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I've just returned from a three day quilt retreat.  That's one of the reasons I haven't been posting – I've been busy trying to get ready for it.  Knowing I was going to be sewing for three days, I was afraid I would get there and run out of projects.  There was nothing to fear, though.  I packed plenty to do.  The retreat was held at Warm Beach Camp on the mainland.  It was a beautiful venue with very gracious hosts and meals to die for.  Here is the view from my sewing machine:

We were there over Halloween and not to fear that we missed out on anything – the yard workers really got into the act:

My main project was to finish my Garden Path quilt and I kinda sorta accomplished that:

I realized after I got there that there are still 12 more little flower blocks to embroider!  Thank goodness they were placed in the quilt in groups of four, so I was able to put plain strips in as place holders until I can get them done.

After finishing this, my friend Lisa and I got the wild idea to do a miniature Christmas tree wall hanging:

Mine is only 12" x 14" and some of the pieces in the presents at the bottom are only 1/4" across!  We had the idea that these little pieces would make great Christmas presents, but decided that these will be our only little trees – they were probably more labor intensive than a big quilt would be!!

At the end of the retreat, we had the drawing for the grand door prize.  Each of us was required to make a signature block out of the same pattern in fall colors.  On Saturday the winner of all of the blocks was chosen – and that would be moi!

Not only do I get to keep all of these, I get to design the block for the next retreat.  What fun!

Several news updates from last week.  Thank all of you for your well wishes for Ben and his family.  I'm happy to report that after only two weeks of unemployment, he has a job!  I'll report on more as I know more, but it is a tele-commuting job, so he will be working at home.  It sounds like a very good job and we're so excited for him and Abby.

Also, as I may have mentioned, we had hoped that down the road Maggie would be having puppies.  The breeder came out to look at her this week, and although she said she is absolutely beautiful with many features that she would like to pass along, she is not going to breed her.  Because of the structure of her hindquarters, she is afraid that a large littler would do some serious harm.  She could probably carry a small litter successfully, but Kathy will not take the chance on harming Maggie.  I respect her so much for that!  In the end it doesn't make any difference to us because she gave Maggie to us and all of the puppies would have belonged to her.  But she said that her greatest concern is the welfare of her dogs.  So Maggie will go in this week for "the operation" and then return home to us for the life of a pampered pet!

I leave you with this lovely picture of two sweethearts napping in our front yard:

Enniu:  General lack of interest or boredom.  That's kind of what I've been feeling about blogging lately.  I don't think I'm alone either – several of my favorite bloggers seem to be in the same frame of mind.  Perhaps it's all the doom and gloom on the news.  Even when you're in good financial shape, you can't help but let it affect your mood.  Perhaps it's just not having anything to blog about.  Nothing exciting happening here – just routine.  Move along to more exciting blogs.  Not that there's no news.  Hubby and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary this past week.  Our new blinds arrived that day, so we spent the evening hanging them, only to discover that the headrail was bent in shipping.  The company was excellent to deal with and has shipped out a replacement, so no pictures of that yet.

The economic crunch also hit close to home.  Ben, along with 1600 people in his company, received his layoff notice this week.  It's certainly not a disaster.  He's never really liked this job anyway and just lacked the initiative to go look for something else.  Initiative has now arrived.  They've been very financially responsible and are in good shape for the time being, so there's no panic.  Of course, we're hoping that something will turn up a little closer to us, but at this point he just needs to find a job.  Please send good thoughts and prayers their way.

I do have an FO to show:

Komet Socks by Stephanie van der Linden for the Sockknitters Anonymous October challenge on Ravelry.  Yarn:  Knitpicks Essential in Pumpkin, needles, size 0.  Mods – Not technically a mod since the pattern says you can put in your favorite heel.  I did a standard flap heel rather than the short row heel in the pattern because it fits me better.  This is a wonderful pattern.  Easy to memorize, but interesting things going on.  I would say I'd do it again, but with the Sockdown challenge, I'm challenging myself to try new patterns and designers.  For November Deb is doing a Mystery Sock and I will probably give that a go.

