One Yellow Jersey Sock is Finished

Knitting Progress

One Tour de Sox sock is finished. The second sock has 3 links of chain. Yes, I ran 2 of the patterns up into the ribbing area.

The brown sweater has one sleeve installed and part of the beading done. I took a couple of pictures of the neck beads, but they were blurry. I do have a picture of the bottom fringe.

I'll be working on the lavender mystery sock, so that I'll be ready for the next clue, due out tomorrow.

Flowers

We have some of the less common day lilies in flower now. It has rained so much, that the weeds have taken over. I worked on some of them today, clearing a space for my Mother's Day rose bush. Luckily, it was delivered in a nice pot. It took a while to decide where I wanted to put it. I'll see how clear I got the area in a couple of days. It may need more work before putting the rose in. The bush seems to be happy with all the rain. It has a couple of new blooms on it.

Nothing else exciting. Thursdays are my day off, so I ran errands most of the day, ending with the baseball game I wrote about. Today was sort of lazy. It rained again this morning, which made weed pulling easier. Housework, bike race watching (it was on TV), spending time with dog and DH made for a relaxing day.

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.

WWKIP, Socks and other stuff

World Wide Knit in Public Day was also my daughter's wedding day. Yes I knit, when not busy celebrating. Pictures were taken of me knitting at the baseball game. The same purple blob was on the needles the whole trip, although I brought plenty of alternatives. Finally it was ready to wear on the airplane home. It was too big, but should shrink up when washed.

It seems better now, but I'm still not
completely happy with the sleeves.

Next project was the May Mystery Socks from Ravelry's Sock Knitters Anonymous Group. Small bits of stash yarn were suggested for the stranded bits. would have done better if I had more solids, or if I had know how much yarn I needed of each color. The charts also failed at the tip of the toe, because they contained too many decreases. I'm not sure I made the two feet identical, but they're close. The designer also gave a shorter version, which is also tempting. The leg portion of these is 10" long. I also should have changed back to smaller needles once the stranded portion was finished, but didn't have the smaller needles handy.


Flowers
I can finally show some of the flowers in my yard. We have too many of these day lilies! We have a few less common varieties too.





Sewing
Business is slow right now. I made a new skirt last week (no picture) and a cotton blouse/jacket. The fabric is too heavy for a blouse and should have more ease for a jacket, but I plan to wear it open. It's unlined and will coordinate with a skirt and couple of blouses. The pattern is the same one I used for my brown blouse earlier in the month. Again, I'm not happy with the sleeves. I may stick to short sleeves with this pattern. This version is center bottom.

M is for.....
Mess - I mentioned this last week, the deconstruction of a whole floor of our house for purposes of insulatiing the living area from the roof. Left to right you see a claw foot tub containing insulation, the back of the toilet, the back of the sink vanity and medicine cabinet. The gray stuff on the ceiling is inside vents for air circulation.

Mother's Day Quilt - sewn by DD the quilter. In 2006, she made quilts for all the mothers in the family. Yes, we have 6 children. She's #2, the whitish flower. For her younger sister with small children, (the yellow flower) she made the pieces button together for possible family expansion. Good thing, since WB is almost 1 yr. old now.

Mittens and mitts - you knew there had to be some knitting in here. The purple mitts are often worn inside the purple mittens. Those mittens are trimmed with Bernat Boa and are a set with a scarf and hat. The big blue mittens with gauntlets are from Anna Zilboorg's Magnificent Mittens book. They are lined with alpaca and trimmed with pearls. The pearls have not held up well. The finish has come off. The last pair is double knit fair isle. I forget the name of the mitten book.

Finally I Can Sew For Myself

Now that the prom dresses are done, it's my turn. The last prom alteration was finished on Saturday 5/31, for a prom that night. The dress came into the shop the night before.

I used this pattern, View C shown in yellow. The pattern needed to be upsized to fit me. Stash fabric was used. Really old stash fabric, in a cotton poly blend, purchased from JoAnn fabrics for $1.00/yard many years ago. It was a really good deal at that time.

I wore the blouse with brown slacks. I think there will be more blouses similar to this. It's as neat as a tuck in blouse without showing off my less than ideal waist.

Wedding
We're off the San Francisco on Monday morning. The wedding of youngest daughter is next Saturday. We're taking the train across the country. Lots of pictures will be taken, and shared when possible.

Friday Flowers
Yesterday we found chives and buttercups. The dog walks yield new flowers every day. Flowers that have been sighted, but not photographed include new varieties of Irises, Poppies and Peonies. I'll have to see what flowers I can find in California and on our return. We have annuals in our yard, but I'm waiting until later in the summer for those.

An unmown lawn has white and purple clover.

We've had enough rain to produce mushrooms in the hardwood mulch. Our yard doesn't have any this time around.

I'm off to finish packing for the trip. Sunday will be spent in Columbus, OH at the TNNA show, so packing must be finished before I leave. I hope to make lots of contacts. My design time is limited by a full time job, but I'd like to do more than I am doing now.

Knitting, and Sewing and Flowers

Knitting

I've been working on my Beyond Love t-shirt, which I designed and was originally published as Hearts on a String. I'm using the original yarn, which is discontinued. I knit the original in red SWTC Beyond, a thick thin cotton tape yarn. I knit the 2nd in white for the magazine. They now suggest SWTC Phoenix as the recommended yarn. I'm using purple Beyond. I'm up to the armholes. It was started last September. (Isn't Ravelry wonderful for aiding memory?) I put it aside for things like Christmas knitting, but picked up when simple stockinette knitting was needed. It went to hockey games, etc. It went to Boston with me. I was trying to make sure where I was in the pattern, (the yarn is not easy to read), when I measure the width. Boy did I have width!!!! As I talked on the phone with DH, what you see here reverted to yarn. I also double checked my measurements in my sweater generator program, and adjusted those. Now that the weather has warmed up, I'm anxious to wear it. The knitting is fairly simple, but keeping your place in bumpy, dark colored yarn is not. I'm doing better now that it is my primary project.

