Fall Foliage

Fall color is finally reaching its peak here and with a gust of wind it will be gone. Considering how little rain we have had this year we are lucky to have any color at all.

Tonight we are expecting our first freeze of the season so it's good-bye to summer flowers and colored leaves, onto deep blue skies, cold weather and to enjoy the bones of the winter trees.

Almost Lemon Season

Last week it got too cold so the last of my cooler growing orchids and the Meyer lemon tree migrated to the southeast bedroom which is my plant/craft room. It has several florescent banks with plant grow lights which supplement all the natural light that comes into this room in the winter. This is the perfect place for the plants to over winter until next spring. Right now we are about 2-3 weeks out until the Meyer Lemons are ready to pick and eat. Last year’s crop was 4 and this year’s crop is around 10. Can't wait!

The Festival of Souls

This time of year has so many cool holidays/traditions that merge whether mainstream religion likes it or not. We have the Pagan All Hallows Eve that comes from the Isles of Great Britain; followed by the celebration of All Saints Day where we celebrate the faithful saints and martyrs, known or unknown; and then the Day of the Dead more of a Hispanic tradition that celebrates those ancestors that have passed with food and festivals or All Souls Day for the rest of the world where we celebrate the souls who have passed during the past year and to send them on to their eternal destination.

Also at this time in the past, were celebrations of the Harvest Year and hope that it had been a good one since this is what sustained everyone through the winter months. With our current shipping process this is not as big a deal as in our ancestors time but is still worth celebrating and giving Thanks.

Hope everyone has a fun time celebrating!

Link to recipes and traditions for Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos)

Pattern Knitting

The first weekend in October I went on a retreat with other knitters from our area. The topic Freedom to Knit or the basics on how to write a knitting pattern that fits you. After looking at the straight knit sweater we moved on to cables and stitch patterns. Our final was to come up with an idea for a sweater to knit for ourselves.

With that in mind I created the above swatch to get gauge and see if I would like the pattern. The yarn is Reynolds Top Seed Cotton (gauge 5st = 1” size US 5) which was bought for the Surplice sweater project because the Nashua Ecologie Cotton (gauge 5st = 1” size US 5) didn’t have any real colors that swayed me. However, after swatching up the yarn I was never able to even come close to the stated gauge and since it would have been a major effort to redesign the original pattern with the lace I finally broke down and bought the Ecologie in Chestnut (on Sale) to make the sweater. With the Ecologie I was able to make gauge with no problem. At the retreat I talked to several others who bought the Reynolds yarn and they had the exact same problem I did so unless you want an extremely flimsy piece of fabric this seems like an unrealistic gauge for this yarn, so swatch it.

Since I didn’t use this for my sweater project I now have around 8-9 skeins of this yarn to do something with and so this seemed like a good starting point for making a shell to wear next summer. The lace pattern is horseshoe and I will probably knit that to around the waist with decreases, then do straight stitches up with a v-neck front, and then do some sort of simple 7-stitch lace edging that won’t curl. Gauge is 5.5st x 9st = 1” on size US 4 needles for straight stitch and 1 5/8-inch (w) x 2.25-inch (h) for the 10 stitch pattern. Cast on date will be around March-April 2008. Yes I am already planning my knitting queue for next year. :)

What have I been up to...

Since mid-August I have been working on the Veil of Isis VoI, a simple stitch pattern that Andrea at BadCatDesigns took and created a shawl out of. So far I have finished almost 4 rounds and am still on the first ball of Malbrigo (~470 yds per skein). Only 1 round to go to the get to the border charts. This probably would have been done already if I weren't also working on...

Nina's Ann Arbor Shawl (NAAS). Another involved project with over 450+ stitches being worked was started in July. It is to be worked for 5 rounds or to 24". Well since I am done with 5 rounds and still WAY short of 24" it looks like 4 more rounds to hit that magic number and a decline in my interest level. This is a Christmas present for one of my nieces so I had better get on it.

Between the two shawls, I find the VoI to be more portable, more interesting to knit and at this point I don't really need to consult the pattern to knit it so it can be taken to knit night and worked on while conversing with others. The beading rows go a little more slowly, but otherwise, I can generally still knock out 5-6 rows in a 2.5 hour period in the evening. NAAS requires the pattern and some concentration for the beginning three 21-27 stitch pattern (depends on what row as to how many stitches are involved) before I can take off knitting. It also has a lot of different knit 3 together that I find slow me down more than a knit two. In an evening I can generally get 2 rows done in two hours. On the beginning and ending rows I can knock out 4. At this point I really need to be knitting 2 rows a night for 20 days so I can get this done before Thanksgiving, however I suspect VOI will be finished long before NAAS.

What's in my spinning queue...Some BFL (Hollyhocks Jubilee) from Lynne Vogel and some more BFL (Jewel) from C*eye*ber Fiber. Guess we'll see how much this spins up and then to decide what to make of it. :)

Spin, Spun, Ply

This past weekend the local spinning group met out at Little Barn fibers. While there we enjoyed socializing and the cool fiber treats that were distributed to all that were in attendance. You know free wools that had been processed as we were spinning to let us see if there was anything we couldn't do without. Since I spindle spin only at this point and all spindles were heavy with other fibers, I set the nice nuggets aside to spin later.

Happily I finished spinning the 16ozs of Shetland wool that I received with the 3 oz Louet spindle for the beginning spinning class that I took in August. In the class I spun 50 yards on the spindle and another 50+ on a Majacraft wheel. Then I plied the 50 yards with the Majacraft. After this class I spun another 300 yards on my spindle. Finally, finishing this weekend.

Another spindle spinner suggested using toilet rolls to hold the spun fiber, since I didn't have access to a ball winder. So with a shoe box, dowel rod, and two plumbing washers I have a place to hold the toilet rolls while I two-plied with the spindle.

On one roll I had quite a bit less than on the final roll that I spun. So I took some of the spun fiber I had left from my Majacraft spin and spit spliced it to the shorter single ply. From here I ended up with 112 yards and another 76yards left on the roll. I skeined the just plied yarn on my new niddy-noddy from Little Barn and tied it. Then I took both ends of the single ply and rolled it onto another paper roll so that I could put it back in the box and plied it for 38 yards. When I was done I skeined this yarn and did the final wash to set the yarn of both plied skeins.

And ta-da we have three skeins of Shetland ready to dye. 200 yards total. Can you tell which one was my first skein and which was spun last?

After all this work it was time for a nap. :)

Yesterday I finished spinning a sample bag of alpaca, so now it's time to ply this with the Louet and I will have both my spindles ready to go again.

See how the Garden Grows...

Meet Clementina Carbonieri (CC), a tea rose, which shows what teas are really good for and that is the variability of the color of rose they produce depending on the weather. This time of year you see more of the vivid colors seen in the upper left corner due to cooler weather, most of the summer you see the more muted colors seen in the bottom right. All pictures shown in this entry are from today or yesterday so with the exception of two cool nights many weeks ago it's been hot.

CC resides in the front garden for the entire world to see. Well mostly walkers since we don't get a lot of traffic this way but still on display to greet the masses so to say.

Other roses that reside with CC in the back row are Blush Noisette and Clotilde Soupert. Blush has begun to take over the turnaround driveway as you can see in the front garden photo and is actually a very prolific blooming rose. And as it is known Clotilde is either very good or horrid as she is known for her balling blooms when the weather turns wet. But then again what is wet these days so she has been exceptionally good this year. ;-)

Some of these are in the front and some in the back. Star of the Republic is a rose from Antique Rose Emporiums breeding of Texas roses. It does well here and is a sprawling rose. It resides in what I call the kitchen garden. Next the yellow rose is Irish Hope, a good reliable floribunda rose. It resides in the front garden and is hidden amongst CC, Natchitoches Noisette and a blush Knockout. Bottom left is Natchitoches Noisette is another good bloomer as it tries to out perform Blush. Finally, Tamora is an Austin English rose that has this awesome myrrh smelling rose (kind of like licorice).