In the meantime, I'm committed to cleaning up some old projects that have been languishing.  Right now I'm working on the Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl, started back in March.  I'm on the last chart and it should be just a week's worth of knitting to get it completed.  Today we're going on a cruise with hubby's car club up to Bellingham.  I really like going on these cruises, because it's nice to spend time with hubby and I get to knit all day! 

And there is quilting to talk about too.  Yesterday in between babysitting our garage sale, I worked on this block:

I'm rather proud of this as it required multi-hooping (those of you who machine embroider will understand that) and I managed to line up everything perfectly.  This is the last embroidered block for a quilt that I've been working on.  In two weeks I'll be going to a quilt retreat and will be working on putting the quilt together.  I wanted to have all the embroidery done so I didn't have to take the embroidery module with me.  Next up is to really start practicing on my machine quilting.  I've got so many quilt tops stacked up, it would take me more than a lifetime to hand quilt them.

And, just in case I don't have enough on my plate, I'm excited about getting into digital scrapbooking.  I had started a scrapbook for Izzy, but am only two years behind on hers.  I haven't even started Ivy's!!  I've been looking at T.J.'s beautiful pages and decided that I am much more interested in digital than all the cutting, pasting and embellishment collecting that the other method requires.  I've ordered Photo Shop Elements 7 from Costco.  It comes with a scrapbooking tutorial from Linda Sattgast.   With any luck, by next week I might have a very simple page to show off.

Sweater weather has returned to Western Washington and I couldn't be happier!  Summer is my least favorite time of year.  I don't like the heat (and here that means anything over 75), and summer fashions don't do a thing for me.  Give me the chill of fall and soft comfy sweaters and turtlenecks and I'm a happy camper.  Although it's still not cool enough for worsted weight sweaters, I dug out my store-bought ones yesterday.  Shorts and tank tops have been consigned to the attic – hooray!

Along with fall has come thoughts of Christmas.  I spent a great deal of this week knitting on stealth projects for Christmas, so no photos.  I have three projects done except for finishing.  Of course with my predilection for procrastinating on finishing, this is none too soon.  The rest of October is going to be taken up with quilting projects.  I'm going on a quilt retreat at the end of the month and I need to get my projects together.  I'll try to blog more about that next week.

I do have one-half of an FO.  I don't usually post pictures of just one sock, but since I have nothing else to show, here is my first sock for the October challenge of Ravelry's Socknitter's Anonymous:

Pattern:  Komet by Steffi Vanderlinden – free download on Ravelry
Yarn:  Knitpicks Essential in Pumpkin
Needles:  Size 0 (2.0) Knitpicks circulars

This is a fun pattern and highly recommended.  I wasn't sure about the name until I saw the picture – you really can see the comets.  I did go down for a tighter gauge.  The pattern is for 66 stitches.  Even with the cables I was afraid it would still be too large for me, so I went for a gauge slightly tighter than called for.  It worked out great and the sock fits well.  On to the second!

How am I supposed to knit under these conditions??

Do you think she's not getting enough fiber in her diet?  I guess I should be thankful those are not originals.  I usually make working copies so I can mark them up and offer them to the dog for an afternoon snack.

I usually don't get too political on this blog and I'm not going to start soon, but I am so frustrated by this economic bail out mess that I could spit nails!  I grudgingly see the need for it (I think), but I'm seriously annoyed by the irresponsibility that led up to it.  Whatever happened to personal responsibility?  Our grandparents who scrimped and saved during the Great Depression are probably spinning in their graves.  Whatever happened to living within our means?  We have become a nation of greedy consumers who believe that we deserve to have everything we want, even if it means paying for it with money we don't have!  I was appalled to hear of the number of companies (including, apparently, the state of California) that rely on credit to make payroll.  One of my favorite websites is Debt Proof Living.  Mary Hunt recommends a 10-10-80 style of living.  You give away 10% of your income to whatever charity fuels your passion.  This makes you thankful for what you have, especially when you focus on those who have less.  You save 10% of your income.  This prepares you for emergencies that WILL come!  Then you live on 80%.  This curbs your greed because you realize that you have a finite amount of money coming in every month and there are just some things you can't afford.  You make do with what you have. 

