Fiber Fool

The road trip start with us leaving Fort Collins at about 10:30pm. We decided to stop for gas in Cheyenne as they would be the cheapest of the whole trip, but we got side tracked a little bit finding a station that we trusted for having good quality car diesel that ate up a fair bit of time. Around 2:30am we made a very quick stop and Drew took over the second leg. By the time the sun was up we pulled over at what I think was the Goehner rest stop (just west of Lincoln) for breakfast. We took our time so we refreshed and so that the sun would get high enough for the visor to do some good. There was some interesting litter in Nebraska - a gummy fry containing and the picnic table we went to as this lone gumball on it.

We then pushed right on through Lincoln, Omaha, and right on to Des Moines. We stopped briefly just to the east to pull out some soda from the cooler, then it was onto I-35 and heading north. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to start heading north. Even though the sun was high in the sky, driving east had it still at an angle that was driving my eyes nuts, even though I have high quality sun glasses. Switching to a northerly direction really gave me some much needed relief.

We made a final stop at the last rest stop in Iowa that is this big red barn that houses a large visitor’s center. It was feeling quite hot and humid by this point, but we put together some PB&J sandwiches at a picnic table outside and were soon on our way. We just pushed right on through the last 2 hours or so to Rob’s house in Bloomington. We had lefte at 10:30pm and arrived just before 1:30 (our time) so we made it in 15 hours despite stops at rest stations. I was quite happy. I also laid down for a little nap while Drew and Rob caught up on all the goings on and jammed on guitar a bit.
Tomorrow, check in to hear all about Minneapolis!

It is another spectrum Sunday in July so purple abounds. However, I’m finding it much more difficult to find purple things around me that are not flowers than I have the other colors so far. Above you can see that we have an over the door set of hooks that hold primarily purple things. This is over our pantry door that is a converted coat closet in our dining room. Hanging on these hooks are our EcoSacs (two of which fall in the purple spectrum), Emma’s leashes, and my apron which are purple. The photos aren’t great because it has been raining all weekend so I had to resort to flash which I’m finding on this new camera really wash things out. But I will gladly sacrifice photo quality for these past two glorious days of drizzle, rain, and overcast skies. We were in desperate need of some moisture and the break from summer heat has been glorious. In fact, I even got to pull out my purple jacket that I got for my birthday (a 1X too) and I couldn’t recall ever needing a jacket here in the front range in July since I moved here in 1999!

This week I also recieved some Project Spectrum goodness in the mail. Shortly after Estes Park, Green Eyed Grrl had a contest using that meme of leaving a one word comment describing her and I won! Not only did she send some fantastic purple-goodness Opal sock yarn, but she shared a bar of the soap she, Katherine and Knitty Professor made. I adored the ribbon she tied around the sock yarn bag too! I have to wait a while to use the soap, but it smells heavenly!

Lastly, I got two more shots of purple flowers on Wednesday when we went to Anne’s mom’s house to pick cherries and raspberries (more on that later this week). This time I know the names, we have a petunia and a delphinium.

Ah, the month I’ve been most waiting for during this Project Spectrum journey. July, the month of purples, lavenders, and violets! I know there are many others out there who were also looking forward to this month with great anticipation.

Above is a little moasic of purple and lavender flowers from the yard of our friends, Anne and Rod. They planned all of their landscape to be useful, with an emphasis on edible. I think it was a wise thing to do in the water-starved front range of Colorado. Most of the plants that have chosen don’t require a lot of water once established and when they do require water the water is at least being used on something that can be used for purposes other than to look good. I took these photos several weeks ago and did not take good notes so I can’t positively identify them. The one on the far right is a mini version of pansies that I just adore! They are way too cute! I should have had a coin in that photo to give a sense of scale, but if I remember right only the largest flowers were about the size of a dime.

Since it is a holiday weekend this Spectrum Sunday is a little light, but I anticipate a lot of purple showing up here on Sundays and other days this month. As usual I do have a couple wallpapers to offer up. One fiber and one floral. I will likely have a yarn one ready by next week as well. As usual, just click on the thumbnail below to go to Flickr. Once there, click on “All Sizes” above the photo, choose the “Original” then right click on that image once loaded and choose “Set as Wallpaper” and you will be all set!

1. PS June Wallpaper1, 2. PS June Wallpaper 3, 3. Spinning Blues, 4. Knitty’s Katja, 5. PS Game - Carcassone, 6. Superwash Handspun, 7. Blue Plate Special, 8. Scrap Quilt, 9. PS Game - Boggle, 10. Water, 11. Swim Bag in Blue, 12. PS Branding, 13. PS Warning, 14. PS Trailer, 15. PS Bottle Cap 2, 16. Persian Midnight, 17. Thank You Card, 18. Japanese Stab Bound Book, 19. Snow Mandala, 20. CD Cover Art, 21. Blue Book, 22. Light Fat Book, 23. Hip to Be Square Art Journal, 24. Lime, Lavendar, and Aqua Art Journal, 25. Ocean Art Journal, 26. Ocean Art Journal 2, 27. Blue Art Journal Spread 2, 28. Blue Art Journal Spread, 29. soar_collage, 30. allaboutthecar, 31. Lily Lake, 32. Scotts Bluff National Monument 3, 33. The Stanley Hotel, 34. Silk/Merino Yarn, 35. Cotton Candy Cotswold Yarn, 36. Mackensie Merino Tussah Yarn

Well it is the last day of June so even though you only just saw most of these, here is my complete June mosaic. It was funny as I was going back through some of my art work looking for blue things, most everything that is blue was made as part of a round robin or a collaborative project that in some way dictacted the colors used. I rarely chose to make a piece predeminantly blue on my own unless it was a blue-green that is hard to classify as either blue or green. Go figure!

Nevertheless, all those collaborative projects allowed me to have a decent mosaic for the month of June. This Spectrum Sunday (hopefully) I’ll be ringing in July which means one of my favorite colors - purple!

First of all, I want to thank you all for the comments on the baby stuff from Friday’s post! It was a blast to knit those things. Now all I need is a cute baby boy project to knit with some red cotton ease in my stash and then I’ll be caught up with all the babies that have already arrived…

It was a crazy weekend. I woke up Saturday with a terrible sore throat. I hit the Emergen-C real hard as well as Mucinex and lots and lots of water as well as lots of hot water with lemon and honey. Sunday the sore throat was mostly gone but my head was killing me so we had to postpone the hike we had planned for that morning. I was real bummed, but I suspect we’ll give it a try this coming weekend if DH isn’t sick. I’m doing better today though still not over it. Plus, I had another dental appointment this morning. I thought it was for putting in the permanent filling on the tooth that had the root canal, but they did some stuff and then put another temporary on it. I get the permanent filling on the 11th of July. But, there is nothing more fun than to have hands and instruments in your mouth when cannot breath through your nose, LOL! *sigh*

Last week DH and I took a few walks through the neighborhood and I captured a few items that were blue. I also did a bit of scavenging around the house to find some things as well. Blue is not one of my favorite colors. Though I have to say that when we bought this house there was one wall in every room that was painted a a dirty pastel blue color and that made blue sit really unfavorably with me. There is still one wall remaining that color and it is in our kitchen. I can’t wait to be rid of it. That said, I did find much more blue around the house than I really expected to. Though most of it was recieved as gifts.

I fill you in a bit more on the yarn pictured in that mosaic tomorrow…