Birthday Presents just keep coming . . . .

First a tower of cookies that came in for the girls from the Godfather. Similar towers come in with some regularity and are always greeted with great enthusiasm. This particular one is lovely and the bottom box (the biggest) is the one filled with the very best cookies . . . I'm hoping to get at least one of these.


Next the birthday goodies. Some of these were given to me on Tuesday but some of them were not yet here - several arrived today. The knitting book More Sensational Socks came today in the mail - it wasn't really a birthday gift, but it's timing was good, so it gets to play with the rest. Then there is the mixer - What? You say. That's not a very good birthday gift! But you are wrong - it is what I asked for. The mixer that I have is the one I bought for my hope chest before I ever moved out of Mom & Dad's house - way back when I was a teenager (and that was more than 30 years ago now). It actually still works, but the last time I used it, it got so hot that I was afraid it would melt. It probably needs to be retired.


And, the midget gave me a case to protect the GPS she gave me for Christmas. It will help keep the cord from getting tangled in everything already in my car, but isn't big enough to actually hold the gps and the cord. And Miss S gave me a new suet feeder and more suet. We have at least 6 or 7 different kinds of woodpeckers and sapsuckers in this yard and they happily come close and let you look at them if you have suet. My last feeder somehow got lost when the trees got trimmed - I wonder if it got tossed with the branch it was hung on.

And, of course I have to include a gratuituous picture of the cute little dog in my life and here's a pic of mom's cat angel in my garden. Things are beginning to green up around here.

There Once Was a Birthday Party . . .

There were balloons and streamers and party favors. There was dancing and singing, drinking and eating. There were even a few presents. And much merriment there was . . . . good times had by all!

First the Knitting . . . .

There's been a lot of knitting going on, but not a lot of finishing. The Biological socks are done toe up and I'm past the heel. There are 4 charts on the side of the top and I'm thru one and a half so I think that means that I have about 40 rows of chart left - not that much. The Monteray socks are basically knit - the body is knit anyway. One of the two of them has been grafted and the other is waiting for me to feel like doing the grafting. Then I have to pick up the toe, heel and cuff stitches, and knit those things. Not much left on those either. I have started the sleeves on the norwegian sweater but I'm not happy with the tension, so I'm ripping them back to the cuffs. The only picture I have today is the Monteray that isn't grafted - but I'll get more pics tomorrow.

Finally working on stuff again

My eyes have settled down. The vision is much worse than it was but it isn't changing every day plus with strong enough glasses I can see if I use large needles. So I bought some baby alpaca and made stuff for Andrew. I made him a hat (Caps for Kids Swirled Hat from Knitting for Peace) and a scarf (just plain garter stitch with i-cord edges) and mittens (Gifted by Kate Gilbert) and gloves (pattern found at suite101.com). Long ago I was using up some Caron Simply Soft and all I had was red and black so those became his colors. This time they didn't have black so I used a very dark heathery blue with flecks of red in it.

I am also crocheting up all the odds and ends of this and that (all the synthetic yarns) into a queen size afghan. I found the picture on the web and fell in love. Then I found the pattern on Ravelry -

Shell Stitch Afghan by Anastacia Zittel. There are a few patterns for Diagonal Box Stitch afghans which look like the same stitch to me. The cutest part of the afghan is the two fuzzy white things - the big one is Fritz who birthday is on the 12th (he will be one) and the little one is Alf who turned two in January.

Busy, busy day.

Today was a busy, busy day. Husband was gone and coming back today and daughters were both scheduled to the hilt. Daughter #2 was going to a Bat Mitzvah in the morning that I was also invited to and wanted to attend, but it wasn't exactly possible given the day's transportation needs. So, I dropped her off and then started running the other daughter around. Spent the entire day dropping off and picking up and then picked up Husband at the Marta after he arrived back in town. Then we went shopping and had some fun.

It was suggested that I let Daughter #1 learn to play the guitar to accompany herself when she sings. So we got this lovely pink guitar and a teach yourself to play book/cd for her. It's a cheap (very cheap and not necessarily in a good way) guitar, but if she actually puts some effort into it, I will consider buying her a nicer one. She's been playing with it all afternoon, but that doesn't mean it will ever be picked up again.

