Needles and Stuff

It's Friday, time to report on what's on my knitting needles. I've made progress since last Friday, but the scarf isn't finished yet.  Gettin' close though!

The joining of the two pieces had me a bit worried, but I contacted CJ, whose post inspired me to try this pattern, and she told me she used the kitchener stitch and that it worked well.  (The pattern gives two choices, kitchener and a three-needle bind-off about which I knew nothing.) I've used the kitchener stitch to join the toes of my socks and while I still find it less than easy to do, I can do it.  

And so, on to stuff.  Dan has been gone all week, but he'll be home later today.  Yay!!  I've spent the time doing ancestry research for my Dad on his family, which has produced much information.  His family on all sides goes waaay back here in America.  I'm into the 1600's, which is fascinating.  

Last night I decided to do a little work on Dan's family (in the interest of equality), and I stayed up until well after one o'clock!!  Got a good start, but this stuff is addictive! Just one more try, one more idea.  It works, though! The internet is so amazing.  

And now, I'd better eat some lunch and make it look like I did some work around here!  

Family History

Yesterday Dan and I accompanied my mom and dad to a family reunion in a nearby town.  The official name  of the reunion is the Webb Family Reunion, and no one in our family is named Webb, so you may well ask what we were doing there.  The answer was that Dad and the oldest Webb family member there "share a great-grandfather." Confused?  I have always been.  

I came home determined to make some sense of this relationship and got on the computer.  I knew this man's name so I started with him.  Aha!!  There he was, along with his two wives and all his children.  His second child, a daughter with his first wife, married a Webb and became the matriarch of the reunion group, while my dad's grandfather (my great-grandfather) was the third child born to him and his second wife.  (He had two children with his first wife and nine with his second.)  I could click on my great-grandfather's name and follow his marriage and see my grandmother and her siblings, and on down to Dad, and even to me and Bruder Bear.  Oh my goodness!  

It all makes perfect sense to me now, but somehow that phrase "shared a great-grandfather" always made me think of someone cut in half.  Or something.  

Out of curiosity, I decided to do some more checking, this time on my dad's father's side of the family.  I'm making some headway, and was delighted to find several pictures.  I'd never seen either one of them before.  The most amazing one is of my great-great grandmother. She was born in 1844 and died in 1881, just in her late thirties, probably following the birth of her eighth child (I'm guessing here since the year of his birth is the same).  Her name was Belle:  

And here is a picture of her oldest daughter, who became my great-grandmother and helped to inspire me to quilt and knit, as a young woman.  Her name was Carrie:

Sometimes it's positively amazing to think of all the family that came before us.  I'm thinking I just may be picking up a new hobby... 

Needles Update

As my loyal readers will know, my needle post last week was less than thrilling.  I was frustrated and confused.  I was trying to learn a new pattern with old yarn and as I continued, I realized it wasn't going to work.  I should have known from sewing that you don't take a busy fabric (nubby yarn) and put in fancy stitching (lacy pattern) and have any of it show up.  

As a matter of fact, I was beginning to think my scarf looked like something a dog had chewed on.  Saturday night I made a decision and pulled what I had knit off the needles and threw it in the garbage.  There!!  What a relief.  

Sunday I was able to stop at the local JoAnn's and pick up some inexpensive yarn, again in white.  Why inexpensive?  This scarf is knit in two pieces so that each end is scalloped and is then joined in the middle.  I'm not so certain I'll be able to do the joining to my satisfaction (I've never done this type of thing before), so I will wait to see how it goes before I invest serious buckage in the yarn.  

The best news is that I'm having a blast knitting this pattern and seeing it actually show up!!  People's talent for designing stitch patterns never ceases to amaze me. And now to show off my work so far.  I have about twenty-four inches of the needed thirty-three for the first half.  

Here's a closeup of the pattern:

If you look at last week's work you'll see what I mean about the other one looking like dog food.  I'm thinking this has been a lesson well-learned and I'm sure I won't forget it.  

The other yarn?  I decided to make another (narrower) garter stitch scarf, probably to give to one of the shelters here in town, and it's my "TV work" since there is no thinking involved.  

It's been a good knitting week.  Oh, and you can check out Judy's blog for a look at what others have on their needles.  

Sundays

Today was a truly relaxing Sunday.  Dan had a long and busy day yesterday with his consulting, so he was tired today.  We came home from church, ate a quick lunch, and he went to his recliner and I to the sofa.  We both crashed!  

