Catena Expressions

FO 11/10/10

NAVAJO HORSE SONG (Blessing Way)
How joyous his neigh!
Lo, the Turquoise Horse of Johano-ai,
How joyous his neigh,
There on precious hides outspread, standeth he;
How joyous his neigh,
There of mingled waters holy, drinketh he;
How joyous his neigh,
There in mist of sacred pollen hidden, all hidden he;
How joyous his neigh,
These his offspring may grow and thrive forevermore;
How joyous his neigh!

When I bought this maroon shirt a year or so ago, I knew I'd have to make a sweater or vest for it. When I was at Grayce's booth at the 2009 Estes Park Wool Market, I knew herPlain and Fancy sportweight yarn in "turquoise" colorway was the solution. There were only 3 skeins of the colorway left so I knew I'd have to knit the sweater. I've been fooling around with lace patterns in her dyed yarns (I have some of her undyed yarn in stash for the next project) and this is another one of those. I knit this on size 6 circulars from the bottom up starting with hoofprints lace then fir cones lace pattern then fern diamonds to the armpits where I had a dilemma. I wanted to knit the sleeves last but I also wanted a bottom up raglan coz I like the fit. What to do, what to do. I cast on what I hoped were enough for the sleeves (measuring, trying on and calculating other raglan sweaters of Gryace's Plain and Fancy yarn) and came up with what I hoped was a solution. I continued knitting up and went on to arrowheads lace and finished with butterfly lace (because it's mostly stockinette) to plain stockintette.

I then picked up stitches along what would be the sleeves at the armhole and started down in arrowhead pattern - and reversed the other lace patterns (fern diamond, fir cone and hoofprints). I had enough yarn leftover to knit a band of hoofprints around the fronts and neck of the sweater.

Now for buttons.

Anne gifted me a spindle a few months ago which I really love. I wondered if I could find buttons similar to the whorl and voila - I did.

What I really like about the buttons is they only flash in the direct light. They are more subtle then I expected and they work well with the colors of the sweater.

Anne and I share horse lives and stories and these poems are also for her.

FROM THE NAVAJO WAR GOD'S HORSE SONG
I am the Turquoise Woman's son.
On top of Belted Mountain,
Beautiful horse--slim like a weasel.
My horse has a hoof like striped agate;
His fetlock is like a fine eagle plume;
His legs are like quick lightning.
My horse's body is like an eagle-plumed arrow;
My horse has a tail like a trailing black cloud.
I put flexible goods on my horse's back;
The Little Holy Wind blows through his hair.
His mane is made of short rainbows.
My horse's ears are made of round corn.
My horse's eyes are made of big stars.
My horse's head is made of mixed waters--
From the holy waters--he never knows thirst.
My horse's teeth are made of white shell.
The long rainbow is in his mouth for a bridle,
and with it I guide him.
When my horse neighs, different-colored horses follow.
When my horse neighs, different-colored sheep follow.
I am wealthy, because of him.
Before me peaceful,
Behind me peaceful,
Under me peaceful,
Over me peaceful,
All around me peaceful--
Peaceful voice when he neighs.
I am Everlasting and Peaceful.
I stand for my horse.

 

Thursday 11/5

It's been a long week around here. Mostly year end doctor-of-all-kinds appointments. Finding out the kind of news you don't really want to hear but have to suck it up anyway. (Nothing major, just a lot minor annoyances that come with life).

Weeks like this require some bribery. I bought 3 new sock books.

There are several socks I could happily knit from the Joy of Socks - first up is the Big Tease. I bought Cat Bordhi's book to see what else I can learn - and the first sock from there will be Sliding Bars. The first sock I intend to knit from the East and West book is Karatsu although it's hard to choose just one. I've eyed Japanese stitch dictionaries for years but hesitated. I think the East to West knitted sock patterns will help me make the plunge. 

I finished the 2nd lace project of Grayce's Plain and Fancy yarn (turquoise colorway). It's drying - not a great photo but the close up at least will show the colors. I have buttons picked out but am not settled on them yet. We'll see when the sweater is dry and modeled. Of course, after I see the way I laid out the sweater, I fixed it. I finished it yesterday in the audiologist office.

Hopefully M will have time to photograph the items so you can see them more clearly. We all know I am not a photographer! ;-)

I'll be here most of today, in case you're wondering.

Tomorrow, since the temperature is supposed to be in the 70s and the ground ought to be perfect for digging, I'll be out putting in the remainder of the bulbs.

Have a good weekend!

