I just can't do it

I have resolved at least 4 times in the last 2 weeks that I will loose weight. I only want to loose 5-7 lbs. That's not unreasonable, but I can't stick with the program. Either I don't exercise several days in a row, or I eat snacks all day long. I know that part of my problem is that I was "good" for several days and I found that I had gained 3 lbs, but still. I should be able to do this. It's not an outside force telling me to loose, it's my decision. I just can't seem to leave the snack food alone. Grrrrr.

Knitting news - I have finally managed to knit far enough to join front and back of Bob's sweater! I do need to have him try it on again, though, before I go further. If there is a problem, the less I have to frog the better. : (

I have completed the thumb gusset on the first fingerless mitt, so I have another repeat or two and ribbing to go. Then it will be on to the second mitt. I hope I recorded the changes I made to the ribbing correctly..... 

I am knitting along on the lace scarf in  

 Silk and Ivory

in the Purple Mountain colorway, taking my time and enjoying it. It is a nice break from the cotton sweater - totally different feel and tension. I don't mind either project, I just can't knit on either one exclusively.

I have to think about vacation knitting soon. I will work on Bob's sweater, but what else should I bring? I usually bring a sock because of the portability. There are several I could choose from, but I just joined a Ravelry group called Sock Knitters Anonymous, and they have a sub group (Sockdown) going that calls for knitters to challenge themselves. You knit a pair of socks/month, according to the schedule they have posted, but you have choices all the way. For instance, in September, you should choose to knit either an orange sock, a Cookie A design or a mystery sock that someone has designed for the group. What you choose should challenge you in some way. I like the idea of making myself try new things, and this sounds like a fun way to do it. There are prizes for those who complete the challenge, and if I win that would be great, but my push will be to learn something new. If I can't keep up, so be it. Soooo, the point of all that is that I might choose to work on a sock for that challenge,and I need to decide whether I want to do the Cookie A design or the mystery sock.

I will bring the lace scarf, and I might shop in my stash (or LYS if that's unsuccessful) for yarn for a felted bag. Felted bag knitting is great for boating - it's basically knit round and round and can be done in the dark and/or on a rocking boat. It's also a warm project sitting on my lap, and on the water at night in September, I can use the warmth. The other projects will be for daytime knitting. I will also have my drop spindle along and plan to finish the last of the fiber I have been working on. I hope to ply it and start on some new fiber, but that decision is still pending.

Bob is making remarkable progress on the boat re-do. He has serious hopes that we will take it, transom intact, to get the motor replaced by the beginning of next week. Boy, will that be a relief! What was once a hole

with holes in it












has been filled in with 3 layers of plywood









and covered with the original *skin* that was on the transom at the start












Now we wait for this *glue* to dry (the "skin" of the transom has been glued on and to hold it in place, DH has clamped and screwed boards to put pressure on the skin). Then more grinding happens (I am *so* glad this is his job!) and the gaps are filled in. Somehow. Waterproofing, too. Good thing, that waterproofing. gulp.

I have been noticing that the leaves are starting to turn fall colors, it's cool enough in the evening to wear a sweatshirt (outside) and the veggies in the garden are dying off. Boo Hoo. I could definitely go for more summer. I can't believe it's almost Labor Day Weekend! This summer flew past.

Wow! It's mid-August already!

After Bob's "vacation", he went back to work for a week and then we headed up to NY for my Mom's 75th birthday party. It was a surprise, hidden by the claim that there was a graduation party for her grandson (he did graduate from the county police training program). With that excuse we could stay at Mom's with no questions about why we were there. We did arrive on Long Island earlier than she thought because we went to my brother's house (that's where the party was) to help with some of the prep work.

We got to Mom's house late, visited for a little while but went to sleep soon after. The next morning was cool and sunny - we had a great day for the party. We visited and ate and finally got dressed. We were late. The party started without us. giggle. Actually we were supposed to get there around 2:30-3:00 and it was 3:15 before we arrived. As the gate opened, I said Happy Birthday, Mom. That's when it hit her. 40 people gathered to wish her a happy birthday, including some family members that she sees only once/year. It was good. She visited and chatted and posed for photos. We finally headed home at about 11:30 PM. Here's my Mom, with me.





