An Original

My knitting guild, The Camellia City Stockinettes has a business meeting the first Thursday of every month and then program night the second Monday of the month.  Program night is generally taught by a member of the guild who would like to share a technique they have learned.  I offered to do the program for this month about adding beads to your knitting.  For me there are two ways to add beads, either stringing them before you begin your knitting or adding them with a crochet hook on the stitch as you knit.

For this class I wanted to design a scarf incorporating both methods.  And so I have designed my first ever original scarf.

 

The bottom of the scarf is ribbed and the beads have been strung on to be placed between the purl stitches.  Once the ribbing is done the beads are placed using a crochet hook.

 

 

I opted not to use beads over the entire length of the scarf - just placing on the bottom quarter of the scarf so to not have any scratchiness around the neckline.

 

 

 

 

As I seem to do, I waited until the last minute to finish so I blocked my scarf the day of the program and was fortunate that the 100 degree weather dried my scarf on the blocking board when I placed it outside.   My friend Cheryl had suggested a hairdryer and fortunately I didn't have to succumb to that.

 

 

There was 30 attendees for the beading program and I do think everyone went home happy.

 

I can't wait to see next month how many have finished their scarf.

Dog, Dog, Goose

We are sliding into the abyss.

 

Can you tell who runs the house here?

 

Flour, sugar, dog bones, coffee, dog bones, dog treats AND more dog treats.

 

It's two against two.

 

Not sure who's winning?

Garden Happenings

Living in Northern California our growing season starts a little later then the south because of the cool nights.  I am happy to report our first grape tomato of the season. 

 

 

I planted two tomato plants this year, a grape variety and a standard size.  The standard size is making flowers but not producing but my grape tomatoes are producing like weeds. 

 

As they ripen the likelihood of them making inside is iffy as they are so delightful to just pop in the mouth and eat.

 

 

I also planted from seed pickling cucumbers.

 

I am always amazed how you check and check and then 'bazinga' there's a cucumber that needs to be picked. 

 

 I'm hoping with the three plants I have going enough will develop at the same time so they can be pickled.

 

The basil is growing and we've been enjoying fresh pesto and just to be a little different I am growing Australian Butter Squash.

 

 

These pumpkins are suppose to be great for pies and baking and I just love the way they look.

Mystery Socks

The other day I was going through my bin of stashed fingering and lace weight yarn looking for yarn to use to make a scarf I will be knitting to teach a class on adding beads to your knitwear for my local knitting guild.  Lo and behold I came upon a project bag with a sock and a 1/2+  done.

 

I'm not sure why I put these socks down being that close to finishing them.  I can tell you the yarn is Koigu KPPPM color P727 but I can't tell you the pattern name although I do think they are from the KnitPurl sock club I belonged to a few years back.

 

 

 

Fortunately my index cards with the pattern rows were still in the bag and I can now proudly say they are finished!

 

 

Since it is the start of summer and a mere 100+ degrees outside I am happy to be putting these in the sock drawer to wait until the fall to wear them.

 

 Now off to do some more stash diving to see what else I can finish.

 

 

 

Never The Right Needles

This week my garter stitch project needed to be finished with some attached I-cord.  The "I" in I- cord stands for "idiot" because I'm an idiot to want to stitch it around an afghan but it finishes it up soooooo nicely.  In making I-cord you use 2 double point needles, dpns.   I started with bamboo U.S. 7's.  They were sticking to the acrylic yarn I was using so I changed to some metal ones I owned.  Along with the fact the needles were longer then I liked, 7 inch, I also didn't like the stitch size I was getting.  I headed to my local yarn shop, lys, for some more dpns as all I had were bamboo.

As seems to be always the case while my lys has lots of different dpns I couldn't get U.S. 4, 5 and 6's in the same style or length. There are differences when knitting with the same size from different companies in different materials but I had a deadline and was in a time crunch. 

 

 I came home with U.S. 4 HiyaHiya sharps, U.S. 5 Knitter's Pride Nova  and U.S. 6 Knitter's Pride dreamz.     The Knitter's Pride dreamz did the trick and were not sticky to work with.

 

Thank goodness I  am an experienced knitter because according to the back of the Knitter's Pride Nova "These should be used with all due care as these may cause injury by an untrained/unfamiliar person."
 

 

 

Only trained professionals.

 

Yes, I'm just knitting.

Caddy Pad Jr.

When I went to Texas last month one of the events I was able to attend was a quilting retreat at the GreenBriar Creative Retreat Center owned by Judy Groom in Eustace, Texas.  Beverly, the owner of the quilt shop, The Needle Niche located in Athens, Texas hosted the retreat and very last minute was able to include me.  To thank her I made her a tote to carry her travel iron.  The tote pattern is by Sisters' Common Thread and is used to take your travel iron to class or quilt retreats and allows you to pack up your warm iron with no worries.

 

 

 It also folds out flat to use as an ironing station. 

 

 

Since I was already at the top of the learning curve I made one for Dru Ann also.

 

 

You can never have too many Caddy Pad Jr.'s.



Garter Stitch

This week I've been knitting garter stitch.

 Lots and lots of garter stitch.

 Hypnotic amounts of garter stitch.

But it is not for me to share as I am knitting a sample for a friend.

 

Instead I will share for you what I am listening to -

The Orphan Train

 

This book is phenomenal and a tear jerker.  The book introduces you to the history of the orphan trains in the 20's and shares with you a slice of the life of the orphans on the trains.  I knitted, cried and was sad to see the book end. It is very well written and the narrator of the book, I am a listener of Audible.com, is great.

 

So if you have a lot of garter knitting or some other mind numbing task I suggest you listen to The Orphan Train by Christine Kline.  It will pass the time quickly.