Ok, off the soap box, but a perfect segue into my stash enhancement.  I decided to join the Sock Knitters Anonymous Sockdown Challenge.  My goal is going to be making at least one pair of socks every month.  My September pair were the Monkeys, my October pair will be the Orange Mystery Socks.  I managed to cast them on just under the wire, on the last day of September:

As much as I would like to be making all of these socks with premium yarn, it's just not in my budget, so I ordered some stash from Knit Picks:

For under $50 I have enough for 6 pairs of socks.  Other than the orange, I decided to stick with muted colors to match my work clothes.  I like the tweed and kettle dyed colors of the Essential yarn.  And the price is certainly right.  And yes, the yarn is in danger – Maggie likes to steal yarn as well as patterns.

We did go out and spend some money this week.  A new storm door for the front door for winter, a new doggie door (the old one had lost one of the baffles and cold air was pouring in) and thrill of thrills – new wooden blinds for our front window!!!  Speaking of making do, we've had the same drapes for 23 years, so I think we've paid our dues on those. 

I've come to despise them, but we just never had the money and the decisiveness at the same time.  Finally the planets aligned and we were able to agree.  They should arrive in a week and I'll post a picture.  And we have the cash for all of the above, so no debt!

This week has been spent catching up, both at work and home.  It was lovely to be home again and both dogs gave us a very, very warm welcome!  Even Maggie has been a little snuggly this week – when she's not bugging us to play, play, play.  Today was my first whole day at home and I spent most of it in my sewing room.  I embroidered the office logo on some fleece pullovers for the two of us up front and made a wall hanging:

My Round Robin group has decided to do quilting rather than piecing this time.  I didn't really want a whole cloth quilt, but have always wanted an Amish quilt.  This came out a little more garish than I really wanted, but I'm hoping the quilting will soften it a little.

I also finished my Monkey socks:

Pattern:  Monkey socks by Cookie A.  Yarn:  Dream in Color Smooshy in Cool Fire.  Needles:  Knitpicks circs, size 0.  I had originally intended to knit this yarn up in the Hibiscus for Hope pattern, but Deb convinced me to dive into the Socknitters Anonymous challenge, so I changed my pattern to fit into that.  Oh – modifications:  I used all knit rather than knit/purl and used a slip stitch on the heel to narrow it a bit more. 

Before we went to Orlando I was busy working on a project that I didn't blog about because I wanted it to be a surprise.  I made these cute little finger puppets and purse for Isobel:

They were a big hit – Izzy especially liked lining them up – she does like order!

No progress on Chenille.  But I'm not worried – Marguerite's too busy hobnobbing with the famous to be knitting!

There was dancing:

Gymnastics:

And water aerobics:

Wild jungle safaris:

Horseback riding:

And mountain climbing:

We met biker babes:

And movie stars:

We tooled around in "Smart" limousines:

And engaged in fine dining:

But most of all, there was lots and lots of snuggling:

Oh, and a little (very little) bit of knitting:

We made it safe and sound to Orlando, but not without a bit of travel drama.  We were scheduled to connect through Houston on Friday, but the airport was closed because of Hurricane Ike.  A quick scrambling and a hour on hold snagged us tickets through Newark, New Jersey.  The catch was that we arrived in Newark at 12:00 midnight and could not get a flight out until 7:00 the next morning.  So, we spent a long night in the airport.  It was safe and clean, but not high on amenities for the sleep deprived.  Why do they insist on fixed arm rests – preventing you from stretching out?  Bill's novel idea was to sleep on top of the chairs:

It was less than successful.  My solution was to just lay down on the floor.  Thankfully no pictures, but I did manage to snag a couple of hours of restless sleep, broken every 15 minutes by the admonition to not leave my luggage unattended or it might be destroyed.  Just in case you are curious, this is what Newark, New Jersey looks like at 4:00 a.m.:

 

We just kept focusing on what awaited us on the other end and it proved to be entirely worth it!  One of my first conversations with Isobel – "I love you Isobel!"  "I love you too, Nana!"  Yeah, entirely worth it!

Izzy has changed so much.  She's now speaking in complete sentences.  She remains completely besotted by her Ye-Ye (Mandarin for grandpa).  When he's around, the rest of us might as well be chopped liver.  Except when she's hurt or sad, then she prefers Nana.  We thought Ivy might be a little stand-offish, but she warmed to us right away.  She's much more outgoing than Izzy was at that age.  She'll go to us just as readily as to her Mom or Dad.  She's a happy, cheerful little girl with a winning personality.

Not much time this week to knit or blog, but do I mind?

You've got to be kidding!

All is quiet here at Missouri Star.  There's hardly anything to blog about, but I may be away from the blog for a couple of weeks, so thought it best to update.  Only four more days of work and we leave for Orlando!  I'm so anxious to see Ben and Abby and the girls.  We'll be there one week – not nearly long enough to be with the grandbabies, but plenty long to be away from home.  The older we get, the harder it is to be away from our house and our dogs.  Maggie and Kirby will be in good hands, however.  Our younger son lives in an apartment attached to the house and he provides great care for the dogs when we are gone.  Although mentally handicapped, he is independent enough to be left alone for a week or so and we really appreciate have a live-in dogsitter.

I have to relate a recent incident in his life.  Last month he decided, on his own, that he wanted a new job.  He's worked at the local Pizza Hut for 8 years – mostly cleaning and chopping vegetables.  It's been a great job for him and they have been wonderful – patient with him when he is slow and understanding that his attention span is a little on the short side.  He went to the local Walmart and applied for a job.  He went to the interview, on his own, and actually got a job night stocking.  Alas, it only lasted about 3 weeks and they let him go because he was too slow.  The sad thing is that in his current job, the state provided a job coach for over a year to help him learn the job.  Because of cut backs in funding, a job coach was not an option for this job.  However, we are as proud as punch of him and told him so.  We told him he should never ever be ashamed of trying something and failing.  He gave it his best and that's all anyone could ask of him.  Wisely, he decided not to quit his other job until the Walmart job was permanent, so he still has a job.  We are so proud of him!  When we adopted him, the Child Development Center at the University of Washington had some pretty dire predictions for him.  He had suffered some pretty horrific abuse that caused brain damage.  They felt he would never learn to read and would grow into a very troubled teenager with significant anger issues.  He now actually reads on a 9th grade level, although his math skills have never advanced beyond about 1st grade.  But above all, he is a sweet, kind man with a perpetually happy outlook on life.  Everyone who knows him loves him and he has many friends at church who look out for him and make sure that he gets to all of the functions.

Ok, so back to actual knitting content.  I actually have an FO to show:

These are simple cabled socks (no pattern) out of Dream in Color Smooshy – Chinatown Apple.  A pretty noneventful knit – these will be for me.  I ordered more Smooshy from Sonny and Shear, this in the Cool Fire colorway:

This will be for some socks for one of our employees who is battling ovarian cancer.  She loves bright colors, especially bubblegum pink and she was admiring some socks I had knit for a friend.  I'll be using the Hibiscus for Hope pattern.  I believe it is still available through that link for a donation to breast cancer research.  Although my friend has a different type of cancer, I thought it was still appropriate and looks like a fun pattern.  That will be my plane/vacation knitting, along with this:

These are toe-up socks using Cat Bhordi's upstream pattern from New Pathways for Sock Knitters.  I was so pleased with my Coriolis socks that I wanted to give this a try too.  So far I think I like this even better.  I have no idea what the yarn is – Regia maybe?  With some cotton content.  It was obviously frogged from a previous project.

I'm taking my laptop with me and hope to have time to blog a little after the girls go to bed.  Until then I leave you with a picture of progress on Chenille:

Despite my best efforts, the little pink cardi just wasn't doing it for me.  When I got to the yoke, the shape took a decidedly alarming turn and didn't look as if it would fit any baby I knew.  So it has been frogged:

But all is not lost!  I remembered that I had a small stash of baby afghans for just such an occasion and a pretty pink ripple afghan will soon be winging its way to my great niece.  I think I've learned a lesson from this (stop laughing!).  Afghans will now be my go-to baby gift.  They are for the most part mindless knitting, don't have to fit and can be stashed away for quick gifts that don't look quick at all.

