Pattern: Bunny Hop (free pattern here); use the yarn/needles/gauge below:

Yarn: Valley Yarns Berkshire (not bulky)
Needles: US8/5mm
Gauge: 17 st = 4″ in plain (no thrums) stockinette

Downsizing they yarn & needles was a no-brainer way to reduce the size. She’s 3 years old and these, knit as a size small from the original pattern, are an inch or so too big for her. My guess is that the same yarn/needles (or maybe 7 instead)  w/o thrums would be just right (thrums take up room inside but also increase gauge). I’ll try them after the potholder swap!

This was my last UFO! I officially am off the hook and can start new projects with impunity! Hurray! My next project will be crocheted potholders for the swap, though I’m not certain I’ll be able to crank them all out in time, especially since I have two 5-hour drives and two 11-hour drives, a retreat and a music festival between now and the deadline. But at the very least, I’ll get a couple of cute potholders I can keep, so it’s a win-win.

In other knitting:

I actually finished a submission early! This is something I designed for my knitty first fall submission. I’m submitting it today and I hope they pick it. I think it’s lovely, if I do say so myself. And fun and easy to knit!

I woke up yesterday with a stomach bug from who knows where. I ate the same thing as everyone else (my mom & Ron) and they’re both fine. And while the worst punishment has passed, I’m still totally weak and exhausted and can’t really eat, and my gut sounds like a haunted house. The last time I was this gut-sick was in 2nd grade, when they finally had to plop me in the tub and spray me down because they didn’t know which end to aim at the toilet. And while I have a bit more will over my body as an adult, if I had a plumbed bathtub, I’d've been collapsed there last night. I don’t know if that would have been any more comfortable than the bathroom floor, but it would have seemed a little nicer.

I keep thinking I’m on the mend, but the most mundane tasks exhaust me in a matter of minutes. I’m totally behind in my work, and I can only do anything that takes focus for half an hour before I’m spent and have to go lay down. So, not enough time to accomplish anything productive, but just enough time to to get all wound up about it. Luckily, I feel too shitty to spend my usual hours in front of my computer looking up all my symptoms.

I sure hope I’m better tomorrow. I have a lot of catching up to do before the fiber retreat, and I really can’t swing another sick day and I definitely don’t want to miss the retreat, but I ain’t going feeling like this.

On the bright side, I did shed a few pounds. So there’s that.

Tonight I discovered that when I started knitting that leafy jacket, I used a smaller needle than my original. It was on a cable with an 11 tag when I picked it up, so I grabbed 11s and got started, though it seemed a bit tight. 8 balls in I realized my gauge was way off.  Long story short, I frogged it. Then I got froggy fever and frogged all of my hibernating projects I was reserving judgment on. All of them.

Now my only WIP are these little bunny slippers and my ongoing projects (building scarf and hibernating hate scarf), which are excluded from the WIP uberlist. Woo hoo! I can knit up the little bunny mate tomorrow and get cracking on my potholders. Yippee!

Overall, I’m pretty confident and comfortable with my animals. I’m pretty good about spending time and keeping an eye on them, checking their eyelids for a good FAMACHA score and worming when necessary, swapping out their suits as they outgrow them, keeping them in good hay and water and mineral–it’s all really basic stuff. But my Achilles heel (ahem) is hoof trimming. I’m lousy at it, timid and nervous. I’m not confident handling them and tend to give in immediately when they put up a fight. In short, I am a weak parent.

But I’m feeling just a little more confident today. I just got some very patient and much needed help trimming hooves from my friend Jenny. We trimmed Uncle Honeybunch and Mister Shivers (easy), Ronnie (a little weird–hers are more fleshy in spots–more like calluses than nails–but I was able to manage with guidance), and Agnes, who Jenny trimmed–her hooves were such a mess that I was at a loss.

In fact, that’s the whole reason I finally quit being such a procrastinator and finally called her up and begged for help. Yesterday, Agnes didn’t immediately hop up when I went down to let them out. Her hooves had been looking too long for a while, but she was running and jumping and so frisky, and it was so cold and wet for so long that I kept letting myself off the hook. But when I saw she was a little reluctant to get up and seemed to be limping a bit when she did, I realized I’d better nut up and address this before I had a crisis on my hands. She was still alert and bright-eyed and willing to go out and graze once she did get up, so I wasn’t panicked, but definitely concerned.

I tried to tackle it myself, with Ron helping me hold Agnes, but after a few ham-fisted, cringing, uncertain attempts, and a lot of kicking and thrashing from Agnes, had to accept that this just wasn’t something I could learn from reading about it and guessing. And though I had wanted to ask the vet or the shearer to slow down to a snail’s pace and let me try last year, I just didn’t have the confidence to really ask them to drag it out the way I’d need to to actually learn.

