Lady Darcy of Thistledown

In our house we have 4 dogs and 4 cats. One of those cats and dogs are Scotty's and mine. We have 3 children. One is living with us right now. She is in between selling her house and buying a new one. She brought in 2 dogs and 1 cat. We have a son in college. He has his 1 dog with him and his 1 cat with us. We have another daughter in college and she has her 1 dog with us and her 1 cat with us. Got the picture?



This is Lady Darcy of Thistledown. She gets to come to the shoppe. Because we have the dogs, Darcy is their alpha female and she just loves to get them all together and go for walkabouts. At first she took them back into the woods, but lately she has started to discover M-22. We are not thrilled with any of the walkabouts and many has been the times that I have taken the van and gone out to find her and her partners in crime. So, as a preventative measure, I have started to bring her to the shoppe.

Darcy makes a great shoppe dog. She loves the attention and she will quickly lie on her back, giving you the opportunity to scratch her belly. She also loves to lie on the rug by the front door. They are both the same color, so she becomes one with the rug.

So, until our daughter buys a new house and moves out - Lady Darcy of Thistledown will be my partner at the shoppe.

April showers bring spring flowers

I always loved that saying. I grew up on a dead - end street that had a woods at the end. And I loved to wander around, looking at all of the flowers that grew in there. Violets and Jack in the Boxes are the ones I remember, although there were others.

We have a raised bed in front of our house and this is what grows in there during this time of year.



These pictures were taken over a week ago. I love these little flowers.



Not sure what they are called, I call them star flowers, they are delicate and I like their color.


There are other small flowers in there, but since I planted them about ten years ago, I have forgotten what they are.

More Knitting by the Bay

Here is the group. Actually, this is part of the group. We lost some and these are the ones who stayed until the bitter end.

Good bye until next year.

Knitting by the Bay

Knitting by the Bay 2009






Nancy showed off her Mananita.





Amy came back to see us again. She taught us how to knit the Pansy Shawl and the Beginner's Shawl.



Nancy also showed us the shawl she made for her daughter's wedding.

It was gorgeous.
Amy's sweater that she talked Susan into adding the sleeves.




We spent a lot of time of knitting and tearing out.


But we learned a lot, ate good food, and made new friends.





The Beginner's Shawl.

Socks

Well, in case you haven't figured it out yet, I love handknitted socks! I find it very hard to turn down more sock yarn for the shoppe. There are so many great fibers out there to knit into socks. Under hand dyed we have Yarn Hollow's Sock Religious and Panda Cotton, ShiBui's sock yarn, Fourth Coast Fibers sock yarn, Farmhouse Yarn Bo Peep Sock and Fannie's Fingering, Schaefer's Anne, and Mountain Colors Bearfoot. Other sock yarns include Louet Gems fingering, Opal cotton, 6-ply and what I call their regular sock yarn. Also Skacel's Trekking XXL in 6-ply and fingering, Austermann Step, Fortissima, Trekking ProNatura. And don't forget South West Trading Company's Tofutsies. Then we will be adding Misti Alpaca sock yarn, Classic Elite Yarns Alpaca Sox, Summer Sox, and TY-Dy socks. Whew! See what I mean. And I don't carry every sock yarn out there.

Plus I enjoy seeing what you folks have done with the yarn you bought from us. Sue sent me this picture. She bought these from us last summer and finished them up just recently.


Who would have guessed that they would have looked like this? Thanks, Sue, for sending the picture to us.

Still loving those hats

Have to admit, even with spring peeking around the corner (come on folks, spring is not here until May), we still wear and knit our hats.




Here is a cute one that Alicia made. And yup, it is made out of one of my favorite yarns, Lamb's Pride.

Hats on to You

Yesterday we turned over 36 hats to our wonderful plow drivers here in Leelanau County.



Pictures of the various hats that were made by you folks.



Tags were added that gave washing instructions (to prevent felting).




The other side of the tag says "Thanks for keeping our roads clear!!!! Knitted for you by Leelanau County area residents" Thanks to Amy for that idea.




