A Fun Contest

Ali at is having a pre-summer contest. So, the rules are:

1. Leave a comment on her blog (this post) letting Ali know what color you want and mention who's blog you heard about the contest on.......

2. Then head to your blog and post a list of your summer knitting goals (there may be an end-of-summer contest of some sort to celebrate summer knitting accomplishments) and mention this contest (with a link to this post http://www.skeinsherway.com/2007/05/pre-summer-contest.html )

3. Last email Ali with the link to your post! (ali AT skeins her way DOT com) Be sure to mention in your post for anyone who follows your link to let her know what blog they jumped from as every "referral" will earn you another entry!

Contest will run through the end of the month (May) and her talented children will draw three winning names (or secret blogging identities) out of a container of some sort on June 1st.

What can we win? First place winner will receive 1 copy of the tank pattern along with 4 hanks of Blue Sky Dyed Cotton in their choice of colors! Second & third place winners will each receive a copy of the pattern and whatever other goodies happen to jump into the package just before sealing and sending!!


The first two are early June projects, but the rest are over the summer.

1. Finish my lilac colored Whitney cardigan. DONE June 15, 2007

2. Start and finish a felted button bag by the middle of June.

3. Start my KISS bag to use for a computer bag. Need this one very soon too!!

4. Grasshopper socks in knee highs.

5. Finish Mystic Sea socks. DONE May 30/31

6. Chevron Scarf

7. 4th of July Red, White and Blue socks. DONE July 2, 2007

8. Finish Bridgit's Baby Blanket started last summer!!

9. Several blocks for the Aran Afghan, which I stalled on.

10. Tank of some kind. Have various yarns in stash that would work for it.


This is a good idea to have a list of some kind to try to follow this summer. Distractions about though.

Purple and other pretty colors

Pretty purple shoes that I found today at the local shoe store.



They match the pretty sweater that I am making. Sleeves are mostly done, then on to the back.



Other pretty colors from our wild backyard. The Oriental Poppies have Popped this week, well at least 6 of them.


Roses that were never trimmed this year on our garage wall. I didn't see them until after Mother's Day.




Rhubard that probably needs to be picked and USED!!


And more pretty purple flowers.


I received a new computer for Mother's Day (big surprise!!) and it has a huge learning curve. I have to take a class or two or three for it.

Roses for Mother's Day

Thanks to Roxie for this post about roses.

Years ago, maybe 12, maybe longer, I was given a lavender rosebush for Valentine's Day. For many years, it has bloomed just in time for Mother's Day, until the last few years anyways. This year our red rosebush, a Mister Lincoln has bloomed this week just in time for Mother's Day. Our lavender rosebush isn't far behind though.







I haven't fed my roses this year. I need to do that as in the food is the stuff that will take care of the blackspot and mold that roses have a tendency toward. I love my roses and can't wait for a pretty lavender one to grace my table.

Happy Mother's Day.

A scarf, some socks and tamales, Ole'

I finished my scarf for the International Scarf Exchange. I don't want to go into too many details, because I want my friend to be surprised when she gets it.

It is made from Handmaiden Sea Silk, I don't know the colorway because I can't find the tag, and I know I saved it!! I used the feather and fan pattern. It measured something like 70 inches once it was done and blocked out. I think it wil be a nice spring/summery scarf. I also sent her a bunch of goodies and I hope she enjoys all of it.

I also finished Kim's socks. She's wearing them today, so maybe I can get her to do a photo shoot with me. They are Lorna's Laces Sock, out of Black Purl. Very pretty!! The pattern is from the booklet "Calendar of Socks" I think. I want to say the pattern is called "Autumn Equinox".

We made tamales yesterday for our own little Cinco de Mayo. Oh they were good. Tamales aren't too hard to make. It's time consuming, but that's the wrapping part. I have made them one time before, several years ago. I saved the extra sauce and froze it, so I didn't have to make that this time. It was a green sauce, using canned tomatillos and a spicy pepper of some kind. It was good having been frozen for such a long time. We used grilled chicken and sliced it up instead of shredding it, and I just followed the recipe for the masa harina that was on the package. I steamed them for about 2 hours. It was delicious!!

I meant to come back and finish posting about camp, but I spent 4 days at BMFA helping get the April Sock Club packages out, and I am just worn out from camp and sock club and life. I have even been going to bed at a pretty decent time, and I haven't gotten the creeping crud that some of the campers came home with.

I don't remember all I was going to finish telling you about camp, but I will give it a try.

On Thursday we took a whale watching trip. Didn't see any whales, but did see bald eagles, stellar sea lions on their migration to Alaska, beautiful scenery and plenty of knitting!!

Most of these ladies are sockateers. From the left is Tina, dyer extraordinaire, then Sus in the corner, (a sockateer), Sheila (not a sockateer), Marilyn and Deb, both sockateers. They are all great ladies!!

