Month: May 2007

I debated whether to post since I don’t have any pictures – and I do love posts with pictures.  But I wanted to let you all know that I’m still here – alive and kicking and knitting.  I’ve been working on Forest Path and am now up to Tier 16!  It seems a little useless to post a picture however, since it looks an awful lot like last time.  Just envision a couple more tiers.

Yesterday was spent sewing, sewing, sewing – but for a knitting related cause.  Each year our knitting group hosts another knitting group from the adjacent island for a picnic.  In the past the door prize has always been a knitting bag – usually a group project knitted, felted, embellished, etc.  This year for something different I volunteered to sew the bag.  Most of it was pretty tedious as I had to quilt the fabric for the bag.  Yes, I know I could have bought pre-quilted fabric, but I wanted  the lining quilted to the outside.  I embroidered a Hummel of little school girls knitting and found the perfect plaid fabric that matched the embroidery.  By 9:45 p.m. I had the finished project – it just needs dowels for the handles.  The lining is the same plaid as the binding.  Ok, so I do have a picture:

As usual, dog has been added for scale.  I think Kirby is inspecting my workmanship.  I hope I pass.  I also spent quite a bit of time working on Ivy’s quilt.  I’ve debated whether to show progress pictures.  I kept Izzy’s quilt a surprise until I presented it, but wonder if I should show this one.  Abby – what to do you think?  Do you want to be surprised?  Leave me a comment on whether I should show Ivy’s quilt in progress. 

Today a friend and I are going over to the next island fabric shopping and will also pop in to the LYS.  I can’t say that I will be too tempted.  After reorganizing my yarn stash a couple of weeks ago, I’m running out of room and I’ve got too many projects going now already.  Remember, you heard it here first – I may be eating my words later.

And a huge, huge thank you to all of our men and women in uniform.  Thanks goodness we have not had any close relatives that made the ultimate sacrifice, but I know there are many families out there that are grieving.  Thanks to my Dad – a career Navy man and to my husband, who spent 9 years active duty Air Force and 15 in the Air National Guard.  They both spent a lot of time away from their families serving their country.  Thanks guys!!

It’s been a rather quiet week here at Missouri Star – not a lot of blogworthy happenings.  Now that the excitement of sewing week and California car trip is over, it seems we settle down into just "life" and await the next flurry of activity in September when we travel to Orlando for the new arrival.

I pulled out Forest Path and worked on it again.  I have to admit to being pretty bored with it at this point (no need to put that on the Forest Path Knitalong site, ok?).  I’m on Tier 14 out of 23.  The full 23 tiers will make this pretty huge and I’m waffling.  Somehow cutting it short seems copping out and I do like big shawls, so I’ll probably plug ahead.  Here’s a shot of it so far:

This came in the mail this week:

I’ve been inducted into the Honor Society – complete with honors cord to wear at graduation!  This certainly helps compensate for all the eyeball bleeding activities that have gone on.  I also reserved rooms for graduation weekend.  I’ve heard that if you want the best spots you need to reserve a year in advance.  And I got a doozy – The Churchyard Inn.  It should prove to be a fun weekend.  My brother-in-law is a professor at WSU and he and his wife are going to throw a party for us.  After 10 years of hard work, I think a little celebration is in order!

Yesterday I went up to Bellingham to the Bernina store to teach a class.  To my dismay, no one showed up!  I don’t think the store owner advertised it very well.  I had called her the week before to see how many students were enrolled and she had no idea!  I suggested she cancel the class, but she wanted to forge ahead.  So, I taught the class to her and one employee and got paid anyway.  I used my fee and the teacher discount to buy lots and lots of thread.  I think I’m all set with thread for awhile and now need to stop buying and start sewing!  And if I’m going to do that I need to do it now – beginning the end of June and going through most of July I will be working 5 days a week (instead of 4).  I’m not really looking forward to that.  I do love my Fridays off.  But it will give me the opportunity to sock some money away – maybe for a new computer.  I have an Apple discount as long as I’m in school and might look at upgrading my Mac before I graduate.

So there you have it – pretty boring news.  If you’ve made it this far – thanks for sticking with me.  I’ll try to have more excitement next week, but no promises!

As promised – knitting content follows.  After a lovely week spent stitching away, it was nice to just sit in the car traveling, enjoying the beautiful sights and knitting.  I took along lots of of projects and actually came home with an FO – a pair of Austermann socks for me:

These were started quite a while ago and had been sadly neglected.  As you can see, they are fraternal twins.  I would have preferred identical, but the color runs on the Austermann are so long, it just wasn’t possible.  The obsessive side of me is dealing with this.  The pattern is just a generic top down, flap heel and picot edge.  This is the second pair I’ve made with the picot edge.  I had originally thought that socks with this type of edge might not stay up well, but they work great and I love the look.  There will definitely be more in my future.

Once these were done, I cast on for some gift socks for my sewing friend Lisa.  Once sock was finished on the trip and the other shortly after:

This is some Opal that has been hanging out in my stash for next to forever.  In fact, I think it was probably one of the first sock yarns I ever bought.  The pattern is again the good old generic top down with flap heel.  I have to admit that I started a picot edge on these.  I use the waste yarn method and usually use cotton because it’s easy to zip out.  I didn’t have any with me so used a scrap of wool.  When zipping it hung up on itself and I used the scissors to snip it.  However, I snipped rather more vigorously than intended and cut my sock yarn too.  I didn’t feel like starting over so just recast on with ribbing.

