lucky number

There were 74 names in the giveaway drawing, and the random sequence generator did it's stuff this morning.

The winner is #5:

Boud

Congratulations, Boud!

I hope you will enjoy your new constellation.

(Will the Dollivers claim naming rights?)

Email or ravPM your mailing address, and I will send your stars the very next time I can get to the Post Office. Lately that's been once/week on Saturday, so it may take a while...

but they'll be a-coming!

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway.

I'm enjoying meeting new blogfolk thanks to Vicki's GYB Party,

and it's especially nice to see new names popping up in the comments!

Well, my "work" here is done.

Time to wade through the new

- and still falling -

snow,

water buckets in hand.

Have a peaceful Sunday, everyone!

~~~~~

Grow Your Blog

Welcome to Comptonia, friends and newcomers!

If you are visiting for the first time as part of the wonderful Vicki's Grow Your Blog Party, I know you will be travelling the blogiverse at a dizzying gallop, trying to get an idea of what many blogs are all about. The quickest way to see what this blog is about, would be to left-click on an annual collage post: here is 2013 and 2014.

But if you'd like some words...

I write about ordinary life in a tiny house

surrounded by trees
in a fairly rural part of New England.

Sometimes I share a practical tip that readers may find useful,
but only in the same way we all do that, in conversation.
I mean, this is not a blog full of helpful information,
but if I rattle on long enough, I'm bound to say
something useful eventually.

No, mostly it's just looking around and taking photographs,
and thinking about what I see and writing about it.
There are many trees on this blog, for example. 

Also, attempts at gardening.

There are walks in the woods...

with my dog, Piper.

I may as well tell you right now:
Piper thinks Comptonia is her blog.

But Piper is wrong.

Just ask my little herd of cashmere goats.

Oh, and sometimes there's knitting.

And sometimes occasionally, adventures in the kitchen.

Please feel free to look around - I hope you'll find something enjoyable!
Sharing interests and ordinary life through blogging is a very pleasant way to "meet" people from all over the planet, and I'd love to hear about you and your world. Please do leave comments anytime the mood strikes you, because that's a really wonderful part of blogging: genuine connections with people we are unlikely to meet in "real life."

If you would like to "follow" or subscribe to Comptonia,

there are some clickable options in the sidebar.

Thank you for visiting!

~~~

And since this is a party, of course there will be a giveaway!

 This woolen felted star was handmade by a woman living in a very tough environment - Mongolia - using local wool.

These wooly stars and lots of other nifty items are created and sold through a wonderful community-based conservation program called Snow Leopard Enterprises. If you left-click that link, I think you will be impressed! It's a "good news" click.

Oh, look: here's another star:

I have admired the Snow Leopard Trust for many years, because I respect their approach to conservation. It considers not "just" the animals, not "just" habitat, not "just" cultural preservation, but incorporates all three in a realistic and functional way.
Also: field research! The website is full of phenomenal photography, up-to-date news of discoveries, international conservation successes, and...
the shop full of handmade goods.

These stars, for example:

You know, it's tricky to come up with a giveaway item that will appeal to every reader, woman or man, child or adult, office worker or trapeze artist.
But I really think I've managed it!

One of these stars makes a cheerful decoration on any wall,
or hanging in any window.

Who doesn't like stars, right?

Like this one:

Or maybe a pair of stars hanging from a small branch

 would make a pleasant mobile?
As the stars slowly turn,
one might see first the solid side,
then the decorated side.

Like this:

Oh, and I see a lot of buntings on blogs...

I'll bet stars would be very happy elements of a bunting!

Wouldn't this star be pretty in a bunting?

Maybe with a couple of its starry associates?

I think so.

So, my giveaway item is five of these handmade stars.

In fact, the very five pictured in this post -
one each: orange, green, yellow, pink, and blue.

Would you like a chance to win?

The giveaway instructions are simple, and

everyone, everywhere, is welcome to enter!
Here's how:

1) Leave a comment on THIS blog post,
by February 14th.

2) INCLUDE a way for me to contact you:

email address is good,

ravelryID works too,

or a twitter handle.

That's it! I will draw and post the winner on February 15,
and contact the winner to ask for a mailing address.

Then a packet of stars will be on its way to you!

Like magic!

Good luck, everyone!

