Molly Bee's Attic

It's bad, People. It's very, very bad. As you recall, I knit half a Fiddlehead Mitten (heretofore known as 'The Finorkin Fiddlehead Mittens') and decided that I needed to go up a needle size. I did and was very pleased with the results.  I knit the blue. Groovy. I even started to like the icord cast on. Then I knit the teal...Oooo! Nice transition.  Then I got to the sea glass green and the thumb and all of that jazz.  Still going really well... I switched to the purple heather....hmmmm, not wild about that but I'll keep going....Then I got to the fifth color, a darker purple, and knit all the way to the top decrease and look what happened. #1.  There are two colors of purple there and even though they don't look like it on the skein, they are too close in color to tell apart when knit side by side. #2.  All the blues together and then the purples looks ok when I laid the skeins out, but clearly it is too dorky to live in reality. So....sigh....look away,...

So Miss Nancy and I started our Fiddlehead Mitten Knit Along on Saturday last. I had a devil of a time getting the i-cord cast on even enough for my liking and then I started to put the thumb gusset on BOTH sides of the palm before I stopped myself after five rows, but otherwise the pattern was pretty straight forward. I am almost through the gusset. In fact I'm this far: Don't know why that's upside down and I don't really care... because as of tonight... it's all coming out! We talked about it this morning and both of us feel that since our stranded knitting is pretty tight, we'd better frog the whole works and go up a needle size or too-particularly since there is a liner mitten that has to go in there too. The plan is to go up two needles sizes on the outer, stranded, mitten but drop back, either one or two sizes down, for the inner liner which isn't stranded and therefore should be knit a bit looser. It's a good plan, but after ripping out a huge ...

We had a pretty relaxing weekend around here for a change. It was finally sunny again. My Knit Sisters came over on Friday night. We watched a Harry Potter movie, had warm apple dumplings and they commiserated with me about having to rip out 6 inches of the sweater front I was almost finished with. Le sigh. Saturday I did some spiffin' up in the nest which included cleaning out my bookshelves. Two huge bags are out the door!  A bag of knitting ones for the Knit Sisters and a bag of cookbooks for St. Vinnies! Ahhh... space!  My place will never be Zen, but I don't want it to turn into an episode of Hoarders either! I also started the Fiddlehead Mitten KAL with Nancy. I haven't done i-cord cast on before and I love the way it looks but it took a bit for it to click for me. But I've finally got one mitten on and about 8 rows of the palm! Today I had a barn shift. It was nice to see the gang again. Colder than heck though. Took a while for Anna to get up and going. S...

Nancy, a friend of mine from back in the day in Maine, and I are embarking on a Fiddlehead Mittens  Knit Along on Saturday. I haven't looked forward to a knitting project so much in quite a while. Nanc is taking a class at her local yarn store and sent me an email wishing that I still lived in Maine so I could go with her. I told her that I have had the pattern forever and would love to knit it along with her as she takes her classes. We'll chat about it and send progress photos online.  I've never done i-cord cast on so I may even learn something! (Won't Nancy's knitting teacher be surprised when she has to conferences me in by iPhone because I have questions! ) Here is my yarn: The ash grey is the background color the 5 skeins on the bottom are the accent colors and the two balls of purple are 100% baby alpaca for the lining. Sah-weet! The Countdown has begun!

So I went to the filling station this morning to get a cup of coffee. I do this a couple of times a week. They rotate flavors through but I almost always get hazelnut. For the last month or so though, there has been a wee sign on the hazelnut carafe that says try 'French Toast Muffin' .  I did and I LOVE it. It's very unique- way different than my normal hazelnut.   Sweet somehow. You can really taste the maple overtones. It quickly became my new favorite.  Today when I bought some, I used the last of the carafe so the following conversation with the F illing S tation L ady ensued: ME : I just maxed out your French Toast Muffin coffee. FSL : What? ME : I just used the last of the French Toast Muffin coffee. FSL : (blank look) ME : I just took the last cup of French Toast Muffin coffee (pointing to the carafe). FSL : Oh! You mean hazelnut! ME : (patiently) No, it's in the hazelnut carafe, but it says French Toast Muffin. FLS : No, the cof...

