The knitted Cargo

This picture is not stellar, but it shows him :-) His head is too short, but I was really just fooling around. He is knitted all in one piece, starting with the hind legs and working from there with short rows etc.

How he and I found each other?

Well, I did not even find him. My mother did!
She was browsing the internet for a carpet for the living room floor, now that I have a nephew and a niece that are running around like crazy, and falling at times. She happened upon an online marketplace where lots of newspaper ads etc. are uploaded by the newspapers. The carpet that she found was not what she wanted - but then she saw a picture of a horse. It looked kind and big, so she clicked, remembered that I had said I wanted a horse bigger than 16.1 hh, saw he was 17.3 hh and located near home, so she sent me a link.
Two weeks later, after waiting a week for the vet to check him, he was up here with me. He reminds me of Basse in so many ways. If he had not worked out, I would have quit riding and horses alltogether, because I dont want to ride others peoples horses anymore, my heart is too soft and I get much to involved. I'm planning on keeping Cargo until his time is up.

Have a really nice day

/Lene

The wheels of time

After losing Basse I was at a loss. I didnt know where to go or what to do, and kind of sunk into a lethargic state.



I wanted to ride and feel like I felt with her, but how could I, without her?




Yet, five weeks, exactly, after Basse left me, Cargo B, a 12 yo Holsteiner gelding, 17.3 hh (180 cm) stood in her old stall.


But it was not until today, two months after her death, that he and I agreed we'd be each others best buddies. I am hoping for many good years with him, and that he can take up the empty space in my heart.

HA! And you thought I'd stopped knitting!!
When I get a picture, I MUST show.. I spun yarn for, and knitted, Cargo!! ;-) We were having a creativity contest this weekend, and I just had to knit him. I myself think I was being quite ingenious, and invented a new technique (As usual when I get involved in something), now I want to knit Basse, and lots of others horses, to keep my Breyer horses company. And a big Cargo.

Have a nice day

/Lene

To the bitter end

Some things are like playing. Life is one big game, and nothing can go wrong. It was summer, it was warm, you were perfect, and we were so alive, both of us.


I adored you, and we were in the magazine, we walked wide and far, you blossomed again.


I think you could run like the wind, but you could not outrun age. I got to know that you were far older than I thought.







You were beautifull, to the very end. Fate would have me chosing the possibly most beautifull September day that I have ever seen, we both sensed it when I came out at 6 am, and the last sounds you heard at 8 am were my voice and the birds in the bright blue sky with the shiny white clouds, with fall in the air, but not yet. I like to think I let you go in time.


I loved you, I still love you, and I will always love you.
Thankyou for being in my life, Basse.

Mighty Spring-y

This is my horse again. I have nothing interesting knitting-wise to say, because all I do these days is to care for my horse, clean my home and study for exams.
We took this picture (and over 100 others) for a big horse magazine (Magasinet Hest) here in Denmark, because I was interwieved there regarding horse insurances and why my old gal isnt insured. They also wanted a picture of the two of us, and this was my choice.

She's put on a lot of weight, maybe 100 pounds since I bought her March 1. All it needed was a trip to the dentist and lots of roughage. Yesterday I rode her to a big pasture full of grass together with another senior mare, they both love it and I can still ride her every day, except that she's a little farther away now. Well, a little biking never killed anyone. (I'm also not as fat as I look in the picture - I am wearing a sweater from when I was way fat, it makes me look big but is also comfortable to run around in)


Have a really nice day

/Lene

My interests shifted

The sack is me, and the horse is "Basse", Holsteiner mare from ca. 1990. I've ridden since 2004 but always been interested in horses, but never had the chance to ride. I have rented Basse three days a week for half a year, and when the owner said he wanted to sell her to get a younger and fitter horse I placed a bid. Needless to say, per today I own my first own horse.
I still knit a bit, but not much at all. I have knitted knee-high socks, half a brown cabled cardigan, crocheted some hot pads and half a blankie.

But mostly I read, ride and play with my horse and, of course, do my duty as an organ-player.

Have a really nice day

/Lene

A Very Merry Christmas!

In midst of taking midwinter rides, getting chills down my back at playing better and bigger organs and wishing everyone I know a very merry christmas, I heartily wish all of you, and everyone you know, a Very Merry Christmas.

