Party On!

BIRTHDAY BOY

Willie’s got a birthday next month ~ the big 0-5 ~ so we had to get busy knitting for the perfect party wear.  The result: my new Party Animal Dog Sweater Pattern, now available by following the previous link or clicking on the little thumbnail to your right under “My Patterns on Etsy”.

This little cutie is an EASY KNIT, a lightweight faux wrap that I made with two strands of fingering weight yarn held together and (I used Mondial Cotton Soft Speciale Baby Solid in Shade 916) and a novelty yarn for the trim (I used another Mondial yarn, Bolero, in Shade 964, a sweet rickracky, confetti-ish stuff).  It’s knit on size 5 and 8 needles and trimmed at the end with satin ribbons, like that kind you get by the roll at Jo Ann for 99 cents.  It’s sweet and soft, and Willie knows he’s the guest of honor when he wears it.

    

NOAH AND ME

We hate the hot weather, but we love the summer food.  What did you eat on the Fourth?  We had a little cookout planned (actually, for the Fifth, but who’s counting?), when Savannah’s skies let loose with a midafternoon monsoon.  The loudest thunder I’ve ever heard, and rain falling in sheets.  Some said there had been a tornado ~ maybe.  Our power went out, and we wondered how many others were in the same predicament.  (It gets awfully hot around here with no AC in July, let me tell you.)

After the storm, I ventured outside barefoot to find our neighborhood was under several feet of water!

  

That’s my corner on the top, and the second picture is of a car stuck in the water around the corner on Habersham Street, one of Savannah’s main thoroughfares.

We ended up having our little cookout anyway, as the grill was the only thing working normally, and the front porch was the only place to sit comfortably and feel a cool breeze.  The lights came on about an hour after we finished eating.  All I can say is, thank the Lord we didn’t have to sleep without AC or our fans.

YUM!

Which brings me to a favorite summer salad, for cookout or a quick lunch or anytime.  I cribbed it from Miss Angry Chicken, one of my favorite bloggers, a year or so ago. Chunks of watermelon, chopped fresh basil, lime juice, crumbled feta cheese. Yum!

In Sickness and in Health

MY TURN

We had quite the surprising week. Not a good surprise, but an opportunity nonetheless for me to give back, and I always appreciate that.

Michael, my healthy, robust, always giving partner, contracted a couple of hernias this month. The day he remembers feeling “something” was a day he spent with the leaf blower outside trying to outmaneuver the mounds of spring goodies that have fallen from the giant live oak between our house and our neighbors’.  It’s a losing battle ~ you rake or blow away this stuff, and the porch and yard are filled with it the next day.  But he tried.  Then Michael took on the bathing of our squiggly, wiggly Yorkie, Willie, with his rapidly expanding girth ~ the dog now weighs 13.2 pounds! By the time that day was over, my husband was doubled over with pain and on his way to the doctor.

This past Monday morning Michael was scheduled for a couple of minor hernia repairs, laparoscopic, quick and easy.  Wrong!  One incision is the simple laparoscopic kind, an inch or so right at the belly button.  The other, however, is a good 4 or 5 inches long.  The result:  My poor sweetie has been bedridden all week, in terrible pain, unable to eat, entirely dependent on me, and in a hazy Percocet delirium.

So, I’ve had to go from being well cared for since my shoulder surgery to suddenly being the caregiver myself ~ and I am exhausted!  Needless to say, the 16-year-old has been little help.  I’ll be glad when my sweetie is up and about and back to normal.  It’s hard to see someone you love hurting and not be able to make it go away.

OUR GARDEN GROWS

Last year we planted dozens of exotic daylily bulbs, and I could kick myself for not writing down what everything was.  But the first of them started blooming this week in our front bed.  This magenta darling will bloom only once this year, but what a glorious sight when she does!

 

 

We’ve also got every kind of herb you’d want, plus cucumbers, lettuce, strawberries, zucchini, Meyer lemons, spinach, arugula and a new crop of heirloom tomatoes shipped from Laurel’s Heirloom Tomatoes.  For 18 years I lived downtown in the historic district, with only a courtyard and no earth of my own ~ and prior to that, five years in Manhattan preceded by five years in downtown Boston, so you can imagine how much I love being able to literally put down roots.

GOING GRAY

Coming from that New York state of mind, I’ve been all about the black for a long, long time.  My closet looked like a funeral director’s.  In the last year or two I ventured a little toward the browns, but they just weren’t me, and I kept drifting back to black. 

