Knittinggarden

I ran across news of a contest on this blog (it's so cool how you can be reading a blog, pick up a link to another, and end up referring to a blog you never heard of before). Be that as it may, I decided to participate, partly because of the sock posting I did here already. Also, I realized that I left one pair out of my group photo, so I'll remedy that sometime. The contest is to post a photo of the first sock you made and the last sock you made. I had DD help with setting up the photo, and we got one shot before the camera's battery went pfffft. So here it is. The blue socks are the first I ever made, using Bollicine Baby Night and a beginners stockinette pattern from Knit Socks! I made them when I first started knitting, about 3 years ago. They're warm and snuggly and I usually just wear them around the house. The colorful socks are Monkeys. I just finished them last week. The yarn is Zen String Harmony in the Opal colorway. So there you go!

In preparation for the 85th birthday party we will have for my mom in just over a week, we've been readying the house; cleaning carpets and windows, painting stairs and hallway, and just generally trying to tidy up. This caused a look at some artwork hanging in the hall, which led to a project that involved reframing and rearranging several pieces. This led to having a space with nothing in it, which caused us to go to the pile of high school artwork our son had left in the basement when he went to college last year. He has always been artistic and has taken art classes off and on, so we had a selection of work to choose from. We ended up reframing one piece that we had displayed previously (orange girl) and finding an abstract piece that I really liked and having that framed. Here they are: (click on each to see larger.) It was hard to photograph them accurately in the hallway at night, but I did my best. Here they are actually hanging; that was harder due to the narrow hal...

is to have lots of knitting time and nothing else to do. I always finish socks, but I'm not a particularly fast knitter, and it usually takes me a couple of weeks. Well, yesterday I found out that if I just sit and knit (for hours and hours) I can get half a sock done in a day! I don't really recommend the circumstances I had, but it's nice to know. Here's what happened: My husband was having some trouble with his stomach Friday and Friday evening, but thought it would pass as most things do. He woke me up about 2:00 am with the news that he thought we should call a doctor. He doesn't like to ask for help (what man does?), so I knew it must be something. Long story short, the doctor recommended a trip to the ER, so I started on my odyssey of sitting and working on the sock (which had most of the leg finished) at about 2:45 am. We worked our way through the ER, and after the CT scan they were pretty sure that the appendix would have to come out. DH was admitt...

Yes, tonight I was there amongst the hundreds of knitters at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, WA to see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. It was great, although I always manage to sit behind someone with too much hair. That's Stephanie behind the podium in the dark; I obviously need a new camera, too. Don't worry, better pictures are to come. Stephanie is hilarious. I've seen her twice, and she's engaging, earnest, self-deprecating, and funny. But she manages to get her message of this "represent" tour across, illustrated by many examples, the least of which is the ease by which she raised over $300,000 for Doctors Without Borders by simply asking knitters to donate. Knitters are a force to be reckoned with! Knitters are people from all walks of life, and when spurred to action can accomplish just about anything. Anyway, this time I waited around to get my book signed, and this is what amazed me. Here is a woman who has traveled for hours, speaks for an...

I'm not necessarily feeling more organized, but I am feeling a tiny bit inspired and also inspirational. I've been trying to figure out what to send to Marcia for our backwards-dishrag-swap, and during the night the answer came to me. It's a secret, and it'll take a little more time to organize (there's that word again), but I feel so relieved! The decision is over. We had a barbeque here over Labor Day weekend, with lots of longtime friends from the old neighborhood, and some new friends from the new neighborhood. A couple of the women asked me about my knitting, so I took them inside to show off some of the projects I've been working on; mystery stole, dishrags, hats for charity, red scarf for charity, and then I showed them the one Monkey sock I've finished. That brought to mind the other socks I've done, and I got one each of most of the pairs I've made out to show them. They were impressed, and I was, too. There were more than I realized ...

The former is sadly lacking in my life at the moment, and the latter is running rampant. Witness the dearth of posts to this blog; I have good intentions, yet when it comes to sitting down, collecting my thoughts, finding appropriate photos, etc., etc. I somehow fall short. Although to what standard am I attempting to hold myself? As far as I know, there isn't a rule that says you must post to your blog every day or every week, or even at all! Yet I so enjoy reading the stories of others, be they knitting related, family oriented, or off on tangents, and I imagine that there might be someone out there in internet-land who looks forward to seeing what's going on in my life. (OK, I know it's Mom, but whatever.) I guess the problem is that I'm not happy just writing a couple of sentences, inserting a picture, and calling it quits. No, my blogging takes up significant time, and when I think about doing it, I always talk myself into sitting down and knitting for awhile...