I hate going all Green Acres and pestering my critter-literate friends, but this time, I just had to. Luckily, Jenny was both willing and available. She’s not only a vet, but she also raised sheep for 4H as a girl, and she sponsors 4H now, so she’s very relaxed and patient with ninnies like me.

She got each sheep on its butt and held it while I carefully, nervously trimmed each hoof, then held it up and awaited her inspection and instruction about where to trim more. She was really fantastic, completely patient, and went back and trimmed a little more enthusiastically on the spots that were giving me problems. The Shetlands were relaxed, and their hooves were in pretty good shape, so I got started with Uncle Honeybunch and Mister Shivers and built a little confidence with them. Agnes was a mess–hers seem to grow at least twice as fast as the others, and were overgrown  and damaged, exposing the pads, which had built up a sort of protective callus that was getting pressed and was tender, like a hangnail or an ingrown toenail. On top of that, Agnes DOES NOT care for having her hooves trimmed–even when they were in good shape and not tender and overgrown, she would put up a mad fight (part of why I’m such a bad sheep mommy about hooves), so it was a godsend having someone who wasn’t the cover girl for Nervous Shepherd Magazine (i.e., me) handling her. She was completely unphased by the struggling and kicking. Jenny gave Aggie’s feet a good going over and pronounced them fine (no infection or suspect areas), but she said I do need to keep an eye on her to see that they heal properly, and that Agnes & I are going to need to become dear friends with the clippers. I’ll need to trim her hooves regularly, more frequently for a while than I probably will in the future, just to get everything grown back nice and even. In the end, she’s probably going to need a trim 4X a year, vs. the twice a year the others require. She’s the only one with white hooves–they just seem to grow a lot faster, and maybe they’re not as sturdy, either.

Post-pedicure, Agnes was trotting around pretty normally, and by dinner-time, she was stotting! (Man, I need to get a picture of that sometime. It’s only the Merinos. When I come out with the grain, they’ll often leap 2 or 3 feet straight up into the air–they truly jump with joy! Even Agnes, who is twice the size of the twins, does it regularly, and I was happy to see her leap especially high today.)

You can see by all the mud on Agnes’ jacket that she was thrashing around like a maniac. In contrast, Ronnie and Mr. Shivers (3rd & 4th at the trough) are pretty clean. They pretty much gave in the minute they were on their butts, which makes it a lot more quick and comfortable for everyone involved.

Jayne’s little piggies–a little long, but not gnarly. We’re going to do Hokey Pokey, Jayne and Fudgy next week. I’ll try to get some before and after pictures of the undersides next week so you can see how they look. From casual observation, they seem fairly sound–I remember Hokey Pokey’s were a little fleshy, like Ronnie’s, and Jayne’s may have been too–maybe a lamb thing? Luckily, my fabulous shearer will trim hooves for me again in a month or so, so I don’t have to trim as aggressively as I normally might, which is confidence-building. I can strive for a nice even job and no nicks and not fret too much about going shorter. I might even try to manage Hokey Pokey on my own! (Fudgy’s out of the question, and Jayne may be too big for me to take alone.)

What’s really cool is that Jenny and Sherri are going to loan me their old 4H grooming stanchion. My plan is to condition the sheep to actually like having their hooves trimmed, using a little grain-and-restrain routine. I’m hoping it will be much the way that milk goats will happily march up the stanchion to be milked once they know they get goodies for it. I need to tidy up the hay shed to make a nice, sheltered home for it, so it’s in good shape when Sherri’s girls are ready for 4H. That’s still a ways off–they’re the little girls here–but time does fly).

Speaking of time, I’m running out of time to finish my stupid WIP and start my potholders for the swap! Last week, my desire to get cracking on the potholders persuaded me to frog 4 items–3 single slippers and a tank that looked terrible on me–and finish 2 more (that red tank and the Noro sweater I showed off last week).

Right now, I’m working on a bulky sweater that’s going quickly, now that I’ve frogged and reknit a section I screwed up. I started this so long ago that I can’t remember my intentions for it. On ravelry, I called it “Leafy Cardi,” but it’s way too heavy to be a regular cardigan, so I’m calling it Leafy Jacket and planning on making it nice and loose. I’ll finish the body and sleeves with little or no (probably no, actually) shaping, adding a repeat of the leaf pattern at bottoms of each. Then I’ll finish the front and collar with several rows of either seed or ribbing, and if there’s any extra yarn, there will be pockets.

