All Over In a Burst of Glory

The Fourth of July 2009 is history, along with the preceding 233 Fourths. Now it's back to life as we usually know it, for better or worse.


I hope you had a wonderful weekend and maybe took a little time to reflect on the good things in your life. I know I did, and I feel truly blessed. Sure, it's easy to focus on some of the negative stuff--the aches and pains and troubles and trials and tribulations, but in the midst of all that, there's the sweet smell of baby hair, the glory of early dawn, the radiance of sunset, the great boon in communication with faraway loved ones...the fun and fascination of the internet, even!

Fireworks, Family and Fun

Is this not the world's most beautiful apple pie?

There's even sour cream in the crust, and the apples are pre-cooked and drained before being put in the filling so the bottom crust doesn't get soggy.

If D4 decides to change fields, I think she'd have a great career as a pastry chef!






Li'l Missy discovered that Grandma's slippers are nice and fuzzy inside and feel very good on little feet.

Unfortunately, they are rather large on little feet, being intended for Grandma's clodhopper feet.

So navigating around in them is problematic. However, she did give it her best shot.

Check out those curls. She's got great hair already!



Heading over to D5's in a few, to celebrate the Fourth with family and fireworks. Depending on the state of the neighbor's trees, there's a good view of the fireworks at the Fairplex from D5's front lawn. Her talented hubby rigs up the speakers outside and plugs them into my iPod with the patriotic music program on it, and we can listen to John Philip Sousa and Lee Greenwood and the rest of them while watching fireworks.

Cool stuff!

Of course I'll bring something to do with my hands, assuming they won't be full of babies--with the three youngest grandkids there, plus baby Paige (do I really think of myself as a great-grandma?), there may be enough so I'll get a little baby-time.

Maybe.


Here's wishing you and yours a grand and glorious Fourth (assuming of course that you're in the US and celebrating it; I think the Brits have a little different "take" on it than we do, and I know Canada Day has just passed).

Another Day, Another Month...

What have I been spending my time on, you may ask? Well, not this:

It's suffering from neglect. I just am not loving the way it's coming out.

Maybe I need to let it marinate a bit more.

Now., Lady Eleanor III is moving along. She'd move even faster if she wasn't so long and didn't provide such a nice WARM lap covering. When it's 90 degrees and 90% humidity, well...

The Grandcarrot's sweater is moving right along. I do believe that it is just about to the shoulder decreases. This is one of those patterns where I don't think the "payoff" in terms of texture is really worth all the effort of creating it, but we'll see when it's done. It is a cute design!

Then there's the Wee Boy's sweater. It's got a finished back, and I'm well up the fronts. Yay for small sizes!

The yarn is Sirdar Snuggly, a really nice-feeling synthetic. It's not that "crunchy" ack-rylic, and after seeing how the Sweet Pea sweaters have held up to being washed and worn and washed and worn again, I'm very pleased with the yarn.

Ah, but this is the Summer of Crochet Love GCA for the OOPs knitters. I had several ideas in mind--even bought some luscious alpaca in black, white, and two shades of grey to make a crochet blanket.

Yeah, so not going to happen! When I saw what my fellow OOPsers are doing--Ellen and Madge and Annette especially, with their bright colors and Koigu and Babette or Babette-wanna-bes? I got out my 10-pack of Noro Silk Garden and started granny-ing.

Well, Noro is full of surprises. Four of these blocks came from one ball of yarn--I can get 4 blocks and the start of a fifth out of a skein--and the new skein I'm working from has purple in it! (No purple in the first one.) I am not joining them as I go, because I am going to get another batch of SG in a brighter colorway and mix the squares up. Otherwise I'm afraid this would just be a giant yawn. Then again, it might not. Noro is full of surprises!
One week, our group went to Abuelita's in South Pasadena for a "field trip" and for our usual knit day.

Do you really think I could go to a new yarn store and come out empty-handed?

This is the new Rowan Studio book and I'm making t he little sweater on the cover. In Rowan's Summer Tweed. I'm really enjoying knitting with this yarn, and the pattern is quick and easy so I can work on it while I'm spending time with Li'l Missy. "Watching" isn't the word for what I'm doing, exactly, since she's at a very interactive stage and has been known to grab my ball of yarn, clutch it to her chest, and exclaim "Mine!" with an impish grin.

