Author: missouristar

It's official now – we are both homesick!  We're so happy to be heading home and have even managed to drive a little longer today so we'll be home one day early.  But we've had a lot to look back on fondly this past week.

We spent four days in Michigan with hubby's cousin Annie.  

She so generously opened her home to us and we used it as a base of operations to visit with both sides of Bill's family.  We visited with some maternal cousins and aunts:

On Saturday night, Annie had a huge get-together.  Her Dad (Bill's uncle) had 8 kids and each of those kids has at least four.  Many of them were there and it was a fun, noisy, chaotic party!  It's been so fun to watch hubby with these wonderful cousins who are as close to him as siblings.

On Monday we headed up to Spring Harbor to visit with another cousin and drooled over the beautiful vacation homes.  I picked mine out!

Then we kept on north to Mackinac Island.  To those of you not familiar with it, the island is accessible only by ferry and no motorized vehicles are allowed on the island – only horses and bicycles.

We were assured by our tour guide that they do allow the fire department to have real fire trucks!

That night we spent a lovely night at a beautiful lakeside cabin generously loaned to us by Bill's cousins.  We awoke the next morning to a gorgeous harvest moon setting over the lake.

Next on our stop was a wonderful visit with Bill's sister just north of Chicago.  We were able to help our great-nephew Caleb celebrate his first birthday in style:

And visit the Jelly Belly plant:

As much fun as we've had, we're so excited to be headed west and toward home!  We did officially find the Middle of the Nowhere smack dab in the middle of South Dakota (no offense to you South Dakotians out there!).  It just seemed that for hours and hours the road was straight, with no curves and no change in scenery.  Of course, we did make the obligatory stops at the Corn Palace and Wall Drug's giant dinosaur!

Not as much knitting being accomplished because hubby is getting weary of driving and is asking me to help out.  I'm not sure if I'll complete my third shawl, but I've definitely made headway.  I'll be having a lace blocking party when I get home!

We've completed the southern part of our trip and have now embarked on the northern leg.  After leaving Kentucky, we headed for Michigan. 

Our first stop was in Kalamazoo where a long-awaited blogger meeting occurred.  I finally met Marguerite – Stitches of Violet!  She treated us to lunch and it was wonderful to finally meet her.  She and I have made a special connection via our blogs and I loved being able to spend time with her.

She brought me a skein of her favorite sock yarn from Slackford Studios and we brought her some Whidbey Coffee.  Our time was over all too quickly, but she did suggest that since hubby loves airplanes we visit Air Zoo in Kalamazoo.  What a great place!  We liked it so much that we went back the next day.  If you're ever in the area, it is a can't miss!

Lots and lots of relatives from Bill's side to visit here.  We've been spending time at Bill's cousin's house and are really appreciating her hospitality.  As it turned out, they were in New York when we arrived, but we had instructions to just go in and make ourselves at home, which we have done.  She left us a list of things to do until they returned.  At the top of the list was Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids.  As it turned out, they were having a Dale Chihuly exhibit, which made us feel right at home!

They had a wonderful children's garden, which included a sculpture entitled "Mad Mom":

Hubby relaxed with a bear:

While Nana proved how very brave she was by petting a dragon:

 

We saw a really, really big horse:

And when we got tired, found a sweet couple willing to share their park bench with us:

This morning we went to a Farmers' Market and bought some bread and a freshly picked honey crisp apple.  I made my first yarn purchase of the trip – some Opal sock yarn at a cute store in Rockford.

Tonight is a big family reunion with some of Bill's favorite cousins.  Lots of old pictures will be brought out and old times relived.  All before my time, but I've got my knitting and will enjoy sitting in the background watching hubby have the time of his life!

A trip back to my hometown of
Thomasville, Missouri is always a bittersweet trip down memory lane.  The town almost seems frozen in
time.  I was born here, and although
my Dad’s Navy career took us far and wide, this is where we came when we “went
home”.  During at least one of my
Dad’s deployments I lived and went to school here.

