Missouri Star

Lace At Last

I finally got around to blocking most of the pile of lace that's been sitting on a chair in my bedroom for months.  Our annual knitter's Christmas party is coming up and I realized that since I'd given away most of my knitting this year, I had nothing to show.  I did let once piece get away without a photo, so I'll have to borrow it back later to show you.  First up - In Dreams by Susan Pandorf:

This was a Mystery KAL and was great fun.  Susan is a terribly gifted designer and I love the way the patterns just flow into each other.  This was a pretty intensive knit with almost 3,000 beads.  It's rather heavy, but I love the way the beads feel and it won't be the last beaded project I do.

And - I finished the Advent Scarf by Kristen Benecker:

This scarf was rescued from hibernation by my acquisition of the Knitting Companion app for my iPad.  I honestly do not think I would have finished it any time soon otherwise.  It's too bad that it's so long that you really can't get a good look at all the patterns.  I was a little worried about it being too long, but I really wanted to do all of the patterns.  Although long, I don't think it's too long and it's such a beautiful sampler of lace patterns.  Although you can't see it in the photo, there are little pearl beads on the separator sections.  Lace knitting is always an exercise in faith because you really can't see the patterns very well while you're knitting it and the true beauty doesn't come out until it's blocked.  Multiply this times 24!  It was so much fun seeing the beautiful lace patterns appear.

Last up is the Heart to Heart scarf by Sivia Harding:  

This is really a blast from the past - I finished it over two years ago!!  The picture does not do it justice - look on my project page for a better depiction of the color.  It was a really enjoyable knit, but I think I put off blocking it because I'm not sure whether or not I'll wear it.  I admire people who can wear scarves with panache.  I just don't seem to be one of them.

Some mystery knitting is going on that I can't really show until after Christmas, so until then I'll have to come up with other things to blog about.  I can always resort to showing more photos from our photo session with joeplusjill.com.  I really can't say enough about how these photos capture our family's personalities.  If you live anywhere in the Seattle area I highly recommend them!

 

App Happy

Last post I mentioned how much I love my iPhone.  This time I'm in love with another techie toy - an app for my iPad.  Recently I found KnitCompanion.   I am absolutely loving it!  For now it only works on the iPad, but they are working on it for the iPhone as well, although my older eyes would probably not be happy trying to read charts on the tiny screen!

This app allows you to take a pdf knitting pattern and literally cut it into parts that match your work flow.  For instance, for a written pattern, such as Cassidy, I have a page each for Intro, Back, Front, Sleeves, Hood, Bands.  

For each page you can clip out the pertinent instructions - no more searching through multiple pages for the ones you need.  I can highlight exactly where I am in the appropriate page and can also highlight my size.  I can make notes as I go along for any changes that I might make.  The little blue bars allow you to collapse those panes out of the way.  Notice there are mutliple row counters on the right - those also can be collapsed out of the way.

However, here's where the fun part comes in - charts!  For charted patterns you can crop out your chart.  On the chart page you have a row highlighter that you can move as you go along!  

Here's a more complicated chart - notice the blue line down the middle - that can be moved along to keep your place on intricate charts.

If you turn off the iPad and come back to the chart later, it's right where you left it!  You can cut and paste charts together even!! (Have I used enough exclamations points yet?!)  I had kind of placed the Advent Scarf in hibernation because I was a little frustrated at manipulating all the charts and instructions.  In fact, I had only been printing them out as I needed them because there were over 50 pages worth.  This app allowed me to condense everything into just the pages I needed and now they are all there and I am flying along!  I'm on Day 17 and am hoping to get this done before our Knitters' Christmas Party on December 4th.

Maggie says, "Are you sure you want to do all 24 patterns?  This thing is soooooo long already."

One of the complaints about the program is the cost - $16.00.  But I think we iPad/iPhone users have really gotten spoiled by the cheap 99 cent apps.  This is really only the cost of a decent skein of sock yarn and will save me so much time and frustration.  To say nothing of printer ink!  No more struggling with paper charts, no more highlighter tape, no more losing my charts or having the highlighter tape come off in my knitting basket.  No more taking a break from a pattern only to pick it up again and wonder where in the world I was.  

This is not to say that the program is absolutely perfect.  It's fairly new and has its share of bugs and limitations.  But I have found the developers to be extremely responsive.  I was struggling a little in the beginning and emailed them and they were very pleasant about helping me with a problem I could have easily solved by watching the tutorials.  It's probably also not for anyone who does not love technology, but most people who have iPads are pretty well smitten already.  Another down side is that I share the iPad with hubby and sometimes I have to wrench it out of his hands when he's saving the world from Nazi zombies.