It's summertime so the quilts on the backs of the sofas have changed with the season. I thought June 30 was a good day to put away the winter trees.

Hence, watermelons.

And ice cream.

No, these are not new. They go back quite a ways, in fact, and were class samples way back when. But they are fun and summery.

You know what else is summery?

Ripe apricots. The tree is producing a small crop this year--it either needs a heavy pruning, or else it's at the end of its productive cycle.

Kind of like me??

Anyway, I'm going to try to do better and keep the blog updated. This is going to be a busy summer, what with the Vegas gang arriving on Friday for a long holiday weekend, then later in the month the Denver bugs will be spending some time at Camp Grandma. (I'm surprised they can tear themselves away from their pretty new house, but I'm glad they're going to come to visit!)

I'm also planning to go to Asilomar again at the end of the summer, so I've started "training." The pedometer is back in service, thanks to D4, and I'm back to keeping track of my steps. Pretty pathetic when I can barely make it to half of my daily goal--but then, that's what a goal is for, right??

Right??

Knock, Knock, Is This Thing On??

What, you may ask, has been occupying me since the first of April, leading me to neglect my poor blog?

Are you sure you want to know?

All right then, I'll tell you. And if I forget some of it, well, I'll have to chalk it up to old age or something like that. Certainly there have been a lot of reminders lately that I'm not exactly the spring chicken I feel like inside.

However, I can still get the happy when I'm in a loverly yarn shop and there is a surfeit of wonderfulness. And some of it can come home with me.

Really, what a shock, huh? This was taken at Twist during a "field trip" with my knitting group. It is a fabulous shop--and yes, they sell online--with an extraordinary selection of yarns, including that Malabrigo I'm cuddling (yes, it came home with me) and the Dream In Color Starry next to it. Considering that I was less than 5 miles away from Webs only a week before, and didn't get to go, I think I was being very good.

Well, at least good for Twist's bottom line that day. Our whole group found something, I think , but you'll have to check their blogs and Flickr pages to see. Or their Ravelry stashes. (You can check out my Flickr, too, for more pictures of this and the other things below.)

The Grandcarrot had a birthday, and turned 3. Here he is with his Auntie D4 and his birthday pinata. Made for him by his loving and slightly demented Auntie.

If you haven't met the Yo Gabba Gabba gang, you won't recognize Plex, the friendly robot. He was a big hit, and the little kids didn't seem to mind taking a whack at him--he was, after all, full of good treats!

I noticed that when the kids were scavenging up the loot after a well-placed whack opened him up, that some of them were taking the opportunity to take home an arm or a leg. Well, why not?

Here's something I didn't think I'd see for quite a while: a four-generations shot, and guess who is the oldest generation?


That's right. Little Paige Nicole, with her Grandma (D3) and mom Jessica. At least I'm not quite the oldest in the family--my dad, at 91, has me beat. We would have loved to get a picture of him holding his great-great-granddaughter, but he's not well enough to travel and it's a little far for Paige to go just yet. (Pics on Flickr of my dad meeting his 3 youngest great-grands, if you want to see. Maybe next time I'll post one of those here.)

Here's a shot of granddaughter Alyssa, at her college graduation in Providence, RI. Those are 3 of her proud aunties with her, and her carroty cousin who was more than a little overwhelmed at the whole giant graduation ceremony.

Alyssa graduated with her AA in Interior Design from New England Institute of Technology the day after she got married! Talk about a busy weekend...

Several of us, well, okay, all of us from California, flew out to New England for the wedding and graduation. D1 met up with us there in a miracle of scheduling. We met up with her in the baggage area of Bradley International and shuttled ourselves to a nearby Doubletree, which was a great place to rest and regroup.

There may have been wine involved. In fact, I'm sure there was. The little ones did eventually settle down in their temporary homes, and by morning we were able to get a couple of rental vans--followed, of course, by the obligatory breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

We spent Friday visiting my dad--the Massachusetts part of the trip--then found our way down to the lower part of Connecticut to #2's house, where we visited and relaxed till it was time to split up. I went to the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, and the rest of the gang went to Mystic Pizza for dinner. There also may have been a trip to a package store for beer and wine and champagne...

