So They Loaded up the Truck, and moved to Tennessee

Hills-That is. Swimmin Pools, Movie Stars....... Yes, I am hearing the theme song to the Beverly Hillbillies in my head. I am imagining us as the Beverly Hillbillies in reverse. It has alot to do with the picture in my mind of our truck once it gets loaded tonight for the trip. We have 6 of these huge wardrobe boxes packed full that will sit in the bed of the truck. They will tower way over the top of the little tiny cab of our Ford Ranger pick-up. Once the boxes are all on Ken is going to use a ton of strapping tape to anchor it all together. Then he is going to throw a tarp over all of that and strap it down. To bad we will be doing all this tonight and leaving well before dawn tomorrow morning or I could get a picture of this amazing feat of crazyness. I have to tell you that I am glad to be driving my own vehicle cause I am just sure that that tarp will flap somewhere and the noise will drive him crazy. The 2 cats in their carriers will be a peice of cake compared to that. Of course I went and got good drugs for them at the vet!!

Speaking of kitties. Got some kind of bad news from the vet this week about Jack, our older, positive for Feline Aids and Leukemia, born with bad eye but the most sweet and loving cat ever, kitty. His bad eye has to go. And it has to go soon or it will start affecting his vision in his good eye. Seems he can't close his eyelid completely anymore and he is getting bad corneal abrasions. And the fact that the globe is enlarging proves increased orbital pressure is present. So as soon as we get to Chattanooga we have to find a vet specialist and get his eye taken care of. Well at least he will look a little less spooky to the rest of the world.

On the Needles-

Mismatched Stripes is done being knit. Now on to seaming and weaving in ends. Many many ends. Millions of ends. Higher than the national debt number of ends to weave in. But I did mention that it was knit, right??

Duck Soup-quick and simple gift for a sweet little girl turning 1, who is allergic to everything. So it is being knit in cheap acrylic. But it is turning out cute and I hope it will suit her well. I already have plans on how to make it easier next time I knit this pattern. I will start the top of the hood just like toe up socks. I will do Turkish cast on and knit around to the starting point once. But instead of going around and around in a circle I will knit back so I have a closed end at one end but not at the other. Hard to explain but ingenious to execute. So much easier than having to graft the stitches together when done.

So for now I will take my leave and next posting should be from Tennessee. With pictures hopefully!! Love me

Random Snippets of Color

While so many suffered the wrath of Hurricane Ike last week, this beautiful sunset was all we had to endure. Both DH and I sat out in the backyard for about half an hour just soaking in the glory. Then I thought of actually taking a picture and went and grabbed the camera. Still not bad for the very last second.This amazing beauty has been in abundance in the zinna bed this last week. They are incredibly hard to photograph cause they are always in motion and don't trust humans with little black boxes hanging from their necks(cameras). And of course my only good pic is one where the zinna was in horrible shape, way past it's prime!!

This bountiful basket of yarns is already in the process of becoming a sweater. It is all fingering weight and hand dyed with natural materials. It is 75% wool/25% nylon, intended for sock knitting. But at 8 stitches per inch it is also perfect for a nice light weight fine gauge garment such as the Mismatched Stripes sweater by Fiona Ellis, shown in the Spring 2004 issue of Interweave knits. Once I started dyeing my own yarn it was easy to come up with the 8 coordinating colors needed for this design. I used cream(barely dyed with an exhausted walnut dye), pale pink(cochineal exhaust), medium pink(cochineal), red(very strong cochineal), maroon(cochineal overdyed with walnut), brown(walnut), tan(walnut exhaust with a very slight contamination with cochineal), and spruce(black hollyhock). In just a week I have managed to crank out the back for this sweater. I did have to make some design adjustments but I think I will save those explanations for when I have the actual sweater to show you.

Our move is still progressing a bit slow. The buyer has had a few minor hang-ups with his buyers but he let us know today that all is still well. So it may still be at least 3 weeks before we can hit the road. But we are feeling like we see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday we went out for a final hiking trip in the Wichita Mountains Wild Life Refuge. And with that I am going to close out this post so I can make another post dedicated totally to the amazing pics we were able to get on what had to be a perfect fall weather day. Stay tuned cause that post should follow in pretty quick order-Ciao