Mom's cake.













and Mom's brother and his family.














The next day we visited for the morning and then headed out to Montauk (the far east end of Long Island).

Here's the lighthouse from the beach.

This is a bluff near the lighthouse. The beach below is a popular spot for fisherman and the water below is a favorite with surfers. Getting up and down is quite a bit of work, though.







Sunset on the beach.




Bob and I have strong ties to that area. A lot of our dating took place out there, and he worked out there for many years while in school. We love it there and always feel relaxed. We needed the relaxation. Bob will go out on disability this week. It was a hard decision for him to make.

We went to the beach, to the lighthouse and to a few marinas, looking at boats and daydreaming of what we might get if money were not such a big obstacle. (Where is that lottery ticket, anyway?). We sat on a bluff (the one in the previous photos) overlooking the ocean and watched a storm roll in. It was full dark, and the lightening was awesome!

These photos were taken at night - full dark, with a long exposure.

I love the lighthouse and the beach and could stay there forever. Unfortunately, work intrudes. We headed home Monday night and arrived about 1AM on Tuesday morning. I had planned to go into work late anyway, so that wasn't a problem. As it turns out, I stayed at home and worked due to the fact that I re-injured the toe that I thought I broke 2 weeks before that and I had a lot of pain over the weekend. I went to the doctor, it was x-rayed and showed no fracture. That means a longer recovery time (soft tissue injury does not usually get treated with immobilization, just rest and meds) . Good and bad news.

This is DH's last week of work, and it is obvious that it was the right decision to stop now - he's really struggling to get things done and is exhausted at the end of the day from the effort required to see and hear well enough to care for customers at work. Friday can't come fast enough.

Knitting content. I have been knitting a lot. I have been frogging a lot. I have been working on a cotton sweater for DH. It's my own design, but don't get excited - it's just a straight stockinette sweater with Nautica-type colors added in stripes across the chest. It is being knit top down and I have had to frog and re-knit sections a few times to get it right. I am working on the armscyes and once I get those right, (the back is done and I am on the front) it will be round and round in white for miles....





I started fingerless mitts last week. I started in a luscious silk/wool blend yarn that I have had in my stash for a while. I loved knitting with it, but it knitted up too loose for my taste for fingerless mitts. I dug in my stash and found some sport weight Lornas Laces in (I think) the Pond colorway. It's one of the semi-solid colors and very pretty. I experimented with needle sizes and could not make it work. I finally decided to decrease the number of repeats. The pattern calls for the lace and cable pattern to be knitted on the outward surface of the glove and stockinette on the inner surface (palm on the hand). I wanted the pattern all around, at least on the cuff portion, and that required a re-work of the ribbing to make it fit. It worked out and I knitted 4 or so pattern repeats before discovering that it binds a little going on over my hand. It was back to the frog pond again, but this time I left the ribbing in place and changed the cable from a 3x3 to a 4x4 cable, thereby adding 8 stitches to each glove. It seems to be working now, but I try it on as I finish each pattern repeat just to be sure that it will still fit.

The yarn that I originally chose is now becoming the Leaf Lace Scarf. It is a good match, I think and I love knitting with this yarn.

Northern Star is on hold. I think I still like it, but I have put it away for the time being and plan to re-evaluate later.

Montego Bay has been frogged and I am using a pattern I found in the perpetual calendar to make another scarf. This pattern seems to highlight the color changes instead of fight with them. ; )


I have also been spinning. I completed the worsted weight yarn (spinning and plying) that I started a few weeks ago and it's drying now. I have gone back to spinning the purple fiber I purchased 2 years ago at Rhinebeck - it's a wool/silk blend and it is intended for a shawl, design still to be decided. My plan is to spin for about 30 minutes each day, then move on to knitting. I think I spin better if I do some everyday, rather than once/week. I won't bring my wheel on vacation but I will bring my drop spindle and fiber with me. I can't let a whole week go by without spinning at all, now can I?


I have such a hard time deciding which craft to spend my time on since I enjoy them both. I have toyed with the idea of weaving for a while, but this is one of the reasons I haven't yet pick it up - how will I find time to work on everything I love to do? (and still go on with normal life).

The next post should include some boat work photos and update. Until then, knit and be happy.

What did you do on your summer vacation? (picture heavy post)

My DH spent his this way.

The boat's transom (the back of the boat, where the motor is attached) used to look like this.




After 2 days of horrible, hot, sticky, itchy back and knee breaking work, it looked like this.



The "facilities"



The "toys"

The plan? To fix all of these (holes in the liner of the boat)

 



And to fill the entire empty transom area (you are actually looking at the back of the inside of the boat)




with 2-3 layers of plywood fit snugly into place like a jigsaw puzzle. A very important jigsaw puzzle, since the motor hangs on this area of the boat. It's a heavy motor. I don't like it when the boat becomes a swimming pool, so it (the transom) has to stay on.



Once the plywood pieces are cut, the next step is to coat them with epoxy to seal them (waterproof) and attach to the rest of the boat. That will have to come after DH works the next 10 days in a row. Yup! His vacation is over and he's back to work. Now doesn't that sound like a fun vacation? 

Crooked Cupcakes

I decided that for DHs birthday, I would make an extra effort and bake from scratch. I always use mixes. The 2 times in the past that I baked from scratch, no one liked what I baked. This time, though, I was a) more experienced and b) would read and pay attention to the instructions in minute, excruciating detail. I even read my MILs old cookbook - did you know that there are correct ways and incorrect ways to measure the ingredients? I didn't. Now I do. For all the good it did me.

I assembled the ingredients ahead of time as instructed. (I never do that - I get things out, measure, add and put the ingredients away as I go). I used a pouring measuring cup for the liquids and the separate measuring cups and spoons for the solids. I measured over the sink, not over the bowl, so the extra drops/particles would not overflow into the bowl with a resulting increase of whatever in the mixture. I sifted the flour. 3 times. I mixed the ingredients in the order I was supposed to mix them. And this is what I got.



Poor Bob. He was a good sport about the whole thing but I felt terrible. It turns out that the recipe forgot to include eggs. Totally not my fault. Will I bake from scratch again? Not any time soon.

Socks complete!

My travel socks are finished! I was being treated to a decadent dessert (my prize for coming closest to guessing the yardage on some fiber that Karen spun last year) on Wednesday and we were just about to leave after enjoying forbidden chocolate with brownie chunks, whipped cream and hot fudge when the skies opened. Serious thunder and lightening was going on and there was a heavy deluge. We decided not to leave at that time and sat back down to wait "for a few minutes" until the rain let up. 45 minutes later I had not only finished knitting the sock but also bound off and had the ends woven in. We did finally leave, though I had to put my sweatshirt over my head and make a run for my car (which I had parked at the far end of the lot because I thought we could use the longer walk after indulging ourselves that way). 

The yarn is Colinette Jitterbug in the Tuscana colorway and the socks feel very cushiony. I knitted them on size 1 needles. I use the same size needle for almost all of my socks, but after knitting with thicker sock weight yarn (like Jitterbug or Claudia's) for a while, I will have to use 0s on my thinner sock weight yarn (like TrekKing, which I still really like) in the future. I hope they will last longer being knit tighter.




My new travel project is the Montego Bay scarf. I cast on for a while ago and then didn't let myself knit on it so that I would finish projects already in the works. It's not as easy to work on while walking etc. because of the weight of the yarn (lace) making it hard to feel the stitches on the needle. But I love the yarn and the colors and this will be a nice change from socks for me.

The sleeves of the hemp lace top are near completion. One sleeve is actually at the length I need it to be and the other is about 2 pattern repeats away (2.5 inches). This weekend I hope to join sleeves to body and knit to the end.