Wednesday snow

Yesterday we got a couple inches of rain which made me wish I had felt well enough to plant the last of the bulbs. Today, so far, we have 10" of snow, still coming down and another day of snowstorm to go. It's fun looking through the kitchen window to see what the beaded copper tubing looks like.

 I finished spinning some Shetland roving I dyed coral a couple years ago then overdyed with blue - it's mostly spun sport weight since I haven't spun for a while and needed to fool around with the Kromski Sonata til it sang prettily. I spun all  (about pound) of the Shetland before moving on to Shetland/alpaca/silk blend (not shown). I dunno what I'll make of the Shetland - it can marinate in stash for a while. I do know I won't ply it - it's fine as singles for knitting or crocheting.

Still working primarily on the turquoise colorway - decided I had enough yarn (12 oz total) to go ahead and make sleeves. I'm knitting them in the round then will join them to the body for a bottom up raglan. It's amusing me.

The coral feather and fan hasn't been touched but we have errands to run so it will be the go-along project.

The free form lace is progressing slowly - I work on it while waiting on-line for a website to come up. Yes, the connection is even slower today - the snow? the people at home (out of work, off work)? - but that's fine.

down with the flu

M and I are really sick and tired of being sick and tired - but we seem to be in good company this fall.

It's a good excuse to curl up and knit. I finished the pale Purple Mountain vest using Twilight Scarf pattern from Lisa Lloyd's A Fine Fleece. It was a nice pattern and used up the leftovers of the Purple Mountain yarn from Grayce's Plain and Fancy Wools. The center band is actually a darker Purple Mountain colorway. Here's a closeup of the band and the right front:

I am making headway on the other 2 plus a 4th I threw into the mix the other day. I like to have options when I am too sick to do much else. The laceweight free form is coming along, the feather and fan coral is good when I need mindless knitting and the 4th project is horseshoe print of Grayce's "turquoise" colorway. The feather and fan coral will stay F&F for the entire vest but the turquoise will go itno some other favorite lace patterns: fir cone, fern diamond, arrowhead, butterfly and end with moon on the shoulders. All of these are in Barbara Walker's books - I don't have the volume or page numbers on hand. As I went through the books, I copied some of the more interesting lace patterns and put them on file cards (a few years ago) and wrote down what I thought would be fun sequences to knit. I bought undyed yarn from Grayce recently and I intend to knit 2 sweaters with my favorite lace patterns later in the winter.

Did finish planting about 125 bulbs last weekend (one bucket's worth) and have the remainder (2nd bucket) to plant when I feel better and after the next few snow storms.

What this mostly means is next weekend's crewing trip for Anne and Dave is not gonna happen... we'd be buried at Dead Horse Point should we go. ;-)

I'll be back when I feel better and hope you all stay healthy!!

Sunny Weekend

It's nice to be in the 70s after last weekend's record low temperatures and snow. The sky is that wonderful Colorado blue - clear and immense. The service berry has turned - the fiery color draws me into the garden.

Last spring, I noticed that the front gardens were a bit low on the spring color. I intend to remedy that this weekend by planting a few bulbs. My horse buckets are wonderful carrying devices in the garden. :-)

 

Yesterday, I got a bit tired of working with sock yarn and set the toddler sweaters aside. I dug through my Plain and Fancy yarn stash to find a few odds and ends and took the "Fawn" lace weight (a colorway Grayce dyed for me in early 2006 - she wore a poncho someone knitted for her of the colorway at Estes Park Wool Market last June). Grayce doesn't carry laceweight anymore - so this is my last 4 oz (June, the vest I made for you is this colorway). I decided I needed to make a crocheted vest - free form using shell stitches. This is with a size E crochet hook.

 

The 4 oz of leftover very pale "Purple Mountain"  (I think - band is long gone, I bought this in 2005) will be another vest using Lisa Lloyds' Twilight scarf pattern (from A Fine Fleece) and the 8 oz of "Coral" bought in 2008 (or 2009 - recently, is all I know - and these were the last 2 skeins of the colorway she had in the booth) will be a feather and fan vest or sweater - depends on how much yarn I have left to creat the sleeves. I think I'll be almost 4 oz short but we'll see. Both these are using size 6 circular knitting needles.

I shouldn't be too bored this weekend. I hope you won't be either!

Another view of the serviceberry.