There are just not enough hours in the day! When all I want to do is knit, knit, knit, but have to do other things, I get a very unsettled feeling. Is this the sign of obsession? addiction? or just enjoying a harmless hobby? I have to say that when I got an e-mail from Allison announcing the shipment of sock yarn for this month's sock club, her salutation gave me pause. "Hey, Sock Yarn Addict", she wrote. Is that what I've become? Just because I belong to that club, Yarn Pirate Booty Club, and the Zen String sock club, and also have been known to buy a skein or two from the Loopy Ewe when there's a particularly good "sneak up", I don't think I have a problem. (Or is denial indeed the first sign?) The first Monkey sock is done. See, I actually use the yarn! Moving right along, participating in Dishrag Tag has broadened my obsession to include cotton yarn. I had never purchased so much as a skein of it until I signed up for this fun game. ...

I feel like Roseann Roseannadanna...."What's all this I hear about monkeys and why would you want to wear them on your feet? Oh, they're socks? Never mind." I've been seeing pictures of Monkeys , even looked at the pattern several times, but for some reason decided they were too hard. OK, so when I read about them the millionth time, and how much fun they were to make (the word addictive came up more than once), I decided I had to try them. This was difficult, since I'm having a good time with my Six Sox and Favorite Socks Knitalongs, and really wanted to continue with another pattern there. I finished my Yarn Pirate socks which were good plane knitting since I didn't need a pattern and was ready for another pair or two of socks. The colorway is Mermaid; here they are ready to go sailing in the pool, since they match the floaty so well. I looked at the Monkey pattern again and decided to try it. This decision involved an hour-long sort through my s...

Dishrag Tag has officially begun. I drove home this afternoon, saw the mail carrier leaving our house, and found not one but TWO boxes in the mailbox! One was my dishrag tag relay box, and one was yarn I bought earlier in the week at The Loopy Ewe. And inside the boxes, I found goodies. The first box held a dishrag from our fearless leader, Emily , two balls of cotton yarn, a recipe for shortbread, and two cute little gingerbread-man (person?) cookie cutters. Of course, beautiful sock yarn was in the other box: GypsyKnits, Melon Patch colorway, and Cider Moon Flurry in the Midnight Special colorway. The third beautiful skein is my July sock club yarn from Zen String, Harmony in a colorway for spring called Dragonfly. That arrived yesterday. It's been a good week! Of course, I immediately had to begin making my dishcloth for the relay so I can get the box in the mail tomorrow. I chose the yellow/orange yarn and made a simple pattern so I could finish quickly. Here it is dry...

to our lovely Laura. We took her to Portland yesterday to meet her group for the flight back to Spain. We hated to say goodbye - it was such a fun and educational month. We did and saw things around our own home that we hadn't done in ages and I have a list of 28 new Spanish words and phrases to work on. She promised to continue sending me new words via e-mail, so by the time we visit her in San Sebastian I'll be able to make a few sentences! We went to the King County Fair last Saturday. I hadn't been to that one in years, and it was lots of fun. We saw lots of animals (here are some cerdos) ate fair food, including hot dogs and scones and generally had a very pleasant time. We stopped by Lake Wilderness on the way back to show Laura where our summer cabin is, and here are the girls on the dock at the park. We also visited the Pike Place Market, where we saw more cerdos. We had a campfire on the patio and made s'mores, which were enjoyed by all.

I just returned from a fabulous, though hot, week in Palm Desert, CA. We had been having beautiful and quite hot weather here in Seattle for awhile, so it wasn't such a shock to go outside at 9 AM and find the temperature in the 90s. (Ok, it still was a shock but I survived.) I was alone (yes, alone!) for three days, then my daughter and Spanish guest arrived. I got lots of knitting done, some early morning walking and bike riding, and some sunbathing. I finished my Victorian Lace Socks and am pretty happy with them. They were fun to knit; the rib pattern was different, but not too hard. Of course, I also worked on my MS3 clue and finished the second one. I had my daughter print out Clue 3 and bring it to me when she arrived so I wouldn't be too far behind. We have two weeks to do Clue 4, so I should be able to finish the rest of 3 and get 4 done without too much trouble. Although being back in the land of gardening and housework slows me down a little. Here's my ...