Why I Make...

The things I make...

easter egg hunt bags, made by Grandmama, pattern found on PurlBee
Because there is no better thrill.

None.

Lilac Heaven

Every day I drive this street to and from work.

Every day I have been watching.  Watching and waiting.  Hoping for a good lilac year.

And this has been a good one.

Last year, Wonderful Guy drove me around our fair burg to collect photos of the blooming trees.  This past Saturday....we drove my way to work.  Only this time we pulled over and took a bit of a walk.

This planting lines one of the main arteries of our fair burg, but at this point it is more a 'boulevard'.

The street is approaching a busy intersection, that was a four way stop on the outskirts of town when I approached work from a different direction 14 years ago.

These sentinels have seen the change.

Now they screen the adjacent neighborhood from the noise of the traffic.

The row of scent-iness continues for probably a block and a half, maybe two blocks.

And the bushes have been cared for.  There is evidence of pruning at the base.

There is a goodly variety, that is for sure.

I wonder if it's the neighborhood's bailiwick, or the city who takes such good care. I surely would like to thank them.

(Click for big.  They are worth it.)

Grounded

Middle of May in northern Colorado.

The winter deadfall has been cleaned out of the yard (finally), and the early blooms are going strong.  There are enough for a fun bouquet for the kitchen table.

A seed display at the hardware store sucked me in a few months ago. I planted a few things indoors, and even planted some directly outside.  Well guess what.  Mother Nature winning!

Peas

Lettuce

carrots

While my shorter iris were blooming when I got home from my trip, Silverado, my consistent first bloomer, opened May 15th with a perfect bloom, under cloudy skies and rain drops.

And we may have a tenant in one of the birdhouses.

I can believe that I am going to be sitting on my patio after riding home from work on my bike by the end of the month.

Especially Proud

The idea and purpose of this project came to me one night before sleep. One skein of silk, bought on sale (40% off, no less!). One dress, for Eldest’s wedding in Cancun. The need for simple handmade accessory, for the shoulders of a sleeveless dress, without adding heaviness or warmth.

The colors of yarn and dress were verified the next day as working well together. Next issue was finding a shawlette pattern that was suitable for yarn, yardage, and purpose. (Ravelry, I worship thee and thy advanced search capabilities.) Not just Annis, but Mini-Annis! seemed to fit the bill.

Knitting up in just a few days (seriously, about 4, and not plane knitting), the lace pattern is nicely written, and works up very well. The short rows make a wonderfully shaped shawl. I think I will look for others.

I used only about 2/3's of the skein of yarn, and was wondering about the size of the completed shawl at first.  Perhaps it was too diminuitive?  But, and perhaps there are those who don't know this, blocking lace is absolute magic.  Majick! I tell you.  My shawl-ette is a perfectly sized shawl-ette.

After blocking, the shawl works perfectly for the wedding purposes. And after the wedding, I will have a silk scarf to tuck around the collar of a coat this winter.

I am especially proud.
(click for biggy to view details up close)

Dogwoods, Azaleas, and Wisteria! Oh My!

For me, the key is to appreciate what an individual place can offer.

It is rarely a redbud is spied here in northern Colorado, and never a dogwood.  But I generally don’t have to fight rot in my iris rhizomes, and we don’t have chiggers or fleas either. So I can call it good.

My growing season keeps me from having homegrown tomatoes until August, and often freezes them in early in October.  And that is truly grievous.  But I do not suffer with horrid and long, hot and humid summers.  In general, I don’t have to treat my roses for mildew and black spot.

See.  Life is good wherever I am.  But I must say, when Eldest drove me toward her home, and I saw the dogwoods, I was Thrilled. To. Death! What an unlooked-for surprise.

The azalea and rhododendrons were crazy blooming, too.  Some bushes were so full, I was thinking there weren’t any leaves there!

Wisteria is just so…grapey looking!  And smelly, or fragrant, depending on one's particular take.  But cool, too.

The thing about back east, and in the mid-south, and along the Missouri river valley, is this stuff grows free range!  Well, not wisteria in Missouri…but all the rest!

At the gardens, I also impressed my daughter by spying some early wildflowers.

 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

May apple

Trillium

Lady’s Slipper

 
And this one, which I think is another Lady's Slipper, but feel free to correct me (on this or any of the above).

She asked me how I knew these guys were there.  These are ones I never get to see, the ones I have mostly only read about.  These are special and uncommon ones for me to see.

So pretty cool.  And also, extra points that I can impress the youngsters, you know…

In Other News

The evening before I left for the right coast, I attended a ‘Fixing Mistakes’ class at my LYS.  It was a 2 hour class on the right and proper way to pick up dropped stitches and such.

Yes.  I know.  I have been knitting an awful long time to not know such a thing, and it embarrasses me to say so, but my error correcting has been a bit of bluffing up to this point.

I am not a perfectionist.  Often I will wheedle my way around a mistake, if I think it won’t matter, or show…too much.  I would call myself an B+/A- knitter if perfectionism is an A+ knitter.

So yeah.  I spent 2 hours, but learned some tricks, so I thought it was worth the money.  Timewise, it seemed a lot, but my class mates were less experienced than I, so perhaps they appreciated the time.

