Nate passed his motorcycle class. All he has to do now is take his little certificate into the DOL to get his official endorsement, or license, or whatever it’s called.

He had a really good time, said it was lots of fun and that I’d love it. While he’s heading towards Vespa ownership, I can’t help but check out motorcycles. I love the look of a nice cruiser bike, but I’m not a Harley girl. I think they’re obnoxious. I’ve nothing against Harley people, more power to ya’, but they’re not for me.

So I looked online at good bikes for beginners, and then went to Craigslist (reminding you that I’m NOT in the market, just browsing) and saw these lovelies. (I’ll sneak in one more).

I wanted to include a picture of Nate in his gear when I posted, however I haven’t even seen it. You may be aware that we’re having record heat. 100+ degrees and no air conditioning.

It’s really hot.

And muggy.

He’s not feeling very motivated to don the gear for a photoshoot. I don’t know how he survived the two day class in record heat.

I have seen him try on his riding jacket. It was way weird. Riding gear is not a look I’m used to on my husband. It took a few minutes for me to like it. But I do. He looks good.

I’ve knit a bit with the green yarn.

I don’t know how I feel about it. You CAN’T see the green. You just can’t. Even the one with tons of green in relation to the other colors. I think it’s muddying up my light green base. If I drop it completely though, it doesn’t give me what I wanted out of this colorway.

Super annoying.

It’s probably one where I need to just get over myself and put it out there because someone will like it. I know some of you do.

In other news, I failed my glucose test on Tuesday, which means I get to spend 3 hours tomorrow getting blood drawn.

Can I tell you, or even remotely communicate to you how much I’m dreading it? I have exactly ONE good vein. One. They’re going to have to draw blood four times. From the same little vein. I already have two holes in it from Tuesday, when the lady didn’t read my chart and see that I’m RH negative and was due for another blood compatibility test.

She’s not on my happy list right now. She also said I’d probably bruise since I (and I’m not making this up) splurted a bit when the needle went in and that usually results in a bruise.

Are you serious? Splurted??? Do you think that maybe, just maybe you shouldn’t mention to someone who is quite obviously looking as far away from her arm as possible and taking deliberate, measured breaths that blood splurted out of her arm? For heaven’s sake.

Veronica was watching. She ended up horizontal across two chairs in the lobby, taking small sips of apple juice.

That’s my girl.

Anyway, there’s a 75% chance that this more controlled blood torture-I-mean-test will clear me of gestational diabetes. I’m not holding out much hope, though. I’ve felt like crap, and I can tell it’s related to food.

So that’s that. I already had an ultrasound set for tomorrow because I’m not gaining much weight or eating enough and they want to make sure junior’s growing alright. I think he is. He’s found my ribs and mercy, this kid is strong. And I’m curious… when he does what can only be a full bodied summersault in there, why do I feel like I just went upside down on a rollercoaster?

Just curious.

Warning- This is a long, completely rambling post in which I wax somewhat sentimental. It will also sound like an infomercial for Lodge Manufacturing. But it’s what’s on my mind this afternoon, and what I feel like writing about.

When I was a teenager of dating age, I tended to like the long haired guys that weren’t officially troublemakers, but looked like they were. It drove my mom nuts. We were living in Central Oregon at the time, where we had a little bit of acreage and a small ranch. Horses and pigs mostly, and two dogs under the porch :-).

My mom would frequently “scout out” clean cut country boys for me when she’d be out and about. I have to say that in my experience at least, the country boys had a much harder time keeping their hands to themselves and respecting the word “no” than the long hairs did. Night and day.

As a result of my mom’s efforts, I sort of, kind of dated this guy 16-17 years ago. I think his name was Tim. Tim came from a feed store, rather, he was working at a feed store when my mom spotted him and asked him if he’d take out her daughter. Being a hottie herself, her requests were usually well received.

(I have to say at this point that Liv is reading over my shoulder and is somewhat horrified that my mom “found” my dates. She just said, “please tell me you aren’t going to find MY dates?”).

Fortunately, Tim was a pretty nice guy. Nate (who has ALWAYS had my heart since I met him at 15) was due back from New York in about 6 months when we started hanging out. Nate and I weren’t in a relationship yet, but I had every intention of pursuing him when he returned from his 2 years in New York, so I told Tim up front that I’d be happy to hang out and have fun, but he shouldn’t expect a serious relationship because I had a guy in the wings. He was cool with that and for a few months, we had some good times.