And now I'm off to the party  :)

~~~~~

the week underway

Just jotting down a few brief notes to share

before the week gets away from me completely!

Pliny ~ leftclick to embiggen! (BL, Harley 2677 f.1)

1) Did you notice the new badge at the top of the sidebar? I'll be participating in the third annual Grow Your Blog Party, hosted by lovely Vicki of Two Bags Full. The first Party prompted me to start Comptonia, so this will mark my second Blogiversary as well! I will have another little giveaway, open to all, so I do hope all my regular readers will visit and leave a comment on the 25th  :)

2) In other sidebar news, I've added a countdown for Tsuga's possible due date. If she's pregnant, that is.

Fingers crossed, please, everyone!

Just think: we may have kid pictures in only 98 more days!

3) The carpenters came back today to begin the interior finish work; the picky stuff that takes time and Must Look Right.

All the window and door jambs were begun and finished today, and I'm very pleased. Tomorrow: sills, brackets and high shelf, possibly some trim. The carpentry work is very nearly finished!

4) Also re: the porch project, I finally admitted (to myself; no one was arguing with me) that I cannot hold a paintbrush long enough to polyurethane the walls. The painter I hoped to hire for the ceiling visited today and I asked him to add the walls to his estimate.
He's hired.

5) It's Real Winter now, no two ways about it. Frequent snow, biting cold, cutting wind. Fortunately, I've discovered the best cheerer-upper ever:

Turns out there's a huge advantage to putting up a tree on Christmas Eve: it stays green and aromatic well into the bitter throes of January, when - I don't know about you other Northern Hemisphere folk - I really appreciate a mood-elevator. During evening chores when I'm hauling buckets of water across the snow-crusted ground, or distributing hay in icy paddocks, or feeling my fingers beginning to ache with cold inside my gloves...whenever I happen to glance toward the house, the glorious sight of those tree lights reflected in the porch windows makes me feel happy, truly happy, every time.

Every.Single.Time.

I don't know how much longer the tree will be here. 

But it's not coming down tonight, that's for sure.

~~~

And that's it for the Comptonia update!

How's things in your neck of the woods?

~~~~~

Grow Your Blog!

It's the 2014 Grow Your Blog party, hosted once again by the lovely Vicki of 2 Bags Full. Welcome to my little part of the celebration! I'm delighted to be participating again. The 2013 Grow Your Blog Party brought me into contact with many lovely bloggers who now both share and enrich my world.

Thank you, Vicki!
Thank you, my bloggy friends!

~~~

So this is where I came in, one year ago, as a brand-new, wet-behind-the-ears blogger. Today I looked back at my first post to see what I had envisioned:

"I'm just going to give it a go. And keep it very simple:

a place to post photographs, thoughts, and words that make me think,

and a place to record projects, creative endeavors, and some of the ordinary magic that seems to go on all around."

In retrospect, this is pretty much (exactly) how the blog has developed. Which just goes to show:

if you keep your initial plan broad enough, it is possible to stay right on track!

Heh.

If you'd like a quick idea of what you'll find on Comptonia, you might take a scroll through my 2013 pictorial retrospective post of monthly collages. Here is one example:

February 2013 highlights: fiber-dyeing, cashmere-combing, playing and working in deep snow, sewing, cooking, and a little attitude from a goat.

~~~

The regular cast of Comptonia is mostly four-legged. 

Some are cashmere goats:

First-time mum Lily, and her daughter Tsuga

Violet teaching her daughter Sambucus to dance

but the star is a Piper:

"Yes. Yes, I am. The Star. Yes."

And if even one of those critters would learn to type 

and work the camera, I'd be reading the blog, not writing it.

By the way, there are hens here, also, but I don't expect my hens to be able to type. That would be silly, wouldn't it?

(Of course, now that I've written that, it's clear the hens would be the best typists of the bunch, with their innate hunt-and-peck method. Hmmm. Something to think about. Stay tuned.)

So, there's some gardening, and a little cooking, and reports on the International Space Station, and walks in the woods, and highly technical analysis of market trends (just kidding), and generally a little bit of whatever comes up.

Welcome! I'm glad you decided to visit Comptonia and have a look around. If you find something you like, I hope you will come back again!

~~~

And now for the Grow Your Blog Party giveaway:

a handknit hat.

Knit by me, in Cascade Superwash, which is a soft Peruvian Highland wool you can machine-wash and machine-dry without fear of...well, without fear of anything. No shrinking, no felting. Truly fearless machine-laundering of a handknit. Woohoo!

The color is a dark reddish-brown heather, with hints of green and gold. It's surprisingly hard to photograph accurately: the first picture shows the darkness quite well, and the others are too light but do show the subtle multicolor-heathery quality. It's a pretty yarn. It reminds me of the ground covered with oak leaves in late Autumn. Oak, and maybe beech. With a little bit of moss peeking out between the fallen leaves.

The hat should fit a medium to a large head, as it is quite stretchy.

Fibery note: I made this hat ages ago as a test-knitter for the Goose Chase Hat, designed by Sarah Roy. The pattern is Sarah's interpretation of a sweater worn by John Watson (Martin Freeman) in "Sherlock" - how clever is that? I finished the hat, washed and blocked and dried it, reported back to Sarah on Ravelry, then tucked the hat carefully away in the Future Knitted Gifts box, for when someone special would need a cozy hat.

And here we are: it's The Future.

Do you need a cozy hat?

The giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere. Just leave a comment and be sure to include a way for me to reach you if you are the winner. I will draw a winner on 15 February and announce it in a post on that day. Good luck!
~~~
A follow-up note: I won't reply to your comments here on this post, because it will be easier to do the drawing on the 15th if every comment is an "entry."
But I'll come and say hello on your blogs! :) 

~~~~~

First party! Will my blog match my socks?

When it comes to trying something new, two things tend to move me from pondering action to taking action:

a deadline, and a project that doesn't seem overwhelming.

