It's a knitter's love fest

I'm riding pretty high on the knitting mojo right now. I finished the Heroine jacket and could not possibly love it more.It felted beautifully in one machine wash cycle in hot water with 2 pair of jeans. The collar is rather big. Where I to knit it again I would definitely rework the collar. But I find if I fold it back it's not too bothersome. I've sewn the bottoms of the lapels down so I've got pockets. Although the jacket is rather bulky it offers the ideal amount of warmth. I've been able to wear it as a blazer at work on chilly mornings and it works equally well as an outdoors jacket. The final count was 26 balls of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Current and 8 celtic cross buttons from Buttonsgalore on Esty (go buy from her if you need buttons, she's wonderful to deal with!)

I finally finished the Heart and Sole toe up socks I started back in April. I'm not really that slow a knitter. But I am an easily distracted knitter and other projects just seemed to keep pulling me away. I love Wendy Johnson's pattern for the slip stitch heel toe up sock. I still enjoy my top down socks. However, if I want to knit toe up socks, this will be the pattern I use.

I've been spinning again. Finished two skeins of superwash mill ends that I got from Jen. She sent me a whole bag full months ago to try to encourage me to spin enough yarn for a sweater. After sampling and test knitting I decided I liked the look of 3 ply for this yarn so it's taken me some time to spin. The fiber is a joy to spin and the yarn is lovely. But as I said, I'm easily distracted and although I DO want to spin enough yarn for a sweater....someday.... my current obsession is to finally spin a good 3 ply sock yarn. I've been reading Intentional Spinner and am hoping to pick up Spin Control soon to improve my spinning knowledge. And I've been practicing on some Ashland Bay merino top. I moved to a smaller ratio on my Minstrel (8.5 to 1) and it made a world of difference. I am proud to say I have finally successfully spun what I consider a fair-to-middlin sock yarn.Granted it's only maybe 30 yds, but it's a start. I'm ready to jump in and use the "good fiber". And check out all the new Good fiber I've got to choose from!!!The big lump on the left is Crown Mountain BFL in Stonehenge. 8 (that's E I G H T) ounces! In front 4 ounces of BFL in Swamp Flower from Liberty's Yarns. And all those lovely batts came from Jen. I'm so happy to let you guys know Hanks in the Hood is back in full force. Her Etsy shop is chock full of gorgeous custom blended batts and her handspun yarns.

I finally broke down and treated myself to a knitter's purse. I lusted after a Jordana Paige for ages but could never bring myself to spend the considerable amount of money one costs. Especially since I've heard from more than one person that they aren't the best made purses you can buy. A mention of her Rio bag on a podcast got me thinking about and jonesing once again for a cool knitter's purse. So I started combing the internet for the perfect bag. I found it in the Namaste Newport bag.The color is Peacock and is a rich teal blue. The bag is the perfect size to hold all my purse stuff on one side and my knitting on the other. In the center there's a full length pocket to keep wallet and such secure. My only complaint was that there's only 2 pockets in the purse. I'm an organization FREAK when it comes to my purse. I hate things running around loose in there. So I sewed up a pocket organizer (good instructions here, takes less than 1/2 hour to sew) and I was all set.Now everything has a place, my bag is super organized and I've got knitting with me wherever I go. I got mine from Hip Mountain Mama (click the bag link to go to her site) since she had the best price and came highly recommended on Ravelry. I too can heartily recommend her site. Service was excellent. I ordered on Labor Day weekend and had my bag by Thursday!

We are blessed with cooler temperatures this weekend and with September only a day away I'm really getting excited for fall to arrive. I've been working on Heroine nearly exclusively and finished the body last night. I've had major issues with row counting on this sweater. I don't know if my clicker is getting bumped in the bag or if I'm just brain dead but all 3 pieces I've knit so far have had to be ripped at least once. Thankfully it's a fast knit so it wasn't heart wrenching to tear back 10 rows and reknit them. After the fact I discovered I'd misplaced one of the buttonholes on the left front. I had already finished the piece when I discovered the mistake and there was no way I was ripping back that far. Since the jacket is felted and the buttonholes aren't technically functional, I decided to duplicate stitch over the errant buttonhole and will hand sew in the correct buttonhole after the jacket is felted. Hopefully I won't regret this decision. I steam blocked the parts and stitched up the shoulder seams just in time for Quinn to claim the jacket for her afternoon nap.I'm now knitting the sleeves and have decided to do both at the same time. This slows things down a bit, but when I'm done, I'm done. I have to be careful when I set my work down to be sure not to stop between the two sleeves as it's really hard to tell which sleeve I stopped on.