Saturday was the wedding, followed by the reception at the wonderful Mystic Aquarium. I'm only including one picture from the reception here--if you want to see more, check out the Flickr links! This is me, in my pink suit (sometimes I call it my pink whale suit, but The Daughters don't like that so I won't do it here) with #2, D1, D4, D5, and D3. It was a beautiful wedding and the reception site was perfect.
So that's a quickie recap of the last couple of months. I've left out whole bunches of things, like D1's new house and being almost snowed in while we were in Denver, and peahens in the jacaranda tree, and how fast Little Miss is growing, and how cute the little grandboys are being, and all kinds of other stuff. I guess I will just need to be better about maintaining the blog.

I'll try!

April Already??!

Not the best picture I've taken of the little cousins, and I'll work on getting a better one. However, as anyone who's ever had a toddler in this age bracket already knows, they are perpetual motion machines, and getting even one of them to stand still this long is a major feat.

I did get several pictures of blurs. Sigh.

Anyway, time does seem to be marching on, and March has marched its way into history. Time for some new blog resolutions, or maybe just trying to do a little better. Let's see how I do!

There are some interesting and exciting things coming up this month. First up, tomorrow morning D4 and I will be on a plane to spend 4 days with D1. While we're a Mile High, there will also be the opening of signups for the much-anticipated Mean Girls Yarn Club, on Friday. Then at the end of the month, most of the California contingent will be on a plane headed for the East for #1 Granddaughter's wedding and college graduation--talk about a busy weekend!

Oh, and Great-Grandaughter #1, aka Paige Nicole, made her appearance last week. So instead of having a "lucky 13th" grandchild, #13 turned out to be a "great" instead. Pictures are on her great-aunts' Flickr pages, since my phone has stopped accepting pictures. (Yes, I know, it's probably time for a new phone. Sigh.)

In yarny-goodness news, there's a new Yarn Club in town, and the signup frenzy will be happening on Friday April 3! The club is being organized by Laura from Dizzy Blonde Studios and Knitty Knitterton of the House of Awesome. (Did you see my Awesome yarns in previous posts? Yeah, those base yarns are sooo soft, and the colorwork is to die for.)

Club details:

• Website is The Mean Girls Yarn Club
• Signups begin April 3
• Shipments will go out every other month for 1 year
• Cost is $150 for the year, payable in one lump sum or 3 installments of $50 each
• Membership is limited to 50 people
• Colorways will be club exclusives, and will never be sold outside the club.
• There is a theme within a theme, and guessing is encouraged.
• Each skein will come with a little something COLLECTIBLE attached to the band, and a little extra "something else."
• There are Ravelry groups for both dyers: Dizzy Blondies and House of Awesome.

I'm encouraging you all to head over there and sign up, just please please leave a spot open for me! If I don't get in, there will be some sort of major tantrum going on, probably with a triple back flounce and a touch of acid reflounce too! (Okay, that might not make sense, but if you're a Ravelry Rubbernecker, it definitely will. And if you're not, why not?)

So, that's it for March, and looking ahead to April, it looks as if it might make for interesting blogging.

Especially if I don't get into the club... because we all know I NEED MORE YARN.

More March-ing Along

First day of Spring today, and it does look as if spring has sprung around here today.

I went out and took lots of flower pictures. Uploaded them, and most of them are so blurry they're unusable.

Boo. Bah humbug. Guess I'll need to go out there and try, try again.

I did get pretty decent picture of the Mock Orange, which is in full bloom back there. The tree is huge, and it smells absolutely wonderful in the back yard. Yay for fragrant trees!

Oh look! The spider plant seems to have grown some Awesome Sock yarn. I'll give you a link to Sharky's etsy shop, but right now she seems to be sold out.

This is her sock weight in a color called Power Tie. It reminds me a lot of Bob's favorite red tie, the one he always wore when he needed a little extra confidence.

There was another hank o f yarn in my package from Sharky, too. A worsted weight, in shaded bright pinks.

Look how nicely the pink yarn goes with the pink Transvaal daisies! And by the way, these little survivors have made it through another year, and have come back quite exuberant. The other one, a pale pink, is also doing nicely. Thank goodness all of the plants didn't die off with last year's massive invasion of the contractor's men.