When Nate and I got married a year+ later back in Seattle, we received a package from Tim. He sent us a full line of Lodge cast iron cookware as a wedding gift. A griddle and 4 skillets. I was shocked. And I have to say that almost 16 years later, I love, love, love my cast iron. It’s totally true what they say about cast iron getting better with age. They’re amazing.

A few years ago, I bought two Lodge dutch ovens with feet for camping, the cook table, mitts, and other such stuff for camp cooking which I used over the weekend at our cousins campout. I made a peach cobbler and it was perfect and yummy. I didn’t take a single picture of our campout, unfortunately.

Yesterday, I hauled my skillet out to my sister-in-law’s house for a family potluck and made some fabulous grilled sandwiches*.

This morning, when I got a Lodge Manufacturing email with their current promotion, I clicked on the link to the site and went browsing. There are all sorts of things I could totally use, this among them, which would be completely cool for my grilled sandwiches. Aaaaand, lots of other stuff. I’m going to need to save up for an online shopping spree, it would appear.

Having a very positive Lodge cast iron cooking weekend, and an enjoyable window shopping excursion on their website today got me thinking about my skillets, and Tim, and how I hadn’t even heard of cast iron before he so generously bought it for me, and how glad I am that he did, and I felt like writing about it.

My mom really liked Tim and kept in touch with him. Sadly, he was later in a bad horse accident in an endurance race and ended up in a wheelchair, losing permanent use of his legs. My mom said that in true Tim form, he had the most positive outlook and attitude about it. She had a phenomenal amount of respect for him. Some of those clean cut country boys are really great guys.

*Ciabatta, turkey, tomatoes, spinach, havarti, and Heavenly Horseraddish sauce. (You have to scroll down to get to it, but here’s the label).

I ended up carding and spinning two ounces of the green batts with a much different ratio of silk yesterday, and it doesn’t look all that different from the four ounces I already had… tho’ it spun into a thinner, slightly denser yarn. And as I’m thinking about it, that may be because I plied it tighter. Hmmmm, interesting.

The one on the left is the “crayola spew.” The one on the right has a ton more green and a fraction of the red, yellow and blue that the first one has.

I do think they’ll look different from each other when knit up. They HAVE to!

So, this afternoon we’re packing up and heading out to my sister-in-law’s house for our yearly “cousins campout.” It sounds like it won’t be as well attended as last year, and the three moms that are staying overnight are all 6 1/2-8 1/2 months pregnant and already have multiple children.

I’m guessing there’ll be a lot of waddling (I’m the worst), resting, delegating to the older kids (poor Abby), and not a ton of ambitious events. (I’m going to try to knit some Green Tea leg warmers).

Still, I can’t help myself. I’m bringing the dutch oven (only one this year) and making a cobbler.

It’s looking like there is too much tweed in my green batts. I spun them yesterday and this morning, and the yarn is hanging to dry now. It’s all messy, I guess I got a bit carried away with the fulling/finishing so I’m not motivated to take a picture ’til it’s dry and I straighten it a bit.

I did get the 180 yards I was going for. Hooray!

Anyway, Nate said it looks like a crayola box threw up on it. Lovely image, no? I think that comment right there designates the yarn for leg warmers. I’ll still knit it up and see how the silk is. And I guess I’m going to have to card and spin some more to get the tweed ratio right.

Oy.

Wanna see something pretty?

I’m kind of smitten. Check out the side/back view. Makes me giddy. Nate wants a Vespa, and more power to him. He can get whatever scooter he wants and he’s the one “in the market”, but if I ever end up with one of my own, well, I’ll definitely try this baby out.

On Saturday, Nate took the family out to Snoqualmie Falls. I haven’t been there in many years. It was unbelievably crowded. We hiked down to the bottom (major round ligament pain) and when we were done, Nate hiked back up by himself to get the car to pick us up.

Clark has developed a sensitivity to loud noise. He spent all of the 4th of July with his hands over his ears, and I guess the thunderous falls were too loud as well, though it really wasn’t that loud.

We’ve been enjoying heading out after dinner when the house gets hot and outside is starting to cool off. We typically go to a park for some fresh air and shade.