 It was here that hubby and I
decided to take our relationship to “the next level”.  The newly engaged couple posed in front of my grandparents’
house:

 

And again, 38 years later:

The house where I was born
has changed:

 

But the gas station where my
grandpa would take us for a “pop” looks much the same, right down to the bench
out front where the old timers would spit and whittle:

 

The post office has long been
closed when the postal service decided the town was too small and took away its
zip code:

My grandparents’ house (where
our photos were taken) has changed little, except for the trees that have grown
so large.

Sadly, my parents’ house has
changed since the demise of the grand old tree out front:

 

Although my parents moved to
this house only 30 years ago, it is still the home where I brought my children
to introduce them to Thomasville.

While here we have dined
royally.  For a town of only 70
(give or take a few), Thomasville boasts one of the finest restaurants around,
The River’s Edge Grill. 

Here you can feast on catfish
and hushpuppies, slaw, beans and a fine sirloin steak.  If you want a table on Friday night,
you’d better get there early because people come from far and wide, including
real honest-to-goodness cowboys. 
They told my mom she couldn’t sit in the cowboy section unless she has
boots, so she keeps threatening to get some.

Yesterday, after visiting an old grain mill, we went to the big
city of Birch Tree (pop. 700), my Dad’s home town, for the annual Logging Days
celebration.  There we feasted on
deep fried pickles (actually quite good!) and the absolutely best pulled pork
sandwich and baked beans I have ever had.

Today we embarked on the next
leg of our journey, beginning with the National Quilt Museum in Paducah,
Kentucky.  Sadly, no pictures were allowed in the museum, but suffice it to say I was appropriately gobsmacked.  I was alternately inspired and determined never to touch a quilting needle again, as I am not worthy!  But I got over the not worthy part and while Bill is happily ensconced in the hotel with air conditioning, cable TV, internet and free snacks, I'm off to the Holy Grail – Hancock's of Paducah!  Yahoo!!!

 

 

Our first week on the trip has been a resounding success!  Our first event of note was a blogger meet up.  At the last minute we realized we would be right in Theresa's backyard and quickly arranged a get-together.  We had a wonderful time visiting with Theresa, her hubby and darling children – a boy and twin girls.

 

Theresa actually hasn't been blogging that much because, in addition to being a wonderful wife, mum and homeschooling her children, she designs scrapbook kits for Heritage Scrap and Faith Sisters.  I don't think her kits are showing up yet on Faith Sisters, but stay tuned.  Bless her heart, she gave me a disc with some of her new kits on it.  How cool is that?  We also found out that we had so much more in common than we thought.  She is also a spinner and we compared our experiences and she was excited to show me her new lace pattern from Fiddlesticks Knitting.  It's the same one I brought with me on the trip!  It's the pattern for the Featherlight Shawls.  More on that later.

Our first touristy stop was Yosemite.  Everyone had told us how fantastic it was, but words just cannot express the beauty of the place.  As an added bonus, the weather was on the cooler side (only 90) and for some reason on the day we were there, the crowds had disappeared, so it was relatively relaxed.

El Capitan – it still just boggles my mind that we saw several climbers on the face.

 

We stayed at a wonderful B&B way, way back in the woods.  Together with 2 other couples, we had the run of the entire house – the host does not even live there, but invited us to make ourselves at home.  Two wonderful ladies came and took care of us in the morning and then disappeared to give us privacy the rest of the time.

 

As we made our way out of California, we were surprised to discover that we were going right through Loma Linda, where my former boss (who made this trip possible with a generous contribution to my retirement plan), is going to graduate school.  We zipped off the highway and managed to surprise him as he was studying in one of the student lounges.  It was complete serendipity that we tracked him down, courtesy of his wife, but the look on his face was worth it.  I got the best hug!!  Only after we left did I realize I completely forgot to take a picture.

Our next stop was at hubby's cousin's house in Arizona.  Can you say HOT??  The temps ranged from a balmy 100 all the way up to 117.  But hubby had a wonderful time visiting with three of his favorite cousins and they delivered some outstanding hospitality.