It is not about the Christmas Tree, the Presents, the Coca Cola Santa - it is about being merry because Christ was born to take away all our sins, and because all our doings are nothing in the face of God - we can rest happily, knowing that whatever nonsense we do, it is all forgiven and forgotten by God.
That is the reason we have Christmas (Christ - Mass), and I hope all people will remember it for even a short while.

/Lene

Socks, and make things fit!

Whoa!

I did get something finished, thats a new one for me. Because it is kind of hard to finish something when you spend most of your time on horseback or studying music. Not listening to music - that is the time when I knit the most - but most of the time I am making music. I play the piano, the organ, a bit accordion, I write music and practice choir leading.

So there's enough to do, with two horses on top of it (I've even swallowed my fear and have started to gallop - its like getting wings!)

Some time ago my SIL - wait, I have two now, and I cant even use their first letter because its the same: Re... Re.. or their first name of their last name: Sch.. Sch... Plus the fact that my younger brothers girlfriend is older than my older brothers... *laugh* It is confusing.

But, it was my nephews mother who gave me a ball of Opal sock yarn, slightly blushing, and asked if I thought they could magically transform them into socks? Well, I did, and so they sat around for some time until I took the ball with me in the bus and then to the summer cottage - they were done by the end of the weekend (Last weekend). They are nice, but uh - I tried them on my other SIL and they fit perfectly. Damn. First, she tried to tell me they were for her, but I couldnt give them to her no matter how much I would have liked to, because the yarn was not mine. So, rip toe and reknit. They are nice, and good socks. Plain stockinette socks that will wear for years, not grow, and keep my SIL's feet warm. Eventually they will get holes, and depending on where they are they will get darned, or ripped and reknit, or thrown out. That's all I am asking for for the stuff I make: That it will fulfill its purpose until it is worn out after a long and well-done service.




I like them, they are pretty socks. They will do well in time to come.


OOoooh, and here is "Make things fit".
I want to sew a jacket for my mom like the turquoise I made for myself. She bought the fabric herself, and today, with the sun and wind and pretty weather, I started laying out the pieces. I need to lenghten the arm, that is why there is such a large vacant spot in the middle of the fabric. Turns out I could have done with 1½ m. instead of 2, but who knew? (The yellow measuring tape is at 1½ m. I love it - it has inches on one side, centimetres on the other, and is 120" long!)


Pretty deep red fabric with a colour-changing embroidery on it - mostly random curves, but also leaves, and flowers. Machine-made.

That's it, folks. December is knocking on my door, and I just want it to snow, prettily, and with a tall blue sky, frost and a beautifull december sun. Then I'll get out the old horse (19 :-) and ride, ride and ride.

/Lene

Spinning and Knitting Weekend

Last weekend I was off at a - gasp - retreat! It dawned on me that, even though we had called it a "Festival", it was in fact a retreat. So now I can stop being jealous at all the Americans who go to big retreats and pay a months worth of household money for it, come home with glorious yarns and know a lot of big and famous people.

We were far out in the woods in a little scout cabin - and not some fancy lake lodge.
We were 12 - and not 120.
I met Kathe Lewis (And my mom) - and not MissWroteABook
We ate bread, drank milk (And coffee) and had an italian buffet one night - and didnt drink beer nor eat fancy food.
We had a fire in the furnace that made us and the whole cabin smell like smoke - and didnt wear our best clothes, appearing at out best at all times.
We went to bed at 12-3 and got out at 7-10 - and everybody just laughed.
We slept in 12-bed-rooms (but not all in one) and kicked each other in our sleep - and didnt sleep in fancy single beds with sheets that were changed every evening.

But! It was WONDERFULL, really.

We spun, knitted, talked, and learned a lot about how to mix colours with different tools, and just had a nice time socializing. We had two contests, as well as a drawing, and plenty of prizes. Oue group, Spindefarvegruppen, is disbanding sadly, and since it was/is a group you have to pay for to be in, we had a lot of surplus money, having cancelled some activites in fall.
They had bought a wonderfull Kromski travelling wheel (!!). We also got some prizes from Europawools in the UK, and two boxes of wool dyeing starter sets, a big one and a small one.

The big one was first prize for our "Longest Thread" contest.
We had 7 entrants, and the winner was not at all confident she would win!! I think she was very surprised at winning, eben though her yarn ran 4300 m / 100 g, and number two's was around 1900 m / 100 g. That's some of a difference!

