Lunch hour bliss

It's so hard to come back to work the day after a long holiday weekend. Even more so when I had two extra days and turned it into a five-day vacation at home. But today's lunch hour made up for it. It's warm, sunny, not humid, nice breeze and there's an easy knitting project and iced tea waiting for me on the porch near the glider. Lunch time bliss!

And now for a little holiday time!

Ah, finally it's summertime. Warm days, cool nights, the windows are thrown open and the breeze just moves through the house. Wonderful! I have five days in a row off from work. It's almost like being on vacation. (Can't hear the ocean, though...)

First off, here's a shot of the salvia in my front flower bed. It's really beautiful right now. The hummingbirds and the bees think so, too. Then I finally got to the garden center and picked out a pink azalea and a pink rhododendrum. I've not had much luck in the location where these bushes are going. I'm not quite sure what the problem is as the rhododendrums that were in this location originally died after being there for years. It may be some kind of bug problem, but I have a little something that will take care of that.

I've been knitting away on what's going to be a felted tote for my laptop. It's mostly KnitPicks Wool of the Andes with some Lion's Wool thrown in. As you can see, the front and back are finished. I'm working on the bottom and I'm playing around with mitered squares for the sides. It all gets put together with a three needle bind-off and a double I-Cord handle.

I have a few other minor projects I'd like to do over the weekend involving laundry, gardening, and a picnic on Monday. Have a great weekend and don't forget to put out your flag!

P.S. I've spent most of the evening trying to upload the pictures to Blogger. It wasn't going well... Saturday afternoon -- still not going well, but I figured a way to work around it, I think.

Landscape

My Landscape purse is finally felted and I'm very pleased. It was a fun challenge to knit. I finally decided to use a double i-cord for the handles. And I made the handles long enough to wear over my shoulder. All that is left to do is the lining and I have that worked out in my head.

A little something I've been working on

I haven't entirely given up on knitting. My wrist is still a bit sore, but on the whole it's much better. So, I've been really pacing myself with my knitting. And here's a little something...
I found a very nice felted tote bag that another blogger is working on. I've scoured the web and can't find a place to purchase the pattern on the web. So, I'm using my ingenuity and have been creating from my stash. I'm hoping to make a nice sturdy felted bag that I can use to carry my laptop in. This is side one. Side two is on the needles. Then I have to figure out what I'm going to do about the sides and the bottom. The handles will be a double i-cord coming (I think) from the sides.

Spring is finally here and I've really been enjoying the birds in my neighborhood. Cardinals nest in an ornamental cherry tree in my neighbor's front yard. One of these days I'm going to get a picture of them. Someplace there's a barn owl in the neighborhood, I know because I can hear it in the mornings. I also saw a very yellow bird in my yard the other day as I was coming home for lunch. I'd love to know what it was -- maybe a Baltimore Oriel. I am participating in the Second Pennsylvania Bird Breeding Atlas project. It's sponsored by Carnegie Natural Science Museum and the PA Game Commission. About ten years ago there was a survey done by volunteers across the state to see what birds were where. There were many surprises. In some locales where birds were thought not to be, there were observed to have adapted and are still living and breeding. It's been ten years and they are doing an update. So, it's a kind of fun thing to do.

Frustration

I could just scream. The carpel tunnel problem in my right wrist is showing it's ugly head for the first time in about three years. Too much typing at work. So, there's no knitting going on. Just ice, the wearing of the brace, and advil. I'll just sit here quietly and pet my cashmere scarf. sniff, sniff.

Trekking Along

Well, I'm chugging right along on my Trekking socks. And I was wrong. I have not reached a point where the color changes repeat. The colors in the pictures are close, but not quite. There's no sun out today and my pictures are just so-so. But I'm so pleased. I completed a Pricilla Gibson-Roberts short row heel. I purchased her book, "Simple Socks, Plain and Fancy" just for the express purpose of doing this heel. I'm just amazed. It was so simple. I never had much luck before with short row heels and have always wound up doing a heel flag and gusset decrease. The construction of this style heel is ingenious! I'll be anxious to see how it fits when done. Next up is going to be the other skein of Trekking Harmony in the green colorway. I'm planning on using Marguerite's Basketweave ribbing pattern. But I might just use the short row heel again. Pretty cool.

