Busy Busy Bee

I have been busy with my knitting and stitching - and some visitors, both welcome and not so welcome. There is a split in the frame of my front door and some yellowjackets moved in. Today was the second trip by the exterminator - hopefully the last. I had been out of town so discovered them when I returned. Also waiting for me was this:
This is a Luna Moth. The color is flaky as the shutters (in the background) are dark green, not blue. The moth is actually almost a lime green. I believe Luna Moths are the largest moths found in the US. Feel free to jump in and correct me if I'm wrong.

Unfortunately I don't have a macro lens so I can't show details. Moths and butterflies fascinate me. If you look at them under magnification you can see the actual scales that make up the wings.

On to other things. Caledonian Mist socks are finally done!
The last stitches were done tonight and the ends woven in. So that's one happy dance for me.

I've also been working on Magic Carpet Ride. This is so much a dream to work on. The pattern is lovely and the yarn is magnificent.

I've started something new. This was
inspired by the current issue of Spin-Off. It's the cover scarf, Morning Surf. The yarn is Dream In Color Smooshy and the color is Cool Fire. It will be gifted to DDIL when done.

On the stitching front, there is no significant progress on Queen of Roses so no photo there. I finally got the fabric for Wisteria so had to start that one: It's on 22 ct Hardanger and stitched over one. I do use magnification and don't stitch
for very long at a time - but enjoy the challenge.

Updates and recaps

Oh, let's see what I have photos of... On the left is the latest photo of Queen of Roses by The Silver Lining. It's stitched over 1 (one thread over one thread) on 28 count evenweave.

Next is the update on MacGregor's Garden. The first photo is showing the short-row toe which I now love thanks to Susan's hint in the directions. It's neat and it fits like a dream. The color on this first photo is bad but the others are much more like reality.

Next shows the rabbit ears in the cabbage patch. They are cute and fun to knit.


















Now for the profile - the heel is done and there is a twisted stitch setting off the heel from the pattern. Now I'm starting on the 4 cable patterns that are inside the cabbage patch. After that a bit of ribbing and then the first sock is done.

I can't gush enough about both the pattern (from Sunflower Designs) and the yarn from Kim at The Woolen Rabbit.


Above are two of the other cross stitch in rotation right now. On the right is Fire and Ice by Kustom Krafts in Canada. On the left is my own design, based on a photo my DD took of my younger granddaughter seeing herself in the mirror. The name is Dragon Eye because my DD named it that when I sent her a scan of the upper left part when I had started stitching it. The chart was made using Pattern Maker for Cross Stitch by Hobby Ware. I scanned and imported the photo but had to tweak it a few times to get the resolution the way I wanted it. One thing I did learn (the hard way) was to adjust the number of colors BEFORE you save the thing otherwise the default is 99 colors... It was too late to fix this as I'd already started stitching, but I will remember in the future.

The last item in rotation is not started yet - I'm still waiting for the fabric... It is another design from The Silver Lining called Wisteria. It will be done on black Hardanger fabric, 22 count. It will be a companion to Lilacs - which will also be done in black sometime in the future. I have many projects lined up and in process - and my goal is to complete at least 5 projects (both knitted and cross stitched) that are already in process by the end of the year. I should be able to finish at least 3 knitted projects (2 pairs of socks and a shawl) but I do want to finish Dragon's Eye and Fire and Ice. I also would love to finish Victoria Sampler's Heirloom Christmas. It's about 75% done and I do have the matboard for it. I'll try to get photos of it in the near future.
On the left, a delayed Friday Flower Photo - a yellow Iris from my former home in Farmington AR.

The weeds show up really well too. Oh well.

Enjoy the week and I'll update again in a week or so.

Memorial Day - time to remember

This photo is of the marker of a relative who was a casualty of the Civil War at the Battle of Prairie Grove (Arkansas). He is buried at the National Cemetery in Fayetteville, AR. This is one of the original National Cemeteries as designated by President Abraham Lincoln. Today, there is an American Flag in front of his and thousands of other headstones.

I often stop and think of those who have fought for us by orders of our Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C)(the President for those who flunked out of government). I think the reason is that so many in my family have served.

My grandfather served in World War I in France. He never talked about it but I've recently been sent a copy of a photo of his unit.

My father served in World War II in Europe. He arrived there a month after Normandy and was captured by the Germans about 3 weeks after that. He remained in a Stalag until it was liberated at the end of the war in Europe. Later he was sent to Korea during that war (even tho the government still calls it a conflict).

Dad died almost 6 years ago. His cremains are interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

My husband joined the Navy right out of High School. He served during Viet Nam and the only story I will relate is he received his draft notice while his ship was on Yankee Station (off the coast of Viet Nam). He did request that the draft board go ahead and take him back to appear before them - but they failed to do so. We were married before his sea duty started and our oldest was born 3 weeks after he returned to his base.

I do feel grateful that the attitude of the American people has changed since the Viet Nam War. Back then 'civilians' didn't see a difference between the members of the military and the military action they were ordered to participate in. Now, thankfully, we support the members of the military even if we do not support the actions of the military C-in-C.


To all of those who have served or are serving in our military, I thank you for your time, your service and your sacrifices.

One of these Socks...

is just wrong - well half wrong... Presenting Caledonian Mist.
















If you click on either photo, a larger version will come up. The top and left versions are correct. If you can't tell, the 'bad' version had me leaving out 1/2 the pattern, and actually the gusset is wrong too. So this week's project will be to unravel the wrong foot back to the gusset and correct my biggie boo-boo.

Other knitting - for the break times at work - MacGregor's Garden. I'm now in the part where Peter Rabbit's ears are knit in. The kit was purchased from Woolen Rabbit with the design from Pandosu.

