Walk about the Yard

Time to update on some of the yard projects from this summer.  The bog filters are operational, though we haven’t finished prettying them up.  This is the waterfall area from the small ponds into the big pond, it makes a lovely sound.

Now that the pond is clearer we are starting to see the goldfish – a lot.  Yes, we did start feeding them again, and now whenever you walk around the pond they follow you.  Maybe they can see us better now too.  A friend of Dave’s gave us some Koi, but we haven’t seen them.  I guess they are being coy, and hope they are doing OK.  The other morning a Heron was on Ducky Island, and I could tell he was watching the goldfish, but I never saw him go for one.

Dave decided it was finally time for the shop that he has wanted forever.  This is just the pole building, the next step will be the concrete floor. 

This is the way our “compound” now looks from up towards the garden.  House on the left, shop on the right, with the view down the driveway.

A few late flowers blooming to show some color.

The boys worked hard to get a supply of firewood put up.  Those weather people  keep saying we are going to have a cold/wet/snowy winter. 

 

I’m in a mood to try and finish projects that have been languishing.  Finally completed my fingerless gloves from last year.  My friend Debi is modeling them at our Starbucks knitting meeting.

Some Projects

I have started a lot of projects recently,  few have been completed.  Here are some that are done.

This baby sweater was a kit that I purchased a year ago from Knit Picks.  I don’t have any intended recipient, it will go into my “hope chest” for now.  It needs buttons to be completely finished.

 

I’ve had fun crocheting doilies for rocks.  This is the nicest one I have around now, I tend to give them away as they are completed.  They look neat if you have a bunch of them grouped together so I’d better get some more done.

And this is a new distraction and great way to use up fabric scraps.  The bowl was created by wrapping strips of fabric around a rope, coiling it, and sewing it together by machine with a zig-zag stitch.

No Excuses

I’m just going to show what is done.

My completed tree quilt, after many “revisions. Size 13” x 15”

I finally framed these lovely pictures I purchased quite a while ago.

One Wrist Warmer completed.

And a finished hat, my own design. The picture doesn’t do it justice, I found a knitting stitch I liked in my “365 Knitting Stitches A Year” calendar; it is on November 15 , called Perforated Ribbing.

Saturday Wrap Up

Best laid plans and all that, my first week of “Art Everyday” was a bust. But some creative work was accomplished.

This sweater is finally complete, a mere 5 months on the needles.

It’s hard to take a picture of yourself, but here’s what I got of it on.

New project cast on, fingerless gloves knit from Mini Mochi yarn. I love the yarn, but it’s a very thin fingering weight so it’s a bit hard to work with. And for some reason this pattern is proving difficult for me, but I’m going to stick with it.

For Day 2 of Art Everyday, I started this small piece. I saw a great video from someone’s blog about machine embroidery, and I wanted to try it. I feel this is mostly a success, but the green fabric I used is too dark and hides the work. I’ve auditioned some border fabric, but am hesitant to put more work in it when I’m unhappy with some of it. Any suggestions?

Shopping treasure – isn’t this the cutest tea light container, I found it at Tuesday Morning and bought 4 since they were only $1.50 each. Now to use them.

And while I was browsing Joanne Fabric, I found these cuties on the clearance isle, 70% off. So for $1.49 each I have some fun Halloween presents for next year, if I remember that I have them.

Seems like not much is getting completed around here, but I've only a "few" inches to knit on the second sleeve for this sweater, and then it will be ready to put together. I decided to start blocking the pieces, here is the back.
Isn't this a great stitch pattern, it's easy to memorize. My summer sweater will be done for Christmas!
Work is slow in the studio. I found this large fabric panel I bought in Hawaii a number of years ago that has been sitting on a shelf waiting for me to do something. The colors are perfect for the room, I don't know that I'll keep it up, but for now it looks good.

Sock Summit Prep

I'm very excited to be attending Sock Summit this week. I'll be driving down to Portland on Wednesday, staying through Saturday.

In an OCD moment I made these bags to organize my yarn. I started with a quart zip-lock bag, added an eyelet hole for the yarn to feed through, and sewed the bags at the bottom to make them shorter to fit the yarn more snugly. I'll let you know how they work, at least packing each skein of yarn in it's own bag will help keep things neat.
On the Sock Summit forum at Ravelry, there was some discussion about making mini socks to trade. They are great fun, but I'm having problems with the heal flap on the toe-up pattern I'm using. I don't think I'll have many for trading, it's good practice on the cast on technique I'm suppose to know for my class.

I'm taking an all day class on Thursday, volunteering for the Opening Reception and the attempt to create a world record Knit In, and then being a teacher helper for a class on Saturday. It should be a fun filled 4 days with time for shopping. Just imagine all that yarn (150 vendors) in one place!

Here's a couple of pictures of bouquets of flowers I picked yesterday, should have taken the pictures then when they were fresh, but they still look good. It continues to be warm so I'm watering daily which is getting to be tiring.

