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What a busy week! In addition to school and work, this Saturday I helped host an all day retreat for three churches. As part of it, I taught a 2 1/2 hour class. By the end of the day I was exhausted and could barely talk! I’ve heard that the difference between extroverts and introverts is that extroverts are energized by contact with people and introverts are energized by solitude. I am definitely an introvert. Being “on” all day was very draining for me. However, the retreat was a huge success and culminated a nine week training for Stephen Ministers for all three churches. Now we have 12 wonderful, trained caregivers to send back to their churches to minister. Well worth the exhaustion.

I find myself getting my schedule cluttered up again. It’s not necessarily that I can’t say “No”, but that I have so many fun things presenting themselves. On my last trip up to Bellingham for a machine class, the owner of the shop asked ME to teach some classes! I guess she was impressed with some of the projects I’m doing. I told her that I couldn’t commit to any kind of regular schedule. It’s too far away (an hour each way) and I’ve got an awful lot on my plate now. But I did agree to do a few here and there. At least it will help fund my new addiction – thread! I’m finding that in order to do all the lovely projects I’d like, you need a palette of beautiful colors (sounds suspiciously like a stash, huh?).

Lest you think that I have left knitting by the wayside, I’ve made quite a bit of progress on both the baby afghan and Forest Path. The problem is, they look just like the last picture (go ahead and look, I’ll wait), only longer. I’m up to Tier 12 on Forest Path – well over half way. I’ve heard that some other members of the Knit Along aren’t going the whole 23 tiers because it will be too big. I’ll keep my options open, but that may be a possibility because it is getting pretty long now. I’ve decided to concentrate on those two projects until they’re done!

And just to keep the blog a little interesting – a picture. The model shot of Alberta:

I wore it to church this morning and what a delight! It was warm and soft and perfect for a rather cool spring morning. I felt quite pampered.

Hope I have something interesting to talk about next week. I’ll continue to work on my two projects, so maybe I’ll post a picture just to prove that I am indeed knitting away!

Our tea party was a resounding success. We had 18 ladies here and we ate and talked and drank tea and talked some more. There were hats:

There were friends and relatives (well, the relatives were friends too – that’s me with Jan, my best friend sitting next to me and my sister-in-law, Beth, who did me the great favor of introducing me to her brother):

Even the dogs got in on the act:

We had scones with Devonshire cream, lemon curd and strawberry jam, lemon squares, little tea sandwiches and four different kinds of tea, and chocolate dipped strawberries. And not a thing was low fat!! Well, except maybe the tea. These are the napkins I made for the tea:

Next year I hope to make tablecloths to match. Yes, we all agreed there would be a next year. On the knitting front, I’ve accomplished quite a bit this week, but not very interesting blog fodder. Both the Forest Path Stole and the baby’s afghan have gotten longer, but otherwise look pretty much the same. Bill and I drove down to the Seattle area today and I knitted on the baby afghan most of the way. On the way home we stopped at a garage sale and for a moment I thought I had made a really big score. The couple is moving into a small condo because the wife has progressive dementia. She was a weaver and I found a huge garbage bag with skeins and skeins of what looked like fingering weight wool. We’re talking huge hanks of probably four or five thousand yards each. Unfortunately they weren’t labelled. This would be enough yarn to keep me in CIC knitting for at least 10 years! Rather than take a chance, I pulled off a strand and took it outside and lit a match to it. Sigh! It curled up and melted – yup, pure acrylic. I guess it was not to be. Maybe it’s just as well – I’d have been winding it into balls for years!

I’ve got to get busy this week and finish off this section of my class. My essays are done – now I just have to read and comment on the other student’s essays. Some are pretty good, but there are a fair amount that are just dreadful! At least I only have to read a couple. Pity the poor teacher who has to read them all!! And at least try to be kind.