Not much progress to show on Cassidy as I have been concentrating pretty much on the Advent Scarf.  Hubby and I have also been working hard helping our dear friends as they move into their new house.  It was built in 1948 and had been sorely neglected while it went into foreclosure.  But lots of elbow grease by our small group from church is transforming it into the cutest little bungalow with an killer view of the harbor.  

Off for a fun day with our niece who is visiting for the weekend.  Then getting ready for Thanksgiving (is it really here already???) at Ben & Abby's on Thursday.  It should be fun - her Dad is still here and this will be his first American Thanksgiving.  Her Mom and Dad just bought a house about 10 minutes from them and will be immigrating here in another year or so.  All the grandparents in the same state!  Now we can really drive Abby crazy!

Buh-bye!

That's what I said to Gwendolyn last week.  I know that it defies reason that yet another pattern for this poor wool has fallen by the wayside.  "But it's not my fault!" she whines.  I did a gauge swatch (really!).  It was spot on (really!).  But after about 4 inches up the back it became glaringly apparent that it was at least two inches too narrow.  So I ripped back to the ribbing and went up two needle sizes.  After about 4 inches, it was the same size (really!).  At this point if we had an open fireplace, I might have tossed the whole thing in.  But thankfully we do not so I ripped again (really!).  This time I decided that a good wash would help, so I reskeined and dunked everything in some Soak.

Next up (Yes, I know I'm a masochist), Cassidy.  This seems to be going much better.  It might be a trifle on the large side, but I wanted something more like a light coat, so that's ok.  And even if it's not, I am forging ahead.  If it doesn't fit me, I will find someone else.  And if I can't find someone else, I will donate it to the thrift shop (really!).

I'm a little enamored of that photo.  It was taken with my new iPhone that I love, love, love!  My son gave me his old 32g 3g (I just love having kids that always get the latest and greatest, because I get their cast-offs.  Thanks son!!).  I just activated it this week and am having so much fun playing with it.  I love that I can snap a photo and it transfers wirelessly and automatically to my computer.  Of course, it's not the best for heritage photos, but for quick snaps of needlework, it's great!  Here's a photo taken in the kitchen with overhead light on a gloomy, dark evening:

I just finished the top on this quilt this week.  It was definitely a tour-de-force and one I will never, ever do again!  I've spent a lot of time in my sewing room this week and also got two more quilt tops done (really!).  However, since one is for a quilt swap and the other is an exact duplicate, I can't show them.  I think I gave my swap partner my blog address and she may be peeking.  Hi Lynne!

Today has been rainy, windy and gloomy with a little hail thrown in, so I've been hiding out in my sewing room starting on Christmas projects.  I'm making cute little stockings.  Here's the Partridge in a Pear Tree:

I'm thinkin, though, that I don't care for the holly at the top.  Here's the reindeer without the holly.  What do you think?

For our anniversary, our dil hired a photographer to come and take some family photos.  They were very informal and we got some of them this week.  They are fantastic!  They really do capture the kids and the relationships.  There are over 100 on the disk (I haven't seen them all yet), so there should be enough to keep me in scrapbook heaven for a long time.  Photos courtesy of joeplusjill.com.

 

 

Ribbit, Ribbit

Yes, that sound you hear is the sound of frogging.  I have never been afraid to cut my losses, so yesterday the Kerry Cardigan went to that great lily pad in the sky.  This, despite the fact that I had both sleeves done and was halfway up to the armholes!  However, I was hating every minute of working on it.  According to the pattern, the back and two fronts are knit together up to the armholes and then split.  With worsted weight wool, this was making a heavy weight on my needles that was hurting my hands and making me frustrated.  I could have just frogged that and knit them in pieces, but I just could not face doing that honeycomb pattern again and it was curling badly anyway.  In her recent posts, the Yarn Harlot showcased Gwendolyn.   I really liked the pattern, especially the sleeve detail, so it is currently on my needles:

I do feel a bit sorry for this yarn.  I think this is about the 3rd attempt to make it into a sweater!  Usually after frogging I will just start knitting with the frogged yarn, but this has been through the wringer, so I decided to skein, wash and rewind (I did have two unused skeins that I started with).

These are the three skeins I have done and awaiting the washtub.  I am not regretting my decision and am enjoying this knit SO much more.

Speaking of cutting losses, I have decided to close down my Etsy shop.  After a brief flurry of activity at the beginning, I have had very little traffic in the shop, despite advertising on Ravelry.  I had hoped that maybe local bazaars might be the venue for my projects, but that doesn't seem to be either.  Yesterday I spent 8 hours sitting at a table and sold zero, nada, zip!  People weren't even stopping to look!!  I have one more bazaar in November that I've already paid for and I'll do that one, but after that I'll go back to sewing for fun.