Creativity

I had a wild spurt of bag making inspired by this pattern. The first one was the largest one for some of my knitting accessories or projects. The zipper for that one was 14" long, I cut the fabric in a 12" square. The others were made with zippers I had picked up on sale; the white ones were 10 cents each (I now wish I had bought more) and the grey zipper on the blue bag had 5 cents written on the tag from a fabric store that closed at least 10 years ago.

The green bag is made from fabric with cat words on it, it's for the mouse for my Netbook. The floral one was just some fabric I liked and doesn't have a use/home yet. I was showing them to Dave and he wanted one for his I-Pod so I had him pick the fabric, and he choose the blue with Japanese writing on it. It's also got a layer of batting for extra padding and a loop on the zipper for carry it by. These are very quick to make.

My niece Stephanie sent me pictures of Rhys wearing the vest and sweater I knit for him. The fit isn't ideal, but he makes anything look adorable.

Knitting Done

This post is being composed on the deck enjoying a sunny Saturday morning! Yea Netbook.

Lovely morning for a photo shoot of recent knitting.
Completed baby vest for Rhys. Stephanie, if you see this, I'm taking it to Bend when we meet your folks next week, so it won't be in the mail till after then. Took me a while going through my button stash, but when I found these blue stars I knew they were the ones. I just hope the points don't get stuck in the yarn, making them difficult to use.


Brown Socks finally completed. They've been on the needles for over a year.
doesn't the mossy rock make a great place to pose the knitting on.
and a new project started, a cardigan sweater, very fun design.

Knitting

I seem to be jumping from project to project today. Here's some current knitting. Above is the start of the Cabled Baby Vest from Purl Bee. I keep loosing my cable needle, although I do know where it is right now.
These are socks started over a year ago, I'm just improvising the pattern. One sock is done and I'm ready to start the heal on the second.

I'm also trying to finish up a batch of Cool-Ties to get them in the mail, I'm flitting from computer, to sewing machine, to comfy knitting chair.

There have only been a few contest entries, about half the answers are right. It did get mentioned on the WiKnit Blog, which is a Knitting Contest Blog, so I may have some new visitors.

Knitting Done

I finally sat down and sewed the pieces together, I had the parts for this sweater knitted over a month ago. It came out very cute, but I'm afraid it may be a bit disproportionate. This is for my niece's son Rhys, but it's too large for now, it's probably about a 2T, and he's 9 months now.

On to the next project!

Fuzzy Mitten Lamb Photoshoot

My lamb came home from my LYS where she was all week, so we went outside for a photo shoot. Here she is posed in a Sword Fern, with lots of new growth unfolding.
Sitting on a deck chair, enjoying the late afternoon sun.
How about in a patch of Forget-Me-Nots, to highlight the blue of her dress.

My LYS, Apple Yarns, announced over a month ago that they wanted people to make this pattern so they could display them during the yarn tour, which was this past weekend. It was announced as a contest, with a good prize, so I decided to do it. Turns out I was the only person who entered, so poor little lambie was all alone at the store.

Pattern: Fuzzy Mitten Lamb by Barbara Prime. It's a free download if you are a member of Ravelry.

The dress is an original creation, combining knitting with crochet for the yolk.

Sunday Roundup

While the snow drifts down (it’s melting immediately)… Yesterday we went to Seattle to spend the day with Kim and celebrate Dave’s birthday.

Such happy??? faces

Look, I’ve got seedlings! Milo is about to get a squirt from the water bottle. They are in the laundry room and this year I am keeping the room a little warmer which I think helped the quick germination. I have to keep the door closed to keep the cats out and the loads of wash help keep it nice and humid in there.

This is the new Gemma Beret I’m working on, and yes Milo is helping here too, he was all over everything I was doing this morning, now he’s hiding somewhere sleeping it off.

Current status of the baby sweater. The back is complete and I’ve knit a few inches of the front.

Knitting Progress

Here is where I am at knitting the latest baby sweater. I love the texture I'm getting with this yarn and pattern. It took me a while to figure out how to K1B, which in this pattern means knit 1 from the stitch below, but you gotta love the internet, I was able to find instructions and pictures which taught me what to do.

I am always conscious the the background when I take pictures of my projects, I love the way knitting looks against wood. When I was planning to take this picture I wandered around the house looking for wood background and the best one was the kitchen cabinets. This required me to tape the knitting up on it.
Here is Milo trying to figure out how to get at that yarn dangling from the cabinet.
Grass makes a pretty good background, this is the rest of my dishcloth obsession, which has passed but I have leftover cotton yarn.

What I've been up to

I finished these hats and mailed them off to the Ships Project. Notice the little fir cones added to the picture as artistic detail. OK, they were on the deck were I was posing the hats so I just added them in.
After weeks of contemplation, I finally started this small art quilt. My major stumbling block was fear of drawing the crow, I'm pleased with the shape I came up with. This really isn't an "in progress shot", it just shows some of the mess on my table that I made will doing this.
Completed, at least I think so. I'm going to think about it for a while and will try to get a better picture in natural light. I did figure out how to photoshop my pictures to get rid of some of the yellow caused by fluorescent lights.
Once I finished the hats I had this strange urge to knit dish cloths. Actually it's kinda fun, I'm sending the completed one home with Kim and have started another.