The Week September 25 – October 1

September 25, 2017 ~ madgeface ~ 12 Comments

Last week:

Take fancy final project photos of Inamara, which involves getting Mr. Q & his photog skills. Use his camera this time, not my phone.
I talked to him about it but we never got around to it.
~~Continue working on the new blanket.~~
Finished. I started and restarted (twice) a shawl, and finally found a pattern that I like and started that over twice, going forward with different yarn.
~~Continue spinning the braid of Pigeon Roof Studios fiber.~~
Finished.
Start a new embroidery project.
Nope. I’m still stuck on the last one, but I have some ideas of what to do next.
Hopefully hear back from my friend and decide what to do with The View From Mt. Peg.
Nope. She’s a high school English teacher in Hawaii, so that may explain why she’s not online much.
~~Saturday: meet Becky & her daughter Mia at Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival. From there, go to friend gathering in Martinsburg, WV.~~ Sunday is free, so maybe I can get Ky to go to the Leesburg Fine Arts Festival (day 2) to poke around and maybe make some connections in this local artist world I’m trying to be more active in.
We went, we saw, I bought stuff – spinning fiber and vintage buttons; I’m ready for Spinzilla. And I also had a really good afternoon catching up with Leticia & her littles. I slept on Sunday, pretty much during prime Fine Arts Festival time so we didn’t go.

SVFF Goodies — My favorite bump of fiber from SVFF; BFL, llama, seacell. I absolutely love this color combination!

~~Some sad news: Moose, our 12 year old big black dog, hasn’t been doing well and so we have an appointment on Thursday to ease his pain and help him across the Rainbow Bridge.~~ It went as well as could be expected. The in-home vet was very compassionate, Moosie went out without any pain and with a dog bone in his mouth, very fitting for a guy who could never eat enough. We miss him but are all glad he’s not in pain anymore.

I also carded some fleece from my stash, so I have a batt ready to spin. Now if I could just find where I noted the breed …

This week:

Take fancy final project photos of Inamara, which involves getting Mr. Q & his photog skills.
Carry on with (S)urge, the new shawl.
Spin, whether it’s handpainted or some of the fleece from my stash.
Ruminate further on a new embroidery project or, you know, actually start one.

The Week September 18-24

September 18, 2017 ~ madgeface ~ 10 Comments

Last week:

~~Weave in the ends of Aranami/Imanara (there are lots even though I’ve been weaving in as I go), and wash & block, then sniff & squish.~~
All done!
~~Choose and start a new knitting project. Will it be a blanket to give away or will it be a shawl to keep? I have ideas and yarn for both.~~
Done. I’m knitting a blanket of my own design (nothing fancy, really) for the Welcome Blanket Project (HT to Shirley for making me aware of this project!).

~~Carry on embroidering The View From Mt. Peg. It’s ready for all the background mountains and the sky. It occurred to me that I could use the gray background color for clouds, so there’s that.~~
I think it’s done without the sky, maybe. I queried the always helpful and funny Mildly Offensive Fiber Arts group on FB for advice about pricing because I have an old friend inquiring about it or a similar commission piece. I gathered my thoughts, made my calculations and came up with a reasonable-to-me-for-the-situation price and am just waiting to hear back from the old friend.
Decide on fiber to prep for Spinzilla, if any, and get started while trying not to spin all the braids I’ve got. I have clean, undyed locks I can dye & card or just card, but I also have some alpaca fleeces that need to be washed that would be a joy to spin if I ever actually get around to doing that.
Instead, I started spinning a braid of fiber from Pigeon Roof Studios. I should do a test spin of those locks and wash that alpaca fleece, but this seemed much more fun.

