WEEK 14

Another week has flown by.  It was a busy week in our household.  There was the brotherly visit, our Grand's volleyball games, a daughter's visit and of course, lots of knitting.  The knitting is what keeps me sane during busy weeks.  Here is what's happening in that area.

Another pattern repeat has been added and the second pattern repeat got started last night.

The little yellow arrows are pointing to the shimmer effects in the scarf.  They are kind of hard to see, yet, when I look at the scarf while working on it, they seem to jump out at me.

I started my Drops of Jupiter shawl.

It is coming along nicely.  I enjoy watching this grow and am getting excited as the first color change is coming up quickly.  I am up to 147 stitches and the ending count will be 407.  It is a fairly easy knit that can be done while watching TV.  

There was a pair of socks cast on this past week also.  Remember this yarn?

I could not stand it as plain vanilla socks.  After frogging those socks, my Grand Daughter asked me when I was going to make another pair of Snoqualmie Socks.  I realized it was a pattern I dearly loved and this yarn would be perfect for a 'water fall' inspired sock.  After the first pattern repeat, I must say, the teenager was right.  I love this yarn with this pattern.  I am doing the socks concurrently on separate circulars.  Unfortunately, I will not be able to do the FLK heel on these socks.  The ribbing pattern runs all the way through that sock.  I will do the prescribed heel this time. (sigh)

I almost cast on a sweater this week, but managed to hold off.  I have other WIP's languishing away in my 'to do' basket.  They need some love before I cast on anything else.

This afternoon, the teen and I are heading off to a Matt Maher concert.  He is a local fellow who has made it to Nashville with his Christian music.  He comes 'home' a couple times a year and always puts on a fantastic concert.  We always get the VIP tickets when he comes.  That gives us the opportunity to talk directly to him and ask questions.  Since the teen is very much into the performing arts, this gives her a chance to get an idea of what being 'famous' is like.  He is a very 'down to earth' person and easily approachable.  His fame has not changed him from the small town boy he was.

Next week does not look as crazy busy as this past week was.  That means the house will get cleaned and the laundry done.  There will also be home cooked meals being consumed.  A perfect week in my thinking.

Until next time........................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!

Happy Day

It is a happy day.  Yesterday, I called the courts and discovered my group was not needed for jury duty.  Yup, I did a little happy dance.  It gave me some time to prep some veggies to take to our son's house for dinner that evening.  It also gave me extra knitting time. (No knitting needles allowed in the court house.)

Our daughter and her hubby stopped by yesterday for a nice little visit.  We had not seen them for over a month.  It was nice to catch up a bit face to face.

My brother came to town on Sunday.  He had been in Riodoso, New Mexico for a motorcycle rally.  That is about half way from his place to ours, so why not come on over for a short visit.

He is enjoying some down time.  Not to mention the pool is still swimming temperature.  He leaves Thursday morning for home.  This is our first get together since mom passed.  We both agreed the grief is still there and we both have the same triggers that bring the grief to the surface.  It was nice to be able to share that with him.

I did a little home decorating today.

Hubby bought me these lights at Costco last week.  Our mantle is so 'dark'.  It as always been a bit of a sore spot for me.  These lights seem to make it a bit brighter and I love it.  can't wait to decorate for Christmas and use them to accent the Nativities we put up there.

The shawl I talked about on Sunday has been started.

It is a nice easy knit so far.  I am not fond of M1R or M1L but realize it is necessary for this to 'look' professional.  I normally would do a knit F&B to increase.  Nope, not this time.  Oh well, I only have another 150 rows to go.  Piece of cake LOL.

Today, I would like to cast on another pair of socks.  I really don't have much on my plate, other than picking up the Grand after play practice.  This should be the perfect day to do a cast on.  My brother is going to dinner with a high school friend so I have the evening off too.  We smoked a brisket on Sunday and there are plenty of leftovers for dinner here too.  A lovely day off for Moi!

I leave you with a photo of the fiercest watch dogs on the planet.

My best fur friends.  Love them to pieces.  The one closest to the camera is waiting for me to get the laptop off my lap so he can come and lay next to me.  Little does he know I am going to be heading into the craftroom to get that sock pattern and yarn to start a new project.  Oh well, he will follow me in there to make sure none of the yarn tries to harm me.  He cracks me up.  The female will do a perimeter check of the room and then leave.  She has been here longer and knows the routine much better.

Until next time.................happy crafting!

WEEK 13 UPDATE

Hiddy-Ho y'all.  I can not believe we are already 3 months into this YOP.  Wow, it seems to be speeding by this year.  Of course with all the traveling we have been doing, it does go by fast.  There has been 3 trips in 2 months.  Looking at my calendar, I realize I do not have any trips planned for the rest of the year.  Well, not yet anyway.

This week saw lots of knitting happening.  I even have an FO!

Ta-da.   These were finished up late last night.  It feels good to have them off the needles.  I do have plans for more socks and will probably cast some on sometime this week.  There is enough yarn left over to make another pair of socks with this colorway.  WOOHOO  Not sure when I will be casting on the next socks, as my brother is coming in this evening and will be here until Thursday morning.

