Month: February 2009

I was going to post about the first harbingers of spring.  In fact, the only reason I hadn't posted lately was because I kept forgetting my camera on my walks to take pictures of the budding trees and daffodils and tulips popping through the ground.  However, this morning we were greeted by this:

It is extremely unusual for us to get snow this late in the season.  Driving into work was really treacherous!  The roads were solid black ice.  But by this afternoon it was all gone off the roads and only a little left on the deck and lawn.  By tomorrow afternoon it will be all gone and I can hopefully get some pictures of spring in the making.

I've also put off posting because of lack of energy.  I'm still battling bronchitis.  I thought that last week I was getting better, but experienced a set back this week.  I've managed to get to work and back, but seem to have problems getting enthused about much of anything.  I have done some scrapbook pages.  This one chronicles a wonderful road trip we made back in 1985:

And some knitting has been accomplished as well.  I managed to put in a few repeats on a new baby afghan for charity:

Sorry I don't have the stats handy.  The information would be in the other room and that would entail actually getting up out of my chair and walking back there.  Too much trouble!

I've also made progress on the Hidcote shawl.  This part is really relaxing and you can even see a bit of the pattern developing:

Maggie continues to provide us with endless sources of amusement.  Lately she's taken to racing in after her morning constitutional to gaze adoringly into the fire:

And if you think that's cute, take a look at this:

Yes, Nana is already planning different layouts for a really cute scrapbook page!

The wonderful thing about taking pictures of children is capturing those moments of pure joy!  This photo of Isobel was just such a photo and deserved its own scrapbook page:

I think this is my favorite page so far, but then I say that about every page I make.  I had a goal to make at least one page a week this year, but that resolution took a hit when I got sick.  I couldn't even muster up the energy for that.  But I'm happy to report I think I'm back to full strength, so maybe I can make up for lost time.

I've made quite a bit of progress on Hidcote, but now it's jumbled up on the needles, so a photo won't necessarily show much.  As I mentioned before, that's one of the downsides of knitting lace – limited blog fodder.  I really did appreciate all of your comments on my boring post!  They reflected very much how I feel.  The blogs that I frequent don't necessarily always feature stunning knitting, although they often do.  I return to them because they are written by women with full lives and lots of stuff going on besides the knitting.  They are all women I would love to sit down and have a cup of coffee with.  Some of them I have met – Li, Lorette, Theresa and Kris.  Others I hope to meet some day – Marguerite and Theresa.  And there are others that I probably will never meet – Deb, Lynne, Anne, Sue and Kathy.  But they all join me every week for coffee and I enjoy their company! 

And, speaking of lace, thanks to Sue, I have joined a lace club!  This is the first time I've ever joined any type of yarn club, but when I found out there were actually lace clubs, I was intrigued.  The one I joined is hosted by Wool Girl and features some top designers.  It won't be all shawls – there are socks and scarves and mystery projects, along with lace goodies.  I can't wait for my first project to arrive the end of March.

And, falling under the heading of "It wasn't me, it was him!"

Of course, we all know who the troublemaker is!  Good news is that we had both dogs to the vet yesterday for their annual checkup and they are both in fine fiddle.  We are especially grateful for Kirby's good health.  He was a Valentine's present from hubby 14 years ago today! 

I leave you with this Valentine toast from Abby:

The other day Marguerite and I were discussing how sometimes we feel pressured to gear our knitting to our blogs.  Sometimes the knitting we are doing seems a little boring and heaven forbid we should bore our readers (all four of you!).  However, we decided that our knitting is our knitting and I, for one, blog as much for me and my family as for knitters.  So I'm afraid that you may have to move on for more exciting knitting content.  I might suggest either Theresa or Marjorie who have committed to NaKniSweMoDo, which means knitting a sweater (adult sized!) a month this year.  It makes my fingers hurt just to contemplate that. 

