Help name me, critters! & the garden

Designing, knitting, spinning, crocheting, and working on organizing my craft room are keeping me busy. (And I clean my house, shop for groceries, do laundry, cook, and lots of other things on top of this.) I can no longer stand how cluttered my craft room is. Last weekend, I packed almost everything out of the room and started over. I bought a bunch of stackable wire crates and created a wall for my yarn stash. (Three bins worth that I am not keeping are in my trade/sell folder on Ravelry.) I sorted all the scrap yarn I use for cat toys into some stackable bins I got on sale. I still have to sort through bins of fabric and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Then go through my shelf of craft books (knitting, crocheting, spinning, sewing, and quilting). I have too many hobbies! I'll post some pics when I get everything whipped into shape. It will be nice to have an organized room where I can find what I need and have room to work. :)

This week I've been working on a crocheted triangle shawl. The pattern is finally worked out. I had some difficulty visualizing how the increases needed to work. Now I have to make a full sized version to see how much yarn is needed for the shawl.

Some projects in the works are a new scarf design that without a name. Here's what half of it looks like. It has arrows going up, down, sideways, a zigzag and a lace edge. I knit the sample with only one ball of Jojoland Melody. This will be a charted only design since the lace pattern is so simple. I'm working on instructions for turning the scarf into a stole to as an extra with the pattern. Any suggestions for names? Leave a comment below. If I choose the name you suggest, you'll get a free pdf copy of the pattern when it's ready to go.

Another one is a felted tote bag. Sigh, it doesn't have a name either. (Suggest away!) I'm actually working on several felted bag designs. I have so many designs in the various stages that I'm losing track of how many there are. LOL!

This is beginning to look like a year without summer for us. Our temps are probably 10-15 degrees below what they should be. Everytime we get close to normal temps, they take a nose dive again. We could really use some rain. We did get 4/10ths of an inch last night which helped.

Here's is some of the first veggies from our garden this year. I picked one zucchini earlier this week. I am so missing home grown veggies. By this time last year, we had been eating fresh zucchini and beans for almost a month and I had frozen bags of it. This year, the deer have eaten the tops off our beans. I purchased some Bird-x netting that we have clipped to the fence over the beans. This is keeping the deer out of the beans. Hubby has replanted and the bean stubs that were left are trying to make a come back. I don't know if we will have enough warm weather to harvest them. The deer are enjoying the cucumber plants too. The cucumber in the basket is the first one we've harvested this year. :( The plant it came from is growing inside a wire cage where they can't get to it. We've been seriously thinking about fencing our entire garden. Though a neighbor tells us that even an 8 foot fence will not keep the deer out.

Hubby was happy to see the first two ripe tomatoes. Though the tomato plants don't have a lot of fruit because of the cool weather. The potatoes, cabbages, brussels sprouts, and broccoli love cool weather and are all doing fine. The days are getting shorter and fall is coming. I don't hold out much hope that we'll get much of anything from our warm weather veggies.

Have you noticed how screwed up the weather seems to be all over the U.S. this year? The NE has been cold and wet. I've heard that the potato blight has shown up there. (Isn't that what caused the potato famine in Ireland many years ago?) It's been cool and dry here in the upper Midwest. Texas and points west are hot and dry with crops drying up in the fields. The Pacific NW has been warm too. This doesn't bode well for food crops produced in this country. A smaller harvest also means higher prices at the grocery store. Not something that any of us want to see.

The special intro price on the La Petite Fleur shawl pattern is good through July 31st. If you want the pattern, buy it soon before the price goes up.

Someone from New Albany, Mississippi recently sent me a small box of yarn scraps to use for cat toys. I'd like to thank her for her generosity. There was no note or email address in the package. I turn these short lengths of yarn into cat toys for my local, no-kill animal shelter, Pet Refuge. Some of my toys are sold to help raise much needed funds for them. This week I was able to give them $47 collected from the toy jar I fill at my vet's office. Animal shelters are having a hard time. Donations are down and shelters are bursting at the seams with animals dropped off by people who can no longer afford to feed their pets. I do what I can to help. I encourage others to do so too. :)

La Petite Fleur Shawl -- new pattern!

Here's the newest design in my collection of small shoulder shawls---La Petite Fleur (little flower).

This is a three triangle, wedge shaped shawl knit from the neck down. It's an easy knit with a row of flower motifs forming a pretty border that ends in a picot edge. Add beads to make it sparkle. Small enough to tuck in your bag, this shawl makes a quick cover up that’s great for summer evenings or chilly air conditioned rooms. This project knits up quickly and will have everyone asking where you bought it!