Today was spent at the Grand Canyon.  I suppose we should have expected huge crowds on a Labor Day weekend, but it was even more crowded than we expected.  It made for long waits for the shuttles and some pretty cranky park rangers.  We were surprised at the contrast between the personnel at Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.  At Yosemite everyone was so nice and just couldn't do enough for us.  At the Canyon, everyone was pretty short, but that could be explained somewhat by the huge crowds.  But despite it all, the vistas were absolutely mind boggling.

The next three days will be travel days and not much sightseeing unless we see something by the side of the road that looks interesting.  That means a lot of knitting will be accomplished.  So far I've gotten quite a bit done.  I finished the Aeolian shawl.  Toward the end the rows got incredibly long and I was glad to see the end of it.  Of course, no blocking until I get home.  I've now started the Rosevine Shawl – no pictures.  I took one, but it didn't come out that well and I am SO tired!  Off to run a hot bath and relax.

The bags are packed and the checklist, well, checked, and only the last minute things left to be accomplished.  As usual, I worry that I've forgotten something, but I also remind myself that we're not exactly going to the ends of the earth.  We realized this week that this is the first time in over 17 years that we've gone on a vacation that doesn't require airports, security, passports, etc.  It's so nice not to have to worry about what will or will not be allowed in our luggage!

I was hoping to get the girls' quilts finished before I left, but it's been slow going.  However, I'm really pleased with the way they are coming out.  They just look happy!

I was especially pleased with the little sheep block.  I had put it off to the last because I thought it would be a bear appliqueing the Minkee fabric.  But it went together with no problems at all:

Since we'll be gone for Mei-Mei's birthday, we joined the family at Alderwood Mall Sunday for a little party at Build-a-Bear.  Despite Abby trying to distract Mei-Mei with other bears, she insisted on a pink bear.  She is definitely a girly-girl.  But how could you deny this kind of love?

When it came time to select outfits, pink won out again and the pink bear was outfitted in a pink ballerina costume.  Isobel made big points with her grandpa by picking out a firefighter costume so her bear would look like Yeh-Yeh (grandfather).

I also have a modeling shot of Evenstar.  I gave it to my niece for her graduation from Washington State University and she looks gorgeous in it:

She and the shawl are off to Ireland for an internship in a couple for weeks.  It's a dream come true for her and I know she is going to have an incredible time.

I hope to be able to post from the road on our trip.  I'm a little embarassed to admit how many electronics we are taking with us.  Between iPods, IPads, computers, cell phones and what not, we have enough chargers to open our own store!  But with any luck I may even be able to create a few scrapbook pages while the memories are still fresh. 

When we made plans for our trip hubby and I discussed the fact that neither one of us likes to be away from home for any length of time.  We knew that being gone for 30 days was really stretching it, but we were confident we could do it.  This week, as we were planning our trip, I began to feel homesick already.  And we haven't even left!  But I'm sure we can do this.  We'll see lots of wonderful places and visit with some wonderful people.  But I do know that when we return I will be ecstatic.  I'm hoping Maggie will not forget us and decide that living with Ben and Abby is way more fun!

I've pretty much packed most of my projects.  On deck is lots of lace, a couple of skeins of sock yarn (just in case) and fiber for spinning.  My Spindolyn has been shipped and should arrive Monday.  That will give me just enough time for a little preliminary practice to determine what fiber to take with me.

This week I've been concentrating on quilting.  The quilts for the girls have been languishing and I decided I'd better get cracking on them while they're still young enough to enjoy the juvenile theme.  Here are some recently completed blocks:

I thought I was being oh-so-clever on the bear blocks by digitizing the flowers and embroidering them on my machine.  After all, I did the same with the faces and they came out great.  It was a good idea until I got the first block all embroidered and started searching for the second one.  I couldn't find it anywhere.  Imagine my horror when I realized I had stacked the blocks when I did the embroidery!  Do you know how hard it is to unpick densely sewn embroidery stitches without tearing the fabric??  Thank goodness I was able to "un-sew" without damaging the blocks and all was saved.  I do think it's time to quit for the evening, though.