Daughter #2 has wanted one of these for a long time, and I've said no that she was too young. But there have been about a dozen times since the first of this year that it would have been so nice if she'd had one. There were three times this week that I needed her to have one and two more today. So, she now has one and if you call me sometime, I will give you her number.

This is the harvest from my greenhouse this afternoon. The bigger fruit is a passion fruit from my Lady Margaret plant and the smaller one is from Amethystina. They are both full sized and ripe. The Amethystina fruit is soft & squishy and the Lady Margaret still has a shell rather like an egg. (Lady Margaret is red, Amethystina purple)

And this is my daphne odora getting ready to bloom. It has flowers open - one or two in most of the bunches. It's lovely, but the very best thing about it is the fragrance. It's delicious and delightful and will only get better and stronger as more flowers open. I've lost several of these plants, but these two bushes (two right together) are very happy where they currently are and I hope they stay that way.

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Well I finally finished my afghan. Its prettier in person. The camera doesnt do co;ors always true. Any way now am working on other ubfinished stuff.

Early Birthday Presents

I bought myself some early birthday presents!

I have always wanted to have all of Elizabeth Zimmermann's books, and I think this is the last one that I did not own. So, I bought it for myself - Happy Birthday to me!

I also have knit a couple of things from the old newsletters that she wrote and was trying to decide which ones I wanted to buy. Everytime I tried to pick a few, I ended up picking enough out to make it worthwhile to do the buy them all and get them cheaper deal. So I did just that.

New and Improved Turquoise Hat!

Ok, so you remember that I made this hat and this scarf for myself, right? Used some lovely Malabrigo worsted. Well, the scarf is really pretty and as practical as a scarf can be for someone who doesn't wear scarves. But I didn't really like the hat - not the way it looked, not the way it fit and not the way it felt.

So, after reading the Yarn Harlot and seeing the picture of the hat and mittens she made her daughter I decided to remake the hat. I found a bit of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Bulky (or maybe super bulky) behind the bed. Then I had to rip out the hat that had already been knit - started that yesterday evening.

I knit the Cashmerino into a strip using moss stitch and when it was big enough to go around my head, I sewed it together and picked up stitches along the top edge. Since the cashmerino was bulkier than the malabrigo, I picked up more stitches and used a needle one size smaller. Then I knit from the strip to the top of the head - tried it on and when I thought it was big enough did my decreases. Afterward, I picked up and knit four rows on the bottom and then bound off. I didn't like the curl, so I undid the bind off and two rows and purled a row and then bound off in purl and now it lies flat.

I really like it - it's comfortable and as attractive as a headwarming hat can be on someone who generally doesn't like hats.

What do you think?

Pretty, pretty . . .

I decided that I didn't really like the way the cable hat that I made fit, so it's becoming the yarn for a new hat. I'm adding some white Debbie Bliss Cashmerino bulky as a strip in the middle because I wasn't sure I had enough of the blue Malabrigo. We'll see how it looks when it's done. I'm not using a pattern, just the same concept that the Yarn Harlot used for the hat she made her daughter.


I cast on the Miss Babs (forget the color name, but I like it) socks for my husband, but since he's in the doghouse, I've decided they might become mine. I really like this yarn - it feels nice and the colors are nice.








Miss S made me buy her some more of the Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande to make more hats. This variegated pastel yarn is for a lady at the school who has been very helpful to both girls this week - I'm talking way above and beyond the call of duty.




This is actually a dark blue, but not even navy. The camera doesn't like dark colors very much. This yarn is for the girl to make her father a hat. He wants his just like the girl's own hat and the one she made the boyfriend but I said it had to be different. It would be totally uncool for your father to have the same hat as you and your boyfriend, right?

This is some Mountain Colors Bearfoot that I saw and liked. And I had a pattern that wanted something with some different colors in the variegation. So it followed me home and I was ok with that . . . .


And finally, took the broken child to the doctor after she'd had the brace on for just over the 3 weeks that it was prescribed for . . . and found out that it didn't do the trick. The arm hadn't healed enough and probably should have been in a real cast from the get go. So, we came home with this (and yes, black was her choice), which we get to keep for the next two weeks. Glad I didn't listen to DH and just take the brace off and assume that everything was hunky dory!