30 Years Ago......

I gave birth to my first son, Jared. 

We are still giving thanks to God for the gift of you , my son!

Slow Motion

This morning I made this skirt from some vintage silky polyester given to me in a stash a while ago.

Bill put up the ceiling fan in our bedroom-so tropical!

I did a little spinning, targhee wool;

some more to spin another day..........head colds are the pits!

Weaving and Quilting Bliss

One waffle weave towel finished and the next color well on its way.  It is so nice to weave when it goes well....

The quilting gave me no fits.  I got all 9 yards of backing sewn together and loaded on the frame; ditto the other layers. 

                                     

Off to a great start on the quilting. This will be a project for a while, heavy quilting but results just make me sing!

(Fighting off a cold so I am moving slowly but I am moving and for that I am grateful!)

Weary Weaver

Against all odds.......

Everything that could have gone wrong did.......(tangles anyone at the start of my day)

I almost threw the loom in the front yard for a bonfire...... (when I discovered that 1/2 of the threads had to be rethreaded in their RIGHT heddles)

But I am weaving waffle weave towels! 

 On the way to the pool now, 11 hours of near-tears pleasure with quite a few chocolate intervals later!!!!!!!!!!!

Living...

I haven't been doing anything blog worthy but didn't mean to go so long without a post!  We have been doing a lot of pool time every afternoon when it is too hot to do much else outside.  It hasn't been hard to do.

I have done some for fun, mindless knitting; circular dishcloths.  Ending the yarn in the center meant there were no ends to weave in, just pick up the last color and knit away.  Turned out pretty, didn't it?!

I also made up some camoflauge dishcloths for the boys.  If you put this over the pile of dirty dishes, will you still be able to see them?

And some lacy ones to wrap around a bar of soap , just to be pretty.

We found the last kitten in the boat finally!  It held out for days eluding our efforts at capture.  It sure is glad to be with his litter mates.  (He hid behind the dryer for a long time but found the mound of buddies and snuggled right!)

I ordered a kit for dishtowels. 

I decided to put on the warp after deciding to wind each color separately.

  Being a rookie does create some problems.  I have always been a do-it-yourselfer and able to learn most skills by reading about it but I am sure I am missing some obvious tricks on the weaving front.  I will get this finished this morning and be weaving tomorrow at any rate.

A baby sweater is on the needles now-someone special has had a little boy that could use a little blue sweater....I could not find my pattern for this little neck down knit-if I have loaned it to you , could you let me know?!  I did a lot of cleaning out looking for this pattern, which is a good thing.  Finally, I just got out an old baby sweater and did the counting thing to figure out how many to cast on and the rest will just happen because I have made so many of these!

Goin' North

Well, working on the northern end of the house renovation that is!  We are started to work on the hall to the garage/breezeway. 

First on the agenda, moving the washer and dryer from their temporary spot to the area in the breezeway that will be closeted around them eventually. 

We had to cut the old lines........and drill holes in the old cement wall to put the lines through to the new area.

Bill has to hook up a new electrical outlet for the dryer tomorrow and then it will be operational!

The old pipes and wires will need to be removed tomorrow , too.

 But for now, it is so nice to be able to walk right straight through to the garage as we planned so long ago!  Painting is also on the agenda in the near future, too.

In between my washer/dryer gopher work , I did a bit of this-never without a project, you know!  Piecing all these blocks stalled when I got into some other projects, but it waited for me!

And we found the litter of kittens from the stray-they are starting to leave their nest so we thought we would catch them and prevent 5 more strays from the neighborhood.

 We have captured all but one of them (4 of 5) and hope to do that tomorrow also.  They need some people-izing so that we can find homes for them!  They are little spitfires right now, much like Nyki was when we first got her.

The new kitten reclamaion zone is set up next to the washer/dryer!  More pics to follow!

Bordered

I finished this pair of socks first thing today.  My only concern is that they are not superwash, which I didn't think about when I bought the yarn (merino/silk blend) but if I can remember not to toss them in the wash, they will wear a long time.

I worked on the quilt all afternoon and now have the quilt all pressed and waiting for the quilting frame!

I didn't have enough of the original fabric, so I used the left over curtain fabric on the two sides that will show on the sides of the quilt. 

 I even used some of the quilt block pieces to lengthen the borders.  A good mental puzzle to work on this afternoon.    The final measurements are 110" wide and 100 " long-made especially to fit out particular king sized bed.  All I need now is the backing, binding and batting-I hear a trip to JoAnns Fabric store in the near future calling to me!

Rainy Monday

We are enjoying some much needed showers here.  Since it was so wet out, I looked for some inside activities....... sewing.  Piecing to be exact.

I pieced the rest of the blocks for the quilt for my room and then sewed them together for the top.  (56 12 1/2" blocks in a 8 x 7 lay out)  I will add two borders tomorrow-one narrow one in the cinnamon strips and the other, a wide one in the browns.  I did not lay out the blocks first to find placement-I usually play with this step for days before I leave it alone.  Not this time.  I made a pile of the two blocks (pink corners and brown corners) and just took them in the order of the pile and sewed away-very daring for me!  There are so many different prints that this would work out for me.

I also pieced the beginnings of a table runner for the diningroom table.  I cut up two 1/2 yard pieces into strips and then biased pieced them at both ends.  After spinning the tubular strips the way I liked the color placement, I cut apart the ends and sewed them all together side by side.  This results in a long (2x the width of the fabric) strip and so I am not sure if I am done cutting it up and sewing it together yet!!!  I was inspired for this project from a quilt done by CJ of a Stitch & a Prayer.  I am not done with this experiment either!  I am picturing a lot of my scraps done randomly in this fashion.

Bill got the new ceiling fan/light installed in the kitchen!  We have been without since the ceiling was sheetrocked several months ago-it sure is nice to have both accessories back in working order!

PoolSideGardening

While the men were finishing the painting, (what a job, huh?!) 
I was building some plant dollies.  I cut up some plywood, painted the squares, used some left over hardwood flooring for the top and added the castors to the bottom.  Voila! 

I finished knitting this pair of socks but wasn't happy with the color. 

Into the crockpot and now they look like this!  It is more brick than coral but I am pleased with the results.

I started a pair of socks from the KnitPicks merino and silk skein.  It is coming along beautifully.  (I found a lace pattern from the Knitter's Bible  and it is working up quickly toe up.

When the men left, the cats were allowed back in their pool area-they were so happy to be back.

The accent of the beige around the pool sure makes all the colors pop!

It is even better than I hoped!

I began moving all the pots from the front porch to the pool area.  What a lot of trips!

See my bamboo trellis in his new home?!  We had to go and buy some more potting soil today so there will be some new plants added throughout the next week.

We are having a little problem with Nyki using the potted soil for her litter box.....I have placed HER box in  the middle of the plants to help her get the picture!  We will see.  Hopefully, as I fill in the areas, the newness will wear off for her.

See how well the plant dollies will work-I can move the plant easily for watering or changing locations and no back breaking lugging involved!

The bottle brush tree has a buddy.  They smelled each plant as I brought them in-funny to see their inspections-so serious.  We ended the day with a swim under the lights.........what a reward!