November

Maskenball was finished a few months back.  Here it is:

We went to the Renaissance Fair in Bristol, Wisconsin on the Saturday before Labor Day.  It was fun.  Here's one of the rides there.  (We didn't go on any of the rides.)  We did look at the shops there (and bought an ocarina).  There was entertainment including jousting. 

Here is one of the presents we got for our kitties to celebrate the anniversary of their coming to live with us.  It's a spider plant.  We got it because we know cats love spider plants and also as a diversion because one of the cats likes to chew on cords.  This picture was taken right after we got it.  The plant's location now is under the Yankee table.

Maskenball almost finished

My daughter bought me some skeins of yarn when she was in Iceland over a year ago. It's lamb's wool, hand-dyed using plant dyes, from Hespa Dye Studio, Iceland. I love the yarn and the colors. My cats love it as well. It took me a while before deciding what pattern to use with the yarn. I finally decided on Maskenball in Venedig by Monika Eckert - a pattern I'd been meaning to make for years. (Monika is my favorite lace-shawl designer.) I decided to make a shawl with 5 sections/cake slices - and end when I ran out of yarn. I'm almost out of yarn in the middle of Clue 3. But, the shawl is a nice length. I love how it turned out.

March

It looks like last month's wind storm did more damage than we'd thought.  We took the kitties outside during the wind storm to show them that it was just wind - nothing scary - and saw that the wind had about taken off a large branch in back of the house.  It's hanging form the tree in the center of the picture.

Then today, we were looking around in front of the house and saw there was even worse damage.  A big tree in the front yard had almost lost 2 large branches.


On a happier note:  Happy pi day!  We made a chocolate meringue pie to celebrate the day.  Last month, I made a cherry pie to celebrate Washington's birthday.  I need to start making more pies.  We still have quite a few peaches to do something with.

I finished a new sweater for my DS2 for his recent birthday.  It's in Woolspun.


And, I'm no longer sure that thing's come in 3s as my MIL often said.  My DS2 stepped through the wood heating vent in the kitchen floor.  He didn't get hurt.  I was sitting down on a chair in the kitchen when a front leg came off.  I didn't get hurt, but we're going to get a new kitchen table and chairs.  (It's kind of sad to get rid of our old set.  We'd had them about 30 years, and they'd been with us on many moves.)  Our furnace stopped working, and we had to get a new one.  It was only just over a day that we were without heat.  But, I forgot about the trees.  Maybe they belong to another group of 3.

peaches!

Our peach tree outdid itself this year. After getting only half a dozen peaches a year, we got over 100 this yeaar! The peaches are cut up and frozen for pies. Even our apple tree bore fruit this year - 10 apples.

I'm proud of a sweater that I just recently finished. This is my first project involving duplicate stitching. I may wear the sweater only as a comfort sweater. I'll have to see how the knitting group I'm in reacts to the finished product. I've also finished the sweater I was crocheting - Tunisian crochet.

June

I feel old now.  As of this month, I'm officially old.  June was a cloudiest June in record as well.  And, I like sunny days (with, of course, some rainy days in between to make things interesting).

We have a new refrigerator.  I guess it's our anniversary gift to ourselves.  It's a Samsung.  I'm just glad that it keeps food cold and doesn't leak from the water dispenser tubes.  It's also helping me finally learn left from right.  I don't know why, but I've never had a good handle on this left-right thing.  I don't get confused in German, Spanish, French, or Latin, but I do get them backwards in English and Swedish a lot of the time.  I left the stickers on the fridge handles with the L and R on them.  lol  I did wonder once why the L was on the right-hand side, though.

I made my first tam!  I followed Alice Starmore's direction for designing a tam.  This is the top - which looks an awful like a stargate.

Here's another view (modeled by a small-sized soccer ball):

I've finished all 5 of the Song of Ice and Fire books.  My oldest son got me hooked on the books and the tv series.  My other son got me hooked on David Weber's Honor Harrington books.  A new book, a prequel to the series, came out, and I read it along with him since it was co-authored by Zahn (a favorite author of mine because of his Star Wars books).  I liked the book and then started reading from my son's collection of Honor Harrington books.

May

It's almost not May any more.....
We took 2 trips this May: to California for DS1's graduation and the next weekend to the Indy 500.
Here he is just after the graduation ceremony.  My hubby and I flew out there as did our 2 other kids plus my sister.  It was really fun seeing everyone!

 We did some sightseeing while there, of course.  Here's a pic of the lone cypress off of the 17-Mile Drive south of Monterey.

April 2015

I saw my first finch of the year today - at our finch feeder.  Spring is here.  The daffodils are in full bloom as are the tulips.  Even our peach tree is starting to bloom.  (There are no blooms on the apple tree, though, or our hazelnut trees)  I haven't done any planting in the garden yet.  It's still too cold.

I'm continuing to crochet a hotpad per month.  Here's one that I thought would look like a flower but instead looks like an orange slice.  I should have chosen colors better.  lol
Since Nerdopolis has next month off, I won't be doing a hotpad next month.

I'm behind on trying to knit 12 sweaters this year.  I've only finished 2 so far.

March

We went to Wrigleyville last Saturday and don't see how Wrigley Field will be ready for the Cubs season opener on Sunday, April 5th, - just over a week from when this picture was taken:

The field itself looks nice, but there is a lot of construction still going on.

Evidently, the winter (even though it wasn't as bad as the one last year) was worse than they had planned on. Even the large video screen, that is being built before the bleacher seats are, doesn't look like it will be ready to go by opening day.  But, it will succeed in blocking views from the roof tops on that side of the ballpark.

Most of the snow has melted around here.  All that's left are remnants of what had been piled up to clear the streets.  Our daffodils aren't blooming but are up - as are the tulips.

There must be a fair number of coyotes in the area.  I hear them howling just about every night around midnight.  They don't howl for too long, but it is an eerie sound.  I'm ambivalent about the coyotes.  They did get rid of most of our chipmunks who were burrowing under different things and eating out of my vegetable garden.

I'm not going to plant vegetables this year - except for perhaps a hot pepper plant in a planter.  The vegetables in my garden did poorly last year.  So, I'll be planting just flowers and herbs there.

I've finally finished a pullover that I'd been working on for quite a while.  (I hate to finish things - possibly because I don't want to have nothing to do.)  I've worn it a few times.

I'm not participating in the Geek-along this year.  I still haven't finished the blanket from last year, and I don't recognize most of the panels for this year.  Instead, I'm going to try to knit 12 sweaters this year.

February

I'm trying to post at least once a month this year. Here's the snow we got on the first of February. The pic was taken the next day, but there is still about a foot on the ground - much more where it had been piled up to clear paths and the road.

I didn't get the double knit blanket seamed together, but I did get a lace hotpad/doily crocheted. I found the one this was based on while emptying a box.

And, I also got a couple hats done (for the successor to NerdWars on Ravelry). Here's my snowflake hat - done in mosaic knitting:

To change the subject.... The soap dispenser in the kitchen seems to be working now. I've learned more about soap dispensers than I ever wanted to know. I've reassembled it a few times and cut the long tubing to make it shorter. I'm not using the small bottle that came with it but rather a large bottle from the store that I set under the sink.

January

One of the things we got for Christmas was a Game of Thrones jigsaw puzzle.  It was harder than we thought it would be.  Granted we hadn't done any large puzzles for years, but....   Usually, when one gets a piece in and confirms it with a couple more pieces, it's where it should go.  Not in this puzzle.  Some days toward the end, we took out more pieces than we put in. My DS2 shown a flashlight down at the pieces to check fit. Here is the puzzle in progress:

And, here is the final version, with the second layer added plus a third layer of castles:

I've been working on getting the Geek-along squares joined. I'm working on my third row of squares now. I'm using the "official" join. However, I slipped stitched along the edge instead of picking up sts along the edge in order to make the join look smoother. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get all 24 squares joined together by the end of the month.  But, I should be able to get 12 of them joined together.  Plus I'm not sure whether or not to do 4 more squares and have a 4 by 7 square blanket.  Here are the first 2 rows:

By the way, the Geek-along has all new squares this year - in dk rather than worsted weight yarn. I'm still working on a knitted cabled pullover and a Tunisian crochet pullover. I'll post pics next month.

Tunisian crochet

I'm starting to learn how to do Tunisian crochet in order to be able to crochet this yoked pullover, Cubistic, designed by Patrick Hassel-Zein.  I've only gotten this far on the sweater:

 Since this is completely new to me, I first started reading up on the subject and doing a few small projects.  My first completed project is these slippers from Dora Ohrenstein's book The New Tunisian Crochet:

My second - fourth projects are some scarves (to donate), designed by Amy Depew.  I got rid of some Homespun yarn and am working on getting rid of some Jo-Ann Sensations Rainbow Classic.

Each of the two first scarves took a full skein of yarn.  I'm going to see how many scarves I can get out of the other skein of yarn.

Nerd Wars has been resurrected in the forms of Nerdopolis (points kept) and Nerd Wars (with no points kept).

My garden was a disaster this year.  Things just didn't grow.  Next year I'm going to plant flowers (mostly marigolds) there.  I think there were moths and other insects that had settled into the garden.  Marigolds might be the ticket for discouraging them from staying there longer.  On the other hand, I should be getting some nice asparagus next spring.  The stalks were almost harvest size this past spring.  :)

We got a dusting of snow on Halloween and now have more than a dusting of snow on the ground - but nothing like they got farther west.

Nerd Wars

Nerd Wars on Ravelry has officially ended.  I haven't participated in all of the tournaments but did participate in the last one.  This is one of the badges I got from the last tournament.

Geek-along, more squares

I've knit 9 more squares for the Geek-along - a 20-sided die, Water Tribe, Gryffindor, Cthulu,,Jedi, Star Trek, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, SHIELD, Batman.

We got a finch sack for my hubby for Father's Day.  The squirrels soon destroyed it.  So, we got a metal one.

Geek-along KAL

Here are my first 6 squares from the Geek-along.  My favorite is pi which I started it on pi day and which is reversible (hard to do in double knitting).  The squares are the TriForce with Hyrulian crest, caffeine, air-nation, tatoo from BSG, pi, and TMNT.

computer

My second oldest decided to build a computer.

He ordered all the parts (including the operating system) online. I was amazed at how quickly he was able to assemble it. He uses a tv set for the monitor.

November

just a few miscellaneous thoughts....

The garden did really well this year.  It took a while, but the peppers and broccoli finally started bearing.  I canned enough cucumber pickles to last a long time and also quite a bit of tomato sauce.  (The tomatoes won the battle over the cucumbers for control of the garden.  It was short lived though since I think we've had a light frost already.)  Next year I'll plant a different type of tomatoes.  These bore well and produced quite a bit of large fruit.  But they weren't as tasty.

I'm not doing Nerd Wars this time.  I figured that there was no way I'd have time to do a Nerd Wars that ended in December.  The last time I did one ending in December, I didn't feel like doing any knitting or crocheting for a month or two.

I've discovered that I really like geometric designs.  I'm still working on plans for a yoked sweater in mosaic knitting and decided to make a snowflake hat to see how it would turn out.  After a few tweaks, it turned out really well.  However, it doesn't look like snowflakes at all -- just diamonds and triangles.  (I'll post a pic when the hat is finished.)

And, here's the pic (a couple weeks later):



It's a little on the short side, so I'll be adding a misc design between the brim and the diamond pattern.

forgot to add....
In going through some old boxes, I found waterbed sheets from when the kids all had waterbeds.  I'm hoping to use them in making the first quilt I've ever attempted.  (I have sewn a backing on an old quilt before.)  The pattern is the upcoming one with the quiltvillechat Yahoo group.

August

My garden is doing really well -- at least as far as the tomatoes and cucumbers are concerned. They're fighting each other over control of the middle of the garden area. Luckily the peppers and broccoli are a bit away from the center area. The peppers aren't bearing much.  It's been relatively cool here.  So, maybe that's why the peppers aren't doing that well.  I've been able to have the windows open for days at a time this summer -- which is very unusual for this part of the country.


It looks as if we'll have some tomatoes in a few days. We're already getting a lot of cucumbers. I pickled and canned 14 pounds of them a couple days ago. (I'd never canned pickles before.)

And, we have a few ripe peaches:

I've been doing some mosaic knitting recently. My latest is a hat:

I'm using the hat as a swatch to try out a couple mosaic patterns in hopes of eventually designing a mosaic pullover sweater (for the next round of Nerd Wars on Ravelry).

May

After several almost cold days, it's warmed up with a vengeance.  Chicago had its first 90 degree day of the year this year.  We didn't get quite that high.

Yesterday, we got some tomatoes, broccoli  and a pepper plant.  It was too hot to plant them.  So, I planted them this morning.  For tomatoes, I looked for "short time to harvest" and found Celebrity and Parks Whopper -- both 65 days -- which may mean nothing here.  We got two of each, but a Celebrity had two plants in one pot.  So, there are now 3 Celebrities. I wasn't planning on getting any broccoli since they did so badly last year, but I couldn't resist the name Packman.  (We have a Ms PacMan in the basement and still enjoy playing it.)  With the newest pepper plant, we now have one each of Jalapeno, Habanero, and Giant Marconi.  (The last one is for me.)  The cucumbers are Boston Pickling.

I changed things around a little.  The cucumbers are where the tomatoes were last year.  The tomatoes are where the broccoli was last year.  And, the broccoli is where the Brussels sprouts were last year.




The lilac bushed are blooming (foreground).  And, the strawberry plants are in the right foreground.  I'll have to move them so they'll get water when I water the garden.  The plastic jugs have lilacs and Filbert nut trees from Arbor Day.  I'll move them from the garden when they get bigger.  That area of the garden also has some asparagus.  None of it is edible, but, at least, it came up.

We also took off about 5" of soil in the garden, put it where we're still trying to get grass to grow, and then added about 6 cu ft of peat moss to the garden.

Along with the fruit cocktail trees (which we've moved to their permanent locations -- one in front of the house, the other in back near the raspberry bush), we got some ground cherry and huckleberry seeds.  They're just in the seedling stage now.  I have no idea what they'll turn out like, buy my DH said his parents used to grow them.  They had a really big Iowa-style garden.  (It was just natural that they would.  They lived in Iowa.)

In knitting news, the last Nerd Wars tournament (Ravelry) has ended, and I didn't suffer from burn out like in the previous tournaments.  I've even started planning a couple of summer pullovers in Knit Picks CotLin.  Sign-ups for the next tournament start today.  (It's 3 months of tournament then 1 month off.)

first 80 degree day of the year

Maybe spring is finally here.  Today, I bought a jalapeno pepper plant, a giant Marconi one, and some Quinalt strawberry plants.  I planted the strawberries in a hanging basket.  Hopefully, that will keep the squirrels and chipmunks from eating them.  Of course, it does make it easier for the birds.



My fruit cocktail trees arrived in the mail a couple days ago.  They don't look like much.  Today, I replanted them, one in the front yard and the other in the back.  I have no idea how long it will be before they start producing the promised peaches, apricots, plums, and nectarines.

April

I thought I might be able to start working in the garden today. (It is spring.) But, I think I'll wait. It was snowing this morning. Spring is on its way, though. The daffodils are up (thought not ready to bloom yet).

I bought a couple multi-trees this spring -- mail order. They're part apricot, plum, nectarine, and peach -- all grafted onto the same tree trunk. It will be a while before they start bearing.  I love fresh vegetables and fruit.  They're so much tastier than store bought.  I hope my apple tree and peach tree do something this year and the tomatoes that I'm planning on planting will do better than last year.  Last year was pretty much a disaster for the garden.

After knitting mosaic stitch for the baby bonnet (in the last post - February), I've been wanting to knit something else using the same technique.

 

So, I designed this dishcloth -- Mosaic Diamonds --. Mosaic knitting is fun. One knits only one color at a time -- with a lot of slipped sts.  It gives some interesting looks.  It's stretchier than stranded knitting.

We all got new smart phones about a week and a half ago.  It was great of Sprint to have an after-hours class to teach us how to use the phones.  (One of the questions I asked in the class was how to answer the phone.  I found out what I was doing wrong.   lol   New technology makes some things easier and some harder.)