One of these days I will actually mulch the perennial bed before all the plants come up:
It would definitely be much easier, rather than lovingly moving mulch around each plant. Of course that is fun too. I enjoy moving between the plants. My back would rather just dump the mulch, spread it, and be done with it.
Life without challenges would not be much fun.
I finally succumbed to the lure of EmmaOneSock‘s new fabrics and ordered a couple of pieces. I was actually far more moderate than if I had jumped right in and ordered when I first started getting the e-mails about new Italian fabrics and sales and so forth. I would check out the fabrics a couple of times a week, dream about what I would sew, shop and sew vicariously through the posts on sewzine and otherwise remind myself that I have a big stack of fabric right next to my computer waiting to be sewn.
Nonetheless, the call of fabric is like a siren call — it cannot be completely resisted for the fabric knows who is most tempted by its lures and sends out its signals sure and strong. I placed an order this morning; the fabric will be shipped on Monday.
This is what I ordered:
You can see the details here. I am imagining that it wants to be a dress. I’m not sure and will reserve judgment until it actually arrives. I have sewn tops out of onionskin but have never sewn a dress and am not sure how that will work. It could be just the pattern that says "dress" and the fabric will say something else when it actually lands in my sewing room. It will be draped over Matilda and its true nature will come out.
I also purchased this cotton knit, one of the promised Italian knits:
Here are the details.
I think this one is REALLY COOL and must admit I looked at it for a week and drooled, but put it and aside in a folder and thought about it along with two other fabrics, this mosaic knit which sold out and is not really my color anyway, and this Matte Jersey, which I still love but decided not to buy because I have a couple of pieces of matte jersey I have never sewn and there is no point to buying more, no matter how pretty.
My initial thought on this is that it will make a really neat sweater set that will go with a lot of things in my wardrobe. Of course I still have to look at the actual fabric and see if I think I would wear it in that form, It depends on how busy the fabric looks draped over Matilda. I know I love the fabric but I have trouble translating how I imagine the print from a picture, to how I think I will like the garment. I need to let the fabric work its magic when it arrives, I know something wonderful will be born.
I received a new magazine in the mail:
My mom gave me the subscription because her friend Diane recently bought the magazine and she knows I used to crochet and have a weakness for all things needlework related.
The magazine is really interesting. I did crochet a couple of sweaters in my early 20’s. I was more interested in sweaters than afghans or doilies etc, as I still am, and there seemed to be a dearth of interesting sweater patterns that looked like something I would wear available. There have been more interesting crochet patterns lately, although the "doilies and afghans disquised as a sweater" patterns still seem to be in great supply, and there are even a few hiding in this particular issue.
Since I took up knitting I have done precious little crochet but I DO think about it.
The magazine is interesting because there are a couple of nice patterns, the cover pattern included, and one or two others. There are also some very interesting articles on technique with ideas for sweaters or that can be adapted for sweaters. I also like the article with one basic shell that is made up three different ways with different yarns. That should be basic stuff, but when you are learning, or just getting back to something, it is nice to have someone hold your hand and guide you through the process somewhat. Besides, we are all so distracted today that sometimes we just don’t have time to do the basic calculations ourselves. There is so much knowledge that used to be taken for granted that we have forgotten, or at least I have forgotten.
At any rate, I am not sure that I buy knitting magazines exclusively for the patterns, because they frankly are not always that good. If there are interesting articles, either about interesting knitters or good articles on technique, then the whole issue is usually worthwhile. Some of the yarn companies publish excellent magazines or books with very good patterns, some do not. I think if I learn something, or am inspired to try something new, whether I take a pattern as is or adapt ideas from it to my own purposes, then the magazine was worthwhile. This one has been good bedtime reading and seems to have lots of potential.
I finally made a decision on how to proceed with Wine&Roses: I am using a seaming technique from The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt. I can’t post a link to the actual instructions and the book is out of print. I am appalled at how much copies of this book are selling for on Amazon.com ($225.00 and up). It is a great book, but not for beginners, and June Hiatt is extremely opinionated, but then, aren’t we all? Still, whenever I am not sure what to do in a given knitting situation, she always provides food for thought, if not an outright solution.
I have not used this particular seaming technique before, but so far, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! The sweater is pretty bulky and the actual guage varies row by row, but the seam is flat and small and quite attractively almost invisible. The pieces are seamed right-sides together, and sewing up is actually a bit of a challenge because I have to get all those loose ends out of the way and try to detrmine the difference between the actual selvedge stitches and the knots tying the yarns together. (Yes, Virginia, there are knots).
