Jam

Today Monkey and I made delicious plum jam, and clementine marmelade. The plum jam is completely smooth and texture-free, because Monkey was in charge of the food processer and I didn't supervise enough. Then we made bread, because if you have fresh warm jam you need fresh warm bread to smear it on. All this to avoid doing the chores I need to before houseguests arrive tomorrow evening.

Micro sweater

Micro sweater. 2 1/2 inches wide by 4 inches tall.

No pattern to speak of, just fooling around with the basic construction of a raglan sweater as a practice run for Christmas. Knit of scraps of Sugar and Cream on size 6 needles. The sweater is cute, but the neck is way too small ;)

The yoke was an unvention of slip stitch patterning, of which I had heard but had no practical knowledge. I'm not sure you could call it an unvention even, as just the name of the technique gives it away. Worked way better than two colors at a time for me.

Garterlac to the rescue!

I was so glad to have a simple little project like this to pick up and throw in my bag last Thursday night. I had just settled down on the couch for some quiet Erin time, with the Monkey in bed and Lawyerguy at his Jujitsu class, when I hear the car pull into the carport. Lawyerguy walks inside to catch me watching Ghost Hunters (guilty pleasure) and eating Dove Promises (another guilty pleasure), and announces he has broken his clavicle in class.
shitshitshitshitshit.
So I tie his arm up with triangular and ace bandages, high five myself for taking an advanced first aid class years ago, get the Monkey out of bed and drive to the hospital. Things actually went quite quickly-the nice thing about going to a base hospital on a Thursday night. The ER doc complimented both my knitting and bandaging skills. Monkey curled up in my lap and listened to his headphones and I happily knit away during xrays. The good news is that he only separated his shoulder, and an orthopedics doc follow up today confirmed that no surgery is needed. He will in a sling nearly until he leaves for Germany though, the big dork.
Anyway, the Garterlac washcloth pattern gets my praises and adulation, for perfectly explaining how this works and removing completely my entrelac apprehension.

Oops

Yesterday I started the Garterlac dishcloth, squarely addressing my fascination and fear of entralac knitting. It started out easier than I expected, the directions are written out very clearly, and I've been zipping along quickly. Somehow I seem to have gotten lost though, bringing the washcloth into previously unimagined dimensions.
I should try a cube sometime.

Finished!

Cloud Bolero. Knit ever so inexpensively and comfortably out of less than 3 balls of Sugar'n Cream in Jute. I lengthened the sleeves to elbow length, to keep short sleeve shirts from hanging out the end and to actually keep me warm in church. I knit a size large, but on smaller needles for tighter fabric, a smaller neckline, and more wavey old shale goodness. It is very comfortable, it looked great today, and did it's job quite well. I even decided I liked the picot bind off.

Friday Flower

Delphiniums, or Larkspur. Another photo from my trip to Aspen in June.

In high school I worked with a florist (looking back, this was probably the best job ever). Occasionally she would bring in Delphiniums from her garden. When fallen blossoms were left on the white counter in the work room, they would leave little blue shadows on the formica.

Tie-dye

Yesterday I celebrated/mourned the last day of Monkey's summer term of school by tie-dyeing some t-shirts for him and his cousin (also some underpants for him because I think I'm funny). Then I hung them outside to dry. Someday I hope it will stop raining long enough for them to dry, before it starts raining again.

Cloud Bolero

We found a new favorite beach today, favorite possibly because it is nearly deserted. This friendly fellow was quite fine with parking himself right next to our umbrella for a while, possibly hoping we had brought some snacks (he was out of luck). It is quiet enough here that Monkey can run around and I don't worry about him disappearing, or helping himself to someones picnic. This allows for time to read or knit, but not much knitting because the salt water doesn't help yarn slide around fingers. Maybe I should knit English-style on the beach.

I am thiiiiiiissss close to finishing Cloud Bolero, but am suddenly not so sure about the bind off. The pattern calls for, and I performed, a picot bind off. It sounded cute, but now I am not so sure. It doesn't help that when asked for his opinion, Lawyerguy unequivocally said he didn't like it. The picture of tact, he is. Opinions? Looking at it now it doesn't look so bad.

Flower Friday

Columbine, photographed in Aspen last month.

Floral Friday

Blue Passion Flower. Purchased in front of the Commissary, based entirely on the tag as it had no blossoms on it at the time. I saw something on Passion flowers years ago on Discovery and have wanted one ever since.

I gave notice on my church position a week or two ago, and found out last night that they have a replacement for me now. I will be released either this Sunday, or the next. Maybe now I can stop having the dreams where I'm naked and hiding; my unconscious knows I feel raw and exposed. Yay Freud.

ATC

Wow, a whole month. I wasn't this half-assed about posting when we were homeless. But it is summer time and I, like everyone else, have been crazy busy.
Maybe the biggest thing in my life right now is the Monkey, who at nearly 5, has suddenly grown out of his terrible twos. Nearly over night he is a sweet and pleasant child. He comes home from school with notes that say he was great, instead of phone calls explaining that he will probably be hoarse when he gets off the bus because he was screaming ALL DAY (I got those phone calls all last year. His teacher is a saint.) He was even good on the airplane from Colorado to home, listening to his MP3 player and eating Pez. This especially gives me hope, because in October Lawyerboy is deploying to Germany. It does suck that he will be gone for 6 months, but it could be way worse. We will get to see him in Germany, although we can't go the whole time (I can't take Monkey out of school and therapy for that long anyway). It is only 6 months; lots of deployments are much longer than that. He will be doing very important things in some cool places. But while my brain does a happy dance because Germany is my 3rd favorite country I've visited, my heart does a quiet little sigh.

