Tuesday, June 28, 2016

a visit from Mom

There is a point in life that I have been blessed to get to.  That point is enjoying your Mother's company.  I think we can all get there at different speeds, different time frames, but once we do it is so sweet.  I have appreciated my Mom's company, her presence, for a long time.  We drive each other batty-mad-crazy sometimes but she is also one of my best friends.  Why do I mention this now?  This past weekend, Mom came to visit.


I was pretty excited for her to get here.  This would be the first time she has seen my new home!!!  So, of course, I had preparations to make.  I had not put up curtains yet in the spare room where she would be sleeping so that was first on the list.  I had the above pictured fabric in my stash for I'd say 15 years.  10 at the bare minimum.  And the funny thing is that Mom gave it to me!  I think she still has some?  

I had been saving it to make one of those quilts that you can fold up into a pillow.  The faux quilt squares seemed just perfect for that.  But, I never got around to it.  And then I wasn't sure that's what I wanted to do with it.  Last week when I was considering what I wanted that room to look like, I remembered this fabric!  and it is perfect!  Privacy achieved but also lets in lots of light.


Friday morning I was just toodling around, waiting to go meet her and bring her to my house.  I finally finished these purple striped socks.  Which, by the way, turns out that I put the heel in too soon so they are too low and a bit tight on the inseam.  Boo!  I could rip them back....but I think I'll see if any friends with smaller feet might like them.

I met Mom under this flag in a teeny little California town.  It was a beautiful day and I was so SO relieved that Mom made it safely!  Oy!
I didn't get any pictures while she was here - we were just doing stuff!  no time for pictures!  It was a lovely visit.  The weather was perfect.  Funny thing about that - for us here is was hot, like 75-80 degrees.  But she came up from Chico which is like 100 degrees during the day in the Summer so she was chilly a lot of the time!  ha!  

So my neighborhood has an annual yard sale where tons of houses in the subdivision have a sale, maybe 40 sales?  We didn't get around to all of them but we did have fun and found some goodies at the ones we did get to.  I scored two wooden chairs!  I needed one for my sewing room and one for the desk in the spare oom.  Then, we got back to my house and threw together some stuff quickly that we wanted to get rid of.  It was great.

I grilled kabobs that afternoon and then we indulged in ice cream from DQ.  It was like the perfect Summer evening.

I had such a good time showing my house to Mom, and she really loved it.  One thing she commented on was that my house is cozier than it appears in pictures.  I do love a cozy home so that was nice to hear :)

I took Monday off work, and I'm glad I did.  I was the biggest lazy bones in the world!  I did cast on a new pair of socks but other than that was super lazy.


Sunday, June 12, 2016

home, nesting and socks

Last weekend I was in Bend with friends for a ladies retail therapy weekend.  I may have gone a little bit overboard at Hobby Lobby, but that's easy to do there!  I want to do a gallery wall in the dining room and I found a bunch of sayings and scriptures and cute stuff!  Once I get everything up on the walls I'll share pictures.

I finished up these socks this week. I'm really pleased with them!  You can't see the sparkle, but the green yarn has silver stellina in it, which made it fun to knit!  These need to have ends woven in but then they will go in the drawer for cooler weather.  
Rocky was extra lovey when I got back from Bend, he was very snuggly.  One thing that really stood out was that on the way home, I was really looking forward to being *home*.  This house really feels like home for me which is such a great feeling.  



One of the fun things about my new house is finding out what is growing where.  I decided that this first year I will just observe.  I've been learning a lot!  This week the rose bushes in the front bloomed and they are beautiful.  So vibrant and lots of blooms.  I have a lily plant in the front that I think is right about to bloom, can't wait!  I love lilies.  So far, the roses, lilies and rhubarb will stay.  I really want to put in shrubs.  I've seen a couple houses in the neighborhood that have nice small delicate looking shrubs and I think I'd like some like those.


So this week after I finished my green and pink socks, I found I had no projects I wanted to work on.  I have one pair of socks on the needles but I didn't feel like working on them, more on that later.  I do have a cross stitch project but didn't feel like that was it either.   

Suddenly I decided I needed to make a pom pom garland for my mantle!!!  Yes!  I super love how it turned out.  I found that wooden whale up in Bend and had just set it there, and once the garland was on it just looked right.

I have to share this lamp shade that I bought.  A coworker had an estate sale this weekend and had a couple beautiful stained glass lamps.  I technically did not need another lamp, but I saw this dragonfly one and had to have it!  She gave me an amazing deal on it.  I swapped out the shade I already had on this lamp and I really like the way it looks.

This is the pair of socks that I was avoiding working on the other night.  See, the thing is, I had them on magic loop two at a time.  I had already finished past the heels even!  But I've come to realize I just don't like magic loop.  I've also realized that I accomplished what I set out to do which was learn how to knit two socks at a time but I don't have to keep it up if it's not a pleasure. 
You can see a progress keeper, that is how far I've gotten since Friday!  Also, I had been using size 0 hiya hiya sharps, but did not have that size in DPNs.  Well, no, technically I do but the ones I have are too long for my liking.  This set of Knit Pro Zings is the next smallest size I have.  I had ordered them awhile ago and when I got them they were a disappointment.  First, I bought the wrong size.  Then the color was not what had been pictured.  Further, they seemed to have too much drag.  There was like a powdery coating or something and I just did not like them.  So, I set them aside.

But!  Guess what?  I thought I'd give them another chance since I didn't have too far to go to finish these socks.  And the powdery coating has come off the more I knit with them.  And now I really like them!  The funny thing is that my gauge is the same as when I was using the zeros.  So there you go.  

My sewing room is still a disaster zone.  It's really bothering me but I also feel like way overwhelmed by it.  I have too much stuff.  But, it's stuff that I may use and hate to give away because then what if that day comes for that project and I have to repurchase.  The struggle is real.  But I need to get it sorted out quick because my creative energy is getting that pent up feeling and it needs an outlet.  Knitting doesn't do it, it's more just relaxing for me.  I need to sew and quilt and MAKE!  I need to just buckle down and do a little at a time.