When I retired three years ago, one of the gifts I received was a throw from one of my students and his family. They made it using two pieces of fleece, joining them by cutting fringe on each one and knotting them together. It's very warm and cozy and I use it for naps when I don't want to bother unfolding a display quilt.  Each time I use it I think of the Criner family and the work they went to to make it for me.  I used it today.

When I finally woke up, a rather dark and stormy day had turned nice, but still breezy.  I looked up from the sofa and watched the leaves on the aspen trees spin and shake and shimmer.  There was so much activity that the leaves at the ends of the branches caught the sunlight as they spun and they actually looked like they were on fire! It was amazing!  I wish I could have somehow captured it, but of course my little camera was unable to do so.  I can still see it in my mind's eye, however.  :-)

Ann and Eric asked us to join them for a Father's Day dinner out tonight and we had such a good time.  Now we're home, Dan's put away all his things from yesterday, and we're enjoying a quiet evening.  He's reading and I'm heading for my knitting needles.  More on that next Friday.  

On My Needles

I'm almost embarrassed to do this post.  I finished my socks (shown last week) and decided I needed to start something different.  Of course this was late Wednesday night.  I had a scarf I'd knit some years ago that just was too wide.  The yarn was interesting so I just did a garter stitch with big needles for a soft feel.  It was soft all right, but as I said, too wide.  Too bulky.  I had seen a scarf a blog friend had made and so I decided to be brave, order the pattern (on line, download, only $3.95) and give it a try.  But first I had to have some yarn.  Solution? Unravel that old scarf.  Whoa!  Easier (by far!) said than done. The yarn is nubby and it took well over an hour to unravel.  

In haste (by the time I could finally cast on it was yesterday afternoon while my grandson was napping), I cast on my stitches.  There are eight rows to the pattern, but fortunately there are only twenty-nine stitches in a row.  I'm pretty much a self taught knitter and a few rows in I decided to google "yfwd" to be certain I was doing what I thought it meant.  Hmmm, I was doing it backwards.  YouTube, how I love you!

However, as I progressed, I started thinking the yarn was all wrong for this pattern.  The nubbiness keeps the pattern from showing.  And I'm certain there are a few mistakes in the first row or two.  

I may just keep on knitting.  It will keep my neck, or someone's, warm.  I'll go a bit further and see.  At least I'm getting the pattern down.  And it does have a lovely scallop at the bottom!  

Meanwhile, if you really want to be inspired, check out Judy's blog this morning for some amazing knitting projects!  

Family Days and Stitching

The last few days have been busy with family.  Last Wednesday Cameron graduated from sixth grade!  Oh my goodness.  He and Keaton attend the school where I used to teach, so going back is always fun, but this was a very special occasion.  McDonald School has always done a great graduation and this was no exception.  From a power point with through-the-grades photos of each student to Pomp and Circumstance as they received their diplomas, it was a happy, teary event. 

Each class had two speakers and Cameron was chosen to be one of them.  He did a great job.

Friday was his 12th birthday and yesterday was Daniel's baby dedication at church.  Since we were part of the dedication, I have no pictures to share though.  Eric's parents were over for all the events and we enjoyed seeing them again.  

And now it's Monday.  Time to get back to the routine of the week.  I need to make up lesson plans for the appliqued quilt.  Four people have asked for a class. And I need to work up some plans for the embroidered Christmas wall hanging as the shop owner wants it to be this year's embroidery camp.  

After pondering and pondering, I finally came up with an idea for this month's embroidery club at the shop.  I've seen similar ideas several places, but instead of using flour sack towels, I used osnaburg (my favorite fabric) and, of course, added embroidery.  They have an earthy feel and I'm really happy with how they turned out.  

Osnaburg shrinks a lot so I prewashed it hot water and dried it in the dryer on high.  A yard shrunk down to about thirty-three inches, but the fabric was nice and soft and barely needed ironing.  I love the super giant ric rac edging.  The fabric is Salt Air by Cosmo Cricket for Moda fabrics.  

What's on My Needles Friday

Judy of Patchwork Times has started a new little blog idea.  She's been busy with her garden and quilting and finding it hard to get to her knitting, so she decided to start "What's on Your Needles Friday" to help herself get motivated.  She's invited her readers to join her and I thought, "Why not?"  

