beebonnet report

Kells

Whoops!  Life has gotten a little hectic what with car stuff and visiting relatives and a lot of rain, but I figured it was high time for another blog post.  This time I finally have some knitting I can show you - this was one of those secret projects I kept mumbling about a while back.  The second installment of the Sole Mates sock club - Kells.

It's a top down cabled sock with cables that remind me of the celtic knotwork in the book of Kells.  The sock pattern comes in 3 sizes, but also has a handy rib panel on the sides that makes it easy to customize the size.  

I like patterned heels because I wear a lot of clogs and birkenstock type shoes and I like to look as good when I leave a room as when I enter ;-)

The yarn in this club's selection is the most gorgeous, luxurious yarn from Anzula Luxury Fibers.  It's a custom dyed color just for our club - a lovely Tuscan/berry red.
There's a reason luxury is in their name.  This yarn is the Squishy Sock which is a blend of superwash merino, cashmere and nylon.  Deee-licious!

Signups for the Sole Mates Sock Club kits are closed, but if you like the pattern there is a pattern-only option that is still open.  The pattern only option will remain available until the end of the club so you can join at any time and whenever you join you will get all the patterns that have, thus far, been released.

In other news, my tulips are mostly gone, but the mystery plants are in full swing, and, yep!  they are wild roses.  So delicate and fragrant!  I am a lucky girl.

Photo of  Eyjafjallajokull volcano and Katla volcano from Getty Images

photo of recent eruption of Tungurahua from Associated Press

The weather here in Eugene has been very rainy and fairly chilly.  I'm still wearing wool socks a lot of the time.  I've heard from the locals that it is unseasonably wet and cold and I heard a theory that it is the volcano eruptions in Iceland that are causing colder weather.  I am wondering if people elsewhere are also experiencing colder than usual weather.  Volcano eruptions are known to cause colder weather, there was the year without summer in 1816 which caused widespread cold in Northern Europe, and North America which is thought to have been caused by a volcanic eruption in Indonesia.  So it's not as far fetched as it seems.  And it looks like there may be a second volcano eruption possibility in Iceland plus there have been eruptions in Ecuador and Guatemala too - it looks like volcanoes are in the news these days. 

Fortunately rain is still a novelty to me (remember I grew up in the land of relentless sun) so I have been enjoying this unseasonable weather immensely.  However, I am scared of how big and fast my precious weeds are growing! I did discover a very good use for weeds though...when your yard is soggy and swampy from too much sky water falling in too short a period of time, they make really good stepping stones to keep from falling in the mud!  I've been yanking them out and making little piles that I very much enjoy walking on.

My pals the bambis have been visiting quite a bit lately.  I used to have a theory that they only visited when the weather was sunny and fine, but I've been seeing them in the rain lately too.  Which just proves that my theories are a bunch of baloney, I have no idea what I'm talking about!  My dog Gwen has become the deer alarm.  She likes to bark and growl ferociously from the safety of the house when she sees them in the yard.  She sounds like she'd like to eat them!  Well, the other day I accidentally let her outside when there were deer in the yard and I didn't realize they were there.  She growled and raced toward them.  Then, when she was about a hundred feet away she pulled up short and decided she didn't really want to meet a deer nor did she even want a tiny taste of one, not even one little lick.  They looked awfully big all of a sudden and one had antlers and they all had hard sharp hooves.  She turned right back around and decided to hang out with me instead.  The deer barely reacted!  They looked at her, moved a few steps away and then continued to munch.  It's too bad they don't have a taste for poison oak because I still haven't dealt with that little issue in the yard and wouldn't that be lovely if something as pretty as a deer would eat something as irritating as poison oak.  Sigh.  In a perfect world....

Nothing says happy like a new pair of socks

The other day at knitting group, I forgot my pattern for a secret project i was working on.  I immediately grew sweaty and alarmed at the prospect of being at knitting group without knitting!  Luckily I had a pair of socks along that have been dragging around with me for more than a month waiting for me to darn in the ends.  I quickly borrowed a tapestry needle and set out to let these socks free to be what they were meant to beeeeee! (cue the sappy violins).

ahem.  namely, wearable socks.

I have no excuse for why I didn't get these finished off sooner.  But now that they are done I can show them to you!

Here is an unblocked sock, looking rather shriveled.  Shriveled socks are always a good sign, it means there is a lot of nice compression in the sock and it will fit without falling down.

These socks have an arch shaped foot.  The fabric is on the bias going around the arch and to the ball of the foot giving you a really nice snug fit on the foot.  I love how these socks feel on my arches and the heel and toe are more anatomically fitted as well.