A change of perspective

Two things happened yesterday. Well, that's probably an understatement. Lots of things happened. One pretty big bad thing happened early in the day which set my mood switch on "very bad". And it stayed stuck there all day. Then, in the evening when I had time to sit down here at the computer and scan some of my favorite blogs and catch up for the week, I came across this post on Crazy Aunt Purl's blog. She talked about how it's so easy to dwell on the negative, but sometimes what we really need to do is concentrate on the good. So in that spirit, I've decided to post ten things that make me happy rather than whinge on about the bad stuff. Here goes, in absolutely no particular order....

10 things that make me happy.

1. Knitting. Who couldn't have guessed that. It not only makes me happy, it makes me calm.
2. My cats
3. My garden
4. Audiobooks and podcasts. Listening to someone else tell me stories is a joy instilled in me from when I was a wee sprout and mom would read Nancy Drew to my sister and I.
5. Cozy mysteries. Sure someone died last week, but we REALLY need to plan this town dance!
6. Chocolate. The more the better. I don't think I've had a day without at least a bite of chocolate in the last year, at least.
7. My friends, family and my hubby
   
8. Sitting on my porch with a gentle breeze blowing and Garrison Keillor on the radio
9. My huge collection of sniffies (perfume oils). BPAL though art my love.
   
10. Getting a package in the mail. Am I the only one who gets a thrill when they see a brown box at the door?

Next time you are having one of those days and you feel like Eeyore or Oscar the grouch, try Laurie's trick and take a few minutes to think about the good stuff. You might realize things maybe aren't all as bad as they seem and there's still good around you.

Much peace to you today.

A lot going on

It's been busy here. Summer always seems so full. The garden harvest is in full force. I've done 16 pints of tomatoes and 7 pints of pickles. We froze peppers, lima beans and okra. For once the zucchini has been coming in at a nice slow steady pace, about 1 or two per week. I'm not a fan of frozen zucchini so it's nice when it comes in so that we can eat it right away. We did dehydrated tomatoes this year which are super tasty. I'm out of canning jars so I think I'll end up dehydrating or freezing any more tomatoes that come in. We are starting to get kohlrabi (only planted one row.) Our cranberry beans, brussells sprouts and broccoli are all looking great (although we are having problems with some kind of caterpillar eating the leaves so we have to keep up with spraying. The red calypso beans are apparently extremely tasty to bunnies. The little rabbit ate all 16 plants clear down to the ground! At least he hasn't touched anything else so I guess I can live with it.

On the crafty front, I have been industriously working away on a myriad of projects.

I finished the foulard.Egh, not thrilled with it. Being knit on the bias it stretches like the dickens and just looks sloppy to me. It's also much smaller than I expected, even though I made the large size. It'll be fine for keeping my shoulders warm, but it's not a pattern I would knit again.

The sweatshirt jacket I bought the pattern for at Quilt Odyssey is coming along splendidly.The body is finished and I wore it embellished to work this week.Here you can see all the embellishments that need to be finished and applied. I need to make somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90 yoyos. The Clover YoYo makers have been a godsend. I made the first few yoyos the traditional way and had decided it wasn't worth the hassle and was going to skip the yoyos all together. Then mom introduced me to this gadget. Wow, you can't believe how easy it is to make yoyos. I can make 3 in like ten minutes. If you need to make yoyos, I HIGHLY recommend them.

After knitting laceweight yarn all summer I suddenly got the urge to knit something heavier. I think the fact that September is just one page away has me longing for fall! Ever since I saw it in last winter's Twist Collective, I've had my eye on Heroine. Suddenly I decided now was the time to make it. I purchased Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Current and got started right away.This jacket is knit at a larger gauge then felted down to size when it's completed. I was careful to swatch and measure before I started since felting is such a finicky process and I would hate to put all that time and money into a project and not have it fit! I had to adjust my needle size down and knit the size larger than I first thought, but I think this should work (fingers crossed). After only two day's work I'm halfway up the back. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to order more yarn since I'm having to knit the next larger size, so this is my main priority knitting at the moment. I want to get far enough along to see where I stand and try to order more yarn right away while I might still be able to get the same dye lot.

