FO: Cathedral Grove Shawl

I have a good friend who loves the KAL. We had two shawl KALs between us over the last year. Perhaps I will finish the first this year. The second however is done.  It is Romi Hill's Cathedral Grove.  I do love a good lace knit. It does feel like my happiest knitting place (if not the most functional sort of project...that leads me to not thinking about how many lace shawls I have finished...). The dark yarn is Malabrigo Sock, color Pocion. The wonderful rosey orange,  I have not clue. I had just enough to finish.

OK, that's it for now...I am not working at present and should have time to knit  but the garden keeps me busy, and I am determined to be a better iris gardener this year. Here is my first open of the year:  Iris Siberica, Caesar's Brother

Dia de los Muertos 2013

It is Dio de los Muertos, the Mexican "Day of the Dead" during which we can more easily commune with our ancestors. Marigolds are a symbol of the holiday, and mine are doing REALLY well now that our weather has moderated, although maybe the composted manure helped too...

Wild Salad and new children's projects!

 Once upon a time, I lived in the Bronx.  I was interested in foraging for wild food.  My friend Lois and I went on a foraging outing in Central Park with Wildman Steve Brill.  At that time, we had to dodge the park police!  We had a blast.  His specialty was "Five Borough Salad"! Another friend's little son and my husband at the time formed a movement called "Men Against Wild Salad" or "MAWS"!!  Today, my sister sent me a clip to  a bit of video from youtube with Steve Brill that's current:

In knitting news, here is the start of two small people's items:

This will be a Tomten jacket for a wee one, I know not who...

 I saved the copy from an ANCIENT copy of Vogue magazine!! 

from 1988...note I wrote "bad directions" the first time I knit it, probably 18 years ago...

 And this will be a Fabled Cardigan for my niece

Here are some garden photos...

I am going on vacation on Friday to, well, somewhere in Europe. I look forward to sharing with you some fibery finds from my trip!

Easy jewelry thing

I decided to try a bit of knitted jewelry

This was fun and easy,  Laura Nelkin's Butin Collar.  

In other news, I have a cherry tomato plant growing out of my compost.  Bonus!

More spring

The garden and yard have a lot of my attention this week

I love my iris

In other news, my friend Linda gave me a bag of cleaned soft underbelly fur from her pup, Isabelle.   It smells like doggie shampoo. Sammie investigates

The fibers are very short, about an inch.  The fiber will need to be carded and rolled on to puni's before spinning, both of which I need more practice at.  I have done this with cat fur before but not dog fur.

I had a nice weekend with lots of road knitting time as my son and I motored  to upstate SC and back. The baby sweater didn't go as planned, I changed patterns, here we are so far

It will be a little hoodie with buttons up the front.  I modified the pattern to do it in the round, my strategy.  A description of the pattern is here;  it's free although one must sign in to Bernat to get it.

Does she look like me?

I gave Theodora-Lucia long hair because I don't have it...she and her klukka (Icelandic for "slip" or underdress) are done. She's finally smiling because she has hair, eyes, a smile, and a klukka...

More wardrobe to follow...

I finished a hat for R

No, R isn't pictured here, it's B...in the Utopia hat, done in Cascade 220 washable wool.

And in other news, it's warm here on the first of February in SC...

rosemary is starting to bloom

"native" SC gladioli are sprouting...actually, they are not native, they were brought to America some 300 years ago...called "african parrot"

 

cats want out to eat some grass

and the garden produces lettuce and broccoli

Baby Gift

Someone in my family had a baby boy last week.  I was smart and started a blankie last summer.  I confess, it's another opportunity for a not-natural fiber.  Young parents don't have time to hand wash and line dry, sorry EZ.  No, it won't be terribly warm...but it's cute and will be warm-ish.   I just finished it last night.  It's all Bernat from Walmart.  

Basic directions:  cast on 3 stitches, work in garter, increase one stitch at beginning of each row, work till yarn is half used up, decrease one stitch at beginning of each row. Bind off last 3 stitches.  This is another loose hap shawl square variant.

There is crocheting involved:  With a crochet hook, with single crochet, pickup  2 stitches in each in between row (ie between the garter bumps).  Please don't ask me how to express that better in crochet lingo, I just don't know.  Go round the whole edge.  On the next row, to make picot edge, sc in 2 stitches, then double crochet x3 in every 3rd stitch/loop.  Contact me if you really wanna do this!  It makes a nice little slightly frilly edge.

OK, gotta get this in the mail soon, to Ohio, for a little baby boy.  It's very exciting to see one's neices and nephews have babies.  Uh oh, guess this means I'm a great aunt or something similar??

