A Big Boo Boo and a few odds and ends

First the big boo boo.  I get bursitis in my hip.  At its worst there is a sharp pain that makes my leg give out so I trip--well, today I fell down the last 2 steps of the deck (could have been worse, could have been 13 steps to the basement.  I landed on my knees, picked myself up, and went to work.  I moved a whole slew of shrubs across the yard since Kubota Man and I wanted to take some tables away from the tree nursery--we don't sell a lot of perennials, so the tables served no useful purpose.  The shrubs were in the way, so I moved the shrubs first, then, with the aid of machinery, the tables were moved, and finally we carried the framework for the shrubs back to their new spot--heavy work--other than the odd stab, no problem.  I also pulled a dozen posts after removing the wire fence--put the posts on the post pile--no serious pain.

I phoned the small engine repair guy in Fort Saskatchewan to see if a tractor part is in--yes, but my plans to go tomorrow got kiboshed since he was planning on closing tomorrow and taking an extra long weekend for fishing.  I also planned to go pick up the ceramic tiles for the downstairs kitchen and entrance floor.  I am sooooo flexible--I went straight to town, went to the bank, and picked up mail.  The mail included the credit card bill which I pay right at the store.  When I got to the parts place, no problem walking--next I went to Wal-Mart to get some activated charcoal to take the smoke smell out of some books my sister brought me, now the knee is really sore--went to pay the credit card bill, getting stiffer.  Paid the credit card bill, didn't know where my keys were--must have left them in the truck.  Found my un-chipped entrance key, got to the truck--keys were inside, doors unlocked, and the engine was running.  Thank God no-one noticed--severe pain and attentiveness sure don't mix.  Next I went to Home Depot, and got 28 boxes of ceramic floor tiles--by now walking was excruciating, so I let the staff load the tiles.  Tomorrow I want to open all the boxes and make sure there are no broken tiles since I won't be installing these till winter and I may not be able to match them by then.  Then they will go on a pallet in the shed till I'm ready for them.

The corn is all done, peas all picked, sheep well fed.  Check out Weed it and Reap  for an update on giant tomatoes.

On the knitting side, I finished Wingspan, a nice shawl/scarf made from one ball of 420 m of sock yarn.  When I saw the long color runs in my sock yarn, I knew it wanted to be Wingspan.

 And I finally got a picture of the new ceiling in the downstairs bathroom.  I'm so proud of how the heat lamp and the fan worked--got the cutouts just right--only mis-cut one ceiling tile.  The wooden box to the left is a coverup for a pipe that the plumber set so low I couln't drop the ceiling that low.  When I re-paint to fix the little dents I put into the walls when I installed the ceiling tracks and slipped in a couple of spots, the box will get painted and disappear from view.

I have almost finished one sleeve on the Memorial Sweater, and have done a few more rows on the Illusion Scarf.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend, everyone.

Will this be my last Ceiling?

Finally, at long last, the suspended ceiling in the downstairs bathroom is finished!!! (well, except for one tile, which would have been done except I bought the wrong size boot for the heat duct).  This bathroom has white ceilings, white ceramic tile floors and white wall tiles halfway up the wall--no natural light, and every picture I try to take is overexposed.  I am so proud of all the cutouts (ceiling fan, heat lamp) lining up nicely.  When I was putting up the track around the perimeter, the drill bit I used to pre-drill the holes was too small, so when I was screwing in the screws, the high-powered drill sometimes "escaped" and I poked a few dents in the walls.  So I will repaint the affected walls--no problem.  All clean, rugs washed, all the towels washed (darn open shelves).  Things should stay cleaner now there is a ceiling, though.

In the kitchen downstairs I have only to put in 3 fluorescents, then that ceiling is also done.  Now I'm on the hunt for porcelain tiles for the kitchen, downstairs entrance and storage room.  Looking for a good deal on good quality tiles.

All this switchover to the renos happened because we had tons of rain on Thursday.

 While on hiatus from blogging, I made one of the Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jackets from stash--have yellow buttons.  This yarn was leftover from this baby shawl.  A lady on Ravelry was having trouble with the pattern, so I crocheted it along with her.  I can always use another baby shawl for our Prayer Shawl Ministry. There were sooo many things wrong with the pattern.  It seemed as if the designer didn't plan it out ahead of time, and fudged a lot of stitch counts to make the pattern fit.

