Cinzia is back!

There she is on the bottom right of the picture. She accompanied her husband on his almost year long sabbatical to Spain and Sweden and returned just two weeks ago. She entertained us with stories of her escapades through Seville, and surrounds, to Morocco, a month in Italy visiting family, and getting to experience the weird contrast of day and night in Sweden. She tried delicious local foods, walked many more than 20,000 steps some days, and experienced the local culture and people for a memorable time away from her Albany home. We're glad to have her back and I can breathe a sigh of relief that her orchids survived their stay with me and one even bloomed! Welcome back, Cinzia!

She brought some cannoli to serve with Barbara B's yummy sourdough donut holes. I was a bit of a glutton and tried all three!

 

Dorah finished her One Row Handspun Scarf and was so excited it's done!

Barbara B is using Lolabean yarn for her Workday Scarf which is the same pattern that...

Nancy is knitting with her variegated yarn. To look quickly you would think they're two different scarves. It just goes to show how much influence a yarn has on the finished project.

Cinzia is working on a child's short sleeved T-shirt with a pretty lace accent.

And Maureen is working on the Bankhead Beanie with the twisted ribbing cuff.

Margaret was busy during the week so she apologized for not having made much progress on her Bewind Hat. That's ok, we have time.

My needles are busily clicking away at a Benjamin Matthews design called Rock Ridge Beanie. I'm holding my breath though because the yarn didn't have a label and I was sure it was a skein of Cascade 220 Superwash which has 200 yards which is what the pattern requires...except, I'm running out of yarn quickly! I might be frogging this for a single cuff instead of a 5 inch folded cuff.

My "supervisor" is sending me thought waves that it's almost snack time.

Somehow it feels like it is always snack time with this fuzzball! But how can you resist that smile?!?! Have a great week and keep those needles clicking!

Can you believe I didn't knit from Friday afternoon to Monday?!?!

But I had a legitimate reason! My babies were visiting!!! Well, I guess since they're both towering over me I can't call them babies anymore. They finished their first year of college and high school and are looking forward to summer jobs. I wish they didn't live so far away. Three days isn't long enough to spend with them. We had a great time though. Leo (the younger one) made a delicious chicken and dumpling dinner from scratch on Saturday for all of us. He loves his culinary arts class this semester and I love having him show me what he's learned! Poppop took them for a golf lesson and then a quick 9 holes before it rained on Saturday. So it was a full weekend of fun, hugs, and kisses. 

Now, on to the knitting news this week.

It was almost a full deck today. Cinzia and Carole had conflicts but everyone else was here.

 Margaret just started the Bewind Hat. It is a freebie on Ravelry and has a nice raised diagonal stitch design on a stockinette background for an easy project.

Jan worked on her Simple Little Scarf and by the time she left...

it was finished and just the ends needed weaving in. This is also a freebie pattern on Ravelry.

Dorah is working hard at making her One Row Handspun Scarf longer (another freebie). She is using a baby alpaca yarn for the softest fabric!

And Nancy confessed she hasn't worked at all on her Workday Scarf. But she had a real good reason. She was touring the island of Kauai!!! She had a lovely time and is back to her knitting projects.

Barbara B is about at the middle of her Mill City Shawl (another free pattern) for which she is using a pretty variegated fingering weight yarn.

Maureen finished her 1898 Hat and has start a ribbed cuff for another pattern of which I didn't get the name.

Barbara K didn't have a label for this pretty yarn but...

she is using the same One Row Handspun Scarf pattern that Dorah is knitting. The long slow color changes will make a pretty effect to the overall look of the fabric.

The cuff is growing on my Rock Ridge Beanie, a Benjamin Matthews hat pattern. I think this is  a Cascade 220 superwash wool yarn. Somewhere along the way I lost the label.

Tina is on the decreasing side of her French Twist scarf. It looks just like the sample in the pattern!

And don't let me forget to describe Barbara B's sourdough apple donut cake! It was moist and tender and not so sweet that you could feel the decay forming in your teeth!!! LOL! Deeeelicious!!!

Well, I need to make up for the missed knitting hours this weekend so I better wrap this up. Have a great week and keep those needles clicking!

It's Free!

In my last post this afternoon I mentioned that I was going to write up a pattern for the Corrugated Cowl I finished today.

 Well, guess what! It's up and running for free on Ravelry. Just follow the link to get your copy.

Ravelry: Corrugated Cowl pattern by Jody-Sallese Mason

Now get those needles clicking!

You could poach an egg out there!

