Frankie

In 2009, H and I bought our first two mice.  Frankie and Benjy.  It turned out those two boys weren't two boys.  Benjy was a boy, but Frankie was quite female.  She gave birth to two litters and was a wonderful companion.

She was sweet and affectionate and would crawl into your hand with very little coaxing.

About two months ago, she began to suffer a sharp decline in her health.  I suddenly realized she was very nearly two years old.  An average mouse lives about 18 months.  She was quite elderly.  She lost interest in treats, and lifting food out of her bowl was a mammoth task.  But she would still dance (albeit shakily) to be held and loved.  And I enjoyed giving her lots of attention.

Last week, as I watched her suffer, I came very close to making the extremely heartbreaking decision to euthanize her.  I researched it well, since I wanted her to die peacefully and not in pain.  But H and I found we couldn't do it.

She died this evening while I was making dinner.  She was alive when I started, but was gone by the time I'd finished.  She lived a long and happy mouse life.  I wanted to bury her under the lavender bush next to Benjy, who died last summer at just over a year old.  Unfortunately, the lavender bush is simply too large now.  She is in the backyard, instead, next to Scruffy.  You were the first.  You were the best!!

Weaving, knitting, and new crochet projects

I've been dying to make this entry.  On Saturday afternoon, my sister's soon-to-be-inlaws hosted a beautiful wedding shower for her.  I finished a very special gift for her a few weeks ago, and even though she doesn't really read my blog, she knows about it and *might* have read it, so I refrained from posted about the gift on here.

About 2 weeks ago, while we were swimming during some particularly hot weather, she made a comment that she had not received any towels.  She found this odd, since towels are such a typical wedding shower gift.  She'd received lots of much larger and very beautiful gifts, but not a single towel among them.  It wasn't a complaint, just a comment.  So I decided she needed towels.  I'd just gotten my new and very beautiful floor loom, and I decided the best way to break in my new loom was to weave a set of handtowels for my sister.  I'd never done it before, and I had some amazing purple egyptian cotton that was just dying to be woven.  They turned out so much more beautiful than I'd even expected.  I finished them on Wednesday and had to keep my mouth shut about them until Saturday.  It was more difficult than I anticipated.  She was, needless to say, entirely appreciative of them.  When you give a handmade gift, you never fully expect the recipient to appreciate the time and effort that goes into such a thing, unless they are a crafter themselves.  She is not a crafter, but was very appreciative of every stitch and all the love that has been woven in to these towels.  Which makes me want to weave for her again.  :)

I am also still working on the latest version of my mother's sweater.  Currently ripping back a single row to fix a tiny error in the sleeve that has thrown my stitch count off very slightly.  At the rate I am going, I expect it to be finished or very nearly finished by her birthday.  I haven't worked on it this past week on account of the weaving project taking priority.  This week, the sweater will regain priority and I will redouble my efforts on it.

Once the sweater is done, I have promised H a very special gift!  This one will take me at least a year (possibly 2) to complete.  Last year, on a whim, I created an 8-bit Mario afghan chart.  It is comprised of 3" squares, each square representing a pixel.  I finally crocheted my swatch to calculate yardage.  It will require a whopping 6600 yards of yarn.  That, as H immediately pointed out, is a stunning 3.75 MILES of yarn.  That's kind of a lot!!!  So for the first time in years, I will willingly be picking up massive amounts of very cheap acrylic yarn.  Otherwise, we're looking at a few hundred dollars to complete this blanket. Nevertheless, it's going to be very fun when it's done!  Certainly one of my more ambitious projects.  Let's hope it turns out!! :)

Little Seasonals - Summer

Part Two of the ongoing project that is my foray into self-published e-books...

Little Seasonals: Summer is now available on Lulu.com
Check it out!!!  Teresa over at Canary Knits and I are really proud of this one. 

It's pretty full of awesome!!  The patterns are a little shorter and simpler than the Spring edition. but just as fun.  Plus, they are definitely more purse-sized for easy beach knitting!  Go download!  Get knitting!  :)

Things I don't have pictures of

Today was a gorgeous day!!  It was one of those days that I wish I had a picture of!

I spent the morning out at the Fleece and Fibrefest at Silmaril farms.  The Fibre Garden hosts monthly spin-ins and they decided to hold the May spin-in out at the Fibrefest.  Just a side note, next time there is an outdoor spin-in, I will take my drop spindle, not my wheel.  My wheel doesn't travel well, and I find it difficult to spin on my outdoor folding chair. 

Aside from that, it was just an incredible day!  The Weather Network was promising thunderstorms on Sunday all week, but the sun was out when Incubating Mouselet woke me up this morning.  I was pretty excited.  Sure enough, the sun came and went all day without rain.  We enjoyed a sheep shearing, watched baby goats, held little yellow ducklings...bought more fibre (I bought a lovely braid of silk).  There were even kittens to be adored.

