The Long, Hot Days of Summer

Summer is now in full swing in SLC.  I planted these pots with Marigolds, early in May.  I have been harvesting the seeds from the dead blooms daily.

This pot was planted with those seeds, and is now starting to produce blooms of its own.  I just love how these flowers produce such a quick turn-around.  I've also planted these seeds in the top of our water barrell, and along the border of our flower beds in the front yard.  They are all coming along nicely.

The peas have come and gone.  They were yummy, although we couldn't resist eating them all right out of the pods.  The plants have now been pulled up and pumpkins have been planted in their place.

My strawberry pots produced a lot of strawberries this year too.  The beets have been thinned, and we are eating zucchini and tomatoes too.  The eggplant and peppers are still growing, but haven't produced vegies yet.  I'm really looking forward to them.

We just returned from a little weekend getaway to Logan.  A small University town in northern Utah.  Of course, time was spent at Unique Knits, where I acquired some more yarn for my stash.  This is Cascade Yarn - Venezia Sport.  A wonderful blend of Merino and Silk.  It is quickly becoming my favorite yarn.  I'm not sure what it will become yet, but I'm doing some hard thinking on that.

In addition, I went to a darling little furniture consignment shop there, where I found these fabulously carved chairs.  They are the exact pieces I have been searching for, for years, and they made the perfect addition to my formal sitting room.  The chairs are large, rather like "thrones", as my son put it, so I am crocheting some headrest protecters for them.

I recently finished my "Katrina Rib for Haiti", designed by Cookie A.  It is a free downloand on Ravelry.com.  I modifed the rib pattern, by knitting every other round. 

The design is very flattering and fits perfectly.  The final fabric is extremely stretchy, so it fits a wide range of sizes.  It is knit from Mirosal Tupa in Lavendar, on size US 6 needles.  Knit in-the-round, from the top-down, it virtually flies off the needles.

You may remember this yarn from a previous post.  Since life isn't perfect, the yarn didn't work out so well for this design.  It didn't fit well, and had a tendency to sag in the back.  So . . . it was "frogged" and the Katrina Rib was born.  It is a good thing that I have come to terms with the fact that not all knitting time is well spent.  Sometimes you just have to "bite the bullet" and start over.  I've decided this is the best way to get value for your yarn dollars and your knitting education.  I always learn a lot when this happens.

Thus, from the experience gained from knitting "Katrina Rib", my newest design was born.  Inspired by "Angela", a co-worker who wore a beautiful top to work with a ribbon running through the neck.  So the "Angela" was born.  Here it is, in process.  I hope to have the pattern published by the end of the Summer.

These pictures show the 2 scarves I purchased to thread through the neck of this sweater.  What do you think?  Do you prefer the water-color silk in the first picture, or the filmy layers of the scarf in the second picture?  Let me know, I'm having a hard time deciding which I like best.

This painting is the latest addition to our African themed room.  An original oil painting really adds to the room, and the thin black frame really finished it off.

My son spent a few years in Uganda, Africa several years ago, doing missionary work for our church.  He returned with many, finely carved wood animals and masks.  I didn't jump right on getting them placed in our home, and he was hurt that I might not like them.

So I decorated our Family Room around all of these artifacts, and this is the result.  Shortly afterwards, he married and moved out of our house.  He then started indicating that he would be taking these things with him.  I was able to convince him that we needed them now.  He and his wife recently purchased their first house.  The elephant picture was to cover the space where a large carved panel of our name used to hang.  I hope I can keep other items from traveling from our walls to his.

This is just another picture of our "Angel Baby".  She is doing so well with her therapy.  She is using her left hand more now, has started pulling herself up on her knees, and she can do the fastest army crawl you have ever seen.  This is the day that she got her new glasses.  Hopefully, they will give her the depth perception she needs to keep from plunging head-first down the stairs.  So cute. . . she looks a bit like Harry Potter.  We love you "Angel Baby", keep up the hard work! Our first granddaughter took the picture.  Look, and you'll see her in the reflection of the mirror behind.