It's really hard to break out of the mindset (especially after 24 years of working) that your work is only valued if you are paid for it.  Although I didn't really have any trouble adjusting to retirement itself, I think I still had it in my mind that I needed to do something for which I would be paid.  Hubby has found a nice little cottage industry making airplanes out of recycled aluminum cans and he sells them all over the world!  But he has convinced me that I don't have to do that.  We certainly don't need the money and I should just do what I want to do, not what I think other people might buy.  As is so often true, he is right.

So I am not going to sew anything else for the bazaar coming up, but will concentrate on having fun and maybe making up some Christmas gifts.  

So - that's about it from here.  The family is coming this afternoon and Abby and I are taking the girls to the library.  In one of the eccentricities of Washington infrastructure, we share the same library system, even though they are several counties away.  That means they can check out books here and return them there.  Recently our local library has started stocking books in the Kindle format.  I'm very excited about that because I LOVE my Kindle and am loving that I can enjoy books for free.  Not all titles are available and there are a distressing number of bodice-ripper romances available, but once you sort through the trash, there are a lot of good ones too.  I'm just starting on a new series of mysteries by Anne Perry set in the World War I era.

I leave you with this scene from our peaceful little neighborhood.  This little creature hung around almost all day and wasn't even frightened by our coming and going up the driveway:

Progress

I started this post yesterday and at that time I really had nothing to report.  However, I have been a busy little bee and finished not one, but TWO projects!  First up is Isobel's sweater.  Technically you could probably say it's not a complete FO yet because I have not decided on the closures.  But at the most they will be a few minutes work, so I am officially declaring it an FO:

She won't get it until I finish her sister's sweater.  I have the back and both fronts done and am working on the collar.  That makes it all scrunched up on the needles, so it wouldn't do any good to show you a picture. This should be quick work to finish up the collar and two sleeves.

And today I FINALLY finished hubby's Cambridge jacket.  My distate for finishing really got
in the way of this one, plus for a while I was worried it was not going to fit.  But not to worry - it fits fine and I think he looks very handsome in his new sweater:

Besides this finishing flurry of two days, a lot of my time has been spent on stuff that is really quite productive, but that doesn't provide for exciting blog fodder.  I've been taking a class on organization from Linda Sattgast at Scrapper's Guide.  As anyone who does digital scrapbooking knows, it's easy for all your photos and scrapbooking supplies to become a digital mess.  It's not like traditional scrapbooking where you can visually look for things.  Supplies can get buried in the depths of your computer, never to be seen again. So I've been spending a lot of time on organizing.  It can get tedious, but once you have your system in place, upkeep becomes much, much easier.

A lot like any type of organizing, I guess.  This year hubby and I have been working on simplifying and decluttering.  So far we've done several closets, including the walk-in closet in our bedroom.  Last week I did some of our kitchen cabinets.  I wish I had taken "during" pictures!  I had stuff scattered all over the kitchen and dining room.  I decided to really reinvent the wheel and ended up moving the dishes out of the cabinet where they've been stored for 25 years and into the pantry.  The cabinet now holds all of my bread baking supplies.  I think this is really a lot more logical, although it's going to take some time to get used to it.  Hubby's keeping count of how many times he goes to the wrong cupboard for a dish!  Here's an exciting view of my bread baking cabinet:

During all of this I've taken countless boxes of stuff to the thrift shop.  Very liberating!  It's so nice to be able to find what you really want without having to dig through piles of stuff you don't really need.

To cap off all this whirlwind of activity, hubby and I celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary on Friday. We celebrated by treating ourselves to the most expensive lunch we've ever had - at Anothony's in Anacortes.  It was worth every penny and ended with the most decadent triple chocolate cake with ice cream and raspberry sauce.  Yum!  Thanks sweetie for a wonderful lunch and more importantly, the 39 years marvelous years that preceded it.

Encouragement

It's always nice to get encouragement for your artistic endeavors.  Recently I entered a scrapbook challenge with this page:

Imagine my surprise and delight to discover today that I had won first place!  The prize is not huge, but the encouragement is.  Of course, when you have such lovely photos to work with it helps.  Both of these were taken back in 2009 when we visited Orlando.  Mei-Mei was so besotted with hubby, that the rest of us started referring to ourselves as the "second string."  Of course, she's broadened her circle since then, but her love affair with grandpa still continues. (Kits - Dream a Little Dream by Veronica Spriggs, In His World by Scrapper's Guide, font - Handwriting Dakota, Gradient tutorial by Jenn White, B&W tutorial by Jan Walker).

