What will the sweater grow up to be?

Fruit Ice Cream
We're going to start with a very strange but good recipe. I make this every summer cause it's good and very low calorie. There's really no recipe but here's what it is... take frozen fruit - berries work best but you can use any fruit. Put in a bowl. In a cup or glass take about 1/2 - 1 cup of milk depending on what you decide is wanted. Mix in a little vanilla and non-sweetened sugar product (I use splenda). Pour the milk mix over the frozen fruit and watch. After about 3-4 minutes stir things up a bit. The fruit will give up it's cold and turn the milk to slush. The picture below is the process part way through. It ends up tasting like a fruit ice cream. Really good and really healthy!
Knitting
I've actually got some knitting done. These are more squares heading off to the Rebuilding Greensburg project. Four of the squares are from the same skein of Plymouth Encore. The fifth is the remains of a skein from my Victorian shawl.

The last month's Sock of the Month are done. They were easy to make. Sockotta yarn. Our next sock comes next Monday, I can't wait!

Finally, the sleeve to my silk cardigan. I got many skeins of this from a sale last month and decided to play around. I have no idea what this will end up looking like because I'm making it up as I go. It's going to be a sideways knit sampler style cardigan. The color is actually lighter than the picture but this picture shows the pattern better than the picture where the color is accurate. I think I'll end up knitting both sides from the sleeve to the center and graft the center back together. This will give both sleeves and side a mirror image look. We'll see when I get to the middle if I keep going or start at the other sleeve - time will tell.

Garden

Dad was wonderful with the garden. He'd look at a plant and it would grow - bigger faster stronger. Wait that's the bionic man- back to gardens. I have managed to not kill all the plants yet and actually have a few that are doing okay. So - here are a few of Dad's plants I haven't killed by neglect.

We'll have apple pie this fall - lots of apples on the tree.

There's plenty more of these guys but this one was perfect!

There's 4 of these rose bushes around the garden and they're full of blooms. What has remained without my care this year is so pretty I decided I better take care and become a gardener, at least part time. Dad will be so proud when I tell him.

It's okay Sweet Pea

Softball Game
The weekend went way too fast. Friday night godson's softball team "died". The game ended in the 5th inning with a score of 1 to 15. We were the "1". But it has been reported that they have played this team before several times and they are actually tied in total wins. The other team was incredibly hot Friday night. Leaping into the air and coming back with impossible catches. It was a fun game to watch. I must add the "1" was godson's making. He likes to run and slide. He managed to make a single into a 3 base run and slide home on the next hit. That was the first inning and well......... not much after that.

His Dad was supposed to fly in from New Jersey for the weekend but spent over 5 hours on the plane waiting to take off. He was supposed to arrive at 6pm but ended up going back home and getting there at 3am. I would absolutely DIE if I had to spend that much time in a plane and airport. YUCK! He plans to come next weekend so we'll see what other air traumas can happen to prevent all of us from seeing him.

Stash South
Last month I mentioned I have 2 yarn stashes. One in the current house and one up north (14 miles away) in my other house I haven't finished fixing to sell. And I haven't removed all my things until I clear out my parents things from this house. Anyway - Stash south got a face lift. I bought some of the metal grid cubes from Target and put it together. It's a 2 cube by 3 cube "wall" that contains yarn very nicely. I also got some plastic boxes to further assist with control. The yarn in the cubes looks very nice and in order. The problem is- I still have 6 boxes of yarn down here and about 2 full rooms in the other house. Yes, I said full rooms. Not a wall of shelves, not boxes under the bed. we're talking full rooms with shelving all over. One room is my personal stash the 2nd room is what remains of my shop supplies. I used to have a shop selling machine knitting yarn, machines, sewing machines, etc. I quit the shop fairly fast and didn't get around to having a clearance sale so I have yarn - yarn - yarn. And thread. And sewing notions. And patterns. and.....
Some day I'll get my act together and list some of the yarn for sale - cheap. But not today.

