Category: Just Happy!

Blockhead

We had our big Solstice dinner last night. I had 10 people around my dining room table for a 5 course dinner, capped off with a huge roast prime rib and trifle for dessert.

We were about to take the extra leaves out of the table while cleaning up this morning. Instead, I had the bright idea to soak my Douglas Fir shawl and use the table to block it. I've always blocked stuff on mats on the floor in the past, and the pets mostly left things alone.*

Zany Zoe the lunatic cat is a different story. I suspect the shawl would be shredded if I tried that. So I put the mats on the table and blocked it there. It's a lot easier that way as well, much less bending and contorting to get things pinned down.

And a close up of the lace:
Lace is just magic. It looks like a pile of crap** while you are knitting it. Then you soak it and pin it out, and it turns into something lovely.
More photos when it's dry!
*Except for that time when Curtis, the visiting dumb-as-a-post yellow lab was staying here. I had blocked a lace shawl upstairs on the floor. I went up some time later to find that he had taken a big dump on the shawl. I guess he didn't think much of my knitting.
**It looks like I need to straighten that lace point up there.

 

Snow Day

We had a bit of snow last night, and since I'm off work today, I get to enjoy Snowmaggedon from the comfort of my own home.

In other news, I finished the Douglas Fir Hap shawl the day before yesterday. I'll get it blocked this weekend and do a photo shoot when it's dry.
Here's how the yarn chicken played out.
Less than a gram left. I ended up just doing the decreases on the tail end a bit faster. It won't show in the finished project, and was the easiest fix I could come up with, without ripping all the way back to before the decrease section and taking out a few repeats.
Happy Snow Day!

 

Helping

Willie thinks he's helping.

The knitting marathon continues for Baby Fritz's Blisteringly Blue Baby Blanket. It's a big square, with a knitted on edging that consists of eleventy billion repeats of the same 12 row pattern. I have finished 2 sides of the square as of this morning. I started the edging just a few days ago, so I should be on track to finish this hopefully later this week, barring some major knitting screw up, like cats “helping”.

Here's another photo of Fritz.

Awwww. I think he looks a lot like his daddy in that photo.

And like all good knitting marathons, this one is involving major television watching. I started rewatching Game of Thrones earlier this week, I'm one episode short of finishing the first season.

It's too bad Will and Zoe can't knit, that would really be a big help.

 

Project Spotlight, and An Unappreciated Finished Project

Oh dear, it's been a month again since posting. Oh well. Summer's here, work's been busy, and I haven't gotten a lot of knitting done.

Let's turn a new leaf, shall we? Here's the Unappreciated Finished Project.

Sedona Sunset socks, finished a month ago. Sheesh. I love them, but apparently not enough to post about them. Here's the Ravelry link.

Then there are the new socks, started the same day those were finished.

The yarn is Abi Grasso Self Striping sock yarn. It is Rainbow and Clouds, I'm calling it Rainbow Bright.

Here's a list of my other projects, I'll post some photos another time.

Rogue, in Peace Fleece. I'm still working on it, but it's a big ass wool sweater, not a lot of fun to have sitting in my lap when it's warm out.

Hitchhiker, I haven't really worked on this since Wintergrass, it will get back in the rotation when the mystery baby project is finished.

Mystery Electrifyingly Blue Baby Project. I'm working away at it. Baby's due in September, I should be on track to finish it about the time he gets to kindergarten.

Cathedral Stole, this one's on the back burner too until I finish my other lace project

And one that got frogged. Find a Penny. I started this for Wintergrass, worked on it a while. I pulled it out a few weeks ago, wasn't loving the pattern at all. I couldn't decide, but then discovered that somewhere in my travels I've lost the second hank of yarn. That nailed the coffin on Miss Penny. She took the one way trip to the frog pond.

Last but not least, my Project Spotlight.

This is Douglas Fir, or a Hap for Harriet. This is getting closer to getting finished. Here are a couple more photos.

