Can you smell spring...

Lady Banks

The first rose of spring is usually this cheery yellow lady banks rose. Each rose is about the size of a quarter and it blooms in these beautiful clusters. This rose throws canes and really appreciates a structure to ramble from. That structure is the one thing I am still working on as it tumbles down the hillside making it hard to keep this area mowed. It is thornless which is a plus. This rose is also really a zone 8 rose so being that we live solidly in zone 7 means that it is pulled into bloom sometimes too early and the blooms get zapped by a freeze.

Marie Pavie

Perl d'Or

Both of these roses are in the China rose category which is a parent that provides hybrid teas with remontancy. They are quick bloomers in clusters and have a light fragrance. They tend to have fewer fungal issues for most SE gardens which is a bonus.

Souvenir de Madame Leonie Viennot

This is a large flowering tea rose that is classified as a house eater. It is a once bloomer that owns its own pergola and was purchased on a whim for the blooms. Yes I didn't realize I was getting a climber just saw tea rose and that class is generally more mannerly. Although it is a once bloomer, this rose bloom show lasts 4-6 weeks and longer if spring is a cool one.

If you are going to grow roses in the east know what Rose Rosette Disease is and looks like. Protect your rose investment.



Other flowers in the garden that are coming in to bloom at this time

Otherwise Friday and Saturday were conducive to getting the garden pots ready for another year. Tomatoes were purchased at the local botanical garden plant sale and potted up. I also got one of my raspberry pots split, something that needs to be done every 5-7 years for good berry production.

Have a good week and stop and smell the flowers!

Spring is Here

March rains and warmer days yielded these blossoms just in time for the first day of spring.

Raptors

Friday was my day off from work so I took my father out to see the big birds of prey, the raptors. They were brought up from Auburn University to the local gardens for two showings. We caught most of the first show, toured the gardens and then caught the second one which this time we knew where to stand to get decent shots of the birds.

Barn owl


Ghost owl


Horned owl

Falcon


Red Tailed Hawk


Black Vulture


Bald Eagle


Golden Eagle

In other news the last fish in my tank a cherry barb finally passed on. I got him around 8.5 years ago with another 17 to keep my Pleco company. The other fish in the tank passed about 3-4 year ago. So now the tank is empty.

Argh!

So I have been working on the Walkame Tunic by Angela Hahn, which can be found in the Summer 2008 Interweave Knits magazine. I ordered the Tilli Tomas Fil de la Mer from kpixie since they are the only ones in the US that carry this yarn in the quantity needed plus one. The yarn is just a dream to work with and the color Green with Envy is working up quite nicely in this pattern. The sweater is knit in the round up until the split for front and back where the back is worked first and the sleeves are cast on in 16 stitch increments over 10 rows. It is when I get to row 72 and need more yarn that I begin to realize that I am going to be a skein short. First brush with denial I go and look at kpixie and discover they have no more in this color way. No problem, Google search and Ravelry search for another skein reveals nada. So look at the Tilli Tomas site and yes this color is no longer in the line-up. Ok I think if I can make it to the end of the back with 1.5 more skeins I should be good for the front. Never mind that I can knit 24 complete rows per skein (300+ stitches per row) and that will leave me 2.5 skeins to do the front. Second brush with denial at row 66 on the front section, 6 rows less than the back side I come to the realization that I still had yarn left at the divide and so made it farther. Doing the math there is no way I can finish the front even with dividing for the neck since I still have seems and the neck edge to finish. So I’m thinking this ‘sucks’ and how do I want to work this: One, Go all the way back to the divide and make the sleeves shorter since I did add 21 additional stitches to make them longer. Or two, I could maybe go back to row 50 and use another skein color that works with Green with Envy to alternate rows and finish this.

This morning I sent an email to kpixie to see what they suggested I do or if they might even have the skein sitting around that I needed. I know a long shot but I’m desperate since I am sitting at row 72 of 105 for the front. The finish line is taunting me. Surprise! This afternoon in my email box was a note from Jessica of kpixie and she had talked to the manufacturer and they said if I could send them a yard of the yarn they would dye something to match. So Monday I will be packing up my sample and crossing my fingers that we can make this happen so I can finish my project. I really didn’t expect this since it is not anyone’s fault that they are out of this color but I will definitely consider using them again in the future as they went beyond what I was expecting!