Thursday

 

The mountain ash is always a favorite tree but never more so when the berries are covered by the first snow (last Saturday)

Susan recommended I add smaller sized pots to my pots along the back fence - so I did this fall - filled with bulbs, daylilies, iris, lavender, yarrow. Hopefully Riley will not stand in the pots while mousehunting. I think we got rid of many of the mice - I don't mind a few, though, as long as they stay out of the house and under the garden pots.

Tuesday, a package containing Jacob locks and bump came in the mail. Teddy stood on the coffee table to check it out. I cleaned off the coffee table to drumcard the locks and plan a vest with Jacob fleece** I bought a few years ago (to blend with shepard hair for my son as a memorial to his 2 German shepards) and with Jacob roving Anne sent me a few years before that. What I find interesting about these 3 different sources is each is a different color - black, tan, cream, white, brown(ish) and now the gray and the varigated. I've spun the previous Jacob into a fingering weight and have not plied the yarn. I'm not sure if I will or not. **from Shawn of Laughing Horse Farm - now in Arkansas. My son, at the time was sculpting a laughing horse.

Knitting is progressing. The socks for the family are finished - I'll do a group photo of socks before they are filled with feet. I looked for M's newly finished socks but they seem to be on his feet and he is fast asleep. Shown is one of the toddler's socks with one of her uncle's socks. The toddler socks are Slipper Socks from Socks, Socks, Socks edited by Elaine Rowley. Above the socks is the beginning of 2 toddler sweaters (for Christmas).

Books? Well...I couldn't resist a Rock Art book (favorite quote from Art of the Rocks Stone Wonder by Bruce Hucko: 'Back among the Tewa elders I learn a good lesson. "That looks like someone carrying a shield." I say about a round figure decorated with circles and lines with obvious head, legs and arms showing. "No," says my elderly companion softly, "it is the pueblo. That person is holding it."

Which gives me new eyes for the sheilds in Pintado Canyon (posted last week  Monday afternoon post).

And I couldn't resist Navajo and Hopi Dyes by Bill Rieske. I've contented myself with reading the recipes, looking at the photos and deep thought about when I lived in a log cabin in Steamboat Springs (lo, over 30 yrs ago) and did natural dyeing. I've gotten out of the habit. This book may coax me back in.

Other small addictions have been reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books - thanks to M. He started me on the books he had on hand then we bought more used before we left on our trip. I had to figure out a genelogy for the families before I read too much further. I've read (so far): Storm Queen, Hawkmistress, Spell Sword, The Forbidden Tower, Shattered Chain, Thendora House, City of Sorcery, Star of Danger, Bloody Sun, Winds of Darkover, Heir of Hastur, Sharra's Exile (which is when I decided a pedigree for these people would be helpful) and am now working on The Planet Savers (with World Wreckers, Waterfall and Shadow Matrix on deck). And there's still more to read but I'm not thinking any further ahead, right now.

last Monday afternoon

Leaving Utah behind, we headed to western Colorado and ate lunch at Rabbit Valley where I did my first competitive trail ride 26 yrs ago. RV was one of my favorite conditioning areas and I bored M silly (or sillier, depending on your perspective - after this long road trip) with pointing to places I rode and stories of people I used to ride with.

Yes, I have Dori tucked under an arm as we walked along. Lots of memories of riding on this washboard road - and of pulling my horsetrailer down it as well. We didn't travel far enough to see the pictographs but I hope they are still there. You never know.

Then on to Douglas Pass,

over it (another favorite riding area) and into Pintado Canyon. Here's some of the best photos from there.

M thinks someone chiseled the kokopelli off the slab and it was re-fixed to the site - but who knows. We drove over to the Cow Canyon site to revisit some old favorites but decided not to spend any more time in Pintado Canyon since we had a long way to go before we slept...and mountain passes to cross at night. One long weekend we'll be back to explore more of the sites, we promised ourselves. It's hard to tear ourselves away from this area.

We passed through Rangley (and all the oilfields there)

on our way to Craig.

At Craig, we ran out of daylight and into snowstorm so the next almost 200 miles were a bit of white knuckle as we drove through snow over Rabbit Ears and Cameron Passes. We arrived back home at midnight.

Today (Tuesday) as I am writing these posts - I'm also washing a couple dark red moorit Shetland fleeces and appreciating being back home after a 1800 mile loop. And no, I didn't finish any socks or read any books along the way.

last Monday morning

We stayed the night in Moab and woke to a gorgeous morning. We went to Arches. I could fill this post with photos but will content myself with only a few.

