Hazards On The Trail. Big Hazards.

Chilly morning, but the snow had melted from the stone steps - a perfect spot to knit a couple rows.    I could watch the sheep finish up breakfast, listen to the birds, try to figure out what the chickens are up to  all day... 

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, those are real sheeps!!!"

Our awesome farm sitter rescued these tiny Serta sheep from a yard sale thinking 20 might like some cousins.  They fit perfectly in my knitting basket and have been keeping me company on the Iknitarod trail. 

"And that's the sheep your yarn came from?  That is SO COOL!  Hey, Keebler!  Can you come over here?"

Um, that would be a no.  Remember, he's "complicated" ;-).

It was a beautiful morning.  Sheeps all around, horses out grazing in the sun...

Blossom picking at some winter grass through the snow.

My goal is 20 rows today.  I got 10 yesterday and surely I'm getting a little faster and I have a little more free time today.  I should be knitting right now, but what transpired next was so funny I thought I'd come in for another cup of coffee share with the (delusional) Graham Lamb fan club. 

Uh oh.

And my trusty guard dog is taking a nap!

Nope, he's right on it.  He knows to always keep an eye on Graham.  I do too and was just getting ready to go grab my bag...but he was so cute sniffing the little sheep.  Maybe I'll take a quick picture.  Maybe it will be okay. 

So, let's think back over the years.  Has there ever been a time when Graham got involved in something that ended well?

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Yeah, um, that'd be a no. 

"You s'posed to be doing that?"

"Yeah, she said it was okay."  

For the record, I did not.  Ever.  And the next 1.8 seconds were like a slow motion scene in an action movie.  He makes a grab for the bag while I'm yelling "Nooooooooooh!" 

And then it was over.

Oh, the carnage.

Somehow the shawl stayed safely on the mounting block, the attached yarn flying freely from the center pull ball as it hurdled through the air.  The snow cushioned the yarn bowl and Hank quickly attended to the Serta Sheep.  

Whew.

As I picked up everything I felt a tiny bit like the video of/by Jeff King on the Iditarod Insider yesterday.  He's wearing a GoPro camera, filming as his dogs carry him down the trail whether he's upright...or not.  At one point you can see him scrambling to stop the dogs and his upside down sled.  They do finally stop, he picks everything up, rights his sled and continues on.  

Continuing on!

Day Five Update

Still a little snow here, but it's melting fast. I know everyone else is happy about that, but I love snow.  I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

The sun was plenty warm so I sat outside to knit after lunch.  Figured out the self-timer setting ;-).

Moved over to the bench when my back started getting tired.

Poor Weaslie and her rock pillow.  Claire Bear didn't seem to mind her rock bed.

Slow but steady and all forward progress today, so we had another pine tree party :-D.  This is about the end of the ice storm damage.

The lace is just starting to show.

Stopping for evening chores and dinner and then hoping to hit it hard this evening.

"My" musher, like so many others this year, has had to withdraw after a serious injury.  The trail conditions are horrible and it's really taken it's toll.  It sounds like she's given her sled to another musher who sled was damaged.  That does not surprise me.

Tough Day On The Iknitarod Trail

The day started with so much promise. It was in the teens, but the snow was pretty and the sun reflecting off it so warm I was able to sit out on the back porch and double check my stitches from late last night, put in a life line, stitch markers for each section and start knitting.

The first pattern row called for quite a few yarn overs, a stitch combo that creates a "hole" (on purpose) in your knitting.  The directions called for a different style yarn over than I was accustomed to, but I thought I understood what she was saying.  I didn't.

I could tell my next row wasn't working right.  I quickly identified that the yarn overs were incorrect, but thought I could fix them.  My hands were starting to get cold though, but it was too pretty to go inside.  I remembered sitting out in the snow with Maisie last year and decided I could still use my car as a solar heated knitting shelter :-).

I pulled up to the barn so I could watch some "farm tv" while I knitted and wished Maisie was still by my side.  She was a lot of work, but worth every bit of it.  And look who's headed down the hill!  The only sheep interested in venturing out in the snow.

  

Yep, she's my girl :-D.

I kept tinkering with the wrong stitches, but stopped for a lunch break and when I came back out, peeked around the corner at the boys.  You'd have to be having a really bad for this not to make you smile :-).

Maisie made another trip out while I kept working and the horses dosed.  It really was a lovely afternoon...except for the knitting.  Or I should say the NOT knitting.