I’ve found a new niche in GRAY, ironically well-suited to my station in life as part of a retired, fixed-income couple.  (Too bad my taste doesn’t lend itself to that income.)  You may have noticed a trend in my recent knitted items, from the “Charlotte” wrap, knitted in charcoal Rowan Ribbon Twist, to “Grey Gardens,” my luscious Cascade Cloud 9 triangle wrap in dark gray, to even the ill-fated “Nightfall Cropped Top” from Twinkle’s Weekend Knits in dark gray and ivory Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece.  The wardrobe is filling in with lovely gray items by Eileen Fisher and Garnet Hill.  And what about these cool shoes (the pewter ones, left) by Palladium?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’re comfy comfy comfy from Garnet Hill, and I adore wearing them with GH’s Knit Layered Skirt in dove gray, their Elbow-length Scoop-neck Tee in warm gray, and ~ soon ~ this amazing Martin Storey striped cardigan sweater I am almost finished with, from Rowan Classic’s “Colour of Summer” book, which has quite a few terrific patterns.

         

The sweater calls for Rowan Cashcotton DK, but I’m using Wool Cotton (probably my all-time favorite Rowan yarn) in two shades of green, elf and citron, along with Rowan Cashsoft DK in mist, which is ~ what else? ~ a lovely, soft gray.

 

 

Knitting Junkie All Strung Out

But It’s My Knitting Arm

I tell you.  It’s been a rough seven, almost eight, weeks of NOT not knitting.  When they told me I had a “significant” tear in my right rotator cuff, I agreed right away to a little laparoscopic surgery and six weeks in a sling.  Nobody mentioned nonstop pain or not being able to use my right arm at all.  Oh, the doctor said I could knit, sure.  But he clearly has no idea how many muscles are involved in simply throwing a knit stitch.  So this has been a mighty painful recovery. 

 Just last night I got up at 3 a.m. to take a pain pill.  Half a hydrocodone, the “step-down” dose.  I’ve been holding onto this last bottle as if it’s a life preserver, spending the time I’m not on the drug, well … thinking about the drug.  The other afternoon, I fell asleep with the electronic TENS unit humming away through its four electrodes into the depths of my shoulder, while nestled up against an electric heating pad.  I’m lucky I didn’t get electrocuted.

So it’s with a bit of shame and recovering alcoholic style remorse that I admit I probably brought all this pain on myself.  Even last week, when I vowed to “put down” the needles until I was better … I lasted One. Day.

I’d like to say I have more to show you for all this pain, but, since my last post two weeks ago I have completed this ~ a little set of four neon-colored washcloths for a friend’s kitchen shower.  Sad.  Pitiful.

The pattern: Grandma’s Favorite Dishcloth

The yarn: Sugar ‘n’ Cream cotton in Hot Green, Hot Blue, Hot Pink and Hot Orange

The needles: US 7

Took one full day of around-the-clock knitting and just about did me in.  But, after my One. Day. of recuperation (have you tried JUST watching TV lately???), I was back up and running, knitting these inordinately long rows for a piece I’m going to surprise you with as soon as I finish it ~ and that will be soon.  Here’s a hint.

The project involves Cascade Cloud 9, Crystal Palace Kid Merino and Berroco Ultra Alpaca.  I started out loosely following a pattern but soon realized I was off on my own, developing a whole new thing.  Today I accepted that I was not going to be able to finish the project without another ball of the Berroco.  Oh, and that my LYS had had only that one skein when I started out.  Several phone calls around the country, culminating in one to Berroco HQ in Massachusetts, had me getting my LYS owner to call Berroco (while in the carpool lane to pick up her daughter from school) and order one skein to be overnighted to Savannah at a yet-to-be-determined cost.

Did I mention I was a knitting junkie?

I’ll be finishing up this lovely item this weekend and will post the pattern FREE for you here probably Monday, assuming my shoulder doesn’t go into spasms and shut down entirely.

In the meantime …

Don’t Hate Me Because My Town Is Beautiful

Two weeks ago, I started photographing the signs of early spring around town.  Now we’re in full-blown azalea-land, complete with bumblebees, pollen and the continuous drone of a lawn mower somewhere nearby.

The first signs were the budding magnolia trees in the yards of the mansions a few blocks over.

  

Here’s a tentative February azalea display right in front of my daughter’s school.  By now I’m sure the avenue is lined with millions of the bright blossoms ~ if the frost of last week didn’t kill them off.

And a couple more-confident ones today in my own yard.

  

Before Global Warming, such beauties saved themselves for a few months longer before appearing ~ that’s why Michael and I named our daughter April, for the most beautiful month of the year.

Here are the delicate Johnny Jump-ups my next-door neighbor has in a window box, along with the brilliant fuchsia geraniums on my front porch.

   

And here’s what I finally took down from the young Oklahoma Redbud in my yard.  The tree put out buds this week, so I guess nobody’s coming back to the nest I’ve been watching all winter.  (I added those eggs.)

I’ll have that pattern up probably Monday ~ it’s not a dog sweater! ~ and the little dog sweater neck lining tutorial on my Free Tutorials page by tomorrow (Friday).

Carry on.