I was a big winner recently! Our local grocery store gave away a gas grill and yours truly was picked the winner. I was tickled pink since only a few weeks before I was lamenting to C how much I would love a gas grill, this on a night when the charcoal grill was refusing to light. I'm still getting the hang of cooking on gas and am still a little nervous I'll blow myself up.

Quilt Odyssey recap and One Pretty Thing

This weekend was the Quilt Odyssey quilt show in Hershey. It's become an annual tradition for mom and I to attend. This year it looked for a bit like we might not make it due to car trouble, but in the end we were able to go and had a great time. The show was excellent as always. This show always includes modern quilts as well as a selection of antique quilts (my favorites). Much of the show did not allow photography, so I didn't get any pictures. There were some absolutely stunning exhibits of outstanding craftsmanship. My quilting is firmly grounded in the utilitarian and I don't aspire to 12 stitches per inch in hand quilting. But I sure can appreciate the skill required to achieve such fine results. Even some of the machine quilting could take your breath away. The merchant mall was fun and tempting as always. I was a pillar of restraint and walked away with only a nifty compass type tool for drawing every size circle imaginable and this gorgeous button jacket pattern. Mom and I are both planning to make this sweet tog. I was on a mission to get wool quilt batting for the quilt kit I completed from last years show. Didn't find any at the show, but was able to order it online. We topped the day off with lunch at Houlihan's and some shopping at the Hershey Outlets. Despite getting soaked in the rain, it was a truly enjoyable day.

Looking for a daily dose of crafty inspiration, check out One Pretty Thing. This blog became an instant favorite when I discovered it some time ago. I always stop by at least once a week and always find something I would love to make.

Wormwood, HP and, yes, some FOs

The fantabulous weather continues here in PA. Low 80s during the day and cool nights, perfect for sleeping. I finished the Summer Sweater (based on Sally Melville's Favorite Sweater) and had the great pleasure of wearing it yesterday.The cotton/microfiber blend yarn is wonderfully soft and drapey. The large, open gauge of the sleeves and lower half of the sweater make it cool enough for warmish days and warm enough for coolish nights. I'm very pleased with this sweater and am contemplating knitting another one.

I finished a hat and booties to go with the baby cardi for C's friend.Baby stuff is just so darn cute!

I'm still knitting away with my laceweight yarns. I've now got 3 projects going...the stole I showed you before, this beaded triangle shawl (which is actually quite a bit further along now; this picture is from a few weeks ago), and a square garter stitch shawl called a foulard. The downside to laceweight yarn is it takes forever (at least for me) to show much progress. This is also the upside, though, since it means I get the pleasure of knitting the project for quite a long time.

The garden is going like gangbusters. We got our first zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers this last week. We've harvested most of the storage onions and all the garlic and have them hanging in the garage to cure. Last year we dried them on screens on our patio but ended up losing a bunch when they got wet from rain. This year we've installed cup hooks along the garage rafter beams and are hanging everything in bunches to dry. So far this seems to be working exceptionally well. I'm hoping the Candy onions mature soon. The pumpkin plants are trying desperately to take over that end of the bed. In the spots vacated by the alliums, we now have dry beans (red calypso and cranberry) and brussels sprouts and broccoli. I hold my breath every morning when I venture out to see if the rabbits have eaten the broccoli, so far we've been lucky. After last year's debacle, I wasn't sure if I wanted to try again.

I must share with you my newest obsession....Wormwood. No, not the absinthe variety, but the podcast. Wormwood is a serialized mystery in the style of old radio drama. It's actually a few years old. Seasons one and two are available in their entirety and season three is set to start soon. I've only completed the first season and just started season two. The story revolves around Zander Crowe, a mysterious psychiatrist with ties to the occult who is drawn to the town of Wormwood by visions of a drowned woman. There's murder and mayhem, weird cults and oddball characters. The voice actors do a great job, particularly the guy who does Crowe. If you're a fan of radio drama, be sure to check it out.

I had the opportunity to see HBP yesterday at the MoviEtown cinema. I love this theater. It's an old car dealership building that's been reoutfitted to a state of the art movie theater. The seats are comfy, the sound system is great and, best of all, you can get coffee at the concession stand. There were lots of previews before the movie. I was somewhat excited to see there's a new Sherlock Holmes film coming out, but the preview doesn't really leave me dieing to see it. I do like Robert Downey Jr (go see Ironman!) but this portrayal of Holmes seems so far out of character. It's definitely Holmes for the new century.