We also had a fiber-guessing-contest, where I fared quite well too - not that it mattered, because we had a prize for everybody in that contest! I won 500 g dark brown merino, 24 micron count. A shared 2.nd place - I was proud.

Then came the big thing we had all waited for, anxiously, because the wheel stood by the kitchen door ever since we came, in its green bag. I had written around 40 tickets with the name of each of the people in the group, also those that were absent. Our groups leader took out one ticket and I unfolded it... and a huuuuge smile grew across my face! (No, I didnt win it.) The winner was "Marianne V", a young woman who can not work, has three little children and whose husband recently left her. She could not even afford a wheel, and had spent all her savings for a wheel (120 USD) on the retreat. I thought she would faint when I read her name aloud! Of course, everybody had hoped to win the wheel, but it was so good that this woman won it, because she, if not needed it, then would but it to the best use.
There was another prize left, the "Little starter set for dyeing", and it was commonly agreed upon that it should go to someone present at the retreat. So one name was drawn, but the person was not present. Another name was drawn, but I never got to say it out loud. I only managed to squeak: "But it's me!!". I must have looked like a tomato, but I was so happy because I dont own any dyeing utensils, and now I do, and can dye my own yarn and stuff!

Other than that, one of the women who owns a online yarn shop had a tiny sale - some shetland jumperweight that was too expensive for me, some silk/wool tweed in strong colours and some "Gotland" yarn - and to skeins of BFL yarn for just 4$ /100 g. I held onto those as if my life depended on it, and also 7 skeins of a brown/black colour Gotland yarn. Gooorgeous. That stood me, all in all, in 35$ for two pounds yarn. That was really ok, for Denmark.

Now I am home, tired, and glad.
Sorry I cannot show pictures, but my camera... same old story, you know?

Have a really nice day

/Lene

PS: My guinea pig had piglings (Planned) friday, three living and one dead. They're goooorgeous!

Mission: Impossible

This is crazy. It seems I cannot be trusted around tools of any trade! I prick myself with knitting needles, have crazy incidents with little sewing needles that lodge themselves in my foot so that the doctor must cut them out, but today I did something I dont believe anybody has done before me.

I got a cut on the top of my biggest toe (Thumb toe). With... my quilting ruler.


Beat that!

(Maybe I shouldnt work on the floor, naked, late, and then hurry to get up, throwing my legs all around me...)

But still. A cut on my toe, made with a ruler. (It has pretty sharp sides.. yeah.. uhm). That has got to be on the top of "Dumb, but darned funny crafting acidents where nobody got badly hurt"

Have a nice day- I am knitting a teeny bit, but my progress - my FO - is not to be shown publicly before dec. 6th where it will be given away as a present.

/Lene

On the Fana Kofte

I have knitted most of it now - yay! After breaking #2 ebony needle, I bit the bullet and knit the rest on a regular grey coated needle. It worked reasonably well, probably because I did not have to knit a complicated pattern and had some weight hanging off the needles already.

The bad thing is, that it seems to be too small for me.

The god thing is that every single female in the household has claimed it for herself (That's 5 claims, including mine, on this one *laughs*)

The good thing is that I have cut all the seams and seamed the shoulders (with the open st.).

The bad thing is that I cannot figure out to pick up stitches evenly spaced around the front and the neck.

Another good thing is that I still can try to block the living daylights out of it to make it fit me. It is not that is doesent fit, but I didnt imagine a skin-tight fit!! (My gauge was off, so I am alone to blame).

Other News

I have ½ a horse as I've mentioned before, I think.... She is lame right now :-(, but I was offered to ride another horse whose "Daddy" can only come once or twice a week. I tried her yesterday (I thought it was a one-off, but YAY... He didnt!), and even though she was funny to ride, she is a good horse and could teach me a lot, I even had the guts to gallop on her and didnt even get scared when she didnt stop when I asked her. (Ok - I panicked a few seconds and just wanted to flop forward and hold onto her mane, screaming "I AM FALLING OFFFFF", but in the end I sat back, started breathing again and gave her a proper stopping signal.) (Riding her into a wall is a proper stopping signal, right?).
I will go riding her again today when I deliver the daily apple to my Big Red one (Now I've got a Big Red and a Big Black :), oh man, how lucky can one girl be?

Have a really nice day

/Lene