Animal Photo Contest

OK...I need your help!!!

I entered Guppy into a photo contest and I need your vote to win!!!

Go to Humane Society photo contest page and search by pet name.

My little cutie is GUPPY!

Quick...go now!!! :)

Thank you!!!

I've got WORMS!!!!

If anyone would have told me I would one day be excited about worms I would have told them they were NUTS!!!
My worms arrived today, so I got straight to work putting the new compost bin together.
I had already purchased the bin and drilled the holes in the top and bottom for air and had found a few branches for strategic placement to promote air flow.
Then I just has to wait for my worms to arrive from Planet Natural. I probably could have found a local garden store or something and will probably do that when I need more worms.

Once they were here, I wetted some newspaper and poured in a bucket of our garden soil, then I sprinkled them on top. What fun to watch!!! They started wriggling right into the dirt as soon as they landed. It was really cool to watch!!!

I have now added some bananna peels and bits and pieces of some of our veggie remants and they should be happy little worms for a while!!!

I can't wait to see the progress as they get to work on composting!!!

XXL Galore

The XXL Duets on the website have been very much lacking for quite some time...a few nice folks with XXL feet to knit for have been kindly reminding me to get some new stuff up!!!

So, I have done exactly that!!!

I have completely loaded up the XXL section with more colorways than have ever been available at one time!!!

So, if you have been itching to try out a pair of those

thigh high legs warms that are popping up all over the place.......

Or still need to knit those socks you promised dear old dad months ago...

Or, just want to knit a bigger sock than the Original Duet skein can do

This is definitely the upload of yarns for you!!!

Stop by and check them out...before I send out the announcement to everyone!!! :)

Ignorance is bliss...

It all started with a very casual converstation with a friend about plastic and do we really know if it's safe. All I was thinking was, "idunno!" Then she went on to say...'like when you microwave it, there's gotta be some chemicals coming out of it and getting on the food'. My thought was then, "Oh my gosh, you think so?" And I could have left it as the casual conversation it was, but the wonder about the chemicals stayed with me. So I started using glass containers a little more, until I could read a little about it.

So I read a little more about it, which lead to learning that we have amazingly dangerous chemicals right under our sinks! "THAT'S JUST GREAT!!!" I thought, and made some natural household cleaners (some of which were part of the Christmas presents I made this year)

That casual conversation lead to a string of changes and more learning.

HOLEY CRAP...the food we put in our bodies!!! The destruction of the enviroment!!! The landfills over-flowing!!! UUUuugh!!!

I know I have only begun to scratch the surface, and that's what scares me!!!! And it's too late to go back to ignorance...there is ABSOLUTELY no way you will get me to eat the meat from a chain grocery store now!!!! I can't bare to put anything in the garbage can that will end up in a landfill. And now I have to think of a safe way to dispose of all those cleaning chemicals under our sink, because now I can't bring myself to pour them down the drain.

Since I can't go back to not knowing, I must go foward (but I might stop reading about this stuff for a while)... our garden is getting planned, I am learning how to can fruits and vegetables, I have begun researching food dehydrators and decided on this one. I have also started looking into purchasing direct from a local farmer for our meat and eggs and I have Red Wiggler Worms on their way here for our compost bin.

The moral of the story

What you don't know CAN kill you...

or at least give you unexplained allergies, cause cancer, destroy our enviroment, kill off species of animals, etc......

All that talk and no pictures-

After all that talk and hype about the knitting machine and making socks and all that, I don't even show any pictures...GEESH
Well, I actually have very good reason for this!!! I was busy having a blast with the knitting machine!!!!!!

First I cranked out these legwarmers

A couple knitter buddies came over and ooohhhed and aahhhed while I made them. I even had them give it a little go (me-a pusher?! NEVER)

After I got the leg warmers done (which work fabulously while I am out for my walk...very warm legs) I IMMEDIATELY cast on for the socks!!!

This is the short row heel of the sock. This was a piece of cake to do! The only bummer is you still get those pesky holes on the sides. In the future I think I will do an afterthought heel. On the next pair I will actually machine knit the body of the sock and handknit the heel and toe.

This sock as SOOOOOOO fun to do and it whipped out in no time flat (I couldn't pull myself away from the machine to stop so that helped). I even did Fair Isle!!! I was so impressed at how easy Fair Isle is on this knitting machine. You just set a different color yarn on the hook and Viola!!! Fair Isle!!!

Check out the Fair Isle on this bad boy!!! How cool is that!!???!! I know its a super simple design...it was more to just try than anything else, but it turned out so great and it was so easy!!!

I plan to finish it off by hand knitting the toe instead of a doing the short row toe on the machine.

All in all, I love that I can whip out a pair of socks on a flat bed machine. And they look pretty dang good for having a very subtle seam!!! Can't wait to start the next pair!!!

If you have any interest in learning the flat bed knitting machine sock, this is where I got the pattern book