Squeee Alert!

Today was the hand-off of the Pratchghan 2008!

As you may remember, when author Terry Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimers, a number of his fans in the Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild decided to send him an afghan filled with fibery love from knitters, and possibly a few hookers as well. I was lucky enough to contribute two squares to the project, (here and here) the horseshoe even glows in the dark like Binky's hoofprints.

Our project leader, and tireless worker who sewed all the squares together (though I would never call her a seamstress!), was able to contact Pterry's PA who arranged for her to deliver it in person. What a delight for her and for all the fans who contributed squares, as well as other fans in the Guild.

In addition to the Pratchghan, Cherryred also passed along letters from all of the contributors. While I realize Pterry could buy any number of afghans for himself if he so desired, it was so much fun coming up with themed squares, encouraging everyone to try something new and to see the finished product. The only sadness any of us feel (aside from sadness about the disease itself) is that we don't have our own Pratchghan to commemorate the project. (Photos by and with permission of Cherryred.)

Little Dragons

I've gotten some cute little dragon eggs, and hopefully they'll grow to be dragons. Please click the eggs and help them out!

In knitting news, I did a heavy bit of cleaning yesterday and I think my glove had a leak. As a result, my fingers were crazy rough and I wasn't able to knit again after cleaning. I was afraid I'd snag my yarn. So, I got one round done on the shawl yesterday.

This morning I remembered I had a pumice stone somewhere, and used that to smooth out the rough bits on my fingers. So, now I can knit again, if I can just find the time and the mood today.

The morning got off to a crummy start, so I'm not sure what I'll do as far as knitting is concerned. Let me distract you with pictures of my homespun all washed and set!

Ruby Merino - 16 oz.











My first fiber, Romney - 16 oz









Northern Lights Merino

Busy last week!

We had a busy week last week! This is a good thing. On Tuesday, we were invited to visit our neighbor's camping lot near the Skagit River. It was a little over an hour's drive North. I drove since the girl's are still required to use car seats, or boosters, and the neighbor's car wouldn't hold the seats plus three adults. There was virtually no radio, no movie in the van and the girl's were not interested in conversation. I daresay it was the sort of road trip I took when I was a kid (only shorter, we never went anywhere that only took an hour!)

The neighbors are in their 70s, so I was trying to keep the noise level in the van low enough so that they could talk. As it was Bob couldn't hear what Barb was saying most of the time, and she got really irritated with him for "ignoring" her. She's has a couple of strokes recently, and her memory isn't great, so no matter how many times I explained that the car was noisy and he just couldn't hear her, she was convinced it was deliberate. On the up side, she probably forgot she was annoyed by the time we got home. LOL

Once at the lot, we had a lovely picnic lunch, and then the girls and I hit the pool for about an hour and a half. 'Swimming' consisted of them jumping all over me and demanding that I ferry them around in the water, play Marco Polo, freeze tag, etc. All of the other games involved them jumping on me as well. As a result, I felt like I'd been lifting weights for an hour and a half by the time we got out. I was done in, honestly, but Bob insisted on taking us to the Meadow and showing us the great spot for baseball, etc.

It was a beautiful place, and there was a part of the river running through there. The river sort of broke around a little island, and then rejoined a little ways down from where we were. It was really lovely, especially near the river bank. The girls just wanted to get back in the water.

There's a lot of salmon fishing on the Skagit, at least one of the local bottled water businesses gets their water in this area, and there's a great microbrewery in the area as well. It is the same valley where we attended some Highland Games a few weeks ago, and they also have a Tulip Festival every year. This is also a prime area for (bald) eagle watching trips, which are usually river boating trips. I did see an eagle while we were walking, but it was directly into the sun, so no pictures.

Bob still wasn't done with us. He then made us hike about 2 miles (round trip) down to the river so the girls could see the swimming beach. (top picture) Mind you, this water is COLD, but crazy, desperate people do swim in it in the summer. The girls were exhausted until they got to the water. They perked up enough then to want to swim. Again. (We didn't) It was a lovely, if exhausting, trip and we all slept very well after all of that exercise.

Two days later, the girls and I caught a ferry over to Jetty Island in our hometown. The ferry ride takes all of three minutes, maybe less, but then we were let off at this cute little, well, jetty island. We went to hear a talk about sharks and the walked out to the beach. I was surprised at how many insane people swim in the sound up here. That thing is freezing year round! (in the 50s F)

When we set out on this trip, the wind was very strong and it was pretty cold outside, so I didn't plan for them to swim. By the time the shark talk was over, the wind had calmed significantly, and it had warmed up. We'll probably make another trip out before school starts so the girls can try swimming if they want. The only problem is that I will have to be prepared to get in too, and I really don't want to. It just doesn't get warm enough up here to lure me into that water.

Knitting? Not so much. I did knit a round or two on my socks! But mostly I was psyching myself up to do the Ravelympics. I'm in the WIPWrestling event with my Pi shawl as the project. So far, so good. More on that later.