My other project is socks, no surprise. This pair is for DSIL the trucker, and another Christmas present. The pattern is Crusoe from Knitty by Marilyn Roberts, because they are stranded. The yarn is from Herrschner's, bought on sale a couple of years ago.

Sewing this week

I've been helping the daughter of a long time customer with a history project. She's 11 years old, and likes sewing, but has no help at home. This didn't have to fit anyone, it was labeled a museum piece. She did most of the work, but I helped where needed. As you can see, she is thrilled. There were times when she doubted that she'd be able to finish it.

The work load is slowing down, and I'm looking forward to sewing a blouse for myself. It's been cut out for a couple of months. I had a little time at the end of one day and got that much done.

Friday flowers

These lovelies are the first I've seen this year. I'm sure I walked right past them many times. Most lawns are mowed and weed killed and all that stuff.

We pass this wisteria on our evening walk. For some reason I hadn't seen it in other years. Dog walking is meditation time for me, where my mind wanders with few distractions.

I've always loved Lilies of the Valley, since I was a little girl. They grew at the rental house we lived in then. No houses since then have had them. I have lots of shade n0w, and they would do well here. Just have to find some for me. This patch is a dog walk picture.

I'm Done with Prom Dresses

Finally! I like to help the girls realize their dreams, but it is a lot of pressure to meet the deadlines. Things don't always go smoothly. The fabric isn't always the best for the dress they want. Some of this is a budget issue. These dresses are expensive and the price will go up for next year.

The burnt orange dress is trimmed with a line of gold sequin trim and sequins and bead are scattered on either side of the line of trim.

The red dress is very simple with rhinestones at the top edge and trimming the front. I made a tie-on cummerbund with very long tails. The girl was very slow to come in for fittings and I wasn't sure exactly where she wanted the hip band. This way she can adjust it herself.

Friday flowers
This time I'll show some things in my yard. I don't have a lot of flowers. I have lots of shade and I'm working on more shade plants. We do have annuals, but I'll show them later.

On one side of the front porch, we have these Rhododendrons. We have white ones on the other side, which bloom later. When we bought the house, the space was occupied with pine tress which have been decapitated to look like bushes.

This white bleeding heart plant is new this year. I had pink bleeding heart plants, but they didn't come back this year.

ABC-Along -J
This family photo was taken about 30 years ago. Besides me, there is J, J, J, J, J, J, and J. As you can see scouting was very big at our house. Adding together the years I spent in scouting as girl, and the years I spent as a parent, over 30 years of my life was spent in that pursuit. I enjoyed all of it, but when the last duaghter dropped out, I moved on to other things.

Another historical gathering of the clan occurred when I graduated from college in 1983. It appears that DH took this picture. I started back to college in 1976. There has been at least one family member in college since that time. When I graduated, out two oldest were in college. Several of them took time off and went back. One daughter waited a long time to start and is working in a field unrelated to her degree. Degree total from 6 of the 7 people pictured: Phd - 2 + abd, Masters -4, BA -6. Not bad! The youngest and her sister to her right both have PhDs in Psychology and teach at the college level. DS is working on his in Statistics. Finish date unknown. Other degrees are a MBA, BA in Fashion Merchandising and Business, BA in Studio Art.

I figured that I had gone to all of their graduations, They should come to mine.

Knitting is happening. TNNA swatches, socks for another Christmas sweater, and a sweater for me! I'll get some pictures of those this weekend. I'm still decompressing from the prom stuff.

Back from Boston

Friday Flowers

I was in Boston last Friday. Here are some of the flowers that were still in bloom when I left. Lilacs and Dogwood are found on our daily dog walks. The lilacs are mostly finished for this year. They seemed to last longer than usual. This pink dogwood is a on street we don't often walk down. The dogwoods are still in bloom, but there are more leaves this week.








Prom dresses part 3

One dress with vest and tie delivered.

The other two dresses are finished. More pictures next time. The stripes are 4 individual fabrics sewn together. I got smarter when I did the vest and foundation pieced the fabrics to the vest body.





















Boston area for knitting classes

Last weekend I taught 2 classes for the Baa Baa Black Sheep Knitting guild north of Boston. I have no pictures of the classes. I taught Knit to Fit in the morning and Blue Ribbon Finishing in the afternoon on Saturday. I flew in on Friday afternoon with a little time to see the city. My hosts chose to take me on a "Duck" tour. This is part of the "Duck" fleet on land. They are WWII amphibious vehicles which tour the city and then go into the Charles River for a water eye view.
The pink duck shows the water view.

I had a comfortable hotel room,but I should have been given a shoe horn with the room key. The room was sort of a triangle shape. The sink is behind me in this picture. I presume that the hotel upgrade didn't quite have this room in mind when they did it. It may not show in the 2nd picture, but there's not much room between the refrigerator and the sink. There's even less room to get around the big desk chair and then the corner of the bed. Once in the room I was OK, but half of the lights didn't work because there were not enough outlets.

The bed was comfortable, the hot water was hot. I could have made coffee in the room and ironed my clothes. I did use the hair dryer. I had everything that I might expect, but it didn't all fit nicely in this odd room. Also, the hotel had a nice breakfast included in the fee. I really didn't spend much time in the room anyway.

I was home on Sunday afternoon. I'm now planning for the next trip, a wedding in San Francisco in June.