Toys

This is a fun widget. Kay showed it to me and found it here.

Tennis led to a personal injury last night. I airballed a serve and tweeked the tendon in my arm. Now I'm all whiney and it hurts when I do that. Pretty funny airballing a serve though. Had me giggling...Whoosh! We played two against the instructor and LOST. EVERY. GAME. Apparently 3 lessons may not be enough to hit the tennis circuit with the chance of any success.

With my injury I didn't progress on my knitting either so basically I have nothing to share! Maybe tomorrow.

Tennis Anyone?

I'm progressing positively with my tennis game. If I could get more of my serves OVER the net it would be better for my game. And if my opponents are keeping track all they need to do is force me to use my backhand and they're guaranteed points in their favor, but I'm not discouraged. The Williams sisters have nothing to fear-yet.
A new knitting project has arisen due to not being able to find one of my sweaters. My aran has hidden itself so I won't carry out the threat of removing the neckline for a redo. I also said rude things about the wool always looking dingy no matter how many times I soak it so it's feeling abused I'm sure. I made up the pattern myself featuring honecomb, rope and crab cables which all conveniently twist on the same row and will reuse said pattern for my new sweater. Instead of traditional off-white I'm using a blue heather Cascade 220. I didn't bother to take a pic of two rows, I'll save that for later. The two sweaters will look different (if the orginal ever shows up again.) due to the fact that the original was knit from the bottom up and the new one is being constructed from the top down. Only the crabby cables will be the tell.
With all these finished socks and sweaters I'm looking forward to cooler weather. Not that I want summer to end just yet but a week of day temps in the 70's and nights in the 50's wouldn't be so bad would it? It could even thunderstorm every 6 hours like it has been if it wants. I did spot a red maple leaf this morning-a little reminder of what is to come.

What I did on My Summer Vacation

A week away! Nothing planned so anything my little heart desired and weather permitting I did.

This was a double rainbow. Much prettier in real time, you can barely see it here.

A pair of socks with broken rib stitch pattern. Yarn-Plymouth Happy Feet. This pattern stitch can take up a bit of yardage-looks harmless enough though I'm glad I didn't start the pattern from the toe, the calf bit would have been too short for me.
Did some sewing and turned this into:
this! And if you look very closely to the glider in the background you will see Andrew lounging. My cats nap outside. How odd. They had a rather harrowing experience with a young german shepard on the loose. Andrew's tail never looked so big around before. Practically angora! It's all good, mom was there to shoo the offending pooch away. Back to the quilt, it started as a wall hanging. It now fits across a full size bed. My gameplan is to hand quilt maple leaves on the patches and a linear design along the borders. That'll take a while!
I'm happy to report that my bike still functions and we made it halfway on the bike path before we had to high-tail it back home due to --ANOTHER THUNDERSTORM. I know, hard to believe. I thought my legs were made of sawdust when I got off but relatively no muscle soreness. Tennis also went well and have another lesson tonight. Oh, I almost forgot!

Fireworks for the Christmas in July celebration held by the Boat Club at Barton's Cove. A view from my front porch, how convenient!

And that's how I spent my summer vacation.

Missed Wednesday, It's Thursday

Not that Wednesday was extraordinarily unruly but time got away as usual.

Today is mom's birthday.

Andrew helped her open her present-that cat can smell sock yarn a mile away. As a new sock knitter she was very excited. There's no photo cuz she was in her jammies and well, we have a rule at chez Miss Sandra, if your hair looks like you combed it with your pillow there will be NO photos.

I did zap a couple of my w.i.p. I swear this camera is on auto-blur.

Meet zip up cardi. When zipped to the top it will have a stand up turtleneck. I still need to get the proper length zipper. One thing bothers me. The colors are bright, summery, perfect for warm weather wear. What's bothering me is that it's worsted weight wool. Not perfect for warm weather wear. Is it going to look odd in the fall & winter? Apparently I think so. It fits perfect. No jog joins thanks to several websites and Ravelry tips on the subject. I'm one of those -NO WEARING WHITE AFTER LABOR DAY kinda New England gals. I'll just have to get over it or find a pair of white ski pants and make a fashion statement. Not like I've never done THAT before! Bev-stop laughing, I can hear you.

For some cosmic reason I made extra wide hem facings and it made quite a difference on how the sleeves and bottom hem hang. Good for me!

After reading Brooklyn Tweeds blog on tubular cast on I was quite intrigued so I investigated more. Definitely will give that a shot the next time I do a "bottom up" sweater.

I have to get everything cleaned up in the office today before I escape for a week. I am so looking forward to it I can't tell you.

Tuesday

I'm going on vacation next week and I'm trying to do a weeks worth of stuff in 4 days. I know I'm forgetting something. Not that the town will shut down or anything but the residents always feel so inconvenienced on a daily basis that I really don't wish to listen to additional whining when I get back. I haven't given a thought about what I want to do on my vacation. Just anxious to stay away from the job. I did sign up for tennis lessons that will start during my vacation. Why an over 40 knitting spinster with 2 cats would want to take up tennis is beyond me. I will take to it like I did golf and downhill skiing. I don't golf in the heat, rain, I have nothing to wear or whatever other excuse I can come up with. My lack of athletic enthusiasm shocks me to be quite frank because it's what I lived for prior to the knitting obsession. My car trunk holds all my sports equipment and clothing. I live in "outdoor recreation valley", bike path, cove for boating/fishing, hiking trails, cross country skiing...it's embarrassing! The fact that I have all this and I prefer to sit on my beehind manipulating wool--never would have crossed my mind 20 years ago. I have a school friend who just completed hiking 160 miles on the Long Trail in 16 days with her son and all I could think of was: "I couldn't go THAT long without full bathroom services." The visual of my hair without its daily shampoo/blow dry ritual...Heck, I couldn't go a day at this point. (well I could but don't WANT to. Oh my, this isn't helping.) I've got a whole week to tune up my 10-speed and hit that bike trail. Do you know where this bike has been? When I bought it I had it rigged with every bag available and rode it constantly. I used to travel to Galilee RI and get on the ferry to bike around Block Island. I would pack up my art supplies when I was in college and trek from Turners to Greenfield--EVERY DAY! (I hated taking public transportation that much.) Now where did I put my helmet?

Monday

I have crochet steeked the jacket and bought a zipper but I think it's going to be too short. The zipper that is. The Jacket is not fitted so I don't need to consider zipper bulges. And the steeks came out beautiful.

Progress

(this post will make no sense if you don't read the last one-just warning you.)
Now I have 3 shrubs shorter than the rest so we've kicked goofy looking front facade up another notch. Lawn maintenance was the order of the long holiday weekend in my neighborhood. Not a day went by without someone crankin' up the lawnmower or weed wacker to shatter the silence. Even the kid next door (30 year old that acts about 12) who allows the grass to grow 8" before doing a mow got his licks in late yesterday evening. Haying is more the word for it. But anyhoo...
My current Large project is a cardigan with a challenge: a zipper front. Why that strikes fear into me I do not know. I conquered cotton steeks for pity sakes! And if the zipper thing turns into a fiasco I can always do a button band. There, that should calm things.
It's kitty flea drop application time and the boys HATE it! It's the only time they run away from me and hide. I've never had any problem with my other cats. Beau walks around after the treatment squinting his eyes as if I put acid on him and the fumes are too strong for him to open them normal. Yes, I've checked the skin to make sure it's NOT burning them and it's fine. There must be a smell to it that I can't perceive but they can. I try to reason with them about the whole lack of flea business but has anyone had any success reasoning with a cat? They get over it, so do I.
I need to go buy a zipper.

Never ceases to amaze me. With all the cushions, rugs and a cat condo, the porch rail at 3" wide with one claw in the screen for support is the best sort of nap. Yes, Beau is sound asleep. I caught his head as it rolled off the rail but couldn't grab the camera AND cat to get that photo.

He woke up enough to readjust and allow me to go back to whatever menial thing I was doing.

Primarily it's sock knitting and sweating. There, my life in a nutshell. Every time I attempt to do something extraordinary outside like shrubbery trimming or weeding, the sky turns black, thunder rolls, I put away my toys and go inside. My front facade looks rather goofy with one shrub 6" shorter than the rest. Hard to tell what was trimmed on the rhododendrum but, there you go. I have 4 more to do. I have been a victim of weather.