In which the sweater, ever nearing completion, is still cream-coloured, so a few fall flowers are added to the post for colour

 Last night at bedtime I suddenly wondered if I had enough yarn to finish the sweater. Luckily enough, I was tired enough to sleep anyhow, and wait until morning to find out. In the morning I found three things: 1. & 2. Two more skeins of yarn, and 3. That I had knit nine rows past where I needed to start the decreases for the yoke, thus ensuring that I had plenty of yarn after all.



















I sat down after making my eldest's lunch for her, and threaded my circular needles through the row I wanted to pull back to. After getting back from the trip to the bus, I ripped it back and started the decreases.

Well, after spending a bit of time in the backyard with my youngest, who, seeing me taking photos of the flowers, wanted to take a photo of Slimy Worm. I merely steadied the camera.

My youngest really got tired of trying on the sweater today, which is something that I needed her to do every five rounds or so until I was satisfied that we had reached the neckline!






I wanted the neckline to end in picots as well, since the hem and cuffs have them, and always thought I could just cast off that way. I tried it, tried it with larger picots, tried it again with the regular sized ones, then tried two sizes of crocheted picots, didn't much like them, then went with the regular ones again. By now it was time to pick up my eldest at the bus stop, so I brought my knitting with me, merrily knitting picots on the way there in the blazing heat (it went up to 32 degrees Celsius from what I heard), and while standing in what shade I could find from a cotoneaster bush that was not quite tall enough for that purpose.




Of course, after all that, I had to change my mind again. The edge was curling outwards way too much, so I decided to just use the same method as I had for the cuffs and hem (it would match better that way anyhow), and pulled it back and got a start on that before the bus arrived.


After walking home, a trip to the store to buy fennel, and a lovely dinner (my husband made two salads, just the thing for such a hot night, one a watermelon and fennel salad, the other a quinoa, corn, and bean salad, and had prepped most of it before I got the fennel home), I finished up the collar while supervising homework.

 I think the girls might even be asleep by now, but I've no energy for sewing the hems and grafting the underarms tonight. I think I can get through that easily enough by the weekend.
















The embroidery could possibly even happen before Monday, though it's hard to say; it really depends on what she decides she wants on the sweater... It does keep changing, but is always faaaaancy!

Faaaancy!

A few weeks ago, I realized that I of course wanted to make a first-day-of-school sweater for my youngest, who will soon be starting Kindergarten. Of course, I did realize I'm not leaving myself a lot of time to knit it, but it can be done, so, I grabbed the yarn she picked out over a year ago (Lachiwa, a lovely 60/40 Linen/Cotton blend from Mirasol), and found a few patterns for it.

The white sweater still looks the same, so here's my garden!

The one I eventually went with was nice. It had a complicated edging bit to start with, and then it would get easier from there right? Right. Only it was also becoming more and more apparent that the sweater would be a better fit for me than my not-quite-five-year-old, so I started decreasing, thinking I could just lengthen it into a sweater-dress.

 I eventually realized this was going nowhere fast (since I would run out of yarn before finishing at that rate), and that I should just rip the whole thing back and start over. Only, I didn't want to face that cast-on with the fancy edging again. Sure, it wouldn't be that bad with the reduced stitch count, but then again...

I decided it was time to ask the girl what her ideal sweater would be like. "Smooth!" She said. "Faaaancy!" She said, with the idea conveyed more by the hip shake and waving arms than the word itself could manage on its own. I asked her what would make it "Faaaancy!" in that particular way, and she said wanted various figures on it, or so I gathered (it became a long list). Because she will likely change her mind on just what figures and how they should look at least eight times between now and when it's done, I've settled on embroidery as the means for adding the figures.

I've also decided hey, why not share the whole process on the Blog as I go!

Hmm, perhaps pink flowers as embroidery subject?

Rather than figuring the whole sweater out beforehand as I usually would, I just worked from the swatch I had made and washed to figure out why the sweater was coming out so big, and actually measured my daughter this time, and started the sweater with the correct number of stitches. I've done a row of eyelets so that I can turn the hem and present a picot row at the border. I've continued to where the armholes should start, which means I've some work to do now: What sort of sleeves, what sort of neckline, and a fair bit of number-crunching to make sure it works!

Mostly Annuals

I just realized this morning that I haven't blogged lately. Between housework, and more happily, yardwork and enjoying time with family and friends, I've lost track of time. Also, I should add, go see Take a Bite at the Edmonton Fringe! It's excellent, well-written, and the actors are amazing.







I've been enjoying the garden this week, as the mosquitoes have backed off a bit (still nowhere near gone, but much better). My annuals are blooming, and I thought I'd share a few photos.









This is the first time my attempts to grow sunflowers has actually resulted in a blooming sunflower! Usually they are eaten by rabbits, are started too late or too early, or sited poorly. I can see this one from my kitchen window, and it makes me smile every time I look at it.

  My Mom started this strawflower from seed, and it's looking great right now. I particularly enjoy the range of pinks alongside the yellow centre. It's rather a tactile experience as well; I couldn't help but stroke the petals to hear the crisp rustle.

 This pumpkin is trying to take over the side yard (and is succeeding). The rain-barrel (installation in progress) might have to run for it. I don't think we'll actually get any pumpkins out of this monster, unfortunately, but I'll keep an eye on it. Really, I should have pruned it at some point, but I've only ever grown pumpkins once, so I'm a bit of a novice here. I have a tendency to start veggies in the garden, and then forget to actually thin them, prune them, or harvest them in a timely manner. I think I'm mostly a flower gardener, but if I can learn how to veggie garden through dabbling, then so much the better.

 I am currently resolving to grow tall Snapdragons every year! Snapdragons are definitely one of my favourites. I used to grow the smaller ones, but the tall ones are just so stunning, and seem to look great anywhere.

Well, almost anywhere. It turned out to be a poor choice to surround the oak tree with snapdragons for two reasons:

1. There's not enough space in the bed for this to look tidy (there should definitely be another foot of mulch on the far side of the snapdragons so it doesn't merge visually with the lawn).

2. The snapdragons are currently taller than the oak, which is just too silly.

Catching Up

I've been even more busy lately with Gaelic Football, but at least we're out training on the pitch now. After all that snow we had, we're all a little surprised that the ground is dry enough for the fields to be open, but they are, and we're enjoying it. The fake wedding fundraiser went very well (sold out, and I laughed harder than I even thought I could during the show), and here is a photo of the cake I made for it:

I have to say, rather immodestly, that it was delicious. I used the Jiffy Chocolate Cake and the One-Bowl White Cake recipes from Company's Coming Cakes, and the marshmallow fondant recipe from this link.

And, here's what I wore:

I wore my Haruni shawl, and made myself a fascinator using a barrette, a bit of craft foam, some feathers, buttons, and a glue gun.

The weather has been gorgeous lately, but it's early in the spring yet, so I haven't done too much gardening yet--other than my spring cleanup, which I usually get to sometime around Mother's day. I know that if I did a cleanup in the fall, it would, in many ways be better (especially for my mold allergies), but I do love brushing aside dead leaves from last season to find emerging bits of green. I don't do a perfect job of this either, as leaving some leaves for ladybugs to hide under is generally a good idea. It's also good to get a bit of a head-start on the weeding, which I don't suppose I would do if I wasn't in a rush to see what's coming up, like my Giuseppe Verdi Kaufmanniana Tulips:

The very sight of those tulips were what really got me out gardening yesterday; they're so cheerful! I'm always so happy to see my tulips, and am eager to see the rest of them.

I can't risk planting anything outside yet, despite the positive overnight temperatures, but my seedlings are doing well, and I will start hardening-off the first batch this week. The tomatoes are getting tall, and I should really put them into their own pots today if I get a chance. Later this week, I will plant my veggie seeds and such that can be put outside directly, and I am quite looking forward to this.

A Week of Fall Flowers 3

Ah, the Aster (in this case, the annual sort).  I believe these are 'Powder Puff', though I have grown the spidery sort as well.  Again, I didn't actually plant these this year; they're bonus self-seeded ones from the year before.  I shall certainly have to plant more next season, as I enjoy them much more than the Cosmos I tried this year.  They tend to bloom for me anywhere from August on through October, and I love the cheerful pops of colour they add to my garden.  Like the other flowers I've been featuring, they're frost-tolerant.

A Week of Fall Flowers 1

Since today looks like this:

and this (Look! They're using their mittens!):















I thought I'd better get my last bit of fall garden posts done for the season (more or less; after all, it will be plus 8 Celsius later this week).  I wanted to feature a few of my fall favourites, both annuals and perennials that do well late in the season despite our short growing season here.