Knit this fun flower bordered little shawl with with one skein of sock or fingering weight yarn (350-400 yards) using size 6 needles. Great for showing off handspun yarn. Options are given for adding beads to the lace border (see picture) and edge and enlarging the shawl. This is a four page pattern with written line-by-line instructions and a lace chart.

The pink shawl was knit with Fleece Artist Sea Wool (382 yards) and the green one with Miss Babs Bamboo Baby Sock Yarn (400 yards). The green shawl is a test knit by my friend Jamie. The picture is used with her permission.

The pattern is available in my Ravelry pattern store. Have fun!

For more information, visit my Ravelry pattern store to see all my available designs, current pricing information, and purchase pattern downloads.

Critters

You would think we live way out in the country (instead of a bustling suburban area) from all the critters that have visited our yard recently.

For example, this week:

Foxes are now living under our neighbor's shed to the east. They must have run off the ground hog who was living there. On the bright side, they won't eat our garden and may keep some of the other critters away who do. We had noticed a strong musky smell around a few times lately. And several weeks ago a rabbit had been killed in our front yard. Nothing was left but fur. We had suspected that a fox did this.

Raccoons are living under our neighbor's shed to the west. Early Thursday morning, hubby saw two raccoon babies on the wrong side of the fence. The momma raccoon was hollering at them and they didn't know what to do. Hubby got a shovel and carefully dug a hole under the fence (with mama and babies watching) so that babies could get back to momma. As soon as they were on the right side of the fence, momma grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and towed them back under the shed.

A ground hog is still living under our shed. :( This after being run off by another one several weeks ago.

Last week, a mother deer and a fawn were in our yard. (During the winter we sometimes had 7 deer visit our bird feeder.) Mama deer jumped the neighbors fence, leaving the fawn behind. She was too small to jump that high. She ran up and down the fence hollering until she figured out she could go around the end.

Pookie and Boo like to go outside during the day. Yesterday, when I went to check on them, I found two big dogs coming up to the house. I ran them off. Boo and Pookie were hiding in the bushes. They came in as soon as the coast was clear.

Hubby and I have thought several times about fencing our yard. It would be expensive and probably would not keep all the critters out. We also like the open space and the view we have.

I can't resist posting another picture of Pookie. He was intrigued by a fold up crate that I usually keep in the trunk of my car. He decided it was a good place to lay down. Love the glowing eyes through the crate handles! LOL! He seems to like having his picture taken.

I finished this crocheted baby blanket last night. I call it Sunrays. It's an easy pattern to crochet. I'm working on a shawl version of this using 4 wedges instead of 6. My original idea was inspired by the lace pattern in my Wings to Heaven shawl. I wanted to see if I could reproduce it in crochet. It took about 5 tries and lots of ripping and crocheting before I got it figured out.

One of these days, I'll get some more patterns ready to post. I'm on a felted bag craze. I have about 3 designs that I need to test knit.

Gardening, new patterns, and more

Our normal spring temperatures can swing wildly between cold and hot. The clash of these air masses can and has produced severe storms and tornados in our area. This year has been different, one of those springs that comes once in a blue moon. We've stayed in the cool range with a few nights even getting down into the upper 30s. Not good for warm weather plants but great for us. Flowers have bloomed like mad with no storms to knock their blossoms off early.

These cool nighttime temps have made it hard to get our warm weather veggies planted. The last few will finally go in this weekend. We need some 80 degree days and warm nights for the corn, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and beans to do anything but sit there. The weatherman says that next week we will start to see some of those warmer temps. Here's a peek at the potatoes coming up.

As usual, we have ground hogs living under our shed and our neighbor's shed. Early the other morning, my hubby called me to come watch what was happening in the middle of our garden. Two big ground hogs were fighting and screaming at each other. It looked to be a territorial dispute over our garden. They both must be males. They ran around the yard rolling, biting, and screaming at each other. I've never seen anything like it before!

We make cages out of heavy gauge fence wire to put around individual plants like broccoli that ground hogs love to eat. If we don't, they will eat them to the ground. Ground hogs don't share. Fencing the entire garden doesn't help. We've tried it. They dig under the fence and eat until they are stuffed. One of the cages hubby put around a broccoli plant this year was made from some flimsy wire. The ground hog has managed to get it off the plant and chewed it down to a nub. We've bought more wire that we will use to build more sturdy cages this weekend to put around vulnerable plants.

