Posh Bunnish Guys

To celebrate Ostara today I had a "rabbit rampage" in the backyard.  Percy enjoyed hopping, digging, chinning everything he could reach, more digging, some grass eating and even some mid-air pirouetting.  He also got a nail trim but he was less enthusiastic about that.    Cecil just joined the family - someone from trivia found him in their backyard and I picked him up today.  He's quite sweet.  He did some observing, some lap warming and some yard exploring.  There were no rabbit fights but there was some carefully supervised sniffing.

I'm still learning the collage feature but I though this was a good first effort.

Ow

I think rabbits are soft on the topside to distract one from the pointy bits on the underside.

Knitting the Night Away

Thank you for the kind words about little Bindi-bunny. I tried to do right by him, and he is missed. Here is a picture of him the day he came home. Toothpaste included for scale. He had gro-o-o-o-o-wn since then. Bindi is the Hindu word for the dot some people wear on their third eye (between the eyebrows), and he had a teeny one in exactly the right place (and a white smudge on his nose). Fran helped me finish my first piece of Hungarian tape lace (a kind of bobbin lace). It took about 16 hours from start to finish. We watched a lot of "Law and Order". The design is by Louise Colgan and I used #50 DMC Cordonnet in Ecru. There are 3 more pieces in the series and we will start #2 next week when she returns from the bobbin lace cruise.

Here is an in-progress shot of That Scottish Shawl . It shows the last bit of the center section and the first bit of the right hand side. I added another 4 rows tonight at the knitting store... every little bit counts. The yarn is a beautiful dusty green, which did not photograph very well.Firsa tried to help with the photo shoot by subduing the rampaging knitting needle. Silly girl.I am making progress on the MS4 Stole. I am off to the bead store tomorrow for a refill. The yarn is the same type as the one above. The beads are 6/0 mill hill, and either a shiny gray or actual hematite (the jury is out). They sort of blend in and they sort of stand out. I am about midway through clue one (which we will knit twice). And closer...I also made it to the library today for more audiobooks. I already knew the first rule of lace knitting - don't watch a movie in Chinese with the subtitles on. This weekend I learned the corollary - don't watch a silent movie. I had to watch intently to get the few words and could not depend on chatter to guide me. Geez.

All righty - off to do some more knitting!

Good News, Bad News

Welcome Lime & Violet visitors! Thanks for taking the time to click over. I try to remember to post about knitting in between life rants :)

Speaking of which, the MS4 is coming along swimmingly. I think I am on row 15 of 29 of clue 1 or something. I will also be out of beads by the end of the first clue, so I will have to hit the bricks and find some more. It is a really pretty pattern, I like the yarn and I like the beads. I swore I would take a picture, but life got in the way.

The new "blank" combed top is in and ready for a big dye session this week. There will be merino/tencel, blue faced leicester and yak/silk to choose from.

I had an unexpected trip to the vet today and had to put one of the bunnies to sleep. He had a major injury that needed surgery which I could not afford and which he might not survive. I feel pretty bad. Really bad.

A Relief... And a Worry

Well, I am a free and easy administrative assistant now. No more bursting into tears, stress headaches, or queasy tummy. Well, a little queasy when I think about the rent. But I am smart and talented and will find a better position. Happier, anyway. And I love having the fishies at home again. They will love being fed on the weekends for a change.

The lace conference last weekend was spectacular. I set up the soap booth, sold some soap, took the Milanese lace class by day, tatted in the evenings, and even watched a little "Law & Order" on cable. Yay, cable!

I am working on Louise's second project - the Heart. The moon, by the way, is still finished but unmounted. One of the ladies brought in her finished one and I want to display mine the same way - in between 2 pieces of glass that were framed together. Anyway, in 3 days I managed to work up one side of the heart, turn the corner, and work partway up the other side. I have been working diligently on it since and finished the second braid. Just the third braid /last turn and the filling to go! The next class with Louise is in June - it seems like forever to wait. I have her permission to work on the Torchon lace fan design, so perhaps I will have something to fan myself with during the June workshop. Louise said I may not start the next Milanese project on my own, no matter how much I suck up. So the Fleur-de-Lis is on hold for me until I see her again. I have the thread though (and it was free).

