Tomten #2

Dear Mom,

I finished another Tomten, as a stand in for the one that Patsy decided to chew the buttons off.

Kinda makes me want to knit one for myself.

Love,

Kim

A sigh of relief

Dear Mom,

I can stop holding my breath and clenching my teeth, because Michele has received her socks and is happy with them. I probably should have warned her that hand knit socks spoil your feet and the store bought ones will never be good enough again, but this is one of the subtle ways we knitters get people hooked on handknits.

I took this photo of the socks before I sent them off.

On Sunday we had tickets to the Air Show. We've never attended an Air show before and it was very exciting. I tried taking pictures to capture the death defying spirals, stunts and tricks. Most of my pictures ended up like this:

Blue sky, clouds and a black dot. Sometimes I got a blurry black dot. Or just sky.

Or the back of a stranger's head.

But I did manage to get a handful of decent pictures.

Okay, even though they don't capture the excitement I am pretty excited that there were any decent shots amongst the way too many pictures of sky that I took. I don't even know what kinds of planes these are, and some of the planes that taxied in front of us looked like there was NO WAY they would ever get off the ground. And some of those stunts? Why would anyone even try them and whose Mom would let them, anyway??!!  

Love,

Kim 

Pins and Needles

Dear Mom,

I am really nervous. Today is the day that Michele should receive her package from me.

A short while ago, Michele left a comment about some of the socks I posted and that lead to an exchange. I would send her a pair of socks and she would send me a quilt block. Michele's appliqued quilts are jaw-dropping stunners. And even though (or maybe because) the resume of my short quilting career would only include 4 placemats and a queen size quilt (queen size quilt = quilt burnout), I appreciate the exquisite detail and beauty of her quilts.

Anyway, we happily decided to quilt and knit for each other, and to surprise each other with our projects.

Last Friday afternoon, my quilt block arrived. It is so beautiful that I am challenged to take a photograph that will do it justice. And for someone who has never been in my house, the colors she selected belong here.

I am nervous because I think there may be NO WAY that Michele likes her socks as much as I love this quilt block.

Here are a couple of quick shots I took of the block on my knitting chairs.

The block also looks lovely in the guest room, but I am too selfish to leave it there. Not knowing what I had planned for this quilt block, Michele very kindly sent extra fabric for a back and binding. I'll turn it into a pillow and it will make my knitting nest(s) even more cosy. 

Gosh I hope Michele likes her socks.

Love,

Kim

78 yards and 2 miles

Dear Mom,

Thanks to the sanctuary of your kitchen, which besides being clean and quiet is most importantly Patsy free, I made a wee dent in the box of roving (formerly known as the bag o'wool). I thought you might like to know that after filling that second bobbin, the yarn you witnessed me plying totalled up to a whopping 78 yards. Just need about 1425 more yards to go if I am going to spin enough for a sweater. Less if I don't put any cables in it, but this seems to be a cable-wanting yarn.

The humidity is cranking back up and as much as I hate to do it, the house is closed up so that we can be comfortable. Pink tongues were hanging out and I was "glowing" after this morning's walk.

But this makes it all worth it.

Love,

Kim

The Bucket List (it's not what you think)

Dear Mom,

I don't often get bitten by the sewing bug, and when I do, it seems to bite in the summertime for some reason. A couple of summers ago it was a wrap skirt frenzy. Last weekend, I caught the bug again after seeing this on this blog. I immediately ordered the pattern and started digging through fabric scraps.

The first bucket hat used a faded pair of denim capris and you may recognize the lining from a little jacket I made the Young Lady when she was just a toddler. I strategically placed one of the pattern pieces over a pocket to give the hat a bit of personality.

 The Young Lady has claimed this one as her own. I immediately cut out a second hat for myself.

I have at least 4 more hats in the queue, and the only thing I needed to purchase was some fusible interfacing. The pattern is well written, the directions are clear, the hats were easy sewing and fit just right. This second hat went much quicker than the first- it was probably a 2 hour project- max- including the cutting the pieces out. I have a feeling it is gonna be a hat-a-day until the fabric runs out.