Obviously, as we've seen with the last few HP movies, the movies can in no way do justice to the books. The movie folks pick the highlights and go from there. HBP was no exception and is by far the most altered. Overall, I liked the film alot. This was my favorite book of the series. It's the book of explanation. The movie could never live up to my perception of the book. I'm not going to go into any detail since I want to wait until I have a chance to see it and discuss it with my number one HP buddy, my sister. My advice, if you haven't read the book first (and shame on you if you haven't), but if you haven't, see the movie first, then read the book. You'll find the book so much richer.

Back on Etsy

After several months off, I'm finally back on Etsy with hand dyed sock yarn and small tote bags. Click the link at right to see what's in my shop.

Now that it's July and summer is officially here (although it doesn't feel like it with temps still in the very tolerable upper 70s and low 80s), it's time for a garden update...

We had a delightful June. Moderate temperatures and lots of rain. The garden is flourishing.
The peppers are all loaded with fruit, the pumpkins are eagerly attempting to overtake the garden, the limas are starting to set pods, the snow peas are nearly done.Although this looks rather shabby, it's a great sign that our garlic and onions are nearly ready to harvest. Once the tops drop and start to wither, we'll pull these out and hang them to dry. I'm currently looking for some short season shell beans to plant in here once the onions are out to keep the bed active until fall. This bed has proved perfect for the alliums and we'll definitely replant them here this fall.

Our tomatoes are growing like gangbusters. No signs of red yet, but we'll have tons once they start to ripen. And we finally got a zucchini plant that's starting to show some buds.

The mums and lavender I experimented with starting were only mildly successful. None of the lavender seems to be rooting, but most of the mums seem healthy and are starting to show some roots. In then center I've got some broccoli and Brussels sprouts starting for fall planting. At the moment I can't tell which is which since the marker I used to write on the tags was apparently not waterproof.

We've got bunnies again this year, but so far they've been far less destructive than the ants have been. This little dude is so tame I could nearly reach out and pet it. I found it munching away on the sweet peas, but since they are nearly done anyway, I figured I'd let the little fellow have its treat.

Earlier this week we had a rather strong thunderstorm that left us with this display of beauty.The double rainbow was so bright and perfectly arched we imagined we could actually drive to the end of it!

SoapQueen TV

I love making soap and was excited to see that Anne Marie of Brambleberry was going to be producing soap making videos this summer. She's got 6 episodes up so far and they are great. So far she's only dealt with melt and pour soap and I'm not sure if she'll be covering any other methods in the future or not. If you are at all interested in soapmaking, be sure to check it out...http://www.youtube.com/user/soapqueentv

The sweet little baby sweater is finished.As I was knitting it I listened to the KnitPicks podcast about knitting for babies and one of the ladies (a new mommie) said never to use the cutesy buttons because they are too hard to do up with a squirming baby. Since I already had the buttons, I chose to ignore this advice. They do seem to slip through the button holes easily enough. And they are just so cute!

I'm still happily knitting away on the summer sweater and shawl, but there's not a lot of visible progress, so no pictures.

We had a week of showers and the garden is doing wonderful as a result. So are the weeds, unfortunately. I hate weeding, with a passion. But I did try to get the majority of the big ones out while the ground was soft. It looks like we are losing the cherry tomatoes I planted to replace the first cherry tomato plants that died. I'm really wondering if I'm just not supposed to have them this year. I picked up another plant at the flea market today, my last ditch effort.

My latest gardening experiment is to try to propagate some lavender and mums for a bed that runs along side my house. This bed gets full south sun all day and tends on the dry side. Lavender seems to thrive there and I'm hoping to get enough plants to root to go the length of the bed. I'm also trying to propagate mums for the fall. The instructions I found said you could either start them in water or in soil with rooting compound. The water method did not work for me...they just rotted. So I took a bunch of new cuttings today and am trying them with rooting compound. Fingers crossed it works. Could save a good bit of money in plants if it does.

It is absolutely gorgeous here today. The sun is shining, its in the mid 70s with a light breeze. The plan for the afternoon is knitting and catching up with my podcasts out on the porch. I recently got a new Zen Mozaic after getting tired of fighting with my Zen V+ and it's sticky play button . I love the Zen MP3 players. If you like audiobooks they are a dream since they allow you to set bookmarks. The new Mozaic even has a built in speaker so I can listen wirefree.

Ok, prepare yourself for an extremely photo-heavy post. Lots to show you this week.