I'm naming these socks Taliesin, can you guess why?

You can't tell in these photos but the beads add just the tiniest bit of sparkle to the socks.  They are the same color as the yarn, so they don't stand out like crazy, they just twinkle and flash as you're stepping out.

The yarn I used for these socks is Pico Accuardi Dyeworks, color "Gwendolyn".  Pico Accuardi dyes all their yarns with natural dyes from plants.  These are done with indigo and onion skins amongst other things.

I am finishing up the pattern and will have it for sale after test knitting.

 

And now on to something new!  I've been hankering to try out some lace patterns based on all the beautiful garden plants I've been exploring and photographing.  (If you think I've bombarded you with a lot of plant pictures you should see how many I took,  It's only the tip of the iceberg I tell ya!)  So I took a little stash dive and came up with these two skeins that have been marinating since Stitches West.  These are the softest, lightest skeins you can imagine, and they are from Knitting Notions.  And best of all, they are in the perfect shades of spring green.  I have something special in mind for these... watch this space for future details.

It's a bit gloomy out today, so I'll leave you with a picture of a new tulip that popped up.  These are the special yellow tulips with red streaks that I planted and forgot about.  They got covered up with weeds and then suddenly this one popped its head out the other day.  Surprise!  ummmm... not yellow.

Take a walk with me

 c'mon ma! let's get walking already!

A whole field of camassia in bloom

The enchanted forest looks especially enchanting with those big cow parsnips in bloom

they remind me of Queen Anne's Lace

it's important to take time to sneeze on the flowers

I wonder what these are, they are like a cross between Frank Gehry and Georgia O'Keefe

The end of the trail for today - time to head home.

1 Rectangle... check!

I've been having a lot of fun at the dentist these days.  It seems when your fillings get old, sometimes they crack your teeth, and then bits fall out and then you get to go visit your pal the dentist and get a shiny gold tooth!  That's given me some good knitting time while sitting around waiting for shiny gold things to be fitted, and molded and made.  I finished up two secret projects and got to check those off my list, and I also made progress on the Origami sweater.  There are only two pieces to this sweater, and the first one is finished!  Hooray.  perhaps I'll actually have a nice sweater to wear next winter. 

Since I moved here from the land of perpetual sun, I didn't really have many sweaters, and none of them handmade.  (Hence the sock obsession).  But now that I live somewhere where it actually gets below 50 F (10 C), I would actually like to wear sweaters.  My goal is to have 3 new sweaters to wear next winter -We'll see if I can manage that.  I think I'll at least get this one done, it's very fast and good for social knitting.  Now, I just have to get of the house and get social!

In between all the novocaine and pocketbook pains (getting a shiny gold tooth is not cheap), I've been sashaying around my garden some more.  Who knew gardens were such fun?  I see that I have about 10,245,637,339 weeds to pull.  I have no idea where to put all that garden debris.  The trash pick up only takes garden stuff every other week, and it's only one puny trash can.  Did I mention 10,245,637,339 weeds?  Plus sticks!  I was going to make a secret compost pile in the woods right behind our trees until I discovered a stand of poison oak over there.  Now I have 10,245,637,339 weeds and poison oak to get rid of.  Sheesh!

But in spite of all the weed pulling in my future, I'm still excited about the purty purty flowers that keep popping up.  And the wonderful visitors we get every day.  The bambis have been back several times, and they are not interested at all in my tulips.  Perhaps they are only tasty before they become flowers, or perhaps there is something tastier they are enamored of.  I love to see them in the garden, and I think we have come to some sort of agreement.  They can eat all the deer salad they want, and I request they leave me a few tulips.  So far, our agreement is working.

I also have some lily of the valley showing off.  I planted these and I feel proud as a mama that they're actually thriving and blooming!  (If only you knew what a terrible gardener I was in California - everything eventually died from lack of water - I had a dust thumb).

These are a wildflower I think.  There's a whole field of them in the enchanted forest on the walking path behind our house.  The deer seem to like these though, I've found quite a few stalks without their heads.

And this one must be a weed.  But with the right lighting, even weeds are beautiful!

And here is one more mystery.  I'd really like to find out what these are.  They look like sticks in the winter, and they have thorns, mostly at the base, getting finer toward the top and bare of thorns at the very top.  They're about 2 ft high, and it looks like they're going to get a flower on them.  I have a LOT of these.  At first I thought they might be some kind of berry, but the soon to be flower head seems way too fat for a berry.  If anyone has any clue, I'd love to know.  It actually looks like a rose of some sort to me, could this be a rose?  They're growing in the shade though....