I don't know if I mentioned it, but my Physician since 1976 retired in June.  I had planned to knit him some socks for Christmas anyways, so instead I will knit them for a retirement gift.  I finished one pair of plain "vanilla" socks in a lovely marled gray:

The other pair was intended to be black with argyle diamonds down the sides, but I didn't want to strand the yarn for the argyle, nor did I want to make seams.  So I tried "Intarsia in the round", but wasn't satisfied with the back "seam" where I turned, so instead, I found a nice broken rib pattern, all in black, and am still working on them.

While working on the crayon flags, I had a lot of odds and ends of acrylic left, so I decided to start a Log Cabin afghan for a camping blanket.  This will be worked on whenever I find some  more odds and ends--there is no planned color scheme.

I am working on a "Memorial sweater".  Maureen's friend had dyed fleece, spun yarn and started a fair isle-style pullover.  Before it could be finished, she passed away after a long battle with breast cancer.  So Maureen asked me to finish it for her.  It is always a challenge trying to match one's knitting to someone else's knitting.  The body had been finished up to the neck shaping.  So I had to do the front and back neck shaping, the neckband and the sleeves.  It's lovely yarn to work with, although the spin is highly variable.

  On the needles and actively being worked on:
--Memorial Sweater
--Richard's V-neck Pullover
--Shelley's black cabled hoodie
--dr's black socks
--Wingspan shawl that I started out of the blue when I saw some lovely sock yarn with longer color runs (in the stash, I might add)
--the skull "Illusion knit" scarf

I am now gathering requests for winter accessories for Christmas Knitting (from family members, please).  

Have a great day.  Keep safe and healthy, everyone.

Almost as big as a house...

...well, at least as big as a 2-lb margarine tub, or as big as my hand:  the 2 lb 3oz. tomato I found in the garden today.  It is not a gnarly type of tomato, but it was growing around the rebar stake that I had the plant tied to.

Today I made a batch of ripe cucumber pickles, then I went to town to visit Mom in the Nursing Home, picked up a jug of Round-up, did some banking and mail run.  Then I did 2 big recipes of zucchini baking:  Lemon Zucchini Poppy seed loaves and chocolate (guess what--Zucchini) cupcakes.

Tomorrow will be a fun day:
-- dentist appointment downtown in the city early in the morning, must load up a whole bunch of recycling stuff before I leave.
--Then a meeting with Richard, for whom I am making a top-down Aran pullover--he is bringing me more yarn. 
--Then a Knitting Tea on a knit group member's acreage. 
--Next I will go to another member of a different knit group's house--they just bought the house and I am going to assess the yarn for how much sunlight she can expect, and what will grow best there. 
--Finally, groceries and a couple of other errands.

Now I will leave you with a cheerful little face:

This little gazania wishes you a happy day.

Catching up some old stuff...

...a few posts ago, before my long absence, I told you that I am on a yarn diet.  My purchase for Marina was to be my last purchase--my last "want" until my stash is drastically reduced.  Here is a Ravelry link for Marina.  Here is my lovely box of yarns:

Since I started the yarn diet, I have only purchased some "musts=needs":  the yarn for the Master Knitter, since I had nothing appropriate in stash, some black sock yarn for some gift socks, and some samples from Knit Picks, since my girls want machine wash-and dry yarns, and I will soon be out of my acrylic stash--I ordered one ball each of different yarns to knit swatches to wash with laundry a few times to see how they behave.

A dear friend on Ravelry lost his wife last year.  Her journey from the diagnosis to her passing took about a year, and he shared it with us in our group.  Another designer friend wanted to gift him with a Fair-Isle style sweater that she designed.  When she had completed the body, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and asked me if I could knit the sleeves.  I did a test swatch to see if I could match her gauge.  Just as I was finishing it up, to my horror, I saw that I had used a darker color in one stripe.  That's from knitting at night with poor light.
The only solution was surgery.  I picked out one stitch, unpicked the row completely so the lower part would fall off.  I did the same thing below the offending stripe.  Then I picked up the stitches, re-knit the stripe correctly and finally, grafted the lower part back on. Here it is in pictures:

 Notice the darker part on the left side of the severed strip:

 Picking up stitches to re-knit the stripe:

 Grafting--this is very loose.  The stitches were later all snugged up to the correct tension:

 Good as new--took about 1 1/2 hours all together.

