In progress

Settling back in after a weeklong visit to the family we rarely see these days, I've been muddling along on redesigning and learning again.
My present victim is a baby sweater that I'm sort of creating as I go. Yup, there are flaws in the design, but that's how I learn new methods.


The other pic is of a disastrous choice of yarns (it was all I had at hand when I decided to tinker with things..) and will live forever in the UFO basket. I'm remaking it with softer, prettier yarn.

Trip

Our Genealogy Trip to Mo

This is our trip to rediscover family connections, add to the Tree and enjoy new people.

Family pictures

A grouping of women thru time.

The old town, Charleston, Mo

Much as it was long ago.

Yesterday, my DH found some huge, fresh shrimp and brought home a couple pounds, I already had a lovely wild salmon on hand...
So last night was a wonderful and easy dinner! Broiled salmon on a bed of rice with a layer of sliced onions, a layer of sliced lemons, my own special sauce that has been altered to use olive oil instead of butter (it's healthier and tastes good!), shrimp scampi a la' Mom..it's all about the olive oil, garlic, Pescino, paprika, and a couple other little dashes of this and that, and finally sprinkled with freshly (and finely) grated parmesan. A side of fresh greenbeans crowned with pearl onions and crusty bread to dip. Sounds complicated, but it's one of the easiest things to fix! And fast and such a pretty dish! Our son and his tot drove up exactly as I was taking it out of the oven. How does he do that??
Okay, chortling and tummyrubbing done...been thinking about some of my knitting projects. There's been a dismaying number of disasters in my "redesigning" projects. The most recent was discovering I had carefully knitted the front parts of a baby cardigan and...they were both the left side. Rip, rip, rip....
The other cardigan, the one done in that gorgeous Sonata cotton...yeah that one. The button band refuses to pick up properly. Did I slip that first stitch of every row just so it'd pick up perfectly? Yep. It's a perfect and neat selvage. Does it work? Nope.
Solution so far...I knitted a separate button band using a provisional cast on just to see what was going on. Haven't tried to put it all together yet, I'm waiting for my knitting disposition to improve. Meantime, am over halfway thru knitting a warm, wool sock while I consider things. It's entirely possible that I'm far too tempted to leap into a new project and have been woolgathering instead of paying attention to the cardigan. (Yep, I said that..you may now all groan in unison.) And part of the problem is that I have three new knitting books. One of those I bought just for one particular pattern in it. I love 'em all, but that pattern...I love it. It has no diagram and goes strangely in one direction then the other, I'm not certain I understand the pattern at all...but I want it on my needles asap. Gotta try it! This might be one of those week-long learning curves.

July Color!

It's July and the colors are blue/violet. Hmmm...from my favorite and battered chair by the window with it's violet flowers, I see...a beautiful spill of fabric as I knit a sock with bright violet needles! There are grapes in the kitchen and out on the deck my ice cream maker cranks out something wonderful for a hot summer day, to go with a bit of blackberry cobbler for a grandchild.
And to start the day just right...
three new books arrived in the mail!

oops..

Postponing my anxiety fit til next week. Somehow I misread that calendar? Not unusual, just ask my family...
On the other hand, a package arrived with a few spare dpn's to take with us, I find I love those Bryspun dpns. And hopefully a couple books from Alibris will get here this coming week, so Corky won't have a chance to chew the box to shreds while I'm not here.
For the trip, I bought a nice box to hold the knitting neccessities. It has a handy top thingie where I can put the smaller notions, and the bottom thingie for yarn and such immediately fell apart soon as it was home. *sigh* My new shoes are wonderful tho!
Halfway through the first sock for Theresa...nice warm wool! She loves keepsakes, which is good, since as soon as she forgets they're handwash only and throws them into the machine they'll felt into cute little Christmas tree ornaments....

Tomorrow...tomorrow...

...We'll be off to Missouri and Tennessee!
My husband Allen and I are going to visit family, fill out more on the family tree he's been doing for a long time (it's becoming an epic), see new sights.
It's been rainy all week here and because pickup trucks and men go together like peanutbutter and jelly, I'm curious to see how a suitcase repels water. My beloved old van faithfully took us everywhere for years, daily trips thru Atlanta and beyond, even to California and once to New Orleans. It's tired and not as reliable as it used to be. Therefore...this time it's the truck. That utterly male and impractical vehicle. All you truck lovers need not tell me how wonderful trucks are, tell the kids that. It's the van they always want to borrow for moving, rambling, shopping, towing boats and trailers. It's a big service van. No fancy stuff..and I want another one just like it!
This will leave our son and a two year old grandson in charge of the house, three cats (one is a young lunatic, two are elderly persnickety aunties) a parrot that loves pizza, three dogs (plus a stray that has deposited a litter of cuties under Allen's woodturning shop) a flock of chickens, eggs they've hidden in unique and imaginative places....this frightens me just a little. Will the house still be standing in a week?
Will my computer still function? Do I have enough dishes to last them a week? I will be clutching my cellphone and praying the whole time we're away. I'm taking a stash and needles with me, plenty of sock yarns and hopefully two new books from Alibris will get here today to keep me occupied on the drive. One has a nifty baby sweater I want to knit!

Family ties

Well..as much as the family disrupts my attempt at a sedentary mode, we missed our oldest daughter very much over the fourth of july dinner. She's been recovering from a bit of surgery that followed the complications after Anna's birth. It was a lovely weekend, but there was definitely a large piece missing with Theresa and her family not here.Sometimes I'm guilty of seeing the crowd as a constant and maybe don't appreciate each individual within it as much as they deserve. Maybe it's way too easy to fall into this, especially when faced with a half dozen tots holding out plates at once. But that's a reason...there's no excuse for it.
I think I'll go knit her some prayer socks. She's not a shawl person.