Its a regular Zoo around here

Its been a real zoo around here this past week. We adopted two pets. First Mazy a 5 month old Cocker Spaniel and Hoss the rabbit. Now we did have plans to adopt a dog but the rabbit was an add on. Our much loved dog Tiny died last spring and over the holidays it really came apparent that we needed a new dog. So for the past few weeks I have been visiting the local humane society looking for a new dog. We wanted a smaller sized one that was about a year old. When we saw Mazy we just fell in love.

While we were looking at her an older woman took her info card and was really looking over the information. My husband and I just stood there waiting for her to hang up the card so we could have her. The lady asked me were the age was listed. I showed her and she said she was looking for a dog closer to her age. Well the second she hung up the card we snatched it. By the time we were all done filling out the paper work there were a couple of other families looking at her too. We were told she was crate trained but they weren't sure about house broke. Well she isn't crate trained and she is getting the idea about going potty outside pretty well.

Now for Hoss. Over the Christmas break we baby sat a angora rabbit for a friend of mine. We had so much fun that we thought it might be something to think about for the near future. Well about a week ago a girl friend of mine herd about a breeder that was interested in selling one of her bunnies to a 4H family for a discount. We she called me and then I made the needed calls and we picked up Hoss on Friday.

His original name was Peter as in Peter cotton tale but I have to say he is one big bunny. So much so we are now calling him Hoss. He is 50% German and 50% Satin angora. He is not at full coat yet but I would bet I could get a pound of wool from him right now. Yes he is bigger then Mazy.

So as you can tell we are getting used to our new zoo. The great thing is both have great personalities and have so far fit nicely into our family

Some of my finished UFO's

Here are a few of my finished UFO's that I did before the New year. These mittens are wool and lined with angora. Yes I did say lined. The pattern can be found in an older Spin off magazine. The hat comes from Mountain colors. I want to make a hat and mitten set that went with my coat.


The cowl pattern comes from the Winter issue of Knitty. The yarn is handspun soysilk



This baby afghan is one of my all time favorites. The pattern comes from a Leisure Arts book called Quick afghan. It takes only 14 ounces of worsted weight yarn. Usually when I make an afghan before I know if its going to be a boy or girl I pick the wrong color. Not this time. They are having a girl.




These are the jaywalker socks made from Noro sock. I have to say I'm not a huge fan of Noro sock yarns. I'm not sure the single ply will hold up to wear. Plus there was some real thin spots and some really thick spots. I am wearing them so we will see how long they hold up.

Where the heck I have been!

The holidays were a great time here in Idaho. We have a good visit with my mother in law. One the great things this year was the snow. Boy did we have snow. For about 2 weeks it seemed like it snowed everyday. I think we had about 8 inches on the ground on Christmas day. Which I know for some that was nothing but for the Boise area that's a lot of snow. As the year was winding down I decided to finish up all my UFO's. So on Jan 1 I had nothing on needles, hooks or wheel or spindle. I have to say it was a great feeling to have everything all finished up but as the same time I didn't know what to do next.
So what I did was set some goals for the New year. Which I have been working on.
These are my fiber goals
1. Learn to use all the whorls that my Matchless comes with. For those who don't know the Schacht Matchless has 6 different whorls. So far I have 5 . What I want is to be able to spin any size yarn that I want for any given pattern I chose to do. I will talk more about how this goal is going.
2. I want to keep on top of my projects. I don't necessarily want to work on one thing at a time but I do want to keep it under control.
3. I want to do a fleece study.
4. As a Christmas gift I received a subscription to Fondle this Fiber club. Each month I will get in the mail a pattern and the amount of fiber needed to make the project. I want to complete each project before the next one comes.
5. I want to try to make projects from my stash instead of buy either new yarn or fiber when possible.
My life goals are:
1. read through the Bible in 09
2. loose 28 pounds by my birthday, then another 20 by fall. ( so far I have lost 8)
3. become more active.

I have been working on all of these goals and will be reporting on my progress over the next few blog posts and through out the year.