And now for some things fiberly

In addition geek-stuff and celebrating 49 years, I've managed a few fiberly endeavors.



Luna Moth shawl


Before we left on the trip, one of the Elann Shawl Knit-a-long-ers asked for a detailed picture of the Luna Month Shawl.






From the camera
I started the Fiber Trends Möbius scarf before the aforementioned trip, and finished it while spending time with Cody, so it's been done for a while, but languishing on the SD card.






If it's June...
There must be a new shirt for Tom.







Something new for someone new
Today I'm meeting Michelle's daughter and gifting her with a summer outfit, just in time for a cooler day.


And something not-fiberly
We had our nice birthday dinner on Friday because on Thursday we were invited to a reception at the Oregon Humane Society honoring the top three Doggie Dash teams. It was our first visit and we were very impressed with the organization and facility. And not just because we received a certificate.

Three balls down...

...never mind how many left to knit. Let's just say a lot.

I've finished three projects.
 
This is Tootsie's third sweater and it goes out in today's mail. With luck my mom wil send a picture because it really doesn't look like much without a dog in it.





Power of suggestion. Dianne thought I should finish it, so I did. In thinking about it, I think I started this before Stitches West 2005, not last year. At the time we were packing to move, so it probably just got packed up and forgotten till Dianne found it.









Since I was on a scarf finishing jag, I decided the Seasilk scarf had languished in my bag long enough and finished it off, too.

Knitting Acronyms

UFOs
Never mind how many UFOs (Unfinished Objects, for the uninitiated) there are in the stash closet. However, soon there will be one less—thanks to Dianne and Suzie and the power of suggestion. When Dianne took Suzie to see my stash, little did I know
that they would go through the bins and bags of UFOs. Dianne came back downstairs and mentioned two in particular—the Tivoli t-shirt I must have started during the summer last year (2005, that is) and the Wavy scarf I started before Stitches West 2006. I remembered the top, but had to go back to figure out what scarf she was referring to.


WIPs
Now the Wavy scarf is a WIP (Work In Progress). I pulled it out Thursday and have knit about two more full repeats of the pattern.







I haven't given up on the Helen Hamann Twinset, but 200+ stitches of stockinette can get pretty boring.








And then there's the Seasilk scarf that I have been carrying around for almost six months. It only really gets worked on when I'm waiting or on our Saturday visits to Coffee Rush in Oregon City (today will be our first coffee Saturday in a month—how the holidays can change our routines.)


My mom's birthday is in two weeks. I have to admit I really didn't enjoy knitting Tootsie's last dress and when I took a break I found the Party Dress in Dogs in Knit to knit her, which I'll send to my mom for her birthday (along with a few other gifties—none handmade, I'm afraid.) It's knit in KnitPicks Suri Alpaca, a yarn I received in a box of free yarn samples in Fall 2005. Of course one ball wouldn't do it (just...) so another is on order.

SABLE

My Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy was added to yesterday with the receipt of more dog fabrics for shirts and yarn for the lace projects from Victorian Lace (I LOVE this book!) that are on my to make list. The yarn is Shaefer Yarn "Anne" in colorway "Lousisa May Alcott," ordered from a favorite online yarn shop, Little Knits.

A near perfect day

Today is why we moved to Oregon.

It started with some sewing. I finally finished the moulage to put on my Uniquely You dress form. It's been uniquely someone else since I got it and not terribly useful for fitting. Then I began the altering of my party dress for my high school reunion (the first try wasn't entirely successful, which prompted the moulage project). It's looking pretty good on my dress form that is now uniquely me.

It's Cody's birthday
After a little breakfast, we took the 13-year-old birthday pup and his cohort to Mary S. Young park and met up with lots of other dogs. Of course as far as Cody is concerned everyday should be his birthday, as he tells us daily. (When the cleaners were here, we all took refuge in the my office. Tom laid down and Cody laid down right next to him.)

The hot days in July are soon forgotten on a day like today. For the second day Tom and I spent some time on the back patio. Because it was so perfect, the only sound aside from the occasional plane overhead and a blackbird now and then, was ths sound of the wind rustling through the trees. Even the air-conditioners didn't come on. Tom read. I read. I knit the seasilk scarf and listened to my iPod. Perfect.

Thanks, Dianne!

Lace obsession

I've decided that, at least for this month, my favorite knitting is lace. The patterns take a bit to memorize, but once that's done there's a rhythm to the knitting, and the result always seems to be such a pleasant surprise. I've knit a lot of different things, but after the first little silk scarf I knit, I was hook. Looking back at the lace projects I have documented, the first lace scarf was knit just in 2001.

This revelation came to me when I started searching for something to make with the way cool Handmaiden Seasilk I received for my birthday. I scoured through my library and started on the Interweave knits. In the end I decided on "Midwest Moonlight" from Scarf Style.


In my "travels" through the books and IKs, I marked several patterns I must knit, most of which were lace. The "Forest Stole" in Summer 2003 really spoke to me (sometimes those voices can be real trouble), so I obsessed until I decided on a yarn to use. The pattern is a combination of three different lace patterns worked in entrelac. After I admitted to myself I didn't have enough of the Cherry Hills Cascade Silk (and wasn't willing to spend the extra bucks to buy another skein) and the blues and whites of Knit Picks Shimmmer were pooling in unattractive stripes and would mask the lace pattern, I settled on an natural stash cone yarn. It's aged so long, I don't know the content - probably cotton and silk, but it could be rayon. My version is moving right along...but still have a way to go.

Happy Birthday to me!

There's something to be said about birthdays - even non-significant ones like 48. There are the e-cards from fiberly friends, new and old, and the cards from the non-fiberly folks and family. And there seemed to be a theme in the very nice gifts I received.

It started with the very early gift of a sewing machine from Tom.

Yesterday, I received a very pretty Lantern Moon silk needle case from Evelyn.



The theme continued through the evening. We had a lovely dinner at Harrison in downtown Portland, with Dianne and John. After my favorite crème brulée, I opened the gift bag to find two notecards and three cool buttons.

Further was a very pretty glass stitch marker with a rose (for Portland, the Rose City) attached to a beautiful skein of Handmaiden Seasilk yarn - a yarn (and color) I've been looking at for a couple of months. Dianne must be a mind reader - among her other talents.


And some work got done, even though on my birthday. Now that I have the order of the yarns right, it looks better. I just need to finish it and get it on it's way to Knit Picks, so I can move on to my pretty new yarn.