Success!
DD emailed this hat picture, taken with her cell phone, and asked if I could knit one like it for her:
Result:
Colinette Jitterbug in Morello Mash from Knit Purl in Portland
DD says it’s “AWESOME!”
Me: 
When Life Hands You Lemons, You’re Lucky
If you’re growing them in Seattle.
I was happy to see this Meyer lemon plant survive on our deck all summer.
It came inside when the weather turned cold and it went (blooming) crazy.
The citrus fragrance fills the room.
While taking photos I spotted two tiny lemons:
Clover stitch marker for scale and attempt to include
knitting content.
Continuing with the citrus theme, we’ve had this orange plant for a few years, it lives indoors full time:
Tiny orange, these don’t get any bigger,
DH uses the peel in martinis.
Okay, here’s something more seasonal (for Seattle):
Pumpkins!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Finally!
I started this last year on a vacation in Canada with yarn bought on a previous trip to Canada and finally finished it on this vacation in Canada. Modifications: added shaped ribbing sleeves instead of the straight 1.75″ of ribbing border For the neck bind off, k2 p2tog all around on larger needles so it would lay nice and flat.
Vogue Oversize Lace Top by Deborah Newton
in Butterfly Super 10 cotton, color 3834
I wove in the last end while waiting in line at the border!
Well, I had to stop briefly to chat at customs but finished within a mile after passing through. It had been sitting for a while but, I forced myself to weave in the ends by not taking any other knitting in the car with me for a 3.5 hour drive.
knit small size so it wouldn’t really be “oversize”
shortened the ribbing and the whole sweater
left out the “eyelet” row in the ribbing
I LOVE summer, but there are things I like about fall
Busy couple of weeks. No time to blog!
Weekend before last we went huckleberry picking:
And mushroom hunting:
chanterelles
It’s killing me that we haven’t had time to do more berry picking, the berries are the best I’ve seen in years:
huckleberries
and when the huckleberries are this good, the blueberries are INSANE:
blueberries
DD asked, “When you close your eyes, do you see huckleberries?”
Yes.
Love it.
Oh yeah, and
THE HUSKIES BEAT USC! WOOOO HOOOOOO!
Shibui fingerless Mittens
Shibui Sock yarn from Knit Purl in Portland:
Shibui Sock yarn color 229 Mulberry
New mitts:
Shibui Sock color 229 Mulberry
with a bit of Blue Moon STR in Star Sapphire
The STR trim is leftover from another pair of mitts; they were much loved and appreciated and when one got lost, the only consolation was a new pair.
Framing a Menu: Matson Lines Eugene Savage
Again, from the Not Knitting But I Made It files:
This bit of framing has been waiting a long time to get done.
I had to put the knitting down. In fact, I could always avoid this task as long as I had ANYTHING knittable going on. (does knittable have one ‘t’ or two? -you know, if it was a word)
DH found a vintage Matson Lines menu with Eugene Savage artwork when we were in Kauai on The Best Vacation Ever. Way back when, as a child, he had traveled to and from Hawaii on the Matson Lines.
A God Appears by Eugene Savage on one side
Framing it was a bit of a puzzle; I wanted to frame it so both the artwork and the menu could be seen while providing adequate support for the piece.
Matson Lines dinner menu on the other side
It took some fancy thinking to get everything lined up and mats cut with openings in the right places.
…and when I turn it over the text will be…where?
Final result:
“I tried to give you some lovin’ but you just gave me hives”
I was cleaning out an old piece of furniture and found a slip of paper with that quote attributed to me written in DH handwriting.
?
I did not remember saying it, but it made me laugh.
Fortunately, DH did remember and told me I said it to our dog (long since gone).
Now that does make sense.
I wish I was songwriter, because that is a heartbreaker right there.
good dog 1984-1995
I was making room for this, it’s not knitting, but I made it!
Well, OK, I didn’t make it, I put it together; it came in this box “Ready To Assemble”:
That worked out well, so…
another box:
another cabinet:
Wow, real furniture. I feel so grown up!
Resort Destination: Vancouver, B.C. and the New Location for Button Button!
It turns out, if you go to Vancouver, B.C. when it’s 93°F, it’s too dang hot to do anything downtown. Our hotel room did not have air-conditioning so we were forced to walk across the street and hang out here:
reading, people watching, eating hot dogs, and when that got too hot, going swimming in English Bay:
We could walk out of The Sylvia, in our swimsuits and towels and walk back all wet after swimming, just like staying at a beach resort! It was lovely.
