Laburnum

Specs:

Pattern: Laburnum
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport
Needles: Size 2 US Inox dpn's
Method:
Size: Women's size 9 1/2
Started: February 5, 2007 Finished: May 31, 2007

Twisted German Cast-On over 72 stitches with Eye of Partridge heel and grafted toe.

Blocking and awaiting buttons purchased today.


I took the Bosworth Midi I bought at SAFF for spin with the Mojave merino purchased the same day. It was fun to be spindling again and the roving is making a lovely yarn but I'm am paying for it with the neck, shoulder and arm flaring up. This may turn out to be a definite no-no and I'm so not looking forward to getting rid of my spindles and wheel.

The View From Outside (In Pictures)

This afternoon I took a little tour around the house with camera in hand. With the lack of rain and rising temperatures it's quickly becoming a race against time to keep everything watered.


Oriental Lilies

Lantanas

Daylilies

Geraniums (They remind me of peppermint candy.)

Butterfly Bush

Tomato Blossoms

Closing In

A bit of seaming done off and on throughout the day and I'm down to the hard part. The pattern instructs you to pick up the border on left side and complete it. TheN you are to sew the right shoulder seam and pick up the right border and neckline and seam the left shoulder once the right side is complete. I'm going to do it all in one step tomorrow.

8 Things About Me

I've been tagged and in the words of Yargineer, " bring it with your bad self..."

1. I've always wanted to be a chef. To compensate I probably own about 100 cookbooks and I've made something from most of them. Asian, Italian, Greek, Thai you name it I'm game for it. If I'm cooking it's rarely soul food. I can't make biscuits to save my life and have given up trying. (Anything I set my mind to do I don't do it half-assed, besides it makes for some very interesting meals.)

2. From the age of about 30 to 36 I didn't knit hardly anything. My time was devoted to machine quilting, reading, logic and crossword puzzles. Things I love but rarely do any more due to knitting.

3. I also have a cross stitch stash, a quilting stash and a sewing stash. At one time I made most of my clothes and sewed for others as well. I considered becoming a Home Ec teacher before I went to college.

4. I'm an Applications Analyst and program in Informix 4gl and Coldfusion. I made my career change when I was fired by the USPS and it changed my life completely. My BS is in biology from Wofford College and I never used my undergrad degree. I've gotten more out of my AS in Information Technology which I received in 1999 from Midlands Technical College where I was inducted into the two-year college honor society Phi Theta Kappa.

5. I am a nerd. Hard as I try to deny it, in the core of my innermost being it's what I am. I've worked hard and long to erase that image of myself and for the most part have succeeded on the outside. It's fed by an inquenchable thirst to learn and I often get sidetracked when I'm checking out specific things by something interesting that comes across my path.

6. I've never been married, don't have any kids and don't see either of the two happening in my future. Too stubborn for one and too old for the other. (Technically I'm not too old for the kids but from my side of the fence I'm way-ayyyy too old.)

7. I have four siblings. We are boy, girl, boy, girl, boy. We tried to talk mother into having a sixth to make it even. Our ages are 47, 46, 44, 43 and 36. (I'm number two.) Only the boys have kids and there are eight of them. Four boys and four girls.
I'm a momma's girl. Rotten to the core. In case you haven't figured it out from reading this blog, I live with my mom. Moved back in 1995 and never left again. She takes care of me more than I take care of her and when the days are really bad healthwise I can't think of any place I'd rather be. She's my bestest friend!!!

8. People who know me either like me or they don't. I'm a straight-forward, pull no punches type of person, so if you don't want the truth don't ask. Truthfully I'm mostly bark and a little bite, but I can't stand and don't tolerate dishonesty.

There you have it. The down and not so dirty on Fiberitis.

***Note to self: Never post when dead tired. Edited to correct spelling of "thngs".

Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina...

On a beautiful spring day with a nice breeze blowing and a bunch of 7 and 8 year olds playing America's game. Even though they lost we had a great time cheering the Rangers on. It wasn't the start of the tournament as I'd thought but a rescheduled game due to testing in the schools.

I managed to capture a few shots of Jaylon in action tagging up and a surprise shot of him taking off for second base.



The biggest thrill for him was that his teacher came to the game. She had told him that if he had a game on Saturday she would come see him play.

Earlier this morning as we where getting ready for the day, Isaiah asked me to take something off of his "fingertoe." His fingertoe is his big toe and it had a little snag on it. I was tickled to hear him refer to his toes as fingers and if anyone asked him where his fingertoes were he'd immediately point to his feet. He's changed so much and is turning into quite the "big boy" stubborness and sweetness in the same package.

So for the third month in a row I've had a weekend with the boys. Darius and Jaylon joined us after the game for the shopping trip to Wally World to pick up goodies for grilling out today. The rest of their family,Dad Charles, Mom LaTina and sister Kayla joined us later for dinner. We all were stuffed, happy and sleepy. It's been a fabulous day!

Two Fronts at Once

Working both fronts at the same time isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I have managed to start knitting or purling back across the piece I just worked a couple of times and ended up with once piece about 3 rows longer than the other. The eyelets gave it away because they didn't line up correctly when the pieces where viewed side by side. I knitted on the shorter piece until it was the same length and I'm chugging right along.


After tonight there'll be a temporary knitting slow down. I'm picking up Isaiah after work for the weekend and that means very little free time. We're going to see Jaylon play in a baseball tournament on Saturday and to the Black Expo here in town afterwards. I'm hoping that he'l take a nap when we get back and I can sneak in a little knitting time. Once you get in the groove with a project you kinda hate to put it down.

The greenhouse at work has regular plant sales during the spring and summer. I bought 4 pots each of oregano, parsley and sage, two umbrella plants, a basil plant and some mint for $3.25 last Friday and have yet to plant them. I usually get pepper and tomato plants from them but my tomatoes are already planted and growing like crazy. Isaiah was totally fascinated watching me plant the tomatoes a couple of weeks ago. We're going to get our hands very dirty planting all these goodies in pots.

In case you can't tell this weekend is all about the 'saiah as he likes to call himself.

Daphne's Got Back

Hip, hip, hooray. This made my day or more appropriately my night.


I finished the back of Daphne last night. It took a few attempts to find the right short-row method. Some of them looked so wonky that I was almost ready to do the "stairsteps". I remembered that Nona posted a most excellent tutorial on short-rows a while back. (You can find it in the "Tips and Techniques" page, April 8, 2005).I opted for the Japanese short-row and it truly is far superior to any other method. I've never had shoulders look so good!

I've been doing some work from home this evening so there hasn't been any progress on the fronts. I'm going to cast them on tonight and yes I said them. My goal is to work both of them at the same time.

I've also realized that the sleeve caps are going to have to be re-done. I used full-fashioned decreasing and it cheated me out of some of the lacy lines that run up the sweater. They look so much better on the back fading away into the shoulders that to leave the sleeves in their current state would be cruel and unusual punishment not to mention just bad knitting period.