Good gracious.  That makes me sound like both a procrastinator and a slouch, doesn't it?  Rats.  Oh well.  Now you know the worst.  Onward!

For example: Although I could knit, I never imagined becoming a sock-knitter.  I liked the idea of knitting socks, in a romantic, tribute-to-Louisa-May sort of way, but really...those teensy stitches?  Those many skinny needles, waving around like a demented sea urchin? Those heels??

Then, I had a very specific reason to try to knit exactly one pair of socks, right away.  Small socks, for a little pair of feet.  An experiment.  Not overwhelming.

And it was such crazy fun!  I knitted five more pair, then moved on to real socks, for big feet.  And I began to wonder why it had taken me so long to get started in the first place.

~~~

During several years of reading and commenting on blogs, I've often thought of starting a blog.  But...why?  For whom?  In the immortal words of the Mock Turtle, "With what porpoise?"

Still, I thought about it...

~Interlude~

This is my dog, Piper.  
Piper is a terrible procrastinator.
Mostly, Piper is a procrastinator about coming when she is called.

"I am NOT procrastinating!  I can't hear you calling!
I am BEHIND this TREE!!!"

So, aaaanyway.

It was the timing of two unrelated bloggy events that made me leap joyously off my Slouchy Fence of Procrastination and Overwhelmedness.

First, the lovely Vicki of Two Bags Full announced - fortunately for me, several months in advance! - that she would be hosting a non-commercial "Grow Your Blog Party."  It sounded like a lot of fun, especially for newbie bloggers.

And second, just a couple of weeks ago, after I'd been mulling for months about starting a blog so I could join Vicki's party, something happened.  Two of my favorite knitting bloggers, Ann and Kay of Mason Dixon Knitting, instituted a 15-Minute Lightening Round for their own blog posts.  Hilarity ensued, and I saw that it might be possible to blog in tiny little bits of time and have fun with it!

So...my first post was published a whopping four days ago, here (bear with me, please, this is my first blog post with linking and I'm kind of excited about it).  In that post I jotted down what I think this blog might become.  The jotted part may or may not be interesting, but I'll tell you what:

the goats are worth the click.

~~~

Because of other folks' blogs, I have developed valued friendships with people I may never meet in person, but who choose to share something with their readers that happens to be an important, or an unusual, or a just-plain-fun part of my life, too.  It's nice.  It's really nice.  And having my own blog to share already seems to make it much more of a 2-way street.  And who knows, maybe I will make more friends, and learn more things, and have lots and lots more fun!

And I'm beginning to wonder why it took me so long to get started.

"It's because you PROCRASTINATE.  Try to work on that, willyouplease?"

~~~~~

...and a giveaway!

As part of the "Grow Your Blog Party" hosted by Vicki at Two Bags Full, I'm having a very simple little celebratory giveaway.  

My first!  And the blog is only 4 days old!  I feel a little weepy.

Anyone can enter!

Just post a comment saying which of the two prizes you would like to win, and include a way to contact you (email, ravelry id, bloglink).  You don't have to have a blog, and you don't have to "follow" my blog (although of course that would be nice, but really, you don't have to!) One entry per person, please, and anonymous comments will not be entered.  Just email me at the address in my profile if you have any kind of problem posting.

Anyone can win, anywhere in the world!  

If you win, your prize will get an all-expenses-paid luxury trip in a series of mailbags, right to your very door!

~~~

There are two prizes, and I found both at the Snow Leopard Trust.

I love the Snow Leopard Trust.  They approach a complicated conservation problem in a culturally-sensitive, multi-faceted way, and they do it really, really well.  Animals, indigenous peoples, cultures, and habitats all benefit.  Love. Them.

~~~

Now the prizes!

First, this itsy-bitsy embroidered coin purse:

These little purses are made by women living in the Sagsai region of Mongolia.  The designs are traditional.

This one is 4" square, made of chocolate brown cotton and embroidered in turquoise and rich purple.  It is fully lined, and has a zipper across one entire end, and a little grab-loop.  I use mine for knitting notions, like stitch markers and point protectors.

And a tape measure.  And fold-up scissors.  And you get the picture  ;)

The same embroidery colors are reversed on the other side.  Cute, no?

If you would like to win the embroidered coin purse, just shout out "coin purse!" in your comment.

~~~~~

The second prize is one of these felted wool eyeglass cases.  I couldn't choose one, so I got two, and now YOU have to choose.

(So glad that pressure is off!)

Each has a traditional Krygyz design embroidered on the front.  The back is solid felt in the same color as the front, either a nice camel tan or a rich dark grey.  They are about 7" by 3.5", are lined in soft cotton, and are open at one end.

If you would rather win an eyeglass case than a tiny embroidered coin purse, just say, "Tan case!" or "Grey case!" in your comment, and your name will be entered in the eyeglass case drawing.

~~~

Entries are open until midnight Eastern Time, Thursday, 31st January.
I will draw the winners and announce them on this blog

on Friday, the 1st of February.

Depending on the number of entries, the drawing will be done using either slips of paper in a hat (1 to 30 entries per prize) or a random number generator (31 to one billion entries).  It's up to you!

Thank you for visiting, and good luck  :)

~~~~~