Greensburg
I've finished a few more blocks for Greensburg. That makes 7 so far. I need to make a few more before I mail them off. Postage is cheaper that way.

Reading
I started reading a book that may be hard to read. It's "Susanne's Garden" by Debbi Macomber. This book is in the middle of the Blossom Street Yarn books she has written. It's the story of a 50 year old who has to go to her parent's house to deal with her mother's failing memory since her father's death. Dad's not dead but with him not living in the same place as Mom, she's lost her support system and her memory is going fast. This book may be a bit too close to home or it may give me some ideas. Time will tell.

On the way to Iowa last week I got "The Thirteenth Tale" on CD to listen to. I have about 3 hours left and it's quite a tale. It's about 2 women - an older author and an amateur biographer. Both have secrets and flaws in their characters. It's written very well and has kept me interested. The 2 ladies that read the book do a wonderful job bringing it to life.

The Boys
I can't have a post without mentioning the boys. Chief has taken to waken my gently every morning when the sun comes up to snuggle next to me a pet my cheek. He does this for about a week every year a different times. I know know what starts it but it's nice to wake to a soft pet and purr!
Bert on the other hand has gotten whiny again. That's his trick. Every so often he decides we've left him and he CRIES! Not polite little kitty cries but loud harsh wailing. Cries that come from his inner most soul filled with sorrow. Unfortunately, it usually happens while he's in the hallway at about 3 or 4 am. I wake. I look into the dark and say,"It's okay sweet pea. We're in the bedroom." And he comes in and jumps on the bed. I give him one pat on the back, he wags his tail, runs off and is quiet the rest of the night. Go figure.

It's great to have friends

Friday night was friend night. The green Sockotta socks got to go out on the town.
My group of friends from school (we've been together for 40 yrs) all got together to enjoy the fire pit and some of the gang decided they needed beer and cigars.
Neither excited me but the chance to spend the evening with friends - count me in. My godson and out friend's daughter from college were there. Godson is turning 25 in a few months and College girl is 19. She had a crush on him her whole life and still gets excited when he's around. Maybe……

Saturday was a quiet day. I didn't go out of town this weekend so decided to truck across the cities to go to Sheepy Yarn Shoppe in White Bear Lake.
I bought some yarn there last week to teach my friend how to knit and decided I should play with the yarn - just to be sure it was okay for her. (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Well, I decided on a shawl and 1 skein doesn't to it. So - I went back the 25 miles to the shop to get some more yarn.
Well, the shawl is further along. It will be nice to have a few shawls in the living room for company to be nice a cozy warm.

The last couple nights I got some knitting done. I'm getting some dishrags made for presents.
Here's another bias square for Greensburg. I decided to try creating a blended look by doing 2 rows of color 2 then 2 of color 1 before switching to the color 2 section. It makes the color change a little smoother.

I got the first Sock of the month done. It's Sockotta.
I didn't like the patterns heel connection so instead of sl1 every row I decided to do a 1 st garter st at the beginning of each row of the heel flap. I like the look.
Chief thinks this is a great weekend for taking it easy!

Meanwhile - Bert is hiding out under the bed and doesn't want his picture taken today.

Dead Batteries - Dead Head

There was just a clip on the news of the Greensburg, Kansas students who are graduating this year. So I decided it was a sign to remind everyone of the Rebuilding Greensburg Block by Block project. Go to Laura's blog to get the details on knitting (or crocheting) 8" blocks for afghans that will go to all the families in Greensburg.

I spent a very strange day. No pictures because I bought cheap batteries for my camera and it's dead.
I usually wake up long before I actually get up on Saturday's because my internal clock doesn't know I can sleep in. This problem does go away within 2-3 days of being on vacation and I can sleep in with the best of them! Today I woke up to a headache. To make a potentially really long story short - I was in a car accident about 20 years ago that screwed up my internal temperature gauge in my head. Strange but true. I can't take heat like I used to. So- I had too many covers on last night and I got hot. So - a headache. If I catch it in time it won't turn in to a migraine. I decided to go back to sleep and try to get rid of it. By the time I got up it was noon. Nothing else to do but find some food and knit a little. So - I knit.