That's Zoe, of course, helping out. As soon as I put the shawl on the floor, she raced over to check it out. The color of those photos sucks. It's a typical lovely summer day here, overcast and grey, so photography suffers accordingly. At least it's not pouring rain. Yet.

Zoe has decided she is an indoor-outdoor cat. After her little adventure a few weeks ago with spending the night outside, she has been bolting for the door a lot. So we just decided to go with it. Will is out a lot in the summer, he generally goes in and out a few times during the day, comes in for supper, goes out for a bit, then is back in for bedtime. She has pretty much been following the same pattern. She hangs pretty close to the house, mostly messing around in the bushes in the back yard. Unlike most cats, she comes when she is called, and is very sociable, so I don't think she'll go far. She also loves her food enough that I think she'll hang around. And we really didn't have much choice if they both wanted to keep from getting murdered by us. When we were out of town last weekend, one or both of them shredded our patio screen doors, just because they were pissed off about being locked in the house. So the cat door is back open.

I'll try to be back before another month goes by!

 

Officially Summer Patio Season!

We did a little planting this weekend. We have a nice sheltered patio in the front of our house, with space for lots of potted plants.

 

We spent a little time yesterday and today getting things sorted, old pots cleaned out, and finished planting most of the herbs, along with tomatoes, a few bell peppers, and one little cucumber plant. And some flowers.

We still have several pots to get done, but it was a good way to spend a couple of sunny afternoons outside. And now time for the reward!

Happy Memorial Day!

 

Can You Guess?

There is a new baby addition to my extended family anticipated this fall. My nephew and his wife are “expecting”. In uncharacteristic fashion for me, I cast on as soon as they announced the sex of the baby. I am apparently trainable. Can you guess which variety of human it will be? The yarn is from Frolicking Fibers, the color is Sapphire. It can't get any bluer than that. The ultrasound better be accurate, is all I have to say. I'm NOT saying what this will be, but right now it's eleventy billion rows of garter stitch in fingering weight sock yarn. Please send whisky.

In other news, I'm still rocking the Peloton bike. I'm coming up on my 50th ride next week, probably Friday. It is not overstating things to say that this is changing my life. For the first time in decades I've found an exercise that I love enough to drag my sorry butt out of bed at 4:45 AM to ride before work. I did my first 60 minute ride yesterday, then got up at 5:15 today, yes on a Saturday not-work day, to ride along with the crazy friend who talked me into this. It was her 500th ride today. I lost some weight initially, it's since leveled off, but I've lost inches, and I'm much stronger already in only 2 months of riding most days of the week. I could not have done a 60 minute endurance ride two months ago.

Last but not least, I'll leave you with a Zoe photo. She has settled in well here, and surprisingly she and Will have become best buddies. She is still growing and gaining weight, I think she is going to be a big cat.

 

We Are Ready

Wintergrass has begun! Even Sweetpea is ready.*

Things started up last night. Here are some really crappy phone photos.

That is Solas, an Irish band. Very high energy, with talented musicians. And a flute! You can't beat a flute at a bluegrass festival. They had an accordion man too.

Steel Wheels. They were a huge hit last night, just as they were last year. They are playing a couple more sets this weekend, so I'm sure I'll get to hear them again.

Wintergrass has been in Bellevue for the last few years, which was a bit odd at first. Bellevue isn't exactly known for its roots/folk/banjo vibe. It's more of a glass walled high rise/expensive restaurants and Nordstrom's place. The theme the first year they moved the festival up here was something like “Bellevue–it's a hard place to suffer”. We've come to appreciate it though. I have three words: Din Tai Fung. It's the famous dumpling restaurant, and it's right across the street from our hotel. We can almost see them making dumplings from our room. We're headed there later this morning as soon as they open.

And even more fun! Dorothy of Missouri Star blog and her husband Bill are here for their first WG weekend! Here are the two of us last night, knitting and spinning.

As usual, it was the man sitting next to John that asked me about the spindle. His mother was a spinner, spun and dyed her own wool, with natural dyes no less.

More updates later!

