jeffinambler ~ posted by Melissa

this one's for you :)



guess what I took home yesterday?



blackbird bakery triple berry pie

soooooo..... when are you coming back to Seattle?      ~ Melissa

fumes ~ posted by Melissa

busy days, late nights ~ phew...I'm beat and no day of rest in sight!

 

tomorrow holds a ferry ride to Churchmouse to do this:

 

I'm really excited for this class and for an excuse to shop a little at Churchmouse (a 10% coupon, a full $20 off punch card and not having gone yarn shopping in months will make it a guilt-free spree!).

 

Sunday will be full of chores and yard work and then Monday mom and I are off to the Evergreen State Fair for the day.  Busy, busy, busy but it's a good tired that I feel.  I'm anxiously anticipating the change of seasons with my favorite time of year quickly approaching, and I feel rejuvenated.

 

Enjoy the weekend, everyone, and I hope to have some fun things to share next week!  ~ Melissa 



ta da ~ a post by Melissa

here's a link to my project notes ~ my Prarie Shawl is complete!  ~ Melissa

European holiday ~ a post by Melissa

Hey, everybody!  Here's what I've been finishing up while I was waiting for our fellow kal'ers to make some progress ~

It's called Dinner at the Eiffel Tower , a free (for the moment) pattern by Jessie Dodington.  And by her own admission, her first substantial design!!  I am completely impressed!  The pattern was written for dk weight yarn but I know me and the shawls that get the most use at my house are my lace weight knits so I did modify the pattern to make it larger, but the dk projects on Ravelry are all gorgeous!  I may have to do this again in a heavier yarn with no modifications, and that's saying alot since I rarely do the same project twice!

I had fun taking finished photos since it blocked so big and airy ~ I found quite a few ways that I'll be able to wear it.  I've also decided that I do like a semicircular shawl after all, as long as it's big enough to wrap around me nice and loosely.  I'm guessing this took about 3/4 of my madelinetosh Prairie lace weight yarn so about 630 yards or so (I don't have a scale so this a total eyeball guesstimate!).  And the color is bright and berry red with a slight blackish hue ~ it's fantastic.

Now it's back to the knit-along and time to pick up stitches for the border.  Kimberly and Kelly, how are you coming along?  Hopefully you're not entirely nupped out already!  Morgen is nearing the finish line ~ I think she may complete hers before me, even after such a struggle to get everything 'just so' in the beginning. 

Stay cool, everybody!  I know the Midwest has been a boiler room and we're supposed to have record breaking temps the next couple days so shut the blinds, turn on the fans and look forward to a little cooler weather this weekend!  ~  Melissa

I wonder when spellcheck will recognize 'Ravelry' as a real word!?!

a visual feast ~ a post by Melissa

Advent Calendar Stole

Cranberry Capelet

What a day yesterday was.  I wish I could take pictures while I drive but I'm just not that crazy.  It started with a trip to the Evergreen State Fairgrounds to drop off my entries for this year's fair:


Rock Island Shawl

Bridgewater Shawl

I got a really early start and headed to Monroe in a thick blanket of low lying summer fog and on the way home, the upper layer had burned off and I could see brilliant blue sky ahead of me with a snow-capped Mt Baker in the distance and 2 extraordinarily colorful hot air balloons hanging above the sea of gray fog below.


It's so strange to be at the fairgrounds when there's not the buzz of vendors and presenters arriving and setting up, or an event in full swing.  It was a silence that was only broken by the occasional snorting of unseen animals that I soon learned were bulls from the grizzled gentlemanly cowboy who I stopped to ask for directions (' sorry ma'am, I'm only here guarding the bulls ') ... love it!

I met my husband for breakfast and on the way there had a rare glimpse of a crystal clear Mt Rainier far, far off in the distance.  It's always there but rarely visible at all in the haze, so on the days you do come around the bend and see it, it's enormity is always breathtaking.

