Holy Cow!

My blog has just passed 200,000 hits!

Thank you all for following me. I have websites linking from all over the world, from Italy to France to Japan, some in languages I don’t even recognize. I hope you enjoy my knitting and crochet patterns and you’ll keep coming back for more. In honor of achieving this milestone, I’m hosting a giveaway here: Leave a comment or link to my blog by November 10, and I will hold a drawing the next day. The winner will receive a free download of ALL MY PAID DOG SWEATER PATTERNS. I’ll announce the winner here on November 11, so if you win please contact me and let me know where to email your patterns.

Good luck, and thank you for visiting!

Dog Days Sale

Giveaway, Little Doggies

Yo! I’ve been cashing in on some serious summer yarn sales myself, so I decided to throw a party at my Etsy shop to entice thank all my lovely customers … AND … to celebrate little Willie’s supporting role in helpinghandscrafts’ “Christmas in July” Treasury on Etsy. So honored! 

Here’s how the sale goes: For every two dog sweater patterns you purchase, you get a third pattern of your choice free.  Easy.  The sale will last throughout the month of July.  And, says Willie, “You can never get started too early on those labor-intensive but so precious Christmas sweaters for your best friend! Me, I just enjoy lolling about in the air-conditioning in my favorite summer-wear.”

(I’ll be adding another new sweater to the bunch over on Etsy tomorrow.  It’s all finished, photographed and written up.  Just have to type it in and get it posted.)

I Can See Clearly Now 

This is the new me, as opposed to the old me, the glasses-wearing me.  No, I didn’t get Lasik surgery.  I had cataracts removed from both eyes, the left on May 14 and the right on June 4.  I went from being legally blind in my left eye to being 20/20 in that one and 20/25 in the other.  Of course, I still have to wear reading glasses, and that is a total pain.  I get my final check-up on both eyes next week, and I’m kind of hoping the doctor tells me I could see even better with glasses, so I can go back to my trademark ’50s cat-eyes.  But it is absolutely wonderful to see everything again without a frame around it, to drive at night, to go to the movies without glasses, to wear eye makeup.  The procedule was nothing.  If you’re thinking of doing it, go for it.

Peaches ‘n’ Cream  

Here’s what’s on our plates lately ~ the best peach cobbler in the world, straight from Southern Living, of course. In summertime, I can’t resist those peachy peaches, so I make this yummy dessert often. Last week April and I made the first cobbler of the season, and when it came out of the oven, piping hot and smelling like heaven, we three devoured the whole thing before bedtime.

    

 

 

Bet I Can Make Just One

My Apologies

I’ve been MIA again.  Things have been hectic, what with end of the school year and a little something I’ll share with you next week.  Daughter had her prom two weeks ago.  Here’s my “baby”:

You can see the rest of the pictures on my Flickr page.  A great time was had by all, and we nearly went to the poorhouse with all the prom stuff.

Chipped Off

I finally succumbed to the lure of the Chip Bag, which has been in my Ravelry favorites for a while. While the result is cute, the project annoyed me. Here’s my bag:

   

I used two yarns held together ~ Blue Heron Texture (89% cotton/11% nylon) in “Leaf” and Cotton Licious (100% cotton) in “Spring Green”.  Because of the texture of the Blue Heron, I knew the cables wouldn’t show up, so I did the center cable in just the Cotton Licious (two strands) and eliminated the two smaller cables on either side of center.  The 9″ bamboo rods are from M&J Trim, and the lining fabric is Amy Butler’s “Full Moon Polka Dot” in Lime from the Lotus Collection.

Here’s my main gripe about the pattern:  It’s lazy.  First off, the pictured bag is knitted in Laines du Nord “Cleo”, but there is no gauge listed, so substitutions are iffy.  The main chart is not numbered.  Finally ~ and most irritating ~ the instructions end with “Secure your dowel or bamboo to the top of your bag with yarn …”  Um, excuse me for being dense, but HOW DO I DO THAT???  It wouldn’t be too hard to put together my own chart for a simple cabled bag like this, but, being lazy myself, I paid $7.25 to have someone else do the legwork. 

So, though I like my bag well enough, the pattern gets a C- from me.  (Oh, and now that I look more closely at the photos on the patternmaker’s website, I see she seems to have wound some yarn around the place where the bag and the wrappy thingies go around the bamboo rods, so I guess I’ll add that.)  **rolls eyes**

By the way, I have a ton of the Blue Heron left.  It was $33.50 for 367 yards, and there’s about half left.  If anyone wants it, let me know.  I’ll sell for $15 including shipping within the United States.

