Giveaway!

I'll gift this pair of  Tough & Toasty mitts to one person who comments on my blog today

 in honor of my 62nd birthday!  

I finished knitting them in the car yesterday on our drive to GA!

Knit of handspun, superwash Merino, 

 they will be easy care 

while comfortably warm and stylish to wear!

Thanks for stopping by my blog and brightening my day!

It's the Season

 All of my front porch is lit up with Christmas Cactus' in bloom!

 In the yard, there is much of the same color combinations!

 This is the 20' East Palatka Holly tree all ready for the robins to descend upon it!

My local Cardinals love it, too!

 The Mandavilla is still covered in blooms...

 so is the Calliandra!

And Bill and I are leaving the 80* weather and to go and see our Georgia Peaches....

to have ourselves a merry little Christmas time!

Drifting into First Place!

 The sweater is finished! 

 It is wonderful, fits perfectly and I'm thrilled!

 It's been a long time since I can say I have had such a sweater success!

 It is comfortable unbuttoned which will be the way I wear it most often!

But when I need to, I can button it up for additional warmth and style!

The yarn is soft but still has enough wooly memory and character.

I am on a sweater high!

STATS:

Pattern is Drift by Emily Nora O'Neil  (Nora Gaughan)

Yarn is KnitPicks Wool of the Andes Superwash, Pampas Heather, Worsted Weight--12 skeins

Needles - #5 and#7  (I used the new Foursquare circulars from KnitPicks)

6 wooden buttons 5/8"

Birthdays and Bands

 On the way to visit Will and Ethan for their birthday party,

 I finally accomplished the button bands on the sweater!  

Buttonholes were easy to count out using the K2P2 regularity!

 I am stitching the sleeves in place now-one is in and one to go!

  I'm getting close to finished!

 Bill and I left early for the party so we could have time to celebrate Christmas gifting.

The boys were so cute and it was wonderful to snuggle them again!

Yes, the cousins enjoyed the birthday party, too!

As they say, a wonderful time was had by all!

TOUGH & TOASTY!

 Well the confusion on the pattern was all me-the second one flew off the needles!

I wore them for sleep last night; 

 wow, my hands feel so limber this morning instead of stiff and awkward! 

 It's lovely to have them be warmed by the light wool!

These will be going in the dyepot for a warm, chocolaty brown!

The designer wanted a pair of mitts that echoed the small leather mitts worn by bikers;

I think she nailed it!

STATS:

PATTERN-is TOUGH & TOASTY by Martina Behm.

YARN- fingering Bare Hare by KnitPicks  (and I have enough to make another pair!)

SIZE-large because the medium was too small !

NEEDLES-#3

(I want to experiment with worsted weight yarn on #5 needles for a man's size (Bill expressed an interest, too)

Success with Strickmich!

I didn't know what my problem was on the first three attempts but all of a sudden, 

I understood what the designer, Martina Behm, was asking of me!

It is a fast knit , if you have a clear head! lol

One down, one to go-it will be a flash off the needles soon!

Hat Distraction!

 I needed a hat for my Seattle son-winter temperatures have hit hard there 

and since he works outside, he needed some insulation!  

 It is knit from an old ball of Universal Yarn Inc, Classic Shades which is a single ply worsted weight yarn.   I knit over 100 stitches in K2, P2 on #8 needles.  It worked right along.

I decreased out the purl stitches first and then reduced the knit for a nice smooth and round crown.

I will send it out in their Christmas box today!  

Now I am ready to work on my sweater again -I am so close to a finish on that!

And I found what I was doing wrong on the mitts-I am in the knitting groove again!

Roping

 Might I mention that this is an incredibly wonderfully organic creative process!!!!!

The slightest angle on the row you are sewing and you can get a whole different look!

It is far less messy then the coiling we did in pottery class!

I love the subtle shading of the thread color.

And I tried to make different shapes for the 'holes' this time.

When there is only one, it shapes the rim asymmetrically which is interesting.

When you try to center a swirl on each end, it is a bit interesting to line them up

 but it makes both ends lift up and look like handles.

I am working on a graceful ending for the baskets, too. 

I am going to be making these for quite a while-

they satisfy the a lot of creative aspects with a relatively fast turnaround.

I love containers-and so do a lot of knitters-it must be that left/right brain balancing act!!!!

Feet on Floor!

I haven't felt like I was up to sewing the shoulders and pick up the button band stitches.

But I felt like I could last night.  

And then I promptly sewed both fronts on backwards.

I didn't discover it until I had started picking up stitches on the second front and I had this armhole on the front neckline.....

Ripping out stitches for the shoulders was a LOT of fun!

But I  did it and seamed it again and picked up the stitches on the front bands again 

and now I can get going on this sweater finish!!!! 

 I did give myself a bit of a reward...

I cast on this new pair of fingerless mitts because I was intrigued with the construction!

It is brilliant.

I had planned on dyeing the yarn first as it is a skein of the Bare Hare by KnitPicks;

it is so delicious in my hands while knitting!

