A loss, in chickens and in knitting

The hens are getting SO BIG!  Alas, this growth also reveals their gender a bit more clearly.   I was suspecting that Lovelace, one of my ameraucanas, was a cockerel and not a pullet.  As I was walking toward the coop one morning last week I heard a funny noise.  At first I thought it was our Amish neighbors calling their horses for morning chores, but as I got closer to the coop, I realized the noise was coming from inside the coop.  The noise sounded like a teenage cock-a-doodle-doo.  So, we took Lovelace to one of our Amish neighbors that has chickens.  He'll either be their dinner someday soon or they'll breed him with some of their hens so they can have blue or green eggs.  I'm betting on dinner.  I'm worried that one of my austrolorps might be a rooster too.  The 2 austrolorps are a couple of weeks younger than the others, so it may be a few weeks before I know when I have a male or not.  Chicken loss: 1 cockerel (my choice, but it still makes be sad)

On to knitting adventures:  I have been working on a Soliel tank top in Knitpicks' cotlin (a cotton-linen blend). I realized about 2/3 of the through that I had made a major mistake.  I hemmed and hawed and put it aside for a few days.  At that point I decided that I could make adjustments and make it work.  I finished it up, kitchnered the shoulders and tried it on...not good.  So I put it aside again for a few days while I was trying to decide if I should undo it or suck it up and wear it as is.  I decided I'd never wear it because it didn't fit properly, so today, I frogged it back to the bust line. Knitting loss: half of a tank top

I have made some VERY yummy yarn purchases recently:  I bought some ultra alpaca in a really nice purple.  I'm going to make a Vivian sweater for the fall from it.  I also bought some REALLY beautiful green, blue, and yellow malabrigo to make a Cecilia sweater.  I can't wait to cast on for it!

Guess what I'm doing now though?  Making discloths!  No, really.  I'm trying to make myself learn to knit continentally.  I was hoping to take a class, but I can't seem to find one, so I'm teaching myself using youtube videos.  I have knitting down pretty well, my gauge is getting much more even.  Purling still feels a bit weird, but it's starting to feel a little more normal.  I have 2 dishcloths done (the first was all knitting, the second was just knit and purl).  I want to do at least one more that has some holes (lace) in it, so I can practice yo's, ssk, and k2tog.  I had to do some of that for the 1st dishcloth, but I often cheated and went back to throwing to do that part.  I can already tell that continental will be much, much faster as soon as I get better at it.  It's so much more efficient in terms of body movement.  I hope I get more comfortable and faster with it soon!

A picture of Lovelace (remember, I thought he was a she when I named him) just before I gave him away:

Chickens, engagements, knitting....life is so good!

First, family news:  My older son is engaged!  He and his fiancee (wow, it feels weird to type that!) are graduating from college next week.  They met the first day of college, so I think they know each other well enough.  She is a wonderfully nice person and we are so happy for them.  No news on a date yet.

Now, chicken news:  All of our peeps are here!  The first 4 peeps (2 buff orpingtons and 2 ameraucanas) came 2 weeks ago and the last 2 peeps (2 australorps) came yesterday.  What are their names?  Oh, glad you asked!  One of the buffs is Grace (we've been calling her Gracie) and the other is Hopper.  Back story:  I teach Management Information Systems at a university.  Captain Grace Hopper, PhD is one of the first women computer scientists.  My ameraucanas are Ada and Lovelace.  Ada, Countess of Lovelace (Lord Byron's daughter) is considered to be the first computer programmer.  She worked on programs for Charles Babbage's difference engine way back in the early 1800s.  Our 2 new babies are Annie and Dora.  Annie is named after Annie Easley.  Ms. Easley worked at NASA as a computer scientist from 1958-1999. I chose the names Grace, Hopper, Ada, and Lovelace.  When I first talked of getting peeps, my daughter asked me if she would be allowed to name one the them.  After realizing my "theme" (ok, it's really just a bit of dorkiness on my part), she chose Annie.  She did her little bit of research and called me with some possibilities and we chose Annie together.  My daughter's husband was hoping to name one of babies, too (although I didn't know that).  He suggested Dora.  He and my daughter were married on the cruise ship Explorer of the Seas last year, so he was thinking Dora the Explorer.  I thought it was very sweet, so, while Dora isn't a computer scientist, she is a really cute little peep!  Here are some pictures of my new babies. 

Ada:

Lovelace on left, Ada on right

 Gracie (on the feeder), Hopper, Ada, and Lovelace

The girls yesterday (wow - they grow so fast)

 DoraAnnie

I haven't been knitting much lately, but I have been working my my monkey socks a tiny bit.



Life is so good!

Finished one afghan....YAY!

I promised my son's girlfriend that I'd make her a nice, warm blanket / afghan for Christmas (btw, I meant Christmas 2009.)  Well, I just finished it (finally!)  It was super-duper easy (all knitting) and super-duper boring.  I used Cascade eco-wool in natural colors and it's very lovely.  It's the Moderne Log Cabin blanket from the Mason-Dixon knitting book.  DH is stretching it out...it is really even.

Travelling woman done (in both senses!)