Here is a picture of me sewing the seam:
As you can see the edge is a tangle of yarns and it is quite difficult to see where I am working, of course my eyesight is not great in the best of circumstances. The good news is that it is equally hard to find the seam once it has been sewn.
Here is the finished seam from the outside:
Can you see the seam? The stripes on the sweater are horizontal. The picture is not.
Here’s another picture, this time of the inside of the same seam:
As you can see, the ends are still hanging free.
I haven’t completely decided what to do about them yet, but the seams look pretty nice, even with the ends still attached. Montse Stanley, in The Knitters Handbook recomments knotting the yarns and leaving a short fringe as one of the alternatives seam finishes. Originally I thought this would be far too bulky in this sweater but I am beginning to revise that opinion. A short fringe might be quite attractive. I might just tack the seam and fringe edge down lightly with a little hand sewing just to keep everything under control. Or I might still work out some other way to deal with the ends. I still have a lot of seaming ahead so there is plenty of time to make up my mind.
I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. But I haven’t sewn either. Matilda is still wearing the unfinished butterfly top; she is not sure she wants to give it up. I washed some knit fabric for a simple top. My sewing world stopped and is in a holding pattern.
My computer died Tuesday morning; I was not happy. The thought of having the Dell technician come crawl around in my sewing room to get at it did inspire me to finally clean the sewing room. No more dust bunnies, no sewing stuff piled up willy-nilly. A small pile of ironing still exists, better than the 9-mile high pile I started with though.
While I waited for the missing technician (he was supposed to come Wednesday but showed up on Thursday instead — after I spent a day and a half waiting) I caught up on a lot of housework, not usually my favorite task but good restless make-work, and a lot of weed pulling.
After the technician came and installed a new modem (such a little card to bring down a whole computer) I thought everything worked. He played around with my desktop, "cleaning it up" and turned off all those programs that start up with the computer, like my firewall and anti-virus protection stuff. Annoying I thought. Apparently something else happened as well. I could get on the internet but could not access any site that required any kind of password protection. BIG PAIN. HIgh frustration level. I checked all the settings on my computer. My internet provider checked all the settings on my computer. MIcrosoft checked all the settings on my computer, reset them and checked them again. Dell did the same.
By this time I am starting to run around, steam coming out of my ears, ready to uproot not just little maple seedlings but capable of pulling whole large plants out of the ground.
No one knows what to do. I have backed up all my data and saved all my photos. The agreed upon solution is to erase my hard drive and reinstall everything from Windows on up. We know what I will be doing next week. Putting the data back is the least of it. Getting all the programs back is the painful part.
If this doesn’t work —
Well, If you hear a really loud noise that sounds like an explosion and see a large cloud rising in the sky it is not nuclear armageddon. It will just be me losing it.
I will close with a flower. This one opened on Thursday. I hope it is a barbinger of good things to come.
The back of Bettina is done:
Her general cushy springy texture makes her not want to lay flat. I am sure a good blocking bath will cure part of this.
The modem died on my computer this week and locked up the entire computer. It unfortunately happened just as I was beginning to transmit the payroll on Tuesday morning. Once we figured out it was the modem, and got the offending card out of the computer, I was able to use the computer enough to get the accounting data backed up and on to my portable. A mini revolution would have occurred had paychecks not appeared in their proper bank accounts by the end of the week.
While I waited for the technician to come with the new modem card (I should have just put it in myself) I cleaned up the sewing room/office and caught up on other household tasks. I was somehow too annoyed to work on sewing up sweaters. Busy work was needed, no thought involved.
Then, when the computer guy did not show up on Wednesday, as promised by my Dell 24 hour on site service plan, and after a long and rather annoyed call to Dell, when they promised he would be there the next day, I decided it was time to clean out and reorganize the sweater drawers.
I emptied everything out, resorted sweaters by color, which was roughly the order anyway, using a color wheel as a guide, really looking at the more difficult sweaters to see where they really fit, and looking at color charts to figure out how to classify some colors. It was actually fun and entertaining. I must have been pretty desperate huh….