A very busy week here at Missouri Star and the rest of the month proposes to be even busier. I can’t even promise I will be blogging for a couple of weeks, but we’ll have to see. Of course, there’s work and school, but also some fun goings on. Next Friday my Round Robin group meets here at the house to begin our Mystery Quilt Project. And on Saturday a couple of my friends and I are hosting our First Annual Spring Tea, again here at the house. It should be fun and I’ll take lots of pictures.

In knitting news, some specs on the cashmere shawl. The pattern is Alberta by Myrna Stahman. Can I say again how much I love her book? The yarn is China Cashmere DK, the needles Knit Picks Options, size 7. Here is a close up:

I’ll try to get a model shot sometime this week. I’ve also been working on the Forest Path Stole, but have stumbled a bit. I have to say it’s getting a bit monotonous, but that breeds inattention, which breeds – you guessed it – Frogging!! I sat down to work on it one night this week and kept dropping stitches, miscounting, you name it, and ended up frogging about as much as I knitted. But I just started Tier 10, which is exciting because I am nearing the halfway point!

Most of my knitting time this week has been taken up with the new baby’s afghan:

The observant among you may have noticed that this is not the pattern I started with. I just wasn’t feeling the love on the other one. After one full pattern repeat, it became apparent that with the yarn I had, the afghan was going to be very short and wide – all out of proportion. To make it proportionally pleasing I would have had to make it humongously long or rework the pattern. I remembered my favorite Leisure Arts baby book and pulled it out and found this one. This is comfort knitting at its finest. There’s a wonderful rhythm to the pattern – perfect for watching TV or chatting with hubby. And perfect car knitting!

This weekend I’m off for fun and games. I’m going down to my sister’s later today. Tomorrow we will go to a teddy bear show in Puyallup. I am kind of toying with the idea of making teddy bears as a little cottage industry when I retire. I have no idea if it’s feasible or even profitable, but am going to explore the idea. Several years ago I made this little guy:

I’m thinking it would be cute to make personalized bears to commerate special occasions. Baby bears for births, bride and groom bears, bridesmaid bears to give as the bridesmaid’s gift. I certainly don’t expect to make a living out of it – just something to do that’s fun and helps fund my hobbies. My husband has found a great hobby – building model airplaines out of recycled aluminum cans. His business has taken off and he’s having a great time. You can visit his site here.

Two sure cures for the winter blahs! Number one – an FO! I’ve been so close, yet so far away on this one. You may remember the cashmere Faorese shawl I was working on. About one repeat short I ran out of yarn. So, I ordered another skein, but only one because it was so expensive. Imagine my heartbreak when I came this close and ran out again:

I just couldn’t see ordering another full skein when I only needed a few yards. So I emailed Laurel at handknitting.com and explained my dilemma. She offered to send me a few yards for just a small shipping and handling charge. When it arrived, I was overjoyed to find she had sent 10 yards! And I’m ever so glad she did, because I finished with barely a yard to spare: Behold:

Before:

After:

It’s not as wonky as it looks – I was trying to take a picture and get everything in without falling off the bed! Bill pointed out that this is probably the most expensive garment I own. He’s probably right! But I hope this will be handed down as an heirloom with stories of how great grandpa bought the yarn as a gift of love to great grandma, who made it with her own hands.

The other cure for winter blahs? Baby knitting:

Sorry for the truly horrible picture. The yarn is the most beautiful seafoam color. I’m using Encore – my favorite really washable worsted weight yarn for babies. The yarn shop has some beautiful baby yarn in a coordinating seafoam and yellow that I think I will get for the sweater set. Yes, I know a baby in Orlando may not need many sweaters, but this little guy/gal needs a set of his/her own to pass down.

And, oh yes – a third cure for the winter blahs – perfect scores on my last two essays for Psychology of Women and an invitation to join the newly established honor society for non-traditional students at Washington State University. Definitely an incentive to keep on keeping on.

