I Was Knit Together In My Mother's Womb

I've been looking for a reason not to knit that intarsia sweater that I saw in Anthropologie this past spring. Remember that black sweater with the giant white flower motifs on it?

  This is the sweater I HAD to make, and I bought the yarn for it...

   But now I've changed my mind. I just can't seem to think about creating a pattern right now. So last night, I was at my parent's house, and Lana, my sister-in-law, had the Spring Summer VK (which for whatever reason, did not at all grab my attention when I browsed through it a few months ago)  and I fell in a bad way for this cutie...

  I have enough yarn from the cardigan project to do this...right guage, too! Don't you love those big buttons on the bodice?

I've been reading.

  Any thoughts? I can't talk about it just yet, but it's all I want to talk about!

My favorite place to be these days is on porch. With my husband. Talking, knitting  and enjoying the neighborhood. Don't you think with the rising price of gas, we'll all become more home and neighbor- oriented?  I hope so.

 

Whoa, where did this week go?   Summer arrives and our time is exponentially limited by the increasing hours of daylight. How does that happen? Is there a mathematical formula for this phenomenon?

Earlier this week, Mr. Mailman ( I still don't know his name) delivered a Sweet Treat from my Special Swap pal, Val. Such a delightful package!

The contents satisfied pretty much all of my current cravings! Chocolate (from Val's recent trip to Switzerland),yarn, patterns, knitty stuff, and fun colors. I loved all of the sweet candy colors and the bowlful of yarn is just gorgeous. Thank you so much, Val! It's a great swap package, and I will enjoy it very much! Val has such a great sense of color and is always knitting and sewing the best stuff. I love seeing what she's up to every week. She makes fabulous little box bags and beautiful socks, and she sells yarn! My kind of gal, that Val!

I'm still working away on my bobbles for that skirt. One row of bobbles takes about five hours, I think. Right now, I have two more to go before I can drop the stitches to create the lace. I've also been working on my Green Gable, which is trudging along. But next post, I'll share about a special knit project that I've been working on this past week.

Bless  your day by being the first person to tell someone that you love them today.  

On being green

I have SUCH a craving for new yarn. Something for summer. But I have to drive to work, and therein lies the problem. One skein of summer cotton blend yarn= one gallon of gas.

So I shall knit from my stash. Stash instead of gas.

Recently,we were watching a program on HGTV , HGTV's Green Home.

Home building and decorating "green" style. Not the color green, but the latest societal buzz word "green." In this program, builders created their most energy efficient home and interior designers shared the ways we could be eco-friendly when we feather our nests.

Can we talk? 

The green home decorators were proud to use  salvaged materials. Salvaging...using furniture and parts that have been discarded and giving them a new life. We've been doing it for years! I have thrifted, antiqued, dumpster dived, trash-to treasured, flea-marketed and garage-saled. In fact, most of my house is decorated with a "reusable resource!"

Energy efficiency. I'm sorry, did the planet just take notice of the "Energy Star Rating" that is on every appliance since 1992?  We always look for the most energy officiant appliances, along with putting plastic on our windows and a towel under the door  if we have to stop a draft. We don't have central air, but we close the windows until a certain time of day and open them for maximum airflow and coolness, just like generations past. I've hung my laundry to dry. We take advantage of shade trees and landscape to encourage habitation of birds and butterflies. In fact, it wasn't like a (compact fluorescent) light bulb went off in my head when the Green Home suggested we have birdhouses in our yards! And speaking of compact fluorescent...I'll tell you why I won't use them. I'm more concerned about the impact the mercury in them would have on our health and environment should they break or need disposal!

We already have low-flow toilets, and by golly, when I was growing up with a dug well and a septic tank in the back yard, my dad made us conserve flushes, if you know what I mean! And we didn't do laundry when the well was low. Period. We had a cistern! Imagine that! An actual, working cistern! We also had a rain barrel, and we will have one at this house. My old house, and the house we live in today has one and a half baths, not one for each bedroom. I raised a decent sized family with one shower in the house! If a kid wasn't done in 7 minutes, we would slowly cut back the hot water at the shut-off valve so they would move it along!