This yarn is quick to knit because it’s so thick, but it’s going to be a giant ass-pain to weave in the many ends (I should use all 12 100g balls). It’s bulky superwash 50/50 wool/acrylic with a zillion plies, a weaving nightmare.

I made great progress emptying and sorting my first Fibber MaGee and Molly closet last week, but I lost a little organizing momentum agonizing over how to repair it. But I believe I’ve found the correct product for the job (Presto Patch–Ron’s getting me some on the way home), so I’m back on track to repair, prime, and paint the thing, so I can put back all the stuff I removed and sorted last week. I’ve decided to take a pragmatic approach. I want the plaster repaired and painted to seal it, but I’m not trying to win a beauty contest, so I don’t care if the surface is like a lunar landscape. Letting go of that means that I can leave the shelves in place and just reinforce the joints instead of taking them down and properly scraping and patching the wall. I just want to keep out the cold and keep my shoes relatively plaster-free. It will be nice to take advantage of all the lovely storage space.

The better part of its former contents (most of the big bags and hampers on the right) will move up to the craft room. Three bags went to Goodwill, and if I were smart, I’d be ditching all the heels I never wear anymore. But I’m not smart. I’m not yet willing to abandon my cute shoes. After all, I do go on vacation now and again. Once all this stuff is back where it belongs, I’ll tackle Door #2, which is also crammed-chest high with teetering boxes–but it’s even more daunting than the first closet because the plaster is in worse shape, and since there are no shelves, it’s twice as full.

But I’ll think about that tomorrow.

I dug my old sewing table out from the corner of the craft room, re-arranged some storage bins, and made myself a nice little sewing area. It’s inset between the two closets, so it won’t be in the way for the Dye Lab (there are other white board Adrian can use–those notes are her formulas form Yarn Schools past).

My $4 garage sale sewing table could be sturdier, but it’s servicable for now. The index card cabinet holds sewing notions and general craft supplies. I’ve reserved the lower drawers–those at about waist level when you’re seated–for sewing machine accessories and tools, plus notions like elastic, twill tape, fasteners, etc.

The antique jars in the wine crate hold buttons (I don’t like to use any jars of uncertain provenance for holding food–you never know what the last guy stored in there), and the side of the filing cabinet, with a few more magnets, will make a nice inspiration/bulletin board.

I’ve got two vintage sewing boxes I need to sort through behind that little drawer unit, which holds notions, interfacing, and machine accessories. I want to remove all the sewing stuff and use them to hold current projects away from dust and clutter.

Over all, I’m quite pleased! I still need to mount my iron holder and ironing board rack (as soon as it turns up), but it’s already been quite handy to have a little organized sewing station. So far, I’ve been able to quickly mend two sheep jackets and a feed sack caddy recycled from two old feed sacks, and I’m going to make a bunch of bags and pillows next.

Pattern: Bunny Hop Thrummed Bunny Slippers (free pattern at craftzine.com)

Yarn: 2 balls Webs Northampton Bulky (100% wool; 100g/109yd) in Chestnut Heather

Thrums: 2 oz Kansas Cocoa Combed Top from Art Club (me!)

I also finished Ron’s slippers, a very late Christmas present. In the meantime, I lost the mate’s button and had to dig up some new buttons to use. I also had to knit the same errors into the 2nd that I made on the first (sleepy, last-minute knitting :)), and my gauge was a little tighter on the second one. I knit the first one on a big thrumming bender, so I was apparently knitting a bit looser than gauge then. But I’m still pleased with them. I gave the 2nd one little piggy green eyes instead of big blue ones. They’re fraternal twins.

One more down! Not yet blocked; hopefully that will minimize my occasional weird baggy stitches.

Pattern: knit.1 ribbed tank

Yarn: Lion Cotton-Ease (discontinued color), about 3 balls, I think.

Notes: A nice little tank. Not an exciting knit, but a solid basic with some cute details, and it would be super speedy knit in the round–no finishing, fewer ends, and I could skip the endless counting to make sure the rows lined up (and I was still off a couple rows and had to correct for it in my seaming). I may well make it again, but I’d definitely work it in the round and make in longer. I’d also probably make it about 25% tighter. It’s a one-size pattern, but has a little more real estate than I need. I’d just as soon get rid of the extra width & make it longer. I’d like to make a couple of cute tablecloth A-line skirts to go with it, and maybe make myself some matching ties of the same fabric.

The pattern was simple and accurate & the only problems I had were entirely the fault of finishing late and sleepy (I seamed the shoulders with kitchener but spaced and had the tank inside-out, but with the ribbing, it’s just not enough of a big deal for me to sweat).

And I finished this last month, but forgot to post it!