The first 2 Rising Tide scarves are soaked and blocked.

I have no idea why one is wider than the other.  The same amount of yarn was used for both of them.  My LYS did the blocking for me.  I was hoping for more of a scalloped edge, but this works too.  The colors really popped though!  See Sam............there are 2 scarves done.  LOL

As for scarf #3:

It got some love this week.  I got 2 more pattern rows on it.  The 'halo' of the alpaca yarn makes it so soft and makes the colors a bit more muted.  This is my favorite item to work on for mindless knitting.

There was a little stash enhancement.

This was gifted to me by my daughter in law's mom. (Linda)  She is an avid knitter also.  She over bought this yarn and offered it to me to make a prayer shawl or lapghan with.  There will be another color added with it to make it a bit more colorful.

I noticed the photo I had of the yarn last week was not the correct color.  So I reshot the photo.

It is really more this color of purple than what you saw last week.  More 'grapey' than raspberry.  A pattern has been found for this yummy yarn.

Drops of Jupiter.  It is worked top down so I will do a center pull on the yarn. I want the dark purple to be at the neck and the lighter purple at the bottom.  There are beads on the bottom of the shawl.  I just happened to have some left over from another shawl I made.

There are two full boxes of these plus these few.  Should be more than enough.  This is what it will look like all together.

This is going to be cast on as soon as I complete this update.  

In other news.  Hubby has been fighting a nasty cold since Thursday.  It has really knocked him off his feet.  It does seem to be better today.  Fingers crossed it will be gone in a couple more days.

There is a possibility I will be heading into downtown Phoenix tomorrow for jury duty.  I need to call again tomorrow after 10:15 to see if my group number gets called.  Driving in the big city makes me very nervous not to mention having to drive home during rush hour on the freeway.  Hoping I am not needed for jury duty.  If the duty was in my home town courthouse, I would not have any issue at all of being on a jury.  Not to mention the fact, my brother will be in town and I really would feel bad leaving him all day.  Plus, the cases in the Superior Court last from 3 days to weeks at a time. (sigh)  We will see.

According to the calendar, fall happened yesterday.  Would someone please tell the weather in Arizona to adjust?  It is going to be 100 degrees for the remainder of the week.  My pool is still at swimming temperature.  Supposedly, our triple digit temperatures will break next week.  Fingers crossed again!

Today is football Sunday at our house.  Perfect time to cast on new projects and pretend I am totally paying attention to the games.  Oh, there is also golf happening on the TV.  That usually leads to nap time. LOL

Until next time......................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!

Traveling Finale

This the last of my travel blogging.  It is quite photo heavy but word light.  I hope you enjoy looking at the photos.  Almost all of these were taken on our last day of our trip.  All the plants are surrounding my Daughter in Law's parent's home.

First up is a final look off the back of the foot ferry.

 Now for some flora photos.

Hens and chicks

Brown Eyed Susan's

Hens and chicks in shells

?????

 Hens and Chicks

???????

 Pansies

Pentas

??????

 Hens and chicks with blooms

Hanging Fuchsia

Do I really need to tell you what this is?  LOL

Did I forget to mention he also has a garden?  Some of his tomatoes.  There are also beets, carrots, peppers, jalapenos, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini,  grapes, potatoes, strawberries and pumpkins.  Yes, they do have a lot of property.

He made this succulent planter out of a piece of wood he found along the shoreline during one of his walks.

That is all of my photos.  If you know the names of the flowers that I have ????'s on, let me know.  I loved walking around their property and enjoying all the blooms.  When they come down this winter, they will be bringing me some hens and chicks for me to grow.  I will start them indoors and make sure they are good and hardy and then plant them in my little garden area I have in the backyard.  I am hoping they will take over the little spot.  It is only about 3'X18".

Until next time.................happy crafting!

PS:  I think I found the pattern I want to use for my shawl.  I will post about it on Sunday.

PSS:  I have gotten quite a bit of knitting done in the past 3 days.  Feels good to be knitting like normal again without wrist/hand pain!

Traveling Part II

This is part 2 of my traveling photos.  Today, I am writing from my very own living room.  It is nice to be home yet, the trip was so much fun and we had such a great time.  Let me show you some more of our trip.  

The last time I travel blogged I had left you with a lovely photo of the harbor at night.  That was at the end of day 1.  So let's start with day 2 and continue through day 5.

We woke up on day 2 to quite a bit of noise.  Seems the hotel was hosting the Model T Car club.  There are not any mufflers on Model T's, hence the wake up engine noise.  We walked around a few of the cars and they are really super cool to look over.

In the evening we took a foot ferry across the bay to Bremerton to meet up with my nephew and his girlfriend. (fiancee since last Saturday!)

 I loved all the fall color that was happening on the shoreline.  We do not get much color change where we live so this was exciting for me.  Took me back a few years (30) to when we lived in Pennsylvania.

This schooner was docked by the ferry.  Look at those masts!  I showed this photo to our Grand and she proclaimed it a pirate ship.  

This is the carrier I showed you before.  See the little speck in front of it?  That is a very nice yacht.  See how big that carrier is now?  HUGE even!