I bought a small book on tatting and on page 16 I found the answers to all my questions - how to read a pattern and how to connect rings and chains. I am almost finished with my first squiggle that actually looks like lace and not a jumble of bits. Formerly I could make chains, and I could make rings, but not put them together. This is the second year I have been next to the tatting teacher in the vending room, and one of my roomies is an excellent tatter. It was like taking two workshops in one weekend.

I finally hit the point in making lace where I can see what is happening, figure out what the threads are doing, and anticipate how to move them to get a desired effect. During the last project I felt like I was just moving the bobbins where I was told to. My lace tensioning is getting better, and my body tension is going down.

In the sprit of "finishitis" I have a bunch of projects that need my attention. I need to blindstitch and quilt the quilt so I can use it now that it is cold and drizzly here again. I also need to sit myself down and seam that sweater I finished in December. I need to finish tinking back the green Icarus shawl so I can fix the mistake, finish it, and turn it into the shop for display. These are all things I can manage. I also want to get back into weaving (remember how much I loved it?) and get some dishtowels up for sale at the yoga studio. 9 yards of warp did not seem that much at the time. Now it seems like an eternity. I found the battery charger to the camera and will take a bunch of pictures tonight of projects that have been pending. Scout's honor. For real this time. I promise.

I am headed to a rabbit show with Denise this weekend. This time I know that I need to bring a furry friend of my own so that I do not come home with any new ones. I don't know yet if it will be Mr. Whiskers or Seamus MacCavy, but it will be nice to have a lap warmer for the afternoon.

One more thing checked off my to-do list - I managed to pay my library fine and checked out the new Harry Potter book and some audio book. I feel like an honest citizen. Except for the dog license issue, which we will not bring up.

I Love a Rainy Day

Wow, I actually spent a weekend out of the house, and made all my obligations for the weekend. And best of all, I had a great time. Friday night and Sunday afternoon Mandy and I made soap like mad in preparation for the Dickens Festival this weekend (see sidebar for link). We will have two new scents to show off - MangoApricot and Amber. Yum. We also have a sewing project - making a new cover for our tent. We found a cute fabric at the store and started pinning and stitching last night. It is so cool (to me) that I have a machine, that works, that I know how to use. I didn't know how to sew at all before last autumn. It makes me motivated to go back to quilting class on Mondays.

Saturday it was up at 4 am to go to Denise's house and pile in the car with the rabbits for a trip to El Centro for a rabbit show. It was really neat. So many rabbits! And guinea pigs (cavies)! And snacks! I even got some knitting done. I am eager to get Olive (the angora rabbit) all groomed and gentled and see if there is a showable bunny under all that wool. Even Mr. Whiskers might be a contender - just have to get him and ear tag. I didn't bring home any rabbits, but I had a little accident and came home with a new guinea pig. At least he was free. He has a fault, so can't be shown, but is a sweetie and might breed show pigs (his sire was showing that day). Denise and I threw around names and decided on Seamus MacCavy. I learned that if I go to another rabbit show without a show animal, I had better bring a pet to hold so I don't bring home anything else!

Sunday I also worked on lace with Fran. She unworked all the wrong stuff in the turn and the cloth stitch back to the arches, and I reworked it all, and went further last night. In fact, I managed to make it all the way to the start/finish. And in only 3 hours (not including chatter and pie breaks)! On Tuesday I will sew it together and work the filling (with beads) and then it will be done, done, done. I am rather pleased. Again, it is amazing how fast lace goes when I sit down and do it.

I managed to work through the 3 movies I had at home this weekend. They were all bad. "Northfork" was dreary and disappointing. The movie was fine (a little wierd) but the blurb portrayed it as more of a comedy and it was not. The story is about removing the last residents from a town that is going to be flooded because a new dam was built. The second movie was "The Machinist", about an insomniac. I had heard it was good, but I found it to be slow and dreary and dark, and when it looked like one person was going to get run through a machine because they didn't do lockout/tagout, I turned it off, took it out, and put it back in the envelope. Not the movie for me. Number 3 was "Dust" with Joseph Fiennes and David (swoon) Wenham. It was the best of the bunch, but still not stellar. A woman tells her life story to a burglar and the story (of wild west men joining the turkish rebels or something) is told in flashback. There was a lot of shooting and thumb-breaking. It might be time to recover with some romantic comedies.