A Long and Winding Road

I finished a scarf for a friend's birthday. Lace Ribbon Scarf is a fun, fun, fun knit.  I used Fleece Artist yarn in plum.

Look at those waves, the blocking really opened them up.

My girls have been busy making the young guy some disguises and toys.

A viking helmet and beard, an Ooood mask (not sure of the spelling) and a mini Gandolf.  Young guy likes to point out items on Ravelry that he would like.  It makes the girl's gift giving easy.

Now that the temperature is cooling down, we have been craving things like chili, and stew, and fresh bread.

 This is our favorite Honey Oat Sandwich Bread from King Arthur Baker's Companion.  A version of this recipe is also found in their Whole Grain cookbook.  It is very versatile, I have made it with sourdough starter instead of yeast, used mixed grains like buckwheat or rye, and it never fails to please.

Last year we adopted two rescue dogs, a Yorkie-Poo and a Yorkie-Chihuahua-Dachshund (we think)mix.  We have had a lot of work with the Yorkie-Poo/Murphy.  He didn't like our existing dog, Milky a Pointer-Dane mix.  He didn't like my husband.  He bonded to me quickly and became my shadow and defender.  He had dominance/marking issues with Milky.  We celebrated each little moment of his relaxing and acclimating to being with us and having a steady home this past year and finally the other night something amazing happened.

Murphy sat next to Milky on Milky's bed.  His normal behavior is to have to be with me in the chair or under the chair and certainly never near Milky.  It was amazing.  Milky just sat there sleeping and allowing Murphy to share his bed.  It soon became a photo frenzy and still Murphy sat there.  Did I mention that he hates cameras?

Tangled

I have been having fun trying out zen tangles lately.

These are initials that were tangled for a card swap I participated in. Loads of fun.

Can't You Read the Sign?

I just recently finished a custom sign for a friend of mine.  I love it so much I didn't want to give it up!

French Knots, Satin Stitch, Outline Stitch, Irish Roses, Felt Applique, Paint, and Sparkly buttons. I used the Frixion Pen in Blue to trace the text and when I was finished with the embroidery I ironed it from the back side and the ink disappeared on the front. I wasn't sure if it would work, but I didn't want to iron over the metallic thread. 

It was super fun and I learned a few things for future projects.

Nifty Thrifty Shopping

I have found some fun things lately while second-hand shopping.  Vintage needlework is so much fun to find and dream up uses for. I scored several crocheted and knit border pieces that I can't wait to add to cards and clothing or maybe a canvas!

Lately I have been obsessed with making lace collars.  I have only made one so far but then I found these vintage collars and cannot wait to start some more.  I want to add beads, and there is  a beautiful linen yarn in my stash that needs to become a Christmas present.  The recipient will love a lacey beaded collar!










Who can resist a potholder?  Well, maybe those people exist, but I don't know them.  These vintage thread ones I like to use like coasters or if bigger, under a plant pot to protect from spills.

I had been on the hunt for some black and white toile and the fabric stores were more cream and black. Goodwill saved the day! Two valances, which happened to be just the amount I needed for the bathroom.  One valance above the shower the other for the window.


I also found a great sweater that I was pretty sure was 100% wool and handknit to boot!  Well, I did a burn test on some of the pills under the arm to test my theory and they didn't burn to ash, so I figured I could wash it.  WRONG!!! It is wool and it is now small enough to fit my 7yo son!! Thankfully he loves it and it is getting some good wear.

Silently Stitching

Since it has been awhile (again), I will just post some pictures of what has been going on around here.

a little crochet

a little knitting

a little cooking

                                                          a little field tripping

The holiday season was fun and full of knit/crochet goodies, cooking, and games.  We always play Axis and Allies over Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

This semester started off slow but the kids picked up speed quickly.  The older two girls have to stick to their school schedule  in order to get all their schoolwork done and leave time for crafting of monsters for sale at the local coffee shop.  My younger daughter is working on her doll and bear patterns and working the kinks out of her designs.  Our living room is usually full of doll/bear/monster carcasses, stuffing, snippets of thread, dogs, and a little boy waiting in ambush with a rubberband gun!

He usually has warpaint on and sometimes camo gear. 

The first of the babies due by friends and family has arrived.  Booties, blankets, hats, and sweaters are flying off the needles and hooks and getting packaged up to send, along with some sewn items like dresses,toys, and pillowcases. I love making themed pillowcases for little ones.  My children use them for sleepovers.  It makes it easier not to forget, or to identify who it belongs to if they forget.     

                                                

Wow

Wow, that's how I feel about it being November!!!  I love the Autumn weather and cooler temperatures and the anticipation of the upcoming Holidays.  Even the sound quality outside is different with the leaves fallen and storm windows fastened down.

So to kick off  November, I had the girls all sign up for NaNoWriMo.  It will be a great writing experience for them.  If I will join them is yet to be decided.  I have a billion projects to complete and the thought of writing seems like too much to expect, but it could be a motivator or a catalyst for lots of productivity.

