Baby Blanket, Baby Steps

Poor neglected blog. It will be a real surprise to receive a comment after a summer of no postings. Much has transpired this summer, lots of growth, in the garden and in the soul. In fact there are probably lots of good garden metaphors that would fit here: weeds, too much rain, life-sucking aphids :)  But most of the flowers have hung in there and continue to bloom. Today in NE Florida it's gray but the butterflies are feasting. A person can stand among the 6' tall milkweeds and be surrounded by these beautiful creatures.

Quite a few new knitting & cross-stitch projects were started, but non finished save this baby blanket which seemed to knit itself:

Pattern from Drops (18-16). Yarn is Cascade 220 Washable in Caribbean (it's a pretty aqua, not the blue that is showing up on my monitor).  Made for a coworker's first baby.

Off to watch a little football and do some knitting. Curtis & Maizie are busy too:

 Thanks for stopping by!

Hatches Battened!!

Whatever batten means! We're sitting tight here in Jacksonville, Florida, watching our very own beaches on the Weather Channel.  Gosh, we sure need the rain in this part of the country, but we don't need it all at once!  Tropical Storm Beryl is already onshore but the strongest winds and rains are said to be coming during the middle of the night. I've spent the afternoon filling vessels full of water in case we lose electrical power.  This house is on a well, and with no electricity, no running water in the house! But the pantry is full, the cats are napping, lots of knitting projects are on hand. Too bad our big annual Jazz Festival and Memorial Day tributes had to be cancelled, but overall, it could be worse.  Hope you are enjoying your weekend in your part of the world.  I'll be posting again soon with Finished Objects, flowers, and more.  Then it's off to the knee doc on Wed for repair of a torn meniscus.  I'm hoping the recovery time will allow for some knitting. :)

Blogging...In My Mind

April was such a busy month with LOTS of good blog fodder. But did I post? Noooooo!!! But in my mind...oh, in my mind, I blogged every day!!  In April we had a bathroom remodel, Easter, a milestone birthday ending in "0", visitors, gardening, closet cleaning, major stash acquisition, flowers blooming, butterflies hatching, bluebirds nesting...I'm sure I'm missing a few things but it's all humdrum without snaps, so here are a few:

Yesterday I noticed the bluebirds carrying what appeared to be eggshell far away from the nest, and by this morning I could easily hear the little "peep peep peeps" from the nesting box that can only mean newborns!! Here's a snap of mama bluebird getting ready to deliver a tasty treat into the box:

I planted quiet a few new flowering plants that appeal to butterflies, hummingbirds (they're back!) and the fattest bumble bees you've ever seen! I swear they're the size of chickadees!

I caught a serious case of 'startitis' too..both knitting and cross-stitch, in a big way!!
Working on My Brother's Keeper by Plum Street

Started Lizzie Kate's Green FlipIts:

Started Wendy Knit's Double Ruffle Scarf in color-changing Kauni EffektGarn, on Size 3 needles; liked it so much I ordered 2 more skeins in different colorways:

Started & frogged (more than once) a gorgeous lace shawl by MimKnits named Aspen Grove Shawl.  Now that my new stitch markers are here I'll tackle it again.  Note to self...stop trying to knit lace while watching TV late at night!  Received this month's installment of Romi's 2012 Lace Club yarn, a fabulous skein of golden lace weight from A Verb for Keeping Warm

I'll leave you with a snap of Curtis Willis being his usual cute self.  He survived his 2 year checkup but was a little jumpy the rest of the day.  And a snap of me on the beach late Easter afternoon, which also happened to be my birthday!

6-0 BAY-BEE!!!

Springtime in Jacksonville

Some call it summer. We've had temps in the 80s for a few weeks now. The upside to that is many of my milkweed plants are in full bloom, and with the blooms come the monarch butterflies and their caterpillars and even chrysalises already! We had at least 2 hatchings last week!

Several new kids in the neighborhood, above.

