Another month gone

Two more to go this year. They'll be busy ones, with holidays and such.

I started off the month by hitting my little toe on a chair leg when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. That hurt! It still hurts when I walk on it. However, it didn't really bother me when driving, even though it is on my right foot. I'd have stayed home, except that I had promised out assistant rector that I'd talk to the 5- and 6-year-olds about prayer shawls. I sure am glad that there is an elevator to take me up to the classroom. I don't do stairs well anyway; I'm sure it would have been worse today. I felt a bit weird wearing sandals in November, but I think they looked better than sneakers, and other shoes just wouldn't do.

I can rest (read: sit with my foot up and knit) tomorrow, but on Tuesday and Wednesday I'll spend a few hours playing with my great-grandson, Brady. He's a sweetheart, but he IS a 3-year old boy. About a week and a half ago, when I was there with him, he brought a game of Sorry! out of his big brother's room. He was really cute 'reading' the cards and moving his piece every which way. He'll learn eventually, but I think it's his parents and older siblings (ages 14 and 12) who need to teach him.

I am still here!

Since I've been on FaceBook, I haven't been posting here very much. I don't post there much either, though.

I continue to knit a lot. Let's see if I have a few pictures from the last two months.

Well, only two of my knitting, it seems. I know I've done more than that, just haven't taken pictures.

The hat is just a fun project in some bright yarn that jumped into my cart in Hobby Lobby one day.
The sweater is one I started for great-granddaughter Rose six months ago. I finally gave it to her at her birthday party last Saturday. It is knit in fingering-weight yarn on size 2 needles. The fronts are in a stitch pattern that drove me nuts. That's the reason I kept setting it aside and doing other things. I did the back in reverse stockinette with a row of cable 'bows' down the middle - much easier.

Although I gave her the sweater at her birthday party, it wasn't really her gift. I had already given her a book we had talked about months before. The book is called "Grounded; Adventures of Rapunzel" by Megan Morrison. A friend of mine drew the map that is in the back of the book, so I had heard about it long before it came out. I told Rose about it one day, and she was interested in reading it. I bought it in June (shortly after it was released), read it and put it away to wait for her birthday. About a month before her birthday, they were visiting me and she asked if the book was out yet. I asked if she'd like her birthday present early. Dumb question; of course she would, so I told her where to find it. She had it read loooong before her birthday.

My daughter, Carmen, has been in the process of moving in with me since July; she's back in NJ right now for a couple of weeks. This month, she made two fancy cakes for her two grandchildren born in October. I do have pictures of them.

Brady turned 3 on the 8th. His cake has a Halloween theme. He and a little friend had their shirts off while they ate so they wouldn't get them dirty.

Rose turned 10 (double digits) on the 26th, but we celebrated on the 24th. The thing she wanted most was to go roller skating. That's the reason for the roller skate on the top of the cake. I don't know why she has such a funny smile in this picture. She did get to go roller skating - twice, I think.

Another happening during October was the annual Fall festival at the dance school. 3-year-old Lily is taking dance this year, as well as Rose. Rose started about that age, too. The Fall festival is always the first year kids first time dancing in front of an audience. It is in a little courtyard beside the dance school, so nothing too scary. Lily's group danced to "Ding, dong, the witch is dead" from The Wizard of Oz. Lily got to be Dorothy this time, because they had the costume from her other older sister, Kyra.

I'm not sure what the song Rose's group danced to is called, or exactly what she is; I guess just a ghoulie or 'shade' of some kind.

Their Grammy, Carmen, said she thought Lily made up her own dance. I think all of the little ones always do. The teacher is always on the sidelines doing what they are supposed to, but they forget to watch her.

Some things that have been keeping me busy

They'll all be donated somewhere, except the hooded cape for an American Girl doll. I found that half done, probably by my granddaughter, and finished it as I assumed it should be. I'll need to find out which great-granddaughter it should go to.

Family Reunion

I could have sworn that I posted once in July, but I guess I was preparing for the family reunion.

Some of my cousins did a fantastic job planning this event.

There was tubing on the Crow Wing River:

I didn't go on this one.

A golf scramble:

I don't golf.

Watching and participating in farm chores:

Orren is the farmer.

Mattie helped milk.

The kids all enjoyed feeding the calves.

And riding in the big tractor.


They also enjoyed the rope swing in the hay mow.

As well as just sitting up high.

There was square dancing one evening.

A few people even had the right clothes.

After the dancing, there was fireworks.

One afternoon, there was a large slip 'n' slide.

The family farm has been recognized as a 'MN Century Farm.' My grandparents bought it in 1913, and it has been owned and worked by family members since then.

The center part of the barn is 100 years old. It now has this sign on it.

Of course, as with any family reunion, there was food (several times)

and plenty of just sitting around, talking.

Then there were the 'official' pictures, done by a professional photographer.

This is the 'Ethel' branch. We have lavender shirts, because that was Mother's favorite color.
Front row: my niece Autumn's sons, Aidan and Liam, and my great-granddaughter Alexis.
Middle row: Autumn, my sisters, Renee (Autumn's mother) and Pauline, and me.
Back row: Autumn's husband Matt, Renee's husband Michael, Pauline's daughter Debra, and my daughter Carmen.

And here is the whole group. I think the photographer's idea of having us on the large piece of playground equipment was a good one.

Calla's blanket, etc.

This is the blanket I made for my eighth great-grandchild. Today was the due date, but she hasn't arrived yet. The theme of the blanket was determined by her name. I looked at pictures of calla lilies on-line and made a small sketch of three from different angles. I scanned the sketch into Print Shop, enlarged it, and printed it out on graph. I started the blanket from the bottom, working her first name upside-down in shadow/illusion knitting, then did the flowers in the intarsia method, working loosely from the graph. At one point, I was working with seven ends of yarn across each row - they didn't get TOO tangled. I worked the bottom of the flowers in stockinette stitch and the top part in seed stitch. That gives a little difference in texture in the two sections, and is what causes a difference in shade in the picture. After finishing the flower part, I knit the name right side up in shadow/illusion knitting. Then I picked up stitches along the sides and knit her middle name on one side and her last name on the other side. (The illusion knitting appears as narrow stripes when looking at it head-on; the pattern shows up when looking at an angle.) After all of the knitting was done, I duplicate stitched the stems and leaves, working 'free hand.' I'm pleased with the way it turned out, but I wish I had used a size smaller knitting needle.

When I went to Hobby Lobby to buy another skein of the darker green (I couldn't believe they actually had one skein of the same dye lot I had bought more than a month before!) to finish the blanket, several multi-color yarns jumped into my basket and asked me to make them into hat and mitten sets to donate to kids at the local school in October. Here are the ones I've completed so far.

And finally, some tiny slippers for Calla and matching ones for big, three-year-old sister Lily.

They arrived!

You're probably asking, "What in the world are they?"
About a month ago, on KnitTalk Yahoo! Group, a woman said she was going to an estate sale that was advertized as having a lot of knitting stuff. I wondered if there would be any all-nylon, circular knitting needles. She asked what sizes I was interested in and I said any size, any length. These 17 are what she found for me.
These needles are apparently no longer made. I had bought several back in the 60's or 70's, and have realized recently that I like them much better than some of the more expensive needles I have. There are duplicates, but then I usually have several projects going at once.

Graduation

My oldest great-granddaughter graduated from Massac Junior High School, Metropolis IL, last night.
Here she is with her mother. The stole reads Valedictorian. There were 13 of them out of a class of 140 something. We are all very proud of her. In addition to being smart and pretty, she's friendly and just a nice kid.

As I was walking from my car to the school building (the graduation was held at the high school because its gym is larger), a woman passed me wearing a beautiful shawl. After a couple of seconds I thought, "That shawl looks familiar  - I think I made it." When I got inside, the woman was talking with two or three others. I touched her arm and asked, "Do you teach math here?" She answered, "Yes, well not here, but at the junior high." I said,"I thought I recognized the shawl; I'm Lexi Gill's great-grandmother." She said that she loves the shawl and that Lexi is a delight to have in class.

After the ceremony, Lexi showed me a thank you note she had gotten from her science teacher for the shawl Lexi had given her. I had forgotten that Lexi had requested two. (I make shawls when and how I want to, and the great-grandkids pick out which ones they want to give to their teachers.)

This in the one Lexi gave to the math teacher

I love this picture of it being modeled by almost-three-year-old Lily - her first shawl modeling experience. See how the front corners are dragging the ground? I'm not sure if the one Rose is modeling has gone to a teacher or not. I know Lexi said the one she gave the science teacher is pink and white, but there is also this pink and white one.

Lexi said that Devin has selected a pink and brown one for his teacher, so it must be this one

I am still here.

Ruth told me today that Diane told her to remind me that I haven't posted here for a long time. She's right!

When I started this blog 8 1/2 years ago, I thought it would be about my knitting. Then a couple of months later, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, and it switched to mostly medical stuff. The Myeloma has been  in remission now for almost five years. I only see the oncologist and have blood work done every six months, so there's not any medical stuff to write about.

Soooo, I guess I need to write more about my knitting and other fiber-related things. I just scrolled back and discovered that I haven't posted any shawl pictures since August. Shame on me! Let me try to catch up.

This one I also did in August. While I had it on the needles, it reminded me of a pumpkin.

It looks like I did only hats in September. I know that's not true, but I guess I didn't take pictures of everything. And most of these pictures are blurry.

I was really pleased with the way this shawl turned out. I call it my Threes Shawl for several reasons. First because of the three triangular sections. Second because the stitch pattern is 'squares' that are three stitches wide and six rows long; half of the squares are garter stitch, so that means three ridges. Then, when I ran out of the pink yarn, I did not have the number of stitches needed for the border pattern I wanted to use, so I started the white border with three two-row eyelet pattern repeats. Finally, I wound up using the leftovers of three white skeins, with only a small amount remaining of the third ball.

I did a few hats in October, as well.

I actually used someone else's pattern for this shawl - some of my friends think I must be sick when I do that. My model didn't want to show her face; maybe because the shawl doesn't go well with her shirt.

This is another one of my Diagonal Pinstripe shawls; Lexi is again hiding her face with her hair.

I also completed two Christmas stockings - one for a grandson-in-law and the second for my new great-grandson.

I think that's all for last year; I'll report on this year in the next couple of days.