Day on the town

We had a wonderful outing on Wednesday to Sheep's Clothing in Valparaiso. This was our group. We traveled in two cars. You can see that it was a nice sunny afternoon. It showered while we were in the shop, but I barely noticed, I was so busy shopping.



This is the result of some of my shopping, my skeins are being wound into yarn cakes. Don't you love the color?



I ended up planning 3 projects. This project is for a felted tote bag. The turquoise is the main color, but it has crocheted flowers, leaves, and tendrils all over the top.

I ordered some gorgeous yarn and a knitting book to make my black lacy shawl. I will have to do some practice swatches to learn the pattern before I start knitting with my good yarn. I hope I have not bitten off more than I can chew. I will share my swatching progress. My "Knitting for Dummies" book has a simple lace sampler, so I am thinking it would be a good plan to work that, just to be clear on the different stitches needed for knitting lace.

My third project is a double knit scarf, you can see the pattern here. This is a complex project too, so it might take a while. There is enough yarn for 2 scarves, and there are two patterns I like so that works out great. People in my knitting group know how to make this, so if I run into trouble I know where to get help. I have the yarn for the tote bag, so that will be the first one to start... or I could start the lace swatching.

(In the mean time, I have an urgent request to make a pom-pom humming bird. I will try to get progress pictures of that as well.)

I finished the SAL (Stitch-along) temari from 4 weeks ago this morning. This is a kiku stitch on a s16, alternating regular and modified stitches on the alternating petals. One side started light and went to the dark.




This side started dark and went to the light.



The stitching was so intense on this, there is not room for any obi stitching. I love this set of nile green; it is DMC 910, 911, 912, 913, and 954. There is a 909 (darker) in the series, but I am not sure it comes in a Pearl #5. I remember using this color as the main color in a baby sampler (years and years ago).

I am please with how this one turned out. Now to the next one on the list! I still have to complete my GITS exchange! I better get busy.

Two finished projects!

I have two projects to share with you today. The first is a small stitched notebook cover that was a guild project for HEG, designed by my friend Moonsilk Stitches. The little dragonfly is made from memory thread, the little flowers are ribbon, and the whole thing is made out of felt. I didn't follow the directions very carefully, and ran out of thread to make the top and the bottom edging the same, but I like it a lot, all the same. I think it will be very useful in my purse.



I also finished my kitchen hand towel.



The skein of this thread I bought is huge, so you will see more projects as well. I am thinking dishcloths?

I have two outings planned for this week. Tomorrow I am going to a yarn shop with my knitting group! I decided on Sunday I would like a lacy black shawl to put over my shoulders in church... I have never knit lace, but there is no time like the present to get started. I was having fun today looking for lacy shawl patterns on line, and I found several I like, but I won't decide on one until I see what they have at the store.

On Friday I am going to the Midwest Fiber Festival, knitting, felting, spinning, etc. I am getting more and more excited about that. You know how much I like felt! I will try to get pictures and I will share my adventures with you!

Talk to you later!

Reading

I have been reading a lot in the last couple of weeks. On my trip up to the University of Chicago, I picked up a collection of all the Father Brown stories by Chesterton. They are a little bit like the Sherlock Holmes stories, except that Father Brown uses psychological inductive reasoning instead of physical clues. I enjoyed the series a lot!

Then I had picked up a collection of the Anne of Green Gables stories, all the books in the set. It totalled 1434 pages on my Nook! I found the stories very interesting... I have read them several times before, but this time instead of identifying with Anne (like when I was a girl) I identified with Marilla. It gave a whole different flavor to the stories, and a lot of different insights. I must say, I enjoyed the stories a lot!

Then I read a couple of the Elm Creek Quilts books. There are at least 16 books in that series, but they do not come in a set. They are individually priced for my nook, at about the top limit I like to pay for electronic books. The first one was "Winding Ways Quilt" in paperback that Moonsilk Stitches loaned me. I enjoyed that one so much that I picked up "Aloha Quilts" for the nook, and read that in one evening. That one was even better!

Today I have been reading "Intrigues" by Mercedes Lackey. I read almost everything she writes, but only have one or two books of hers on my Nook. That would be another author I would like to have the complete collection of, but again, since they are newer books I cannot pick up a complete collection for just pennies, like I can for the older authors. I will just have to pick up one or two at a time. Hopefully some of the older books will be more discounted.

I have been reading "The Book Thief," and "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Help" but I am having trouble sticking to those. I do want to finish all three of them, but ever since I was young I have disliked too much suspense. I would hide behind a chair when a TV show got too exciting, and I HATE horror movies. In a hand-held book I can glance ahead a couple of pages to make sure everything is going to turn out okay, so I can keep going, but with the Nook, or an audio book, I haven't discovered how to do that. So the reading languishes until I can power through.

I have a couple of Debbie Macomber books (paperbacks) that people from knitting group are sharing in my "next" pile. Some of her stories are about knitters who solve mysteries... fun!

What are your favorite books and/or authors?

I will have pictures of some stitching tomorrow, I promise!