Happy Sunday!

Well, it's a chilly and kinda rainy afternoon, so I thought I'd update my blog. This weather lately has been great for knitting although we have braved the rain and taken a few walks. We also spent most of yesterday at the first choir retreat with our new director; it was a fun and productive day as we got a head start on Christmas music. In addition, I even have a few finishes to share.

Can you believe this is the seventeenth Interrupted Cowl that has come off my needles? I just cast on # 18 the other day and still have 2 more skeins of this yarn left.  It's a fun and easy knit.

One of my choir friends is about to have her first grand son, so I made these booties for her to give him. This is another one of my go-to patterns although I swear the yarn I use has less yardage than it used to.

For some reason these socks don't appear to be the same size. Stella tried one of them on, and I think that's why the one looks larger but really isn't.  Maybe it just stretched out?  The pattern is quite interesting although I didn't continue it down the foot of the sock.  I LOVE this yarn color because it makes me think of peppermint sticks. ( I purchased the yarn a while back at  Vogue Knitting Live when it was here in Bellevue.)

Our backyard has been pretty busy lately. This guy and his pals visit regularly along with a squirrel that takes a peanut from my fingers.  Other birds have been here en masse, too, including nuthatches, juncos and towhees. As a result, our bird feeder needs filling several times a week!

Much to my delight, our fall blooming clematis has added a bright spot to our back yard at this time of year.  In addition, it reminds me of my dear friend, Linda, who gave it to me a long time ago.  She is no longer with us, but I think of her so often as she is the one who convinced me to move to Colorado where I met my husband! 

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Hope you all have had a great weekend! 

One Done and One to Go................

Gosh, I've sure not been a good blogger lately, but this time I have an excuse. I had my first cataract surgery last week and for 6 weeks beforehand I had to quit wearing my contacts and instead wear some very out of date glasses.  It was worth it though as now my vision in that eye is great...at a distance. Thankfully I can now wear one contact and am seeing much better, both far and near. Later in the month the other eye will be fixed. Other than that, life has been much the same as always with choir, the family, and volunteering.  I do have some finishes to share though.

This quilt is finally finished, hurrah!  I learned a hard lesson with this one: Do not use spray glue to hold your backing in place unless you plan to finish the project immediately.  As the glue ages, it yellows and leaves very hard to remove stains.  With persistence, the stains mostly disappeared which was a relief.  I did the embroidery and piecing on this quilt and it was quilted by a friend, who is now deceased.  Lots of memories in this piece.

This is the second pair of socks I finished during September. The pattern is called Impossible Girl's Socks and is free on Ravelry.

And these socks are my first October finish.  The pattern, also free, is Sunday Swing and was part of a KAL sponsored by Dee.  Val suggested only doing the pattern on the cuff.

On a totally different topic, we've had some fun nature experiences lately. We had these four little visitors right on on back step this past week in the early evening.  They went nose to nose with our cat, so it was good that there was a pane of glass between them!

In Mid-September when Dick's brother and wife visited, we took a fun walk at Coulon Beach Park and were treated to a special sight.

En route to the above cairn, we saw these turtles sunning themselves on this log, and on our return, this is what we saw.  Turtle number four tried hard but didn't get to stay on the log for more than a couple of minutes.

That's it for now.  I hope you all are enjoying a great week!