The mystery shawl kal I hosted is over. Though I loved seeing the shawls knit from my design, it was a lot of work and took up too much of my time. The shawl kits and other prizes have been awarded. All packages were mailed on Monday, June 8. I've received email from two people that their packages have arrived. The one that went to Denmark will take awhile to arrive. Crystal Garden is the name I've given this shawl design. The pattern should be finished sometime this summer. It's going to take a lot of work. The entire shawl has to be charted (and the instructions written up). There are no motif repeats as there are in most shawl patterns. It will require me to use a new charting method as my current software program can't handle the size charts I need.

I have a few more patterns almost ready to release. The Lotus Blossom felted bag (pictured at the botton of my May 8 post), a Blossom Coaster (like the Blossom Facecloth), and Le Petit Fleur (a small shoulder shawl with beads and a flower border) are in the final stages. Test knitters are working on them. I need better pictures too.

My spinning wheel has been busy. This pink and peach merino I finished last week. My Rav friend, Jamie, dyed the fiber. It was a joy to spin and made a laceweight 2 ply yarn---4.2 ounces and 926 yards! This will be saved for a special shawl project. Jamie recently got a drum carder for her birthday. I sent her a box of fiber from my stash to help her get started. In return, she's sent me these batts she made as a thank you. I was overwhelmed by her generosity and so excited. Lots of fun spinning ahead! (Psst, don't you think she should sell some of these beauties?)

My fiber arts group is having our second all-day retreat on June 20th. I'm helping out with it. We couldn't do it without volunteers. One member found us a venue. Another one has worked hard since January contacting various companies for donations for goodie bags. I can't wait to see what she's come up with! Another member is teaching a top-down sweater class. Plus we'll have a demo about Ravelry and how it works. I'll be putting together some notes and a handout for that demo. Several vendors will be there selling yarn, fiber, and other goodies. Lunch is an all-you-can-eat buffet downstairs in the university dining hall. Members are encouraged to bring along things for a sell and swap table. It's a lot of fun!

Finally, I'll post a picture of Pookie. Here he is all relaxed and asleep. We humans could learn something about relaxing from kitties. He's found a catnip plant growing in on of my flower beds. Look at how big the leaves of this plant are! That's my hand next to the leaf for comparison. Pookie loves catnip. :)

Birthdays, sump pumps, and solar dyeing

Not much on my needles at the moment. While I think about what I'd like to knit, I've been spinning some pink and peach merino (or it may be Corriedale). It's a gift from my friend Jamie. Can't wait to see what this looks like after I ply it. I have another bobbin to spin before that will happen.

Hubby hit a milestone birthday this week---the big 5-0. His birthday did not start well. We were awakened at 4 am to the sound of our sump pump running in the basement. Not a good sound. Hubby went downstairs and was met with a strong smell of something burning. Oh-oh! The sump pump hadn't turned off and was overheating. He unplugged it. It had triggered because our water softener was cycling. We were both horrified to find that the water softener was only halfway through its cycle. There was no way to stop it once it starts to cycle. Yikes! We would have a flooded basement if we didn't act quickly. Hubby grabbed a couple of buckets and began bailing water as it drained into the pump hole. He passed the filled buckets to me and I ran them upstairs to dump into the bathroom sink. That's how we spent the next hour. No fun, especially at that time of the morning! By 5:30 am, the water softener had finished. Hubby went back to bed. I was wide awake, sweaty, and stinky from the water I had sloshed on myself. Yuck! I headed for the shower. At 6 am with the sun rising, there was no going back to bed. I let the kitties outside for an early romp and made pancakes. Then I spun for awhile until it was time to meet some friends. I took hubby out for a spaghetti dinner (his favorite!) in the evening. He got a birthday card and gifts before he went to work. Not a stellar birthday for him by any means. His belated birthday gift was the plumber coming the following day to replace the sump pump. :)

Our weather has finally warmed up. We've been in the 80's for the last two days. I decided today was a good day to do some solar dyeing with Easter Egg dye. I pulled out 4 undyed skeins of wool yarn and one pale one that I didn't like the color. Here's what the wet skeins look like dripping in the bathroom. The colors won't be quite as intense when they're dry. I'm happy with the way they all turned out. The one on the far left is the skein I overdyed.

Our bathroom project is still not 100% finished. Here's a picture down the hall. See all the light coming from the doorway on the right? And look at the bathroom ceiling---that is a tubular skylight. There is no light on in the bathroom; it is all light coming in through the skylight. This used to be the darkest room in the house. Now you don't even have to turn a light on in their during the daytime. Here's a peek at the new sink, cabinet, and light fixtures too.

