Wake Up Call

This morning a thunderstorm moved through our area. Nothing too spectacular, but enough to make me happy. I love thunderstorms. When I was a little girl, they were scary and the comfort was to snuggle up with my mother and wait for it to pass. I am not sure what changed, but now I look forward to the summer storms that we have here.

The skies were cloudy and gray afterward and there was a bit of rain. The mums on our stoop looked beautiful against the gray and thoughts of tea and warm wool knits across my lap enter my mind. Soon autumn will arrive and I can hardly wait until the leaves begin to change. Autumn means fall soups made with the vegetables from our gardens, flowers from the end of their season, and the crunch of leaves beneath my feet.

The autumn season is so short here that there is only so much time to really enjoy it until the winter hits with months of gray skies and rain. I plan to spend as much time outside as I can enjoying the end of summer, and the beginning of autumn. Those days that are too wet or cold to go outside will be spent inside making soups and bread to share, knitting for my loved ones, and sipping tea and reading books. What are your plans?

None Were Harmed

Yesterday I finished something so adorable I could cry. Maybe that's a stretch, but it really is quite precious and I am very pleased with the turnout.

 

 

Adorable right? There will be a matching sweater too, but it has just been started. Give me a few days and I will have photos of that up also along with the pattern and yarn that I used. No sheep were harmed in the making of this hat.

Only Sometimes

I am mostly an organized person. That is difficult to say when more often than not, my desk looks something like this:

Every day, I try to make time to knit. There are days that this doesn't happen and those are the days that I shouldn't talk to people or go out in public...


On days like today however, when I have had time to both knit and do a bit of housework, my little corner of the world is a happy place to be. The photo above is a little project that was started yesterday and will hopefully be completed by the end of the weekend. It's one of those, if you knit it, it will come projects. More photos later.

Blanket Check

The Wedding is in just a few months and this is as far on the blanket as I have knitted:

 

 

There will be more progress made later...

She's Beautiful

Yesterday my blocking mats arrived. I was waiting to finish my Suki until they came in.

It started like this.

Then, the lovely was given a nice soak

Spread out into a pretty manta ray shape

And then I tried it on.

It's perfect and will look so beautiful with my dress!

Pattern: Suki

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette

Another For My Lilst

Today my mother taught me how to use the food dehydrator. It is not a difficult thing to use, but as a child I never really paid attention to the work put behind the homemade fruit leathers and dried vegetables thrown in soups. Today, I paid attention.

First there was chopping

Then there was laying out the goods

We made fruit leathers

 

I will post photos of the finished items later. I have another skill to add to my list. There is a new sweater in progress and fresh tomatoes from the local farmer around the corner from my parent's home, a nice evening and I am quite content. 

Fin

I promised a photo of the finished Suki Shawl and here it is:

 

It was finished on the last day of our trip on our way home. When it has been washed and blocked I will post a better photo.

A Very Fine Trip

Good morning! It is nice and cool this morning in Portland. There was a fine rain last night to settle the dust and it was very much needed. I promised photos from our trip, so that will take up most of what I will be sharing today. I hope you enjoy; we did.

I made rice krispy treats to celebrate our anniversary

The car was packed the day before we left

I don't go anywhere without my knitting....

Our little penguin, Snowbank, enjoyed our first dinner out @ McGraths

These are the Lava Beds in Bend, Oregon

We were close enough to touch this little fellow, but he was content to just pose for us.

Knitting on the go!

Paulina Falls

There are exactly 3 Tatters (one of them professional) in Central Oregon. This is one of them.

Crater Lake's Phantom Ship Rock

The end of the Oregon Caves (I went there a long time ago when I was still a young girl and never managed to make it to the end. Dark cramped spaces are not my element but I wanted to conquer this fear. I'm glad I did because it was really cool!)

No fear here at the Newport Aquarium...

And look! We found Nemo!

Perhaps one of the best parts about this trip was the availability of hot water in every hotel room for that morning cup-o-tea...



Home

Alex and I just got back into town from our lovely (although too short) vacation. I will post more details later. It's good to be back home again. I finished the Suki shawl and one sock- photos will follow and came home with more postcards for our book. We passed by exactly two yarn shops on our 600 mile trip and did not stop at either one (due to time restrictions), but that's okay. I'm home now and there's an Internet connection, and that means that I can order new yarns now that I've finished another project...More later.

Soon Shall We Part...

In about 48 hours (not that I'm counting...) Alex and I will be leaving for a week of (well-deserved) vacation time. The mystery destination has not yet be revealed, and although I have not been trying to glean information, I am fairly certain that it is not taking place outside of the country (we are taking the car and he hasn't mentioned anything about passports). I finished To Kill a Mockingbird (4 stars) and am now working on Napoleon's Hemorrhoids.

The housework is caught up with the last load of dishes in the machine and the latest loads of laundry folded and put away. The knitting is coming along  (there is a finished sock looking on the horizon) and the Suki shawl for the upcoming wedding should be finished here soon. Pictures of course will follow. If I don't post anything between now and Sunday morning, don't fret, I will be back in a week. Love to you all and happy knitting.