Knittinggarden

It was a dark and stormy night..... really!   A shot rang out    sorry, getting carried away.  But it was a dark and stormy night here in the desert of southern California.  DH and I were tucked up snugly in our little condo in the heart of the small, gated community we call home here.  There was some activity in the green belt outside and we looked out.  Our neighbors were in the middle of digging a hole to plant a small lime tree.  Now there's an HOA here, with all the annoying rules.  You're not really supposed to dig up the lawn and plant stuff, but the President is the neighbor whose husband was digging the hole, she's a master gardener, and so there are liberties taken occasionally. We laughed about their little plan to add a tree to the community, and went back to what we were doing; listening to the wind howl and watching tv.  And I was, of course, knitting. A while later, I heard the sound of water gurgling.  We have a sm...

This story starts about six months ago, when I attended the Hansen miniSpinner retreat in Port Townsend, WA.  It was a wonderful experience, and I brought home some roving that I purchased at Taylored Fibers ; some beautiful CVM/Merino/Silk.  I had asked Barry about CVM because I wanted to try it.  I had bought a little bit of it previously and it was awful to spin - lumpy and kind of sticky.  Barry told me that it was probably not very good quality and he kindly searched around until he located a quantity of this nice blend.  I bought three bumps; about 21 ounces. I started spinning it soon after I got back home and after a few months, I had it finished.  I decided to 3-ply it to try to make the fabric look tweedy, and also because it was spinning fairly thin.  When I finished, I was delighted with the yarn.  The judges at the Evergreen State Fair were, too, as I received an award for Class Runner Up for one of the skeins. ...

Lately the highlight of my year is the day I go to the County Fair and see what ribbons I've won for my knitting and spinning.  Today was the day and I'm excited!  I only entered two items into the knitting division; a sweater and a shawl, and they both were awarded blue ribbons.  That's great, but everyone who meets a certain set of standards gets blue.  Now I'm after the special rosettes! My spinning hasn't ever won any rosettes, so I was thrilled to find three this year.  I made an infinity cowl from some Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth/Cashmere/Silk.  This spun beautifully and made a wonderful, soft, squishy yarn.  I used all but a tiny bit for the cowl and loved it when I had a chance to wear it last spring.  Here's the yarn and the finished cowl. And here's how it looks now.  Creative award, baby! The second item is a shawl.  I spun this yarn a couple of years ago and tried three times to make it into a shawl b...

Think of it: virtual yarn and knitting.  No stash storage problems!  Naaah, somehow it just wouldn't be the same.

I finished knitting some things!  I know that doesn't seem like a very big accomplishment, but these days my knitting time is limited, although my knitting plans are as ambitious as ever. A month or so ago I wrote about a cotton sunhat that I was trying to make for my great-niece.  I attempted to crochet it multiple times with no success.  I gave up, then looked for a knitted pattern.  This I also failed to make several times; it came out looking way too small.  Undaunted, I went to larger needles and cast on a bigger size, and at last had a hat that looked like it would fit a three year old.  I hope I was right.  I didn't have a model close by to try it on. A larger accomplishment was my cotton mitred square blanket.  I started these squares about two years ago, knitting them one at a time as I sat in the sun.  I planned to make a big blanket out of them, but was in no rush to finish.  Then, inspiration struck.  My niece...

Celebrating the accomplishments of children is an exhilarating experience.  When those accomplishments make the children happy and closer to attaining their passion in life, it's even better. Our three kids were brought together as a family when the boys were eight years old and their sister was five.  Times weren't always totally smooth, but the first day of school photo each year showed their love for each other.  This is one of the first years. Through the awkward times, the afros and the braces, they always smiled from the edge of the driveway, adding Buddy to the mix when he came along. We ran out of first days of school when the boys left for college, but still managed to get photos from time to time.  Here they are singing a favorite song from childhood at the rehearsal dinner before the Princess' wedding. They do all clean up nicely! The kids are grown now and all working.  That's what I wanted to talk about.  We a...

Tuesday morning The Princess and I flew to St. Louis, rented a car, and drove a couple of hours to St. Robert, MO.  My SIL joined the National Guard and graduated from Boot Camp on May 9th, so we wanted to be on hand to congratulate him.  May 8th was Family Day, so we got to pick him up at Fort Leonard Wood and take him with us for the day.  He looks very handsome and impressive in his dress uniform! The Princess and her cadre of Army Wives.  Facebook is handy for making connections! We enjoyed meeting some of his buddies and their families and spending some quiet time, then had to have him back on post at 9:00 PM.  The next morning, we went back for an impressive graduation ceremony.  When that was over, we drove to a restaurant several miles out of town.  The drive was beautiful and the restaurant was actually in a cave.  The "shuttle" from the parking lot to the restaurant and "resort" was an old, rickety van driven by...

When our first lovely week ended, we drove back to Vegas, where my sis caught a flight home and DH picked me up.  We spent a few hours with the Princess, who unfortunately wasn't feeling well.  We got her as squared away as we could, had dinner with her, then spent the night.  We left for the drive to Palm Desert in the morning.  Due to a few miscalculations by the navigator (unfortunately me), what should have been a 5 hour drive at the most turned into about 7-1/2.  We successfully weathered the mistake with good humor, and embarked on a pleasant week in another desert. We went on a hike up into the hills and apparently my other hiking hadn't whipped me into adequate shape, because I thought I was going to have a heart attack for part of the time.  This was a lot more straight uphill and the terrain was much more dusty and desert-y than what we experienced in the high desert of Utah.  Different but also interesting and a good experience (it seeme...

It's been forever since I updated this blog, so I'll start with my adventures over the past three weeks.  They involved a little bit of knitting and quite a bit of travel and lots of fun.  My sister and I left Seattle on April 22nd en route to Las Vegas.  There, we picked up a rental car, had lunch with the Princess, and headed out to St. George, Utah.  There's a destination spa there, called Green Valley Spa , where we have been going off and on for the past 10 years.  I'll just say that we started going there when I passed a milestone birthday, and now, 10 years later, I had another one.  Though things have changed a bit since we first went, the hiking, spa treatments, accommodations, and staff remain top notch.  We hiked every day for a week, had nutritious meals, enjoyed exercise classes, and relaxed with wonderful spa treatments.  They are known for the fabulous roses all around the grounds and they were in their full glory. ...