Player organ in Moran Mansion. We heard a concert on Thursday evening with Christopher Peacock. It was wonderful!! He plays the piano as well and there is a history of the area to go with it.

Cat and Stephanie doing one handed knitting with each other. Kind of like the 3-legged race.


The whale watching tour had its own yarn and pattern. The colorway is Lunasea, the pattern is The Mystic Sea, which was the name of the boat we were on. Cass, my side-kick for camp designed the pattern. It is pretty easy, I just haven't had time to pick it up since I've been home.



The chicken that came home with me. It was made by Susan one of the other sockateers. I have been keeping company with them lately and have had a great time getting to know them.

The feather and fan scarf that I started just the weekend before camp, took it with me and didn't get much done on it..............................................................


is now stretched out and drying so it can be sent off for the ISE4. It has got to be almost 6 feet long. Mine is going to the UK, and I know that the one I am getting is coming from the UK. I do know that mine isn't going to the person who is doing mine. I'll share more later after my recipient receives it.



Lilacs that were in full bloom when I got home from camp. They still are, and Kim goes out each week for a new branch to fill the house with the lovely fragrance.
I realized today that my blogiversary was this week, two days ago in fact. I passed right over it. Hmm, there was something else I was going to write about, but now can't remember it.

Oh, I know. When I returned home from camp, I had a large package waiting for me. It was a surprise package from Donna. Lavendar yarn, lavendar soap, magazine, chocolate, goodies for Kim from Donna's daughter. It was wonderful!! Thank you!!

Camp Part 2

Does anyone know why blogger picks and chooses which photos you can click on? My friend Jean emailed me about the pictures on the last post. You can't click on them to make them bigger, so I went back a few posts to ones I could click on, and it seems that there are some that can be made larger, but most can't. Any ideas? I've uploaded each photo separately today and I think they are all clickable. I will go back and redo the last post as well. (I need to work on the settings of my camera and not be afraid of using the flash!!)

Ok, on to camp stuff. Camp was set up so there were 4 tribes. Rhode Island Reds, Cluckers, Chick-a-biddys and the Dixie Chicks. Each tribe was able to attend all four classes, and the rest of us could sit in if we wanted to. I wasn't able to sit in on Cat's, Tina's or Stephanie's, but I did help with the charity knitting circle. It would have been great to do all of them, but I had fun just the same!!

The sockateers ran the winding station, while Cass and I minded the store and did other little things here and there.




Cookie and Nathania had this great charity knitting project. The sockateers and myself helped with it on Friday. You start out with 8 blocks that are 20 stitches wide and 8 inches tall. Sew them together and pick up stitches along the 4 sides, using four circular needles. Then knitting from 4 balls of yarn, you knit in the roung until the blanket is as large as you want it. Two of the knitters will do yo's at the corners, and the other two will just knit all the way around. Stariel has a photo of me in the group on one of the days. It's her April 11th post and I am sitting profile. Chappy is on my right, Nathania on my left, and Stariel across from me. She also has some other great photos.











Some of the things I received while at camp. A staff t-shirt (with camp name on the back), name tag, goodie bag with yarn and stitch markers (that I made for camp)











Oh and a bandana that one of the sockateers made just for the staff. I wore it around my neck.



That evening we enjoyed the chicken antics. Our homework assignment that needed to be done before camp, was to knit up a chicken. I thought mine was hoakey, but my recipient is enjoying it. The one I received was from one of the sockateers. We had a swap for the chickens. Actually it was kind of a game with a story that had left and right sprinkled through out it. When we heard the left, we would pass out bagged up chicken to the left and so forth. It was great fun.

This is the one that came home with me.



This one went home with Linda.




And Linda and me.

Camp Cockamamie Part 1

Story time. Gather round. You'll have to return because it is a long story.
(I need to work on the settings of my camera and not be afraid of using the flash!!)

Monday morning we set out at 6:30? am to drive to Anacortes to board the noon ferry for Orcas Island. I went along with Tina and Kaci. We wanted to be there the day before to set up and be ready for the campers to arrive on Tuesday. It was a long drive, but we made it with time to spare, and got partially set up. Tuesday morning we woke to this view. Rosario Resort and the Moran Mansion.

We got set up and waited for the campers, saw a seaplane fly off, we never heard it come in though, registered one camper and waited some more. (She had come in on the seaplane) Cass showed up and helped me with signing campers in. Tina and Kaci had met Cass several years ago I think, and invited her to help with camp. It was great, I would have been lost without Cass this last week.

Later that evening there was a welcome and dessert reception in the music room of the mansion.



I know that the blue shirt above is Nathania. The baseball cap to the left is Alice. I recognize some of the faces, but don't remember a lot of the names. It was bad to not remember the names.




This blue shirt is Kaci. She is looking at Lisa K. in the orange jacket. And more names that I don't remember. :(




This is Frieda (in the pink on the right) with a lovely accent. She works at this yarn shop!! At the table sitting down is Tina on the right, Susan with her back to us, and Stephanie behind Susan. I can just barely make out the bohus sweater, I think, though I may be way off base. I don't know who the woman is facing us. Standing behind them is Kristin, a homeschool mom from Bend. I visit her blog often and was excited to meet her. Everyone was wonderfully nice.

Off on vacation AGAIN

I am sitting here waiting for my ride, not sure exactly when they will be here. It is early for me, 5:31 am now. I thought I wouldn't sleep last night, I was so excited, but I must have gotten some sleep. I'm wide awake, and it's not from the one cup of coffee.

I will try to blog from Camp Cockamamie, but I don't know if I will have time. I know that there will be other campers trying as well.

See you in a week with lots of pictures!!

Color

I have been thinking about Project Spectrum 2 all week. Then yesterday I was looking at everything in bloom with the sun shining, and I discovered this 2 months colors all around me.

Green, yellow, pink.

My lone pink tulip. I don't know where it came from, but it is all by itself.

Our flowering cherry trees started blooming while we were gone, and now they are starting to leaf out in this light spring green.

I have never noticed the maple tree flowering. We've lived here for 7 1/2 years now, and I have never seen it before.

And the bane all over our yard. Kim and I got a lot of them out of the yard early in the week, then today I saw more in the same area where we had spent hours weeding.

Knitting is happening, but not a lot. I have been seriously busy getting ready for Camp Cockamamie. I received a really beautiful blue shirt with my camp name on it. I'll get a picture later. I will try to blog from camp, but I may not have too much time. It's business and pleasure!!

More pictures

Thank you to Suz and her husband for identifying the coral looking cactus. They are pencil cholla.

A different set of windfarms on I-10 between Palm Springs and Loma Linda. These are just so neat. Some are small and others are huge!!










The ones below are actually pretty small, even though they tower over us.




This was the main reason I wanted to go to Southern California. If you notice, this is a double headstone. Or it should be........I didn't think about going back to the office to ask when the etching would take place. We had thought it would be done by now.




Just below the headstone above, is this little placard that does have grandma's name, date of birth and death and age on it. Still, I was very disappointed.




Sun and shadow play on the desert.

This is the highest point that you can drive to and easily walk to in JTNP. Looking south, it looks out into the valley and Palm Springs should be down there. To the west there is a pass that brings the smog from the LA area. YUCK!!


I didn't realize that JTNP was a rock climbing haven. When we were there two years ago, we only saw the other side of the park, this time we went in a different entrance and encountered the rocks and climbers. My dad was a climber over 18 years ago, before his health took him in a different direction.

I was having fun with the different settings on my camera. Because of the sun, I couldn't see how this turned out until later when it was on the computer. If I had thought about it, I would have continued playing with the B&W settings more.

I thought this was cool how the sun was hitting the rocks.

I finished my Titania's Revenge on the drive down. I think Thursday afternoon. I made a few modifications to the pattern, just in decreasing stitches which in a couple of spots messed the cable pattern up, but they still look nice. These are made out of the Titania colorway from BMFA and the pattern is by Cookie A. They are from the Rockin' Sock Club last year.

I finished my block on Saturday afternoon and promptly cast on for a pair of socks for Kim, but I STILL have not taken any pictures of them. I am through the heel on one of them and just starting the heel on the other.

This is one of our stops that is always made on our way home. It is right off the freeway in Redding. In California, you can buy alcohol of all kinds, in the grocery stores, here in Oregon, it is just beer and wine. You have to go to a specific liquor store if you want something else. Anyways, this place has everything in one store for very reasonable prices.

This is just a couple of the bottles that we bought. They had the Baileys mint and caramel which we can only find up here around Christmas time, if the stores haven't been sold out. We have never had Frangelico, it is hazelnut and it is yummy. All of these are really good in hot cocoa, or with a little cream and ice.

This is the cindercone by Mt. Shasta. One of the pictures that I didn't take on the way down was of Mt. Shasta. It was clear and you could see the mountain perfectly. It's usually clouded over. I think there have been only two times that we have ever seen the mountain without clouds around it, last August was one of them, this trip down was another. When we came back you could see nothing. We have also never seen snow on the cindercone!!

We had snow coming down from Dunsmuir to Weed, about a 20 mile distance. Then as we headed up the Siskiyous there was more snow. On the California side, it was sunshiney and snowing, once we hit the summit and the north side, it was foggy and cloudy like this. I tried to get a picture of our temperature gauge, but I couldn't get it to come out. The low coming down the Oregon side was 33 degrees F.



Summit of the Siskiyous.

The next day at home, this is what we encountered. Spring had sprung while we were gone.

The grape hyacinths smell like honey and have taken over the yard.

Playing with the sepia setting as we are flying up I-5.

Playing with the B&W setting as we are flying up I-5.

This week when I emailed my uncle, he said there had been snow in Yucca Valley on Wednesday!! I think we left in the nick of time!!