In other news, isn't the muted late afternoon autumn light lovely?  

I don't think kitties care, they just want to act like they really have an opportunity to hunt at the feeder visitors...

An azalea I planted is blooming, sometimes they bloom twice a year...

And, in the garden, lettuce, cukes, and broccoli are starting to sprout on the right side of this photo...

Flashback: my 70's blue jeans

Between my junior and senior years in college, I went to southern France in the summer to live with a family and, ostensibly, study.  I took a pair of jeans.  I don't recall spending too much time studying.  The foreign language "immersion" concept didn't work at all well on me. 

While there, I remember reading Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain. And Village in the Vaucluse (that was much more interesting, and it's also still in print). I recall sitting in a park and inhaling the lavender.  I recall watching the best fireworks I've ever seen on Bastille Day  at the Pont d'Avignon. (Made me feel a little better about missing the Fourth of July). I recall wearing shorts one day and a woman gasped when she saw me. I then spent most of my time in either skirts or my jeans.

I must've been wearing a skirt as I was embroidering the jeans.  I lived with a family in Avignon, in walking distance of the downtown.  (I recall the Mom of the family did hand sewing for clothing made of that lovely traditional Provencal print fabric; I watched her hand sew a skirt zipper in with incredible tiny, perfect, fast stitches.) I went downtown and found embroidery floss, not like the mercerized Coats and Clark, no shine.

I wore the h---  out of them both there and when I got home.    Last week, in an effort to clean out some stuff,  found them.

 

Note the lavender on the right rear pocket.

"Coquelicots" is French for "poppies."

On the subject of plants, that really nice guy who I know cleaned out and dug up my garden yesterday.  We left the eggplant, basil, zinneas and bee balm. (The eggplant are the white teardrop shaped things). Today we consulted Clemson for the South Carolina fall planting guide.  I planted broccoli, lettuce, cucumber seeds, and some onions.  It's getting cooler here...ah, end of summer in South Carolina...planting season.

Miscellaneous

I am VERY DELIGHTED that Ninja Jen of Knitting History has another podcast up!  It's at podbean although I get mine via itunes.  I am a big fan of hers, and frankly she has the best music of all podcasters...I am a devoted knitting podcast listener although sometimes I've been known to listen to casts from Walter Edgar, South Carolina's preeminant historian, and also The People's Pharmacy.  Someone I know really likes the ScienceFriday podcasts, "SciFri" if you're in the know.

Here is a photo that I like, more shetland...

And here is another

Almost done with the project this is being used for.

Here are some garden photos from this week:

Zinneas do incredibly well in my garden at this time of year, in the SC heat 

 Lantana, the butterflies like it

Ginger,  No, I don't eat it, but it smells a little like gardenias, a fragrance which I love.  This likes the shade.

Everything else in the garden is looking hot and starting to be brown.  

I must say that I am glad we did not need to deal with a hurricane.  However,  I have my plywood and double headed nails to board up the windows if need be.  And a teenaged son to help me do it!

I am hard at work on completing some lace shawls and feeling guilty that holiday knitting isn't on my list of stuff to do yet...

Not alot of knitting, basil content alert

The garden is maxing out in the heat.  The string beans and tomatos are done.  It's hot where I live, and almost time for the second crop, contents to be determined.

One of my favorite books is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  A la Barbara and her family,  I am working to include my garden produce in my meals, and working a bit toward being a locavore.  Here's part of the basil crop

I made a basil and olive oil mix in the cuisinart to freeze.  Added a little lemon juice to keep it from turning too black. I'm not a big pesto fan, so I leave the cheese out.  A favorite salad dressing involves  basil, olive oil, walnuts, a little red wine vinegar, s & p, some grey poupon, whizzed in the blender.

I found a really cute bag of small red, and white onions, and yellow shallots.  I cut a little "X" in the root end, popped them in to boiling water for 20 seconds, popped them out of their peels, threaded them on skewers, too cute!

added some of my basil mix and balsalmic to marinade them.

  It's hard to describe how good they were once grilled on my stovetop grill (here with watercress, farmer's market tomatoes, millet with seasonings

I redid the border on the Noro afghan:  much better in this triangular points edging.

 

Hat Trick

My two sons are headed to various outdoor adventures in the north this summer.  One will be in Alaska, the other Idaho.  I undertook the Classic World War II Watch Cap for one.  Previous musings are here.  It didn't fit the intended son; but fit the other one.

Lion Brand, Vanna's choice. I did a little 1x1 cable in the middle of the 6 stitch panel, for visual interest.

Thanks to a reader who suggested that the iris that I photo'd in the same post is iris virginica, a flag iris.