No farming this weekend. I was supposed to attend a horse class on Saturday afternoon but was ill and couldn't go so I haven't seen any of my babies since last Wed. and won't see them 'til THIS Wednesday!  It's still been a pretty full weekend even with not feeling well. I went to the dentist on Friday. I woke up Christmas morning missing a chunk of my bottom, front tooth. I'd already chipped the other one. I blame Santa. After eating all of those cookies year after year, his own chompers must be falling out by now.  But to steal them while you sleep seems a little extreme. In cahoots with the Tooth Fairy no doubt. So I went in and endured the 'all I want for Christmas is your two front teeth' jokes and got them fixed. $149!  Then I took Ben to the vet to get his nails trimmed and have someone look at his boo-boo ear. He is prone to ear infections in his left ear because of the way it's designed-not a lot of air circulates in there and it stays m...

Since it was Wednesday night, to the barn I took flight, To do chores in this cold winter season. Tonight there was a note, said,  'Put coats on the goats, To keep cute, fuzzy butts from a'freezin.' How hard could it be? There were just two, not three, That didn't have coats on already. The coats had  some straps and went over their backs. We just had to hold them real steady. It seemed easy enough, for these two were not gruff. The task should go smoother than butter. And the goats were both Billies so the belt for their bellies Wouldn't get all hung up on an udder. But the two it turns out, had heads filled with doubt 'Bout the statement they'd make, so important, To the llamas and mare and the other folks there, Should bright-hued winter coats, they be sportin'. So they dodged and they weaved, on the run they believed From our efforts to wrap up their torsos. But they were so wrong, because even head strong, WE were determined a...

As you all know from my yammering since July, Heartland Farm has become one of my favorite places to be.  The setting, the animals, the people, the work they do...all very soul restoring.  They have put together a heartwarming video of the highlights of 2011.  I encourage you to click on the link and watch it. It's about 4 minutes long. Please consider Heartland when you make your charitable contributions for 2012 so that they can continue this amazing work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7SCPcNrFPY

This morning at the farm, we took Anna and Cherish down to the big back pasture for the first time.  They had previously been in a small yard off the side of the barn that would shelter them a little better and confine them a bit while they healed and gained strength. It was a chore getting Anna, the mule, down to the new pasture. Sarah, the barn manager, led her, but as you can imagine Anna was more than a little scared and all kinds of excited to be in a new place and took poor Sarah 'off-roading' a couple of times before she finally went through the pasture gate. Cherish, the horse, is much more subdued than Anna. She's had a longer journey to get back to 'healthy' .  But even she stopped in her tracks a couple of times at the prospect of all of that wide open space, and had to be persuaded to move forward.  Once she got through the gate and saw all of the field grass she commenced munching and was happy as a clam to just amble about sampling the different plants...

Hold on to your hats, People! One of my New Year's Resolutions is to be back in the saddle with blog posting! Today's entry is a little update on Cherish and Anna. These two came to us suffering from SEVERE neglect. Cherish, the horse, had broken her hip  and been discarded and nearly starved to death. Anna the mule was also starving, on top of being kept in a too small enclosure that wasn't tall enough for her to fully lift her head . She had never had her hooves trimmed so they laid out on the ground in front of her feet about  8-6 inches, impeding her ability to walk correctly. They were both covered with sores and infested with parasites. They were both about as big a train wreck as you could get and still be alive.  But look at them now!  Anna's hooves were trimmed back much more quickly that was originally thought possible and her legs are getting stronger every day. After slowly being reintroduced to food, they both have gained weight an...

I got to the barn last night and went in the water room to check on the cat, Miss Leroy, first.  I worry about her; she's such a sweety but is deaf and getting up in years so I always pop my head in her 'bedroom' and make sure she's OK.  She was there alright.  She was cuddled in her open cat bed on the work bench...right beside her enclosed cat bed which contained... a possum!  He was all snuggled down in the assorted blankets that are stuffed in there, toasty as could be.  They both blinked at me grumpily in the glare of the bare, overhead bulb, no doubt trying to telepathically tell me to turn the light back off so they could get back to their slumber party. I am one of those rare folks who thinks possums are finorkin' adorable. They can't help it that their tails look like that.  I went and got a cat crate and put it gently up to the opening of the enclosed cat bed and tried to entice the possum into the carrier by croonin...

