Start and Finish Lines

 I finished the socks from Marsel's local yarn shop.   The skeins were labeled the same dye lot but they had variations that were a bit random and I had to make myself relax over the differences! (The main differences were the variations in the length of each stripe!) The yarn feels delicious on the feet and that is a wonderful outcome!  (Classic Elite Liberty machine wash wool)

 I cut out some patriotic fabrics.   I have quite a stack of red/white and blue fabrics that I hope to get done by July 4th .

 I made a pair of wrist warmers while I decide what I am going to knit next.

I began to piece the apple core pieces I cut out in April.  And so my week begins.......

Another Hobby

Bill and I had the pleasure of a long car ride to Gainesville to visit the neurosurgeon who will be evaluating my health and how the bulging disc is affecting me and the MS treatment.  The appointment was jeopardized by the Imaging center who was supposed to have my MRI records ready for me to pick up but instead closed a few hours earlier than they had told me for their  Memorial Day weekend without letting me know!  The doctor was a trooper to still see me but he was limited in his evaluation without this information. 

 (Bill and I will have to pick up the records and drive them to the doctor on Tuesday!)

FYI-Incompetence is rampant but unfortunately, not terminal.

I did a bit of knitting in the car on the way and back but car riding is so uncomfortable, I mostly just lean back and fight the pain.  (These are from the souvenir yarn I bought in Georgia.)

 Bill had a surprise for me on the way home-lunch on the deck at Corky Bells.  It went a long way to restoring my being!

 I was fascinated with the pine cones on the Cypress tree!

They looked like little fruit on the branches.........well, I guess they are, right?!

Home..........Work

 Wednesday and Thursday I had to adjust from travel and missing family but as usual I do a bunch of cleaning to distract myself-this is the first time that I can say-there was nothing to clean!  Bill had done a stellar job of keeping up to things and so I could do a bunch of resting when I got home!

 In between recliner time, I am learning about glass work.   These are bits of glass I have cut for jewelry.   I fuse them in the little microwave kiln I bought.  (The round thing in the background.)

 Sometimes things go well and sometimes I get a surprise like this.  It is all a part of the learning process!

 But mostly it goes like this!   It is just very satisfying and since there is quite a bit of waiting time, it is a perfect creative outlet for me right now!  (Waiting for the glass to cool to do the next piece!)

When we bought this house, we found boxes and boxes of glass here-from neighbors we learned the Mrs was a stained glass worker.   She left me enough to work for a few years!   I am also going to tackle stained glass work soon!  This is the year!

 Bill had his own fun project when I got home, the bathroom plumbing had sprung a leak when I was gone and it ruined the flooring in our closet and bedroom.   He had to pull up the closet and our bedroom will be tackled on another week.......the good news is that he was able to find the leak right at the base of this pipe and fix it without having to jack hammer miles of our slab cement to find it!  (Horrible to even think about!)  We do have more flooring for our bedroom also and that is a relief!

 I missed these guys!   This is something new Bill started when I was gone-a morning catnip party!
The girls do not all get along well out in the yard but during this party, everyone is nice and does their own thing!   It is a riot to watch!  (Two of our cats are missing-Bling doesn't react to catnip and JD doesn't play with the others-no matter what!)

 It was nice to see what is blooming in my yard, too.  This is the tail end of the cactus blooms.

 In the Christmas cactus by my main doorway, I am always fighting the wrens who want to build a condo here!  Since I was gone and there was no one to tear it down every morning, they made great progress!   I will have to leave it now in case there are eggs inside!  The creeps!

It was nice to spend my afternoon here-listening to a knitting podcast and knitting and dozing!  The pool is just right for my aches and pains right now!!!

Updates

The tie dyed t-shirts turned out great, didn't they!

The pattern for the amazing summer dress we made uses Simplicity 2217 for those inquiring minds.
(Sad news-it says it is out of print.   Look for similar pattern using the Amazing Fit line of patterns)

Final Days Projects

 I saw a cool tutorial to make a cat tent on Craft: Daily and I gave the kids a list and we accumulated our ingredients!  A fun project and the cats cooperated and enjoyed it, too!

 While the project is titled Cat Tent, I think it is a bit small for a cat and is a good project for kittens!  When Marsel is tired of moving it around, she can donate it to her local cat shelter!

 Abigail and I planned a kitchen project-even though that is not my favorite room, she is and so we made a dessert for dinner.

 A recent Facebook recipe, tweaked by me.   It was delicious!

 Then we wrapped up our frenzy with some t-shirt dyeing.  We bought a kit from Hobby Lobby for the dyes and then had fun picking our scrunching up designs for the shirts!

 We found this cool wasp nest in the corner of the garage, too.  You can see inside it!

 From the front, it looks strange now-like a balloon!

 The results were amazing and I have convinced them to save up and buy some more dye to do some more of this kind of project with friends!  This is Marsel's shirt.

 Abigail's shirt.

 David's shirt.

 Abigail's .

 And David's.   I will show you the finished surprise project tomorrow.

 Since I am on a colored glass hunt, we found this beer bottle of black glass!  I was cleaned and wrapped and brought home for a near-future project in the glass lab!

These two skeins are from the annual LYS trip, superwash Liberty wool from Classic Elite.

For the record, we learned that no matter how much time you are together (and this was a record one, at 26 days together counting the days watching Will at my house, too!) it is still painful to say goodbye! But it was wonderful to have Bill meet me at the airport.

Savoring the Days

Abigail has been enjoying her new doll outfits.  

 I sit in my throne (recliner) for a good chunk of the day and get to enjoy the kids at play.

David has collected quite an arsenal of air soft guns and is loading up for the day! 

He also had to decorate a t-shirt for a youth group activity;  he had to pick a basketball player with his name and number. 

He chose David Robinson......and did a bit of research on him which was cool. (He tried to catch Uncle Jared on trivia questions but failed-he is like a walking encyclopedia!)

 He even agreed to model it for me when it was dry!  

Marsel loved the curved piecing and got her table runner finished!

And added the borders-on to layering and quilting!  (Mindy approved!)

I finished another pair of toddler tube socks. 

And knitted two of the Brioche dish cloths. 

And feeling my knitting mojo was back, I tried this pattern again and can understand what was required of me this time.   The sole of the slippers are double knit for comfort so it is slow knitting but I am making progress.  For now, the MS has taken the ability to knit for hours away but I plug away at 30 minute intervals and see progress nonetheless.  And no question, I am so grateful to be able to still knit.period.

We finished the Jackie Kennedy dress for Marsel!  We started this last year-it was very detailed in its tailoring but when she put it on, wow!;   it was worth every minute's worth of difficulty!  It was REALLY made just for my daughter!  Now that the bugs are worked out of this construction and fitting, we can make lots of them for her!  (I could kick myself for not getting a pic of her yesterday while wearing it for church.......she likes her pic taken as much as I do!  lol  )

Speaking of perfection, look at this Jasmine blossom----5 little tubes of symmetry, radiating from the center like a pinwheel block!  And it smells wonderful, too.  Loverly.

Mother's Day

 

Happy Mother's Day 

sharing with the McKees!

And for your viewing pleasure, the out-takes from the photo shoot!

I set my camera for auto shoot and set it wrong , not one was ready and it didn't include me.........

  Here I set it right but took too long to get into position;  I move slowly and painfully but this is a laugh!

Marsel seated me to take over the controls, and she took this picture without herself....we persevered until we got the first one shown up above on the blog!  It is good to laugh.