*And no, Sweetpea didn't get her own wristband. That's mine. My hands are so skinny that I can just slide the band off. They don't need to worry about me loaning my ticket to anybody though, I'm not sharing.

 

Decisions, Decisions

Or,

Cast On Saturday!

I finished my Seahawks Color Affection earlier this week. It's not blocked, so you don't get the Finished Project post just yet.

But that left me without a mindless-but-not-a-sock project. I have a big-ass sweater project on the needles (Rogue), a sock, and two lace shawls, one of which is in the active knitting rotation, and one that is patiently waiting her turn.

Of course, I have yarn and pattern ideas for eleventy billion mindless projects. After meandering around Ravelry yesterday, I realized that I am likely the last person on the planet to have knit a Hitchhiker shawl. As of this morning, there are 22,564 Ravelers that have knit (or are knitting) this. I've done a couple of her other small shawls and have enjoyed them, and wear them often. And I have the yarn! It's a win-win.

That's Wollmeise Pure, color Bluebell. 525 meters of perfect merino.

I wound up the yarn, put it in a project bag with needles, set it up in Knit Companion, and cast on this morning.

But not before I saw this in a box in my closet.

Isn't THAT pretty? It was at the very top of one of my yarn storage boxes, and it practically jumped up and down, waving its arms yelling “Pick me! Pick Me!”.

So I did. I wound that one up too, and cast on another little “shawlette”. (Does anybody else hate that word besides me?)

This will be a Find A Penny shawl.

Follow the links to Ravelry to see what these look like.

Now I have some good mindless knitting all ready to go. And those of you who have been around here for awhile know what's coming up at the end of February. Wintergrass! Two full days and three nights of bluegrass, perfect for mindless knitting.

I might go see what else I've got up there that I can cast on.

 

Mexico!

Guayabitos, to be specific. We spent a week at exactly this same spot last year. We loved it so much that we booked for this year as soon as we got home. I won't do a long post with lots of photos, since the wifi is a bit slow, but here's my morning.

And that's pretty much been my week. Sunshine, ocean in the background, knitting, practicing flute, siestas, and a cold Pacifico or two. Happy hour daily with margaritas at sunset. Strolls into town for lunch and/or dinner.
We go home tomorrow, which will be OK, since you can't really stay here forever. And Zoe is patiently waiting for us! She became officially “abandoned” by her previous so-called family on Wednesday last week, and we left Friday for here, so she is being boarded with her vet family. We'll pick her up and bring her home on Monday!

Adios!

 

Days Like Today

Slow down what’s the hurry

There’s no rush today

There won’t be too many

Days like today

     Cheryl Wheeler, Driving Home

The day started out blessedly cool, in the mid-50’s. We decided to put on sweatshirts and wool socks and eat breakfast out on the deck, since there surely won’t be too many perfect days like today.

Breakfast was a frittata made with leftover ratatouille from last night. Here’s the ratatouille.

We’re at that part of the summer where we have a profusion of vegetables, and we’ve used up all the zucchini ideas. Enter ratatouille. This one was a baked version*. You cut up all the veggies, toss with olive oil and lots of chopped fresh herbs, put in a casserole dish and bake. Much easier, and much less mushy than the usual fidgety stovetop version. This one has sliced onions, 2 bell peppers, 2 small eggplants, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and lots of garlic. The herbs were parsley, thyme, marjoram, tarragon, and oregano. The onions were from the store, the herbs from our patio garden, and the rest was from our CSA haul from last week. We had this last night with a white bean vegetarian “stew”, also cooked with lots of garden herbs.

There was plenty leftover, so we made a frittata this morning. I put a little grapeseed oil in the skillet, then enough ratatouille to cover the bottom of the pan. I heated it up, then poured over whisked eggs and cooked until mostly set, then ran it under the broiler to finish cooking. I topped it with a bit of grated gruyere and broiled for another half a minute.

 

And just because I’m in that sort of mood, here’s some music for you.

What will you do with this perfect day?

* If you need a “real” recipe, this was from Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbook.