Stash reductions, garden and love

I found a neat way to reduce my stash!

No I don't mean knitting from stash, giving the yarn away or anything practical like that. I mean physically reducing the size of the stash to make more room for more yarn! The Yarn Barn is having a sale this week. Almost everything in the store is 25% off. Plenty of 50%-off stuff as well. Drop by if you are in the neighborhood.

This is how I reduce my stash:

Method I -- Space bag! Before:

With a little help from the vacuum cleaner:

Method II -- Food Saver to the rescue!
Presto!

I have more room. Hint, hint...

Outside everything is flourishing. Front yard is beautiful.

Backyard..

And look!

I picked my first three Zucchinis this weekend. Things are looking good. No sign of any bugs, cross my fingers. The tomatoes, beans and cucumbers are also growing vigorously. I should have some cucumbers soon.

Once again I save the best for last.

To my sweet William:

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart. I love you.

Knitting, gardening and grandchildren

I need to come up with more catchy blog titles!

The weather has not been that bad here in Northern Virginia. We had a really hot day last week when the mercury topped 90, but just for a day. So far it has been in the high 70s and low 80s. Quite nice and bearable for this time of the year in this part of the world. I am still struggling with cotton yarn. The only summer yarn I have had luck with so far (and projects finished) has been Rowan Summer Tweed. Here is the Yarn Barn Tee waiting to be sewn up.



The trim is Prism. Just about every Yarn Barn knitter has made at least one of this. If I hurry up and sew it up I might be able to show it off tomorrow. Wednesday is knitting day, show-and-tell, workshop and everything else at the Barn.

In the meantime Kim has been in the creative corner with linen yarn. She and Penny came up with a pattern for a linen shell with wave/seafoam stitches:

Here is mine. In blue, of course.
Handpainted linen lace weight, two strands held together.
I also took Phyl's advice regarding shoes. Shoes come in pair, so always buy two pairs!

Aren't they cute? Comfortable, too.

It's also time for the zuch update. I have three babies in the backyard.

One

Two

And Three!
Things are looking good in zuchland!


But I save the best pictures for last. Here is my granddaughter Elsa:



Elsa lives in Austin, Texas. She just turned eight months. Here she is again with her big sister Grace.

The most beautiful little girls!

Happy knitting.

Good cotton!

Finally, a cotton yarn that likes me.

Meet Karabella Zodiac. This is DK weight, tightly twisted yarn with a lovely hand. I think "tightly twisted" is the key with my knitting. I simply could not maintain a gauge with several cotton yarns I tried. I started Maddy:

It's moving right along. I also picked up more Summer Tweed to knit yet another summer top. We call it the "Shop Tee" ; just about every Barn girl has made, or is making, one. I'll get the pix in the next post.

Meanwhile here is week three for the zucchini.

Isn't he the most photogenic zucchini you have seen?

A baby is on the way!

The soaking rain over the weekend has done wonders to the garden.

I am dreaming of a summer filled with zucchini....

The rain is also a good knitting weather.

Happy knitting.

There's something about cotton

It doesn't like me.

Summer knitting is really hard, especially so if you are dealing with cotton. For some reasons I can't seem to get gauge with cotton. I am a loose knitter and usually have to go down a needle size or two. But with cotton I have had to go down three or four needle sizes! Worse, after knitting for a while the piece starts to grow, and grow and grow! I have had more luck with cotton blend like Rowan summer tweed. I tried Nashua Ecologie Cotton with a disastrous result. I love the yarn; it just doesn't like me.

Then I came across this pattern in the new Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton book.

It's called Maddy and I want it. Now. Like I need to get yarn and cast on today. But I have to do a gauge and it's pure cotton and I can't get gauge with pure cotton and I know if I insist it will grow and will be all floppy and will not fit. I don't want to knit it in wool because it will be too warm and I want to knit it now and wear it now.

I need to go look for wool blend or cotton blend. What gauge is Rowan's wool cotton? That's DK. The Maddy calls for 18 stitches to four inches. Wool cotton won't work. I need light worsted. Does Penny have anything at the Yarn Barn? By now you must have guessed I am writing this at work and it will be another six hours before I can get to the Yarn Barn. Six hours! I have to work six more hours! Wait. It's Friday. I can get out early. Maybe four hours..
Bamboo tape. That might work. Penny has Bamboo tape. In fact there is a ball in the car.
Four more hours. I'll better get some work done if I am going to get out early.

Happy Friday

Hose problem solved

Well, sort of.

Still not the most attractive of all, but at least the hose is off the ground.

I think I need to get a shorter hose. I really don't need a 100-footer. Maybe a 50-footer will be more manageable....

The flower boxes are in.

Nice, huh?

I need to get some knitting in, but wait, I need to show you the zucchini plants:

This is week 2:

It's growing!

Happy gardening.

From Burke to Blacksburg

With love.



Stars...

and angels...

are forever watching over the Hokies.

To all the Hokies past and present.

From Burke to Blacksburg with love.

Summer Tweed

Rowan Summer Tweed has to be one of my all-time-favorite yarn.


In between re-doing the landscape, planning and planting the vegetable, running the household, and working full-time at the Voice of America, I managed to finish two summer tops, thanks to Summer Tweed. Here is a top I (sort of) designed.

The original pattern is one that Penny uses in her beginner knitting class. Yes, at the Yarn Barn, you knit a sweater, with cable, in your beginner's class! I used the Rowan Summer Tweed, turned it into a sleeveless vest/shell, did it in stripes and changed the original horseshoe cable to braided cables. It was a quick knit.

Another quick knit is the Sunshine sweater from the Kasbah Collection everybody is knitting.

I started early last week:

And here is the finished product:

I am very happy with it!

Lastly, the mailman delivered my Socks that Rock! that I wasn't able to get at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. The color way is Lunasea. I got three skeins of the medium weight. No I am not knitting three pairs of socks in the same colorway. This is going to be my first Charlotte's Web shawl.

Keep knitting!

Zucchini dream

I just love my yard!

I'll need to do something about the hose, though. Right now it is just an eyesore. Gotta find a way to either hide it or tastefully incorporate it into the landscape somehow. We shall see.

See what I mean about the hose?

The vegetable gardens are planted. Tomatoes, basil, hot peppers, and cucumbers are in. Bean seeds will go in next.

And of course zucchini.

I have a love-hate relationship with zucchini cultivation. There was no zucchini in Thailand where I grew up. I had my first zucchini in 1984 when I came here and have heard how easy it is to grow zucchini and how you would have "zucchini coming out of your ears" ever since. In fact, one of the reasons we bought this house was that there was plenty of room in the backyard to plant zucchini.

I have been dreaming of zucchini plants growing in my garden with loads of zucchini forever. I wanted zucchini more than home-grown tomatoes.

The truth is I have never had a zucchini plant that produced more than two puny zucchini! No zucchini coming out of my ears, no searching for new zucchini recipes, piling your neighbors with surplus zucchini, no zucchini big as your thigh hiding under the leaves.... My zucchini plants would grow, produced two fruits at the most, then succumbed to some sort of zucchini-eating bugs. I kept dreaming of boatloads of zucchini....

This year. This year it will be different. I have a new bed, new soil dedicated to zucchini. This year I will have tons of zucchini. I am dreaming of zucchini.

This is going to be the most documented and blogged zucchini plant in northern Virginia.

In the meantime I dressed up my front door.

And placed the welcoming cat.

And more cats.

I'd better get some knitting done. The truth is it is hard to stay inside when it's so lovely outside.

Happy gardening and happy knitting.

One stitch at a time

We are stitching up the Hokie Healing blocks.

First Kim steam-blocked all the squares.

We laid out the blocks.


Then we stitched. The lady in red is Penny Sandford, the owner of the Yarn Barn. On the floor is one of the forces behind the blanket project, Phyllis.

Lee Ann stitched.

And then showed off our work!

We're getting there! Stay tuned for more pix of the blanket and the garden (the veggie gardens are in and planted! Yeah!! Tale of the zucchini later).

Happy knitting.

Is this beautiful or what

The landscape is taking shape and it is absolutely beautiful.

First I got the Sweet Williams.

The dwarf Japanese maple went in out front and we will move the peonies once the blooms are finished.

The walls are done and the shady plants went in.

Here is the other side of the yard. This will be my English cottage garden with some cut flowers. Once the plants are established and fill out the space it will be gorgeous.

Then we attacked the back yard where the vegetable garden will be. Here is the "before" picture:

Weeds galore.

How many men and women does it take to cut a piece of two by four?

Omar forgot his saw so we were cutting the lumber with my hand saw. It worked, albeit slowly.

Presto!

This weekend the tomato plants and the zucchini go in. I can't wait!

In the meantime I think I'll get more Sweet Williams.

Off to work and then to the Barn.

Happy gardening!