Garden Pictures

Here are a few images I took in the garden this afternoon.

The Russian Siberian Irises



The Strawberry Patch



Fernland

Celebrity Sighting!

Yesterday Jaala & I trotted on down to The Knitting Tree to meet Ysolda Teague and give her our big Wisconsin Welcome! We may have slipped her a few copies of Knitcircus, too, while we were at it. She has a new self-published booklet of patterns, Whimsical Little Knits, and it's really cute. The projects are indeed, whimsical and little: hats, toys, slippers, accessories. Give it a look.

In other news, I've finished the main body section of one of my big secret projects. On to the sleeves... It's pretty realistic to count on getting this done by mid-June if I'm diligent. I realized that the other big project I hoped to get done for the August Knitcircus will just have to wait until the October issue.

By the way, if any of you have any nice patterns for fall garments for adults that you would love to see in print, send them along! We could definitely use a couple more to round out Issue #7.

Yarn!

I've been working on lots of quasi-stealth knitting lately, so not a lot for the blog. Also, I've been writing an article for the next Knitcircus that actually took a bit of research, so that had most of my attention last week. The knitting is a race to the end of the school year, after which it's a total crap-shoot whether I can get much done until September.

I did get a pleasant little treat in the mail the other day: two sample skeins from The Green Mountain Spinnery. They've agreed to give us a bit of yarn support for Knitcircus. I'm going to design something from one of these yarns for Issue 8, which will come out in October. Not sure yet what, as I'm knitting frantically for Issue 7 right now.

This is Yarn Over, which the Spinnery creates from various left overs in limited edition colors. It's a 2 ply heavy worsted wt, mostly wool with a bit of mohair.


This one is Cotton Comfort. 80% wool, 20% organically grown cotton. It's a 2 ply DK weight.

I'm eager to get my fingers into both of these, but have to stay focused on the projects already on the needles.

Injuries on my mind

Monday afternoon the little guy convinced me that a little bike ride around the neighborhood would be fun and good exercise. I should know that nothing good will come from exercise, but I'm trying to be a good example.

Off we went and it was great for the first two and half blocks. Then the little guy made a reckless move, cutting me off. My front wheel grazed his back wheel. I attempted to stop and correct and maybe a few other things all at once and the result is that I hit the pavement. On the way down, my, um, delicate parts got slammed onto the bike frame. My left elbow and knee both got a good scraping. The little guy was very contrite and when we got home he got the first aid stuff out and set about bandaging the elbow and knee. Since then, I've had some generalized aches and pains, but it mostly responds to ibuprofen.

On Monday evening, I was catching up on Molly Bee's blog and read all about her sudden impact. Must have been something in the air.

So, last night, I do one last email check and my chat window opens on gmail. My friend Kathy leads with this, "I have 22 stitches."
I responded with the first, most natural thing I could think of.
"Ow!"
Then her second line appeared. "Row 2, k5, kfb 3 times, k5."

"OH," I think. "Those kind of stitches."

I guess I just assumed that if injuries were in the air, Kathy would be joining in the fun. Thankfully, her knitting problem was a pretty quick fix. Much faster than a wound involving 22 stitches would have been.

Some Garden Pictures

Blossoms on the Mother's Day Apple Tree. We might even get more than one apple this year!


The dried oatgrass from last season. New stuff hasn't come up yet.


Some tulips getting ready to do their thing.


Bleeding hearts. These are looking so happy, we might need to divide them and spread the love around.

This year for Mothers Day, my guys brought me a couple of pink spireas, after I dropped a few totally-not-subtle hints that I would like them for a particular space near our porch. This morning, while the air was cool and crisp and sunny, Mr. SABLE and I dug and loosened up the intended weedy patch. We removed a big garbage barrel full of dandelions and such and got the spireas planted. I need to go get some magenta petunias to go around, but at least there's a lovely bed all ready for them. It was nice out digging around with the Mister. By myself, I get kind of overwhelmed, plus, I'm never really sure where he might have something special that I shouldn't destroy. The little guy was playing with the neighbors and Owen was chatting with strangers online or something.

All in all a satisfactory day, though some muscles I'd forgotten I had are talking to me now.

A small little loss

One of the things I love about where I live is the way that the seasons bring certain color combinations into my life. In the fall, I drive by a park where the dark red-brown of changing oak leaves mingles with dark green pines and a dusky plum of other tree trunks. In winter, there's a boulevard with crab apple trees planted on the median. The view of bright red crab apples, dark brown trunks, and white snow pleases me tremendously. And in the spring we get a delightful array of flowering trees juxtaposed against the budding leaves of trees with more subtle blooms.

When we built our porch, I found I noticed certain views from our yard for the first time. One of these was a pink flowering tree that bloomed just in front of a dark red maple, both surrounded by new chartreuse greens. I never got a picture of this view, though I often thought I should try. I tend to think it would be one of those views that never looks as interesting in a photograph as in reality. Mostly, I enjoyed sitting on the porch, taking in these splashes of color and feeling so blessed and wealthy to have this view for the taking.

This spring, I was looking out in that same direction and noticed that the pink flowering tree was blooming, yet, something seemed different. Then I realized that the dark red maple behind is gone. Obviously, neighbors and city workers have control over most of the trees I see from my porch, so changes are bound to happen. But still, it's a sad little loss.