Holiday festivities

The remodeling mess is a little closer to being finished up. On Thursday, dry wall was delivered, through one of the new windows. It is now stacked on the floor of the third floor. In the second picture, you may see one of the workers who got to carry things up one more flight of stairs. The dumpster prevented delivery to third floor directly. Today men came to wrap the new windows in aluminum. This is a step toward the siding we hope to do next year. What is actually finished is most of the windows on the second floor. One window needs a new piece of trim on the inside, but the rest are ready for sanding and painting. I need to get blinds for the windows. I'm already tired of undressing in a fishbowl. Dressing is better, because of the natural light this time of year. Undressing is done in the dark with the lights on, showing everything if not done in the bathroom.

Thursday evening a large part of the family went to Blossom Music Center and sat on the lawn for a band concert. We got there early for picnic fun. The night ended with fireworks. Blossom is the summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra, but the Blossom band played this night. There were many marches by Sousa, a tribute to Leroy Anderson and, of course, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with cannons. This seems to be a must for outdoor performances this time of year.

Friday was the family picnic, held this year at our son's house. DD the quilter came from Erie, PA on her motorcycle. Yes, that's a Mohawk on her helmet! She brought a finished quilt. Her design will be in a magazine soon. The actual quilt was a Christmas gift for her sister the artist. It was off for photography over the holiday, so a picture was given in a large box. This was the first time that the recipient saw her quilt. she had to give it back because it's needed for a trunk show. She actually is afraid to use it and may hang it on the wall when she gets to keep it.


Sock knitting

July Mystery sock clue #1 is finished on two socks. Clue #2 comes out on 7/6.

I joined the Tour de Sox, which parallels the bicycle race Tour de France. Socks must be knit in the colors of the jerseys. You can use either winning jerseys or those of your declared country. I've designed a bicycle related sock and am knitting it in yellow Opal. This is the toe, which is supposed to resemble a bike gear.

The brown ribbon sweater has a body and one sleeve. This goes quickly, since it's knit mainly on 7 mm/US10.75 needles. The yarn is Lion Brand Incredible. I bought it on sale at Jo Ann Fabrics with coupons. I ended up with two different, but related colors and different dye lots. I'm alternating the colors and it's working well. I still need to tack down all the loose ends with needle and thread. I don't trust ribbon yarn to stay where I put it. The pattern calls for all edges to be trimmed and beads applied. I've knit this pattern before and wore it to two weddings.

Flowers

Our white rhododendron is in bloom.