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My big sister Cori works and writes for the Kansas Eagle. She had a column in this last Tuesdays paper all about Ravelry.

Go take a read and enjoy!!!

You can find her at her own blog, Cori Thinks.

Love yah, Sis!!!

Summer time is not my favorite time of the year. Actually it’s my least favorite time of the year.

Let me just list the reasons for you:

• Flies like to multiply
• Racoons visit and like to fight with the skunks that also like to visit (although the skunks don’t spray as much in the summertime as they do in the winter/springtime)
• Ants
• Ants
• Ants
• Flies
• Maggots
• Flies
• Ants

Did I get my point across??

This morning I woke up to maggots in the trash cans on the side of the house. It happens once every few years. Then I go on a crazy garbage area cleaning frenzy, spray all kinds of pesticides (and bleach too) on the dirt and into the bricks to let it soak in in hopes of the little creatures not taking residence in the ground. Then I buy new trashcans. And more fly spray. I did just read that you can kill the maggots with boiling water. I may have to try that if I find any escapees from this mornings maggot genocide.

Now, the ants are a continual problem but for the most part I have had good success over the last 4 years keeping them out. They are coming in through the oddest places now that I have killed all the usual routes. Between the carpet and baseboard in the hallway being one place. The itty-bittyest little hole under the windowsill where the paint had bubbled and popped when painted last leaving said hole.

I hate ants and I hate flies.

The odd thing this morning was my twinge of thankfulness for ants.

I take trash out, turn around (barefoot mind you) and see a huge trail of ants. Then I saw what the ants were after (and thankfully I had not stepped on, God does love me), the maggots. House fly maggots to be precise.

They are squirmy and disgusting. I think I would truly die if I ever found them in my house trash like I have read about.

The cans are out by the street now ready to be hauled off by the trash men tomorrow. New cans will come home with my husband.  And we can start the whole wretched process over aga….wait a minute… new beginning….IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!!

Now, I will go sit and knit while I feel creepy crawly insects all over me. nice. real nice.

Next post: pretty pictures and actual good stuff

I just came across a fun little ravelry tidbit.

If you use Safari, Firefox, Seamonkey there is a Ravel it! button, that you can drag to your toolbar, on the bottom right hand side of the patterns page.

Now, once you have the button in your toolbar it can be used in the following ways (and there may be more that I just don’t know about):

1. You find a pattern on the web, click it and it will open in the ravelry site
2. You come across someones blog and want to see if they are on ravelry, click it and it will take you to their profile page.

That is frickin’ awesome! Hope you all have as much fun with it as I have!

If you would like to send a thank you note to the responders of the Gap Fire you can go to the Thank First Responders website.

The notes and any photos will be printed out and sent to each team that responded. I defenitely took the time to send my thanks. I can’t believe with how close the fires came no houses were lost. It’s not over yet, we are not totally out of the woods but I can sigh a huge sigh of relief that we made it this far!

Here are a few photos of the fire

I have many more in the camera still.

With the marine layer we have been pretty clear of smoke and ash for the past 2 days. Hopefully, it will stay that way and we can soon return to a normal outdoor summer.

The Gap Fire, 8:30am, July 2, 2008

If I have to be evacuated I am going to be one pissed lady.

So far the evacuations are 2 miles from my house but that fire is a good distance up the hill. And since fire likes to take it’s time coming down a hill I am going out on a limb here and saying we won’t be evacuated any time soon.

The fire in that shot is a good 10 miles from here, at least that is what I keep telling myself ;o)

Right now on my needles, actively being worked on:

Goddess Mystery Shawl

Gift sweater (first sneak peek)

Taos Socks

Lady February Sweater

Julia Sweater~ I just have to sew the side seams

OFF THE NEEDLES
Sadly, it’s only been 2 things. With all the sewin, quilting, bike tinkering, etc, I haven’t had the time to finish much.

Mom’s set of placemats and a table topper for her birthday (which she loved, whew!)

And a baby Zeebee that I haven’t taken photos of yet ;o(

I have about a dozen sweaters just waiting in my queue for their turn. Be patient, my darlings, I will get to you too!

I love my stash.
So much so that some might consider it a sin ;o)
I know my yarns get lonely, wanting new friends to play with so I must appease them lest they have an uprising and take my whole family hostage!

Here are the newest additions to my yarn family:

Misti Alpaca Handpainted Sock yarn in Taos:
From Knit & Pearl Boutique

There was almost no time to actually get a photo of the hank. I wound it and cast on immediately!

Next up, an order from 100purewool.com:

Chocolate merino lace that is being used in the Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl:

Lima merino lace (that was Tracy’s but we traded for a ball of a darker merino lace in green I had):

Capricious Fingering weight to be used for socks:

This is how it was space-dyed in the hank:

Knitpicks Cotlin (from Tracy’s stash, we’ve been doing a lot of swapping lately):

14 balls, that is plenty for any sweater I might fancy

RYC Cashcotton DK in color 626, 7 balls~ a pinkey, red color:
From WEBS online

And a whole afghan’s worth of Vanna’s Choice,
instead of individual photos of each yarn how about a photo of the afghan instead?

So cute, yes?? I love it!

Ummm….I think that may be it. Can you tell I have some knitting/crochet plans?

I realize I am a week behind in posting about our World Wide Knit IN Public Day outing.

We had a decent turnout, there ended up being 7 knitters (Tracy, myself, Rowan, Spencer, Suzie, Abby and Betty), 1 husband, 5 kids, 1 puppy chihuahua. Not a bad turnout!

You can see the whole set of pictures on flickr.

We had a great time, knitting, chatting, getting some sun. We had fog for the first few hours and then the marine layer retreated to give us some well needed sunshine!

I hope next year is just as great!

Hehehe…

Yes, I do dabble in quilting. I haven’t truly sewn a quilt top in over 6 years but I thought it was time. I have been gathering books, patterns, fabrics for the last 6 months or so and it was time to sew something.

Last week I found a day to focus completely on getting a quilt top cut, pieced and sewn together.

Here it is!

(It is squared, I promise. The wind was just blowing the right side over ;o))

I used a Sweet Treat and their Walkin’ the Line pattern.

I am very, very pleased with how it turned out! Such a great, fun, easy, fast, beautiful quilt top!

The fabrics make me so happy!

I just have to put the 2 borders on, buy the backing & batting, quilt them together and do the binding. No prob, right? We’ll see just how long the rest takes me.

Here are the border fabrics.

THey are a little washed out in the photo, just believe me when I say that they match perfectly!!

I finally received the yarn from 100purewool that I ordered for the Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl. Hand-dyed 100% merino wool~ laceweight
Chocolate brown

Clues 1&2 finished. Chart B for both.

This is unblocked but it’s the most true to color I could get at night.

I purchased 2 hanks of the merino, 950 yards each. The pattern only calls for 1200 yards so I will have plenty leftover for another project.

I am very please so far with how the colors are working up in the pattern. It’s doing a stripey spiral with no pooling really. That makes me happy!

The next clue comes out on Friday and I am hoping to just work on it all weekend & get it done ;o)