To make a long story short, I worked and worked on fixing my mistakes.  I think I did fix them, but the "fixed" stitches still looked suspicious to me even though I couldn't prove they were still wrong.  I finally decided the only way I was truly going to be happy was to rip it back to the life line (see the thread run through my last known correct row of knitting?) and start fresh.

To soften the blow the sheeps and I had a pine tree party.

Miss Maisie, our little Iknitarod mascot.  Who'd have ever thought she'd grow up so big and strong :-).

Woolliam in the middle.

While they finished up, I headed back to the car, picked up the life line stitches and knit the first row to make sure I was safely back on the trail.

This is actually the Dragging Pine Branch Trail ;-). 

On the way back to the house after evening chores.  A little taste of Alaska...except we have snow and they don't :-/.

Okay, I've got my lantern blazing and I'm going to clock a few more miles this evening!

Racing To Catch Up - Part Two

I put Daniel back in with the rest of the boys on Saturday afternoon.  He hadn't been horrible to Burrnie, but just bossy and butty enough that I didn't feel comfortable leaving them together unsupervised.  A few days off seemed to do the trick. Just to be safe though, when I put everyone together, I stayed out with them for awhile.

We hung around the barn for a bit and then I decided to walk out to the front and sit under one of the pine trees.  Chocula saw me heading out on an adventure and took off after me.  I trained my camera on him as he ran and didn't notice Comby until I got back in the house.  I think these are hysterical.

"Hey, wait up for me."

"Uh oh!"

"Yikes!!!"

"Glad that fence is close by!"

And here comes Burrnie and Daniel. 

Can you hear the Bill Cosby baby buggy wheels soapbox car music?

Okay, now that's really hysterical!

Hershey finally lumbers down and Burrnie wonders why he's eating an old tree stump.

"Ooh, cool.  I see what you mean!"

Hanging out with Chocula...and a chicken.  Those crazy Adventure Chickens.

The band of brothers.

Racing To Catch Up - Part One

Part Two will be silly sheeps jumping and playing and chasing cats - for those who "ain't so much into knitting" pics even if it did snow last night so they look super Iditarod-y ;-).

I expected a slow start, but wasn't expecting THIS slow of a start.  However, in the more important part of the program, I've learned a new cast on - garter tab - which for several hours I thought I was just completely stupid and should give up knitting, but in googling to see if the designer had an instructional video by any chance, I found that LOTS of people struggle with this.  Whew!

Once I figured out what it was called, I was then able to google how to do it and found several helpful video tutorials and I can pretty safely say I've got it down.  Then I struggled with how tight the edge was coming out and re-knit that a few times and I'm still a bit concerned about that, but at this point I think the edge is okay, it's the sloppy stockinette stitches inside that are the problem.  I've tightened that up a little and hopefully I'm okay knitting on. 

It's definitely going to be a challenge, but pretty so far I think.

On to the catching up part.  Yep, this was Saturday.  Sunny, in the 50s.  I'd spun late into Friday night to get my singles done so they could rest on the bobbins before plying on Saturday.  I had my usual plying problems, but finally got it figured out.  Thin white yarn is hard to see.  I'm moderately happy with my spinning, but definitely need to spin more to get better.

I guessed at the yardage and hoped I'd have enough.  Even though I can obviously spin more as needed, in my head I like to have all my yarn spun up front.  This probably stems from worry about inconsistency, also a situation where spending more time spinning would help.  Anyway, as I wound off my skein, I had 430 yards.  The pattern called for 420.  I'm taking that as good Iknitarod juju :-D.

Look how Keebler's curls reappeared after washing.  Wool is so neat.  Oh, and for those of you who are thinking "I thought she said she was knitting a Buddy shawl." I decided that if I'm knitting something fiddly and complicated, that would be Keebler, not Buddy.  And, I have to say, if Buddy and I were trying to battle that cast on, we'd have both ended up sitting on the couch with our tissue box and a big bag of Rolos ;-).

Ready to go...I thought. 

I should have worked that 2 stitch (yes, 2 stitches...sigh) cast on before I left the Wool House Saturday night so 20 could have helped.  kbdoolin probably wishes I had as well ;-).

2014 Iknitarod

I've got my yarn spun (photo finish, of course), pattern picked (stewed on that forever, of course ;-) and I'm watching the ceremonial start online for the musher I'm pulling for, Karen Ramstead.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Iditarod and Iknitarod last year and I'm hoping for another good experience for everyone involved.

:-D