Fresh Fruit

This weekend I decided to take a short road trip. On the way, I passed several fruit stands. I couldn't resist all the signs that screamed out at me "Fresh Peaches, Tree Ripened." What better than a fresh juicy peach? So on my way home, I stopped and got a bag of peaches. I couldn't wait to bite into the peach but to my big disappointment, they were not sweet at all. I attempted to make a peach cobbler but I was a big failure. I used splenda which is not good for baking and also unsweet peaches. (In fact, splenda is not good for any type of baking, hence the last bagel disaster)! Next time, it's regular sugar for all my bake goods. Anyways, I have 3 peaches left and I'll slice them up and add them to my yogurt for a special treat!

Recently, we also purchased a 4 wheeler. My daughter loves riding on it. It's nice to be able to see our whole property. We discovered that we have several blueberry bushes along with blackberries! Last night, I picked a bunch of blackberries and I've been enjoying them by the handful! I may opt to try making a blackberry cobbler later.

I have not made a lot progress on my knitting. I have less than 10" done for my top. I had to undo several rows because my cables didn't flow. I probably still need to undo a few more and see where it goes. I may jump back to my anisette cardigan and seam all the pieces together.

This morning, the whole family went over to the park. There's a walking/running trail there. I thought it would be good for the family to get some exercise in. I ran 2 miles (3 times around the trail) and hubby walked about 1 1/2 miles with my daughter. It was good to get up early and get some exercise in for the day!

An update on my goats. I'm really enjoying them. I was thinking when hubby went out to buy them, they were going to be the minature ones but these 2 goats have really grown on me! I find myself going out to feed them corn and carrots. They are getting more comfortable with me where they will come up to me and take the carrots from my hands! I now have 1 dog, 20? chickens and 2 goats! I hope to add some sheeps in the future.

I'm BACK

Wow, my last post was back in July of 2010. That's a long time. I guess I got busy with LIFE.

My little girl has graduated from Kindergarten! Her ceremony was this Monday. Thursday was her official start of Summer vacation. Where has the time gone? It turned into a great year where she had the best teacher and paraprofessional I could ask for.

My daughter is awesome with computers. We discovered a few years ago that she learns extremely well with computers so we've been buying different education games. When her teacher suggested that we buy her an ipad around Christmas time, I wasn't so sure. I had no idea what an ipad, ipod, 3 G etc were. After doing some research, I am now very familiar with all those items and terms. I bought my daughter an ipad then decided an ipod may work better for her. (She loves both). I have actually grown to love the ipad which we share. I've loaded a lot of educational and DORA apps for her while I surf the net and play games. I never thought I would be into gadget but I can see how useful they are. I find myself using them alot because there's such a wealth of information at your finger tips. The best thing is that with a touch of a button your on the net, no waiting. Instant gratification!

Today, we added 2 new additions to our family. We purchased 2 goats. We've been talking about getting them for some time now and finally we did. We have a big property for them to eat the shrubs! Hopefully, they will also keep the snakes away too! I hope to add sheeps eventually so I can learn to spin yarn!

Speaking of yarn...I still enjoy knitting. I must admit that my knitting has really slowed down. It's hard to believe that I use to be able to knit a sweater in 2 weeks, now it's a month or more. I though with my daughter being in school, I'd have more free time for with my knitting. I get busy or just plain lazy. I also find that I'm so much more pickier with my choice of patterns. My patterns are free or purchased online. If I have to buy a pattern book or magazine, most of the time I just skip it, all together. Maybe I'm just moving on to the next phase of knitting and I need to come up with my own designs or pattern? Anyways, here's a few of my favorites that I've knitted. (I've fallen in love with cables, they are currently my favorite things to knit)!

The green sweater is called Valpuri, the gray sweater is the Star Cross'd Love Cardigan and the Red Skirt is called Carnaby.

My current knitting projects are the Anisette Cardigan and a cabled top. I am done knitting all the pieces for the Anisette Cardigan. I just have to sew the pieces together and then pick up stitches for the front band. I started the cabled top today. I'm basically winging this one and picking out a cable design I like and adding/changing some things to it. Hopefully, it will turn out nice in the end.