Here are my humming bird's favorite flowers. They pretty much hang out on these so the feeders don't get touched that often. Wish they would sit still long enough, or rather I need a camera with a faster shutter. :)

Hope you enjoyed your tour.

Where's our Fall?

Well here it is now officially Fall and yes it is still 90 during the day. We did get a two day preview of Fall but then it went right back to Summer. The trees say it's Fall with all their leaves raining down. If this keeps up in another week it will require a daily raking of the driveway so we don't slide down the hill. :) We also got some much needed rain a couple weeks ago but now we are back into the drought. With this heat and dry weather I haven't felt like getting the standard Fall plants for planting as 90 is too hot for the pansies and johnny jump-ups to get going and the blooming Mums will go from bloom to drop in just a few days. So I guess we will wait and see what October brings and if there are any plants to be had come shopping time at our local nursery.

On a more somber note I found the start of RRD on one of my early climbers Souvenir de Madame Léonie Viennot. It's been in the garden around seven years now and although a once bloomer it was a long bloomer and worth the yearly show it would put on. Even with the drought this year it has put on lots of growth. The RRD didn't show itself till this past week. If you live in the East take time to look at this site on RRD so you will know if it has come into your garden and what you need to do.

MS3 - It's a Block and a Wrap!

Pattern - Myster Stole 3 KAL - Swan Lake
Pink Lemon Twist Patterns (p62)
Yarn - Alpaca with a Twist - Fino
Color - Champaigne (0201)
Needles and size - Clover Bamboo dpn and Addi-Turbo US 3 and Addi-Turbo Lace US 3

Happily the Mystery Stole 3 - Swan Lake has been finished. The knit along was lots of fun and each of the seven instruction installments were given each Friday. Clue one was 100 rows starting with 1 stitch and growing to 99 stitches total. Clue two and three there were 50 rows at 99 stitches. Then with clue four there was a decision to make the stole shorter or longer. I opted for longer so 220+ rows at 99 stitches. With clue five the theme of the mystery stole was revealed as Swan Lake and the beginning of the wing was begun with short rows, 100 rows starting again with 3 stitches and going to 99. Clue six and seven continued with the short row wing, 50 rows continually growing to over 200 stitches.

Since clue one was released the last Friday of June and I was still on the fence as to whether I was going to do this one...ok after seeing photos of several finished clue ones I was hooked. Clue two was released before I had picked up my yarn, beads, and swatched the practice pattern to make sure the needle size was good. It was off to knit clues one and two before clue three was released. Almost but not quite, but I did catch up by clue four and kept up the rest of the time. So time spent around 6 weeks and many hours. Clues one and two were challenging to me and required that I remove myself from other distractions, lest I miss a knit together or a yarn over and then have to tink back a few rows to correct. Life-lines were good to have, but not needed...Did have one point where I dropped a stitch and had to go back three rows. But that was minor and at 99 stitches not too bad. :) From clue three on it became repeatable pattern work so I could return to the real world while knitting. Melanie should have this and the variation patterns available in Sept 2007 for purchase at Pink Lemon Twist under Patterns.

Here it is blocking...too big to fit on the table
so I blocked one end and then the other.

Bonsai Tunic

Pattern - Bonsai Tunic from Interweave Knits Spring 2007 (p62)
Yarn - Berroco Bonsai
Color - Sora Blue (4148)
Needles and size - Addi-Turbo US 8 & 6

The Bonsai Tunic was started at the end of June and finished 3 Sept. Time spent on the project around 30 hours total. Modifications to the pattern were made since my size fell between the options of 34 and 38. If I were only going to wear this during the summer I would have made the size 34 but since this will look great with my long sleeve mock turtles and t-shirts I sized the pattern to 36 by removing 2 stitches from each side for a total of 8 stitches removed. The bamboo ribbon used to knit this was easy to use, but a challenge to hide the ends. I still need to take needle and thread to secure a few around the arms and neck. If you want to make this pattern with the yarn specified I would go with one size smaller than your normal bust measurement since this yarn like cotton tends to grow a little. If using wool you should be fine making either the smaller size or one with no ease. This is rated a fun and easy knit.