Pattern: basic raglan

Yarn: Peruvian Highland Wool + my handspun

One more WIP down!

Pattern: Basic raglan, with graduated decreases/increases shaping at two spot in the back, and 2-color ribbing (corrugated ribbing?) at collar, cuffs & hem, double-stranded cast-on, and slipped-stitch edge at cuffs and hem. Alternating rows from 2 different balls to break up the color transitions a bit.

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Lite (45% Silk, 45% Mohair, and 10% Lambswool), 7 balls

Notes: it took me 2 tries at the body and many tries at the edging to get this right. The back shaping is nice and subtle, makes for a tailored but relaxed fit. One weird thing: my decreases were placed evenly but seem a little off-center. This happened both times. I counted my stitches repeatedly and I’m positive I put them where they belonged. I think it may be because my knitting is just slightly tighter at the start of the round w when changing strands/colors. Anyway, it’s barely noticeable flat and not at all noticeable on, but it does annoy me. I’m eager to see if the problem disappears when I’m using just one color.

This is a lightweight sweater that should be good for spring.

Next up from the WIP queue: The knit.1 ribbed tank I started FOUR YEARS AGO. Amazingly, I found the magazine, thanks to the little rolling Yarn School library. I should be done tonight, then it’s on to Ron’s bunny slippers!

The pattern’s nice and easy, with some pretty bust shaping to the ribbing. If I knit it again, I would definitely knit it in the round. When I started working on it, I wasn’t yet obsessed with seam avoidance and round knitting.

After I finish all my WIP, I’m really going to make an effort to start knitting at least every other project from a pattern. I was inspired by a passing post on Parallax Knitting. I, too, think I could learn a good deal from knitting other people’s patterns. And I like the idea of a break every other pattern, not having to think about every stitch, not having to do the math and swatch and try different things, no ripping and reknitting, ripping and reknitting–instead, just letting someone else do the work. I think it will be fun. And it’s perfect that my current WIP isn’t my pattern.

My first pattern when I’m done with my WIP and my crocheted potholder swap will be this.

After purging my ratty old potholders as part of my kitchen organization, I’m in dire need of some new cute ones, so I’m going to participate in the famous crocheted potholder swap this time around. I was bummed to see that wool wasn’t an option this year, only 100% cotton, which meant I couldn’t knit from stash, because my only 100% cotton is Blue Sky Alpacas, which I think is too linty for potholders, though it’s soft and lovely for garments. So for a minute, I thought I was sunk.

Then I remembered my $20 elann.com credit! It was enough to cover 6 balls of Sonata and shipping! Hurrah!

The only problem now is that I have to finish my current WIP. My Silk Garden Lite sweater only has one sleeve to go, plus the cuff of the other sleeve, which I’m going to frog so I can do the 2-color ribbing and slipped stitch edge I finally decided on for the hem. But either way, I should be able to crap out a sleeve and a cuff in the next couple days.

But then I still have 5 single slippers (one a day if I keep my head down), half a tank from a years-old UFO that I don’t even know where the pattern is anymore (2 days if I can find the pattern), another tank of my own devising (almost done–we’ll say 1 day there), almost as old, and a raglan that’s not even to the armpits. But it’s in bulky yarn, so I guess that’s not so bad, a week, maybe? And then I’ll be able to tick off another Überlist baby. That would put me at the 2nd week in March, giving me about 2 weeks to crochet 5 double-sided potholders in time to send them off to Adrian. It’s possible. And if I can’t finish all 5, at the very least, I’ll have some swanky new potholders I can just keep myself! Done and done!

This started out as a laptop sleeve for Ron’s macbook early last year. I kept forgetting to felt it, and eventually found a really nice felt laptop case from Julia Hilbrant at Rhinebeck instead. But I’d already lightly felted it, so I couldn’t frog it for my Finish or Frog uberlist item. Instead I crocheted 4 tapered sides to make a bed for Freddy, who loves boxes. My first try underfelted it, so I went a little nuts and did an uberhot heavy-duty cycle and ended up with something a little too wee for a cat bed. But Freddy still seems to be enjoying it, so I’ll leave it in play for a while and see if he stays interested. If not, it will make a nice magazine tray or yarn box for the counter.

In OYTAOL (One Year to an Organized Life) news, I’m done with my kitchen–as much as I can do on my own, anyhow. I still want some improvements–the native limestone counters we had cut 3 years ago still aren’t in place, and I want a new pass-through counter and some custom shelves for my cookbooks under it plus floor-to-ceiling display shelves for my S&P collection–but I’ve got my lovely corner lazy Susan back in place, and all my stuff sorted and organized, and all the seldom-used item organized, binned, labeled, and moved to the utility room.

