It's in the Blood!

Here is a cherished photograph of my Great Great Great Great Great Aunt Louisa Cornwell. 

 (Though my great grandparents changed the spelling to Cornwall.)

She was born in June 14, 1815.  This picture was taken around 1900, 

13 years before her death on December 10 1913.

She is holding her knitted lace in the basket on her lap.  

She used 0000 needles and 50 wt. thread to knit miles of lace.

She also smoked a pipe and talked politics with the men, scandalous for her day.

Except for the pipe, I would've joined right along with the conversation while knitting, too! 

I even have some of her lace;  it is fragile now and almost crispy.  I keep it tucked away but just might put it behind glass and display it.  It is a treasure for sure.  

Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit

This is the pot of Gulf Native Sheep wool, soaking in water with alum for a mordant. 

This is the wool with the fermented but strained fruit juice.

(I have set the jar in the pool area to get the sun and heat up but not too hot!)

The color is really this bright fuschia!

I set the pan of roving with a lid in the sun for several hours. 

After I poured off the excess water/dye mixture, the wool looks like this.  A but more blue violet or violet blue! 

Next came a very good rinse followed with a long soak in warm water with citrus acid to help set the color.   The  roving is spun out in my washer and then hung in the bathroom to finish drying!

I can't wait to spin it but I am going to wait until the TDF this July.  I am building up my stash for the big spin!  This was a great experiment and worth the work to see such a great color!

Can You Say , "Hard Work?"

It's funny to look at the pictures and see the kids always in water!  We really did walk, ride and enjoy all the yard , too, but when outside we do a lot of chasing not picture taking!  Ethan liked the bath better than the pool.  It was loud and splashy with all the gang in there!

See, Abigail is here.  In fact, after everyone gets out of the pool, she enjoys her alone time in the pool for girls only swim! 

The last night together night swim!

Grandma and Marsel joined them earlier but someone has to take the pictures! 

And the bottom sock is the one I had made before company....the upper sock is supposed to match the lower one.  I shouldn't have tried to force my exhausted brain to knit in the evening.  I will rip it out on the car ride to Georgia tomorrow after we drop off the boys to their own home.

What a wonderful, hard, blessed week it has been!

(Next time you see a young mom with a couple of young children, give her some encouragement!  This is hard work to raise up healthy, happy and polite young people!)

Mural Monday

I was inspired by a recent post on Dee's blog, Meanwhile in Florida , when she talked about murals.

There are many in the towns near me so I would like to highlight one each Monday for a while!

This one is just south of me in Crescent City.

It is painted on the old city hall/police and firehouse by local artist Richard Cooney just May of last year.  

Happy Interruptions

While I was waiting for my carload of family to arrive, I sewed this top for me.  It felt good to sew clothes again.  I go for quite a while without doing this!  Finally, 

Thursday afternoon Marsel and David and Abigail and Will and Ethan arrived to stay for 6 days! 

Will and Ethan's parents are in Hawaii because Matthew made the top echelon of salesman again this year! Marsel, my daughter, and children come down to help watch the boys while they are gone!

 Here is Ethan playing in the little seat.  He is such a sweet little guy at just shy of 4 months. 

He even enjoyed a bit of a dip in the pool! 

Big brother, Will is a fish;  he goes in after lunch and comes out in time to eat dinner!

Oldest grandchild, David, enjoys the scuba life-- 

He sure is a great kid who just turned 14!  Abigail is here but I didn't catch her yet...stay tuned.  I have only touched my knitting for a few stitches....it will wait for me!

It's a great and crazy time!

Tumbler Top

The top is finished and ready for the quilting frame.  I am not sure if I am going to put another border on this.  If I make it wider than the width of the fabric (42")  then it takes a lot more backing fabric.

Decisions....

I love the old vintage-like prints in this quilt.  A very fun sew!

Clearing the Knitting Queue

The Little Tea Leaves Sweater is finished and I am glad to see the end of this!  I am not sure about the yarn...it is dense and the 'little' size 4 sweater is heavy.  I knit the ruffle for the sleeves and then grafted it with Kitchener stitch to the sleeves.  It isn't hard, just fussy.  The yarn is soft and has a sheen from the bamboo in it.  Sometimes I have to be done with something a while before I like it again! 

