Brown Sweater knitting is finished

Knitting News

The brown sweater now has 2 sleeves. No pictures today. Tomorrow it will go to work with me and hopefully get sewn together. It still needs edgings and beads.

The July Mystery sock has one sock with Clue #2 finished. The other is up to the heel gusset.

The Tour de Sox Yellow Jersey Sock is about 2" into the leg.

I was asked "which tutorial/technique did you use for the toe up heel flap? i haven't found just the right one yet! I designed a pair of socks for TKGA's Cast On in December 2004. I used the same method for this one. I figured it our myself. I also figured out the "Star Toe" reverse. that one was easier.

Mess Progress?

Dry wall has been installed. It is now all hung, I think. We still have some interesting areas of mess and the dry wall still needs more mudding and sanding. The toilet belongs next to the tub. The sink also was moved. The two color wall is because the original plaster was left behind the tub.

Stitch-n-Pitch

Tonight was Cleveland's Knitters at the baseball game night. Our Tribe won after 9 straight losses. Final score: Indians 13, Tampa Bay 2. This statue of Bob Feller is outside Gate C. He was a famous pitcher for our team in the 1950's.

ABC Along Updated and Sock progress

L is for....Library

It was brought to my attention that I missed blogging about the letter "L". I show a small portion of my knitting library. I think that the earliest acquisitions are Barbara Walker Treasuries. I also lucked into the Principles of Knitting just before it went out of print. I have some older books, but they were I got them later. The library also has a large number of magazines and a small crochet library.

N is for....New windows

The new windows and resulting "great ideas" have disrupted my knitting sanity. All my knitting storage is where I can't get at it. There are boxes of yarn on my back porch, under plastic. My drawers of yarn are in my dining room, with 6 feet of stuff between me and them. I can seen the drawers, but not reach them. Luckily, I have several projects which were packed for the California trip. I also can get at my sock yarn stash.

Sewing for me again

After making the teal jacket, I started a few pieces which coordinate. There's a really great print skirt, and out of the left over fabric, a matching blouse. I underlined the skirt, because the fabric is very light weight. It's some sort of rayon blend. I used polyester lining for the underlining. It worked very well.

I recently bought some solid fabrics which also will expand this wardrobe with more blouses.

Socks Update

The July Mystery sock clue #2 has been published. The pictures show progress as of yesterday. The longer sock does not show all of the clue, but I'm bringing the second sock up to that point. The stitch holders you wonder about? I made them yesterday from scrap leather and elastic. I once bought a leather stitch holder, but I lost it.

The Tour de Sox Yellow Jersey Socks have a heel. It was quite challenging, because I had to cable of the wrong side of the fabric. The pictures show the"Wheel" cable and what I'm calling the Hills and Valleys cable. The rib in between reminds me of tire tracks.

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.

Wedding in San Francisco

This is old news, but I'm still catching up. This was the destination at the end of our train ride. Amtrak took us by bus, over the Bay Bridge to here where we met the happy couple. After stopping at our motel to drop off bags, etc. we went out to dinner. DD, the bride took us to a place she had wanted to try called Tommy's Joynt.


When the rest of the family got to town, we assembled on Fisherman's Wharf. There were little grandkids involved and this was fun for them.


Of course all faces are not to be seen at one time.


The Wedding took place on a boat. They were married by the captain.

The boat then sailed around the bay while the meal was served and cake was cut. We saw Alcatraz and went under the Golden Gate bridge.
Did i say that it was windy that day?


The ceremonies were finished by 4:00 and more family/wedding party pictures were taken. Since we still had lots of day left, The decision was made ahead of time to go to a baseball game. There are many baseball fans in the family. The Giants played the Athletics in a battle of the bay. The Giants lost.

The trip home was an adventure. We couldn't get home by train because of the flooding along the Mississippi. We flew home. Our large luggage went by train and got home only one day late.

I write about knitting, sewing, flowers and ABC along next time.

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.

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.