Channel 4 TV came out and recorded a nice segment for us.



Brown Sheep donated the Lamb's Pride and the Double Ewe Yarn Shop in MN graciously allowed us to use their pattern.



The last hat was dropped off today, so now we have 37.

This is Herb Cradduck, the Superintendent, wearing one of the hats. We also added the NW Bank buttons that say "I Can Do That."




Thanks, guys.

How to get a van out of the berm

In case you were holding your breath, wondering if my van was still stuck .......


Thanks to the sun ( it melted part of the snow) and my daughters, we shoveled and pushed and it came out.



Then we played in the snow at our house. Our driveway was plowed out Tuesday morning.

And I thought I liked winter

I like winter. I really do. I like the crunchness of the snow, I like the white of the snow, I like that I am not flinging bugs away from my face. So winter is okay.

Yesterday, my daughter, Mary, and I drove my son, Ian, downstate to a town called Reading. We left a little bit before 10 am. Of course you already know that Reading is in Hillsdale County, very close to the state line. I thought we were going to be going about 1/2 hour away from Kalamazoo, which is where Ian is going to school and living for now. No, Ian's car was in Reading and that was where we had to go.

So, we drive to Reading, drop off my son, and start to head back to Leelanau County. Which is about 6 hours away. It is 4 pm and it starts to rain. Rain is okay. We are in a car and we are dry. Which is more than we can say for the Amish who are in buggies with one umbrella. No pictures of them. Just envision pouring rain, open buggy, and very huddled people under one umbrella.

We stop in Byron Center to see my mother, who has just flown back from Florida. Her plane is late and we don't see her until 7 pm and we leave her house at 7:30 pm.

South of Big Rapids, we are hit with sleet. Lots of sleet. Drive at 30 mph sleet. It starts to get dark and is very sleety. The roads are rutty and it is hard to see at times. The good thing is that there are not many cars on the road and we are on the expressway and some snowplows are out.

We drive on, slowly, and the sleet turns to snow. Can't remember where, but it is snowing. That is better than sleet, as we can see.

At some point we pass Cadillac. We drive and after what seems like an hour, we still have not seen the end of the expressway. I have decided that we have hit the Twilight Zone and we are stuck forever in driving in snow in the dark.

We do reach the end of the expressway, continue slowly on and finally we see the flashing light for M-113. We make our turn and start down an unplowed road. Well, I am sure it was plowed at some time, but at this point in time, it is very rutty and snowy. We have decided to take M-113 to M-37 and then up to M-22, M-204, again onto M-22 and home. We have been told that our road is plowed.

Clean off our wipers at the intersection of M-37, partially slide into the intersection at Chum's Corners where a police cruiser watches and very nicely ignores the fact that our light was red. We back up, wait for the green and continue on. Saw our first car off of the road. Pull off into McDonalds to clean our wipers, again.

Back on the road, on to Suttons Bay. Reach Suttons Bay and turn onto M-204. Come into Lake Leelanau and see two cars with flashers on, parked in the middle of the side streets. Make condesending remarks about vehicles stuck in snow and how well we have done for the past eight hours on our trip back home.

We approach M-22 and have already decided that we are not going to stop for the stop sign as we may not get any further if we lose momentum. We turn north and head towards Leland. Only 4 miles from home!

And hubris hits. M-22 has not been recently plowed. The snow is deep enough that as we hit it, it comes up and hits our windshield. The wipers can not clear off the snow fast enough and we have to stop and clean off our lights, windshield, grill and anything else that is covered with snow and ice. We start back down the road and see a county road plow approaching us from the rear. We are driving down the middle of the road, so we pull over to the side and let the snowplow go by. Yes!!!! We will follow the plow home.

Wrong. The van is stuck in the right side of the road.

A truck comes by. He tries to help us push the van out, but no shovels. No cat litter. Did I mention that my eldest daughter sold her house and used the van to move on Saturday? Which meant that all of my winter stuff had been removed to make room for her boxes. Also, I had no boots, no hat, no gloves or mittens, no coat. After all, when we left at 10 am that morning, it was fairly warm. It is now midnight and we are tired and want to get home.

