April Begins

Feeling better this week, thank you very much.  And thank you for comments and prayers.  Sandra, I empathize and sympathize with you for not allowing yourself to be caught up in time consuming efforts at the expense of not getting done what you need to accomplish. Thank you for your email.

Favorite recipe last week from Lee Drummond, Pioneer Woman, for Sunshine Muffins.  Pretty good, a happy yellow muffin with marmalade. Recipe here.  My old stand by recipe is quicker, but not quite as tasty. Gene made beans with ham and a tasty casserole last week, good for taking to the manor.

On April 1, I planted 144 seeds in plastic seed starters for yellow and red cosmos to go into our newly expanding Flower Bed, seen here two years ago when the Delancey Cardigan was knit up.  It will be increased in size by 100 %, to about 10 feet by 4 feet.

Received a dozen 5"x7" gessoed panels to paint from saved pins on Pinterest.  Amazon also provided a like number of mattes in white for pop in pictures.  Yesterday they all received a coating of acrylic peach paint, readying them for images.

On Saturday I saw "Hello, It's Me, Doris" with Sally Field.  It was a time to get out and see how the world and its occupants viewed our first day of warmer weather.  Gave the movie a B+; hard to see Gidget get older, but she kept her charm in tact.



Julie starts her eighth day in bed with a new wound care regime to help heal.  The director of nursing at the manor (DON) and I will be having a serious discussion about getting Julie out of bed and into her wheel chair for at least two hours a day.  It is not good to have her just lie in bed in her room for days at a time, no matter what the DON says.  

We shall see how that idea fares today.

Orange-Grey Delancey Cardigan

After eight months in knitting process, it is finished.  "It" being the cardigan begun in the low lights of December last year.

 Yup, it is a l-o-n-g...sweater.

 With an orange grosgrain button band attached to the back of the front buttons for stability.

Orange flower buttons on the front.

And pretty orange cosmos from our gardens!

(information about this project here; with prior posts about Delancey Cardigan here and here)

Joining in with Natural Suburbia for Creative Friday and Fiber Arts Friday to share finished projects.

Waiting

After six weeks of waiting, I called Knit Picks today to check on a back order of Swish yarn this morning. Their back order was due on May 15, but I had not received an email notifying me it was in stock. Going back to March, while knitting up the Delancey Cardigan, I was just five rows short of completion on the button band when the last of the yarn was used up.  So I immediately went online to order another skein, only to learn it was on back order.  The sweater was begun in January, was knitted through March, and now likely will not be completed until June.  It is like an albatross on my back, but the end seems to be in sight now.

Progress on the Shetland Lace Shawl: have finished the body of the shawl and am on to the edging!  I have joined these groups on Ravelry, all favorites since my trip to Shetland: Shetland Textile Museum, Jamieson & Smith Lovers and the Shetland Guild... This is my second Shetland Lace Shawl and it knits up beautifully.

This will continue to be my work in progress tomorrow, Wednesday.  Lots of people are joining in, and it is always fun to see what others are doing.  THIS is the link.

Back to Shetland.  Remember Ann Cleeves, the author I have talked about before on this post?  Am now reading her latest in the Shetland series, Dead Water.  The main character, Detective Perez, has a White Wife beer, brewed on Unst at the Valhalla Brewery.  It made me smile to know I had also imbibed of that brand of beer while learning the story of the mysterious slaying of the woman for whom the beer was named. Love that beer!  Love Cleeves!

Spring means a new haircut! I was going for the Dame Judi Dench look, but still need the hair to go white.

The Judi look:

The Nancy look:

How is your spring going?

Knotty Little Problem

Not really a problem so much as a frustration.  The arm stripes on the Delancey Cardigan do not match with one another. Likely the reason is that I was distracted and did an enormous number of short rows, about 20 too many, on the right sleeve.  But since the left sleeve is coming along nicely, I have canoodled over the problem enough to realize that I can simple cut a thread on the right sleeve cap after the appropriate number of short rows, create a provisional cast on, unravel enough grey to match the left side, and then when it counts/looks more or less right, graft that left sleeve together again. And toss that extra yarn.  Maybe.

For today, a completed pair of Teeny Tiny Mary Janes, courtesy of Knitsofacto.

Linking with Fiber Arts Friday.


Next week the husband will make bread (his blog is here and his bread recipes are here and here).  He has a bread with pumpkin added in that he wrote about here.  Gene has a great recipe for pita bread here.  He has Ciabatta Bread written out also!  His recipes (truly his own) are a blog post in themselves, but go take a look at his Grand Life Food & Cooking.

I'll stir up a crock pot of taco soup for our Lutheran Church and its weekly Lenten soup lunches after noon services and we will contribute bread and soup for the communicants.

The taco soup I like not only has the traditional tomatoes, beef, hominy, several beans, etc. but also adds some Ranch Dressing (dry) and lots of spices.  Maybe too spicy for the older crowd?   There are usually about 30 people who stay for lunch after the noon service, mostly retired codgers like ourselves.  (Last week we did have a few kids and parents there as well, probably because is was Spring Break for the school district.)

The wind has been blowing mightily and the leaves are everywhere.  Here is one last look at our back area from the porch.  I'll try my hand at painting a picture of the bare tree trunks with light and shadows.

Looking forward to next week's art show over the weekend at

PALISADE ART LOVERS  

34th ANNUAL PEACH  BLOSSOM ART SHOW

April 10th-13th, 2014

George Callison will be the main judge.

What is on your agenda?

Cornbread, Cardigans and Canines

A few days ago, I shared some cornbread with a friend.  The recipe had absolutely no flour in its list of ingredients, so I figured it would be good for her "no gluten whatsoever" current diet plan.  Warning her that it would be very filling and loaded with calories because of the butter and cheese involved in its makeup, she willingly took it. Click for recipe.

The next day she e-mailed me and said something like "thanks for the cornbread...very light and delicious." Thought that was hilarious as she obviously had not even taken a bite of that dense cornbread.

On to my cardigan knitting, the Delancey Cardigan found here. It has stripes that point downwards with a chevron stripe motif which makes it a flattering style.  Thinking I had memorized the pattern well enough to continue knitting on and on, I later found out (and too late!) that I had missed a "slip two, knit one" at the beginning of the side, so had to rip out an hour's worth of work.

It actually could have been worse, since when knitting the Delancey I was watching the latest episode of "Downton Abbey", not really paying much attention to the knitting.  Friend Jan said the Brits were a bit up in arms about that episode with Anna Bates being victimized.  You can see an interview with Anna (Joanne Froggat) at this link as both she and writer Julian Fellowes discuss the episode. It's a wonder I got even a stitch made since the episode caught me in its emotional and visual grasp.

Of course, I was using my shrinky dink Downton Abbey knitting markers with the tv up loud and clearly empathizing with Mr. Bates.

I do have a few markers left from when I made them last year, so if you want two, I'll send you them postage paid.  Just leave a comment telling me your favorite actor from the series. Will draw from comments for the winner if there is more than one reader interested.

And the canines?  They are an expensive pair this month as BOTH had to have their annual check ups, vaccinations and dental cleanings.  We are not the first to think the IRS should give us a tax break on their medical expenses.

"We are cute and our teeth are clean."

Reading The Gravity of Birds, courtesy of sister Pam.  Sewing on a Vogue Pattern ( 8731).  What are you up to?