Will I be able to drop back 10 rows to correct a cable crossed the wrong way?  Probably not so I would post about it here…

That day I also cast on Annis (mini-version, rav linky) in Textiles A Manos Painted Bangkok (100% silk) to wear with my ‘I birthed the bride’ dress.  I thought it would be the perfect size for the amount of yarn in the skein, but I have cast off, and have way more than I expected left over.  What to do?  The shawl-ette is a shade small, even for an –ette, so I thought I could frog and re-knit a bit bigger.  There are a couple of things that keep me from that, however.  One is the way silk yarn can behave, and that is badly, all grabby and tangly, even if it knits like buttah.  The other is the way shawls can eat yarn, and I may think I am adding just a smidge at the front end, but as the shawl is worked, that ‘just a smidge’ results in using more yarn than I ever dreamt, and than I could possibly have.  And I end up short 12 inches from the end on the cast off row, and also, with stress lines from worrying about it through the last five rows, as I see the yarn disappear into the shawl…

So I think I am about ready to break yarn (yes, it’s true. I haven’t committed even to that at this point.), block it and call it good, leftover yarn be damned. Or just left over...

I have word from the far north that the required yarn is winging it’s way to Colorado that I need to finish up Eldest’s swimsuit cover up for the wedding trip.  That’s a relief!  I was not finding that anywhere else.  Thank Bob for Ravelry and good hearted knitters with big stashes willing to trade their goods.

While knitting on the cover up during my flights to and from Philly, two or three flight attendants commented on my knitting.  That is a new experience for me.  I know others find knitters in interesting and far-flung places, even other Ravelers.  I, alas, have not…until now.  I even spied another knitter while waiting to board the return flight, and had the chance to speak to her, having lost my seat in the gate area when I left to visit the restroom.  However, she was tinking back a her ‘first sock ever’, and we did not speak much beyond that as I did not want to break her concentration.

I am thoughtful that way.

Also incredibly lacking in conversational acumen.

Mother’s Day

I rarely get to spend Mother’s Day with Eldest, so this one was a special treat.  She asked Youngest what she should do.  Youngest told her our typical arrangement was to visit the nursery on Mother’s Day and pick out something for my yard.

So…while in Philly, Eldest and I picked up a couple of things from the nursery…and planted them in her yard…for Mother’s Day!  She bought me a peony and a hydrangea.

We saw this one in bloom at Longwood Gardens, and that is what we chose (or one close to it).  Not your typical hydrangea, and I liked it, because of that. I told her about hydrangeas being pink or blue depending on the alkalinity or acidity of the soil.  We are scientific that way...but I went on to say it was more like coffee grounds and lime....not sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid...

The peony was on sale, being rather puny in comparison to the big, robust bushes we found down the bench aways.  I am a sucker for the scrawny plants….at 50% off.  And a peony?  It’ll do. I just love me a good smelly peony!  Reminds me of old farm gardens, and big bouquets on kitchen tables.

But the big news on Mother’s Day?  Her first two tall bearded iris opened up.  Two that came from my yard, that I helped her plant 3 years ago.

Doesn’t get much better than that.

Home Again, Home Again

I swear.

It takes longer and longer, the older I get, to recover my equilibrium from vacationing.

Perhaps I should do less doing and more relaxing?  Nahhhh….that would not be very restful for me, I think.

I digress.  I am back from a wonderful time, even without the sheep festival.  There were two botanical gardens (of sorts), time in Eldest’s garden, the bridal shower, and just hanging with her peeps.

Traveling was relatively uneventful.  Weather served up decently.

And the dogwoods were in bloom!

But when I got home?

My lilacs were showing off…

Lilacs won this year.

Postcard from Philly

Youngest to me to the plane, so I had a bit of time with the grandgirls, before flying back east, leaving sunny Colorado for a cloudy and chill east coast. While we were descending to land, I was sure hoping the pilot knew where the ground was...

So here I am, and we are laying our plans.  The Sheep and Wool  Festival may have slipped in priorities.  May be to far to drive for other deadlines that day.  Oh well...it's just wool.

Today we are heading to the botanical gardens...weather permitting.

Why I Knit

And also, a (not necessarily totally) gratuitious grandbebe photo...

Here's Ginger...wearing one of the cutie pie undershirts I have knitted out of cotton for her enjoyment and her mother's ease of care.

I am seriously missing those grandbebe girls.

Alpaca yarn

In spite of the KittyBoy to make it his bed, I finished a couple bobbins of alpaca singles and 2-plied two skeins worth amounting to 488 yards.

I am blending a 10 oz batt purchased at Alpacas on the Rocks, and some 8 ounces of fleece I purchased at the Alpaca Extravaganza in Longmont (6 oz after scouring).  The two are not the same shades of morrit or rose-grey, but sort of kind of close. I am exact that way.

I am alternating portions as I spin the singles, resulting in random color combining while plying.  After setting the twist and drying, I like what I have.

The singles were spun finely, with a backwards long draw, so the yarn is woollen (more or less).  I have nothing in mind at this point for a finished product, and I still have probably 2/3’s still to spin.