Sunday, April 26, 2009

And It Continues...

We're having a heat wave and all the windows are closed, and I'm hot and tired and we are still painting. And washing and ironing curtains while they're down, and we might as well mop the floor while all the furniture is moved, and this would be a good time to change the slipcovers on the couch, and the windows are dirty and we can really get at them now, wow, the blinds are really dusty. I'm almost too tired to knit and I'm not sure when to start the decreases on the clapotis. Has anyone used the rule of fifths? Did it work?



Monday, April 20, 2009

The Year of the Paint

Last year was the year of the floors. Mr. Truck put all new floors in our house, beautiful cherry downstairs, rosewood upstairs, marble in the condo bathrooms, leftover cherry in the condo kitchen and tile in the entryway. This year is the year of the paint. We used to have a painter named Juan. He was wonderful and then he moved back to Costa Rica to become a land baron. Now I've become Juanita and Mr. Truck is Juan, Jr. We are not as good as Juan. And much messier. But we're cheap. This weekend we painted the dining room, well it's really a dining area, in the condo. We finished the living room and hallway last time. We have a really good way of picking paint. When the fancy-schmancy mall where Mr. Truck works has something painted, which is all the time, there is always leftover paint. Mr. Truck says, "I have 2 gallons of Benjamin Moore HC 83 left, do we like it?" And I look at this.




If we like it, it's ours for free. This is what HC 83 aka Bennington Gray looks like. I see no gray. More of a khaki, but I like it.





Of course there was some knitting. I'm making a Clapotis out of this wonderful yarn. It is heaven to knit.






My amazing spoiler in the Outlander Swap, angoraspinner, spun this beautiful yarn and gave me all these amazing presents, too. I love them all but the handspun is just amazing. Thank you so much, Sally!






Next, we're moving onto our upstairs, but that's a whole nother story.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

H is for Home

When we first looked at our house in 2001 it looked like this. Not too promising, but I had a feeling. We had already sold our other house and didn't have a lot of time to find a new one. Mr. Truck and I drove around the towns we were interested in and wrote down addresses and Realtor phone numbers. Then we came up with a list to go see. This was the last on the list.



Undeterred by the Sleeping Beauty bushes, we walked in and I immediately knew this was our house. It took Mr. Truck a bit longer but he finally said, "I can live here." The kids, especially the girls, were not as sure. They were worried about the location, the landscaping and, with good reason, the paint. I could only see the front porch, the chestnut trim, the rope pulley original windows and the breakfast nook, the floor plan that was so much like my grandma's house. Later I noticed the 1958 pink bathroom. Well, we still have the pink bathroom but a lot has changed. The Sleeping Beauty bushes were the first to go. And we love our home. It may not be our forever home, but for now it is just right.


Craftsman Style Bungalow c. 1929

Monday, April 13, 2009

March Square or the Tale of an Old Sweater

A very long time ago, it must have been about 1982 I think, I was given a gift of an Irish sweater. It was made for me by a lady in Ireland and I've worn it ever since. I've darned a few holes and gotten a few stains on it since then but it's still in pretty good shape although it's gotten another hole this winter that I have to work on. It's big on me and sometimes I use it like an afghan. I've tried to figure out how it was knitted and I think it was done from the top down with raglan shaping and the sleeves were done in the round because there are no seams, although I guess it could be bottom up, too. The ribbing is twisted which gives it a cable look. It must be aran weight because it weighs a ton.





It still has it's original tag.







It has beautiful cables in it but I've always liked this honeycomb pattern the best.





So for my March square in the Year in a Blanket KAL, I tried to recreate it. I used the Woven Circles III pattern from The Harmony Guide and a six row cable on each side. I think it came out pretty close.



I'm really enjoying this afghan, it takes a bit of time to decide what to do and then each square has taken two evenings to knit. I may change my mind at the end of the year when I'm seaming them all together, but for now it's a nice project without any pressure.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Saturday, April 4, 2009

IRL

Mr. Truck calls all of you my imaginary friends but I know you don't really live in my computer. I haven't met many of my friends from Ravelry IRL, but the weekend before last I met Allison. She's from Rehoboth Beach, DE where we have our vacation condo and she just opened an LYS. It's an amazing thing she's done, just a sweet shop. And she was nice enough to let me take pictures. Kitschy Stitch is the name of the shop and it's in a cute little house just off the main street.


Allison was so friendly and she has the store looking just darling. She has some beautiful yarn and some fabric and a big table for knitting groups. She has classes and she's having a KAL, I think. I'm hoping she's going to have something for World Wide Knit in Public Day because I'd love to go.










Allison was nice enough to let me pet all her yarn and I bought this. I think I've found my new favorite LYS.


Thursday, April 2, 2009

We have a Winner

I want to thank all of you that entered my little contest. I am overwhelmed by all the really good ideas and nice complements so I let BDE pick. Then she was overwhelmed but she finally decided on Courtney's Bit of Blue suggested by Katerina . Katerina, please email me: knttingalone at gmail dot com with your address so I can send you the prize. I think I've thanked everyone by email or on your blogs but there are a few I couldn't contact so thank you Traci and both of the Anonomous, too. And again, I want to thank you all for reading and commenting and complementing, it always makes me so happy to hear from everyone.

Marie at Knitted Gems Designs gave me an award with really simple rules. I love Marie's blog and I'm so honored that she picked me.






Rules - List 7 things I love, and award 7 Blogs I love.

7 things I love:
Mr. Truck
Our children
Our grandchildren (maybe those two should trade places)
Our dogs and cat (and all those before them)
My garden
Books
Knitting and all the new friends it's brought me.

7 blogs I love
this one is really hard because I've found a bunch of new ones through my little contest so, in no particular order

Harpa J
mareyb
Mary
Becky
Kim
Yasmin
Kathy