And by the way, who doesn't insulate to keep your energy bills down? We also wear layers in the winter and wear warm socks.

I had to laugh at the part about dirt control. ...removing shoes at the door contributes to the "greenness" of your home! But seriously, didn't you grow up hearing their mother yell constantly,"Take your shoes off!!!!"

It's just interesting to me that many of us and many before us have been economizing and being sensible about our homes for years and years, and somehow, now it's called being "Green." I guess it's more trendy these days to be better stewards of our environment and our personal resources? I wonder sometimes if we're just plain spoiled by having too much?  The fact is that most of us will never be able to afford all of the bells and whistles of that $850,000 green home. But I guess the good thing is, it's now cool to be green, and wise to be thrifty, and we can all do our share to conserve.

That's all I have to say about that.

H is for Hosta

I is for Impatiens

Hostas and Impatiens are the standards of my shade garden, year after year. They never fail me and require minimal care, yet delightfully display their various hues of green and white.

My Humble Impression is that they are Horticulturally Inerrant.

Husband Update!

JR is home. JR is HOME!  Resting a bit more comfortably today in a borrowed recliner, with the remote at his side. Last night was a hard night, but surgery on Wednesday went well according to Dr. Guru.  We will have final pathology next Friday, at which time continued treatment will be determined. But he is home, and today is a great day because he was able to give a really good hug and he's smiling!

Thank you again for all of your prayers, emails and phone calls.

(I'm  very concerned about the recliner situation. Katie said this morning that I finally lost control in my marriage when I let that recliner in the house!  I caved in the name of comfort for my husband, and now, all he talks about is getting one of his own! I can see it now... Help! My husband has fallen into the recliner and can't get up! And he wants me to leave him there!)

Let's see.  This weekend, we bought....Reading glasses, fiber supplement  and discounted geraniums...at Walmart. On Saturday night.

We talked about ...wouldn't it be fun to get together to play cards with friends once a month?

                         ...how we look so much better with our clothes on than off these days.

                        ...what we would do if the family with five teenagers, who looked at the house for sale next door, moved in?  The word "Police" came up in our conversation, as well as "after 10:00 pm." They hadn't even put in an offer, yet.

We ate... at a local diner

           ... McDonald's $1 cones

           ...our fiber.

And I'm not even fifty yet!

               

                  

  In a few days, JR has his surgery.  Needless to say, we have been delighting in these days...working around the house and yard, and just being together. We have always enjoyed our time together, no matter what we're doing, but the last several weeks have been particularly important to us.  And do you want to know the best part? We've been able to laugh and talk and be silly. You may wonder how that's possible when we are living with the fact that JR has cancer.

Can I tell you that it is because of our honest, steadfast, dependent faith in God? Would you believe that it's possible?  Truly, I cannot think of how we could find such joy when facing a crisis like this. I've wondered if it's plain old denial, but really, I have to say, it's plain old faith. God gives us the protection and peace we need...surrounding us, going before us, gathering us under His wing, and holding us as we fall asleep and wake each day....and He does that through the people in our lives, and the comfort of scripture and prayer.  We honestly do consider this trial a joy. We know without a doubt that because of it, we will be different and better with each other, our families and our ministry. We cannot help but feel the presence of God when we so desperately seek Him and see Him daily.  And being in the presence of God makes us know how big and great He is,and we are  humbled by the fact that so great a God  cares so much for us. 

Just last week, someone gave us an article from the Buffalo News about the surgery that JR is having. His surgeon, Dr. Guru, was quoted as saying....“God has put three or four organs in there and surrounded it with lots of blood vessels and fatty tissue,” which to us, was such a cool thing to read!  JR's  surgeon very publicly acknowledged that God has designed us....one of those little affirmations that are gifted to us on a daily basis, along with the encouragement and prayers of so many friends, family and acquaintances, doctors, nurses and neighbors.

We are thankful today because so far, there is no cancer in JR's major organs, and though we don't have the results of the bone scan, at this point, no news is good news. So we are anticipating Wednesday not with dread, but with joy. Knowing without a doubt that if faith sustained us this far, it will in the days and years ahead.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

I guess it's all in your perspective... Do you see the big picture or the details?

  How do you see your world?

  Not enough? All that you can handle? Is today enough for today or do you, like I, want it done yesterday?

When we moved to this house, I knew that the biggest struggle I would have would be missing my gardens....twenty years of growing our gardens, as much a part of who we were as anything. When we moved to this little village lot, we came to a blank slate, heavy clay soil, a stray hosta or daffodil and little else. Other than a vision.  We have been working on our back yard for the last year, and finally , yesterday, I could see it. The future garden beds, the patio, the trees and shrubs. I felt like I have accomplished very little in the last few weeks, and yesterday, I began to see in actuality what I've been seeing in my mind. 

 

Chairs painted, steps built, and my first official container perennials planted! One step at a time, and enjoying every bit of it.

Bobbles perfected, short row shaping refined. Which was almost as satisfying as  having the finished garment! Even though there are  dozens and dozens more bobbles to knit and an entire sweater to complete. I loved learning and redoing and visualizing. I loved the challenge of something new.

 

Do you see what needs to be done or do you see what has been done?

Lush and Lacy is finished.

 

 

Lush and Lacy, by SweaterBabe, and it is knit with Sublime Merino Cashmere Silk DK.

This sweater? A winner.

Modifications?  Many.

1. I used a smaller guage yarn, so I knit the largest size on a #7 needle. But even with that, I found this to be a smaller fitting sweater, for me anyway.  So, I did more increases for the bustline.

2. I modified the lace insert so that it did not have the two purl stitches as border stitches of the lace panel. Instead, I did stockinette. I didn't want the change in texture. ( I lost my detail photo, so I'll add it later!)

3. The lower gathers are sweet. I love this detail. Here, I changed the transition from the gathering to the lace panel to a 1X1 ribbing instead of the garter stitch. It made for a more consistent style element, as there was also 1X1 ribbing along the bottom and the sleeve edges, and along the front. Additionally, I modified the neck from a garter stitch to the same ribbing that is throughout.

4. I modified the sleeve to give it a larger armhole opening, and then I added some fullness to the top of the sleeve, to give it a bit of poof.

5. No buttons. At some point, I may add one button with a loop closure just under the bust, but I'm not sure yet.

In all, I was concerned that I wouldn't like the sweater. Now that it's finished, I have to say it's one of my favorites. The color, the style. I love it...I've already worn it twice! I actually feel like a Sweater Babe! 

Isn't this color incredible? 

It reminds me of the color of the ocean   when I was in Hawaii.

I'm changing up the Green Gable this time around. This version will have elbow length sleeves and I'm going to use short row shaping for the bustline, following the Shapely Tank pattern  AND  the Knitty tutorial AND Lisa's copy of Big Girl Knits. I have no fear! I will make a shapely-short row-big girl-Green Gable!

Look what I checked off my list!

  Despite many pre-finish concerns about fit, I have to tell you that I think I love this sweater. With the several modifications made, it's a winner. I'll share more about what I did on my "reveal" post in  a few days....I can't wait to show you!

What else is new? Let's see. Faux Tan. That's how I'm doing it this summer, and so far the results are favorable. I figure it's a good idea to practice safe sunning at this point in my life, since I have long neglected the aging and cancer warnings. This stuff is awesome...better than any other tanning product I've tried.

   

What are you going to do this weekend? Plant annuals? Put out your patio furniture?  Me? I'm tanning, knitting, reading, and singing. And enjoying some time with my husband.