A Little Trip

 Bill, Caleb and Matthew shared an early morning free pass at a local golf club so we trucked up to Amelia Island for a visit.  Caleb took us down the road for a bit to a beach with a high sand dune.   This is not the usual type of Florida beach geography!  It is 60' high and protected from explorers!

 The beach was a bit overcast by evening (when we went) and just right for me now!

It is breath taking or lung clearing to breathe in the salty air and clear your head.  I know I say it every time but it is therapeutic!

 This house was right by the beach access;  I love it!  I would love to stay here for the month of September.......

 It looked like a cross between a space ship and an Art Deco transplant!  A Poirot mystery could take place here any minute!

 The sun setting behind the dunes was pretty spectacular also.

 This cloud just raised up and blocked the sun for a long time.

Caleb still rocks at finding the shark's teeth!   I found zero.....

 But a rainbow came out and that was beautiful to behold!

Since it was after hours for the life guards, Ella offered to supervise!

Goodbye until next time beach!  (See the Fall colors?  It does happen here , it is just subtle!)

 After beach time, we went for ice cream!  Yes, Ella knows how to tackle this all by herself!

I shared the bench with this newly hatched chameleon-he is about 2" long.  Very cute!

When we got back to Caleb's house, I pulled out my knitting.   Ella was very interested and enjoyed pulling out my yarn from the ball and using the cable needle to try and 'knit' herself.  I explained I was knitting a sock.  

 She understood that and when her Mom gave her her own ball of yarn to play with she applied it to first my sock and then to grandpa's foot-she was very intensely focused.  It was great.   I will be knitting WITH her in a few years!

FO Friday!

 I have the first sock done; it is another winner in the strip sock design series!   I am calling this one DNA strips because the pattern reminds me of a helix!

 I worked at getting a pleasing repeat for the first sock and was concerned about my ability to mirror image the design for the second sock!

 What's to worry-quite by accident I just turned the pattern upside down and there it was!  The perfect mirror image of the first sock!

 I have cast on and am working confidently on the second sock!  Yippee!

PuffDaddy loves my knitting almost as much as I do..........
(He very much wanted to be completely in the basket but after four turns and no success, he settled for this!)

Yard Tours!

 I am still enjoying my new wheels and taking several tours a day.  It is interesting how there are  micro changes when I go at different times of the day.

 There are several different kinds of wild flowers in bloom near our pond.  They are enjoying the extra rainfall lately, too.

 Many people pull things like this up because it is considered a weed but it is a native plant to Florida and the butterflies love it!  It is nice to have extra acreage so we don't have to keep all the weeds down!

 It is so pretty to just stop and savor the scenes before me.......

 When I pause in the Live Oak grove, the temperatures are considerably cooler, there was a reason they used to have so many of these growing around their southern plantations!

 I found this little burrow today;  it has to be a rabbit or possum hole-there had been recent digging so I couldn't find a footprint to give me a clue!  I know it isn't a gopher turtle because the hole is round and not saucer shaped!  I will keep watching this to find out who dug it!  (I am brave from the golf cart!)

 Just to the north of the Live Oaks is the bamboo grove.  They are so straight and tall in contrast to all the curves of the oaks!

I have been keeping my eye on the new bloom on the Cereus and today-

 I discovered a second bud!  I will be enjoying twins!    I am pretty excited about the bloom schedule on this plant-this will make 5 for this year!

 The red hibiscus is fancy but my camera does not like the red!

 It is much more partial to the pink of this hibiscus!  The bloom is about 7" across-beautiful but sans aroma!

 The last of the pogoda plants are in bloom!  This guy is about 18" tall!

I would love a room in this color combination!

September-Autumn

 When I was living in NY, I set out all my Fall decorations on the first of September.   Well, habits die hard and so I still decorate the house with  colors of Autumn but outside, I have to look harder for the signs but they are there!

 The Ginger cones all begin to turn red in the Fall;  see the cluster of them in the background?

 They are lovely pops of color all over the front yard.

 The sky is a good indication of the changing of the seasons-we get a periwinkle cast to our blue.   The clouds build like this every afternoon since our temperatures are still so high (90's)

 Several flowers just hunker down and wait out the high summer temperatures and then as soon as they detect a reduction in the heat, they bloom like crazy!

The Camellias have large buds-they will be bursting out in October so this month their buds really swell.

 The Magnolia tree puts out a blush to its cones, too, in the Fall.

And then they ripen like the pine cones do and provide luscious seeds for the birds, squirrels and mice!  

Flit like a Butterfly.......

A friend cleaned out her fiber stash and admitted she hated spinning cotton and didn't want this staring at her anymore!  I am the proud new owner of 1 1/2 pounds of ginned cotton again( she gave me a ton a few years ago and saved this for herself...)  

I hope to hone my cotton spinning skills on this batch of fiber.  I practiced making punis this morning in preparation for spinning!  Very relaxing work.  (puni is pronounced poo-knee--

so punis is a bunch of these rolls!)

 I used to be very focused and work on one project until it was finished.  I flit now which drives me crazy on some level but I have to do it this way now.   I am trying to go with the flow.   I wonder if the meds I am on mess with my brain in this way.....  Anyway, after doing a bit of work with the cotton, I remembered a pretty magazine pic of a quilt and was sure it reminded me of fabric in the stash and sure enough, I found the leftover fabric from a quilt I had made Ella before she was born!

 I cut out the flowers with the Accuquilt and just used 6 1/2" squares for the two blocks instead of piecing one of them.    (Watch for GO! dies on sale at JoAnns because I got this one on sale 50% off!)  This tool sure makes a difference with the applique prep time!

I have all the blocks up on the design wall for admiring!   I will have to sew all the flowers down next before sewing the blocks together but that is a job for another day as I flit to another project!

I have wanted a peasant dress pattern like the one I made for Ella and Aria but in a larger size for Abigail.   I finally found one to download on Etsy!  Instant gratification!  It has sizes from 12 month to 12 years!  Perfect.   I traced off what I needed and cut it out from vintage prints in the stash!   Oh, it's time to flit again..........

I spun up the sample banana silk to get acquainted with the fiber.   It is very much like bamboo but  gratefully not as slick.   And so it is not too hard to work with.   I did spin it a bit too tightly so will remember it for the dyed fiber.  I was concerned with it drafting apart once plied but I ended up with a pretty stable yarn.

As the day wore on, I am again in the recliner with my knitting-not a bad place to land at all!
I found a long skinny chart that is part of an Irish knit pattern but fits perfectly in my strip series of socks!  It is engaging to wrap my head around a meaty pattern like this!  Once I got used to the symbols, it is a very intuitive pattern-perfect for sock knitting!

FO Friday

Yes, I am liking this series of the pattern-strip socks!  I am working out a new design strip for the next pair!