Love,

Kim

Feeling Girly here, too.

Dear Mom,

Bonnie Jo wasn't the only one Feeling Girly last week. In celebration of a straight A report card, the Young Lady and I went to get our toes done.

We both selected neon colors- which apparently are so bright they are almost unphotographable. (Orange for me- of course, and green for the Young Lady.)

Patsy was feeling girly, too.

Love,

Kim

Curses

Dear Mom,

Well, I finished the Tomten Jacket baby gift.

front

back

I covered the buttons with fabric recycled from shirt purchased at the Goodwill.

It is hard to see in the pictures, but the tweed yarn has light blue flecks in it.

Sadly, these photos were taken moments (MOMENTS!) before Patsy decided to chew the top two buttons off the sweater making a modest hole in the process.

She is still alive.

And I haven't cried about it. Yet.

I did manage to do a repair, but the sweater is no longer up to my gift giving standards. It will languish here as a sad reminder until it finds a good home. Time to go dive into my stash start Tomten # 2.

Love,

Kim

P.S. We recently determined Patsy to be a Black Mouthed Cur, but if she pulls any more stunts like she did yesterday, I may rename her as a Black Mouthed Curse. ( I just don't want to turn into a Foul-Mouthed Cuss.)

Feeling Girly

Dear Mom,

This morning, I polished my toe nails.  I feel sooo much better!

Love, Bonnie Jo

All kinds of stuff

Dear Mom,

There has been so much activity here that I haven't been able to sit down and compose myself long enough to put a blog post together. Since realizing that Patsy and doggie daycare are not a good combination, I have been focusing on staying ahead of her energy. Regular visits to the dog park and long walks seem to be working, proving that a tired dog is a good dog. I am getting my exercise, and Bumper's endurance has certainly improved. This time last year, a one mile walk was his limit. And sometimes finishing that left him with a slight limp the next day. Now we take 1 1/2 to 2 mile walks a couple of times a day. We also try to visit the dog park several times a week.

The best part of the dog park is the small pond. I don't mind a wet dog, and I've stocked up on blankets from the Goodwill to protect my car seats. One evening last week, during one of our visits, a duck flew in and landed on the pond. Bumper was on immediate high alert and headed straight into the pond, determined to get that duck. I wish I had my camera with me! Patsy, who is not afraid of the water but will only get in as deep as she is able to keep her paws in the muck, decided that running laps around the perimeter of the pond might help Bumper in his quest. 

Even with Bumper's   ahen    natural buoyancy, I was surprised at how well he swam. The Young Lady, who was with me, pointed out that BumperJosephMichaelPhelps was smiling. The duck managed to keep himself at a consistent distance away from Bumper, but in the center of the pond and away from Perimeter Patsy. Bumper turned back, reevaluated, and went for it, swimming all the way across the pond, "chasing" the duck. The duck probably decided it wasn't worth  all the maneuvers required to avoid the dog on perimeter patrol and the one in the water, and flew away. I wish I could hire that duck for regular visits.

The commotion of replacing the siding on the house is now behind us. We have a minor checklist of things to take care of and then we can officially say we are done.(And write that last check.) We spent part of our Memorial Day replacing our outdoor light fixtures. With fresh paint and siding, the old fixtures looked....old. I still need to put the inside back together. I took everything off the exterior walls before it fell off.

The only casualty of the exterior work was the postponement of the Annual Last Day of School Snow Cone Party. The painters were not finished and I wasn't willing to risk having me, the kids, the neighbors and our snowcones/frozen adult beverages covered in a mist of Sherwin Williams SW3004 "Summerhouse Beige".  But I think the painters would have enjoyed the party.

I got terribly little knitting done over the long weekend. Small price to pay for all that we did accomplish, though. All the dog walking is wearing ME out and when I sit down to knit at the end of the day, I find myself dozing off waaaay too soon. I am about 2/3 of the way done with a little baby jacket. It is Elizabeth Zimmermann's Tomten, one of my favorite baby things to knit, and one of my favorite baby/kid things I made for my kids. I'll show you when it is all done.