I even took notes as to what I was missing and particularly wanted to go in my wardrobe. I have a couple of bags for Goodwill containing those sweaters that I haven’t worn for years and don’t really like anymore or were in colors that I really don’t wear and don’t look good on me. Most of the sweaters I don’t wear don’t get worn because they don’t look good. Most of the rejects were purchased sweaters not hand-knit ones (thank goodness) except for one, my first cabled sweater, from about 12 years ago. First of all it was Mustard, which is not a good color. Secondly it was a VERY WARM heavy worsted wool. Thirdly it was so obviously late 80’s in style it looked tremendously dated, more like a costume than a wearable garment. It was a vest with lots of cable work and square shoulder/arm panels that stuck out to the side making it look something like a combination of tyrolean-Samurai-Star Wars. Not at all appealing.
The computer saga continues as the new modem went in but then new problems materialized. It looks like we are going to be cleaning out that computer and restarting it from scratch. MY patience will be tested. More simple new knitting will probably occur.
Danger, no sewing ahead, only distractions!!
It has been so long since we had a weekend at home with no plans, well except for Friday, but that still left three nice, long, unencumbered days. What a pleasure. I had almost forgotten how nice it is just be able to relax and putter about the place; even doing necessary tasks seems enjoyable.
I was terribly behind on garden work, but then, since I hadn’t had a free weekend since early April, that is probably not surprising. The maple has been very prolific and there are thousands of little seedlings to pull. Luckily I genuinely enjoy weeding, and the weather was glorious this weekend with the exception of a couple of thunderstorms. Luckily they usually came at the end of the day and saved my having to water newly planted plants. Sitting in the yard, looking at the flowers and the various textures of the greenery is such a joy, rooting delicately among the leaves, uprooting the undesirables, while the breeze gently blows… well, it is all an almost zen-like experience. What a lovely way to welcome summer.
Of course there was harder work, lugging bags of mulch, digging and planting, dragging the hoses out of the basement and installing new hose reels. All of those tasks have served to make my arms and shoulders, not to mention my back, a little more tired than usual. It is a good tiredness though, a tiredness derived from a job well done, somehow far more gratifying than the exhaustion that comes from wrangling with recalcitrant computers and annoying phone calls.
The irises are blooming:
I just love seeing them. Even though the season is short, it is worth every moment. Last year I had the Dahlias in the iris bed as well and the color was wonderful. The yellow irises re-bloomed last fall, but the purple ones did not. This year who knows:
I have to rebuild that bed once the blooms are finished and there is no point in planting the dahlias until that task is done. I can’t see uprooting them twice. The plow pushed up one side of the bed into a mound, and the winter lake that forms in the neighbor’s glade drains right through the middle of this bed, washing the soil away. I need to put in a drain channel. If I dig up the irises, even relocating them into a temporary bed, I am not sure if the second bloom will be affected.
The other major distraction of my weekend, has been cooking, which is always one of my favorite tasks anyway. The farmer’s market is open for the season, as is the Migliorelli farm stand so cooking is getting fun again. Late winter is always so depressing because the produce is less than stellar. I was away too much of the spring and was afraid that I had missed all the wonderful early spring produce. I needn’t have worried: produce abounds and I had a wonderful time in the kitchen.
The asparagus is up in the garden and the mushroom man had morels:
You probably have to be a mushroom lover to appreciate this photo, but here is a plate of about 50 morels waiting to be transformed into tonight’s dinner. Cornbread and a bowl of oven braised morels in broth is not a traditional Memorial Day dinner, but it is great comfort food for weary bodies after working in the yard, getting the pool open, and various outdoor tasks. A salad with roasted asparagus and shaved Parmesan will round out the meal. We did give the grill its inaugural fun run for lunch though.
I have had so much fun cooking, I have not even had time or energy for sewing. If I was lucky I would get a little knitting done in the evening, but last night I was too tired even for that . Housecleaning is the recourse of the body and mind struggling to stay awake. My sewing room is still piled up with booty and detritus from my various trips. The kitchen island was fully occupied with food so cutting out was impossible. Do I care? No. Cooking and eating are such pleasures. We had fresh bok choy cooked Thai style with pork and wide rice noodles, Chicken with asparagus and morels, risotto with veal and morels, fresh tiny Japanese turnips stir-fried with beef and the wonderful turnip greens.
Do I know how I managed to gain weight the past few years? Of course I do. I enjoy the pleasures of the kitchen far too much. Sometimes I envy my friends who don’t enjoy cooking, or even eating all that much. But then I just take a bite of something wonderful, savor the sensations on my tongue, and know that it is all worthwhile.
If only I had more time to indulge in everything. I really do want it all.