Here's my latest pair of socks:

The second sock is almost done; I'm almost to the place where I'll decrease to form the toe.  Once again, I'm in love with my yarn.  I love watching the stripes form and this pair will be great with blue jeans, too.  Fortunately, I seem to be having no trouble knitting the second sock (apparently there is something called second sock syndrome where people enjoy the first sock, but then want to start on something new and don't get the second sock done).  

Hopefully by next Friday I'll have this pair completed and in the drawer waiting for next fall and a new pair started.  

Thoughts on Drying Clothes

My friend Kathy has mentioned laundry, specifically hanging clothes out to dry, in several of her recent posts, and it's gotten me to thinking about the whole drying process.  

Growing up, we always had a clothes line and Mom used it.  Everyone had a clothes line in those days, and it was common to see clothes flapping in back yards all over town.  We didn't have a dryer when I was small, but I remember when we got our first one.  It wasn't new, and as a matter of fact, I think we got it from Kathy's aunt and uncle.  It was handy to have, but Mom still dried most of our clothes outside when the weather was good.  

When Dan and I were first married, we lived in that little tiny trailer, so of course our clothes were washed and dried at the local laundromat.  When we moved into a duplex a year and a half later, our first purchases were a washer and a dryer.  Oh yeah!!!  There was an umbrella type clothes line in the back yard, and I hauled baskets of wet clothes out and reveled in hanging them up.  The smell of clothes dried outside cannot be rivaled.  The dryer, however, was used for towels and knits.  I am not a fan of stiff towels or t-shirts.  

When we moved to our first stick-built home, mortage and all, it had a clothes line in the back yard, too, as did our next two houses.  I continued to dry clothes outside in good weather and thankfully used the dryer in bad. This house also had a clothes line, but trees had somewhat overgrown it, and my clothes often needed to be rewashed when I went to take them down. Hmmmm... plus I was teaching full time.  The dryer got used more and more.  Then I remembered a cool inside drying rack my sister-in-law had and went in search of one.  Karen had gotten hers years before from Lillian Vernon, but I found mine online at JCPenney.  I love it!  It takes up very little room and folds to almost nothing depth-wise.  I use clothes pins, but items could easily be draped over the lines.  

There can be three layers of lines on each side, or you can drop the lower ones down the middle and hang jeans, or in this case nightgowns, without having to thread the gaps.  The configurations are many.  While I don't get that outside smell, I am able to dry clothes efficiently and easily.  A similar one can be found here.

Hanging clothes up to dry is a relaxing project (unless, like Kathy, you are racing to take the clothes you've hung down before the rain comes).  You can't get in a hurry about it; you can only hang one thing at a time as the washer is emptied.  In Rosamund Pilcher's books she always refers to it as "pegging the wash" in what, I guess, is British wording.  I kind of like it.  

Meanwhile, all my laundry has been washed, pegged, taken down and folded for the week.  Oh, there is one shirt that does need to be ironed.  Sometime.  But that might be a post for another day.

Grammy and Papa Go Back to School

Yesterday morning began bright and early (for us) as we headed for McDonald Elementary and the annual 6th Grade balloon launch.  The tradition began years ago when one of the sixth grade teachers decided to do one in conjunction with the novel Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois.  The students are divided into teams and each team makes a balloon. 

As we walked onto the school grounds, the excitement level was high.  The first balloon, Cameron's team's, was being filled (Cameron is in the Seahawks' jersey with the number 12):

 And we have lift-off!

High in the sky:

Theirs landed in a block of neighboring houses, and below they are shown bringing it back for another lift:

     

In total, each team got to send theirs up three times. It's such a fun event to watch!  Here are Papa Dan, Ann, and Daniel (also known as Banana Man):

After a trip back home and a quick lunch, we were off again to meet up with Ann and Daniel to walk over to the track at the junior high for the annual All Schools Fifth and Sixth Grade Track Meet.  As he did last year, Cameron ran in two relay races.  He ran the third leg in the first race and they took second place.  In the last race, he ran clean-up and they placed first.

The morning had started out cool and cloudy.  By the time the track meet ended, the day was sunny and hot! We left feeling rather crispy and exhausted (what is it about heat that saps all one's energy?), but a great time was had by all!  (And I must truthfully report and Papa, Grammy, and Daniel all went home to naps.)   :-)