Finished 2008

Housekeeping

Veil of Isis

CeCe from Chicknits

Dashing

Josephine

Eyelet Cardi

Starlight

Twisted Flower Socks

Summer Sampler Stole

Anne Woodbury Socks

Noro Scarf

Noro Guy Scarf

Autumn in New York Shawl

Snow Day

Last Sunday the weather service promised us 1-4-inches of snow. Translation equals no snow to a dusting. Well here is the dusting that we got in the morning. It was all gone by noon. Still nice to wake up to.

Kong Kickaroo

While we were visiting with some friends they showed me the latest cat toy to hit the market and all three of their cats came by and played with it. So I decided to pick up a couple since I have one cat that doesn’t share catnip toys with the other two. Both were a big hit. One made it upstairs the other remained downstairs.

Currently on the needle now is the American Beauty Shawl, which is a knit-a-long you can join today. We started last week and I have the first charts done with a repeat of chart A. This shawl is being knit with Petite silk noire from the Adirondack Yarn Company in Cranberry Bog.

In time for Valentine’s Day

C. Marjorie Hausermann "York" AM/RHS HCC AOS

This is an orchid I have had for around 6 years now. The trick to blooming this one is to grow it in full sun outdoors from April until temps get to 40 degrees at night. Which means I bring this one in around November. Keep well watered and it blooms like clock work. Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Technique - Cable yarn spinning

For the past year I have wanted to try out a plying technique of cabled yarn. For this practice spin I took around 64g of play fiber that I had sitting around from a spinning class I took last year. The roving above is unnamed wool and feels similar to BFL or CVM, very springy and there was 48g. The color-way reminds me of spring and Easter eggs. I divided the roving into 3 - 16g batches and spun the fiber from the fold into three bobbins of singles.

As you can see with the bobbin on the right, I had 16g of additional left-over fiber in other colors. 12g were in a blue spring color-way that was similar to the Easter egg fiber above and then there was 4g of yellow wool that was Not as soft and had much less crimp. I spun this up into the fourth single. So as you can guess at this point you will need at least 4 bobbins to try this and 4 singles.

Now you take two of the singles and ply them together. The trick to this technique is to really over-ply the fiber and you may need to take what you just plied and run it back through again to get enough twist going. Repeat with the remaining two bobbins.

From here you take both bobbins that have been plied and spin them together as you would when spinning a single. Here you want to try and balance the twist as much as possible and this is how you get the cabled looking yarn.

As far as this experiment went- I had done a good job of plying the first bobbin, but the second bobbin had some problems. While it was plied well at the beginning it just did not quite have enough over-twist at the end. This made it hard to get the yarn to balance nicely at this point. In the future if I use this technique I need to probably just do a standard ply the first time and then run it back through a second time to get the additional twist needed. More time but will probably make a more satisfactory yarn in the end.

Why make cabled yarn? It is an inherently strong yarn so good for extreme wear and warmth. Gives interest to the yarn. Good for standard stitch knitting and lace not so much for pattern knitting as it get lost with the yarn texture.

Hooded Scarf

Yarn - Misti Alpaca Chunky
Color - Sage
Needles and size - Addi Turbo US9

This is a hooded scarf that I made recently and has come in quite handy with our recent cold weather. It is a pattern that I created and no I didn't write it down. But if you have a hooded garment on hand just measure it at the top and bottom. From your swatch you know how many stitches you need at the top of the hood and the bottom. I used a three-stitch decrease, slip two as knitting two together then knit the next stitch and pass the two slipped stitches over. This makes for a nice smooth decrease on both sides. Otherwise it is a standard 39 stitch scarf. Fun to make took more yarn than I expected at 5 skeins or 540 yards. Nothing left at the end. Soft! It should get lots of wear.