It's HOT out there come knit with me...

Swatch made for MS3 Stole

Well this week has been hot and by most of my co-workers account they state they did not sign up to live with Arizona temps. Many are contemplating how to move to the equator where it is more temperate as research revealed that the average highs were in the 80s, thanks to the oceans cooling effect. That was until they saw Dean coming this week.

So come knit with me a spell. This week I have almost finished my MS3 stole with the final clue being revealed Friday. Only 24 rows to go and I can move onto the blocking of this project. I also made good progress on my Bonsai Tunic which has the back done and has been taking a little longer to complete thanks to the stole. But, last night I made it on to the ribbed middle section on the front and then onto the v-neck that should go quickly (one can only hope).

On the spinning front, I transferred off a full spindle to a toilet paper roll so I can spin a second roll to ply. Yesterday, I finally got around to doing the set of the yarn I made two-weeks ago at the spinning class I took. It is drying and I have ordered some blue dye to give it some color. Hopefully I don't ruin it. Then I have to figure out what to make with 50 yds of thick/thin novelty yarn. hmm..

Have a great week everyone and try and stay Cool!

The Cat Days of Summer

Here it is the cat days of summer and unless it is late in the evening or early in the morning, there is not much desire to wander out to the screened in porch to catch the "Bird and Chipmunk show" live. The preference is to catch it from the glass door.

Must be a rough life being a pampered cat. Where do I sign up. :)

Just Spin me Up....

This past weekend DH and I took a little trip up to the John C. Campbell Folk School where I had signed us up back in May for a couple of fun classes. DH got to hike the Appalachian Trail with a guide for his class and I learned to spin wool to yarn on a drop spindle and on the wheel.

Over the weekend I produced around 50 yards from the drop spindle and more than 50 yards on the Majacraft spinning wheel (picture below). From this I plied the two single spun yarns together into a 50 yard finished product. Now it just needs to have the fibers set and I can choose to dye it or just go ahead and knit with it.

Also during this class we learned to select wool freshly shorn from a dealer, how to tell what is not useable at all and should be discarded, and then how to wash and dry the yarn so it is ready to be picked and carded. The gray ball of fiber in the previous photo is what we picked and processed the final two steps of getting the wool ready to spin. The other is picture of the others in the class spinning on their wheels.

This is where the spinning classes were held.

This is from one of the trails you could hike at the school.

Over all, this was a very productive and fun weekend. I would highly recommend this place to learn a new craft and to be honest the glass beads done in another class over this weekend were to die for. Too bad the camera was in the car by then. :)

Bunco

This past Thursday night was my turn to host Bunco at the house. That meant lots of fun, socialization and dice. The group is made up mostly of ladies from where I work or who have a connection to someone we work with. The above all won at least one Bunco this evening and had to wear the Viking hat. The host gets to decide what the hat is that denotes the current Bunco dice roller. The last wearer of the hat when we finished got to take home the evening's prize which this month was a chocolate martini set. So here is to good fun and great food! Maybe one of these days I will finally be the last one standing with the hat. ;-)

Full Moon

... And did I finish telling you about my Summer Vacation?

Well I hope I haven't bored everyone to tears but this will be the final entry on the summer vacation as I am nearing the end of the photos I took. The above were attempts at capturing the full moon from the beach side. I think we still need to work on this camera aspect but I think they turned out ok.

Last year all you could see was the Ferris wheel, this year the main condo and store fronts have been built so it makes for a different tree line (or what's left of the trees after Ivan) effect.

Cabana Boy and other Musings
This was the cabana boy for our condo. One must not overlook the kids who work the chairs to earn tips. Most are either high school or college aged out to make some spending money. These kids are good. They are prompt to make sure your umbrella is moved to block the sun should you want. They also will get you a drink if you are nice to them. Tip them well the first day and they are at your beck and call the rest of the week.