But I didn't want to wait to cast on so they will get a kettle dye when I am finished!

I decided to go with an easier border arrangement for the leftover scraps from the Quilt of Valor.

I just might be able to sew this together in a few days now!

Fernandina Festivities!

 Visiting youngest son and his family for an early Christmas.  It was so quiet and peaceful with just one family at a time!  

 The kitty posed for typical Christmas tree use as far as they are concerned!  

Here is the new sweater (or vest, I haven't decided yet!) I am working on.  I am using the pattern I made the green sweater from so I have the skeleton and can flesh it out any way I want!

I am a knitter after all!

Now back to my role as Grandma and playing with the kids!

Southdown

I now have 200 yards of two ply sport yarn

from the breed of sheep called Southdown.

This yarn is from the class of sheep called down breeds 

so it is springy and plump!

There will be little to no felting when washed.

It is next to the skin soft.

Other than the nepps in this particular fleece, 

this was a great spin and will be a pleasurable knit!

And Lena jumped into the warm ~clean~ clothes when I set the basket down for just a minute

on the way to take them to fold!

Of course, I left her there and she took a 2 hour nap all nestled snugly!

Parts of a Whole

I have finished knitting all of the parts for the Drift cardigan!

Usually I sew all the parts together and then block it 

but I decided I would try it this way so that I could block each piece according to the schematic.

  It was also easier to make sure all the parts were matched this way. 

 Once dry, I have to sew it at the shoulder seams and then pick up and knit the front button bands.  

I was slammed with a migraine first thing on Tuesday and still dysfunctional yesterday.

Migraines are such thieves of time.

Now today I have to go for an MRI to check the progress of the MS.

Too bad I can't knit while in that tube for hours!

Threads that Bind Quilters

 I enjoyed quilting time with my local group-

my throat is still pretty sore but the medicine is starting to kick in gear! 

 I finished the other 6 blocks while there so I can squeak a table topper out of these.

 I have only a few blue pieces and a few more of the beige

 so I am playing around with the idea of  angled blocks for a border

 to really use up every last piece from this collection.

 While at our stitching time, a woman came in and asked if we would be interested

 if she dropped off a few unfinished quilt tops from her m-i-l who passed away.

  We naturally said we would be glad to look them over and donate what we couldn't use-

you never know what you are going to get!

She said no one in her family did any sewing let alone quilting 

and she wanted them to go to people who would appreciate the work that went into them.

Well, we hit pay dirt!

  These are very old tops (flimsies my Aussie friend calls them!)

  We each picked out one and said what we thought we would do with  it.

 Most had condition problems-they have been stored a long time and smelled of moth balls.

 When this quilter ran out of fabric for a strip-she just pieced a similar color and continued on her work.  

You can see this red square had several pieces to bring it up to size. 

 All of the quilts were pieced by hand with a few blocks sewn by machine, too.

The pieced block on the right was done by machine.

There are 81 pieced blocks and two different fabrics used for the red blocks. 

 There are fabrics from the 30's, 40's and 50's in this quilt; 

 some of the other tops were from the 50's and 60's. 

 We sure had a wonderful time examining these donations!

  I think I will layer this with batting and backing and quilt it.

  Of course, many quilts made in FL of that time period were just backed and quilted without a filler so it was a light covering for the bed not a quilt for warmth. 

 But since this was made by a woman in Jacksonville,

 she would have experienced cooler temperatures for winter

 and would have appreciated a quilt with a cotton batting. 

 I will think it through a bit-how do you weigh in?

Patience

 I'm  patiently knitting on the cardigan, Drift,

 and managed to do about half of the sleeve while in the doctor's office yesterday! 

 How do people survive waiting so long without their knitting!!!!?

When I finally saw the nurse, my blood pressure was its usual 118/62  because I knit! lol 

 (I am on meds now to knock that sore throat bacteria out of my ballpark!)

 I am patiently plying  the Southdown singles into yarn.

There is just no hurrying some things that we do and the slow down is good for us!

What are you doing that is requiring patience?

Hard Labor!

 I have been working for days on this chimney.  

(and my sore throat is back with a vengeance!)

The front is finished and so am I!  

It was so labor intensive-I needed a spa;  if only....

 I put out my tall front door trees....the wreath is also hung there now. 

My Christmas cacti are all in bloom-a wonderful addition to my decor!

 I am really paring back on the decorations this year! 

 Not for reasons of being a Grinch but because of the work!

 Now these are my latest creations with rope-real cotton rope this time!  

(They are both about 10" across and 6' and 8" tall)

   

 After being inspired by Pintrest, I tried a few fancy 'holes' in my side walls.   

     I also experimented with securing the end of the rope when finishing. 

     This basket has grey in the top and bobbin thread for a shadowy grey tint to the basket.

I used only white in this one but played around with the holes. 

 I used only 50' for each basket.

I was thinking they would work for yarn bowls also-and big enough for a few yarn cakes, 

needles and pattern!  I much prefer this kind of 'work' any day!!!