I have the blogging blahs. Actually, I have the blahs in general. Don’t get me wrong, life is good. Maybe it’s the time of year, maybe it’s just the little frustrations. Work has been frustrating. For the fourth time in two years, I’ve hired a great employee, only to have her leave after two months for greener pastures. I understand each person has to look out for herself, etc., but a litte more sticking power would be nice. Fortunately I’ve been able to hire a provisional dental assistant to get us through a scheduled employee leave, but I’m a little concerned about her too. She’s coming from a huge dental practice in Eastern Washington and I’m a little nervous that she’s going to come prepared to teach us country hicks just how a dental office should be run. Hmmm – I sound a little cynical, don’t I?

Perhaps it’s my college class, the Psychology of Women. There are a lot of interesting points in this class, but I’m tired of hearing how everything is a conspiracy by a patriarchal society to keep women beaten down and powerless. Personally, I always considered it a privilege to stay home when my baby was born and kind of felt sorry for my husband that he had to go out and make a living for us. And grateful too – thanks honey!! And I like pink and playing with dolls – so what if that makes me a pawn of a sexist male dominated society?

Ok, enough whining. Wanna see what I did today?

Another cute little Izzy dress. It looks huge to me, but it’s the same size as the last one, which fits her well enough to wear now, but with room to grow. I also decided to embellish the quilt I showed you several weeks ago:

I think the butterflies really add some pizzazz! Tomorrow I’m off to Bellingham for another class – but I called ahead and confirmed this time! Word has it that we’re doing a cute tote bag. A girl can never have too many cute tote bags! Egads! I’d be drummed out of my Psychology of Women class for that quote. However, being named to the President’s Honor Roll for fall quarter will take the sting out of that!

Still working on the Forest Path Stole, but to tell the truth, picutres from here on out will just be more of the same, so don’t know if it’s worth posting every time. Instead, I will leave you with this – can you believe how grown up she looks? Very big sisterish!

Marguerite reminded me that it’s the weekend and time to post. I know a lot of you post every day – how do you do it? Even if I had the time, I just don’t have that much to talk about. I’d bore you to tears! Not too much exciting going on here. After about a week of mild weather, it turned cold and we even had a smattering of snow on our yard yesterday. The daffodils are up and starting to bloom – I hope they don’t get their little heads bitten off!

This is what I spent today doing:

Some members of our quilt guild met today to work on community quilts. These go to various organizations around town such as the cancer care unit, foster kids, CADA, etc. I finished this quilt top today. I didn’t do all of the hearts, only four of them, made the alternate nine patches and put it all together. I think some kid will really appreciate this bright and cheery quilt! Unfortunately, our church where we were working forgot to tell us that the furnace is broken and we just about froze to death. But we soldiered on! My fingerless mitts came in handy and were borrowed by at least one other quilter.

Most evenings after work I’ve been knitting on Forest Path – now on Tier 6:

I think any questions about construction have been answered (hopefully correctly) and now it’s down to just knitting, knitting and more knitting. Since there’s no way I’ll get this done by September, I will have to put it aside at some time for some baby quilting and knitting, but I’ll still keep it in the picture. We now have an official due date – September 18th. I’ve already got my leave papers in. I’m taking three weeks off so with any luck we can be there when the baby’s born. Now we just have to get the baby on board to arrive on schedule!

Another busy week – back to work, school and other activities. I’ve gotten a lot done, but haven’t even kept up on my blog reading, much less posting. However, I do have some progress to show. First off – Forest Path. I am now on Tier 4!

I definitely have the hang of it, but that doesn’t mean frogging hasn’t been necessary! I have to remember whether I’m on an odd or even tier and pay attention to whether I pick stitches up from the front or the back and whether the first stitch is slipped as if to knit or purl. I think I made a mistake in picking up way back, but I am not, repeat NOT going back that far. I have to admit to being just a tad nervous looking at this. I am an experienced lace knitter and I know that unblocked lace looks like crap. But this looks more like crap than usual. I think it’s because of all the zigging and zagging. But I am undeterred and pressing on!