I hate the gold tile in this bathroom. The previous owners of this house chose it. Yuck! I'd be much happier with a neutral color. Hubby hasn't wanted to spend the money to replace the tile. Since there is nothing wrong with the tile except for the color, I understand his not wanting to spend the money. Though trying to find a paint color that goes with it can be hard. This caramel color doesn't look too bad. I wanted a darker color now that the room has so much light. If I had painted it white or cream, between the skylight, the light flooring, and the white fixtures, you would probably have needed sunglasses to enter the room during the day. LOL!

I'm considering putting a shelf over the toilet to hold a couple of plants. With all the light and humidity in the bathroom, they should do well. I'm still looking for something to hold the hand towel and some kind of storage for shampoo and other items.

Blossom Facecloth -- new pattern!

Introducing my Blossom Facecloth.

After knitting the Reverse Bloom Washcloth at Christmas time, I knew there had to be an easier way to knit a flower washcloth. Here's what I came up with. You cast on all the stitches you'll need onto a circular needle, work around knitting one petal at a time with short rows, and then decrease to the center. No cutting for each petal and only two ends to weave in when you're done. Easy!

It's also a fun knit. I gave the pattern to a friend on Monday afternoon. She's already knit 3 of them! She likes it! LOL!

All you need is a 2 oz ball of dishcloth cotton, a set of size 8 (5.0 mm) dpns and a 16" circular. Use any cotton worsted weight yarn or a blend.

You can knit one of these in a couple of hours. I got two cloths out of one ball of yarn (95 yards) and still had a few yards leftover. The one is the picture was knit out of Peaches & Creme in the pink lilacs colorway.

Pair one of these with a bar of soap for a thoughtful, easy, and inexpensive gift.


The pattern set includes the Blossom facecloth, the Blossom coaster, and the Blossom rug.


For more information, visit my Ravelry pattern store to see all my available designs, current pricing information, and purchase pattern downloads.

Seedlings

Spring has finally come to the Midwest. Trees have been blooming like crazy (causing my allergies to flare) and my lilac is blooming. Hubby has tilled part of our garden up. Cool weather crops are being planted. The cabbage seedlings we started some time back have been transferred to the garden. Broccoli and tomato plants are being hardened off, awaiting their time to be planted in the garden. The tomatoes will have to wait until later this month to be planted until night time temps get into the 50 degree range. The plants are getting huge so we're hardening them off getting them ready to go into the ground. On cooler nights, they'll have to be brought inside to protect them from the cold. Frost will kill them and too cool temps will stunt their growth for awhile. Brussels sprouts, peppers, eggplants, and more tomatoes are growing steadily under lights in the basement.

We buy seeds and start our own plants. This allows us to grow varieties you'll never find at any greenhouse or nursery. We grow for flavor, disease resistance, and productivity. Here's a peek at some of the pepper seedlings in the basement. We start our seeds in jiffy pellets and transfer them to peat pots as they get bigger. Plant roots will grow right through these pots. Sterile potting mix is a must if you don't want damping off or other diseases to kill your seedlings. Our grow lights are kept close to (not touching) the plants. They're mounted on chains so we can adjust them as the plants get taller. We use shop lights and full spectrum florescent bulbs. Grow light bulbs are good if you can find them.

Our onion sets are in (red, yellow, and white) and their green tops are poking through the soil. Seeds have been planted for carrots, lettuce, radishes, kohlrabi, bok choy and other greens. Potatoes are scheduled to go in this weekend. Squash, cucumbers, corn, and melons will wait for warmer weather.

My energy is coming back again. I've been spinning. Here's some rainbow merino I finished this week. (2 oz/437 yards). I've spun this for long color runs like Noro. Now to find the right design to knit it up. My friend Jamie sent me some more lovely batts to spin. She's getting a drum carder for her birthday. I sent her a huge box of fiber to play with. :)

I've completed a bunch of new designs--two felted bags, a baby bib, a drop stitch stole (similar to a Clapotis), and a new take on the flower washcloth (mine is knit in one piece from the outside in). Here are pics of a few of them. All of these have to be test knit before they are released. Some projects have names and others are waiting to be named.

May is always a very busy month for me. Mother's Day is Sunday, closely followed by my SIL's birthday, hubby's birthday, our 17th wedding anniversary, my mom's birthday, and ending the month with my dad's birthday. Whew! I've been shopping for cards and trying to figure out what to give to everyone. Hubby's gifts were ordered online yesterday. I'm crossing my fingers they arrive in time. I'm covered for my SIL as I have some things put back for her. Mom and Dad will probably get cash. Parents can be so hard to buy for. :)