Reed's Red Leaves

Don't fall over now but I've finished something and it's not a sock or a kippah. Are you shocked?

I should've had this sweater done a long time ago but, apparently my mojo wasn't quite fired up yet when I started it and I could not get a flow going with that leaf lace panel. I picked it up and put it down a zillion times. I finally decided about a week ago that I really needed to concentrate on getting it done so I worked on it a bit every night and now it's done. Yay!

The knitting was just fine on this sweater. It's a very nice pattern full of nifty stuff like the leaf detail tucked into the rib. Surprisingly, the aspect of this sweater that makes me smile most is the finishing. Instead of winging it as usual, I took out my copy of The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques by Nancie Wiseman and actually read what it said about seams. What a difference it makes when you do a thing correctly. So pretty and neat! I'm not going to think about what this means about sweaters I made in the past. Look to the future and the positive implications!

It wasn't all smiles with this sweater. One of the more obvious problems was a forgotten buttonhole at the neck. I'm not sure if it was the instructions or knitter error - I suspect the latter. Anyway, I fixed this by adding an offset button and a little crochet loop. Unfortunately I suck at sewing on buttons (ok, sewing in general) and the placement on the placket is not nearly as straight as it ought to be and don't look at the wrong side because it's just not pretty. It's a shame because the rest of the sweater is lovely.

Of course the yarn has a lot to do with the appearance of this sweater. I used KP Cotlin which is a cotton linen blend because this is going to California and wool didn't seem nearly as useful out there. I love the color of this yarn. It's called Moroccan Red and it's a rich, deep red that is warm and just wonderful. Knitting with this yarn was very pleasant and it behaved perfectly. Then came the seaming and I had a bit of trial and error. While pulling out a row of stitches along a seam this stuff shredded like nothing I've ever seen. It was ugly in the extreme. On the positive side, I had plenty left over so I just discarded the shredded bits and cut a new piece but I will keep this in mind in the future.

I'll block this out a little tonight and get a little gift for the big brother and away this will go. I hope they like it... and it still fits.

Treats

Earlier this year I was invited to take part in the Special Swap and the theme of the forst one for me was Sweet Treats. I really wasn't sure what to expect at all but it was fun putting together a package for my pal. Friday afternoon I got home and found that my treats had arrived. It was obvious because Stacy had decorated the box with a big sheep and a yarn ball. The whole family was curious about the contents.

The treats that Stacy collected for me were perfect and what you see here is only part of it. Not pictured is a tin of hand balm and a copy of The Knitters Book of Yarn. I actually had that book out from the library and returned it the following day. My daughters marvelled at how Stacy got me so perfectly. I love Smarties, Twizzlers and all things lemon. And don't you love the sheep Pez? It is almost as cute as the little tape measure dressed up as a cake and the stitch markers with cupcakes on them. Then there's the yarn. I adore this yarn. It is so beautiful and soft. I could go on and on but the bottom line is that this package was perfect and it made my day.

I also think that a certain meme making the rounds right now is a bit of a treat. It's fun because it's all about pictures and as someone observed recently - I like pictures. I went into flickr to do the meme and I was amazed at some of the creativity that I saw there. It's kind of inspiring.

The variety of pictures to choose from was wonderful. For some answers I was very literal and for others I just went for pretty or fanciful. It was great fun and I strongly recommend it if you haven't done it already.

The Concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Hillary
2. What is your favorite food? Goat Cheese
3. What high school did you go to? Commack South
4. What is your favorite color? Green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Johnny Depp
6. Favorite drink? Iced tea
7. Dream vacation? Greece
8. Favorite dessert? Ice Cream
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Happy
10. What do you love most in life? My girls
11. One Word to describe you. Creative
12. Your flickr name. I had to get a little creative with this one.

I Still Love Rock and Roll

This past weekend was one of my favorite local events - Celebrate Fairfax - the fair. It was wicked hot and we felt like we could easily melt in the sun but Stinkerbelle and I went anyway. DQ and hubbo couldn't join us because DQ's recital rehearsals ran all through the afternoon.

Here you see Stink on her favorite ride of the day - the swings. Can you blame her? I bet that it must've felt amazing to have the wind shooshing by here as the swings flew around and around. Another big hit for us was the booth set up by the Water Authority. Every year they offer a different cup or water bottle (free) that they cheerfully fill and fill again with ice and water all through the day. We were very good customers.


There were all kinds of things to see. In the Sci-Tech tent Stinkerbelle learned about robots and successfully completed the egg drop without cracking hers. All of the municipal agencies have booths to convey information and tchotckes. We were very good at collecting the stuff. Squeeze balls, frisbees, pencils, flashlights and more. You name it - we hauled it home.

There was lots of other entertainment. There was a laser light show which had the extra benefit of being inside the air conditioned building. There were shows for children and this guy who was playing with fire. It was all great fun and kept us super busy.

One of the highlights of the fair are the bands. These guys are called Bowling For Soup and they were a lot of fun. I felt kind of bad for them because they played during the heat of the day. They had a big hit a few years ago with a sog called 1985 but so much of their stuff is great. It's upbeat with clever lyrics. They tend to banter back and forth a lot - juvenile but in a good way.

The biggest band playing the fair this year was Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Remember them? The chick at the pizza counter had no clue. I felt old. Anyway, they rocked the house despite the lightning that was flashing in the distance. Hubbo and DQ finally arrived just as their set started and we all enjoyed the show. I took much better pictures than this but not of the whole band.


How was your weekend?