Today's feature:

The Snapdragon is an incredible frost-tolerant flower, and I can hardly believe now that I didn't plant any this year.  This one, photographed October 16th (after several frosts) above, and today below, was a bonus self-sown flower from last time I planted them, and it seems perfectly happy even today:

Or, at the very least, reasonably content.  One year I grew a whole bunch of tall white snapdragons for my sister's wedding, and they were just gorgeous and ready just in time for the early September event.  They were still going strong when it snowed, and made a lovely addition to the garden.  I'm thinking I should do that again next season, as they fill in the gaps among the dormant plants so that something is still happening in the garden.  These are quite easy to get going from seed, with the only challenge I've found is that my window is not as sunny as I'd like, and they get a bit gangly and tangly.  However, once they've been potted or planted, they're vigorous enough to recover and get sturdy quickly.  Of course, the kids love them, especially when you pluck one off and make it talk to them by squeezing the sides.

Things I'm in the Middle of

Ulysses by James Joyce

Actually, I'm just over half-way through re-reading it, but now we've entered Night-town, which nearly defeated me last time.  It's much better on a second read, where I'm just trying to keep track of what's actually happening instead of attempting some sort of half-baked undergraduate close-reading of a dense immensity (not the best strategy on a first read-through as it turns out).  Since it's for fun this time (no, really), it's actually enjoyable, and I think I might read Ellmann's James Joyce afterward if I can track down a copy since I never did read the famous biography back when I intended to do so.

Winding Angora Yarn

Specifically Fleece Artist's Peter Rabbit, intended for a scarf called Misty Garden by Jo Sharp.  I might have to call the project McGregor's Scarf or something like that.  The yarn is lovely-oh-so-soft, and I think the colourway is 'glacier' which suits it just grand; the one shade of blue in particular rather glows (maybe not in the photo, but in person for sure) even in the dim light.

Laundry Week

While I do do the laundry every week, this week's laundry feels interminable.  This is probably due to catch-up and extra laundry from camping last weekend.  We had a lovely time camping with my family, but I found it rather cold out (high of plus 9 Celsius).  Luckily I had a new wool cardigan to keep me warm(ish).  It was a first time camping for the kids, and they had a grand time.

Birthday Cardigan

I'm knitting a Ballet Top by Debbie Bliss for my youngest, but only sort-of, as I've changed it a fair bit.  I've changed the weight of the yarn from sport to fingering (re-calculating accordingly), changed the stitch pattern to a clover-leaf lace (as in the

Lucky: Clover Lace Wrap

by Melissa Wehrle, re-calculating accordingly again), used a seed-stitch/moss-stitch edging, and I can't quite make up my mind whether to make the body seamless or not.  I started with the sleeves so that I could postpone the decision, and would be perfectly pleased to hear opinions on the subject.

Preparing for Tuque Knitting

My Dad, after seeing my brother's Whistler tuque, thought he'd rather like the same or similar, so I'm knitting up the Lake Louise tuque from the same Dale of Norway booklet (NR 8501).  The only problem is that for whatever reason, the directions for the tuque are there, but no chart (though the directions do state that you should follow this non-existent chart).   So, working from this teeny wee photo, I have charted the hat.  Next, obtain hat size (I keep forgetting to measure his head, but hopefully I'll rectify that soon), and swatch away.  I love stranded colourwork, and am really looking forward to getting into this one.

Training for 5 Kilometer race

Oh yeah, I guess I should go for a run or something...  I need to register yet for that matter.  I do plan on doing this, and have done it before, but it would be great if I was getting out for more than two runs a week to prepare.

Celebrating the Edmonton Wolfe Tones Ladies' Gaelic Football win at the Calgary Tournament

I missed the tournament while camping, as a late scheduling change disrupted my plans to do both, but am hoping to obtain a Time Turner, or perhaps Time-Lord Technology so I can go back in time and be in two places at once.  Ah well, I understand that the team had a great time and played some excellent football with Calgary, who were gracious hosts.

Fall Cleaning

Yes, it's fall, not summer, whatever the calendar might say, and has been for a week or so.  I bring your attention to the high of plus 9 last weekend, and say that's enough to convince me.  Rather than spring cleaning, I do fall cleaning.  I think that that's because by the time I've noticed that spring is sprung, it's already moved on into summer (after all, it snows in spring, so it's hard to tell if it's spring or not).  So, a chill in the air will send me scurrying to wash windows, shake out the dust, find the warm clothes and so shuffle the closets and such.  I do love fall.  I love the colours, the slight chill that allows for nice warm heavy blankets at night, the lure of cozy new clothes in both rich and mellow colours, warm soup, baking, the sound of leaves crunching underfoot (still yet to come), the last gasp of splendour from the garden, and the diminished threat of mosquitos and sunburn.  Might I add less dandelions and more knitting?  For me, fall is the start of the year, a time for changes and new beginnings, whereas spring is more a revealing of things that were hidden and sleeping.