Ok what's up with this khaki and beige beach picture thing? In all the years past I can't recall this phenomenon taking place. But it looks like if you hire a professional photographer to take your picture at the beach you must have the requisite khaki and white or they won't be there. Even the bridal party at the condo next door had everyone dressed in khaki and white, including the groom. The cutest picture I saw was of a mother getting a shot of her twin daughters in blue dresses. Yes color is a must at the beach and you CAN communicate with the others in the group to make sure you are in a similar color palate.

Vacations Over
I hate that my morning walks on the beach have been replaced by going to work. It was fun talking with Cathy on our walks; so many cool things to discuss. When they headed home on Friday, I got to walk and reflect on how nice it is being at the beach. Growing up we always went to the mountains for summer vacations and went hiking. At that time could not understand the appeal of going to the beach. When I married my husband, his family had a place at the beach and at first I was hesitant about spending my summer breaks here. It was out of my norm. Now that we have spent many summers visiting I look forward to my morning commune on the beach. While I mourn the old beach houses and the ambiance they give the area, I have hope for the area for the future. I hope that the area can balance growth and charm as well as not allowing so much development that if another big storm hits the area, that all can leave and not have to ride the storm out in danger. So good bye for the summer...

...We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.

But the stars we could reach

were just starfishes on the beach

---Terry Jacks

Tennis-Soccer

... And a continuation of what I did for Summer Vacation.

In the evenings Anna and Fritz would head off for the sand based tennis court with their soccer ball that has a tennis ball covering. The above shot was captured from the front balcony of our condo as we watched the game. The object is similar to tennis just played with your feet instead of a racket and there are no bounce rules. It was definitely interesting to watch. Meanwhile Trevor was off to play his bass guitar and talk to the other teenagers hanging out on the beach.


Urban Landscapes
The below are my attempts at doing urban landscape shots from our porch facing the beach. It's always fun to see how these turn out. This was something I used to play with in college art class. I had an art professor, Michael Crouse, who was working on a series of urban landscapes when I was in his class and he challenged us to do a few for grades, granted it was with paint and not photos. He was an awewome prof and I was probably the only non-art major taking his classes. I needed some right brain side activity to counterbalance all the left side stuff I was taking. :)

Beach Landscapes
I find these to be fun shots and it was nice to see that the sea oats are starting to come back. After all, that is what I expect to see when I am at the beach (Well that, seaweed and shells).

Sand Zamboni

...and what I did for Summer Vacation.

We arrived on Monday afternoon, June 25, for a week of sun and fun in Orange Beach. The in-laws were kind to let us have the condo for a week here with Cathy and Fritz and their two teenagers.

We had a blast the year before so we knew we would have another week of fun this year. Mostpeople think of vacation as a time to sit back and do nothing, well we are into activity so mornings start with breakfast and then Cathy and I set off on our morning 4 mile hike on the beach either West to the main State Park Beaches or East to the pier that has finally been reconstructed since Ivan. Occasionally Anna, their daughter, joins us but usually she is just getting up as we return from our walk. DH didn't win the sand walking feet so he usually just stays behind.

Damaged houses


New Building


State Park Beach Pavillion

On Tuesday we headed out on our hike West to the State Park and took in all the new development and lack there of from Ivan. It has been almost 3 years since this area was hit and most properties that were here and had issues are now up and running. Last year a lot of the houses were still waiting for insurance and other settlements so they were still sitting damaged. This year all severely damaged property has been removed and the new Phoenix developments have begun.

This Phoenix West is 25 stories tall. New zoning rules were put into place right before Ivan hit and so new mega tall condos are starting to dot the beach. On the other hand new tax rules forced many of the house owners to sell because once the property was removed it was assessed at the new going rate which meant many of these homes that had been owned by families for many generations could no longer afford the property. Going West has been my favorite walk since it is mainly houses and older condos that had height restrictions of 11 floors so that keeps the numbers on the beach front small and easy to walk when we turn around to come back.