But in the meantime, something else may also be in the works...

OUTSTANDING!!!!!

My birthday gift has arrived, just about three and a half months early. And it's just georgeous! It's a gift from the Queen's greatest fan.

I'm so impressed. There are pearl beads ALL OVER this scarf. Included is a copy of the Yarn Harlot's new book (can't wait to dig into that) and five very beautiful stitch markers. (I'm having no luck in getting a good picture of them.) It's just beautiful and perfect.

Blueberrys and Tweed

The "Tweed" socks are done. I'm pleased. It's a great way to use varigated yarn. The stitch pattern makes a nice rib. I've come to the conclusion that if you're using a patterned yarn, there's just no use to expend a lot of time and energy to do a fancy pattern. The stitches get lost in the yarn. I'll be wear these to work this week. It's been BEAUTIFUL this weekend. High temps in the mid to upper 70's, but rain is coming and so is cooler weather. It's okay. After all that cold and gloom we had, this weekend was a blessing.

And next, you can see that my Trekking yarn arrived from England. Again, because of the pattern in the yarn, I'm doing a simple rib. Actually it's modelled after the famous "Blueberry Waffle" Sock pattern. Very simple. Row 1: K; Row 2: K1, P1 to end. Repeat Rows 1 & 2. This version of Trekking is an ombre pattern. Subtle stripes and very pretty. The picture shows the results of knitting through a movie. (The Pursuit of Happyness) It's also one complete repeat of the color patterning. The only tricky part is that this one skein is enough to make two socks. I have to guesstimate how tall to make the leg part so that in the end I have enough for two socks and that I can start the second sock at about the same place in the color rotation.
I'll continue on this evening while watching "The Tudors" on Showtime. It's rather interesting. I signed up for Showtime just so I can watch this show. And I can truthfully say that we've not watched anything elso on Showtime. As for "The Tudors" the jury is still out here. The costuming is very good. It's very adult themed. The dialog is not bad. I just have a problem with the fact that the fellow who is playing Henry VIII doesn't look a bit like him. He's not a big guy. His hair isn't rusty colored. In fairness, I'd say that he does a pretty good job capturing Henry's personality. It's just that not only was Henry VIII a big guy, but he was larger than life. And you really don't get a sense of that in this show. So, I'll be knitting and watching.

I have some progress to report on the second "Tweed" sock. I've just completed the heel flap and I'm ready to turn the heel and move on down the instep.

There was also discussion over the weekend with GSTQ regarding the trio of Elizabeth I scarves from KnitPick. I currently have the "Town and County" pattern on the needles knit with Elan's Baby Silk. Very nice. My only regret is that I didn't think to insert beads. (I'm not frogging it for beads.) But it would have been a real nice addition. It will look real nice after it gets blocked.

We had another play date with my great-nephew yesterday and I gave his mom and dad the sweater I made for him. It's a little big yet, but it won't be long. There was no real pattern. I used a baby sweater pattern I found on the web but just to get me started. I used Lion's Brand Microfiber. It's nice and soft and should wash and wear well.

And I have to report that I did some yarn shopping on Ebay over the weekend. Several years ago I knit some flip-top mittens for my mother out of Trekking XXL that I purchased at a LYS. It's the most beautiful yarn that I've ever knit with. The color changes every couple of stitches. Fortunately, I only used a little over half of the skein. So, I have the balance of it to pet on a regular basis. I've been looking for more Trekking to purchase. I didn't want the self-striping type, just the varigated kind. I found a seller in England that had some! So, I picked up a skein in a variety of greens and a skein that's ombre. Can't wait for it to arrive! So, I leave you with my partial skein of Trekking ---

I just have to note what a terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech this morning. I just can't believe it. I can tell you as someone who spent a significant period of my life living on a college campus much like Virgina Tech that to have an incident like this happen is absolutely shocking.

Ignore that man behind the curtain...

I've been playing with my Blogger template today. I'm still using the "old" style template, which I've decided the keep for now. The new style is easy to use, but I lost all my lists and stuff when I tried it out. So, after a few hours of consideration and then reading the directions (duh!) I hit the revert button and viola -- everything's back to Norman (That's an old Rugrats saying.) So, if you visited this afternoon and now things look different, you know why. I'm off to bed -- vacation exhausted me!