Yowza! How 'bout them holidays, huh? I haven't posted in...like... forever it seems. Nothing outstandingly exceptional happening, just lots of little stuff. I took some pics for you. Now that the girls have opened them, I can show you the headbands I knit them for Christmas. Their high school colors are orange white, and black  I think.  And now I've dug out the Irish Cable (Alice Starmore-St Enda) sweater I've been working on for two years and am determined to finish it before St. Valentines Day.  So SEE! There HAS been knitting! I've also been drawing since another goal is to have my Etsy Shop up and running in the next couple of weeks or so.  Here is the piece I did last weekend: 11x17 But I will be concentrating mostly on the more saleable bags, note cards, bookmarks and jewelry on my shop site. Maybe I will add prints of the larger pieces once I figure out how to do that. Glass Pendants I worked every day of my Christmas break at the f...

We are having a snowflake decorating thing going on at work.  The first one I made was a seahorse. I saw one out on the web but didn't like the clunky seahorse design so I designed my own.  Encouraged I made an octopus one...and mistakenly cut it's head off thus turning the hose on my desire to spend too much more time designing my own.  So I hauled these out. I have been holding on these templates because I absolutely abhor all things Star Wars (No offence George Lucas; it has absolutely nothing to do with you or your stories).  A lot of my  friends don't, feel similarly, I thought I'd make them for their amusement.  C3PO Darth Some Kinda Trooper-not Storm Storm Troopers I have no idea WTH this thing is! YODA Merry Christmas, you I wish!

Every December my company puts on an Employee art show. I put in several entries this year.  I put in 4 tote bags but only managed to get a picture of two.  A Tangled Lobster  The Tangled Cubes that friend Brian Stum framed for me. Did a great job didn't he?  He did these too. 9 tiles, cut apart and drawn in no particular order, and then reassembled.  Here's a little closer look. It was a fun surprise to see how it turned out when it was put back together! And this is called "It's The Little Things"  The entire thing is done with a small repetitive motif. Brian did the frame on this too. It won 3rd prize in the show!

This guy lives in the prairie across the street. For the past three years I have been trying to get a decent picture of him...any picture of him really.  I usually see him when I am walking Ben and don't have my camera. The following pictures are blurry and awful but they ARE pictures...and you can see his beautiful markings... Tree top sentinel  Fly away!  Beautiful markings (Insert theme to "Top Gun' here!) 

The Christmas Season kicked off in a big way this week. My cards were done, most of my shopping is done, now is the time to enjoy all that the holiday has to offer. On Saturday night I got all tarted up and we went to the Promega Christmas Party: We had a lovely dinner, played blackjack and listened to music until Midnight. Didn't win any 'major awards' but has a wonderful time.  Steve is such a sweet guy. Handsome too! Winning! Sunday afternoon was time for my favorite Midwest holiday tradition....Caroling in the Caves at Mt. Horeb's Cave of the Mounds.  There's seating for about 50 people per concert inside the first cavern of the cave. This year they put candles everywhere. It was really beautiful and the acoustics are amazing.  Beautiful light in the darkness...  Reminds me of religious grotto's I've visited.  Candles and Christmas lights up the stairs The singers stand on the stairs.  This year's group was 'Tangled Up In Blue' a wo...

I think llamas are beautiful mystical creatures.They are a study in opposites. They look so delicate but are really sturdy. They look friendly at a distance but are really shy and stand-off-ish. That said, they put aside their demure, retiring attitudes when the cameras come out apparently. Llamas, at least some llamas, are media hams... Hey there Thor and Mick. You boys are looking particularly handsome today! Mick, since you're already standing up, do you mind if I take your picture? Just hold still for a minute...  Oh. OK.  I guess a little closer wouldn't hurt .  That's good...now just stand still. Uh, now you're getting a little too close there, Mick.  Can you please  back it up just a bit? Uh, Mick...which part of stand still don't you understand? Oh probably you don't speak English, being from South America and all. How do you say 'stand still' in Spanish?  OK-Now we have to have a serious talk about personal space and boundary issues,...