It's 93 degrees, feels like 97! and humid! UGH! I don't know which is worse, the heat or the fact that I can't breathe underwater. But thank goodness for air conditioning! I always say if I don't have goosebumps on my arms, it's not cool enough. I guess that's what happens when you were a polar bear in another lifetime. 😉

Barbara B made sourdough pretzel bites which we dipped in Dijon Mustard while we...

chatted about grandkids, kids, vacations, and food. 

Barbara's pretzels are a big hit among the Chicks! And as Barbara said, the recipe says it makes 6 large knotted pretzels so if she makes them into little nuggets, we really aren't eating all that much. 

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!😉

Barbara K has made progress on the pink hat she is making to match the scarf from a few weeks back. The bulky weight yarn makes it a quick knit!

Margaret was funny! She "confessed" that she really didn't have time to knit at home so we made her recite 3 Hail Marys! LOL! Her Helix Hat is coming along.

Dorah's baby alpaca scarf is a little longer. Sometimes the Chicks don't want me to take a picture of their projects since they think it's taking too long to complete. But that's the whole point! We aren't little elves that wave our magic wands and have a 60 inch scarf knitted overnight! 

Wouldn't it be great if we could though?!?!

Barbara B's Mill City Shawl is a pretty combination of stitch patterns.

A close up shows the diagonal pattern.

Carole's Sophie Scarf is getting longer. 

 

And so is her One Row Handspun Scarf. She frogged the progress she had made because she didn't like the way the edges were looking. On the remake she decided to slip the first stitch purlwise with yarn in front and knit the last stitch. With this method, you have to add two extra stitches to your cast on for the edge stitches.

I had these two balls of yarn left over from my Grid Gambit Cowl and decided to design something with it. I'm calling it Corrugated Cowl and when I get the pattern written up and test knitted, I'll post it for free on Ravelry. 

And here's a quick lesson on how to pick colors for a colorwork project when you want a sharp contrast. Take a photograph of the yarns you want to use and edit it to look like a black and white photo. If the grays are too close in color to see a defined delineation between the patterns, then you know they won't work in this project. You need a sharp contrast as you see here. (forgive the underlining. My computer decided this is the way things will be from now on😡)

Fozzie is bugging me, nipping my elbows as I type and trying to bite the wires to my computer so I guess I'm finished for the day! Have a great week and keep those needles clicking!

Back inside!

The sun has not yet reached the deck so it was much cooler outside today therefore we are back indoors. My photographer had previous obligations today so I had to come up with a method for taking our group picture. I just happened to have a little cheap plastic easel that I propped up in the corner and was actually able to set the self timer on my phone camera to give me time to be in the shot with everyone else. My IT guy (aka my son) will be so impressed! NOT! LOL! 

I finished two projects this week for the Falcon Boutique. This first one was a VERY close victory in the game of yarn chicken!

This is the Fifi Cowl, a paid pattern on Ravelry. I used a Periwinkle Sheep yarn that I purchased at the Rhinebeck festival in 2013. Sometimes you have to wait for the yarn to tell you what it wants to be. In this case, I should also have listened to it tell me to read the pattern requirements more than once. In my defense, I might have been tired. I could have sworn the pattern said "a skein" of 100 yards of DK weight yarn. As I was rapidly running out of yarn to make a reversible cable, long cowl, I reread the pattern and saw it called for TWO SKEINS!!! Oh well, it is now a small cozy cowl. 

I did the same thing calculating yardage for this headband. At least I didn't have to rip it out. Maybe I should have my knitting license revoked. 😟

 Carole started a Sophie Scarf using a pretty lilac yarn. Her I-cord edges are so neat and tidy!

Maureen is making the Olive You Baby sweater. It has an asymmetrical front with this lovely cable. She's using a stunning Malabrigo yarn, a color that will knock your socks off!

Jan is working hard at her Simple Sideways Triangle Scarf. Sometimes a project seems like it's taking forever to complete. And sometimes, it is! 😉

Tina finally used up that huge skein of yarn and completed her Petal Showers Hat.

And she has moved on to the French Twist Scarf using a pretty variegated green fingering weight yarn. It looks just like the scarf on the pattern page on Ravelry.

Dorah is enjoying the experience of knitting Stephanie Pearl McPhee's One Row Handspun Scarf. The baby alpaca yarn makes it soft as down.

Barbara K started a scarf at home and didn't like the results so she is making up a triangle as she goes. Looking great so far!

I have yarn left over from a previous project so I am winging it too. I was thinking of knitting a mosaic design but after casting on all those stitches and realizing I did not have the correct multiples to accomplish a complete motif, I decided to knit a corrugated ribbing all the way. We'll see what these next few hours bring. There might be some frogging in my future.

My stomach is telling me it's time for a piece of fruit so I'm going to try to sneak a mandarin orange without Fozzie hearing me. Wish me luck! In the meantime, have a great week and keep those needles clicking!