Yarn Envy

After posting about Attic 24 (Lucy's blog) I decided I needed a set of yarn with all the colors. And I mean ALL the colors. First I needed to take inventory of what I already had. The weight would be fingering/sock weight. This is the yarn weight I like best, with DK being a close second. I could see what colors were missing. I have the dyeable wool in the correct weight and all the dyes and figured my sister would enjoy the process so I coerced her into joining me for a dye day this Saturday. We would share the finished product, since each of my skeins is 490 yards, more than enough!!

Then overnight I changed my mind.

I faced facts. (Dope slap to the head).

I have a project to finish for a very nice reader which was kinda due last week (before Christmas) but I couldn't work on it, because my ARM WAS TOO SORE.

Duh. When will I learn?

So I rethought things ( good exercise for the ol' brain) and decided I would finish those socks, and then...put...away... the... yarn.

It will not dry up or get stale or fade away. It will still be there when my arm stops hurting. In the meantime I can do other things, which I am also all excited about doing.

And this is winter, a good time to get projects started, since it seems to be raining a lot and that keeps me inside in the toasty studio.

I have just the Rubbermaid bin for these beauties.

Attic 24

OMG I am totally in love with this blog. Attic 24

My new friend Shiela Patterson of Scotland (!!) sent me this link and I went nuts. Talk about color...she is a wiz with color. I spent hours looking at her blog and Flikr photos. If you visit, make sure you have the time to relish the eye candy she has blogged.

I must get my butt in gear and make something colorful in the very near future, after seeing all this. Woowoo! And if that's not enough of a kick in the proverbial pants, she is very pregnant and has little kids to tend, so what's my excuse? Here's a preview.

Loot

Since I have everything,( if only I could find it when I need it) on most occasions I buy my own gifts. After-Christmas-sales are so attractive and I usually go in for the forlorn leftover amaryllis bulbs and paperwhites, reduced by half. This is my winter garden. We rearranged the living room to accomodate this table by the window. I am trying out the paperwhites on pebbles for the first time. I may have to move them into a different container if my plan doesn't work out.

A while back I visited my sister at her shop and saw these small easels which were used for displaying something like book...I liked them right away and asked where they came from, so I could get them. No one had the answer, so I gave up. But Brooke found them and then gave them to me for my Christmas gift. Perfect for displaying smaller paintings. And they fold up, so when I start selling paintings again I will ship easels with the work as a set.

When I got to Brooke's yesterday, everyone was ready to go shopping, THE WHOLE FAMILY. So we piled into her car, and I made the mistake of leaving my purse in my car, so I couldn't buy anything...First stop, the Rumdum where I found this great French navy shirt by Liz Claiborne.
This sort of thing is so me. It was a mere $3.88 and so it became my birthday present. Love it! On my way home I stopped for gas at Walmart and found the earrings I have been seeking for ages. Click on my face and see if you can see the tiny rings in my earlobes. I can wear these all the time, without feeling anything.

And then this tiny packet contains five double pointed needles, only 5" long, in size 1.5. Never heard of a pattern that called for size 1.5, but they looked so cute, I had to have them.

At home we ate leftover birthday dinner from my pre-birthday cooking and right after dancing until we were out of breath, the phone rang and it was the famous quilt artist and my former business partner Laura Wasilowski. We had a fun chat with lots of giggles and it was the perfect topper to my day.

Thanks to you all for all the wonderful birthday wishes you sent me. I love you!

Melody

Looking Ahead

Today I am 62 and I am counting my blessings.

What a fabulous year it has been. One of the best if you ask me. Just having my family move here would be all I would need to make it great, but so many other things have happened too.

Dave has been so happy, which I loved watching. With baseball this summer and now playing with his guitars, and working on the yard, he has been so active and healthy, mostly.

And making lots of new friends is so wonderful too. The Dead Plants Society and the new knitting group, plus all the great gals I met when we did the dye workshop in May. So much fun for me.

Finally setting up my studio and getting the deck and hot tub done is so satisfying. These are things I use daily.

I learned a lot of new things this year too.

Several knitting techniques, which I had never understood before, became clear.

I learned a big trick to cleaning my kitchen, which is to put away everything first and then start to clean. Simple but revolutionary to me.

I learned that impatiens and nasturtiums reseed here. Wonderful!

And that my goldfish reseeded too.

I learned how to relax and just read all day on the porch feeling the summer breezes.

I learned to hook up my laptop to my tv and watch internet things on the big screen. LOVED that.

And my sister taught me all sorts of ways of getting around Chattanooga that saved me time and avoided traffic, getting me to the stores I wanted sooner.

I am so glad I have good health back again, with my knee being pain free and walking around (shopping!) again without getting worn out. Nothing like it.

So I am looking forward to being 62 for a whole year and wonder what wonderful things will happen this year. To start, I am going to the foot doctor, just for a check-up, and then on to see my sister, because I'll be so close to her place.

Dave is going to a doctor in another town and so we are apart for most of today. Knowing this, we celebrated last night. I made a special birthday dinner and this cheesecake bar recipe. Deelish! You should try it before the big diet starts on January first.

I love having the blog and keeping in touch with y'all. (I'm getting that Tennessee twang going).

Thanks for your kind attention.

Christmas Glory

My Favorite Niece Glory with bare neck and then with the neckwarmer Kissed in place.

Brooke had just the right beads to add to the tie. I think she liked it.

