Navajo Spindle

I've had an impossible time trying to learn to drop spin. After looking at some wonderful videos on YouTube I decided that supported spindling on a Navajo Spindle just might work for me. I have neck and shoulder issues that prevent me from being able to hold my arms up for any appreciable length of time. It's felt awkward and then, after a short while, darned painful.

A friend posted this YouTube video showing Master Weaver, Clara Sherman carding and spinning on a Navajo Spindle. Watching this convinced me that if Clara could do it so could I. Of course I'm ignoring the annoying little buzz in my head that says Psst! She's been doing it her entire life! Then I fell totally in love with a beautiful hand made and decorated spindle called Navajo Sun by Roosterick from his Etsy shop. Along with Navajo Spindles they also sell unique and interesting pewter buttons.

I'm waiting with bated breath for the spindle to arrive....oh I do hope I can make it work. Some places I knit are crowded and have little available floor space to set up even my lovely smaller Majacraft Pioneer spinning wheel. Also it sometimes is just too much to take all the extra stuff along with the wheel and my knitting. This should prove to be much more portable. We'll see how I do.

I recently received my replacement Bass Pro Shop order. The first one smelled very unfortunately of mildew! A fishing rod? Noooo...a Bait Bag...to use for circular knitting needle storage! Mine is the double. 
Details and more pictures can be seen on my Ravelry project page.

Flowered Strips Scarf

  So this test worked out somewhat well. I emailed this from my BlackBerry. I thought it was suppose to end up in "drafts", not be posted directly, as it was. I need a bit more practice. 


This Flowered Strips Scarf is one of the newest scarves for a whole series that are being donated to a DAR home for rescued children. I had fun concocting this. See it on my Ravelry projects page.

'Night 'Night

Here is a worthy use of time and resources you might just have sitting around in your house: Project Night Night. Recycle nearly new children's books and stuffed animals and either make or purchase a blanket to add to the Night Night Bag. The bag is donated to children's shelters accross the country and is the first thing that greets the rescued child when they enter. Many times this is all the children have if they have to be rescued quickly, or come from homes that were destroyed. You can also start your own local version of this by purchasing their bags:
Home page: http://projectnightnight.org
Short video - scroll to second one: http://projectnightnight.org/video.html


A just got back from CO, via a business trip to CA. He enjoyed visiting with out daughters and granddaughter and returned with a calendar. All the pictures are from DGD C and it was created by DD#1. It certainly warms a grandmother's heart...and a grandfather's too! I flipped through them over and over....and I'm sure I will look through all the months again and again...

Round and round

Just found an excellent knitting tip for stranded work in the round on Ravelry: knit it inside out!


The BBerry came back to life after some work and now I have a new problem, double screens when I turn it on. Apparently it reacts slowly and I move fast! I have discovered the red phone button can cure many ills, at least temporarily. I do enjoy using the Storm 2's built-in camera and being able to email, message or send photos directly to Flickr. But using my Bberry seems to be a case of what's going to happen next? I do feel as if I go round and round with it, get one thing figured out or fixed and have another issue....start again....of and the inevitable once a week re-boot, that means you take the battery out. I suppose this clear the cache and whatever else it needs to do to 'think' clearly! :D 


Meanwhile I'm thinking of putting all my FO's into a pile along with the WIP's and trying to finish them all off by entering them into an event in Ravelympics2010. This so I can stop moving them from here to there and around and around, while starting new projects. Which just frustrates me and leaves them unfinished. 


Holy Mackeral....this Oatmeal Cookie Neckwarmer from Mod Cloth is very cool! It really would not be that hard to knit. Or you can buy it from them at $49.99.

Grafting made new.

OMG from a knitting standpoint this is a fabulous new technique for grafting: 
http://www.jonquilmom.com/JonquilMom/Easy_Graft.html

Not So User Friendly After All!

Due to my vast inexperience and after only one week of trying to learn how to use it I've managed to screw up my BBerry. There is a nasty little screen stuck on top of my Main Menu that will NOT go A.W.A.Y! Yerk! I was trying to load the Verizon Music app and managed that without a hitch. I was trying to find the downloaded phone ring tone that'd disappeared and refused show itself no matter what and that set off some sort of nasty aberration that landed this little box in my face.

Soooo, the world as I know it has now come to a temporary end. 

I discovered the BBerry can still be used as a phone, despite the evil box. That fact alone is saving it's life! Although for some insane unknown reason it only vibrates, the _______(fill in your own fave expletive) ring tone has now disappeared too! I may SCREAM!

New technology!

Another year has gone by, I'm back in FL after spending July to Nov. in Colorado and it's time for some updating. 


Here "C" is at the Denver Science Museum, picking up "moon" rocks. A good time was had by all!


DGD "C" is four and what a delight! Full of fun, personality and determination wrapped up in the charm that usually gets her what she wants.


I still love my Mac Laptop. Apparently I loved it so much during the past year we had to run out and buy an external hard drive. "Why?" you might ask. Oh, wait, could it be??? I managed to load up so many photos and knitting patterns rich with pictures that I ran clear out of memory! Oh yes, indeedy! Even with using Ravelry to store many of my patterns I have too many on my laptop! While I may be able to cut down the number of patterns I store on my laptop I certainly will have more photos coming down the pike. So, thank you iomega external hard drive. They're small, look nifty and do the job!


I now have a hand held device that I hope will enable more blogging. We took advantage of a Verizon offered twofer on BlackBerry's. I got the new Storm 2 9550 Touch Screen and A got the BlackBerry Tour. We are both very happy, huh, and just how often does that happen? 

Although it took two hours in the Verizon store and two defunct phones before we got devices that functioned properly and we got out we were able to leave. People were pacing around and around. An annoyed man was overheard, saying to anyone nearby: "It took less time to buy my car and was a lot less confusing!" 


I have to give a lot of kudos to "David" who was super patient with his slow and what seemed like overly complicated system and the problems he encountered along the way. He finally got us taken care of and out the door with two working devices.

The infamous "crackberry" site opts in with info, an in depth review and a video

This is a much shorter review with pics and an "unboxing" video!

Wowza...this is a fabulous touch screen, in either direction! It has a real click feel to it which you can watch for yourself if you look at the video at either link I provided! And the device is fun and yes, somewhat confusing as the entire concept is brand new to me and I'm still learning how to use it. I am happy to see it is fairly user friendly. Many things work the way I expect them to. And when it comes to technology, THAT always surprises me! 


The camera is easy to use. So far, amazingly, I haven't figured out how get it to take quite as good a picture as well as my old LG camphone! I'm still working on that. The idea of being able to blog and send pics right from the BlackBerry is exciting. Assuming I can figure out how to do it, it sounds easy -- we.will.see!


And why the paragraphs on this post look so far apart I do not know....