The lunchroom is still crazy–I’ve got a work station in use and several hampers of clean laundry on the cafeteria tables in anticipation of the sorting/organization soon to be underway in my bedroom. My bedroom is chaotic enough as it is, so I’d rather hold off then just have to empty it all out again this weekend.

The pool table is covered with the DH merch Marta is sorting and inventorying for me (we’re trading labor). I’ve also got several boxes destined to shove off to Goodwill and tons of styrofoam block headed to the recycling center this weekend (weather permitting), both proof of my tedious progress in my hellscape of a storage room (which actually has 2 unmortifying areas now).

(And I have to stress, for the record, how woefully messy and disorganized everything that I’m not explicitly showing you is. I’m building little pockets of order, but it’s mostly madness. And for everyone who has asked: our kitchen is a salvaged hodgepodge of commercial & residential stuff. The wraparound stainless counter & sink came from the old state hospital they tore down in KC, the blue cabinets came from the old home ec room in our other building, the big fridge and home-built island from the kitchen in the same building, the filing cabinet, along with the one in my sewing nook, came from the state surplus place, the surgery light from an old hospital in MO, etc.)

So! Presenting my freshly organized kitchen:

Main kitchen (main work space)

Decluttered counters and appliance storage:

Junk drawer:

Onion drawer (potato drawer  beneath):

Freshly-labeled Modular Mates for at-hand staples (backups and less-used items live in the pantry):

Both sinks now have their own bucket of cleaners and brush basket, the idea being that not having to haul my fat ass back and forth between rooms will make me more apt to tidy up.

Freshly cleaned, culled, and organized drawers in island cart (the cart’s from the Eskridge school, a homemade table made of 2×4s and 4×4s; Ron refinished and distressed it & added new hardware, then we topped it with an IKEA butcher block countertop):

Organized condiments:

From the other side (with the pass-through window behind):

The fabulous lazy Susan corner cabinet is back in place, and I made magnetic labels for all the drawers and cupboards.

Corner cabinets:

Organized drawers:

Cleaned and organized fridge:

A stack of custom grocery lists (snag mine here if you eat what I eat) let me tick off what I need as I notice it:

The perpetual calendar holds the week’s menu any any notes on groceries or prep. It’s been a great help eating through the freezer.

Kitchen storage/washing room (backup storage, dishwasher, main wash sink)

Down to one freezer from three last fall. We’ve been eating our way through. Now there’s a whole cleared-out deep freeze I can use for Yarn School!

I made an inventory of everything in the freezer so I don’t forget what’s in there, and tick it off as it’s used up. This should also cut down on wasted electricity from groping around or staring blankly into the open freezer:

There’s a tight little spot in the corner where we keep our pantry in a lateral file. The shelves pull out and let you access the full depth of the drawer, so you can pack it with far more stuff than a regular shelf. And the drawers are mouseproof, critical when you live in the country. Having the shelves pull out is especially handy at the bottom and top, where stuff is normally a pain in the ass to get at.

The other general storage is an open shelf, but I plan to replace it with a lateral file like the pantry. But I did clear out a good deal of stuff, so there aren’t as many precarious towers of crap.

So. Yay me! Onward to February, my bedroom!

Holy shit! Hoarders is getting raw. The first couple episodes I watched were people who were just a little crazy and paralyzed by their compulsive accumulation of crap. But I’ve got a stack of them tivoed and they’re getting progressively scarier. It’s gotten so I can only watch about 15 minutes at a time and then I have to jump up and clean something! It’s really heartbreaking. (Not my cleaning; the desperate people in their garbage-filled homes.)

[P.S. Interesting notes on the moral/social implications of the show in the comments. I was replaying it here, but I was on kind of a shaky soapbox. :) ]

Today it was so windy that one of the posts holding up my hay shelter BLEW OUT OF ITS CONCRETE FOOTING!

I guess a gust must have gotten under the cattle panel & tarp roof and blown straight up, because the post was completely out of the ground next to the concrete. It wasn’t set as deep as our fence posts, but it was a good 2 - 2 1/2 feet in concrete! I’m hoping the wind will be down tomorrow and we’ll be able to get it back in the hole, but it’s going to be rough with the pressure that the arced cattle panels put on the rail that’s attached to it. My plan was to install some guy wires when when I replace the tarp (the pressure was making the posts bow out, which in turn reduces the tension of the arc and makes it more likely to strain under snow). I hope that that, coupled with some more reinforcement, will be enough to do the trick. I might need to dig out around the original hole and pour in more concrete, and maybe bolt some angle iron through the posts and into the concrete.