I have a couple of other pages to share as well:

It was such a pleasure to be at Mei-Mei's first ballet lesson.  I didn't think it was possible to have that much pink in one room.  All of the little girls were adorable (especially mine!) and I was pleased that Mei-Mei listened to the teacher so well.  (Kits - Alpha Strings by Brandy Murray, En Pointe by DigiChicks).

And lest we forget Isobel:

I was trying to get some sweet fake-first-day-of-school pictures (more on that later), but "sweet" is not in Isobel's vocabulary.  She makes it clear she is not a girly-girly and definitely displayed an attitude in her photo shoot.  And I don't use the word attitude in a negative way - just a very confident, this is who I am personna! (Kit - Me Personally by Taylor Made, layout and tutorial by Susie Roberts, fonts - Calibri and Baroque Script).

I had asked the girls' mom to take some first day of school photos, but things got hectic and she forgot.  So, when I went down for grandparents' day, I took some off-to-school photos and we're going to have fake-first-day-of-school scrapbook page.  A fun remembrance of its own!

Cute

 
The cuteness quotient has been pretty high around here lately.  First off, I've been sewing doll clothes and it doesn't get much cuter than that.  I made p.j.'s for Mei-Mei's doll and she had to try them on immediately:

I also made this summer outfit (modeled on my doll):

And this cute little dress:

Unfortunately, I ignored the advice on the last pattern to measure my doll first and found out that she's a little chubster.  The dress is pretty tight and doesn't quite meet in the back.  Live and learn.

I also found this simple pattern while browsing a yarn store in Friday Harbor last week.  I forgot the name of the store, but it's right on Spring Street and is quite nice.  The pattern is amazingly simple - just five garter stitch rectangles.  The pattern instructs you to knit them separately and sew them together.  However, I modified it since I have an aversion to sewing up!  I left the shoulder stitches live and did a three needle bind off, then picked up the sleeve stitches at the shoulder and knit down. That left only the underarm seam to sew.  The pattern goes by the imaginative name of "Encore Worsted 1528", but you can also check under Baby Kimono in Ravelry.

Cute, no?  This will be donated to the charity my sister volunteers for - Eastside Baby Corner down in the Seattle area.  I have a whole bag of Encore to do more.  First I'm making the child sized version for Isobel:

This is known by the even more clever name of "Encore Worsted 1440".   Of course, one for Mei-Mei will follow.

It's amazing that I've even had time to knit.  My calendar has been bursting at the seams lately.  Now that the crush is over, I hope I've come to my senses and stopped overscheduling myself.  But not all of the scheduling was necessarily bad.  I leave you with this last bit of cuteness overload - Mei-Mei in her first ballet lesson:

I didn't know it was possible to have so much pink in one room!

American Girls

 
Last Wednesday we took Mei-Mei to the American Girl Doll Place for her birthday.  Originally we had planned for Grandpa and Nana to take her, but since Abby wanted to go too, we let Grandpa off the hook.  In all honesty, we figured he'd spend the entire time looking at his watch and thinking, "Are we done yet?"  Since Wednesday was Isobel's first day of school, the timing seemed right for Mei-Mei to have a day of her own.  Abby and I had done a scouting of the AG store previously and picked out the doll we were going to steer Mei-Mei to.   She is still too young for the regular Amercian Girl dolls, so we picked out a pretty brown haired Bitty Twin for her.  We showed it to her on the computer so she would be prepared.  However, showing us her true little opinionated self, she did not want a brown haired doll - she wanted one with yellow hair.

We knew that she would be excited when we got to the store, but she exceeded all our expectations.  When we walked in she started exclaiming, "My doll store!  My doll store!"  Of course everyone in the store stopped and smiled.  I thought we might spend some time looking at all the different dolls, but Mei-Mei would have none of that!  She wanted to find, "My doll - the one with the yellow pigtails."  So we took her over to the Bitty Baby section and she saw her doll.

We found a saleslady who went to the back and brought out her doll and (surprise!) one for Nana too!!  Mei-Mei walked up to the checkout counter with her big box of dolls and stars in her eyes.  After we paid, the saleslady asked if we wanted her to take Mei-Mei's doll out of the box.  Of course, we said yes.  This reaction sparked a collective, "Awwwww!" throughout the store.

I had to wipe a few tears away as Mei-Mei hugged and kissed her new baby.  We then went to the cafe where her new doll was given her own little chair and place setting.  

All the way home Mei-Mei talked to her doll and made her dance and kissed her.  When we got home we had our picture taken together with our dolls.

