Stasia's Place Of Grace

Saturday, May 17, 2003

 

Grateful For...

The Lunar eclipse on the 15th - if you got to see it, you know how awesome it was!

The neatest thing about this photo is that the moon's phase was almost completely full at the time. You can't see it in the picture, but the dark part of the moon was a really deep orange. I can't imagine what ancient people must have thought when seeing such an event! I know what caused it, and I was still in awe...

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A baby bunny, ready to be out on his own, who has been hiding out under one of the beehives.

He comes out and nibbles on dandelion flowers, eating up the stems from the bottoms, until the flowers pop off.

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A visit to Ruhama's Yarn in Whitefish Bay, near Milwaukee, today. I haven't been there in years and I was really surprised and pleased at both the selection of yarns and the great service. I brought home the following loot, for scarves and sox :

Here we have some Artful Yarns Portrait (three fuzzy balls on top); some Berroco Zap (green and purple on left bottom, to coordinate with other Berroco yarns in that colorway which I already have) and Glac� Colors (blue stuff center bottom); some Koigu KPPM (green and purple, lower right); Mission Falls 1824 Cotton (blue, pink, teal, and peach, center); Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (fuchsia, top right); and Plymouth Eros (gold, left) and Flirt (pink/peach/teal, rightish). PHEW!

I think I'll be able to combine these in a bunch of ways to get a lot of gift scarves made... some plain, some fancy.

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Going to Benji's Deli in Fox Point afterwards, and having a corned beef sandwich, garlic pickle, and matzo ball soup. They don't have good food like that where I live, out in farmland, and I miss it!

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The music of Django Rheinhardt and Stephane Grappelli from the late 30s.

If you liked the music in the movie Chocolat, you'll love this. You can't listen to it and have a bad mood. Unless of course your husband has hidden the CD caddy for the car on the day you have to drive into the city to visit a yarn shop so you can't actually listen to the music... (grrrrrrr....)

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That Chester is recovering well from having a benign tumor and some cysts removed from his lips and throat. His surgical staples will come out this coming week.

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Signs of spring: pink tulips in a vase on the table, next to fern-green handmade candles (a gift from Jeff when he returned from a trip); new white canvas tennies (don't have them yet, but I know it is just a matter of time...); apple blossoms.

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Thanks for visiting! Hope your spring days are as lovely as today was for me!

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Tuesday, May 13, 2003

 

Fibery Stuff

I finished my spontaneous scarf this morning (thanks, Nanette B. and Theresa C.!)

At first, the cast-on row I'd done made one long edge of the scarf too tight, so that it made an unintentional circle:

If I'd wanted a ruched effect, I would've bound off in the same yarn, using a tight tension, which would have made the center rows bunch up nicely. But I didn't - I wanted a really long scarf instead.

So I removed the cast-on edge (a painstaking process, as I'd used a knit-through cast-on) and then bound that edge off again loosely. It worked perfectly. Here, Fiona the Whippet models the completed scarf, which is actually more like a really long, thin boa; I'd wanted to be able to loop it around my neck - it goes three times around Fi's:

To see the yarns I used for this project, click here. You can find the brands and colors in an entry from a couple of days ago. I cast 303 stitches onto a 24" size 6 circular and knit each row in seed stitch (K1, P1 across), cutting the yarns to leave tails at each end, and switching yarns each row. There are two rows of the Trendsetter Dune yarn on each of the edges, to finish up with some sparkle. The finished scarf is 80" long (excluding fringe, which I have yet to twist and tie) and 3.5" wide.

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Despite being stressed today, I ate responsibly. I walked with my friend, Di, while she shopped for shoes at the mall, and I did my stretching exercises.

I did, however, shop for more luxury yarn. KnitPicks was having a sale... too bad I also fell for the Cherry Tree Hill yarn not on sale! Oh well, at least they have free shipping...

I am quickly becoming a luxury yarn addict. Is this what happens to you after making so many pair of socks??? Will I be stuck on scarves now? At least they're fast, easy, and make great gifts! (And I don't need to worry about sizes!)

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Grateful For...

One Of Three Visiting Orioles

Pink Baby Pinecones

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Here in Wisconsin, it was in the 70s today, and sunny. The flowering trees are all in bloom - Crab Apples, Choke Cherries, and those trees that end up with the miniature oranges on them... there is a type of Honeysuckle in our front landscaping whose scent wafts in through the open screen door. The air is heady with the perfume from all of these blossoms, and the lime green (not sure what those are, but they're bright!), rosy pink, and brilliant white of the flowers shone against a Robin's egg blue sky this afternoon. Looked like a Technicolor film from the 50s - I expected Lassie to leap over the fence of the farm behind us!

I hope your day was as full of color and lovely scents as mine!

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