I’ve also been sewing quite a bit as well. I’ll have an Izzy dress to show by next week. I also am in charge of a Mystery Quilt project for my Round Robin group. This is a very talented group of ladies that I got together about 10 years ago. There are five of us, with three of us from the original group and others that have come and gone. Over the years we’ve done mini workshops, round robin quilts and worked on quilts for each other. We decided to do a mystery quilt as something new we haven’t tried before. I found the Fly Away Home quilt pattern and decided it would be a great small project. I think I can safely show this since to my knowledge, none of the group reads my blog:

Of course, if any of them do, the mystery has been ruined. I think I may do some tweaking with this too and add some embroidery in the white squares.

Ummm – and where is school in all this? It’s a good thing this is a one class, low stress semester. I’ve spent so much time sewing and knitting that I’ve been neglecting my school work just a little. So, I will need to buckle down this week and work on a couple of essays. So far, I’ve done well, with all but one of my essays earning a perfect score. Wouldn’t you know, though, that one essay really bugs me, even though I was only 2 points off! Just a month and a half to go and then I will be FREE, FREE, FREE for the summer! After that, only three classes and a seminar to go. I am SO ready to be done!

Whew – what an expensive week! First it was emergency dental work because of a cracked molar. Usually I get all my dental work done for free at my office. But both the docs are pediatrics and don’t do adult crowns, so I had to go next door to what one of our teen-aged patients refers to as a “real” dentist. I have the temp on now and it feels a lot better. Then, the day after, our water heater died! Actually, we had kind of been expecting this and, to tell the truth, were not all that disappointed. We’ve been wanting to switch from electric to gas and this was just the incentive we needed. Fortunately we were able to get it done the next day so were without hot water only about 24 hours. Enough to reinforce that we really, really enjoy it!! And also fortunately we had a reserve fund for just such occasions, but now it is low and will need to be replenished. So, if I wasn’t on a yarn diet before, I certainly am now. Thank goodness I still have a gift certificate to the Kirkland yarn shop given to me by my parents for Christmas so I’ll be able to get at least one yarn fix this year.

When not running to doctor’s and dentist’s appointments or dealing with plumbers (actually, my husband did most of that), I sewed and sewed. I completed my mother-in-law’s quilt:

This was my first major machine quilting project and I think it’s not half bad. I’m certainly not as accomplished at machine quilting as hand quilting, but I think is acceptable. At least it’s done! I decided to go ahead and give it to her so hubby and I went over today and presented it to her. She was very pleased. She didn’t remember that she had pieced the star, but I assured her that she had and even put a label on the back showing that she pieced it and I quilted it. I think all of the other ladies were quite impressed. It’s now on her bed. But it sure looked nice on my guest room bed, didn’t it?

I received this picture from Abby:

It’s Izzy in her Miss USA dress. Don’t you love that petulant expression? Maybe Mom had just told her that her position as baby of the family is going to be usurped. And the hat! That goes to an outfit I made her last summer. She has absolutely refused to wear any hats I’ve made for her. If you put them on she just rips them off immediately. But Abby said all of sudden she’s been putting them on and wearing them. Hmmm – does she realize her hat doesn’t match her purse? Oh well, if I made one to match she probably would refuse to wear that one. She certainly does have a mind of her own!

In knitting news, I’ve not made any progress on the Forest Path Stole. I picked up Abby’s Debbie Bliss sweater and was enjoying it so much I’ve just kept going. The back is done and I’ve started on the front. No pictures because I’m too lazy to get up out of my recliner and take one. But . . . . I really need to study too. The new sewing machine is providing a definite distraction! So I was good and studied for a couple of hours today.