I'm not sure how successful sewing for Mei-Mei's new dolly will be.  I made a couple of little outfits for her (seen modeled on my doll).

When she came over yesterday she wanted to see the outfits on her doll, but almost immediately asked for her original outfit to be put back on.  Good thing I have my doll to sew for - and to knit.  I've started a Spring Dress:

If Mei-Mei shows any interest, I'll give it to her for her doll.  We did manage to get Grandpa involved at least a little, although we had to sneak this photo.

Lest you think Isobel was ignored, Grandpa made her a treasure map and she got to dig for buried treasure in our yard - complete with pirate hat!

The total haul was $9.00 in change, which the girls will split and put in their piggy banks.

On a more somber tone, I can't let the day pass without remembering 9/11.  There has been a lot of backlash because of all the constant media coverage during the past week.  But I don't think we should let the media's trivialization of the event cause us to forget what was truly a terrible event for the entire country - not just New York, Pennsyvlania or Washington, D.C.  It affected all of us. However, I think my pastor's words are really relevant here, so I will leave you with his quote:

"As we gather here today, let us do so in celebration and fellowship in our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the one who has died that we might live and be free from sin and its death.  If fear of death causes us only to mourn and cower in our sadness, fear will have won.  But thanks be to God in Christ Jesus we need not be afraid.  Let us then live as free people in the Lord and take every opportunity to rejoice together."  

All Over the Map

Last weekend my friends and I went to the Pacific West Quilt Show in Tacoma.  What an inspiring trip!  There were so many stunning quilts.  Unfortunately, although I took a lot of pictures, I can't show them to you because of very express copyright laws.  So you'll have to take my word for it.  One of the things my friends and I discussed was that for many of the quilts, especially the prize winners, the makers most likely were very single minded.  In all probability they did not divide their time amongst many interests like we do!  I believe I have the ability to actually get into a juried show like this - after all, I've done it twice at the AQS show in Paducah.  But lately it just seems as if I'm all over the map on my hobbies!

I did get inspired by this quilt in the merchant mall:

I've always loved hand applique and one of my quilts that was juried into AQS was an applique quilt.  However, I've been frustrated at doing some of the more complicated designs.  This particular designer was doing demos of her technique and I was so impressed that I snapped up her DVD, some tools and a pattern.  Although I'm not quite ready to tackle her complicated pattern yet, I came home and started over on a simpler design that I had been working on:

I am so much more pleased with the quality of my workmanship using her techniques.  Yesterday I spent a large portion of the day making the little narrow bias stems, but believe I now have enough for the whole quilt.  Next up is to cut out a squillion little leaves.

Not that knitting is taking a back seat.  I've been working on my cabled cardigan, but it is slow going.  The body is done all in one piece up to the armholes and the honeycomb pattern is kicking my butt!  On the pattern rows, every single stitch is cabled and by the end of the row, my hands are aching.  I have one more repeat to go and then I can get to the more fun cables!

btw - before any of you comment that my cables are crossed the wrong way - they are not.  I double checked to be sure after taking this picture.  It's just an optical illusion caused by the shadows in the photo.  It did give me pause for a moment when I saw it!

I do have one FO - I finished my sister's Hedera socks.  They have already been gifted and worn.

And just to prove I am all over the map, I have started not one, but three! new pairs of socks.  In my defense (?) they all serve different purposes.  The first pair are simple rib socks for car knitting, the second are Funny Valentine socks for the new Solid Socks group I joined on Ravlery (seems to be a nice drama-free group), and the third, Twisted Flower, are in my quest to knit up every sock in Cookie A.'s Knit Sock Love book.  All three socks are out of Cascade Heritage, which is becoming my standard "go-to" sock yarn.

And just to add to the "all over the map" thing, I am becoming obsessed with making doll clothes.  So far this is my only accomplishment:

We are taking Mei-Mei to the American Girl Doll store for her birthday to get her a Bitty Twin.  I have a feeling Nana may come home with one too - after all, I do need a fit model, right?  I don't want to make too many little clothes until I know they fit.  I never sewed doll clothes as a child, so I feel as if I'm having another chance at childhood.  Possibly the fact that I'm applying for Social Security has something to do with that!

I'll leave you with my last "all over the map" accomplishment.  This page was one of the top picks of the month at Scrapper's Guide.  I was SO honored!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend.  My niece is coming up from Seattle and then we're going down to Snohomish for a holiday brunch with the family.  Our weather is looking to be absolutely glorious for our last few weeks of summer.

 

Be Still My Heart

I think I may be hyperventilating!

 

Yes, she is doing exactly what it looks like she's doing.  I really love that girl!