Well, I think that's it for now! Hopefully, I'll start to blog a little more regularly now and I'll be able to catch up on other people's blog too! :)

Tappan Zee Cardigan

Since my last project, I have been having a hard time deciding what project to do next. I finally decided on the Tappan Zee Cardigan from the summer issue of Knitty Magazine. The pattern seems easy enough and I always like to knit cardigans. Looking through my stash yarn, I decided to make this in a dark purple. It's definitely for a cool winter day or cold autumn night.

This project took over 3 weeks but it could of been a fast knit. With the scratchy yarn it really slowed down my knitting. There seems to be so much other things going on my life that knitting was not a top priority. Maybe after my daughter starts school in a few weeks, I can make knitting more of a priority again!

I decided to make some modifications to this pattern. I really like the yoke on the cardigan. After the 1st diamond pattern, I decided to add some cables. I borrowed the cable pattern loosely from a DROPS pattern. Finally, the bottom cable/lace pattern is from the book Ready, Set Cable. I was having fun trying out different patterns to see how it would turn out. It makes it more interesting! Maybe someday, I'll be brave enough to knit up a top or cardigan without a pattern!

Anyways, here's my cardi:

Front:

Back:

and

In other areas of my life, I doing the last preparation for my daughter before she starts kindergarten. I want to purchase a few more tops and that will be all! She starts school 2 weeks from today! I can't believe summer is almost over...but not the hot summer weather.

I'm happy to say that I finally have DSL! I've been on dial up for so long (DSL was not available in my area) that it's so exciting to have a fast running Internet! What use to take me hours and hours on a particular site (and I'm not exaggerating), now takes me 30 minutes to surf through the site. I'm saving so much time! Life just got a bit simpler. :)

White Lace Tank

June has been such a hot month so far! After 11am, it's just too hot to go outside in the blazing hot heat! I've been trying to keep cool the best I can by staying in and getting some knitting done. The other day, I was admiring my past projects and wishing for cooler weather so I can wear some of my tops and sweaters. I'm really proud of knitting projects, I feel such a sense of accomplishment and pride when I look at them.






My lastest knitting project is from the August 2008 issue of Knit N' Style. The pattern is called Cream Lace Jumper by Melissa Leapman. I was looking for something "different" (than my usual cardigans) so I opted to make this. I knew from the beginning, I would be making modifications. For starters, I didn't want it to be a jumper/tunic. It's not something I normally wear and I wanted it to have a different neckline. Casting on 91 stitches for each side seem too much to me, especially on a size 6 needle on worsted weight yarn. Though, I was close to getting gauge, changing to size 8 would make this top too big! Instead, I decided to knit this top entirely in the round and cast on 141, knitting this entirely on size 6 needle. I added waist shaping after knitting 6 1/2". I bo 4 stitches on 2 rows, working both the front and back separately. I then decreased 1 stitch on both ends EOR, 4 times. Finally, I bo 33 stitches in the middle for the neckline shaping. Done!




I'm glad my modifications worked out for this top! I was a bit nervous since I made so many changes to the sizing! I was unsure about the total numbers of stitches to bind off for the armholes but I used another top as a template. My only regret is that I didn't plan the waist shaping better and my decreases are not as neat as I would like! Fortunately, it's not as noticeable since they on the sides. These are all valuable lessons for my future projects. I'm always amazed how I keep learning from my knitting projects! I didn't realize that knitting was so complicated, there's always something new to learn. A new technique, a new stitch, etc...

I decided to rework my Juliet. It's too pretty to sit in my frog pile! This time around, I ripped out all of the lace and about 5 rows of the garter stitches. I probably could of taken more of garter stitches out. I did not do any increases this time for the lace but rather did a few decreases so the numbers on the lace pattern would match. This was really a fast fit. I'm glad that I made the changes! Now, I can proudly wear my Juliet during those cooler months.

For the last week and a half, I have poison ivy/oak rash! My wrists, parts of my hand and some of my ankles were covered in a blistery rash! No fun! The first 4 days were miserable since it burned and itched. I also worried that I would give it to my daughter! I'm happy to say that the rash is so much better now and no one else in the family got the rash!