This is what happens in Bremerton.  They repair the naval vessels and get them ready to sail again.  There was also a Naval museum behind this building.  No photo as I was being entertained by my nephew at the time.

We had a lovely dinner with my nephew and his girl at "The Boat Shed".  No, it was not the NCIS LA interrogation boat shed.  heeheehee  The food was fantastic!  I ate lots of prawns during my stay in Washington.  They are so good and fresh there!

Day 3 and we are on another ferry heading across Puget Sound from Southworth to Burien (our final destination).  It is about a 40 minute trip and I loved watching the waves and all the other boats on the Sound.

Day 4.......................time for a party.  It was our Daughter in Law's mother's 70th birthday.  We are very close with them and thought it would be fun to be there to help celebrate this milestone with her.  There were 30 people that attended the party.  I knew a few of them but now know ALL of them.  We had such a great time.  There was lots of food and fun had by all.

Day 5 was Sunday.  Hubby and I walked to Mass that morning.  I loved where we stayed as we were able to walk quite a bit and enjoy the cool crisp air.  After Mass, we walked across the street from the church to the local coffee shop.  (Not Starbucks!)  Then we headed back to the house to be with family.  On the way home I spotted this house:

 It is so cute and look at all those flowers.  The one thing hubby and I noticed........there is no such thing as a cookie cutter house in the area we stayed.  These homes were all built in the 40's and everyone is totally different.

When we got home we saw this happening:

Josie was packing her suitcase.  She and her Dad left on Day 6 around 5 in the morning.  Her mom and us stayed another day.

Tomorrow I will complete day 6 and 7, as there are waaaaay too many photos to put in with this post. 

Until next time................happy crafting!

YOP WEEK 12

This update is coming to you from Burien, Washington.  Yup, still on our little vacation in the pacific northwest.  The weather is so nice and cool here.  Been a bit rainy the past couple of days, but that's why the flowers are blooming and everything here is so green.

There has been some knitting being done in the past few days.  Let's take a look.

Rising Tide scarf #3 was my plane knitting.  I was able to do a complete pattern row in the 3 hour flight.  I will work on it again on the flight home.

Sorry for the cruddy photo...........it is cloudy and raining outside right now.  This is my socks.  Both socks are at the same point.  Heel is turned and it is now the boring foot part that seems to take forever to do.

I told you in my last post about going to a yarn store in Gig Harbour.  I bought a lovely skein of fingering weight yarn that is screaming to become a shawl.

I have never heard of this brand of yarn before.  It is so soft and no wool!

I am in love with the gradient of this yarn.  I am looking for a bottom up shawl as I want the dark purple to be around the neck area.  There is over 1000 yards in this skein.  If you have any suggestions, please put them in the comments.  The only shawl shape I do not like is a triangle shape.  I do not need an "arrow" pointing to the largest part of my body. LOL

We leave Tuesday afternoon for home.  I am not looking forward to go back to the 100 degree heat.  I AM looking forward to sleeping in my bed though.

Until next time................Happy Crafting!!!!!!

Washington Visit Part 1

Hello and welcome to my blog today.  I am writing this from my hotel room in Port Orchard Washington.  Hubby and I flew into Seattle yesterday and were greeted by some dear friends and that is where our adventure begins.  They offered to drive us to Port Orchard instead of us taking a ferry across the bay.  What a great idea that was.  

I had heard of a lovely yarn shop in Gig Harbor and asked if we could take a little detour to it.  They were more than happy to accommodate me and I ended up at Rainy Day Yarns.

What a wonderful shop and the lady there was so helpful in explaining how the shop was set up.  I found a lovely gradient skein of yarn that is screaming to be made into a shawl for me.

After the yarn shop, the guys happened upon a little country store across the street that made some of the best sandwiches we had eaten in forever.  Once we were fed and relaxed we got back on the road to Port Orchard.  After checking into our hotel, hubby and I took off on foot to downtown Port Orchard.  Our oldest has his own 'comic' store there.  We had not seen it and were excited to see how he was doing.  I have photos of his store.......Take a little look:

My favorite item in his shop is this:

How would you like to have that in your front entryway.  

After spending a few hours at the shop, we went around the corner and found a little sports bar and grill and had a nice dinner along with a few adult beverages.  We walked back to our hotel which is on the waterfront.  It was a lovely cool evening and I enjoyed the slow pace we were doing.

This flag is flown everywhere we go.  This was at the sports bar we ate at.  These people are all big Seattle Seahawk lovers.

This is the view from our hotel room:

This is the Navy shipyard across the bay from us.  We will be traveling over there tonight for dinner with my nephew.  See the boat on the far left?  That is an aircraft carrier.  You can only see a small part of it.  Trust me.....it is HUGE.

This is the same photo at night.  Isn't that just breath taking.  Not living near water, this is so much fun for me.

Tomorrow we head across the sound and will be in Burien for the rest of our stay.  There is a 70th birthday party Saturday night for our daughter in law's mother. (She and her husband are the dear friends that picked us up from the airport!)  She is also a knitter so there will be some yarny goodness being played with over the next few days.

I will be taking more photos and will continue the travel log in the coming days.

Until next time...................happy crafting!