This did free me up to start something new.  Marguerite and I had decided to start a KAL on Labor Day.  With her blessing, I started a few days early – she will zip past me in no time flat!  We are working on the Set-In Sleeve Aran from Janet Szabo's book, Aran Sweater Design.  Marguerite has dubbed this "Chenille" because it looks like a design from a chenille bedspread.  My version is being made from Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool in a deep rose:

Not the best view of the cables, but the color is pretty true.  You'll notice that there is some cable splay in the border.  Janet has purposely left it in so that the sweater will have some shaping.  I'm just a tad nervous about that as I have no shaping in that area.  I'm going on faith assuming that some of it will block out and the rest will give me the nice feminine shape that I lack!  Miracle sweater!!   Or delusion.

Time to bring you up to date on our neverending road project that has finally ended.  As you may recall, last spring WSDOT (affectionately known around here as "washdot") started a major road project at the end of our driveway.  They lowered the road as much as 10 feet in some areas, but about 3 feet by our driveway.  Unfortunately, winter weather came early and they were forced to put the project on hold until this spring.  They left us with this lovely bump for the entire winter:

They did put in a transition strip, but at the beginning it was only about 3 feet wide.  We complained and they came out and widened it.  It still was a challenge as we are pulling out onto a very busy highway.  Coming in was just as much fun because you had to come to almost a dead stop to avoid jarring your teeth out.  It was always great fun to watch in the rear view mirror and anticipate someone not paying attention and plowing into you!  Spring came this year along with great hopes of a speedy finish.  Alas, it was not to be!  The Department of Natural Resources decided that road work was unfriendly to a nest of eagles nearby and ordered that the work not be resumed until after the baby eagles had fledged, mid July.  Of course, DNR did nothing to step in on the 4th of July when fireworks were going off for 24 hours straight right around the nest, but I digress.  Finally, this week the work was finished and we could not be happier.  This is even better than before they started because we actually have about 30 feet of real road to pull into our driveway:

Enough lollygagging around -  I need to get up and get started.  A whole lovely day ahead of me with no one at home (hubby's off to a car show) and nowhere to go.  I'll put a roast in the crockpot and spend a lovely day in my sewing room.  Heaven!

Once again it's been a bit of a hectic week here at Missouri Star.  Work was pretty intense this week with one 10 hour day with no lunch break!  Fortunately I'm looking at two four day weekends coming up in the next two weeks.  I'm looking forward to some down time puttering around in my sewing room.

First up – a blogger meet up!  I was so pleased that Theresa of TJ Knits and her charming husband Tim stopped by on their way back from a second honeymoon trip to the Olympic Peninsula.  Check out her blog – she takes the most incredible photos!  I'm happy to report that she is just as beautiful in person as she is on her blog.  I was so thrilled to meet her!

In between work and other responsibilities, I was able to play around a bit with my new quilt hoop:

Sitting and quilting with this brought back to me how much I LOVE hand quilting and how much I've missed it while I was in school.  It was always easier to just pick up and put down knitting when I only had a few minutes.  Yesterday was our local quilt guild show.  It's held at Greenbank Farm on the south end of the island.  It's really a beautiful venue, but as at our last show two years ago, the wind seemed to be a problem and we were fighting to keep quilts from blowing away!  My only entry was a duplicate that I made of Ivy's baby quilt:

During the busy week we did take a few moments to wish Happy Birthday to our sweet girl – she turned one year old on Wednesday:

Fear not that knitting has totally been abandoned!  I've been working on what I hoped would be a quick baby gift, but I'm having my doubts.  Hubby's niece had a little girl after two boys and I thought she needed something girly:

I'm a little uncomfortable about the body – it looks too short.  Advice is needed on this!  What do you think?