By George, I think I’ve got it!  I’ve been looking longingly at the Forest Path Stole pattern ever since it came out.  I’ve read the directions and been terribly confused.  I was excited when Debi and Agnes started the Knit-a-Long because I really needed the support!  I actually started a day early because I had a meeting on the 1st.  And it turns out that it is not as difficult as I was making it out to be.  In the infamous words of Nike – you just have to do it!  I sat down and followed the directions and voila:

I am almost finished with the first tier.  As Debi has pointed out, the lace patterns are fairly simple.  I was a little horrified to see that one contained nupps!  If you’ve followed my blog for any time, you know that I have issues with nupps.  However, it turns out that the right needles make all the difference in the world.  I’m using Knit Picks Options needles and the extra pointy tip is just what’s needed to do the P5 tog.  That, and making sure that on the row before, you knit those stitches VERY, VERY loosely.  In fact, far looser than you think is necessary.  I tried to get a close up, but pre-blocking they look a little scrunched.

In sewing news I went up to Bellingham yesterday for my first embroidery class.  Two classes are offered with the machine – embroidery and mastery classes.  The mastery classes teach you all the features of your machine while the embroidery classes are really just for fun – you get to make a project.  I got up early, packed up my machine and assorted sewing notions and drove for an hour to get to the shop.  When I walked in and announced I was there for the embroidery class, I got a blank look – then they told me the class had been cancelled!  I was understandably annoyed.  It appears they hadn’t called me because I wasn’t on the list.  At least three times I had asked my saleslady to put me on the list and she said she couldn’t find it but promised me I was on it!  Apparently organization is not their strong suit.  However, they took pity on me and told me to bring in my machine and they would work with me.  By the time I got set up, three more people had arrived for class!!  So, they put together an impromtu class and I have to admit to being quite pleased with the results:

We used some type of sparkly fiber (I forgot what it’s called) that you lay on your fabric and press, giving a beautiful, irridescent background.  Then she showed us how to trim these and slide them into photo cards that you can get at Walmart.  Cute, eh?  She also gave me instructions for embroidery directly onto paper.  Can’t wait to try that out.

I only have to work one day this week and hope to get a lot done on my mother-in-law’s quilt.  When I get it laid out for basting, I’ll take a picture.  I leave you with this darling email I got from my daughter-in-law.  Could any grandchild be any cuter?

Isobel’s at this stage right now that she thinks the right way to 
hold a book is when the picture’s the right-side-up, i.e. when the 
head is above the feet. Unfortunately there’s this one place in one 
of her Curious George books, George is sitting up in one page and 
standing up-side-down on his hand in the other. She would just sit 
there turning the book around over and over again, trying to get both 
pictures the right-side-up at the same time, which of course will 
never happen. 😀

No harm, no foul!  Check hubby’s comments on my last post.  They’re hilarious.  I was a little alarmed until I remembered that my cashmere shawl was draped across the back of the chair  The errant 60" cable finally arrived from Knitpicks and I was able to get a good photo (dog added for scale):

I really would like to get this done before the start of the Forest Path Stole-a-long, but doubt that will happen.  The rows are getting really, really L…O…N…G.  But this yarn is just heaven to work with.

I did get another project done – the CIC gansey.  This is the Jerrod’s gansey from Beth Brown-Reinsel’s book in a size 32 out of Cascade 220. 

I’ll mail this off this week along with a pair of fingerless mitts.  Not sure yet what my next CIC project will be, but I’ve got lots of green Cascade 220 left over.

And of course, I’ve been sewing, sewing!  Here is my first official completed project:

Way cute if I say so myself!  I don’t know if the little buttons show up very well in the picture, but they say "U.S.A."  And look at the inside of the little purse:

I’ve given up making cute little hats for Izzy.  She just won’t wear them.  But I have a feeling she will tote around a cute little purse.  Today I’ve been working on a quilt top that I found while cleaning out my sewing room.  Many years ago my mother-in-law wanted to make a Lone Star quilt and I helped her get started.  She never finished it and when she first moved into assisted living, I offered to do it for her.  She said she really wanted to finish it herself.  Now she has moved from assisted living into full time adult care and no longer has the pnysical capabilities to sew so now I am going to finish it for her and give it to her for Mother’s Day.  I am very excited about this project!  I know it will please her so much.  I’m off to attach the borders and maybe I’ll have a picture for you next week.