Also started on the trip was another CIC sweater – I’ll post pictures of that later.

I did work one day last week and paid the price for having two weeks off.  I went to the post office to pick up our accumulated mail and let’s just say that I’m still diving through all of it.  On Monday the doctor comes back and I have to inform him of our latest staffing nightmare.  Let the games begin (again). 

This weekend I’ve discovered the fun of machine applique and made some cute little tops for Izzy:

But enough of this stuff – I have some projects that have deadlines and I really need to get working on those.  So this afternoon I will begin working on a knitted sheep.  I’ll either love it or be tearing my hair out by the end of the weekend.  Stay tuned for the next chapter.

And Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there.  I’m spending the day relaxing and enjoying a great meal cooked by hubby – barbequed ribs, potatoes and fresh green beans with almonds – Yum!

Yesterday Kristen said she felt like adding "and a partridge in a pear tree" to our list of FO’s.  How funny!  The one Christmas ornament I finished WAS a partridge in a pear tree!  Kristen, this one’s for you!

Please forgive the less than stellar photo.  It’s the best I can do pre-coffee and with the beginnings of a migraine.

Continuing on with our vacation saga – on Thursday my friend dropped me off in Marysville, where I met up with hubby for our trip to California.  First, a little background:  If you’ve been following my blog at all, you know that hubby is a great lover of little cars – especially old little cars.  He started out with a 1958 Isetta, then a 1973 Mini Cooper.  Several months ago he saw a 1930 American Austin for sale on Ebay.  I had to wipe the drool off his keyboard!  There was no question about bidding on it – we just didn’t have that kind of money.  But he watched eagerly.  The car didn’t sell because the reserve wasn’t met.  So, on a whim, hubby emailed the owner and asked if he would be interested in a trade – our Mini Cooper for his Austin.  Turns out the guy has always wanted a Mini and after about a month of negotiations, a deal was made.  He was traveling out from Michigan to San Francisco and would bring the car with him and meet us in California.  This was a very good trade for us because the Austin is worth more than the Mini, but in talking with the owner later, he said hubby’s love for the car really shone through and it was never about money.  He just wanted the car to go to someone who would love it and not turn it into a hot rod, but keep it original.

Our trip down was pretty uneventful, although we ran into snow in the Siskiyous – it’s May for cryin’ out loud!

The trade-off went perfectly – both tradees were very happy with the deal.  Here is hubby getting his first real-life look at his new baby:

Does that look like one happy camper?  And here’s the new arrival:

Oh, and did I mention that this all took place on hubby’s birthday?  It’s certainly one that he will well remember.  The trip back also went off without incident.  The snow in the mountains was completely gone on our return.  Two days later the Austin, now christened "Malcom" was safely ensconced in the garage with my Mini Cooper:

So there you have the saga of "What I Did on My Spring Vacation."  Of course, as seems all too common in life, I came home to more stress.  While I was gone, one of our employees quit, without notice.  So I come home to staffing issues, which along with parents and insurance, seem to be the bane of my existence lately.  I’m glad I’m rested up! 

Oh, almost forgot – after all, this IS a knitting blog, although you’d hardly know it lately.  Knitting was accomplished on the road trip.  I promise pictures and a full account of that next posting.

One of the nicest things about being away is returning home.  My namesake is right – there is no place like home!  We had a wonderful time away with lots of projects accomplished and a safe and productive trip to California.

We arrived in Leavenworth on Saturday.  This is the beautiful view from our condo:

And the next morning with the clouds over the mountain:

We were able to tear ourselves away from the view and get down to business, though. Here we are ready to rock and roll:

Believe me, this was the neatest that table was for the entire week!  Within a short time we had piles of fabric and projects everywhere and the most frequent comment was, "Have you seen (insert scissors, pattern, fabric, thread, etc. here)?"  But what fun to just sew and sew with no deadlines, no ringing telephones, no toilets to clean or laundry to do (other than prewashing fabric that we bought!).  Did I mention that there were three quilt shops within easy driving distance?   We had brought some definite plans for projects with us, but we also let the spirit lead us and threw in some spur of the moment projects too.  We even had time to go to a Quilt Soiree at the closest shop and met (can you believe it???) some quilters from right here in Oak Harbor!  They were staying at the same condo as we were and had won their trip at our local Christian School auction – yes, the same one that my friend and I had made the quilt for.  What small world!

The last night we displayed all of our projects:

The final tally?  Between the two of us we completed 3 dresses for granddaughters, one tablecloth, 6 sets of napkins, one jacket for Izzy, one quilt top, 3 blocks for Quilts of Valor (for wounded soldiers), 2 blocks for the Quilt Soiree, one potholder, 4 embroidered Hummel pillow tops, 2 embroidered blocks for a Snoopy quilt, one Christmas ornament and 2 embroideries for purses.  In addition, we were able to complete the preliminary digitizing for the logos for my work and for my husband’s car club.  Whew! 

My favorite project was a jacket for Izzy:

Here’s a detail of the back showing the border detail:

And I also love my four Hummel pillow tops.  I had only meant to make one or two, but I couldn’t stop myself.  Do you notice a little girl theme here?

As much fun as we had, by the end of the week we were both ready to come home, but my adventure was just beginning.  Tomorrow – the trip to California and pictures of the new addition to the family.