Another sweater

This is the baby pullover pattern from the Pure and Simple patterns. Made in Vanna's Baby yarn in Ducky.

before and afters

Here is Matthew wearing his sweater.

This is the yellow primula I planted last year, it will be blooming for the first time here.
This is the pulmonaria also planted last year, and below is this year's photo of it. At first I thought it was a weed and almost pulled it out. Can't believe it's the same plant, the leaves are so much smaller and it looks so different. The spotted leaves gave it away. Wonder how this happened?



My husband has been wanting to raise the level of this flower bed for years and finally had the opportunity yesterday. The sticks in the middle are an old rose bush that gives us huge pink fragrant roses. Cosmos are going in there, with a few annuals in front for color until the cosmos bloom.

a nice Saturday

The weather is great here, today, I won't be inside for much longer than to write this post...That's where I have been spending much of the time lately. Either getting the flower beds ready, or out walking. Here is a great site for exercise and weight loss, and best of all it's free and safe. My username is KLABELL, feel free to add me as a friend.

The Trellis sweater:


and the back

Adding a zipper

After discussing baby sweaters at work, came home with the suggestion of putting a zipper in this one. Had attempted to do machine buttonholes, that didn't work out. Even with a grosgrain ribbon sewn to the back to stabilize, it still slid around under the presser foot and didn't turn out anything like it should have. You can see a closeup below, the stitching is clear thread, and very dense. If anyone has any ideas *how* to get that out, it would be really appreciated. Status on the blue sweater: sewed first sleeve in, second sleeve 1/4 knitted.

Baby afghan finished!

Finally finished the baby afghan for our grandson. One half is two strands of the same color yarn doubled, and half is a strand of color and a strand of white, to give a different look to it. Opted not to put an edging on it,the pattern called for an i-cord edging in white but it doesn't really need anything else.

Now the next thing to finish is the trellis baby sweater. You are probably tired of me saying that. After working all the ends of the afghan in, took the sweater along while visiting relatives tonight to work on. So it is getting closer to finishing. It helps to write about it, like a promise I can't break. After that, it will be time to finish warping the loom. The warp is wound on, just need to tie new warp to the old threads and pull through. Now I am heading over to Ravelry to post the finished photo.

Stitch markers

These are some stitch markers I made today. Had fun playing with the beads, it's been awhile. The larger split ring markers are for a friend who recently started knitting again. She wanted them to fit at least size 15 needles, but they don't. Hope she still can use them, they were the biggest split rings I could find....locally. The smaller markers are for a co-worker who also recently started knitting again. Those rings are half of the ring and bar bracelet closures.

It was nice to take a break from working on the the baby afghan. It is almost done,a section is almost finished, then one more after that. Weaving the ends in shouldn't take long, then it will be back to the trellis sweater.

A day out shopping and other weekend happenings

Yesterday took some time to get away by myself, went to town for groceries and stopped at the Good Will, Salvation Army and St. Vincent's. Saw this cookie jar, and had to bring it home, just like the real ones. Actually it reminds me of our cats,except for the white face.
This was another find, will have to check there more often. Spotted it when I walked back into the room where the cookie jar was.
Finally got around to taking a picture of the violet in full bloom. The snow is melting fast, and can see some of the perennials in the flower beds. It will be awhile before I can get in there and clean out and get things ready, but it is nice to see ground, mushy and squishy that it is...

Click here to see the web site for the first sled dog race in our area. My husband was one of the ham radio operators helping with communications, and I went with him to watch the teams cross the road.