whoopin_hollerin.bmp (101k file)
Got the tickets. My daughter and 4 grandkids will be heading west on May 25th! I’m excited!

I was asked to post a picture the windchimes I make. They are called Rural Rubbish and are totally recycled. Broken glass, old, and even at times antique. The tin is coffee cans for the most part. There is often old silver and maybe pot lids or bed springs. One has an old horse shoe and a tobacco can. What ever comes my way may end up here. I started making these for myself but a local gift shop liked them and now another one wants them, too. These in the picture are some I just finished, they haven’t gotten properly rusty yet. 😛 My goal is to have a windchime on each rafter tail around the house! I have a lot, but a lot more to go! It does get noisy when the wind blows!

Went around the yard collecting close-ups with my digital. Not a pink or red in sight. Oh well, I think the lungwort (I can’t spell it’s ‘real’ name, had a pink bud) so it seems at least here in the wilds of N. Calif. the spring colors are mostly blue with some yellow and white. It changes as the seasons advance and it’s no surprize that we get into reds and orange in summer.

This is what set off this burst of energetic yard work! lol 😛 I’ve also been doing spring cleaning inside. It’s amazing how much dust collects in a place with wood heat! And then, I’m one of those housekeepers that never notices dust until it starts avalanching when I pick up something off a nic-nac shelf! 🙄 Oh well… next thing you know I’ll be washing windows. I did wash the curtains. That’s a small job as I have curtains in the bedroom and one valance in the living room and one in the kitchen. The rest of the windows are bare. I like to see out.
I have been working on some wind chimes for a gift shop when I take a break from yard work. Well, I’m lazy, overweight, and will be 63 years old in a couple weeks, so I need to sit down frequently. I get more done that way, too! 😉
Fiber arts have been kinda left waiting. We did get to Ashland to see friend Aliza when I was up. Got to pet the cutest little twin kids! They are cashmere goats. She also gave us some lovely black fleece from her yearling ram. It spun up sooo soft and lovely! And I left with 2 dozen eggs. Real hard shelled, orange yoked farm eggs! I’d forgotten. Almost makes me want to get chickens again!
I do have a pair of fair isle socks on the needles from some handspun, and one 14″ square woven for my vest. Also the front and back of an Easter-egg dyed vest knitted. It needs ribbing yet. But I havne’t finished the yard yet! :hehe:
And… my daughter and 4 grandchildren are coming out from Georgia this summer when school is out! I’m excited about that!
I will try to keep more up to date here, tho. Also I see that it has been more like a month than the two weeks I say in the other entry. Bad Hazel! lol Well, I hope you all are enjoying spring, too!

Jess mentioned in an email that I hadn’t posted to my blog in a couple weeks. I hadn’t thought it’d been that long! First Randy got the flu, then when he got better I went to my sister’s for a week and when I came home I came down with his (?) bug within a couple days and when I was finally getting better the sun came out and it got warm and the daffies started blooming and there was all that yard work I had not done last fall plus the stuff winter brought down… so I’m getting my excersize! Spent today committing murder on the wisteria I mistakenly planted umpteen years ago on the porch of my studio. I’ve determined not to plant any more vines that are stronger than I am. This one tried to tear the porch off and the when I pruned it off that, it climbed the alder tree just off there. Problem is it cut across the path to do it and, besides, it was a bargain basement plant and has wimpy pale flowers, only in the top fo the alder where I can’t see them anyway so… it’s gone now. At least, it’s just a stump. I’m not sure how easy they are to kill! lol But I’m pretty proud of myself because I’ve not only got it done, I’ve got all the roses pruned AND hauled off the brush! All in the SAME SEASON! Don’t believe that’s ever happened before! :laugh: But the mess in the photo is the vines I pulled down out of the alder. Of course I had both cats and both dogs to help.

Only it isn’t very hot! lol But a nice, rich chocolately brown. there’s some logs and root wads coming down. Mostly stuff left from previous high waters, it looks like. I’ve seen nothing green yet. Coffee Creek is up but not as much as the river. Randy says Swift Creek is really roaring, tho. The rain let up just before dark and is only sprinkling now. The gullies are still roaring, maybe they’ll get a chane to drain a bit beore the next one. Spring is in the air! 😉
By the way, I met several neighbors on the bridge when I went to take this pic. Everybody wanted to see what was happening.

This picture is of Treasure Creek, just before the culvert under the driveway. Don’t know what C.C. looks like this morning but according to USFS and BLM reports both it and the River are pretty high and the lake is filling rapidly! Hope you are all still on an island! It is still coming down hard here. The Temp this morning is 44 degrees. This is one of those they call a Pineapple Express. ‘Sposed to get a break this evening. But more on the way. Looks like the drought here is done. Rosy seems to think they need more rain up there. I’d be willing to share! 😀 We got wind, too. Power was out yesterday for short times, (hour or so the longest) and I’m almost willing to bet we’re gonna lose it again today. We haven’t had a Spring Run-off in awhile and that term is usually reserved for hot spring day when the sun is doing the snow melting. Rain melts have a tendency to cause floods. This looks like the first chance the Corps Of Engineers has gotten to test the dike work they did the last time Coffee Creek decided to move out of it’s bed. Got within about 15’ of the house then. :O

This mirky picture is of Treasure Creek, just before the culvert under the driveway. Looks like it may go over the driveway by afternoon. I took the pic out the bathroom window, the only one with no screen to shoot though. I didn’t want to go out there to get a close up! 😥 Don’t know what C.C. looks like this morning but according to USFS and BLM reports both it and the River are pretty high and the lake is filling rapidly! Hope you are all still on an island! It is still coming down hard here. The Temp this morning is 44 degrees. This is one of those they call a Pineapple Express. ‘Sposed to get a break this evening. But more on the way. Looks like the drought here is done. Rosy seems to think they need more rain up there. I’d be willing to share! 😀 We got wind, too. Power was out yesterday for short times, (hour or so the longest) and I’m almost willing to bet we’re gonna lose it again today. We haven’t had a Spring Run-off in awhile and that term is usually reserved for hot spring day when the sun is doing the snow melting. Rain melts have a tendency to cause floods. This looks like the first chance the Corps Of Engineers has gotten to test the dike work they did the last time Coffee Creek decided to move out of it’s bed. Got within about 15’ of the house then. :O
Randy’s gone off to see about cutting down Treasure Creek a bit. You guys all stay warm, and dry if you can. We may get our toes wet but we’ll be fine and I’ll report if we have power. :confused:
Hazel

I used some Patons Kroy sock yarn that I had in stash from http://www.tornadowood.com/ called “Stained Glass”. It is a tiny bit heavier than the German self patterning yarn “Opal”, but not significantly.
This sock was never finished. I got nearly to the heel and took it off the loom. I cannot add to it now because I dropped it in the parking lot of the dentist office with my little knitting bag and someone took it home with them :(, instead of turning it in to the dentist’s receptionist, as you all would have done. 🙂
But I think there is enough here to show you what the loom can do. It does not come with a sock pattern. Sorry… you’ll have to do that yourself. 😎 I’m sure you’ll be better at it than I am!
I do want to repeat… This is not a loom for those who need instant gratification! This :O is for serious knitters. :satisfied: The pins are set at 1/8th inch so it makes a tight, though light weight fabric with these fine sock or baby yarns.

Here comes the toe of the sock out of the loom. I cast-on using the flat method and laid the pull down string across it. The second row started the e-wrap for the round knitting. I used 10 stitches for the toe, but would increase that to about 16 or 18 the next time, I think. It looked a bit pointed. Then increased one stich each end, both sides until it was the width of the loom… 60 stitches around.