Another thing we are trying to accomplish this month is baking and packaging 24 different cookies, to give to homebound friends for Advent.  Cookies, biscotti, mini breads, and candy are on the list so far. We may even put in some little savory treats like hand pies, or mini lasagnas.

Happy November

I have been absent from this blog for far too long.  Our summer was so busy and full of fun and then school started and......I forgot about this poor blog.  Until, that is, today when I was cruising on Pinterest and came across some freeform crochet and I started thinking about why it always sets me on edge.


http://kase-faz.tumblr.com/post/4190379092/goodmemory-laniegannon-cinoh-batixa


I finally figured out that it reminds me of an overly decorated home with too many knick-knacks.  I like order and clean lines, not as sterile and angular as ultra-modern design, but even and balanced design. I have always been attracted to modern design, but have found in my own personal living space I cannot live with bare walls or white walls.  When I have had to live in such enviroments, I become messy.

What I love about crochet is it's order, and predictable outcome.  By varying where your increases are and when you place them, you can get a flat circle or a sphere.  Or by starting with just a chain and again adding stitches, again controlling where the increases are, you can make a ruffled, parabolic, 3-D structure.

With freeform crochet, the artist's usually vary the fibers and motifs and it can end up bulky and messy.  There are just too many details to take in at once.

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/prudencemapstone/2937061955/

An exception I do take is freeform lace made usually with Irish crochet.


http://olgemini.blogspot.com/


This type of freeform feeds my need for visual order and in it I can find beauty.

Laid back gardening

Peonies freshly picked and smelling lovely, I placed them on the window ledge at the top of the stairs.   Peonies and Bleeding Heart were two of my grandmothers favorite flowers. While she preferred pink, I have planted both in white at the base of my front entry steps.

My two oldest girls and I finally finished the front walk with edging and mulch and some new plants.  Some of the plants from last year didn't make it and the lack of mulch killed others when my husband mowed and didn't know what wasn't grass.  I have more plans for the walkway, but they can wait another year. I will likely transplant a lot of plants from the back yard to the front such as Lavendar, Wooly Thyme, Violets, and more Irises.

These are all new plants I bought on clearance!!  This spot has had a tough time keeping anything alive what with getting dug up for a gas line two years ago and a greedy mower that has devoured more than it's fair share of tender young plants. I should own the fact that mulch does help the mower see where the garden ends and the grass starts.  Now finally I think these plants, if they live, will enjoy a lovely life full of sun. I am excited for the Indian Summer Rudbeckia to get full and fill out the space.

The Allium are done blooming and a dear friend who has a knack for garden ornamentation brought over a cute chicken garden stake and tied the Allium round it.  I usually cut the allium at this stage and bring them indoors for a dried bouquet. Dried Allium looks great spray painted in metallics and tucked in a dried arrangement. The Echinacea is doing quite well around the Allium and I can't wait for them to bloom.  I picked them back quite a bit this year as they had spread much further than I wanted.

My garden is in desperate need of new mulch.  But here you can see the Roses are blooming profusely!!  The Rose plant much bigger than last year.  The Salvia is doing wonderfully and is also double the size of last year.   Next to the Rose I have some Irises that need thinning again.  They are white with a deep purple border and I love how the blossoms smell like licorice.

This is a tiny miniature Rose that has come back for two seasons now.  I got it on clearance at the grocery store.  I bought three and two have survived.  It is in front of the Rose and Salvia pictured above.  I have stuck to purple, yellow, and white for the flower beds with just a spot of pink.

These Primroses were so starved for water yesterday, but have bounced back wonderfully today.  They are filling in the space so nicely.  I planted some Gaillardia in front of them yesterday and mulched



.

The Thyme planted between some Hollyhocks and Rudbeckia is flowering, such beautiful little pale violet blossoms.  Two years ago when we dug for the gas line I dug this plant up and moved it elsewhere.  Last summer I found that I missed one tiny bit of the original plant and it had survived and is now almost as large as the original planting.  I love Thyme in bloom, especially when all the fat bumblebees are slurping up the nectar.

FO heaven

It has been a busy month and also a few FO's flew off the hooks and needles.  They were all small projects with the exception of this basketweave baby blanket which is finally finished and gifted to the cute little guy.  Without any planning, it coordinates with a handmade quilt that an awesome friend made for the new baby. I couldn't get any pictures of him because he managed to be hungry during sit-n-knit and only mama could feed him.  I redid the edging three seperate times, because the basketweave pattern didn't look right with just a straight border. In the end I went with a repeat of 4sc and 4dc and that seemed to compliment the pattern the best.  The yarn is so soft and cuddly.  This picture doesn't quite show the brightness of the green. It isn't neon but it is a bright springy color. I used 9.5 balls for this blanket.  The dimensions are just shy of 36x36.

