News

Having grown up on the east coast and being a transplanted New Yorker to Texas, we have a lot of family still back east.  I am happy to say that even though some of them have had some issues during Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene, that they are all OK. I thank God for His protection during this storm.

Below, is a new little outfit that I just finished.  A customer had seen the little firefighter outfit that I make for infants and wanted one to resemble the US Navy dress blues. Since she is having a girl, we decided on a bib portion, some lace and ruffles. She found some great buttons, so she will be attaching those to the front.

Windowpane and Teeny Tiny

Here are some of the knitting projects that I haven't posted on here, because they were made for shower gifts.  Below is a picture of the Windowpane Sweater. It takes one large skein of sock weight yarn, about 450 yards. 

Here's the back. The yarn is self-striping, so the color work came from the yarn changing colors, not anything that I did.

The pattern is found in this book which is found here.

The second project, that I finished, is this one. It is from my Teeny Tiny Baby Sweater and Hat pattern.  The sweater and hat are included in the pattern, which can be found in my etsy shop. The cute little booties are from a free pattern that I found on the internet, called Little Footies. The pattern can be found on Ravelry.

When I was knitting the hat, I wanted to somehow add a little embellishment to it. I kept asking myself, what can you embellish onto a boys hat?  My mind is so geared to girls, since I have 2 daughters and 2 granddaughters. I thought, what if I knit a little patch, that the button can be sewn to. So, that is what I did. I then stitched the finished patch to the hat, with the other color yarn from the sweater and then sewed the button to all the layers.

We're Ready and Dyeing

Tad and Anna(our younger daughter) are expecting their first baby. We are all excited, and today is the day for a shower!  Over the last few weeks, many family members around the country have been shopping and shipping.  Gradually, the gifts have arrived at our home. I spent some time this morning, assembling them into their wrappings. It is soooo easy, now-a-days, to send a gift.  Just put a gift bag and tissue paper in the box and when it arrives, someone can assemble it all for you.  So, this morning I did that.  I assembled and made bows and organized all the gifts, I had the best time. Truly.  :)  

I truly feel so blessed right now.  As I finished and assembled the gifts in one place, I thought, "I have the best family ever!"  Thanks, family!! 

In my last blog post, I showed you my jars full of fiber and dye.  They were sitting outside in our extreme heat and sunshine. It was a successful project, and to think I did it with the sun and no electricity, is even better.


Here are my finished fibers, except one.

One of the dyes said "purple." It came out magenta.  The small pink fiber above is the color it turned out.  So, the wool roving that shared the dye jar with the above mohair curls, is now back in the jar with some teal dye added.  Looks like it will be a gorgeous purple, which is what I was after. 


The funny thing and it is really funny.  The jar is in the house, not out in the sun. Because we are getting rain and it is cloudy. I am not going to complain, one bit, because we have had a tiny break of the 100+ temperatures, as well as, we having some much needed rain.

Some Projects

When I go on a trip, I always take some kind of hand project. Usually knitting or crocheting. In the last decade it has usually been knitting. When Rebekah and I drove off to NY, I had a suitcase for clothing and a very large tote for knitting projects.  :)  She had a project bag too, so she understands her mom. Good thing.

One of the items I decided to work on, was my Take 2 Shawl pattern. I used merino handspun yarn for this shawl. When I spun the roving, I added some white to clear angelina to the yarn, which basically just adds sparkle.  I have really been into sparkle lately. The sparkle doesn't really show in the pictures though.

The yarn was smaller weight than I thought. No I didn't do the WPI test, I thought I could judge it.  Silly me. The shawl turned out wonderful anyway, I think.

Here's the back.

Here is the the overexposed front. Sorry about that.

When I arrived home, I wanted to crochet.  My friend Laurie has been crocheting a wonderful and colorful potholder. She found the recipe for it on Ravelry. The original is written in Norwegian and since I don't speak or read Norwegian, I had to take it to Google Translate.  When you put it into google translate, you can sort of figure it out. But, after combing several crochet stitch books, I thought I would try using a stitch pattern that I found in there.  Laurie's potholder has sharper triangle points than mine. The picture of the two potholders below is a picture from the original pattern.

Here's a picture of mine. The potholders are two layers. The picture of the back is below.

We are having unusually high temperatures here and no rain.  Not any clouds to speak of either. So, since it is so hot, many of us are putting that great solar energy to work. Here are my solar dyeing projects from yesterday. I loved looking out the back window and seeing color. :) Made me happy. I have mohair curls, silk noil and wool rovings in these jars.  Happy spinning times ahead.

Montauk Point Lighthouse

This summer our oldest daughter, Rebekah, and I drove her van, daughters and dog to Long Island, NY to visit my mom. We were actually able to connect and visit with other family members who still live on LI and some who were visiting. 

One of the days we were there, we visited the Montauk Point Lighthouse. It is on the south-eastern tip of Long Island.  That is about 120 miles east of New York City.  This lighthouse          was commissioned by George Washington. 

Below is a view from the grounds surrounding the lighthouse. The water is the Atlantic Ocean.

Thought you might like to see the crystal light, that used to shine to warn sailors of land. There is a new light up there now. It is truly a gorgeous sight to see in person, the way it reflects the light around it.

We climbed to the top of the lighthouse. Well, I climbed almost to the top. I stopped when the stairs became a ladder going almost straight up. I decided I didn't have the courage to go up those stairs and then another set just like them.  Actually, I had the courage to go up, just didn't know if I had the courage to get back down them.  I had visions of a helicopter having to come and rescue me from the top of the lighthouse.  So, this view is as high as I climbed.  Rebekah and the girls went all of the way up, calling to Gramma to come on up.  :)