I can also proudly show off this project, which was finished on Sunday:

My Hero is reconstructing our Adirondack chairs using his broken hockey sticks. Both foot stools and one chair are complete - he just needs to collect more sticks to finish the second chair. They are Sturdy and Comfy (just like us) and hopefully we will be able to spend many hours relaxing time in them this summer with frosty summer beverages nearby ( and my knitting, too!)

Love,

Kim

My latest finished object

Dear Mom-

I finished and blocked my latest sweater. I'll call it Wishbone because of the stitch detail at the neckline. The pattern is an Adrienne Vittadini design.

The actual color is more of a cranberry red. The only change I made to the pattern was to shorten the sleeves by an inch. When I make this again (because I will) I will lengthen the body by and inch and maybe the neck by another 2 inches, I think,. I'll also make the next smallest size. I have a bad habit of knitting things too large for myself.

This was a quick, easy knit. Here is a close-up of the stitch pattern at the neck-

I have a baby gift to knit and then I really should finish some things that have been abandoned for whatever reason. I also need to get back on the sock-a-week plan which seems to have been replaced by dog walking and gardening. I may need to revise it to sock-a-month.

Love,

Kim

Knit Picks

Dear Mom,
Two of my designs went "live" yesterday on the Knit Picks website.
Over the past 6-8 weeks, I've been designing, pattern writing, knitting and photographing 2 children's items for Knit Picks Independent Designer Program. It was for these patterns that I learned to chart with Excel and draw a schematic on Word. It was also for the Knit Picks website that Bonnie so thoughtfully photographed me for my "bio" page. You can see the bio and chosen photo here.

You can go here and here for a closer look at the patterns.

I had tremendous help from Mary Lee, who test knit the boys sweater for me. I think you can click on this and see a picture of the sweater she knit for a grandson. I love the color combination she chose. Mary Lee helped me to look at my words through someone else's eyes and gave me the priceless reassurance that someone else could knit what I had written. If  it weren't for Mary Lee, the sleeves would probably be too long. On top of all that, she kept her sense of humor intact despite my too many "change row 3 from this to this" and "here is another correction" emails. But we did it and I thank her tremendously, for both doing it and for doing it at lightening speed. Sharing the process with Mary Lee made it all the more fun. Way more fun.

Love,
Kim

In Yesterday's Mail

Dear Mom,

Yesterday's mail brought me some very nice things.

The first was the July issue of Creative Knitting magazine, which has my fun little Hopscotch skirt in it on page 28.

It also shows my friend Carol showing off the changes she made to her "Walk in the Parka" in the letters to the editor on page 5!!!!

The other thing that arrived was this!

This is the bag o'wool, which I washed and picked to the best of my ability, and then sent off to Ohio Valley Natural Fibers to be carded into roving that I can now spin. I am amazed at how much roving that the wool became and I am now anxious to spin it and see how much yarn I can make. I wonder if there is an entire sweater in that box?  I was also pleasantly surprised at the very reasonable processing cost. I have a second bag o'wool waiting in the garage. I guess it is time to start washing and picking raw material out of it and send it on its way!  And THEN I can start playing with some of the dyeing techniques I learned at that workshop a few weeks ago!!!

Love,

Kim

A Tour of the Castle

Dear Mom,

Last Friday, I felt it was time to take a look inside Queen Alessandra's castle to check on the progress and expansion of the colony.  It has been three weeks since I installed the four new frames of bees into the hive.  My friend and mentor, Melissa, helped locate Queen Alessandra two weeks ago, and I have been noticing increased traffic and activity of the bees.  My eager assistant, N, got the smoker started.  The smoke calms and quiets the bees by disrupting the alarm pheromone sent out by the guard bees.  Since we would be opening the hive up and moving frames around, we definitely wanted to smoke the bees...just a little bit goes a long way.  N also photographed our castle tour and took some great photos for me to show you!