Here is the whole sweater Misty Gardens:

 And a view of the special garter stitch trim.  The recipient was thrilled with it.

 Also since then, my yarn shop put me in touch with a gentleman who wanted  an Aran vest knit.  He chose cables from a library book, let me borrow a vest that fits him and this is the result:  Aran vest for Richard 
(this is a Ravelry link).

 One of my friends at knit group was excited because the fans with bobbles at the end reminded her of fireworks.

I do not know why the pictures loaded here sideways--they are in correct alignment in my file.

Have a great day, everyone.

Today's Post

Today's post is on the Garden side (Weed it and Reap).  It's kind of a corny post. ☺☺☺

Unblocked for the Moment

I figure I'd better post while I have a bit of time (It's really hot outside, keeping us indoors) and while I'm not suffering from writer's block.  Over the next few posts I expect to catch up some of what got missed in my absence.

To  support my research for the Master Knitter program, I purchased these books:

Someone posted this on Facebook, so I will share it with you:

My physician since 1976 retired, and I decided to make him a gift for the occasion.  It will be this pair of plain-jane socks in a lovely marled grey.  The second pair will have some Argyle diamonds up the side on a black field.  He is Scottish and golfs, so I thought that would be appropriate.

A local Ravelry friend is yarn bombing a new school for opening day.  I made her 40 flags shaped like pencil crayons.  Here are 20 of them.  I used double worsted acrylic scraps that I inherited or someone dumped on gifted me.  They are about 6"x 11.5".

And in keeping with the season, Goodies.

 Almost-dill pickles.

 Bread and Butter pickles.

 Cherry jam from our trees.
It's a good thing that I have a lovely new second kitchen in the cool basement--the ceramic backsplash and the floor tiles aren't done yet.

Now I'm cleaning off the beans.  And we are eating and giving away fresh corn.
 We are truly blessed.

I nearly forgot another exciting project.  This scarf is done by a technique called Illusion (or shadow)knitting.  when you look at it head-on it is simply stripes.  But approach it from an angle, and a picture appears.

The Master Hand Knitter Program

I consider myself a really good knitter.  Well, to tell the truth, an excellent knitter.  So why did I sign up for the Master Knitter program?  I came across it on Ravelry, and looked into it.  There are three levels, and one must pass the first to do the second, and so forth.  The first is very basic in its content.  You have a package of instructions, which you must follow to the letter.  The work consists of 16 swatches wherein you demonstrate your mastery of basic stitches, cast-on, cast-off, a variety of increases and decreases, and color work.  There is also a hat to submit.  The thing that intrigued me was the writing you have to do.  There is a series of questions you have to answer about the work that you did, and a report on blocking and care of hand-knits.  But you can't just answer and report from what you know--you have to research and provide references for everything. 
I'm essentially a self-taught knitter, with a repertoire of techniques that I realized (thanks to Ravelry and youtube) is quite narrow, although it has served me well.  So, in researching I hoped to expand my skills.
In the second and third levels there is some designing required.  That was really my carrot.  Designing and improving my pattern-writing skills.
Besides the Master Knitter program, there are other programs, a beginner course, a basics course, etc.  To avail yourself of any of them, you have to be a member of The Knitting Guild Association.  This membership allows you to take the programs (for a fee), and includes a quarterly, excellent knitting magazine.  Here is the link to the home page of the Knitting Guild .
I am almost finished Level 1, which I started in May.  I have one year to complete it, but if I go over the year I only have to check for updates to the program and make sure the updates are included--there is really no time limit.   When all the samples and writing are finished, the entire binder (with everything in plastic page protectors) is sent away to be assessed.  It is sent to a number of "co-chairs" for assessment--the fee for the course is to cover the postage of mailing the package around--it is a non-profit situation; the co-chairs are volunteers.  After assessment it is returned with commentary and a request to re-submit samples that don't meet expectations.  On Ravelry there is also a group dedicated to these programs.  There are members all over the world, as are people who have taken some of the programs.