Today is the first day of summer

It's summer, and all the baby knitting is finished for now. I will need to knit another girl sweater for the future, but not yet. This one is Elizabeth Zimmermann's Tomten Jacket. I used a cotton cone yarn as the base yarn and a number of odd balls to carry along. There is fuzz, there is glitz! All the yarn I used is gone from my stash. It really feels good to use the odd balls!

Some Sewing
I recently made a wedding dress for a client from beaded lace. A simple dress that came out nicely, copied from another dress she brought me. It has a very low back. I did not make the train,it came with the original dress but I had to find a good way to attach it.

She had a wedding dress made when she first got engaged. She didn't really like the dress. She didn't pick the fabric herself, and I'm not sure about the fit. The original dress was beaded all over, and the train was attached with hooks and thread eyes. The thread eyes had broken without the dress being worn. A bad choice, as there is too much danger of catching the beads with the hooks. I removed the hooks and attached two large tabs. "Whopper poppers" were sewn to the tabs and the inside back of the dress. Simple, effective, and strong.

R is for Ribbit

My DGD Ana has a birthday coming up in mid-September. Now that her feet have quit growing, the decision was made to knit her some socks. I have a tracing of her foot from a year or so ago, so figuring commenced. I checked books, I figured gauge, this was a problem. Ana is a short young woman with very small feet (size2) but what I was knitting just looked too small. There was another concern. She's turning 17, so she doesn't have childlike stick legs. Her legs have shape.

Last night, I caught up with her to have her try the sock on. It wouldn't go over her heel!! RIBBIT!! I measured her heel, her leg, and the ball of her foot. The foot length from the tracing is ok. I've redesigned the sock in my head. It will be bigger and better. I'm keeping the trellis and adding a rib edge that looks like a flower, followed by a yarnover braid from Folk Knitting in Estonia. The yarn is Brown Sheep Wildefoote in purple Splendor. Ana's favorite color is purple. The new pattern will be awesome! I wonder who I can sell it to.

Sewing Challenge
Today I spent most of the day enlarging a bridesmaid dress for a large young lady. She's at least 6 feet tall and her dress is now a size 28 plus 12 inches. The dress is long enough. The wedding is next Saurday. I need to see 3 of 4 bridesmaids Tuesday, so that I have time to hem their dresses and make whatever other alterations are still needed. Two dresses were made larger by adding a fabric strip on each side from underarm to hem. The other two dresses are another style and needed taking in. Never a dull moment.

TNNA and travel

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Sunday, June 8 I went to Columbus, OH for the TNNA show. I'm not a yarn store owner, but when it's a couple of hours away, it's a good time to meet and greet suppliers, yarn suppliers, and other bloggers. I saw Lucy Neatby, the rainbow lady. I talked with Lily Chin, Margaret Fisher, Lynn H. Franklin Habit, Annie Modesitt, Chrissy Gardiner, Joan McGowan-Michael, Helene Rush. Shannon Okey, Kristin Nichols, Jackie E-S, Beth Brown-Reinsel, and Sheila Ernst.

I also talked with Chris Blysma of Knitting at Knoon, Katerine Cade of South West Trading Company, Joe Antal of Oasis Yarns, Interweave Press and XRX. It is a trade show after all. I'm hoping to do more designing and teaching in the coming year.

I got home around dinner time, and late that night, got on Amtrak for Chicago and then San Francisco. We have traveled by train before. We start at dark-o-clock in the morning, after staying up half the night, because that's when the train comes through. We then go to sleep and wake up in the Chicago area, where we change trains. We take the sleeper from Chicago, so have a nice lounge to wait in and a couple of hours to go outside and see the area near Union Station. Here's a picture of the Chicago River from last trip.

It was gray and overcast this time. There had been a lot of rain in the area. Here's the Mississippi as we passed over it. We didn't come back this way becasue of the flooding, but that's a story for another day.

We passed lots of farmland .(no pictures) When we got into Denver, we were told that we were going to miss the most spectacular part of the Rockies with the Moffet tunnel because of track work being done. We've seen it before, but still... The scenery can still be boring, but a lot different from home. There is bleak desert in Nevada. In the Denver station was a piece of railroad history. These cars are called "private varnish." We saw a different private cart last time through.






When we got into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, there was still snow.



The Reno station has is now finished. The trains were blocking traffic, so they dug a ditch and ran them under the streets. The work had started when we stopped in 2005. Now it is finished. This is a
"smoking stop," where you can get off the train, but not leave the platform.



We saw a spectacular sunset in Utah and an equally awesome one in Nevada.




The train portion of the trip ended in Emeryville, CA. We then took a bus across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco.


The entire trip took 3 days. We got off the train late Wednesday afternoon. We had a wedding to attend and family to spend time with. Much knitting was done on a purple sweater. It wasn't finished until the trip home. and still needs a good bath before its formal portrait.

I actually packed 5 projects, including 2 pairs of socks. This is excessive for the amount of time available, but actually was a good thing. Just before we left, DH decided to have the 3rd floor of the house insulated. When you hire a professional, he has his idea of the right way to do things. This meant that all plaster and lathe needed to be removed and the "living space" insulated, rather than the roof. We will have plaster board for the walls, damaged plaster will be gone. Unbelievably, 1/4 of all our belongings were moved in a little over 24 hours. A teenage grandson and daughter with strong husband did the work. DH couldn't help because of medical problems and I was at work and TNNA. We have stuff piled in much of the house and in the garage. There is a dumpster in the driveway, so we are a 1 car family for now. My yarn stash is not available! Even many of my summer clothes are buried. The ideal time to tear apart the house is when we aren't there, but even without construction debris it's a mess. Even the dog was a dog camp for the duration.

B is for..., and socks

Sunday morning we woke up to frigid temps (about 10 F) and this winter lace. I love how snowy days are so beautiful, with all the sounds muffled. Bronte and I were out before any streets were plowed. Few people had left any footprints.

B is for Bronte, our dog. She's an Australian Cattle Dog named by a previous owner for Bronte Bay Australia. She's a 35 pound bundle of energy. We've had some battles of wills, but with a lot of hard work, I think we've some out on top. She's gotten to the point where she's not usually a holy terror.

On the sock front, I finished John's socks today. I ran out of green yarn as I said the other day. I added a coordinate leftover. I have used this yarn for him before without running short. I must have used smaller needles this time.

The other 2 pairs are almost finished. I have the final clue for the January mystery socks with the heart heels. I'm almost finished with the gold socks, which have turned out to be knee socks. I think that this is longer than the designer planned, but works for me. Photos when both gold socks are finished.

I've also been sewing for the family. Two grand children have birthdays being celebrated this Saturday. I made them fleece hoodies. EB is 3 and her big brother MB will be 5. His hoodie has baseball players on it. The pattern is from Butterick.

Today's mail also brought a beautiful wedding invitation from DD Joyce. I haven't opened the card, but there are many things inside it. I'll have to see if I can open the card without undoing the ribbon.