The bees have built some extra comb which is coming out the ventilation hole of the inner cover.  I later scraped this off and added it back into the hive body for the bees to reuse. 

N and I were thrilled to see that the bees have expanded out onto the newer frames.  We estimated they have drawn out (built new wax comb) on at least 80% of the foundation and we concluded it was time to add a new super (a second floor to the castle)!

The bees were calm and cooperative.  We pulled a frame from the other side of the brood box and were excited to see what the bees have been doing.  The white stuff at the top of the frame is capped honey cells!

We did not see Queen Alessandra, but we weren't really looking for her.  It is obvious that the colony is growing and we know she is inside one of these busy inner frames laying eggs. 

I have to look in the reference books and ask a lot of questions (thank goodness for Melissa) to figure out what I'm doing.  I listen to webinars while I'm ironing!  I feel I only know 10% of what there is to know about bees...but I am just LOVIN' it! 

And the castle just grew taller!

Love, Bonnie Jo

The Photo Shoot

Dear Mom,

For the past 6 weeks or so, I've been working on a couple of patterns for Knit Picks. I thought all the hard work was done when I emailed  the instructions and sent the samples off. I was wrong.

The final part of the process turned out to be the toughest. They asked for a photo of myself and a brief bio for their website.

I stewed over the bio and wording for a little while, organized my thoughts and wrote the short paragraph. Then I set about trying to take a self portrait. With my camera held at arms length, I tried different lighting, different poses and different backgrounds. I tried not to feel dumb as I stood in the backyard and smiled at the camera I was holding. I tried to make myself look less wrinkled, and thinner. And less gray. And less like Daddy. I tried to find my "best side".

I was getting discouraged.

I enlisted the help of the Young Lady. "Take a few pictures of me with Bumper", I begged. "It is for a website."

The Young Lady has inherited her Grandpa's love of animals, and his talent for making them the focal point of a photograph.

Next, I tried using my little tripod and the self timer. I got an acceptable picture, but Bonnie came to my rescue.

She had several ideas for our Photo Shoot and was determined to take a good one that would not feature a mole, wrinkles or gray hair. She promised nothing about skinny.

We took shots of me watering the daisies with Patsy.

And pictures of me sitting on the front porch until Bumper decided to see what was going on...

And some action shots of me knitting on the back porch, which worked fine until Patsy grabbed the yarn ball and ran.

Bonnie took her job seriously. She even told me to "WORK IT" and asked about the wind machine.

Then we laughed.

And I laughed even harder when I noticed her photographer's stance.

Love,

Kim

I AM WOMAN....

HEAR ME PLOW!

Dear Mom,

For most Hoosiers, the month of May in Indiana means the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race and all of the excitement that goes along with it.   But not me.  For me, it means planting the garden...which means firing up the tiller and working the soil until it is dark brown and weed-free.  Love it, love it, LOVE IT!!  I can't describe the feeling it brings, but I'm willing to bet you know the feeling....a sense of pride, accomplishment and empowerment!  It is mostly because there is just something about operating Rhonda Honda.  She may not be a full-size rototiller, but she is a power tool nonetheless.  She is my stress management therapy.  As far as power tools go, every gal should have one of these.

This year, I am planting a "salsa garden" so I can make lots and LOTS of Wendy's Salsa, which by the way, happens to be the best salsa ON THE PLANET.  Along with the tomatoes, peppers, garlic and onion, I also planted a few rows of green beans and some cucumbers.  I have never put in a garden without cucumbers and I can't imagine a summer without fresh cucumbers to snack on before dinner.

OKAY LADIES...START YOUR ENGINES!

Love, Bonnie Jo

TA DAAAAA!

Dear Mom,
Here are the results of Saturday's Dye Workshop, all dried and dressed up. I am unreasonably happy and excited about these bundles of fiber. I want to play with them and make some more!

Love,
Kim