I carded 4 ounces of my Green Tea batts,

still sampling, unfortunately. I’m testing out a new silk to see how it cards and knits up since my old silk is no longer available. So in the next day or so I should have it spun and I’m trying to decide what to knit it into. Maybe some picot edged leg warmers? Or a hat? Or a scarf? Any suggestions? I’m going to spin it woolen and am hoping to get about 180-200 yards out of it. If need be, I can card and spin more.

I’ve felt a little down this week. Not really sure why. Hormones, or fatigue, or something. Not very sociable.

Today, I sold a spinning wheel. That’s not something I thought I would ever do. But it has become apparent to me that we don’t in fact need 4 spinning wheels in the house because as much as I’d like it to be otherwise, we don’t have 4 spinners living here. There just isn’t the interest. SO, as I’m in the mood to get rid of extra stuff and simplify life somewhat, and as a friend of mine had expressed interest….

One of my Clemes is gone.

It’s bittersweet. It was my first wheel, and now it’s gone on to teach new students how to spin.

I’m expecting a 35+ pound shipment of alpaca, silks, etc today from my new distributor. I wonder if you can jump into a pile of alpaca like you could a pile of leaves. I’ve never jumped in either, but I’m thinking about it. I’m so excited.

Nate took and passed a motorcycle permit test at the Department of Licensing today. He’s always wanted a Vespa, and it’s looking pretty convincing that he would actually save money buying one to commute to work on. I’m both happy for him and completely freaked out because it’s dangerous. Moreover, I’ve wanted to drive a motorcycle since I was 16, so I’d imagine I will also be acquiring a motorcycle license at some point, if we’re going to have a scooter around.

Finally, silk noil is my enemy. It’s a big, long, really big, really long uninteresting story that you don’t want to hear. Suffice it to say that I’m in distress. And I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I’m waiting to hear back from people as to why it seems to be impossible to get what I need to make my batts.

The fleece I’m working with now is the only fleece out of the 8 I’ve washed that I didn’t separate and wash lock by lock. I washed this one handful by handful, still picking through it of course, just to see how much time I would save. The answer is- a lot. It was washed carefully, but after the washing and then dying, it matted more then the other fleece and is taking significantly longer to dry. I spent an hour or so this morning picking through it to open it up and help it dry faster, and I moved it into my bathroom because it’ll be hot in there this afternoon which should also help. I’d rather spend the time on the front end with the washing than on the back end with matted and wet locks. But they’re beautiful.

Yesterday was fun. We went to a city park that is just re-opening from a remodel.

Then we went to the library.

It took awhile to get oriented. I’m still used to the libraries of “card catalogue” days. Library computers intimidate me. Besides, they’re PC not Mac, so they might as well speak Japanese as far as I’m concerned. BUT, we got pointed in the direction of the Junior chapter book section and after staring at a screen for several minutes that said something like “Windows XP, please wait while the program loads” or some such nonsense, I ended up asking a little girl who was absentmindedly pushing random buttons on the only library catalogue computer that appeared to be working to move on over, and we started making some progress.

I had each of the girls fill out their own library card application and as we were standing there, opening accounts and holding up the rapidly growing line of people trying not to glare at us, Clark was whining for a card. I told him he was too young and then the librarian said he could have one. They even registered him.

I walked out of the library with 4 beaming children, each in possession of their own, shiny new library card, and 3 of them carrying a stack of books and a library “summer reading club” form. As for myself, I had the pleasure of hearing the librarian tell me what very well behaved and intelligent children I had.

It was a good afternoon. And as if that weren’t good enough, the next 2+ hours at home were delightfully quiet as Clark was down for a nap and the girls each had their nose in a book.

Yeah, I think this is going to be a weekly thing.

updated-

I was asked in the comments how I wash wool. Here it is…

I use large lingerie bags and pick through the raw fleece, aligning the locks in rows top to bottom so they’re all laying the same direction in the bag. The locks stay in little clumps when they’re cut off the sheep. I don’t separate them out of those clumps too much, if they’re still organized and orderly, but I’ll pick through and separate them a bit to look for grit and pick along the cut ends looking for second cuts. I don’t like surprise grit in my clean wool, I’d rather get it out before washing so the fleece is all the nicer when it’s done. Because they’re still in their little clumps, I’d say I average about two to three locks deep in my rows, as in they’re stacked on top of each other a little bit. Kind of like a handful of organized locks are put in the bag at a time, right next to the last handful. The wool is probably four inches tall in the bag, but the bag is not remotely stuffed.