And sometimes, I like a knit all the way through and am sorry to see it finished! 

I whipped through a sock... 

With an afterthought heel placement so I can make another pair of yoga/flipflop socks. 

Like these!  I am experimenting with the heel finish as I wasn't topnotch thrilled with the last pair.

They work just fine, it's just not exactly what it should be.  I will see with this next pair!

That's all on my needles lately.

Socks can be a nice respite for me in the knitting world.

Another Surprise!

Hot off the needles and without buttons to match yet, here is the latest Baby Surprise Jacket for my youngest grandson, Ethan.  This was made with Mary Maxim Prism in Rain Shower, a dk weight yarn.  It used one whole skein to

                                                 knit this sweater which is a 6 month size.

Local Quilt Show

Friday, Millie, my neighbor, and I went to a local quilt show next to Miss D's Quilt Shop in downtown Palatka. 

I bought two partial jelly rolls for a few dollars.   

You will be seeing these for their own wacky pinwheel in negative and positive color arrangements! 

I also bought this panel of the Poky Puppy.  I am not sure yet if he will be a little quilt or a fabric book like it was sold as.

After a great lunch, we headed home.  Color and inspirations percolate in our brains!

Hexagon Lap Quilt Work

I used the 5" charm pack by Eleanor Burns, Zoey in Lemon Chiffon to turn into hexagons with the Accuquilt.  After cutting out, I decide to use the sage green to make the triangles in between

the hexagons to make the seven sisters setting. 

I struggled with the right seam allowance to make them fit.  Then I realized I had use the wrong triangle template to cut them out and gratefully , I could trim them to the right size! 

Once they were all trimmed, they went together much easier! 

Because of all the bias edges, I have to use pins and lots of them!

Accurate is better and worth the extra work.  

There is no timeline, right?! 

This shows you how much larger the row is just sewn and the pinning tames those intersections, mostly, and it is okay with me. 

Today's accomplishment!  The yellow is so pretty bouncing between the green! 

Sissy stayed in the studio with me today.  I rarely get pictures of her because she also hates to be in front of the camera.  She jumped out of here after this picture and dug her way into my pantograph cubbie to hide.

And as soon as I tried to sneak over and catch her, she was on the move.

She is on my lap as I write this, purring up a storm!

Time to head to the recliner and some knitting

Plans

I have finished piecing all the wacky pinwheel blocks!

Look what was featured on a recent email from Keepsake Quilting!

Yes, the same block just arranged in positive and negative colors!

Pretty amazing!

My box of Gulf Native Sheep wool roving just arrived! I didn't feel up to buying a fleece and processing it all myself this time.   I am thinking this needs to be dyed with the prickly pear cactus juice I am fermenting!  

Chirp Chirp!

One of the cats was sitting and staring the scallop shell on the wall of the house in the pool area.

We have learned to check out her 'stares' as she alerts us to critters. 

I shooed her away and carefully pulled the shell away to reveal one of our *tree frogs! 

He was a fine fellow!   

I carefully put the shell back over him and left him in peace!

He will tell his adventure tonight!

*Green Treefrog Hyla cinerea  and here is a link to hear his chirp-

We Interrupt This Sweater Knitting...

 I paused while knitting the sweater...I am not happy that the front bands pull in and will have to rip out and try something else.  So I was ripe for the temptation of this alluring photo-

A pair of socks for yoga or better yet, flip-flops! 

I couldn't wait to begin!  It only used one skein of sock yarn;  this is Patons.

I just bound off the stitches after four inches of knitting and immediately cast the same number of stitches back on for the leg of the sock and lickeckety-split, they were done! 

I did go back with the little bit of yarn left and crochet around the heel opening to make it lay flat and look prettier!

I can't wait to make another pair!

Saturday Studio Savvy

The block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for April is the Wacky Pinwheel in orange and brown or black.  After I worked out the pieces and made a ton of rookie mistakes, I finally had all the pieces cut out for the nine six inch blocks I needed. 

I went on to make four of the nine today~ 

I then pieced a few of the tumbler rows.  I am happy with the cut border, it looks like I wanted it to! 

And I sewed the binding on the Rainbow Churn Dash quilt with my last bit of steam today!

I'm knitting, too, but I will save that for another post!