Next Project!

This will be a sweater for my sweetheart. It is a 100% cotton navy and tan slub yarn, and it varies in thickness every eight to ten inches or so.

The Quipper wants a sweater a little longer than most he can find in the stores to help him comply with Ohio laws. My hope is that this will help him keep warm but not overheat when he wears it over a polo to work, to church, or out and about.

I've begun making swatches to see what size needles I need for this sweater. The yarn is very challenging to use at first, but that got easier as I went along. Counting rows and stitches is nearly impossible, no matter how bright a light I sat under. So I will need to write out row-by-row instructions for myself again.

There are new things for me to learn in this pattern too, once I get up to the shoulder area. I'm up to the challenge. More immediately, learning how to work with and count the yarn and stitches/rows while swatching. This will not come together as quickly as my gray alpaca sweater. I do hope it is done in time for him to wear it in the fall.

Tea for Two

and two more!

I love it that a 9 yo still likes to have tea parties with her dolls. Her brother was invited to join her today too. This time she had real milk and cookies and lavender from the garden adorning her cookie tray.
All this is in stark contrast to the 9 yo of last night who got quite a workout sparring with her classmates at Tae Kwon Do. I'm frustrated with my timing using this camera. The shutter snaps just prior to or just after her kicks. She is wearing an oversize black tee shirt. She really is not just standing around the whole time as my photos seem to represent!

C'est Finis!

The last touches of seaming are in progress here along the right side. This last seem is my best one so far. It is almost indistinguishable. Along the underside of the sleeve the seam shows a little more, but I am still happy with it. The sleeves have an interesting, pleasing contour to them. And they seem just a touch long. I'll have to note on my pattern to make the sleeves about 4 rows shorter next time. I'll be thankful for the length in the winter. My daughter had fun cropping my head in these photos of the finished sweater with the collar down... ...and with the collar up.
See how nicely it clashes with summer pants!

I'm thinking ahead to the next projects. I have bought some cotton yarn to make a sweater for the Quipper and some cotton blend to make one for my son. I'm still searching for just the right ribbon yarn to use on a summer top I found in a magazine too. Oh, and there are the baseball socks, neglected and forgotten in the bottom of my knit bag. I suppose I ought to get going on those too. At least while I wait for the yarn I just bought to arrive.

Colors of Summer

Mom's ferns. Sentamental and dear to me. They will travel with me if and whenever I move.


Hot pink dianthus liven up the garden that is still in development. It blooms in spring and needs summer blooms to fill up the rest of the empty space.











Some kind of geranium relative. I like the way they spread out and fill a large area.










This is one of the beautiful and very fragrant roses that came with the house. I'm so glad I did not kill it when I had to move it before a waterproofing project.









Lovely lavendar -- one of my very favorites!











And the whole reason I brought the camera out to the garden: Tiger Lillies. We have several groups of them around the yard. The Quipper likes the way they break up all the green along the property line.











The Easter Lilies are not in bloom yet, they will have to wait for another post.

Shamrock Vineyard

Continuing our weekend get-away:

The next stop was Waldo, Oh where we eschewed the town's famous fried bologna sandwiches (it sounds completely revolting to me, one who will not eat hot dogs or buy bologna for my kids). We went straight to Shamrock Vineyard. This is a small winery and the perfect introduction to wine tasting for us.
We got a tour by ourselves and another couple joined us by the time we got around to a tasting. It was interesting to see the different varieties of vines and how some had suffered in the weather and some had thrived.

We sipped eight varieties of wine and marked on our paper which ones we liked. Rick and I had the same first choice and different second choices. So we got some of each.

This is a tiny vineyard tucked way away. En route we were very close to our destination, but still not sure where it was. This is what we saw: Lots and lots of cornfields. We joked that this must be some sort of whisky wine. Actually the small group of buildings in the upper left quadrant are the winery.

Below is a n example of vines on their way back from frost damage a few years ago. And the super hearty concord vines that tolerate cold better than the more delicate ones. In all I think our guide said they have about 11 grape varieties growing in their vineyards. This intimidating machine is a stem separator. This contraption is a bladder press. The grapes are loaded in and layered with rice hulls (I forget why). Then the bladder in the center is filled with water and the grape juice runs through the slats and is collected in a tray at the bottom. The material left inside is called grapecake (skins, seeds, rice hulls). The guide told us they compost it, and the birds have a field day with all the seeds. Some holding tanks.
After the winery we ate a nice dinner at the hotel and saw Inside Man ("perfect crime" bank robbery movie). Then I also saw Runaway Jury.

Sunday morning we woke up feeling all the soreness from Saturday's trail ride! We walked around Easton to see the art fair and to decide where to eat lunch. We decided on Mongolian Barbeque. It was fun and good food. I would like to take the kids some time.

Some Assembly Required

Here it is -- almost done. Just need to put it together!Last night I wove in some two dozen loose ends and there are still more that I'll use to begin seaming. I ended up knitting the collar in the round and I'm very pleased with it. I was worried for a while because the pattern calls for picking up 82 stitches around the neck. When I counted up all the bound off stitches that would be abutting the collar there were nearly 100, but it worked out fine and it is not too big or too loose over the neck. Perhaps this is because I used a US 4 circular needle instead of the US 6 that I used for the ribbing over the rest of the sweater. I'll need to buy a US 6 some time, but 10 p.m. last night was not the time!

The collar can be worn up... ...or folded over.I printed off my step-by-step tutorial on how to do the mattress stitch. Maybe tonight...

A Short Drive Took Us Far Away

Wow! What a weekend! This can be modified somewhat to say "Ouch! What a weekend!"

We had the best time. Friday we lunched with the Quipper's brother and girlfriend visiting from California. That was a nice surprise, as we did not expect we would be able to spend any time with them.

Then we drove down to Columbus, OH and checked in to the hotel . Once we had settled in our room we had to check out the hotel's athletic club. Very nice!!! They had machines I had never seen before. Of course, we had to try them. I'm not sure what my sweetheart did, but I started on a treadmill in my old, worn out tennis shoes. So I knew my shins would be sore the next day. (And they still are).

Then I moved on to the sauna to rub my shins and prep for laps in the pool. The indoor pool was perfectly lovely, and large enough that I could keep my own lane. I'm not sure how many laps I did, but I did enough in front crawl to have sore triceps. Then my sweetheart came down to the pool to tell me he was done. Back to the sauna (my favorite) and off to see where we might dine that night. The evening brought us to a comedy club at Easton Town Center. We had dinner at the Funny Bone Comedy Club and Cafe. The meal far surpassed both of our expectations. We had some really great food there. I would go there again, but not to see the same headliner. We saw Jason Russell and Louis CK. Jason Russell had us in stitches. We laughed constantly, the whole time, and we were pleased that he did not need vulgarity as a crutch. The club passed out free Louis CK CDs to everyone at the show. Ours will go in the trash. He was a trashy kind of guy so it will be right at home there.The Funny Bone, just starting to fill up.
We enjoyed our dinner!

Saturday was beautiful. The rain had stopped the evening before. We grabbed a quick bite for breakfast and Bob Evans and that made us appreciate our favorite local family restaurant, Victorio's, even more. Quality is the same and at Victorio's we get more food for less money.

Then we had an hour to kill before our appointment at Field of Dreams Stables so we drove around and looked at neighborhoods. We picked up fliers for several houses for sale in the area. The Quipper noticed that the annual taxes were more than our current annual mortgage!!!I loved the entry way on this house.

We got to the stables and began our hour long trail ride through thick forested area along Blacklick Creek. Our guide was an OSU Forestry major. The three of us wound through the woods and crossed the creek numerous times. It was so pretty and so peaceful. We did not see any wildlife but we saw deer tracks a few times. The only mare at the stables this summer! All the males were pretty feisty.The Quipper is riding 7 year old Cactus Jack. Sorry I chopped your head off in the one photo, dear!

I'm riding a 12 year old named Outlaw. We walked our horses in the arena while our guide got ready. Some scenes from the trail. You can see the banks are a good bit higher than the stream. Some of the descents/assents were steep and so muddy the horses had to take a running jump. That was quite a surprise the first time! The first surprise is probably why I am still so sore today. Outlaw did not like to get his feet muddy and he jumped more than the others. He also beat me up be leaving the path to avoid mud and ran my legs into the trees.

Coming tomorrow - the rest of the trip.

Summer Storms

I'm glad to have the rain. But lets have a few dry days in between! Something dug up a bunch of my green bean seedlings (grrrr), the ones the deer did not eat earlier. Now the ground is soft and I'll be away from home and unable to guard my garden for a few days.

Last night we all slept down on the first floor due to the storms last night. Tonight, we have more storms predicted so we will probably "camp" in the living room again to comfort the little ones.

My photo did not turn out too well. Here I was surprised to see my solar lights were on at 4:10 p.m. this afternoon. You see one white blip in the middle of the left bottom quadrant. It is not really as black outside as it looks in the photo, and the lights went out again about 20 minutes later when the storm passed.

The Quipper and I will be celebrating our anniversary (one month later!) with a weekend away beginning tomorrow. Maybe I'll have some photos when I get back. I'll try to get some good ones for the horse lovers who read here.

I've never been to a winery before either, so I'm hoping for some interesting things to photograph there too.I want to finish the last sleeve on my sweater tonight and block all the pieces so I can begin assembling them when I get home. Here that last sleeve is about half done. I found that using a mattress stitch will allow me to seam the collar without too much bulk. So I am now leaning towards knitting the collar flat instead of in the round. The final decision will be made when I get home.