See, even some of the daffodils survived. I'm planning to feed all of the surviving bulbs and plants so that they can make it through another year.

The brown iris is once again holding forth, and I'm so glad to see it! If you look at some of the pictures from last year, you'll see this stalwart survivor bravely waving its pretty flag (pun alert: irises are also known as "flags" in some places, tee hee) next to the ditch the plumbers dug to replace all the pipes.

Whew. While the lawn still looks horrid, and there are a lot of valleys where the filling-in was pretty sloppy, I'm cheered and encouraged by any signs of recovery. Acutally, the irises seem to be doing well everywhere. I'm glad we were able to move them out of the driveway border since that is now a wasteland of concrete, broken glass, nails, and general yuck. I'm hoping that with a little hard work it will be a good place to plant--I'm thinking lavender and sunflowers to start.

I've got seeds, and starter pellets, so maybe I can grow my own baby plants this year. I do get some teasing about having a "relationship" with my plants, but gee--why not?

For instance, when I look at this iris, I think of Sheila, who gave me a whole bunch of tubers when she thinned out her iris bed. She was a quilter and the only person I've ever met who (like Bob) was born in Wilmar!


And the lilacs are beginning to bloom. Only two panicles so far, but it's coming along.

I like this silhouetted against the bare trees in the neighbor's yard.

Here's Li'l Missy, giving me the ol' stinkeye because, after all, doesn't everyone need to have a drawer to sit in? Her next step after this (Mom says it's ok for her to play in this drawer, so it's ok with Grandma too!) was to empty everything out of the drawer onto the floor, so she could get her whole self in there. She's very focused when she's doing something like this--and she also put everything back in when she was done, and closed the drawer and the door too. It's so much fun watching her learning and doing--everything is so new!!



I have more pictures (including Cousin N8) but I'll save them for another day. I'll also fill you in on my latest "plunge" since I've joined the world of Facebook. Sigh. Only way to keep up with all the family, I guess!

March Maunderings

Is there anything more appealing than the doorway to a wonderful quilt shop??

This one is Back Porch Fabrics in Pacific Grove. And it's just as wonderful as it looks.

Yes, it was Asilomar Week again.

There are some rituals involved with going to Asilomar, although they are very fluid. One of them is visiting Back Porch. They have a fabulous collection of fabrics, and their book selection is great. They also make every effort to be Empty-Spools-friendly, so when you walk in the books by the teachers for the current session are right there on display. (Assuming your teacher has written a book! Not all of them have, including my teacher for this timeast

Their back room is set up as a gallery with ever-changing displays. This time, it was quilts by their very talented staff. Last year, it was quilts by Ruth McDowell from the Thomas Collection.
Well worth a visit, any time I'm in the area. And, it's only a block from Monarch Knitting. Did I mention that I love this area??

There's some wonderful scenery at Asilomar, and even though the weather was stormy and rainy and windy much of the time I was there, I loved it anyway.

I thought the sun behind the clouds and the wind-whipped trees were wonderful.

This is my first project--well, except for a "trial run" at the technique. My teacher was Sylvia Einstein, who does wonderful "fractured landscapes" by building up layers of split and pieced fabrics. My blocks are supposed to be trees--use your imagination!--and they're done with cutting the block apart and inserting the strips to form the tree shape. I had done something similar in a workshop with Doreen Speckmann the first year I was at Asilomar--she had us experimenting with window panes on scenic fabrics.
I really like the technique, and once I get my sewing room set up, I'll probably experiment with it some more.

The second quilt top is what Sylvia calls Magic Squares. It's a very simple technique--this quilt is 20 blocks, and they are all cut from 4 fat quarters of batiks, except for 3 shapes cut from the remnants of the batik from the tree quilt above it. The border was something I had with me--yes, I brought my famous tub O batiks with me, and by a serendipitous chance it had a whole baggie of precut strips left over from my class with Colleen Wise three years ago. Made the tree quilt much easier to play with!

Lots more pictures on my Flickr page. I'll try to make sure they are all captioned but you know how that goes. I'll leave you with one of my favorites: