Monday, August 17, 2009

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Here was the scene last Saturday morning. I always pack the morning we leave because I have to work the day before. Sometimes packing is more difficult than it is other times. Sometimes I have to extract many creatures from my bag. Like this one:


And this one:


And this one:


We did eventually get under way, and what I did mostly was to stare dreamily at beautiful Symes Pond and knit. To spare you from the billion pictures I'll break up my posts into everything Vermonty that was not knitty and everything that was. This is the everything that was not knitty.

Obligatory dramatic Symes Pond picture:




(those are my fishermen)

Beautiful evening shot of Junior Fisherman:

Here were the highlights of the trip for Gus (other than the fishing, which he loves). We took a trip to Littleton, New Hampshire, which is a charming town and home of Chutters, home of the longest candy counter in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Here is one happy kid:
We didn't even know this wondrous place existed when we hit town - we just happened to walk by.

We did a lot of our local shopping at the East Barnet General Store. One night, Gus said, "You should buy a lottery ticket!" (they were prominently displayed on the counter.) I said, "Okay - which one?" He picked which game and I handed him the ticket. Well, this creature is not named Gus for nothing! Our Gus won $20. Here he is proudly displaying his winnings:
(This picture cracks me up, for obvious reasons. Please note "This is my Happy Shirt", $20 FREE money winnings, AND extremely sour expression - he really was happy, just fed up momentarily with his crazy shutterbug mother...)

Now some random, pleasing images. This is from the Topic Of The Town Restaurant, also in Littleton. I love this picture:

Here is a field of sunflowers we drove by. A sunflower farm, which has to be one of the most pleasing things in the world:

Final wonderful shot of the Pond. Sigh......

posted by diana at 4:02 PM 2 comments

Sunday, August 16, 2009

I'm Back!

Got back last night from glorious week in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Have millions of pictures to post, but first must get over shock of week without phone or internet connection.

The Phillies have been struggling, though Pedro pitched well and Lee continues to impress. The Eagles signed Michael Vick - ew. Glad I missed that.

Stay tuned - I'll get those pictures up by tomorrow!

posted by diana at 12:19 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

I'm Ker-AZY Productive (well, in knitting at least....)

I thought it was just the cool weather earlier this summer. But the heat and humidity that accompany every Philadelphia summer have returned, and I'm still knitting up a storm. A storm, I tell ya!

We're off to the Northeast Kingdom on Saturday, so I may not post for a while, but I thought I'd present the veritable cavalcade of finished objects that have flown off my needles, Mrs. Weasley-wise, lately.

I'm on a crazy shawl kick lately, but not the old complex lacey things of the past - I've been loving the more rugged, I'm-Jane-Eyre-on-the-Moors-with-my-fabulous-rustic-shawl patterns out there, like the Aestlight Shawl and like this, which is Clothilde by Kristen Cardozo:

(why is this so blurry? I do not know....)

I unearthed some grey sportweight alpaca from the stash (I think I bought it at Stitches 6 years ago). It is very somber, so I threw in some beads that I had lying around (yes I have beads lying around, don't you?) and added them to the 2nd to last and cast-off rows with a crochet hook. I took pictures so I'll do a tutorial soon - it's an awesome, easy way to add a little smidgeon of beady goodness to a project.

Here's the edging:

Another view:


I knocked out another Lacy Criss-Cross Scarf from Knitspot:

Manos sport silk blend. Picture from Photobooth, hence its weird off-color quality. What a great enjoyable pattern.

My sales reps have requested a couple of samples to take on sales calls. This is Momogus Knits Easy Baby Hat in Kollage Yarns Corntastic yarn (100% corn fiber!) for Erica. I love pink and green:


This is a reduced-in-size sample of the Momogus Knits Easy Mosaic Pillow for Andrea:


Then, of course since business knitting was finished, I cast on for a project that has haunted me for several months - a hot water bottle cover. When I finished this, I was quite over the moon with happiness. I showed it to Matthew, who doesn't quite get the British-y goodness quality of this (if you search for hot water bottle covers on Ravelry, 90% of them are done by British or European knitters). I said, I can give them to your parents for Christmas!! And he said, horrified, "Why don't you just knit them an enema cover?!!!"

Maybe I'll just keep this for myself. I ran out to CVS and bought a hot water bottle, filled it with hot water, slipped it into the cover and then cuddled with it for the rest of the evening. I demanded that Matthew hug it, but he refused. Just wait till it gets really cold. I will have the last laugh!!!

Look how cozy!!!

Cabled Hot Water Bottle Cover by Alexis Layton. I call it Hottie. Cascade 128 yarn.

Now I must go and speculate on what to take to Vermont. Ahhh....vacation knitting.......

posted by diana at 6:34 PM 2 comments