I don't usually travel very frequently.  I go to one professional conference every year and I try to get to Brussels once a year (to visit my BFF).  There are some years when I don't get a chance to go to Brussels.  This year all of my travel happened in the last two weeks.  I went to San Diego a couple of weeks ago for the professional conference and I went to Brussels last week.  Whew!  I finished my travelling woman shawl during my travels (how coincidental!)  It turned out great.  I did add an extra course of the "A" rows (mostly because of several posts on ravelry.) I also surpassed the half-century mark the day before yesterday.  I hope I'm older and wiser and not just older.  :-)

Almost done - whatever that means

I now have several "almost done" knitting projects.  My travelling woman shawl is actually in the bind-off row BUT...I'm going to have to frog a row or 2 because I've dropped a couple of stitches ::swears under breath::.  I'm starting to think this poor shawl is never going to be done!

My corset-t, which has been languishing for nearly 2 years has been getting some action (oh, wait, that doesn't sound quite right!) lately.  The first dozen or so rows of the corset-t is pretty fun.  After that, it's k2p2 the whole way.  While it looks good and will probably fit well, it is B..O..R..I..N..G.  I've taken to keeping the project in my car so I can take it with me whenever I'm somewhere that I'll have some waiting or down time (doctors, dentist, choir practice, etc.)  This may get done in my lifetime, I just hope I still want to wear it when it's done.

The moderne log cabin blanket I'm making for my son's girlfriend is about 90 rows from completion.  I'll probably run out of yarn before then, so I think I'll just stop knitting when I'm out of yarn.  I have enough of one of the colors not in the last block to do a quick border, I think.

My oldest child and only daughter got married last June.  I started a reversible cable afghan for her and her husband...I really want it to be done by their first anniversary!!!

Lastly, I'm working on a birds nest shawl for my BFF.  It's a rectangular shawl that's knit along the long side.  The good news: there are only 150 or so rows.  The bad news: each row is about 4 bajillion stitches!  I'm going to Belgium to visit her this weekend, so I'll take the shawl with me and work on it a bit while I'm there.  The yarn I'm using for the shawl is Bristol Yarn Gallery's Buckingham which is a silk / baby alpaca blend which feels heavenly.

If I find any good yarn shops in Brussels, I'll post them here!

Shawl is almost done and less animals (for now)

Tapioca, the cat in my previous post, has found a new home.  A co-worker of my DH's took him.  She's a single mom with one son.  I think Tapioca will be very happy with them.  He's a "one-cat-family" kind of guy. 

I've been making great progress on my beautiful Travelling woman scarf (using the British spelling because its used in the pattern.)  I only had about 12 rows to go when I decided to add another pattern of chart A.  I finished a few more rows and now have about 15 rows to go.  I'll put a photo up as soon as I start to block it.  Lace (even though there isn't tons of lace on this) does NOT look good unblocked.  It's made with sock yarn on size 6 needles, so that makes it look kind of wonky too before blocking (at least that's what I'm hoping!)

Had a really fun day on Saturday.  My DH and I went to a small event in Harrington, DE called COOPtastic.  It was an information day with vendors and contests for folks with backyard chickens.  I've ordered 6 peeps that will be in next month, so I thought I would get some good info there.  Got some good info on chicks and chickens, but not much on coops (hey, it was called COOPtastic...I thought there would be lots of different types of coops!)  DH will probably finish the coop design this week and start putting it together next week.  We've decided to pasture the chickens, so we're going to use a mobile coop and a mobile run.  I need to come up with a name for the coop (Coop-a-cabana is currently my favorite, but that's likely to change).  I also need to come up with names for all 6 of the girls.  Here are some thoughts (we're getting 2 of each: austrolorps, buff orpingtons, and ameraucanas):

• List 1:  Laverne and Shirley, Lucy and Ethyl, Betty and Wilma (my late mother's name is Betty, so that seems kind of disrespectful)
• List 2: Grace and Hopper, Ada and Countess, Winifred and Asprey (computer scientists)

I'm trying to come up with others, too.

Progress and more animals

The baby dress is done:

 

My friend's daughter is named Hannah, so I just HAD to make a banana for her too!

I've cast on the travelling woman shawl and started to work on it.  I've also made a couple of scrubbies for the kitchen.  I made the scrubbies from Peaches 'n cream and tulle.  The tulle is a bit hard on my hands, so I'll make some more scrubbies tomorrow.

In non-knitting news:

1. I ordered my first chicks ever!  I ordered 2 Araucanas, 2 Buff Orpingtons, and 2 Black Austrolorps.  I ordered them at the local feed store and they'll be here around the middle of April.  Yaay!  
2. Jeff, my DH, brought home ANOTHER cat on Thursday.  We had him (yes, a him, we thought he was a she for 2 days) evaluated at the vet today and he has a clean bill of health.  He is all white and has a very sweet disposition.  The vet thinks he's probably 4-5 years old.  He's already been neutered and declawed.  We've decided to name him Tapioca for now.  This brings our cat "herd" to 5!!!  I'm definitely starting to feel like the crazy cat lady.  Our other male cat, Brownie, is not too happy about this new addition.  The girls, Gravy, Buffy, and Mittens, don't really seem to care.