I may also (if I am too tired to count stitches for lace) do my last swatch for DHs sweater - both a last gauge check and a last stripe pattern check. It is stockinette and is therefore easier to work on when tired. He rarely asks for anything to be knit for him so I am very happy to be working on this sweater. Hopefully, since I have learned alot about knitting since my first sweater attempt for him, this one will look and fit better.  the body of the sweater will be white, with Nautica-inspired stripes of color across the chest. Here's one swatch, which I think he's decided against


and here's the swatch of the stripe design that I think he'll choose


The last swatch will be the same stripes and colors, but will have the wide blue stripes at the outside and the narrower stripes towards the center.

This weekend will also be help Bob with his work on the boat. He is ripping out the transom (the back piece where the motor attaches)and re-build it. I will help as much as I can since Bob is saving a lot of money by doing this himself, and it's a messy, hot, miserable job.

Have a great weekend and remember to hug someone you love.

I don't kill everything I try to grow

This is my vegetable garden. Closest to the fence you see my green bean plants, and out from there are the cucumber plants. Both have been pretty prolific so far this year. The green pepper plant looks good and has baby peppers on it.

Out further (from where I was standing to take the photo) I have blueberry and tomato plants. 1 of 3 blueberry plants looks like it is doing well, and one of the tomato plants is doing well, the other two not so much. I may have overdone the fertilizer that I used when I planted and DHs theory is that the plants are doing not as well the further down the line in the direction the rain runs (and therefore being over-fertilized or burned)

I stayed pretty simple with the ornamentals this year - sweet potato vines in the baskets:


and petunias




I did plant a few other things but these were posing prettily so they were photographed. LOL

Here is one sleeve of my hemp lace top - the other looks the same but shorter. giggle



I didn't take any photos of the body of the sweater because you can't really see the lace when it is laying flat - you need something under it to show it off properly and I don't want to risk loosing stitches right now just to take a photo. Finishing the sleeve and attaching everything together so the remainder of the sweater can be knitted is my main goal, and I have just 8 days to go. gulp.

summer vacations

All over blog world, people are taking summer vacation from blogging. I am not going to go that far, but I have stopped making excuses for gaps between posts. ; )

One sleeve for the lace hemp top is back to where it was when I discovered our (mine and the layout person/tech editor of that pattern) error and I have ripped back the second sleeve and have knit a couple of inches on that. Soon I will be ready to complete the last few inches of sleeve in the sound and attach them to the body of the sweater. Yippee!

The hemp top and my sock are where my knitting efforts have gone due to the deadline to get the lace top complete for entry into the fair. I did make a few swatches for DH's cotton sweater yesterday. I had a bad headache that did not allow me to count lace stitches. Stockinette and a few color changes was just the thing. I managed 2 rows on the Northern Star shawl before the symbols overwhelmed me (because of the headache, not because they are difficult). I wanted to spin but the headache was less intense outside (in the humidity) and since the temps were in the 90s, it was way too hot for wool to be wrapped around my wrist. : (

Saturday was Bobs birthday. He was off but the boat is sitting in our yard sans motor for some major repairs, so no boating for the birthday boy. Instead, he puttered out there, setting up a canopy to provide shade, sun curtains for the morning hours and protection from rain (we haven't had much rain for the last week or so but now that he needs things to be dry, we will get some every day, according to the weather maps), and removing hardware. Being Bob, all of the items he removed are labeled clearly and sitting in our kitchen, waiting for the time to be re-attached. I then took him to Lone Star Steakhouse for a very yummy and decidedly not heart-healthy meal. I will tell you about my attempts to bake his cake from scratch (instead of a mix) at another time. Suffice it to say that I had dessert out and he didn't have any. grimace.

Sunday was a return to work for Bob and walking and cleaning and (I thought) spinning for me. That didn't go as planned, either, but my car got vacuumed. big grin.

The monitor visit that was scheduled for this week isn't happening (the person who scheduled it left the company and didn't tell anyone about it), but I have just about all of the work done, so when it does happen in August, probably, there won't be any prep. ; )

Tonight is my late night at work, walking when I get home, then shower, 1 pattern repeat on the sleeve and bed. Maybe tomorrow I can get in some of that spinning.