We saw the UK fireworks for the Celebration of Light fireworks competition, with prime viewing from the park across the street.
video of fireworks 1
video of fireworks 2
and caught a performance of Othello at Bard On The Beach. It was hot sitting in that tent full of people in 93°F heat, but at least I wasn’t wearing a full length multi-layered brocade gown with long wavy hair hanging down my back or sword-fighting in thigh-high leather boots over ‘leather’ pants and a brocade vest with a leather doublet! I was afraid one of the actors might pass out from the heat. The tent is open behind the stage providing a gorgeous backdrop of mountains and sunset sky and mercifully providing some fresh air.
Too bad Othello always ends so badly.
Oh, and here’s where we ate breakfast every morning on the patio of the hotel restaurant:
(that’s the fireworks barge, yeah, Right There!)
On our last day, just before heading home we decided to brave the heat and venture into town. We visited Button Button in her new location, or rather my family indulged me by ditching me there.
New location:
and inside, the same overwhelming selection of buttons:
YOU can make a difference!
I didn’t have a specific button requirement, but managed to find a few things:
Cool vintage celluloid button
Back at home, this beauty from DH garden somehow managed to survive the (Seattle) record breaking 103°F heat without water while we were out of town:
No, it’s not a full size cabbage on a dinner plate, it’s an itty radicchio on a bread plate!
Yummy!
Mushroom picking and some knitting
Finished with a bit of lacy trim:
Vine Lace
Barbara G. Walker’s “A Treasury of Knitting Patterns”
And delivered:
Happy Birthday!
socks in Koigu KPPPM color 105d &
Planet Earth Fibers silk and bead trim
Also finished:
plain ol’ socks in Trekking XXL color 104
I love the color transitions of Trekking XXL!
And a new thing started on the way to the mountains for mushroom hunting:
DH posing my knitting in the Cascades off I-90
Apparently it is the time of year for baby animals.
Baby horses with their moms
Baby deer with their mom
On into the mountains…
We found:
mushrooms
Mom says:
“Don’t eat anything bigger than your head.”
(bolete mushroom)
strange flowers
these were growing in gravel with no leaves at all
fabulous views
This was actually a little scary it drops off pretty dramatically. When I lost my balance and grabbed the rock a chunk came off in my hand “AAAAAAAAH!”.
We brought home a few morels and boletes
and then had grilled steaks and morels in cream for dinner, yumm!
IK Embossed Leaves in Koigu KPPPM 105D
continued:
IK Embossed Leaves in Koigu KPPPM 105D
Planet Earth Fibers beaded silk in color Rouge
Now I need to figure out how to add the beaded silk…
lacy trim?
embroidery?
leaves?
On my first attempt the colors were pooling so that one side of the sock was red and the other side was green:
Pooling red side
Pooling green side
I modified the pattern, removing the first stitch of the leaf chart for a total of four stitches per round. Just enough to make the colors swirl in a nice spiral:
Modified for swirling instead of pooling
Estonian Garden Stole in Cracksilk Haze
A Late Birthday Present:
After overloading the birthday girl with pattern links, and an unfortunate reference to “Jemima Puddle-Duck Syndrome“, I decided it would be best to just take her to Knit Purl and see what happened; I don’t think you can walk in there without finding something perfect.
Rowan Cracksilk Haze color 627
We both love this color! We’re calling it ‘Vine Maple’.
That is not the name Rowan gave it. They usually come up with picturesque romantic color names, but color 627 is named “Blood”.
First of all:
Ew.
Second:
It’s NOT blood colored. Maybe the color of the icky styrofoam tray liner under a pound of ground beef.
Again:
Ew.
So I renamed it Vine Maple. Oooooo-priiitteeeee.
Later, we decided we should go back and get that perfect coordinating yarn that we had waffled on for socks IF Knit Purl was still Open.
We got there and it was Closed.
D’OH!
But I tried the door and it was unlocked! We ran in and straight to the Wall of Koigu and grabbed the yarn and then tried to act like we’d been there all along.
Sandy Kay heard voices and came up to investigate, she was nice as could be, especially considering they were supposed to be Closed. Then we sent her to go find more yarn because I decided I needed to have a pair of the same socks! We were laughing ourselves silly the whole time and Sandy was a great sport about it.
Thanks Sandy!
Koigu KPPPM P105D
…and then, at the counter they were tempting us with these irresistible little hanks of silk and beads, perfect for trimming a sock:
Planet Earth Fibers in color Rouge
Finished:
Fiber Trends Estonian Garden S-2009 by Evelyn A. Clark
And started:
Koigu KPPPM color 105D socks
