Shuttle Discovery Lift-off!

The shuttle launched tonight--oops, Friday night, just before midnight. I risked waking Mike with the beeping door, and went out to watch. Here are some of the photos I took with the little camera.





Click on photos to make them bigger!

The Week in Review

Ha! It was actually a pretty slow week, with not much to report.

The shuttle still hasn't been launched yet, but they are planning to try again tonight. I hope they have the valve problem sorted out in time, and that the shuttle can actually get on its way tonight.

We continue with nice hot weather! I have noticed in blogs of bloggers to the north, that they are talking about cooler temperatures and fall in the air already. We are still in summer, and so is most of Texas, it seems. I sure prefer our weather.

The grapefruit on the tree in the back are getting bigger. They are quite easy to see from in the house. It looks like there will be a good crop of them again this year!

I still haven't cast on any knitting but am getting closer to doing it--hahah.

I have been spinning and am enjoying it a lot. I finished another strip of the mint julep batts yesterday and hope to get part of another strip at least started today.

I realized I haven't yet put up a pic of the cute little sample size niddy noddy I got from The Spinning Loft. It is a nice piece of workmanship and is just cute as the dickens! And the wee little skein it makes is just too cute. So, here is a photo of the niddy noddy, a little skein made from some baby yarn I had in my knitting bag (I demonstrated the use of the niddy noddy for the knitting gals), and a pen to provide some sort of frame of reference as to size. I couldn't find a ruler for the life of me. Oh well.....

Shuttle?

The shuttle launch has been scrubbed twice now and I think it is scheduled for Friday now? I don't imagine we will see it, in any case. It is set for 12.22 A.M., which is a bit late--haha.

There isn't too much going on these days. I am getting back into the swing of things, catching up on laundry and such. I went to knitting group today and had a good time.

I stopped at Barnes and Noble after knitting and found the newest Simply Knitting magazine. Alan Dart has a new design out--Hula Hamsters. They are totally too cute. Grass skirts, leis, hibiscus blooms in the "hair", the whole bit.

I did some spinning yesterday and plan to get some more done tomorrow. I really like the way it is looking, and look forward to seeing it plied, too.

Where Did the Week Go?

It feels like we just got home from Texas, and here it is the end of the week already. Time is a very strange thing.

There were a bunch of Sand Hill Cranes one yard down from my folks yard this afternoon. There were 5-6 of them and they sure were loud! Mike and I went out to look and make sure they weren't under attack, they were so loud.


This is the skein of yarn I made from the batt bite I mentioned in an earlier post. I am pretty happy with the way it came out! It is promised to Anne. I brought it home from Texas so the knitting group gals could see it, and so Jo can see it. Then it can go to Anne. There are about 93 yards in this skein. It is a 2-ply yarn, and I had the most fun ever plying it. Edited to clarify: of all the singles I have plied together, plying these singles was the most fun!


I have started spinning another batt from Corgi Hill Farms (the source of the batt bite). The color is Mint Julep and it is really pretty. Made up of merino wool, silk and firestar. Yum! It is spinning up pretty easily and I am really enjoying it.

We're Back!

We had a great visit in Texas! Our flight out was good and we landed in Houston, got our rental car, and were on the road before the big thunderstorm hit. Thank goodness it didn't start earlier.

We had a good time, visiting with Mike's mom and dad, meeting some of their friends, and seeing all the kids. Anne and Paul, Brian and little Michelle, all arrived on Friday. It was great seeing them again! Michelle is looking forward to starting preschool next week.

Russell, Amy, Skyler and Zoey arrived on Saturday. It had been at least 2 years, maybe more, since we had seen them last. Michelle and Skyler played really well together and got along just great. You would have thought they saw each other all the time. Little Zoey has red curly hair and is sweet as can be. A very quiet baby--she was so good!

The time passed way too quickly. We did get to try a number of flavors of Anne's special homemade jams and boy were they ever good. Anne and I made a fresh peach cobbler that turned out pretty good too. Yummm!

I didn't take any knitting with me--I figured I would be too busy visiting to want to bother with it, and I was right.

We flew home yesterday, with 6 month old twins in front of us. It was not a quiet flight--haha.

I did a little bit of spinning today. I thought I would start on the carbon diamond bamboo, but it wasn't really speaking to me, and I am also thinking it might be happier blended in with other fibers. We will see. I wound off the little bit I had spun onto a yarn core and opened up a Mint Julep batt. That was more like it! It is so soft!---wool, silk and firestar. It opened out into a pretty huge batt, I think it was done on a double wide drum carder. I spun up a little bit of it and I like the way it is spinning.

I still have to put up photos of the batt bite. It turned out pretty well and was fun to spin.

Tuesday

I finished spinning the little batt bite today! I had a longer than usual session while the dryer was running. I was glad to get the last of this batt spun up. If I have time tomorrow, I will get it plied and washed. I am really interested to see what the finished yarn is going to look like!

A New Week

I never did mention that we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie on our anniversary. I hadn't read the book since it first came out, and I guess that was a good thing! I heard they added things to the movie that weren't in the book. You wouldn't think they would need/want to do that as there was plenty of material in the book---Rowling's last ones were all over 500 pages. But they did--go figure. It had been long enough since I read the book that I wasn't sure if I had just forgotten bits or if it was stuff they made up--although I remember thinking I would have used different bits from the book in place of some of the scenes, and I think those were all the made up bits--hahah. Oh well. The movie itself was good, but as usual, never as good as the book. I can't off the top of my head think of any movie I thought was better than the book it was based on.


I just now finished spinning the first half of the "batt bite" I have been spinning. I took some photos and here is one of them--the one that gives the best view of the bobbin of singles. It has been easy to spin. There have been little bits that don't want to spin like the rest. The rust colored parts are especially prone to be a little difficult--I am guessing those are camel or yak or one of the other exotic fibers the batt might include. All in all though, it has been fun to spin and I am looking forward to getting the other half spun, and the singles plied!

I will be getting ready for our trip to TX, so I'm not sure if I will post again till after we are back.

This and That

I have intended to post so many times and didn't have time and/or didn't have photos ready that I wanted to post, so put it off.

You have probably heard that the Endeavor landed safely. We heard the (two) sonic booms, they pretty well shook the house. Two nearby ibis were startled and flew past the dining room window--would have been cool to have gotten a shot of that.

It might have been that same day, I was outside and spotted the family of swans that live in the lake behind the houses on Old Glory. Mom and Dad swan and the 4 almost grown up swans, who look about as big as the parents at this point, but are still brown. Go figure. I got the camera and they stayed around long enough for me to get a shot that wasn't too bad....


On the spinning front--I finally finished plying the amethyst merino singles today. Two bobbins full in all, the most I have ever spun of any one fiber. I got the yarn wound onto the niddy noddy and finished up in the sink. It looks better than I could hope, as it hangs drying in the bathroom. I'll put up photos of the two skeins later, but for now, I have a photo of the yarn on the niddy, ready to be pulled off and washed.




I knew it wasn't going to take long to finish plying the merino, so I wracked my brain to decide what I would start spinning next. I didn't want to start a really big project, or anything too fussy. I decided I would spin up a freebie bonus half batt I got when I ordered some batts from a favorite etsy shop. I actually remembered to take photos of the fiber before disturbing it. I then weighed it--about 0.6-0.7 ounces. I divided it in half, so I can do a two ply and have similarly filled bobbins--lol. I have spun a little bit of the first half, it is spinning very thin, and is very sparkly! Have to go get the band--okay, she calls it a batt bite (!!!) and it may contain merino wool, silk, firestar, yak, camel and bamboo. It is very soft and sparkly, and fun to spin.