Calling all knitters... it's Knit Nation!

This summer I'll be traipsing across the Atlantic for a visit to London, and Knit Nation!  I'll be teaching 3 different classes there, Spinning for Lace, Sidekicks - sideways socks, and Spinning for Socks.  I'm sure the Knit Nation Expo is going to be lots of fun, and they have really terrific teachers lined up.  My only regret is that I won't have time to take any classes while I'm there!

I've never been to the U.K. even though I lived in Denmark for a year which is not that far away.  So I am debating what things to do and see while I'm there.  If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.  I thought about train trips and cruises and just staying around London so I'm open to all sorts of ideas.

Today's Knit Nation Blog has a little article about me, so if you're curious about what sort of things I eat while traveling or wondering which classes I'd most like to take, go check it out.  And if you're planning some summer fiber fun, Knit Nation might just be for you!

When what to my wondering eyes should appear....

Well, I knew I shouldn't tempt fate that way... Just when I tell everyone the deer are not visiting, I look up from the dishes this morning to spot this right across the blackberry patch...

So I dropped my dishtowel, dashed through the dining room screeched onto the balcony, and looked out toward my precious tulips.

And guess what I saw over there?  yup.  More bambis heading for tulip central.

But then, get this, they did not go and eat my tulips!  Whoa!  Now you're just messing with me Mr. Universe...

They did nibble on some stuff in the garden though.

I'm not quite sure what they were munching.  Inside my head I was screaming "eat the giant weedy thing!"  But the giant weedy thing (A dock apparently or Burdock), of course, is still there.  I suppose it would be too much to ask of their tender little deer lips to go munch down some of that thorny blackberry... hahahha.

After watching them carefully to make sure my tulips were still safe, I spotted these guys lying down, soaking up some sun and hanging out in the extremely tall grass (comes up to my armpit!)

And then Mr. Bonnet came along and said "let me test out my deer alarm I've been working on, let's see if it scares them off"  So he pressed a button and a screechy aliens-are-landing type of noise began assaulting our ears. 

The deer however were completely unimpressed.  A flick of the ears and they were soon back to munching something precious in the garden.

huh.  Back to the drawing board I guess.

The tulips are still there though... maybe I shouldn't tempt fate...

 

because the neighbors just told me that a bunch of teenagers drove up in front of the house and ripped about 10 tulips out of my front yard! (they took the bulbs too).

sigh. 

maybe tulips are not my lucky flower.

Garden variety mysteries

The weather was absolutely glorious today so I decided to get off my keester and get out into the garden, and boy did I find a lot of work waiting for me!  Somehow, I thought that when we bought a house with a woodland yard, it would be less work.  Hahahahahahahahaha!

First of all was the sea of blackberry vines engulfing the entire yard.  I spent several hours pulling and only managed a small bit of open land.  Every day I plan to fill two wheelbarrows full of blackberry and we'll see just how long that little venture takes!

Below you can see the fruits of my labor, that little area in front of the wheelbarrow is all I was able to clear, the entire floor of the wood is covered in blackberry vines behind the wheelbarrow.

I was really pleased to see all my black tulips nodding and waving in the breeze without even a smidgen of deer nibbles on them.  I don't think the deer have been visiting lately, and perhaps this crop of tulips will escape their two lips!

 

Of course there were lots of new mysteries and discoveries in the garden.  Since I grew up in a southern state where trees rarely change color, I had no idea that the new leaves on maples come out red, orange and yellow in the spring then slowly turn green.  Here is one of our maples with the leaves beginning to green up.

 

Here is a not-so-pleasant discovery.  What causes this yucky white foamy stuff on my flowers?  I assume it's a pest of some sort, what sort?  (sorry, I know it's not the best picture but I really want to know what causes this so I can remedy it)

I discovered these pretty little spotted leaves, what kind of plant is this?  Will it flower?

And are these hostas?  Looks like a snail or something has gotten to them.

Oh boy, what is this?!  Is this a giant weedy thing or is it a flower?  I have several of these, do I need to pull them out before they make some kind of massive dandelion heads?

 

who knew i would end up with a carpet of maple trees that need to be pulled out.  Whew!

And finally, I leave you with the pretties... pretty in pink and green

Bleeding hearts

 

Another variety of bleeding hearts

 

Our first rhododendron blossoms

 

And the fernies.  I love the fernies.  They seem almost Seussian with their curly furly fronds.

Looks like May is starting off with a lot of new growth.  I hope your Spring is progressing merrily too.