Summertime … and the Cookin’ Is Easy

It may still be cool where you are, but it’s summertime and the crops are in where I live.  Last week I used some of our backyard bounty to make a wonderful version of the perennial Louisiana home cooking favorite, maque choux.  My favorite all-time cookbook, “The 100 Greatest Dishes of Louisiana Cookery,” by Roy F. Guste Jr., describes the origin of maque choux:

This dish is one that was in fact given to the Cajuns by the Indians of Louisiana, the Choctaws, and was originally called matache, meaning spotted.  It is a corn dish which is in fact spotted wiht the color of the tomato pieces.  I believe the Cajuns, in their own patois, twisted this word into the French sounding maque choux.  The Cajuns brought the dish to the Creole community who quickly accepted it. …

The skillet stir-fry ~ not the Asian kind but the Southern one, in a cast iron skillet ~ is my favorite kind of cooking, and home-grown and Louisiana would have to be tied as my favorite kinds of eating.  My recipe came from epicurious.com, and it was scrumptious. I used red onion scallions, tomatoes, bell pepper and jalapeno from our garden, along with some fresh yellow corn and okra from Polk’s vegetable market downtown.  Can you beat this for easy, delicious summer fare?

     

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.

Anthropologie & Urban Outfitters ‘@home’ in Savannah

My friend Liz Demos, the creative talent behind one of Savannah’s most wonderful shops, @home, has confirmed in her blog that Urban Outfitters has signed a lease for more than 11,000 square feet of retail space in downtown Savannah. Now, won’t that just satisfy my shopping jones?  Poor me ~ I got a daughter whose idea of a cute outfit is her school uniform and who thinks Urban Outfitters makes clothes for “weird” people.  So I dream on their website of all the trendy get-ups I would put her in … if I could.  Now I can actually go into the store and dream.

Meanwhile, Anthropologie has already hit Savannah … without telling me! Last night I was browsing through the new catalog when something hit me. There was something ~ what was it? ~ very familiar about those pictures. Then I saw the names of some of the clothing … Forsyth Park Cardigan, Wormsloe Sweater Coat, Savannah Blouse, Monterey Stripe Surplice, Broughton Blouse. Now, if you’ve visited Savannah, those names don’t have to be explained, but if you haven’t, they’re names of prominent sites in Savannah that have been borrowed to go with the backgrounds of the pictures. If Anthropologie would let me download a photo I would, but they’ve got that site locked up tight, so just go thumb through the online catalog and you can get a glimpse of this wonderful, beautiful place I love live.  Where this afternoon, by the way, at the crack of February, it was 67.4 degrees outside my kitchen window and the magnolias were budding on my neighbor’s tree.

So I’ve been messing with some felting and hand-sewing this week and have come up with a little pet-lover’s tutorial ~ a way of making your own cute beaded or otherwise embellished and felted pet collars.  Check out the free tutorial in pdf download on a separate page.

               

    

Those “Compliments”

WHAT NOT TO HEAR

I just walked through the TV room when somebody on some show like “What Not To Wear” was telling his victim that “That sort of dress makes you look like you have a waist.”  Reminds me of the compliment I got from my mother by phone yesterday when I sent her a few pictures of myself in my newly completed “Flicca” coat (designed by the remarkable Anna Bell of My Fashionable Life).

“I love your coat ~ it makes you look like you’ve lost weight.” 
“Well, I haven’t.” 
“Then you should wear it all the time because it makes you look like you have.”

I know she meant well, but, well, I’ve long since come to terms with my weight, something I guess my mom will never do, and I’m not trying to lose ~ or even look like I have.  Anyway, here’s the coat.  What do you think?

          

Now, I love this coat.  I made it with RYC Soft Tweed in slate blue, and it didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would.  Despite the yarn’s bulk (3 sts to the inch), it’s amazingly lightweight, so wearing the coat is a dream, even in Savannah, which hardly has any winter at all.

 This is my other recent creation, “Dinah” from Rowan 42, made in Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk and GGH Soft Kid instead of the called for Rowan Wool Cotton and Kidsilk Haze.

This is my absolute favorite garment I’ve ever made.  I was drawn to the beautiful, completely coincidental matching of the two yarns made by two different companies, and when I found out the gauges on both worked with the pattern, it was mine!  I just loved working on this sweater ~ both yarns are so nice to stitch with.  Then I set about to find a ribbon to match ~ good luck.  I picked the silk satin one from M&J Trim and ordered it, sure it wouldn’t even be close to the color it was on my monitor.  As you can see, it’s a perfect match.  I was thrilled.

SOME ETSY FAVORITES

Seller Treehouse28‘s wonderful custom clothing, priced right and so perfect for my life, in comfy knits.

    

I am crrrrazy for this over-the-top crocheted dress by Pink Willow Designs. It makes me think of all the wonderful times I’ve had in the islands, gets me in the mood for spring and summer like nothing else I’ve seen lately, and ~ to be honest ~ sets the wheels turning for how I can turn out a knockoff for myself (sorry, Pink Willow).

And these fabulous Valentines from the frantic meerkat. I bought the first for my daughter (who just finished studying evolution vs. intelligent design, etc.) and the second for my husband, who is just wonderful and will get it.

 

AND NOW …

I’m off to JoAnn’s to pick up a few items to complete something I’ll share with you next time.