A little later in the afternoon, we went up to Alpacas From Eighth and Mud to enjoy their Alpaca Shearing.  The Alpacas were not as accepting of the shearing as the sheep had been, so it was pretty interesting to watch.  We wandered around the store.  I resisted a serious urge to overspend my budget and buy my daughter a teddy bear made from Alpaca fleece (it was OOOOOOOHH SO SOFT!!).  I very nearly failed in my self-control.  After all, said teddy bear was only $30.  I might go back and buy it for her for Christmas. 

It was truly a wonderful day.  It started raining as I headed home.  Not very much, and not for very long, but the weather had the decency to hold out to make a perfectly enjoyable day!

And I, sadly, haven't got a single picture.

Little weavings

I have started a new weaving project.  It's an idea I had a while ago to use up leftover handspun scraps.  I've got a few 1/4 bobbins of little leftovers that didn't make it into one yarn or another.  Little samples that got spun on my drop spindles.  Half finished yarns on my drop spindles.  Just singles all over the place that need to be used.

So I've tied on a 6.5ft warp, filled the loom up almost as full as she will go wide (it took forever to tie on all those little ends) and set to work. 

The warp is a laceweight boucle acrylic/wool blend.  It's quite lovely and soft, but mostly acrylic.  The weft will be everything from silk to linen to wool to bison!!  The first two stripes are linen/cotton (white) and wool/silk (purple).  There will be green, blue, pink, red, yellow, and everything in between.  I am excited about the finished product.  If it looks especially nice, I might not keep it as a shawl.  I might do two 3ft lengths and whipstitch them together as a baby blanket for Incubating Mouselet.

Speaking of which...in spite of my numerous deadlines and more serious knitting to be done, I have started and half finished her little Homecoming outfit.   :)  The leggings are beyond adorable.  I took an idea from a vintage mag and did pantlets with closed toes.  Heartmelting!!

The dress is stockinette to the waist(-ish...babies don't really have "waists"), and then it will flare out in some cute little lace.  I'm still looking for the perfect stitch. 

I'll just need a bonnet and some little mitties and she'll be the belle of the ball...and the apple of her daddy's eye.

Greensleeves is all my joy

Some time ago...some time last year, in fact, I obtained a small rigid heddle lap loom in an online swap.  It was a lovely little loom that was part of my general fibre arts collection for a while and I loved it.  I made a few scarves on it, but it mostly sat and looked pretty.

I recently swapped it away when someone else on Ravelry was looking for one.  She offered me a spindle for it.

Truthfully, I am more of a spinner than a weaver (though I do enjoy weaving), and find myself strangely addicted to spindles.  I don't quite understand the addiction, but I have several spindles of different sizes, weights, and varieties.  I let her surprise me with the one she was most able to part with, and she parted with a Greensleeves McKenna Lee (ganked picture to the right).

I am in love!  She's the prettiest spindle I own by far.  She spins such fine, beautiful lace, and takes my breath away while she does.  There's almost no effort involved in spinning on her.

I don't know what I'm going to do with the superfine sample of yarn I am spinning.  And I don't know why I put yarn immediate on every spindle that comes into the house...it results in every single of the 7 or 8 spindles I own currently being used.

Also, I feel a little bad.  I definitely feel like I got the better end of the deal.  It's just such a beautiful little spindle!!  And while the loom is/was a very pretty and useful little loom, I think the spindle is just far nicer.

A baby update, plus submissions done

I'll start with the knitting update.  My submission for the upcoming Jane Austen Knits publication is done, emailed, and sample sent in the mail.  The deadline isn't for several more weeks, but I discovered yesterday that Canada Post is threatening a strike, which got me really nervous.  If they walk out on strike, it would be on May 24, which is before my deadline and would virtually ensure that my package would not arrive on time.  So I hauled my butt into gear yesterday and finished the last of my editing.  It was an extremely busy and productive day.  I don't think I've ever sat so long at one project.

The project itself was already finished, and my test knitter had finished her sample, too, which made everything easier.  The hard part was scaling up the math for the finished dimensions.  Still, it's extremely pretty and I am super excited to see it on the shelves in the late fall.  :)

Now on to other news.  To the left you can see the tiny little human incubating inside me.  She is absolutely perfect and healthy.

Yes...that's right...read it again, I said SHE!

We found out on May 4 that we are having a little girl.  She was wide awake and extremely cooperative in informing us that she is a girl.  We do have a few names set aside, but we are not sharing them until she is actually born.

She's kicking up a storm and is extremely active.  It's a little distracting feeling a tiny foot imbed itself in your bladder, but mostly it's just really cool.  Not entirely comfortable, but interesting and exciting nevertheless.  Still, I'm looking forward to getting the next 19 weeks finished up so that I can actually meet her.

Knitting and focusing so heavily on deadlines is helping to make the time speed by.  Or maybe it just speeds by when you're pregnant.  I think it's the knitting that makes it go so fast, really, because it just seems to crawl by so slowly at night.  I might "accidentally" smack the next person who implies that pregnancy insomnia is just your body preparing yourself for less sleep when the baby comes.
A) My body doesn't need that much practice.
and B) Wouldn't a better way of preparing be to store up as much sleep as you can now so that you're all rested and happy when she makes her debut?

Maybe that's just me.  Or maybe pregnancy really does make you slightly crazy.