We call home for help. We call Van's for towing and leave our information. We sit there. Another snow plow goes by. We see red lights, twice. We finally figure out that the power lines have touched each other and have given us a light show.

Rineharts from the Whaleback Inn drive by. They too are coming back from downstate, where it was nice and warm. They, too, know exactly what we have been driving through. They stop, try to push us out, and decide that they will go home and come back with shovels.

We wait. Our good samaritans come back and after shoveling and shoveling and shoveling, we start to push. The van comes free and we drive home.

Except, our road has not been plowed out. Not only has it not been plowed out, it has been plowed in. We stop in the middle of M-22 (which in only one lane) and look. We are one half mile from home and we can't get there. It is 1:30 am and we want to be home. Even if we tried to plow our van through the berm, we would be stopped by the 2 feet of snow on the road. We drive north on M-22 to see if we can park anywhere and walk in. We drive all the way up to North Lake Leelanau Rd. and that isn't plowed out either. Nothing is plowed out. There is only a one lane down M-22. No driveways, no side roads. Just lots and lots and lots of snow.

We carefully turn around and head back to our road, hoping to find somewhere to safely park the van. Nope. We call the sheriff's department for advice. We are told to park the car in a parking lot. Ummm, what parking lot? Well, then, how about the side of the road? Right. The side of the road that has over 2 feet of snow, the side of the road in which we will be stuck.

We drive back into Leland, looking for anywhere to park. We are now getting desperate. Maybe we could park in a parking lot in Leland and hitch a ride with someone else who is driving aimlessly around at 2 in the morning. Except, the parking lots in Leland have lots of snow. There is no way to drive into a parking lot.

We turn around, go back up to McLeod (our road) and look at the road. It has not been plowed since we left. There is still a berm, then lots of snow. We look at the side of the road. Still lots of snow there. It is against everything in me to deliberately drive my van into a snow bank. But I have no choice. I am so close to being home. After three false starts, my van is nicely parked in a snow bank.

We get out of the car, grab the two dogs, one Scottie and one Cocker, and head towards our road. The snow is up to my knees and past my daughter's knees. the Scottie is engulfed by the snow and we have to carry her.

Mary and I take turns breaking snow, stopping to catch our breath several times.

At 3 am, we walk into the house.
**************

Pictures taken the next morning:


Snowplow plowing our road


Our tracks down the road


See how deep it was?

Henry's

Have to announce the new yarn that came in this week. Henry's Attic.


We restocked and added.


This is Irish Lace and Shahrazade.

And don't forget the alpaca, as in Prime Alpaca and Peruvian Tweed. My favorite color is the dark brown with bluey charcoal.


Look at the Aztec Boucle. We have four colors - Ecru, Tan, Amber, and Kalahari.




Then there is Monte Cristo which makes for very soft, comfy baby blankets.

Be aware that yarn from Henry's Attic is very addicting. And for those of you who want natural, this is the place. No dyes.

What's Knitting?

Folks have been knitting the fingerless gloves/mittens/gauntlets/whatever you want to call them, for the past year. I have to admit that the ones we have had as samples in our shoppe never caught my eye. Then, about 2 weeks ago, I tried on a pair that one of the customers brought in. And I loved them! What was the difference? These fit. I have large hands and the ones in the shoppe were all too tight on me. But these fingerless mittens were my size.

So I sat down and knitted these up, out of Lamb's Pride Worsted. And I love them. They are bright and warm.

During a knitting weekend, seven and a half years ago, my goal was to learn how to knit socks. I had been playing around with knitting socks, but wasn't very good with it. Not only did I learn more about knitting socks, but I also learned how to change colors.

Voila! See what I wrought.


But that was pretty much all I did with that pair. I discovered this sock last weekend while rooting around in my stash in the basement. Time to knit the other sock, don't you think?