Good Things

First an update on baby Faith. :-) She and parents are thriving. It's such a joy to hold a wee little baby! I'd forgotten just how tiny they are. I marvel at her perfect, long, fingers and her toes. Her eyes latch onto my eyes and gaze deep with a small questioning look slightly wrinkling her forehead. What a blessing she is.









Two separate packages arrived in the mail this week. The first was a surprise from Jo. I'm not a big orange fan, though I love rich rusts, but after fingering and dreaming a bit I have totally fallen in love with the stuff. I'm envisioning a light woven jacket. The problem is, when Aurora came home and saw the yarn she also saw herself wearing it. Such a dilema. One of these days I'll figure out what I want to weave and the amount needed to weave two jacket/sweaters.

When Jo showed her newly acquired swift on her blog, I decided it was time to break down and order one. I've been keeping my eye out for an inexpensive one but hadn't seen one I liked at an affordable price. I searched eBay and found a maker in the USA . Since we are occasionally asked to make swifts I was delighted to find someone who had quality swifts at a great price so I emailed Catherine directly. Take a moment to bookmark their website Knitting Notions. Not only does make excellent swifts, Catherine kettle dyes yarns. Great looking stuff, and patterns. A couple of their daughters lathe-turn shawl pins. Sadly Catherine has no blog. The day after I'd ordered the swift Nataliesent me an email from Scotland telling me of a swift maker in the UK. She even posted pictures of hers on her blog/website. She'd seen my wishful comment on Jo's blog. I'm so grateful to Natalie and all of you who make blogging rewarding with all your good wishes and thoughtfulness!


I'll close with a picture I took yesterday as I walked to the P.O. This alley is just up from our driveway. Sorry about the huge utility line! We've had a stunning autumn of warm sunny days and cold nights. The building on the hill is where Ed and I will be tomorrow morning worshipping our Creator and feeling extremely thankful for His blessings.

First Grandchild

The majority of the past 30 hours was spent at the local hospital awaiting the arrival of Faith. She's here! Born at 11:10 a.m this morning: Friday, Oct 20.
Baby Faith:


Is it exaggerating to say that we're ecstatic? And best of all she seems to be doing very well! Despite the early ultrasounds which showed Dandy-Walker Syndrome and a very dim prognosis the August ultrasound showed none of the malformation problems that were evident in the first three ultrasounds. We took courage, hope, and faith that all would be well and so far, so good. She cried lustily with as much emotion and outrage that a new redheaded baby can produce. Her hair is very dark still - just like her mom's was when she was born.

All day and into the night we sat, walked, and waited. Lots of knitting was done, some spindling, and more knitting. On the fly I tried making a baby hat to match the sweater but without having done one before, and no pattern at hand, the size turned out a bit funky. I also started a pair of handwarmers out of Debbie Bliss silk.

The hospital has the custom of ringing chimes whenever a baby is born. Upon hearing the chimes, shortly after her doctor had quickly walked into the baby center, we started herding forward using restraint only at the door just outside the nurses station. One of Justin's friends, who'd endured the long night with us, suggested I venture down the hall and listen outside the room. (The hospital has very liberal visitation rules: it's left mostly up to the patient/parents who can visit, when and how long.)The nurses all grinned when I walked past their station. Before I turned the corner I could hear the loud squalling from behind Rm_ door. Faith had indeed arrived. The parents-to-be had warned us that they wanted at least half an hour alone to bond. Here we are, grandparents, siblings and friends waiting just in front of the nursery for word that we could see Faith.



The Family








Grandpa Ed

Sweater Time

Thanks to Lynn, Marianne, Debbie, Jo, Teyani, Fibercrone, and others who responded to my plea for readers to send an email to our business address. (Sorry, I'm at the second computer which doesn't have your urls readily at hand.)I'm so grateful to the gathering of blogfriends! I think the wrinkles are finally ironed out, I certainly hope so. It’s hard knowing with email - you just don’t know if one never found the proper path to the inbox.

A group of small entrepreneurs went together on a one page ad in Interweave Press Holiday Gift issue and wouldn’t you know, just when it’s landing in people’s hands our host server decides to vanish with nary a whimper nor apology. Almost an entire week of no website or email available for hot buyers to access our business. IP even had phone queries about our site. Not good.

Red Sweater KAL has entangled me in her tendrils. Please don’t ask me what I’m going to knit! Realize, this will be the SECOND garment I’ve knit. (No, socks don’t count.) It’s a bit of a gulp. Red is a great color for me and I’ve been dreaming of knitting a sweater. I have no idea what pattern to use. Any suggestions for an easy, maybe a top down, in the round. I want to do some stitch patterning. Jo suggested some type of shepherd smock or tunic. I like that idea a lot. Now for a pattern.