We got home in time to watch pairs of F/A-18 Hornet Jets (at least that's what we think they were) do fly overs right over our neighborhood as they left Paine Field and headed west.  LOUD LOUD LOUD and so incredibly cool.

Then it was off to the Skagit Fair to meet Kelli (I demonstrated knitting til the fair closed and Kelli demonstrated 'two-handed crochet' ~ ha! ~ I'll let Kelli tell you about that!).  It's such a small fair but there were some very creative and beautiful things on display:

Kelli's Bridgewater



the KnitWit shawl shelf ~ so cool!

delicate Hardanger embroidery:

and this artistic quilted wall hanging (I covet this piece and also the skills!):

The best part of the day was sitting for 3 hours, knitting and visiting with my favorite partner in crime who I haven't seen nearly enough this year.  It was a great way to end a busy day ~ thanks, Kelli for joining me in some fun memories.  It wouldn't be the same without you there!  Too soon it was time to pack up and go, so I loaded up my entries and headed for home:

2012 Skagit County Fair results

I saw a shooting star on my ride home and remembered that it was the night of the Perseid Meteor Shower.  It's almost always too overcast in this area to see any of these nighttime events but last night was crystal clear, so when I got home we turned out all the outdoor lights and looked up to the heavens and were treated to a spectacular light show. 

What a day, what a day.  I don't think there's one thing that could have made it any better!  ~ Melissa

here a nupp there a nupp everywhere a nupp nupp : A post from Kelli

Anybody (probably Melissa) know how many nupps? Ok what if you redo the edge? it's enough to break a needle, that's a lot of knitting 7 in 1.

Would love to see updated pictures. I think I'm done with purple for awhile.

Prairie Rose: Take Two ~a post by guest blogger Morgen

Well this has been a bumpy road!  After all of my troubles getting started on Prairie, I got about 6 inches into the shawl when I decided to ditch my efforts.  I was only halfway through Chart B and the edge of my shawl was already looking ratty. I want to say that it was pilling a bit, but I'm not sure pilling is the best word.  And it wasn't a beautiful yarn "bloom". It just looked as though I was using really really cheaply made yarn.  I was, in fact, using Fleece Artist Sea Wool that I have had in my stash.  I loved the color ( a rich raspberry, both dull and shiny at the same time) but I was heartsick to see that only 6" in and it was already looking worn.  Really worn.  In that 6"  I had already taken sharp scissors to the bloom 3 times. I felt weird about it, it is Fleece Artist after all.  It wasn't cheap and I've never had complaints about their products in the past, but I really loved this pattern and I just could not bring myself to invest that much time in my life into something that would be a huge disappointment upon completion.

So Prairie Rose went to the frog pond.  I think it was about this point Tuesday evening that my husband and son took an alarmed look at one another and quietly got out of Dodge as quickly as they could.  I stewed for hours.  I tore apart the stash and found several good candidates but each was just shy of the yardage needed.  I stewed some more. I knew I wanted the shawl to be "rose" colored.  But I also decided that for me Prairie needed to be rustic in flavor, not fancy.  Suddenly I knew which yarn I HAD to use... Loft by Brooklyn Tweed.  I surfed online and settled on the color Camper.  Fortunately, I decided to beetle over to Churchmouse yesterday to purchase said yarn rather than have it shipped to me.  I forgot that reds/pinks are horrible to photograph accurately. Camper, in person looks not rose-like to me but rather like cream of tomato soup.  My only choices then were to go with a dark red or a barely-there pink.  I opted for the barely-there pink.  It is called Postcard and it looks like granite would look if it had the slightest tinge of pink, a sort of gray stoney pink.  It's growing on me.  It's not the color I had hoped for, but it has its own charms.

I had forgotten how much I love this yarn!

Last night and most of today I have worked on Prairie and am nearly done with Chart A.  I am way behind, but am much happier with  my work.  I also have gone up a needle size to a US5.  One benefit of frogging my first attempt was that I got a better feel for the size when I took it off the needles, and it was smaller than I was expecting.


How fare the rest of you??