)



They go with Michelangelo from Christmas.



I also frogged (rip it, rip it) the Mystery Stole III. I decided I didn't like it enough, with wing, without wing, symmetrical or not, to finish it. My trusty ballwinder aided greatly in the unraveling process. Beads went flying, cats went chasing, laceweight went winding. One more project taken care of.

Do you feel overwhelmed with projects? Do you have four you could finish or frog? Let me know about it. (Any kind of project can be frogged. If you decide it's not worth it, clean it up, cross it off the list and move on.)

Tomorrow, my spinning wheel!

Happy St. Distaff's Day

Distaff Day
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Distaff Day, also called Rock Day, is 7 January, the day after the feast of the epiphany. It is also known as Saint Distaff's Day, since it was not really a holiday at all. In many European cultural traditions, women resumed their household work after the twelve days of Christmas. The distaff, or rock, used in spinning was the medieval symbol of women's work. Often the men and women would play pranks on each other during this day, as was written by Robert Herrick in his poem "Saint Distaffs day, or the Morrow After Twelfth Day" which appears in his Hesperides.
Some modern craft groups have taken up the celebration of Distaff day as part of their new year celebrations.

Saint Distaffs Day, or the Morrow after Twelfth Day
by Robert Herrick

Partly worke and partly play
Ye must on S. Distaffs day:
From the Plough soone free your teame;
Then come home and fother them.
If the Maides a spinning goe,
Burne the flax, and fire the tow:
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maiden-haire.
Bring in pailes of water then,
Let the Maides bewash the men.
Give S. Distaffe all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good-night;
And next morrow, every one
To his owne vocation.


Yes, I have become a spinner. And what better day to talk about it than Distaff Day? The historical first day back to work after the twelve days of Christmas are up and people typically wanted to goof off half the day? Sounds normal to me. The picture up above is my spindle and my first two little hanks of yarn. They weigh the same, but the blue one has almost four times the yardage. I certainly managed to spin it thinner than the first, huh?

My spinning wheel should arrive tomorrow. It's sitting in the UPS warehouse in town waiting to go on the truck. I wish I could just wave my spindle and shout, "Accio Wheel!" Alas, I will have to wait.



Here's a picture of my sewing machine. Isn't it cute? My daughter, M, has been wanting to sew things. As a reward for finishing all her schoolwork for the day, she gets to sew. Unfortunately, with all this having the house on the market stuff, my sewing machine has sat unused for much longer than it ever has before. It needs oil, and I'm out. A trip to the fabric store is in order sometime this week.