Check out how well the garden is coming along! This is just 3 weeks after my last photos.The tomatoes have doubled in size. You can't see it, but we lost one of the eggplants so I'll be picking up another plant this week to replace it.
The main bed is much changed as well. We put up a make-shift fence to keep the bunnies out (and it's actually working!) The onions are all thriving. The snow peas are up 5-6 inches. The limas are just starting to come up (dad says it's still a bit cool for them to sprout yet). The pumpkins are up and I saw today the first acorn squash has also sprouted. The cucumbers are looking a little sad, but I think they'll pull through if we get some sunshine. And the peppers are doing excellently. On the left side of the wall you might be able to barely perceive the soda bottles lining the bed. I've planted okra in that bed and have them capped with 2 liter soda bottles to deter the rabbits from eatting them up. In the very back of the picture is my garlic and onion bed (yes, I know, we've got a lot of onions planted. But we love them, they keep well and are uber-cheap to plant.) The garlic and egyptian onions were planted in the fall. It was so much fun to see something go dormant for a few months then spring to life when the weather warmed up.

The Topsy Turveys were a complete bust. The plants died within a week. I didn't even bother replanting them. Instead I purchased some more cherry tomatoes and planted them in a regular hanging basket. So far, they are surviving much better.

I've been inspired to sew again lately. I got this cute little book from the library, Sew Pretty Homestyle. Chock full of easy and adorable shabby chic sewing projects. This weekend I undertook sewing cushions for our patio chairs (the ubiquitous plastic stacking chairs). The fabric is sweet and looks very nice on our green chairs. I had some trouble with sizing...the first one was a little too small. The second one I mis-measured. By the third I think I got it down. One more to go.

Also on the sewing front, I picked up Lexi Barnes new book Sew What! Bags. My mom sews lovely fabric purses and I would like to try my hand at it too. I muddle around and can make a decent tote bag, but I want to learn more. So I thought this might be a good jumping off point. Boy was I right! This book provides excellent instructions for sewing simple, functional and very attractive bags in several styles. She also includes a very good section for beginning sewers (something I am not, but it never hurts to refresh your mind on the basics). Now I'm on the look out for kitchy fabrics to turn into glorious bags!

Knitting has not been forgotten, not in the least. I'm still rocking the laceweight wrap. I just adore this yarn. It's like knitting with air. I'm a little concerned it's not going to be as wide as I would have liked. I know it will block out some...I'm figuring 20" wide blocked, but it's so hard to judge on the needles. Still, I just want something to throw over my shoulders and I am confident this will fit the bill. The pattern is super easy...20 rows stockinette, 6 row lace pattern, repeat ad nauseum (I'm throwing in a purl ridge every so often to break up the pattern).

And since I'm loving this laceweight so much, I bought some more. This time from handpaintedyarn.com. I've purchased their worsted weight yarns in the past and have loved them so I was confident I wouldn't be disappointed with their lace weight
2 skeins of Cedro Dulce and 1 of Rocas De Mar. I love the Rocas and would have bought more, but this was their last skein. The yarn is very nice although not as soft as 100purewool. This yarn also comes from Uruguay, however, they have a US distribution center so the shipping is much less and much faster (a few days rather than a few weeks.)

A friend of hubby's is expecting a child so I jumped at the opportunity to knit a baby sweater. I'm knitting the Lion Brand Garter Ridge Baby Cardigan. The yarn is Plymouth Dreambaby DK which is a different gauge than the pattern calls for. But the adaptation is simple enough. I'm hoping the pale sage green will be appropriate for a boy or girl since we don't know what the sex will be. And the little teddy bear buttons are sweet as can be.

I don't recall if I mentioned wanting to knit a summer sweater or not, but I've had the desire to do so for some time. As always, it was my deep seated hatred of cotton that kept me from doing so. But, as I've said before, I very much want to grow as a knitter and stop letting things hold me back. So I'm giving cotton another try. This is the Sally's Summer Sweater from The Knit Stitch, knit in Valley Yarns Longmeadow.I'm knitting the sweater much shorter than the tunic length called for (who wants a big tunic in the summer?!) The yarn is a dream. Yes, a dream! So soft and drapey. I'm sure it's the microfiber content that tames the cotton into submission. Finally, a cotton I may be able to love.

Not much progress on the socks, only because I've been knitting mostly on the shawl and sweater. I do really like the Red Heart Yarn. I'd venture to say (so far) it's my favorite of the craft store brand sock yarns. Can you believe it? RED HEART! It is really nice. Soft but sturdy and the colors are classy.