Hmm, totally didn't mean to write lots about that. But there you have it.

Sooo, artist trading cards! Two batches from assorted swaps on Glitter. I meant to do a few more of the quilted ones, but my math sucks.

the Subway

I'm on vacation so internet has been...intermittent. It really feels like roughing it when you are unable to check your email. But tonight I'm somewhere that the bandwidth flows like a mighty river, so I'll share my latest while I've got the chance.

Since moving to Florida, there are only a few things I miss about Utah. The mountains, a few friends, the kickboxing gym, the Salt Lake Stitch and Bitch. But during this past week, I've had the opportunity to get my fix of quite a few of these things.

BIL, FIL, Lawyerboy and I all jumped in the car at 4am on Thursday to drive down to Zions, for a turbo expedition of the Subway. And me without my hat! Luckily I stopped by a local yarn store earlier in the week to address this issue. Purple tweedy Tahki, knit in simple 2x2 ribs on size 4 or 5s. I even got to work on it Tuesday night with my Utah grrls! I had forgotten how much fun it is to sit and talk yarn with like minded people. I miss you!

I finished the hat in the parking lot at the beginning of the hike (too carsick to knit for long while my FIL was driving) and wore it through the extremely cold water. Water so cold my shoulders are uncontrollably hunched in many of the photos. Water too cold to joke about once you are in it. But an amazing and beautiful hike. And my ears were always nice and toasty.

Friday Flowers

Verbena, perhaps? Not entirely certain. A big bunch of it is growing near my home, wild or at least not cultivated. Quite beautiful in colors that would be garish on me.

Good News!

Last night I had the very pleasant opportunity to teach three people how to knit. That is the beauty of being in charge of a youth program; sometimes you do what you want to do (both the girls did ask me to teach them, though). We began with Sugar n Cream cotton and the diagonal washcloth, just like everyone who doesn't get started on a scarf. I am certain the other adult leader will stick with it, she is already the crafty type and is lucky enough to have a little girl who likes ruffled cuteness her momma made for her more than anything. I am already interested to see if either of the girls has worked on it any more by Sunday when I see them next.
This was the most fun I've had in Young Womens so far, after basic instruction had occurred and everyone got down to practice, and sit around and chat. I really that; the only Stitch and Bitch I've found around here meets on a night that doesn't work for me. But the really good news is that I will be back in Utah for a few days in a week and a half! I will see you grrls on June 11th!

Duh.

See this? I completely skipped an entire needle, about 5 rows back. This is what happens when you are paying not enough attention to your knitting due to the siren song of Settlers of Catan.

(Post-production) Flower Friday

Is it cheating to post this as Flower Friday? Because I am so excited about the prospect of real tomatoes I could just die.

Something with yarn, this time.

In case anyone was wondering, I do still knit.

Cute cotton baby blanket, doomed to sit unfinished for who knows how long. Its only crime: it is the wrong gender. My neighbors were adopting a baby, and were uncertain of the gender. I placed my money on girl, which he turned out not to be. So I gave the little guy one of the many baby hats from my stash, and the blanket lounges here until I know someone having a girl.

It really is beautiful-big wide stripes in deep pink, with a planned semi-lacy border of chocolate brown. Very contemporary. Sadly, there are no girls in the development stage in anyone I know, so it will just have to wait.

I also got an early start on my Summer of Socks, since it is already summer here. I cast on and nearly immediatly turned the heel on a little footsie sock out of leftover yarn from knitting my mom and sister socks. They are not microscopic, this is just an enormous fern. I haven't done any socks in quite a while, and kind of forgot how convenient they are to stuff in your bag for emergencies. It was the perfect distracting/security blanket for some emergency dental work earlier this week.

Friday Flowers

Jasmine planted in my front yard. Not quite as prolific as the star jasmine in the back, but the flowers are lovely and it smells wonderful.
Great idea Kim!

It's here!

Mother's Day came a bit early for me.

And as soon as I was able to wrestle is away from Monkey

I was able to take this. Best present I could ask for.An actual smiling picture of the kid.

Marble Magnets

I am apparently the last person in the world to make those marble magnets. But if any of the, oh, two people who read this blog haven't made them yet, I recommend it heartily as a nifty project with amazing results. I cropped the photos and resized them to 3/4" in Photoshop, and had a dozen printed up on a single 4x6 print (as well as a couple others for all my other tiny photo needs, like finally putting pics of my boys in the locket I've had for over a year now). I used 5 minute epoxy to glue it all together, because it is what I had. The back of the marble will probably be wavy and not that optically great, but the glue clears that all up magically when you bond the photo and turns the marble into a great little lens. I topped it off with tiny rare earth magnets because they are awesome and my kitchen can be a windy place. Never have my grocery lists and school calenders hung with such style.