I love the yarn - it is so very soft and the color shifts are beautiful. The little jade stitch marker is one I made. It seems to fit right in, doesn't it.

Pandosu's directions give a wonderful hint for the wrap and turn rows in the toe (and I'm guessing the heel). If you lift the wraps up and over the stitch before knitting the 3 as one, it looks so good. I've done other socks with the wrap and turn rows and they never looked like this. The lifting of wraps is now a permanent part of my knitting technique notebook!


Now, while I'm not knitting all the time, I've picked up some other WIP's and started working on them. My plan is to stitch on a graphed page then rotate to another project. I'll be spending more time on each project, but I think there will be more progress each time. Also fewer rotations before completion.
Presenting the first in the rotation: Queen of Roses by The Silver Lining.
Marc's designs are so beautiful and realistic. I'm stitching this one over one on 28 ct evenweave. The bottom of the leaf is the bottom of the page and the line on the right edge of the rose is the other page edge.

For those not knowing much about cross stitch, this is counted and 28 ct means 28 threads per inch. One over one means one strand of floss stitched over 1 thread of fabric. Next time I'll put a dime on the fabric so the scale can be seen.

My next project will be Wisteria, also by Marc at The Silver Lining. It will be stitched on 22 ct black fabric. I'm even nuts enough to consider his Lilac design on black for a companion piece.

Other stitching projects to appear will be Dragon's Eye, my own adaptation of a photo my daughter took; Purple Perfection, a purple iris from TSL; The Holly and The Ivy; Fire and Ice; 'Shroomhilda; a few hardanger projects and some embroidered placemats and napkins with a story. There are probably a few others that will appear as I dig through all my projects and get them sorted and put up. I also have a design in progress of some iris I had in Arkansas.

To do all the sorting, I'm going to have to acquire the parts to assemble new shelving for a closet in an upstairs bedroom. First to come will be the supports for the back and the brackets. Then I'll get the shelves and the plastic containers to store the projects in. I also have some large ziploc bags of wool and some bins of other fibers to be put up and worked on.

One of the blogs I read has a Flower Friday - showing photos of flowers on Fridays. Well, this is actually Monday morning, but I'll post one now and I'll try to post each Friday. My first will be one of my favorites - bleeding heart - the old fashioned kind which blooms in the spring. The purple flowers are a 'weed' called vetch (I think). Weeds are misplaced flowers, right. I had a lot of misplaced plants in that garden.

Lace vs Cables

A few weeks ago Abby asked me if I prefer lace or cables. That question has stuck with me a bit. I'm actually doing both with Mystic Light (shown on last entry) which is a lace shawl with a cable top edge and a braid down the middle.

I failed to resist temptation and started Magic Carpet Ride from Sunflower Designs. I've absolutely fallen in love with the texture - one side is smooth and the other heavily textured. I've taken some ehh photos to try to show what I mean.

This is the right side. The beads look set into windows formed by the knit, purl on the wrong side rows. The texture is smooth but attractive.

The next photo shows the same view but without flash so it looks very green. The knitting in all photos is on very white 25 lb ink jet paper - which appears blue even though it's not. I think the photo shows the "windows" a bit more.

The beads do look more inset in this photo. By the way the yarn is Whisper laceweight merino in Tupelo Honey colorway from Woolen Rabbit. The link takes you to Kim's photo of the yarn and shows the coloring so much better than my photos. The color shifts are so subtle and so real if you have ever seen the Tupelo Honey. Tupelo is a type of gum tree that is native to the south. In addition to a wonderful flavor in honey, the wood was used to make bread bowls. Those are oval bowls used to knead bread years ago. I had one that went walkabout when I moved to TN.

Back to topic. Here's the photo I took of the 'wrong' side. The texture is heavy and the beads are more pronounced.
I'm going to be using this scalloped ribbing when I start Moroccan Days sometime in the future. I decided the loopy beaded fringe on that is a bit much of a temptation to the cat, and since I'm basically a klutz, a sure thing for a disaster.
So I believe what I love about the knitting is the textures available through the combination of stitches and, in this case, beads. I love Aran patterns, the cables, the lattice, even the bobbles.

Color work such as Fair Isle, intarsia and such is also interesting, being so much a visual person much of my life. Wendy of wendyknits.net is currently working on a sweater originally designed as a fair isle style. She's using Kauni yarn and started the skeins in 2 places. The results are amazing! Check out her photos but look quickly - this lady knits with blazing needle speed.

I'm going to tempt fate now and do the next row on Magic Carpet. The tempting is that PK is out and wound up. The row is beaded. Nuff said.

Photos as promised

But I didn't promise anything about quality. It's cloudy and raining so outside is not a choice for a photo shoot.
First of all - Mystic Light. This is a companion piece to Mystic Water - still in progress. ML started this past week with clue 1. Since it is knit in sock yarn, it goes a bit faster - or seems like it. The colorway is Sugar Maple from Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome.
















The yarn at left is Tupelo Honey, a laceweight Merino from Kim at The Woolen Rabbit. I doubt any photo will do this justice. It has a kazillion colors in the green, gold, beige range It's like each stitch will be a different color - very subtle but there.

This will be used to knit up Magic Carpet Ride by Susan at Sunflower Designs. The link goes to her blog so take a few minutes and look around. She has a wonderful way with words and some yummy photos.

Since Clue 2 of ML comes out Wednesday, I have some time to get back to Mystic Waters. I'm still on chart E with 4 to go, but I only have maybe 4 rows to finish before that chart hits the trashcan.

Now I'm off to get some longer size 5 needles for Mystic Light. The ones I have now just won't hold all the stitches if it's cramped already.

Warning!!!

Do NOT visit the following with any beverage near you, your computer, or your mouth.

http://fleeglesblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/trenna-tragedy.html#links

I about hurt myself laughing!

Enjoy!