Yesterday I had a few minutes between meetings and found myself on the north east side of the cities so I went to Sheepy Yarn Shoppe in White Bear Lake. What a deal. I haven't been there for years because I don't live near there but, they were having a sale. I got a couple balls of Plymouth Encore (75% acrylic,25% wool) for a friend I'm going to teach to knit and 20 skeins of Berocco Denim Silk in a light faded gray. The silk was 50% off- how can you say no to that?!?

The Encore may not see my friend. I decided to play around with it today to see how I liked it before having her learn on it. I like it! Good price. Good texture. Fun colors. Guess I'll have to go get more. I started making a shawl for guests. Because of the head thing (heat gives me headaches) my house tends to be fairly cool. I kept it at 66 this winter and was plenty warm, for me. When friends come over the afghans come out. I decided a nice shawl would be a good choice for someone to use here. I have a few friends that are convinced they're "wool challenged" so a yarn with just a bit of wool should help keep them warm but not itchy. I'll post pictures when I get batteries. I'm using a pattern I found at Elann's web site called Aran Weight Victorian Lace Shawl.

The Sock of the Month club socks are coming along. I got the first sock knit to the gusset and when I picked up the extra stitches and knit the first row I didn't like the way the pic up row looked. Too open. I ripped out and re knit the heel flap using my tried and true method. Garter stitch the ends. This time around I did garter stitch on the first and last stitch of each row. I started using this method because of Elizabeth Zimmerman. She wrote a sock pattern back in Fall 1963 called Woodsman's Socks. It was in her newsletter and leaflet #10. I've made a ton of these socks. I don't know if the pattern is still available but you can check out Schoolhouse Press - Elizabeth's business now owned by her daughter, Meg Swanson.

NEWS FLASH! I was just flipping channels and "Stuart Little" is on. I did not know that the father in the movie was Hugh Laurie - as in "House" the obnoxious Doctor on TV. What a completely different character!

Tomorrow I have a family gathering but should have time to get batteries and take a few pictures. We'll see what life brings!

New Sock of the Month Club

I decided it was time to stop being a closet knitter. I don't know when it happened but it's weird. I used to have my own shop, teach people to knit, show off my designs and suddenly - it stopped. I knit in the privacy of my own house and never showed other people what I was working on. Well, that's over. Saturday I knit in front of friends at a gathering and today I went to my first Sock of the Month Club.
My local Yarn shop, Amazing Threads started a Sock of the Month Club. Tonight we got together to check out our first project and sit and knit for a couple hours. I met many new people but being the dweeb that I am I didn't get any names. Next month I'll be better. We all were very pleased to see out Sockotta yarn and pattern. The package also included a clear tote to keep the yarn nice and clean and a new acrylic gauge. Very nice. I'm going to enjoy this group.
I tried to take a couple pictures of our package but Bert had other ideas.
Then Chief saw something was happening without him and he had to check it out.
The last few days I've been working on blocks for Greensburg. I've got 3 done and a 4th almost done. I plan on getting at least 6 done before the weekend is up so I can mail them out. Please check out the web site and consider knitting some of the bits of leftover worsted weight yarn. The blocks are bias garter stitch and very easy. Take a few hours to clean out your stash and do something to show the people of Greensburg we're praying for them and wish them well.

Chief decided today it's easier to look out the window if the shades are up.

Rebuilding Greensburg - block by block

I don't have time to write a full post but needed to get this link posted in case anyone is reading.
Please go to this link and start knitting a square to make afghans for the people in Greensburg, Kansas who lost their home in the tornadoes last week.
Thank you.

Sugar Bunny Boulevard - May 8th post.