    Another project that just flew off the hooks was this wonderful shawl.  It is a pattern and limited edition yarn from the yarn shop hop I attended in April.  The pattern was quick, however I did have to rip out half of the border and redo because I misread the directions. It isn't overly large but does cover my shoulders and looks great with a rhinestone pin holding the front together.

This extra-wide headband was completed in about 2 hours using front and back post dc stitches. I always get dizzy after a run or walk if I don't cover my forehead and ears.  It even happens on windy warm days.  Needless to say this has been in use constantly.  It is made from Noro in a black/orange/raspberry colorway.  There were only about 100 yards in the skein and I used all but 3 inches. The headband is approximately 5 inches tall.  The best part is my ponytail can pop out the top!

This was by far my favorite project. Urban Shepherdess is a great short-row collar.  The yarn is a single ply roving.  It is a great topper for a t-shirt or scarf alternative.  I am on the hunt for the right button.  I may end up using some sculpey clay and making one.

      These mitts were a little 2-day project.  The pattern leaflet is from Blue Sky Alpacas Traveler's Series.  The pattern is well written. I could have gone down to a size 5 needle, but then the thumb gusset would be too snug.

      Overall I am thrilled to have knocked out so many projects in the last month.  I do have a couple pair of socks in progress and a sweater just beginning.

      Tomorrow I will get my two remaining wisdom teeth taken out, so I may have a couple days to make a dent in the knitting pile!

Hop Hop Hop Day 3

For our last day we visited the MPLS city shops.  First was Needlework Unlimited. They have the best crochet offerings of any of the stores we visited and their crochet samples are beautiful! The atmosphere was bright and cheerful.

Next we went to StevenBe's and what a visual experience we had.  StevenBe worked the crowd wonderfully and signed my Vogue Knitting copy!!  I was so overwhelmed there,with all there was, I didn't get to the very back where the roving was.  It was fun to find yarn in drawers and a dog sweater on a twig dog, quirky things in corners and gorgeous yarn everywhere.

Our last stop was at Crafty Planet.  They are a fabric store besides carrying yarn.  They had some local fiber artist yarns and great fabrics.  The LE yarn was bright and they had socks worked up in the yarn along with the nesting doll pouches.

I will end this post with two pictures from our first day of the event.  They really describe what we loved about our time in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.  Color, Creativity, Customer Service, Local Fiber Artists, Fun, Flair, Energy, ....We can't wait until next year.







Since I have taken so much time to get this shop hop experience posted, I must say the elapsed time has caused us to take another day trip to Minneapolis because Mairin won a door prize at 3Kittens Needle Arts and a first prize at Needlework Unlimited.  We drove down to collect the prize and managed to squeeze in a visit to the Mall of America and the Walker Art Center.  Mairin is now busily knitting.  She had already completed the shrug pattern from The Sheepy Yarn Shoppe and wore it on the return trip.  It was nice to visit both shops again without the crowds from the shop hop event, and we were able to take in more of the stores offerings.  The Fab Grab Bag at 3 Kittens was super awesome.  Two of my other daughters each bought one and they loved the yarn that was in the bags, yarn they can't normally afford.  So I guess you could say we had a mini shop hop because we couldn't get enough the first time around.

Hop Hop Hop Day 2

The second day of the Shop Hop was rainy, rainy, rainy. We decided to go to all the perimeter stores and save the central MPLS stores for the last day.


We started with 3 Kittens Needle Arts.  We arrived early so we ducked in to Caribou Coffee for sandwiches and coffee.  The coffee shop was packed full so we headed back to the car to eat and worked on the driving route for the rest of the day.  3 Kittens was a lot of fun to shop in.  They had both patterns on display.  The store was well lit, great displays everywhere, and the needlework section was all in one area.  The LE yarn was Lorna's Laces in the Babbling Brook colorway.


Our next stop was The Yarn Garage. Floor to ceiling yarn describes this store best.  There were two colorways for the LE yarn and a hat/cowl pattern.  We found a large selection of blingy yarn in the back.  I bought two hanks of silk strips

At Skeins we found a friendly colorful store.  The yarn was displayed as single skeins in all colorways. At purchase the employees got as many skeins as you wanted from their stock in back.

Amazing Threads was a two level store with a very large classroom on the upper floor as was the sale yarn. We loved their displays especially their "Eiffel Tower" of LE yarn.


Coldwater Lakeside Yarn was a fun shop.  Their LE yarn was undyed Icelandic wool.  The pattern was a pillow and the yarn came with the necessary buttons for the project.  This was one of the smaller stores but so full of yummy yarn and a great sales staff.

Our last stop of the day was Shepherd's Choice in Anoka.  It was in an older building and had an upper floor/loft with roving and spinning items.  They also had a rug hooking area.  They carried a good selection of local fiber artists products.       

That sums up day two.  I was exhausted when we were done .