The table looked fabulous and the yummies were just that. We had Gjetost cheese on graham crackers and that was a special treat. Reminiscent of dulce de leche. Sweet and delish.

Tamales were inhaled. There were abundant leftovers which makes today, the 26th the second feast day so nice. RELAXING Noshing.

Here's the hostess with the mostest. Chloe is the bird.

It was so wonderful to have family here to share the holiday. Nothing compares!

HOT Christmas TAMALES!

Good thing I made these on Christmas Eve because we woke up to another power failure today.

This time it wasn't one of our trees that downed the power lines (thank Heavens!) and now at 8am, we have restored electricity. The windstorm last night was fierce and all went dark at 2:30 am.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming: Tamales! The steaming platter above is so aromatic, I wish we had smell-o-net. Tamale making is a family tradition, but I ended up making these alone as Brooke had to do stuff at home. We'll be bringing dinner to her house today.


I had a hard time finding masa preparada, so I had to make the dough from the powdered masa. I followed the directions mostly and then added and subtracted from there. Eventually I got the right consistency and set up the assembly line. The corn husks called ojas (OH-hass) were soaked in my washing machine, to free up the kitchen sink. I made two kinds of meat filling, pork and chicken for my b-i-l who prefers not to eat pork. Both are loaded with garlic and chili powder and look and taste the same, if you ask me.

The ojas are wrapped and folded and then stacked in the pressure cooker with a cup or two of water and steamed at pressure for 10-15 minutes. It makes a lot of racket, but is so much faster than steaming them in a regular pot (for hours!) I think I made about 60 tamales.

Then last night I was browsing through Ravelry and found this adorable neck thingy, called Kissed. I just knew it had to be made for my niece. I had time, just the right yarn and all the necessary inspiration.

Here it is in Rose pink silk merino 50/50. So buttery soft and sweet. I hope she likes it.

Merry Christmas EVERYONE...even Anonymous!

Love,

Melody

PS. The sweater dried in time to wear it for Christmas!! The fit is soooo much better.

I really gotta wash that full length mirror!

Blah Blah Blocking

I made this Heatbeat Sweater ages ago and altered it to my specs, making long sleeves and adding a back neck triangle to fill in the V-neck. I wore it a few times and then suddenly my size changed. I don't know how...OK I do, but that's not the point. I put it away in the box with all the other sweaters-too-warm-to-wear-in-Tennessee and forgot all about it. Then a friend chided me for knitting all these accessories of late and 'when are you going to make something substantial, like a sweater????'

Hrumph.

So to defend myself I took a second look at my stash of FO's and decided it was time to finally block this pullover, within an inch of its life.

Noro Kureyon is notoriously stretchy when worn, but not as much as it is when it is totally submerged in water/hair conditioner. REALLY stretchy.

I took this from a figure grabbing 38" bust to a casual 41.5" with nary a tug.

Since initially I had never blocked this beast, I didn't get the full fashion statement that I look forward to having now. I may even wear it again!

Blocking is so easy to put off, but this being Christmas, and knowing my worksurface table is not in use for two days, it is time to use it for the Big Block. Hey, this could become a tradition...or not.

O Happy Day!

.

My friend and former dye workshop student Cathy B sent me this wonderful sock book which is loaded with history and tantalizing socks to knit. I am all about socks, y'know.

And then dear friend quilter/knitter/author Liza Lucy sent me long quarters of all the gorgeous fabrics from Keiko Goke's new line. They are all available at Glorious Color

I'm sorry, I still don't have a link to her newest book.

And then, you won't believe this, but a few months ago Dave (Mr. Mulch) was picking up mulch in Coalmont TN and met up with a group of folks showing off their alpacas.

They chatted about raising these darlings and getting wool from them, and

Dave mentioned that his wife is a knitter and dyer and then he gave them my blog url or something...

Melissa at Cria Kisses is that person, AND....Drum Roll

She has loads of free manure for me! My Christmas wish has been granted.
So wasn't that a fabulous day for me? You betcha!

PS. Sandy of SandysQuilts was the one who provided the idea for the Christmas bags on my previous post. Thanks a bunch Sandy!

Gift Bags

A few days ago I read on SandyQuilts blog that she made up gift bags for all her presents and then retrieved the bags to use again next year. What a great idea I thought, and decided to follow her lead and make my own.

I spent one and half hours trying to find the box with my printed fabrics, and as you can see I did find them, in the potting shed. Duh.

They are about 20" tall and the base is 5" square.

I used all sorts of prints on the outside but the linings are all alike, red with green, white and black dots. Now all I need are gifts to put inside and ribbons to tie them up. I am starting my shopping today, now that all the snow is melted.

What I want for Christmas

A big steaming pile of rotting compost! I have a good start, which is about a quarter this size, but it needs more 'organic' waste, besides leaves and dead potted plants.

In the past we have purchased bags of composted manure and top soil (two tons!) for our garden

and in the very beginning we did have a truckload of mushroom compost delivered for our front garden. It made a seriously better garden than our bagged soils.

Like yarn, art supplies, and new fabric, rich black compost signals loads of possibilities.

Tapestry Shawl

I was given four skeins of Wisdom Yarns Poems, which is a really nice wool. So I decided that I would make up the yarn into a shawl and return it to the nice gal from the knitting group that gave me the yarn for free! I know she doesn't read the blog so our secret is safe.

I love the way it is has a built in curve. Short rows formed the points of this knit. It is a lot bigger than the picture shows and overlaps almost twice. I couldn't get a good picture of me wearing it. The pattern is available here.