After showers and lunch we headed up to the Outlet Mall in Foley. We parked at the back and the guys headed off to the golf shop while the rest of us shopped our way to the front Center of the Mall where we stopped for a chilled frappacino. Meanwhile DH stops in with the guys carrying a club. Hmm caught red handed or at least he seems embarrassed that he didn't get his new club into the bag where he could say 'Oh this old thing I've had it for a while. I thought I showed it to you' Then again being a rose grower I just smile knowingly. :) We both work and have our discretionary purchase funds. No bigee. The guys now head off to play 9 holes while we finish shopping. When we were done and saw the time we couldn't believe where all the time had gone. It was time to head back to the condo for dinner at Louisiana Lagniappe. This dining place is one that I would highly recommend eating at if you are in the area.

Wednesday while eating breakfast we noted from the porch that the small state park section to the East had what we referred to as a sand zamboni cleaning the area up. Being the engineering type we watched for a while and performed a work analysis. It was obvious while watching that the driver had never attended a hockey game and didn't understand that you circle the outside area for a setup and then dissect that area at the middle and begin filling in the area by circling one edge and the center moving down each time. This way you don't have turning issues when you reach the middle, which the driver had, and you don't miss an area, which the driver did. While walking east to the pier we came upon the sand zamboni again at another small beach area and discussed whether we should give him our results, but decided in the end to just let it go. It was a fun exercise though. ;-)

Surplice Lace Top

Pattern - Surplice Lace Top
from Nashua - The North American Designer Collection No. 4
Yarn - Nashua Ecologie Cotton, Color - Chestnut
Gauge - 5st = 1 inch
Needles and size - Addi-Turbo US 4 for edging and US 6 for body

Ahh … the Bain of my existence, at least this Spring. I saw this sweater in February in several publications and the LYS got the book of patterns for it. I decided to originally make this in a dark blue in mercerized cotton from Reynolds. The gauges were the same by needles, but after several swatches and not even coming anywhere near the gauge listed on the ball band using said needles and then one size up. I gave up on the idea. The yarn that I bought for this project will now be rolled into another sleeveless top that I will design myself. Anyway for a few months the pattern went back on the shelf until the postcard proclaiming the LYS anniversary sale of 40% off on Sat May 12. That made the Nashua Ecologie yarn that the pattern was written for worth buying. Also I had had time to come to terms with the pastels this yarn collection has, instead of saturated colors (my fav). Once home with my purchase I swatched it up to make sure we were good to go and we were, so into the queue it went to wait for me to finish Tuscany and for me to finally decide to put the Starlight sweater on hold for the summer. On June 17 I Cast On the first panel, the next week the back panel and then I spent my vacation knitting the upper five pieces. While the yarn has a wonderful feel and appearance when knit. This is definitely NOT a beginner yarn. In fact it was a pain to do lace knitting with as it had a tendency to split and I often ended up spearing the yarn when trying to knit two together causing lost loops to hang out there for all to see. This required dropping stitches and re-picking them up hoping that the fiber would twist back into the other fiber for a neat appearance and then knitting again. For just plain knitting it is a joy, although you still need to pay attention as I had the occasional loop that I had to correct, just not as bad as the lace section which was an easy lace pattern at that. Sewing everything up took the rest of the July 4 week and as of July 10, I finally have all the ends tied down and somewhat hidden. I love the sweater and would knit it again, but maybe in another thread that I could hit gauge with.

An aside, I learned that for my knitting that I prefer addi-turbo knitting needles when working with cotton yarns learned this with the Tomato sweater. It allows for easier sliding of the stitches. For wool I will remain loyal to my bamboo needles since it is easy to slide the stitches and it keeps the wool from taking off like it does on the metal needles. Also double point needles are a must with this pattern so you can correct the looping mistakes and get the stitch back on the needles.

Tuscany

Pattern - Tuscany from No Sheep for You
Yarn - Savannah DK
Color - Chambray
Needles and size - Addi Turbo US 6 Circular
Guage - 24-26 sts = 10 cm

This shawl was made as a Christmas present for my niece, Meg. It was an easy to knit project and took about two weeks to complete. I would definitely recommend this for beginning lace knitters. Now on to starting her sisters shawl. :)

The Calla Lilly

demurely hides,
within the leaves;
swirling pastels,
Beautiful;
toxic if swallowed.