Garden Planning

Hopefully the planning will translate to actual gardening over the next few weeks, but in the meantime, aside from all the weeding to do, I'm planning to renovate two of my beds and apply mulch to both.  I had been wanting new beds, but upon reflection, the best way to improve the yard at present is to deal with these two beds. Sigh.  Here are the beds in all their weediness:

I transplanted away those of the desired plants in the first bed that I could do easily, and have been fighting weeds, but the weeds are winning because: Lack of vigilance, lack of mulch, and the fact that those logs are just sitting on top of the grass and so keep nothing out.  The plan is to put in a better barrier, really get rid of the weeds, add copious mulch, and add the desired plants that are currently hiding (so I can't see them anyway) under the weeping crabapple (I really thought it would get taller a bit faster, but nothing doing).  Next, add much mulch under the crabapple, and in a much larger circle/oval so that we don't have to hold up its branches to mow under.

The fun part will be all the charts and lists that come with planning the transplants.  I love lists and charts.

I'd love to share the nice surprises I found in the weedy bed when I went out to take photos though:

Wanting to Ditch my Projects for New Ones

Did you happen to see these Spiffy T-Shirts at Made By Rae (pattern link)?  They make me want to embark on a T-shirt-sewing frenzy replete with embroidery and appliqué, but I have a large stack of mending and a just as large stack of fun sewing to do first.  Must resist!  Knitwise too: Sweaters!  Mittens!  Hats!  Gorgeous patterns lurk everywhere.  I think it's a fall thing.  Also, a trip to buy ballet slippers and tap-shoes for my eldest (who we just signed up for classes, and is very, very, very excited) almost had me crocheting bun covers (for what?  She's sporting a 'Dora' type haircut) and knitting legwarmers.  Almost.  I did just spend way too much time on Knitpicks.com just now picking out 14 shades of Palette fingering yarn for an imaginary sweater that hasn't been planned yet, but I think I can keep those on my wishlist without adding them to my shopping cart (at least, so far...)  

But for now, after spending most of the day being in the middle of writing this post (with frequent interruptions, of course), I'll get back to all that I'm in the middle of so that I can get to the end of at least some of these projects.

In Which We Spend Much Time Outdoors

Yesterday we went raspberry picking at Horse Hill Berry Farm , and I dearly wish I had brought my camera.  The lighting was great; it was that sort of overcast that makes bright colours (like yellow raincoats and red raspberries) really pop.  The kids had a great time, and we came away with a few pounds of raspberries, (Killarney and Boyne varieties if I recall correctly), some inside the kids, and even more in our buckets.

We spent the rest of the day in the backyard, where I finally got around to pulling this large golden beet out.  I'm not sure if they're quite as nice when they're older like this, but we'll give it a try.  This is the only beet from our garden this year, which is fine, because I haven't planted them in a couple of years.  That makes it our bonus beet, and, being a not-so-little beet of our own, it very nearly qualifies as a great big beet in the country instead.

Ornamental Corn

Anyway, with vague paraphrasing of Blackadder's dogsbody out of the way, we can get back to our time in the yard, which was lovely.  We haven't been spending much time outdoors since the mosquitoes came out in droves, but they're settling down to a dull roar now, and the glorious breeze kept them from being too much of a nuisance.  It was sunny in the afternoon, but not too hot (again, thanks to the breeze).

Stonecrop blooming

The obligatory hops photo

The Farmer's Market Cardigan earned a bit of attention as I knit on the second half of the trim/collar.  I'm hoping to finish this over the weekend, but it may end up taking a bit of next week too.  This part requires a bit of attention, but it's so satisfying to watch the cables move across in waves and the short-row shaping curve the piece to fit the sweater.







It was nice to sit back, knit, enjoy the kids playing and all the colour in the yard.  The bees drifted around the yard, paying visits to the lavender and other flowers that were in bloom. 









The hops continues it's quest to conquer the garage (or possibly planet), and has a tendril snaking into the kids' playhouse.Ah yes, and the gnome has found her home among the lingonberry (this spot had a few more votes off the blog as well). 

Now, off to freeze another bunch of raspberries.  (They're delicious, by the way).