The one sweater I’ve knit so far:


This was taken yesterday while working on the second tiny sleeve. Isn’t it precious? The first grandchild, Faith, is due any day, as in, she’s two days late. I know, it should be totally done by now. I still need to assemble it. Tomorrow. My eyes couldn’t deal with grafting tonight.
Material: Mango Moon
Needles: Crystal Palace 3 & 4

Our incredible, long-lingering summer has bowed out to the much needed fall rains. Early Saturday morning sunlight shimmering in the cherry and willow trees at the corner of our back yard. With coffee cup in hand I sat on the steps breathing in the air which bore a hint of the rain to come, knowing with a deep sadness that summer was over. October has long been my favorite month, a remanent of summer without the heat. Cool, woodsmoke tinged, star-studded nights, the fall winds and changing atmospheric pressure dispersing the summer pollutants. I want to hang tightly to these jeweled days before the real cold and endless rains set in. The occasional few days of rain are embraced but the long grey weeks of rain can enduce a bleakness of spirit. I'm not quite ready for the daylong feeding of the woodstove, wiping the mud off the dog's feet, dressing in layers.

Website Woes

A week ago our business host server went down, and this time there's not a word or message, or sign of life from them. It's been a frustrating week trying to get our business online, made even more frustrating by the release of the Interweave Press Holiday Gift issue in which we have an ad featuring our knitting needles. IP let us know they've had calls complaining that our website is down.

I've spent a great deal of time moving our website to a new server and trying to re-establish the email. Would you be so kind to send an email? Please send it to infoATjenkinswoodworkingDOTcom and cc it to wjjenkins1ATyahoo.com so I can tell if they're getting through or not.

Bach's Chaccone, violinist Brian Brooks, is playing on my computer to help soothe my very frayed nerves. Amazing, soaring music covering the scope of human emotions.

www.jenkinswoodworking.com
Heirloom tools for discerning fiber artists.

Ocean Break

The International Sock of Doom preferably known as Sock Forward was finished and mailed yesterday!! I'm so glad to have that pair finished, now I'm hoping the mail is rather slow in getting to Ontario Canada so my target has time to finish hers. The person knitting socks for me received hers so she sent my barely started pair to the person who knits hers. Until that pair lands in my PO box I'm still in the game.
Here they're about to begin their journey through the postal system.

And here they are getting a workout beside the ocean on Monday.

As wonderful as it was to escape the woodshop, office, and routines of home, three days just wasn't enough! We headed to a small town on the south central coast of Oregon, a three hour drive away. There is a rocky bay where people cast lines into the river mouth hoping to find a fish's mouth.

This picture was taken Monday morning looking upriver from the bay.


I dropped Ed and his gear off just around the corner from the bay where the fog was thicker. Do you see him in the middle?



As the fog lifted he was overshadowed by a beautiful white mistbow of an arch. If you look close, he's to the left of the center. He managed to catch and release a perch, much to the surprise of the other fisherman who'd been out several hours.


Sitting on the rocks knitting, and later spinning, soaking up the sun and sea smells and sounds,was simply peaceful. I was surprised to see nasturtiums still blooming, and even snacked on some salty ripe blackberries.

The sweet interlude was soon over.

Kids, Creek and Kool-aid

I originally tried to post Saturday evening but due to Blogger's slowness then the computer crashing, followed by a short jaunt to the coast, you'll get a summary.

We had two kids stay with a Thursday until Sunday while their parents went on a trip. I forget how energetic the 7 yr old boy is! Non-stop, constant chatter. Whew! The 13 yr sister was a big help in keeping his gear together but I can tell she gets jadded with his constant motion and talk. Little did we know they didn't have school Friday, but the time passed quickly. It helped that they spent most of Saturday with playmates. :-) They helped washed the car, clean Ed's shop, and I took them, and Kobie, to the creek.



The water was dark and cold but the warm Indian summer day with temps in the 80's called for some serious exporation and wading in the creek. J ended up swimming in the deep hole channeling through the rocks, I almost submerged but modesty made me stop at mid t-shirt level. T rolled up her pants and waded. Can’t blame her for not wanting to risk ruining a good pair of pants.



Later we dyed skeins of natural wool yarn with Kool-Aid. I've been reading about it and this seemed the perfect way to keep a couple of kids occupied for a bit. They turned out quite well, I think.


"Sock Forward": It accompanied us to the creek.