Part of the problem is that I have been busy knitting, but a finished baby afghan looks about the same as it did halfway through – only longer:

And lace pretty much looks like a tangled mess until you get to the end and you block it.  In fact, the further along you get, the worse it looks:

 

And I know you get tired of hearing about the weather – after all, we've had it pretty easy this winter compared to the rest of the country.  However, we did have hail this afternoon:

 

Yes, that's all hail, not snow!

I do have a scrapbook page to show.  I'll probably be showing more – my fingers have been aching a lot and I don't know if I've been overdoing it, so I'm going to be taking it slow on the knitting front.  I'm particularly proud of this page.  The background is an actual photo of our hands.  My first draft of the page was pretty awful because I used the original color photo.  Over the years it had developed a very red color cast and all my efforts at editing it in Photoshop Elements were unsuccessful.  I finally decided to change it to black and white and add a filter.  This is the result and I am very happy:

 

Those of you of a certain age might recognize the song as "Lean on Me", sung by Bill Withers.  It is "our song".  I had made it a goal to try and do one page a week this year.  My little brush with bronchitis kind of put me behind, but I'm ready to catch up.  I know this has been mainly a knitting blog, but I hope you don't mind viewing some of my pages in the months to come.  Please feel free to chime in!

I don't even want to know what kind of Google hits I'll get with that one!  Hubby returned home safely from San Diego with his new baby:

Carmen (clever name, eh?) is a 1970 Karmann Ghia convertible.  As you may recall, he had a 1930 American Austin.  Well, the right offer came along and he sold it to a guy in Oregon.  This lovely lady came up on eBay and after copious research and correspondence with the owner, he decided to bid.  He really had no hopes of winning and was stunned when he did!  Apparently there were several bidders pretty miffed that he won and one even called the owner and offered her $3000 more, but she did the honorable thing and honored the auction.  She said she knew she did the right thing when hubby asked her if the car had a name (it didn't).  She knew it was going to someone who would love it and care for it.  We had fun tossing names around.  We knew it was not a "he" – definitely a "she".  Hubby said he had to drive her before coming to a conclusion, but by the time he arrived from San Diego had decided "Carmen" was appropriate.  Yesterday he could bear it no longer and put the top down for a little jaunt.  It was, after all, sunny and at least 40 degrees!  I didn't tag along.  It's got to be a little warmer to tempt me.

Carmen is going to be lots of fun for going on cruises with our car club.  There is plenty of leg room so there's a perfect spot for my knitting bag.  It remains to be seen whether or not I can knit with the top down!  That's the car's top – get your mind out of the gutter!

Not a lot of knitting content this week.  I'm still battling this bronchitis and feel kinda puny.  My powers of concentration are not at their peak.  I did pick up Queen Silvia briefly, but knew that nupps just weren't on the ticket for me until I feel better.  I finally decided to start a new lace project. The Hidcote Shawl by Miriam Felton fit the bill.  I needed something that would capture my interest, but not be too complicated.  I actually started this with some black lace yarn I had on hand, but quickly decided that was a tactical error.  My old eyes needed something a little lighter:

 

I'm not sure exactly what the yarn is – it was in my stash with no band, but it is probably 100% Merino – very soft.

This week Isobel made a list of her favorite things.  They are (in order):

1.  Ice cream

2.  Maggie

3.  Nana (Woo hoo!)

4.  Yeh-yeh (grandfather)

5.  Mama

6.  Daddy

7.  Master Chief (a video game hero – and no, she doesn't play it, Daddy does)

8.  Pistage (their Lhasa Apso)

9.  Blue (their Chinese Crested)

10.  Mei-mei (Ivy)

11.  Gargamel (the villain from the Smurf cartoons)

I came in third after ice cream and Maggie!  Poor Mei-mei came after the dogs and barely beat out a villain.  Abby said they are going to have to work on that.

And, to distract you from the fact that there is pitiful little progress on knitting, here are some updates of my beautiful granddaughters wearing their Christmas sweaters: