Pumpkin Sunrise

My sister and brother in law were visiting us this weekend to accompany us to the PA endless mountain fiber festival .  I wish I could bottle up that fun feeling of shopping and buying wool.  That is what this weary world needs.  This year the temps were chilly (good chilly in my mind).  Cold temperatures induce a spending spree at a fiber festival, well that is my story and I'm sticking with it.  Right?  Right. I'm sure you're nodding your head yes.... Anyways, we arrived at 10 am and shopped the various stalls.  The vendors this year were fabulous.  Lots of wool from small farms and indie dyers.  Some fiber to spin as well as tools for knitters, crocheters, weavers and spinners.  Each year the event gets a little bit bigger. My sister and I had fun shopping while the guys went to watch the herding dog demonstration.  We packed a lunch and ate on wooden bleachers watching the sheep shearing demonstration.  I loved being freezing cold down to my toes! I caref

Summer is leaving and autumn is arriving, just look at those leaves falling.  I go outside with Frodo and we explore the yard.  He's sniffing to see who's been around (deer, squirrel, skunk, raccoon, rabbit, bear..) and I take in the beauty of a season emerging. Yesterday was stressful.  I woke up early like always and received a text from my son-in-law that my daughter was in ER.  The doctors quickly diagnosed appendicitis and scheduled surgery for later that morning.  I was tethered to texts, receiving news and spreading news, asking for prayers. All is well so far, she stayed overnight and the surgeon is pleased with the surgery.  Since she is in CA, the time difference is three hours, so I'm waiting for when she wakes up and texts me this morning.  She is supposed to be discharged today, fingers crossed.   I am thankful for my connections to my family and friends through texts and messaging.  What a blessing to have technology be a help.  Each text received

Well it's official, the holiday knitting has begun with this sweet hat pattern .  As the autumn season approaches, I remembered to photo the project before darkness descended.  Since the photo I have a solid 2 inches completed on the brim. If I enjoy this pattern, I will be knitting more hats.  So stay tuned. the color is off - it's more 'blue' My sweater , oh my sweater.  The progress is steady but somewhat slow.  I am 3-4 inches away from the binding off.  The goal is in sight, I just need to focus and knit.  Today is a rainy day, perfect for sitting and knitting and ignoring the chores that call my name. What are working on this week?  Any gift projects?  Or are you being decadent and creating for yourself?

How was your weekend?  Mine is still going strong and I'm not ready to let go of it.  I had a mostly quiet long Labor Day weekend.  Saturday we stayed home and ordered Chinese takeout. Yesterday we drove to Penn State to visit our son for the day. After a Korean lunch (yum!) we walked about the Penn State University Arboretum.  I've never been there before and it was a treat.  Also the weather was overcast which was perfect for photography.  I definitely want to go back again.  I'm sure I didn't see everything.  Also to see the gardens in each season would be neat! After a mad dash through Wegmans to buy all the 'stuff' we cannot get at our local grocery stores, we headed home.  I worked on adding length to the baby dress I made near the end of June.  I guessed the length wrong and the toddler keeps growing.  I added 3 1/2 inches and feel confident that it will be long enough but not too long. Today I decorated for fall in the house

Ah, September how I have been waiting for you!  This is the month where the weather changes and so do the daily walks.  Already the leaves are changing, truly Autumn is a glorious season in my eyes. Thank you so much for the lovely comments on my white out shawl.   I plan on keeping this beautiful knit for me.  I use metal needles for my interchangeable sets, so yes, the shawl was knit with metal needles -  I do not have problems with controlling the stitches while on circular needles. I use wooden needles when I am working on double pointed needles but it's mainly for hand comfort.   I actually would knit with metal all the time but metal dpns make my hands ache, I think I'm too aggressive. I wound up some wool yesterday to kick off the holiday knitting.  Right this second, I'm planning on hats, but I could change my mind if I tire of hat knitting.  I have a few ideas of what patterns to use, I'm still in the thinking stages of these gifts.  The projects wi

Over the weekend, I cast off the last stitch of this mammoth forever knit.  I have to tell you, this shawl is huge.  Because of the alpaca-silk content, I will be warm no matter the weather whatever the weather may be this winter. While I was knitting this shawl, I kept wondering how it would turn into a triangle since it was knit tip to tip.  The designer is a magician and after a gentle blocking - boom -  a triangle! The past few summers, I've had a lace weight knit on the needles.  I find the massive amount of knitting soothing and the lightness of the project bag perfect for car or travel knitting.  Even though I ripped out this shawl and restarted with smaller needles and no mistakes, I enjoyed the project. The pattern is well written and includes charts for the lace sections.  I recommend this pattern for an intermediate or advanced knitter.  Knitting with an alpaca-silk blend is tricky because of the slickness of the yarn.  For more control, knitting with

Hello again, how's your weekend?  Over here in PA we are having some stellar weather.  The humidity is low enough that my hair mostly looks good and the temps are perfect.  Not too cold and not too hot.  Perfection!  I'll confess that I've worn jeans, yes jeans, two days in a row.  I love it. My weekend was a balanced busy.  On Friday, I did some window shopping and had a lovely lunch out with my husband at a chopped salad restaurant.  I adore their salads but my husband thought they over chopped his salad, I don't think there is such a thing.  I even left the cosy familiarity of balsamic vinaigrette for carrot ginger dressing -  have you tried it?  delicious! Yesterday, we moseyed around our town, popping into a few stores and did some people watching.  Once home and after lunch, I worked feverishly on the shawl to finish it before the weekend was over.  I cast off during an episode of Fargo (husband loves it).  While I find Fargo humorous, the violence isn&

I'm yearning and aching for fall.  I gave summer-loving my best effort by not complaining too much about the humidity. I witnessed the beauty on my walks and paid attention to the sights and sounds of the season. Mother nature cooperated with me because the summer was overall mild.  Everyday that comes and goes, more leaves are dropping and I'm thinking 'yes'!  Finally.  This is the weather change that knitters want most.  I'm inspired with color combinations on my daily walks and the fair isle knitting I could do. I've crafted my holiday knitting to do list and it's massive.  I'm not including the two sweater projects.  Ordinarily, I would have amassed many knitted projects for gifts by August.  But the constantly changing news feeds and my inability to ignore them completely has made my knitting productivity suffer. dromedary by juniper moon and ella rae sport A few days ago, I shopped at a yarn store and picked up some lovely yarns for hat

I am totally thrilled by my steady progress of the white out shawl .  I have only 34 rows until the bind off.  And that lace section is gorgeous!! I've been digging through my yarns finding possible skeins for some holiday knitting that I will start by mid September.  I'll be looking for accessory patterns to match up with the yarn I already have in stash.  The planning stage is satisfying for me. I ordered yarn from Webs for my son in law and my sister's sweaters. Thanks for the suggestions last week with pattern ideas, that helps me hone in on some possibilities.  I'm messaging my son in law with photos of designs and gaining more ideas of what he is interested in. My sister will get this sweater  in the blue Madelinetosh sock . What are you knitting this week?

How was your weekend?  I hope it was filled with lots of fun and happiness.  Mine was pretty good until today.  But first let's start at the beginning. Friday we went out for dinner and after that we maxed out on the staycation no cooking week.  I was more than ready to resume some cooking duties.  The daily salad will continue no matter what.  As long as I use a different dressing each time, I do not hit the salad ennui. After dinner, we did a bit of shopping.  I was in a bookstore browsing and left without buying a book. Ever since I've organized my 'to be read' pile earlier this year and I cannot justify buying any book.  The book has to be a 'must read now or I'll burst' kind of book.  If you're a book reader, you know what I'm talking about. Yesterday, I toodled about at home doing not much of anything.  I knit (a lot actually), read some and even dipped into the pool with my husband.  Mid-afternoon we were thrilled to receive an imp