It seems like it has been an awfully long time since we were home for a weekend, and what a lovely weekend it has been with lots of gardening, cooking, and some relaxing in front of the tele (more on that later). It is nice to have time to putter around the house and do things I enjoy; well, except perhaps for laundry and housework.
Having been away or injured or living through a deluge for much of April and May I was considerably behind in the yard. Luckily the weekend has been beautiful except for a few thunderstorms and I got a lot of weeding and planting finished. Of course there is more to do, the Maple tree has been very prolific in sending out little seedlings this year…
Spring seemed to come so late, the yard was so dreary in early May when I left for San Francisco, it is nice to spend time in it now that everything has perked up, the Azaleas are blooming (usually mid May anyway) the Irises are opening, and even the pachysandra is sending up new growth and looking lush and happy, whereas in early May it looked beaten down by snow and ice. It has been a pleasure to be outdoors.
Here is a picture of the Azalea by the front door, Yaku Princess:
Of course, after a day in the yard and an evening in the kitchen, I have not felt like tackling the two sweaters that need to be put together. Although I can honestly say I don’t mind sewing sweaters together, when I am tired and my muscles ache, I would really rather veg out in my knitting chair with some nice, simple, mindless project while we watch a movie or some other entertainment.
As you can see, the Bettina tee is coming along nicely. I love the way the yarn looks knitted up and it is nice to work with. Even more I love the feel of the knitted fabric, kind of light and springy and crepey. I think this will be a favorite summer top. I have about 13 inches here and will soon start the armhole shaping.
It would have been further along but the Friday knitting had to be frogged. This yarn is not easy to rip out, it clings to itself and that little white yarn sticks to the other yarns and knots, nasty stuff, difficult to un-knit without unplying the yarn, but in the end mission accomplished with very little waste.
I DID MAKE A GUAGE SWATCH!! Nonetheless, the train knitting, with the same needle on which I made the guage, was much too loosey-goosey and not at all nice. Luckily I was tired, and only knit about 5 inches. That was more than enough to pull out, believe me. I seriously considered trashing it and calling the yarn shop for another skein. Fortitude won out though.
This has happened before; I wonder if I am tense when I make the guage swatches and therefore knit tighter than usual? Quite frequently, when I actually start knitting the sweater, all relaxed and zen like in my chair, the knitting ends up much bigger than the guage. Should I automatically drop down a needle size from whatever I used for the guage swatch?? But it doesn’t happen every time and I suspect that sometimes I am tense when I swatch because I am in a rush to find a new project, as was the case this time. I was thinking "Oh no, I need a new project and I only have a few minutes to get it all together, what can I do in a rush?".
Perhaps I should work guages a few projects ahead so that there will always be something in the background ready to go. On the other hand that sounds way too organized, even for me.
Well I did finish the final sleeve on Wine&Roses and got both sets of sleeves on the blocking board:
Aiko
and Wine&Roses:
Considerable shirking of all other responsibilities was required. Now I must figure out what I am going to do about putting Wine&Roses together and how I am going to deal with all those ends.
I might not get it done this weekend. If the weather is as nice as it is today there is much gardening to be accomplished. If not, well everything is behind. I always prefer to put off tough design and construction decisions anyway.
Ahh, the famous headless shot…
Not that you really need to see my head anyway. Besides I really wanted to show off my cute new shoes, purchased just because I was making this skirt.
I actually saw the shoes the day I bought the fabric for the skirt, but was too tired to buy them then. I had to be back in NYC a week later, the shoes were still there, and I knew that it was fate that brought us together. They actually go with quite a few things in my wardrobe.
Note the cute yellow heel, that’s what really brings a smile to my face and a little skip to my step.
The skirt is probably a little loose for a pencil skirt, but I am still trying to work out the fit-when-I-am-sitting issue. A narrower skirt looks great standing and walking, but since I bend funny due to the fused back and lack of lower lordotic curve, I need extra room to sit. Now I personally don’t mind just hiking my skirt up to my hips, especially at home when no one is around, or in the car when I am squirming around, but it is not something that is generally done in polite company. Actually, if I sit in a short, meaning knee length or above, skirt that is at all fitted, unless it is very roomy, it hikes itself right up there anyway. Good thing I have nice legs.
I am going to continue to mull over the purple top options a few days longer but all the wonderful comments are really helpful. I am leaning toward greater overlap and still torn over short or long. I may just have to make another one in different fabric. The long version will certainly take better advantage of the water repellant treatment on the fabric.