I then put them (3 lingerie bags at a time, stacked on top of one another) in super hot water and lots of Dawn dish soap in my sink. Let it sit for 20 minutes. Move them to the other side of the sink and do the same. Then again once more. They get two or three washes at 20 minutes each with my hottest tap water, 120f?. Then they get 3, 10 minute rinses in the same manner, just moving back and forth between sides of the sink.

Then I drain the water, squeeze the water out of the bags gently, open the bags and lay the wool on a towel. The wool tends to stay in rows. I lay another towel on top, roll it up and sit on it. Then I take it out of the towels and lay it on a drying rack. I have something like this in my laundry room in the basement. Without the plastic cover, it works good.

There’s nothing cooler than a sheep’s worth of clean, curly, dry locks of wool when you’re done. I can’t stop playing with them.

Yesterday was a busy day. I carded the rest of the watermelon batts, the wool I had dyed for sample black/gold batts, and dyed 3 1/2 pounds of wool and alpaca for a new colorway. I don’t know if anyone else is going to like it, I’d say it’s a bit unconventional…

A friend of ours’ husband travels the world for work. He brought a tea set back from Japan which his family had on display in their living room and which I had admired frequently. It was broken, so when Pat went back to Japan, he bought a replacement for them and a set for me. They offered me the broken one in case I wanted it for display, and I took it for the color inspiration. I think it’s a very happy colorway. Tell me what you think.

In order to really know, I’m going to have to spin a whole batt and knit it up. My fibers are still wet, so this was just a bit carded into a rolag on my handcards but if nothing else, I certainly succeeded in duplicating the color. I’m quite pleased and think it’d look really nice woolen spun and knit into that cropped sweater in Debbie Bliss’ most recent magazine, pg 38.

The black and gold batts from yesterday’s adventures are nice, too.

In the photo you can’t really see the underlying gold very well, but it’s pretty. I’ll spin them up soon. I think the luster in the wool will give it a metallic look which’ll be neat. If I do more of this color I’ll play with the wool/alpaca ratios to bring out more of the gold.

Veronica got her ears pierced on Monday night.

She was very brave.

So, here we go. Tim backed up, tested and updated my site because he rocks. It may look the same to you, but it’s totally weird on the back end. The posting part anyway. But we’ll see if we get pictures. Thank you so much, Tim and Carol! Again. This is how many times now?

Ok, so if you like foreign movies with subtitles, and like romantic movies, have we got one for you. Nate has taken to renting Bollywood movies. I’m really not much of a movie watcher, and becoming less so as I get older because there are, in my opinion, SO many more interesting and productive things to do with 2 hours. Or in the case of Bollywood movies, 3-4 hours. So I don’t watch all of the movies he brings home, but the girls eat it up.

Anyway, we just watched Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. It’s incredible. The sweetest, most touching movie I’ve seen in a long time. You laugh, you cry (how cliche is that?). Still. I highly recommend it if your tastes bend that way at all. It does have some crazy musical numbers, but if you don’t enjoy them, it’s still worth suffering through them to see the film. The main character is one heck of an actor. Again, wow.

I’m listening to the soundtrack right now which I downloaded off of iTunes for $5. It doesn’t make me as sick as other music (remember this freaky pregnancy can’t play, sing, or even listen to music thing?) because not speaking Hindi myself, there isn’t the slightest chance I could sing along to it :-). That seems to be a real issue for me. How sing-along-able it is. I really miss singing actually. I cried on Friday when I tried to play my guitar and gagged as soon as I CONTEMPLATED singing. I hadn’t even gotten to the actually singing part.

Ok, so this is a majorly rambling post, eh?

Getting to the picture part… Here is the skien I spun from my watermelon batts. I have more batts carded, but I haven’t photographed them yet.

That seems to have worked. SO, here’s some catch-up. (It’s going to take me forever to insert all of these, ’cause I have to do it one at a time).

Liv’s dyeing and spinning experience with her 4 ounces of BFL. (Blue Faced Leister). Oh yeah, and there’s Calcifer in the background in his hospital tank. He’s all better and back in my room now.

Then there’s Veronica’s dyeing experience. She hasn’t shown much interest in spinning it.

And then there was the silk lace I spun for Carol.

Whew! I’m done. Enjoy the color, I’m going to go do something else with my day now.