 

I promised Cyndy sheep photos but the only flocks of sheep we saw in AZ were along the highway without any shoulders or way to photograph them. Luckily, we found a sheep.

and 3 gossips beside the sheep. All we need is a spindle and the stage is set, eh?

this could be modified into a spindle, don't you think?

I am standing on slickrock. I used to love riding over slickrock - on my good sure-footed Arabian/Spanish Mustang bay mare.

Good times, good times.

And onward into Colorado and home...

last Sunday

When we arrived in Flagstaff on Saturday night, the first thing we wanted to hear was the weather forecast. We had heard that there would be snow storms in southern Utah so we decided to pass on going to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, over to Zion and Bryce Canyon and eventually to Moab. Instead, we decided to hit the south rim of the Grand Canyon, then across the Painted Desert to Kayenta and up to Blanding through Monument Valley to end up in Moab. There was a high wind warning for Sunday - all day - so we gulped - knowing that the photographs would not be as clear - but still... are we adventure dogs like Ted or not? Ted was too much the adventure dog - he had to be leashed most of the time to keep him out of trouble...all 9 lbs of him.

The wind howled all night Saturday - the San Francisco Peaks were hidden as we left for the Sunset Crater Volcano. I was last here for a 100 mile ride 23 years ago and there have been changes to the park.

What I knew as Sunset Cone is now Sunset Crater Volcano. What I knew as Cinder Lake is now Lenox (I think...don't remember) Crater. We would have had to walk to the lake/crater and the wind was howling. We chose to stay in the vehicle and do some short walks at the overviews.

Lava fields

Looking towards the Painted Desert - you can see the wind whipping the sand across the Navajo Land. Way over there - on the invisible horizon is Hopi Land.

I recalled how lovely the ground was to ride on.

I was surprised that there are pueblos in the park - obviously the last time I was here I had riding on my mind.

Finding another pueblo along the road.

We then headed over to the Grand Canyon and stopped to look at the Little Colorado Ribver Gorge. The wind was horrendous. The visibility was not so good - but doesn't this look like a dream scape?

As we started across the Painted Desert to Kayenta, the dust hit us - we knew it would having seen it from the overlook at the Sunset Crater but still - words can't describe how M suffered for his art during this time :-). He was sandblasted Sunday afternoon.

We gassed up in Kayenta - M discovered what I meant about the dumped dogs - there were 6 looking for food at the gas station, another half dozen prowling the neighboring lot and quite a few hit along the highway. M unfortunately witnessed (via his rear view mirror) a young blue heeler getting hit - tho he said the dog somehow got up and off the road. M didn't see what the driver did. I was just glad we missed a pair of dogs crossing the highway (looked like terrier mixes). The last time I was in Shiprock, I ended up bringing home a puppy dumped in a roadside landfill (so to speak) and my friend shot (to put it out of it's misery) the puppy's severely injured sibling - tossed out of a moving vehicle from the looks of it.

Monument Valley was another dreamscape which we really needed.

The next few photos were taken after we left Monument Valley on our way to Moab. I'm not exactly sure where the locations are Bluff and Blanding areas. Though it's obvious this one was taken at Mexican Hat, Utah.

We ran into a rain storm which considerably cleared the air right before sunset.

These are the Navajo Twins but I'm having to guess they were outside either Bluff or Blanding - we were getting road weary at that point.

 

 This is one of my favorite photos from southern Utah. Doesn't that look like a little door at the base?

last Friday

M and I grabbed a few days to head on a jaunt around the southwest (eastern and central New Mexico, northern Arizonia, eastern Utah and Colorado).

We went over Kenosha Pass,

 

through South Park to

Salida where we ate lunch along the Arkansas River. We found this old cabin hidden in a gully near our picnic stop.

 

Found a great trestle (along the Arkansas River) on our journey to Westcliff

and a lovely textured rock wall.

to meet up with Anne and her bunch after their first day's ride. Yes, I sorely longed to be ahorseback but Anne and M had to help me walk up and down a short steep hill to and from the wonderful dinner...well, reality is reality. Wouldn't you know that we enjoyed visiting so much it didn't dawn on us to do a blog photo shoot? You'll have to settle for half of an overview of the upper parking lot. It was a very small ride.

Looking west to Music Pass - isn't that the view? On the other side is the Great Sand Dunes.

Oh yes, my friend Steph rode 25 of the 35 miles on Saturday - here's her photos.

We traveled all day Satuday heading to Flagstaff. Unfortunately, we didn't stop to take photos but we sure made up for it Sunday and Monday... brace yourself!!