The Aeolian shawl is progressing nicely, but is now at the point where it resembles an amorphous blob.  I do love this pattern and am already planning another one with beads.  The Cambridge Jacket is coming along nicely too, but not much to show – just more of the same, only longer.

I have been musing this week on how very blessed I am.  I often read on Ravelry of women who want to spin, but can't afford even a modest spindle and make do with dowels and CD's or other home-made tools.  I am so thankful that I have all the wonderful tools I do – lots of yarn and needles, a beautiful spinning wheel and a spindle on the way, a top of the line sewing machine and the software to make it do what I want it to do.  And now, as icing on the cake, I have a comfortable retirement with time to enjoy all of it and a husband who supports my crafts.  And two beautiful granddaughters to sew and knit for.  Thank you God!

I guess we've dodged the bullet long enough.  The heat wave that has been scorching the rest of the country has finally paid a visit to the Pacific Northwest.  Although I know our temps pale in comparison with those in other areas, you must remember that very few homes here have air conditioning.  It was in the mid 90's in the Seattle/Tacoma area yesterday and today.  It was a little cooler here on the island, but that didn't help us because were were in Tacoma for our nephew's wedding.  And, as fate would have it, hubby had volunteered his vintage 1970 Karmann Ghia convertible for the wedding.  Which meant – a 2 1/2 hour drive down and back in a non-air conditioned car.  "Ah," you might say, "but it's a convertible.  Just put the top down."  In this heat you might as well throw in a stick of butter and set it on broil!  That's to say nothing of the wind shear associated with tooling down the freeway at 60 miles an hour.  So the top stayed up on the drive down and back.  And, as Abby said, everyone probably thought we were one "hot" couple.  They would have been right.  But it was all worth it because the wedding couple were thrilled and got some beautiful photo ops:

And we got to spend the day with some of our favorite people in the world, including Ben, Abby and the girls.  Isobel and Mei-Mei were not nearly as impressed with the wedding as they were with the tree house that they got to play on during the reception.

Afterwards we tooled on over to Lakewood and spent a lovely evening with John and Lorette ( the Knitting Doctor).  They always spoil us rotten and we feel as if we'd had a stay in a four star hotel.  It was so blessedly cool by the the lake:

And peach martinis did a lot to take the bite out of the heat:

And just to prove that I am not above looking a little dorky, I once again demonstrated why they call them drop spindles:

Lorette is determined to make a spindler out of me, so just to please her I have ordered one.  I'm not sure if I have the patience for the dropping kind, so I ordered a supported spindle, the Spindolyn.  They're fairly inexpensive and this will give me some practice during our road trip.

It's certainly been too hot to work on Ben's sweater, so I started another shawl for the 10 in 2010 challenge. 

The yarn came from the Embrace the Lace club last year.  I didn't really care for the project included with it, so it has been marinating in the stash awaiting the right moment.  After several false starts with other patterns, I finally settled on Aeolian and it is a winner!  This is a beautiful pattern and has enough complexity to be interesting, but not so much that I have to keep referring to the chart.

Tomorrow we really need to start planning in earnest for our road trip.  There are so many things to consider when you're going to be away from home that long.  Although we'll have someone minding the house, we still need to do some planning.  And, of course, I need to have plenty of projects to keep me busy on the road.  Somehow I don't think that will be a problem!

Once again I find myself knitting under the influence.  Thank goodness it's not illegal, because it's the only thing keeping me sane.  My oral surgery on Friday went as well as one could hope.  Although it certainly couldn't be classified as a good time, I was in and out in about 45 minutes.  The oral surgeon was very, very good and I didn't even feel it when the tooth came out.  He said the root on it was fractured, so there would have been no saving it.  The aftermath has not been especially fun.  He said lower molars are more painful than uppers and I can attest to that. 

I've been alternating between two projects – Ylva for me:

  and Ann Budd's Cambridge Jacket for Ben:

I ended up ordering some Cascade 220 from my LYS in a lovely (or is it handsome?) grey/chocolate tweed.  I had forgotten how much I really like this yarn.  It's just flowing from my needles.  Good thing – my son has extremely long arms, so this is going to be a largish sweater (at least up and down).  I'm happy to report that my knitting has not suffered too much from my drug induced comas, although I did have to rip out about 4 rows of Celtic knots and try again!

I finished a pair of socks – Cookie A's Summer Sox in Cascade Heritage:

I can't believe this only leaves me with three projects on the needles, Ivy's Christmas sweater, Ylva and the Cambridge Jacket.  Of course, now I'm really feeling a little bereft without some lace going.  I received my shipment of Fiddlesticks yarn and pattern:

But I'm trying to hang onto that for my road trip knitting.  My goal is to knit up three shawls while on the road.  Oh, didn't I mention?  I caved and joined the 10 Shawls in 2010 group on Ravelry.  I thought I was too far behind, but then realized I've already completed four;  three on the road would put me up to 7, so I'd pretty much be right on track.  So, in the meantime I am contemplating starting a Pi shawl to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Elizabeth Zimmerman's birth.  Technically I should wait until tomorrow because that's her birthday, but Abby and the girls are coming up, so I'll be a little bit occupied.  I have two skeins of Knit Picks Bare in my stash – not enough to finish the shawl, but since it's undyed the color match should be ok.  If it's not I may consider dying it after I knit it.  Nothing like living dangerously!!  I'm sure EZ would approve.

This week I got the chance to see in action what happens when an irresistible  force meets an immovable object.  Our dog Maggie gets a little grouchy around other dogs.  We keep trying to socialize her and she'll usually come around after a little exposure.  This week I made arrangements to meet my friend BeBe down at the beach with her two dogs, Maggie (a golden retriever) and Penny (a Brittany Spaniel).  They are both very large dogs.  When our Maggie saw them, she gave a growl and went running up to their Maggie.  She raised up and with both of her little front paws gave Maggie a hard shove on the shoulder

.  The other Maggie looked down at our Maggie very coolly as if to say, "What's your problem, pipsqueak?"  Our Maggie sat back in surprise and immediately decided that discretion was the better part of valor.  She was an absolute angel the rest of the walk and has decided that Penny and Maggie are ok.  It was hilarious to see how far she backed down on her little display of bravado!

She does, however, approve of my sewing attempts.  I made a bag to take with me on our road trip.  I'm trying to decide whether to use it as my project bag and stuff if full of yarn or to stuff it full of clothes:

 

So far the yarn is ahead.

One of the downsides of posting your adventures on your blog is that you often have to admit failure.  Of course, I could just sweep this all under the rug and never mention it again, but in the interests of full disclosure I will confess.  For the Tour de Fleece my goal was to finish spinning the yarn for Ben's sweater.  I came pretty close with all but a few singles left to ply.  However, that was not my failure.  It only took another day or so to finish up and the skeins were washed, dried and ready for knitting.  This is where the failure comes in.  As I started my gauge swatch I realized that this was nowhere near the worsted weight I had thought I was spinning.  It is more like a bulky weight.  I figured out the numbers, cast on and it only took a few rows for me to realize that I hate knitting with bulky weight.  Not only will it not come out to the sweater I had envisioned, it is unpleasant to knit with and hurts my hands.   I am really disappointed.  The skeins are so beautiful:

All is not lost however.  Someone is going to love all this bulky weight yarn and I'm going to skein it up nicely and perhaps offer it at our guild's sale in November.  In the meantime, I have ordered some nice, predictable Cascade 220 for Ben's sweater.

I guess this has taught me that I really have a long way to go before I can expect to be successful at spinning a sweater's worth.  I'll stick to small projects for now..

