At long last, progress !!!

 I've finished a couple more socks and a pair of DK weight fingerless gloves (they're called 'texting gloves ' now), and I'm almost done with redoing all of my shop pics.

I'm suffering from insomnia for the last 8-9 days. i think i hadn't had more than 10 hours of sleep in that time. I walk around like a zombie all day , so very tired, but if i try to take a nap i can't sleep!! and am wide awake at night. it is now midnight and i am bouncing off the walls. what is wrong with me??

oh, look at this:

aren't they cute?! I looked up out of the window this morning and there they where, Bib half asleep and Jack watching over her with his paw wrapped around her, like he's saying : " your save , i'll look out for you ".

Disclaimer: No beer was consumed during moving of building and no animals or humans where hurt in said move.

Just a little knitting...

I have spend pretty much the last week and this one revamping my etsy shop, from banner to descriptions to pictures.Even at less than 30 items that is very time consuming and a lot of work, especially if you're on dial up. I try to get the pictures down in size as much as possible without loosing quality but it still takes several minutes per pic to upload.I think i took about 300 new pictures in all.

But now i'm almost done, i think i've got a couple items left to redo.

But i got a little knitting in.After all the black socks i knitted a pair of patchwork socks which i promptly sold and got a custom order for another pair.

After that i got a custom order for these cute fingerless gloves:

and then i made these and put them in the shop today:

and i already started on another pair, this time a DK weight, they should be done in a couple of days.

Jelly,Heat and Lace

Out of desperation to break up the monotony (and avert crawling up the walls ) caused by this relentless heat we are having, I've decided to make some jelly with the elderberries growing here in abundance.I made some years ago and it was delicious.

I picked a big bucked of berries:

washed them:

de-stemmed them:



cooked them,drained the juice ,and voila:

about 1 2/3 gallons of elderberry juice.

Adding the rest of the ingredients ( added 12 oz of grape juice too) i sealed the jars

and ended up with 15 -8 oz glasses of delicious jelly,

(first batch of 12):

or so i thought....

Unfortunately it didn't set. Apparently elderberries are notorious for not setting.

So, i will have to pour all of it back in the pot, add some more pectin and hope for the best.

We did use some of it on our ice cream last night like syrup. Oh, it is truly yummy!

I do have about 20 oz of juice left over that i will make into syrup. great over pancakes or -ice cream.

Still no movement on the Studio relocation.It's been 100+ every day. I'm literally house bound. I'm still working on the order of black socks. Finished the fourth pair yesterday. It's really slow going with this batch, luckily the customer is in no hurry.

I started on the lace shawl but found out that i don't like this kind of knitting at all.Too loose.

Getting there...

Big goodie bag

 lookie what the mail lady brought me today:

One big bag of goodness! 7 pounds of raw Rambouillet from Texas.
Ingenious way of packaging it, the sack is lightweight and very strong , doesn't add hardly nothing to the weight , saves on shipping!!

I had to get a few locks right away and wash them, here is the result,

still in lock form :

combed out:

very nice and sooo soft. I'll wash several oz in the next few days and offer them on etsy. But if anybody is interested in getting some now or needs more than a few oz, please let me know. Price is $2.50 /oz loose or $3.50/oz carded.

Of puppies,kittens and a whole bunch of sox

Still not much going on here.We're just plucking along from day to day, awaiting spring .We had two very nice days the beginning of the week ( 74 as a high on the second day) . Got a couple of hours horseback riding in and just enjoyed to be outside. Now its raining again and drab, yuck!!

Well, enough with the weather report.

Here is a pic of Bib, as you can see she is a wee bit big around the middle.

When we got her i was under the impression that she had been spayed. Well, apparently not. That belly is not from over eating, there's kittens in there!

I expect her to have them within the next 8 days or so.

I already been asking around and might have two placed to good homes already . 

Jack has grown quite a bit but we found out that he is totally deaf.

So now i have to train him a little different ,which is no big deal but we'll have to keep him on a leash at all times unless he's behind a fence cause he can't hear whats coming . One good thing : he really pays attention to you and makes constant eye contact.

I think he tries to read our facial expressions since that is the only way for him to know whats going on. One of his little ears has flopped over which gives him a feisty look which fits his personality.

He sure is a sweet little guy. He loves to be picked up and he will sit on my lap all proud .

I haven't weight him lately but i estimate hes got about 4-5 pounds now.

The bucket you see on this pic is a two gallon small bucket and he is about that size.

He has a ongoing feud with the Turkey but he gets along fine with Skimpy ( they actually started playing a little ) and he loves the cat. They are living in the studio now and will be my working buddies once i get started in earnest.

 What I'm working on right now: another big order of socks .

Nine pair in all ,going to Canada.I've finished two pair ,working on the second sock of the third pair.