In the last several weeks, we picked a bunch of blueberries from our friend's house. I've made several blueberry pies and are they delicious! I've also made some fried yellow squash (from a friend's) and sweet white corn. The corn were purchased from the farm where it was picked that morning! They are the most delicious corn I ever had! I am so spoiled by all this good food! It almost makes me feel guilty complaining about the hot summer...well, almost! ;)

My new and improved Juliet:

Graceful Top

Since my last post, I've been busy knitting! I managed to complete 3 Emmaline tops! I made one of the Emmaline top into a dress. I even made my last top in a worsted weight yarn instead of the bulky. It was fun experimenting with this pattern. I also finished knitting the Juliet Cardigan. Unfortunately, the cardigan is way too big. It was very disappointing! I have since decided that one day soon, I will redo the lace part. This time I will leave off the increases to get a better fit. My current project, which I finished today, is the Graceful Top. This pattern is from the Lion Brand website. It uses mostly charts. It was a bit intimidating but I knew I was up for the challenge. I took my time knitting this and it probably could of been done in 3 or more days. Once I completed the back, I was confident I could do both the front pieces. This pattern has given me a lot of confidence in reading charts! I still do prefer having a pattern with BOTH charts and written directions!

The Graceful top is knitted on a size 10 1/2 needle using a worsted weight yarn. The pattern called for a thicker yarn so I had to adjust for the gauge. I use only 2 skeins of Paton wool yarn.

I did not make any modifications to the pattern. In the future, I would add waist shaping to this top.

Here another photo:

I'm happy to report that I made it through the graduation ceremony. It was held at a "hugh" baptist church near Atlanta. I was glad to see my niece graduate from High School. After the trip, I was sick for about 5 days. I don't think I've been that sick in a long time. I was so sick, I didn't even want to knit. I'm glad to report that I'm back in perfect health!

Today, it's 95 degrees out. It's the start of a hot, humid, scorching summer for us. Though I don't love the hot weather, I do love summer. I love being able to pick fresh blueberries and buying sweet corn from the farm. I'm also looking forward to eating some fresh vegetables from my garden. :)

Last Day of School and Knitting Projects

Today was my daughter's last day of preschool! Wow, these last 2 years of preschool went really fast and she'll be embarking on kindergarten next school year. How time flies! We will have 2 months to enjoy the lazy days of summer! We'll be swimming, shopping and taking mini trips to amusement parks or Chuck E. Cheese!

We sent 4 days in Disney World last week. We stayed at the All Star Music Resort. This was our first trip to Disney. Though Jasmine did enjoy Magic Kingdom, I think she liked hanging out at the pool better!

I currently still have unfinished knitting projects. The featherweight cardigan (in lace weight) and Juliet from here: http://www.zepherstyle.com/. I had purchased 4 skeins of the classic elite sprout yarn to make the Emmaline (from here: http://knitty.com/ISSUEss10/PATTemmaline.php. I attempted to start this project several times during my trip at Disney but I finally decided to use the yarn for Juliet. The temperature being in the 90s, I couldn't picture making a top in bulky yarn, even if it's cotton! Since I've been wanting to make the Juliet, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do it! I've actually made good progress on my Juliet and I'm now at the start of the lace portion of the pattern. Wouldn't you know it though, Emmaline kept calling me! For some reason, I really want to knit this even though I don't like having more than 2 projects at once, I cast on! The only bulky yarn I had in my stash was Brown Sheep. Honestly, I never liked this shade of blue (periwinkle). I've looked at the yarn several time and always thought to myself what a weird shade of blue! As I was knitting this project, I came to enjoy the yarn and color. I now think the yarn was perfect for this project, even if it's more of a fall/winter top. I used a size 10 needle for the neckline (since I couldn't find any 10 1/2 needles in 16" length). I switched to the recommended needle size of 10 1/2 just before the first eyelet. I knitted the top just below my bust and did the 1 row of purl. I also did 2 sets of decreases instead of 3. I was afraid it would be too tight otherwise. I then did 2 sets of increases. After the increases, I knitted 9 additional rows, instead of 1 3. It seemed like a good length and I bo using a size 11 needle.

This was a very satisfying project! I confessed that I worked on this late into the night several times. I really wanted to finish this and I'm so glad that I did. I finished most of the knitting late last night and redid the bo this morning! I'm thrilled with the color, fit and design. Next time, I would use a lighter weight yarn so I could wear it all summer long!

I hope everyone a happy and safe summer!

Beach Party Dress

I wanted to make myself a dress to wear to a graduation. I'm not looking forward to it, sad to say and this will give me an incentive to go! After searching through the patterns and looking at the types of yarn I have in my stash, I decided to go with the Beach Party Dress. The pattern is from the July 2008 issue of Creative Knitting. It seems simple enough, only a little lace! I fell in love with the magazine version in a pretty coral color. Looking through my knit picks catalogue, I realized that they no longer carry this color! Oh well, I decided that I would use the Plymouth Fantasy yarn I recently purchased from the LYS. I had some concerns about this dress. First, I didn't want it to be too tight because it looks very form fitting. I hope that using the 100% cotton yarn would eliminate part of the problem. Second, I had only 6 skeins of this and I did not want to go back to the LYS to buy more. I decided I'll just knit and buy more yarn if I have to.

I rarely check gauge so it's no wonder that after getting about 1/2 way through the bottom skirt, it was hugh! I did try it on as I go but I only put half the stitches on another needle so it wasn't a "true fit". I figure I had made so much progress on this dress that I did not want to frog! I was determined to continue and do some major modification as I go. I made a ton of decreases throughout. This time, I slipped the stitches to scrap yarn and tried it on. I kept making decreases through out until it was a good fit. When I finally got to the waist, I use the seed stitch and knit about 1 1/2 inch for the waist. To make this a fast and easy knit, I opted to leave out the ribbing for the top half of the dress. This may save me from having to buy additional skein of yarn! When I finally knitted the dress to just about the arm area, I ended it with 3-5 rows of seed stitch again. I omitted the casing and the elastic. With all the decreases, I did not need to use any elastic. The sleeves were tricky for me. I knew I wanted more coverage but should I kept it as a garter stitch or a seed stitch to match the dress? After a lot of trial and error (with various stitches and needle sizes), I kept the garter stitch using a size 9 needle for the lace, size 7 for the garter and back to 9 for the bind off. I also decided to close the button holes for the straps. ( Hubby didn't like how it looked).

This was really a fast project. My goal was to knit 1 skein a night, which I did. I worked on this project a lot and I'm real proud that I was able to make the dress fit in the end. Not to mention, that I stayed within the 6 skeins of yarn I had originally purchased. I'm thrilled with my modification and I LOVE the color of the dress. I've decided that this dress is going to be my Mother's Day present to myself!

As you know, I didn't have the best experience at the LYS but I decided to go again. (In the end, I didn't need the extra skein I bought for this dress). I'm happy to say that I had a good experience this time. There were new people working there and they were very nice and friendly! The one person even talked me into buying the recommended yarn for my next project, Emmaline! I ended up purchasing 4 skeins of the Classic Elite, Sprout in green. I'm looking forward to starting that project next, along with resuming the Feather weight cardigan.

This year will be my 25th High School Reunion! Yes, I'm that old. I know most of my classmates have grown children, in college and they have already finished up school. It's funny because my daughter's 4 and she'll be turning 5 this summer. She starts Kindergarten in August! I'm also thinking about going back to college this fall when she's in school. I seem to have things backward. I'm looking forward to this new chapter in my life but I'm also scared that my little girl's going to school full time! But...in the meantime, I'm looking forward to our vacation. We'll be taking her to Disney World!

This Sunday, of course if Mother's Day. It's the "hardest" job, but most rewarding job I ever had. It's probably the one I'm MOST proud of. The love I have for my daughter is incredible and the joy she brought into my life is priceless. To all you Mother's out there, Happy Mother's Day! You/We deserve it! :)