Plan the weekend: Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival is this weekend, so is parents weekend at both my sons’ schools. We’re going to skip it and take Ethan (who’s at JMU in Harrisonburg, VA) hiking on Sunday in the Shenandoah National Park instead. That leaves Saturday for SVFF, except some of my roller derby friends are getting together and I haven’t seen a lot of them for a few years. I have conflicts.
We visited Ethan this past Sunday, which opens up my Sunday. All other plans are settled.
~~Try to sleep Wednesday night after seeing IT at the Alamo with Becky. Avoid clowns.~~
No problemo! It was startling in a few spots, but I realized it’s most like Stand By Me but with a scary clown demon instead of a dead body. Also, there’s a kick-ass girl, but the groups of kids is as close as the group of boys in Stand By Me. Can’t wait for Chapter 2, may need to re-read the book or start reading King again in general.

This week:

Take fancy final project photos of Inamara, which involves getting Mr. Q & his photog skills. Use his camera this time, not my phone.
Continue working on the new blanket.
Continue spinning the braid of Pigeon Roof Studios fiber.
Start a new embroidery project.
Hopefully hear back from my friend and decide what to do with The View From Mt. Peg.
The View From Mt. Peg, probably in its near-final form.
Saturday: meet Becky & her daughter Mia at Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival. From there, go to friend gathering in Martinsburg, WV. Sunday is free, so maybe I can get Ky to go to the Leesburg Fine Arts Festival (day 2) to poke around and maybe make some connections in this local artist world I’m trying to be more active in.
Some sad news: Moose, our 12 year old big black dog, hasn’t been doing well and so we have an appointment on Thursday to ease his pain and help him across the Rainbow Bridge. He will be dearly missed by us all, but it’s time – he’s having problems just getting up from lying down, along with having problems with the stairs to the back yard and some so far minor potty problems. We’re treating him like a king this week.

Wordy (and Picturey) Wednesday

December 7, 2016 ~ madgeface ~ 6 Comments

This is Jeffrey Lebowski, aka Jeff, aka Jeffalump, aka The Dude. Yesterday we had a close call; I noticed him trying (and failing) to go to the bathroom in unusual non-litterbox places, like a giant pot that we have hibiscus tree in that’s inside for the winter and a pile of packing papers that is the Kitty Playground corner of the dining room. I called the vet, they had a cancellation, and before I could say shazam (but with enough time to get dressed and brush my teeth) we were at the vet.

When Jeff emerged from his carrier, it was clear that he had peed a little bit en route; his plush cat pad, fleece blanket, and back leg were all streaked with a bloody liquid (obviously urine). He gave the vet a fantastic much larger sample on the exam table, which he hoovered up with 3 small blunt-ended syringes for testing. The good news: Jeff wasn’t blocked. The bad news: he could have bladder stones or larger crystals. After a thorough physical exam, an x-ray was in order.

Jeff at the vet — Post-x-ray Jeff in his carrier with a disposable pad. Note the hyper-curled unhappy tail and his ears: was was very unhappy at the turn of events.

More good news: the x-ray didn’t show any stones in his bladder. The doctor gave Jeff an antibiotic shot, an anti-inflammatory shot, an oral liquid narcotic to start giving him at home for 3 days, an anti-inflammatory to start today for 3 days, and some sample prescription food that will help reduce the formation of crystals in his bladder.

Poor Jeff.

We came home, I gave him the narcotic, and then we sat for most of the day, Facebooking and watching old movies on TCM and talking on the phone with my sister/cousin in Chicago to plan a spur of the moment trip here Thursday. Jeff gobbled down his dinner and successfully used the litter box and after another dose of narcotics, slept snuggled up with me all night. Usually he gets up before I do, but it was kind of funny to see my alarm startle him awake this morning.

Anyway … he’s feeling better this morning. He’s used the litter box a few more times, gobbled down his breakfast, took all his medicine, and then got frisky with Eevee (our other cat) and Lily, one of our dogs (the other is Moose).

Lily very much wants to be accepted by the cats as one of their own and will let them “attack” her without retribution. Following the moment caught by this picture, she was startled and then just watched Jeff saunter away from her, perhaps a little mournfully because she would’ve loved to play.

So. Jeff took precedent over the reindeer gilding, which I promise I’ll finish and post about, right after I give the house a once-over & make the guest bed, go to my Wednesday knitting meet-up, grocery shop, and probably more. This week is suddenly as busy as Thanksgiving week was.