I was making great progress on the Ann Dale reproduction sampler with a goal to finish it this year, when it was announced that there were a couple of errors in the chart.  While waiting for the corrections to arrive I finished a few knitting UFOS:

Another Tanta shawl, prior to blocking (low on the priority list just now).

A 2nd sock (Knitpicks yarn, discontinued) for Afghans for Afghans.

And a hat, soft as can be, from Cascades Pure Alpaca.  Interesting that all 3 projects were in the orange color family.  To celebrate St. Patrick's Day I cast on this lovely color of green (Wasabi!) in Shibui yarn; pattern Embossed Leaves. After knitting 4" of sock I realized it would be more suitable for the Jolly Green Giant, so I unknit the whole thing and started anew with size 1.5mm needles, down from 2.0mm, and all is well.

Then the itch to stitch hit me, and I started My Brother's Keeper from Plum Street Samplers.  It was only after 6 hours of stitching that I noticed my first block was positioned the wrong direction on the fabric.  Arrggg...it only took about an hour or so to snip out the stitches, including a letter and a half stitched over one. Thankfully I have a pair of scissors specially designed for snipping erroneous stitches!  This is the newly stitched block, positioned correctly.

The Crescent Colors and Samplers Threads are beautiful, as is the Vintage Exemplar fabric by Lakeside, but it's hard to capture the real colors.

It was an emotional sports news week here in Jacksonville, as many Tim Tebow fans (including me) waiting with high hopes to hear that he might be coming to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Alas, our hopes were dashed as the Jets signed him to play Up North.  That's closer than Denver but not close enough in our books!

Hope you all have a wonderful last week of March (and how did that happen?).  I'll leave you with a snap of my new favorite rose bush, showing off her blooms in the front garden.

Thanks for stopping by!

Blogger Issue?

I posted a blog update yesterday but it appears that some folks can't see it, while others who link to my blog show a red X next to its name.  When I google the name of my blog, it doesn't show up.  If you are reading this, do you know what can be done to resolved the issue?  I'm going to contact blogger now.  Thanks!

Spring Visitors

We had a bit of warm weather this weekend, although today we are quite chilly. Lots of activity outdoors, including a newborn Monarch butterfly. I was very surprised and happy to see that we had a hatching, and saw this one soon after he came out of the chrysalis. He had to hold on for dear life when the wind gusted, but later in the day was flying about & enjoying the milkweeds that have managed to bloom. The tail of a large lizard appears on the brick.

A pair of blue birds have expressed serious interest in the chickadees' birdhouse, instead of their own in the back yard, so the opening had to be enlarged. Naturally today none of them have appeared.

This little fella appeared on the sidewalk near the back of the house, and was relocated to the woods beyond the yard. You know what turtles usually do when you pick them up, right? weeee weeee!

The roses are starting to show off:

Just to the right of this bush is a wonderful bush with small tubular orange flowers that were visited by a pair of orange banded Sulphur butterflies, moving much too quickly to have their picture made.  The male was the most gorgeous apricot color.  This isn't my photo but this is a good model from the Florida Museum of Natural History website. Sorry it's so large. I'm not very good at blogger workings.







                                  Here's a snap of my most recent FO, a pair of socks that were a gift to a co-worker.  The 2nd sock was almost done when I realized it would probably fit the Jolly Green Giant, so frogged back to the band of the cuff and reknit.  Have no idea what that was all about, because the 2nd time through it was to gauge and matched sock #1. Details on Ravelry; yarn = Dream in Color yarn of the month awhile back and the pattern came with.

And I hope to finish this pair tonight, knitted from a discontinued KnitPicks yarn. They will go to the Afghans for Afghans non-profit group. I didn't contribute much last year so will try to step it up this year.  Amazing how quickly plain stockinette socks can be completed.

It was great to have a day off from work, to be home for the workers to demo our bathroom.  Demo meaning 'demolish' that is. Out went the drywall, the tile, the tub, etc....everything out to the dumpster! Within a couple of weeks a new walk-in shower will be installed, new tile, new vanity, new mirror. Just like HGTV haha!

Thanks for stopping by my little blog.  I am so grateful that you visited!