I also decided that the vest I was making for myself out of handspun was not pleasing to me, so I have frogged that.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had 10 skeins of Silky Wool in my stash that I had forgotten about.  So Ylva has been resurrected in a more appropriate yarn.

I've gotten in a lot of knitting time this week because I've felt too crappy to do much else.  The antibiotic that did such a good job of knocking down the infected wisdom tooth also caused an allergic reaction.  I've spent the last few days broken out in an ugly rash.  The Benadryl that helps also makes me very groggy.  So far, I have to admit that turning 60 has certainly been a challenge.  I hope things stop breaking down!

On the bright side, a couple of weeks ago we had a lovely dinner out with Ben & Abby.  As a belated anniversary present they took us to Ivar's on the water at the Mulkiteo ferry dock.  It was an outstanding meal with wonderful company.  Kind of makes up for the rest!

I can't believe this is happening.  Remember back in April when I went through the dental nightmare?  It's happening again!  Actually, I don't think this time will be as bad.  Last time there was some confusion as they thought they had caught the problem and did a root canal on a bicuspid.  It turned out that I also had a molar that was abscessed, but since it was difficult to isolate the pain the dentist didn't realize I had two teeth involved.  This time there is only one, the pain is easy to isolate and the x-ray clearly shows the abscess.  After two days on antibiotic I've been able to go off the Vicodin, which absolutely wipes me out.  It's hard for me to understand that people actually like to take that stuff!  Since this is another third molar, I have an appointment on Monday for a consult with an oral surgeon to take it out.  So I'm hoping this won't drag out for three weeks like the last episode.

I have been spinning like a crazy woman for the Tour de Fleece.  My goal was to finish the yarn for Ben's sweater.  I finished spinning the singles this morning, but don't think I will get to the plying until Monday.  Ben, Abby and the girls are coming over today and tomorrow we have our annual Knitter's Picnic.  I was a little worried that I might miss it because of my dental woes, but since I'm feeling so much better because of the antibiotics, I should be able to make it.

I've been working away on my bag of dish cloth cottons and last night finally put a finish to it.  This type of knitting has filled the bill for me the past couple of weeks, but I am thoroughly tired of dish cloths now.  At least I have a nice stack for personal use and for gifts:

Next up is to finish a pair of Cookie A. Summer Socks.  These are a gift for a friend.  I'm using Cascade Heritage sock yarn and I absolutely love it!  It's so soft and it just seems to flow through your hands.  After I've knit enough out of my sock stash to justify buying more yarn, I will definitely be getting more of this.

As for the next spinning project, I'm not sure what fiber I will be using, but it will be a project aiming for a two-ply fingering weight for a challenge our guild is doing.  About once a year or so we do a challenge, with everyone knitting the same pattern.  This year they've chosen the Gaia shawl.  The original pattern calls for Noro sock yarn so you get the stripes.  I haven't decided yet if I'll try to spin for the stripes, but since I'm one of the few spinners in my group, I will probably be the only one spinning for the challenge.  Before I start, I need to install a new poly cord drive belt on my wheel.   I've been wanting one to fit my wheel and Ashford just came out with it.  The reviews are good – it's supposed to give more traction with less friction and make treadling easier.  Can't wait to try it out, but I need to finish Ben's sweater yarn first.  I don't want to install it now and risk messing up my tension and getting a whole 'nother kind of yarn.

I'm really itching to start another piece of lace.  I can't believe I don't have any lace on the needles.  Now that I am out of the dish cloth doldrums, I'm really tempted to start another Evenstar.  But I don't know if I want such a large project at this point.  I did break my yarn diet long enough to order a project for our road trip in September.  This seemed like a good deal with the extra skein of yarn and will give me plenty to keep me occupied for a month on the road.  Throw in enough for a few pairs of socks and I'll be set.

We had a great time with the girls today.  We continue to be amazed that we get to see them so often and what wonderful little girls they are!  Today's entertainment was lawn bowling.  We didn't have the appropriate equipment, so we were forced to use girls instead: