Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Anniversary Sunshine

Hooray!  Summer has arrived.  The past two mornings we awoke to blue skies and sunshine! Sailed for awhile last evening and cooked out with our new grill in a nearby bay and today we sailed for several hours.  Then we celebrated our 42nd wedding anniversary with a yummy dinner overlooking the lake on the outside deck of the marina's restaurant. Heaven!
 


Monday, June 22, 2009

Grey Days

Gee... here it is the 2nd day of summer and it's still cool and grey!  Where's the sunshine?  My hubby and I are playing dueling laptops while our PWD pup Kizi is sacked out on the settee. Lazy day! I need to turn the computer off and take up my needles again and knit!

I have been working on Nora Gaughn's Eastlake sweater using Bristol's Lyndon Hill 85% Pima Cotton and 15% silk.  The yarn is a bit thin for the pattern so its very open and light, but I think I like it that way.  It will make a great summer sweater.  Someone on Ravelry knit it with short sleeves and it looked great... so I may do that. OR... I may knit it with long sleeves instead of the 3/4 length and wear it with a shirt underneath.  The lacey effect of the leaves may be a bit revealing!  It's gone very quickly and I'm already on the 32nd row!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

in the Nick of TIme...


With no time to spare... I finished my Queen Anne's Lace summer outfit this afternoon!  I plan to wear it tomorrow night to my retirement reception in Albany.  The design has been percolating for weeks in my subconscious and finally I figured out how I wanted the top to look! 

I wound up using every bit of the fabric I had woven -- how's that for planning!  I adapted the pattern from the first summer top I wove, changing the neckline and thereby added a cap sleeve.  I made the skirt out of 3 pieces of 36" long fabric woven with the white slubby linen on QAL gathered at the top on non-twisting elastic and with a 6 inch kick vent in the back.   The top was created out of the yellow fabric -- yellow cottolin on the QAL warp.  The top has a yoke that is made up of the yellow fabric cut lengthwise into 10" pieces and I added a band of the cream fabric at the bottom of the yoke.  In the front I cut it in half like the yellow and in the back I left it the 20" width.  For the bottom  I attached the yoke to the yellow fabric that I cut horizontally with the selvedges at the edge that met the yoke and the hem.  I put darts in the front at either edge.

When I tried the top on it fit well but the top gapped.  SO... I took a dart along the top edge on either panel from 2 inches down to 6 inches towards the neck at an angle.  Then I flattened it and sewed the triangle down.  This forms a nice cap sleeve.

I used French seams throughout.  The ones on the yoke seemed too wide, so I sewed a straight lines down the middle of each one.   I used a sewn stretchy zigzag on each cut edge.  Each edge, both cut and selvedge, was turned under to finish off the neck, hem and sleeve edges.

Pictures to come. 

Friday, June 12, 2009

Miles to go...


It's been far too long since I last blogged.  We headed North early in May so that I could present a program based on my book, Woven a Bauhaus Memoir a Weaving History Conference in Clayton, NY.  We packed up our gear and our dog crate behind the front seat for PWD puppy, Kizi, put the top down on our Saab convertible and the journey began. 

Being back on the water is great. We're living aboard our Catalina 36 ft sailboat for the summer until mid-September when we head back south to Savannah.  

We've been spending lots of time on little projects to make our old sailboat more shipshape.  We're getting closer and have even enjoyed 3 lovely afternoon cruises playing with the wind on beautiful Lake Champlain.  We are a bit frustrated by the weather, however and I'm sure I'll never get my hubbie to come North before June in the future.  Savannah was just settling into beautiful weather and we left.  It's been quite cold and rainy... not too much fun on board.

Before one stretch of rainy, cold weather a couple weeks ago I woke up and said... "Why don't we go visit your father?" Sounds innocent enough, but my 92 year old father-in-law lives in Salt Lake, Utah -- a mere 2500 miles from upstate NY!  We washed clothes and took off that afternoon on May 26th, staying the night with our daughter, Kristin and her family near Albany, NY.  

150 miles down and 2350 to go!  Howe, Indiana first night... then Lincoln, Nebraska and Rawlins, Wyoming along I80 and four days later we drove through the mountain pass into Salt Lake City Saturday afternoon, May 30.

We enjoyed the Tetons, Yellowstone, Bighorn and the Badlands on the way home staying with our daughter's friend, Sam Bixby over the mountain pass from Jackson Hole in Victor, Idaho one night and Gillette, Wyoming and Jackson, Minnesota and South Bend, Indiana on the way back taking I90 a good part of the way. Twelve states and 5156 miles later we are back floatin' on our boat!  How great it is to be retired and to be able to do this!

It was fantastic seeing father-in-law Hok doing so well.  Brother-in-law Bill and his family are really doing a great job caring for him!  We were able to stay in the retirement apartment, Parklane, and how the folk who lived there loved Kizi.  What a trooper she was!  She road beautifully in the backseat when the top was up, and snuggled on the floor by my feet when we had the top down. Every now and then she took a flying leap into my lap when I wasn’t paying attention. 

I took along a knitting project: my Salt Lake City or bust blue toe-up socks.  I started shortly after we began the journey and finished shortly after we made it back to New York State.  I'll add photos below.

We both return with a heightened sense of the majesty of this amazing country we are blessed to call home.  From purple mountains to waves of Spring green grain, to wind turbines creating peaceful power, to craggy layers of rock and snowy peaks, and friendly cowboys and folk we'll never see again, and fabulous family and friends -- INCREDIBLE!!! And to quote my lovely and well-missed late mother-in-law, "So vast!"

ps. photo is one of my favorites - Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park - June 2, 2009