Finally, the Sun Is Out!

Yesterday the sun came out here for the second day in a row, and we logged our warmest temperature this year, 83 degrees!  (We saw 86 degrees on the car dealership thermometer near home.) So, after our morning commitments, we hopped in the car and headed to the Kitsap Peninsula and the town of Poulsbo.  Of course, we stopped at a yarn shop and a quilt shop there before we  crossed the bridge to Bainbridge Island so we could catch the ferry back to Seattle.

Even the mountains were out on this gloriously sunny day!  Our garden appreciated the sunshine also.  Here is what we saw early in the day.

And here is how the same poppy looked when we came back home.

Meanwhile, I'm still working on the long neglected beaded shawl, trying hard to get the correct stitch count for the border, but  this scarf below, one of my favorite patterns for multi-colored yarn,  is now finished. Hopefully it won't be needed for a good long while!  It does go with our blue skies though, doesn't it?

Carpe diem!  Enjoy the sunshine wherever you are, too.

Happy New Year!!! 2016 is here!

Shhhh!  Don't tell anyone, but this is the third day in a row that we've seen the sun!  Tuesday was so beautiful coming home from volunteering that we had to stop and take a photo.  The mountains were glorious!  And even those few clouds have vanished now, so it's been very chilly at night.  But, hey, it's been SUNNY here!

Prior to then we had enough rain to awaken our spring that we discovered a year ago.  It dried up during the summer but the 11+ inches of December rain had it running vigorously until the temperatures dropped below freezing.  Lately the raccoons have been playing in it at night and making quite a racket!

Remember this?   It has continued to grow and now looks like this:

Sadly, when it's done blooming, the whole plant will slowly wither and die. However, there's a new shoot coming to replace it.  This cycle has been going on now for a long time, ever since Mother's Day years ago!

Two birthdays right after Christmas have had me steadily knitting.  This Honey Cowl (It's a fun knit!) has been delivered, and the end is in sight for the second project that is needed on Monday!  I even found a Ninja emblem to put on it as a certain soon-to-be 4 year old is crazy about them and all other Super Heroes.  Meanwhile, I want to wish all of you the best year yet.  Happy, Happy New Year!  (And check Patchwork Times to see what others are knitting.)

Spring? (and What's on my Needles)

What?  Is this an April Fool's joke?  We have just returned from 10 days in Chicago where we tried desperately to keep warm and then woke up to this sight today  back home here in Washington.  Furthermore, it snowed a bit yesterday evening here, too, as we left for choir practice. Not funny!  The calendar says it's spring. Hmmmmm....... Maybe the snow and cold followed us home?

While we were gone, we received word of the arrival of another great niece in our family,  named Kaitlyn Frances.  I hope to show you next week what I knitted for her as it's almost finished. This project on my needles is for a baby scheduled to arrive in August, and it looks like I'm going to have to put it aside for a bit because I just received an invitation to a baby shower for a choir friend and need to make a little something for that occasion.

I started out knitting these socks with the Simple Skyp sock pattern but the Skyp stitch didn't show up, so I ripped and am following the pattern minus the special stitch.  The yarn is Lorna's Laces from May 2011 called "The White Witch's Lure".  If anyone knows what that is, please enlighten me!  I'm almost done with a pair of brown socks for DH and hope to show them next week also.  When it's too cold to go outside, there's more time to knit and play with the grandkids. Right?

Check out what others have on their needles at Patchwork Times.

Waiting for Spring!

When we left Chicago last week, the temperatures were rising. Little did we know that we'd be waking up to dustings of snow almost daily back home! The gloomy cold weather has made it easy to stay inside and knit or stitch.

As a result, I finished this pair of socks~

And this scarf. (Details for both are on Ravelry~link on sidebar)


I also finished my third Sunbonnet Sue block for TAST. This month there were two completely new stitches to me: the whipped wheel and the barred chain stitch. It was a challenge to use them on the block, but I did. Can you find them?


Here's Mocha inspecting my practice piece. I wonder what she's thinking?


PS The sun's out today, so I'm going OUTSIDE!

Seventy! Finally!

Finally, just yesterday, the thermometer hit seventy. Today it's 54. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted, and we did have four glorious days of sunshine....in a row, no less! Dick caught a couple of Steller's jays in our backyard while trying to capture the "snow" from the cherry tree.

MOV04129 a video by jatshaw on Flickr.

It was nice when our friends the Schmidts were in town enroute to Alaska. They even got to see Mount Rainier, and I am sure have totally the wrong idea about our weather. But, I'm glad they got to see our city at its finest. Before the weather turned good, I finished this washcloth from one of the patterns I got on Mother's
Day at Churchmouse Yarns and Teas. I love this pattern so much that I'm going to try it for a small blanket. We'll see how long that takes!