Let's Start at the Very Beginning

A very good place to start!

I do love this timeline, because it will climax almost exactly one year to the date that it all began.

On November 29, 2016, I sent a proposal to The Fibre Co (maker of many of the very best yarns on the planet). I hoped to be selected as one of their Autumn/Winter 2017/18 designers.

That did not happen. Yet I was placed on a TFC potential designer list to receive an email announcement for their "Yarn Support for Indie Designers - Request no. 1".  

The request came in March.

My proposal went back in April.

Early in May, the email to let me know that my (really cool, uniquely reversible) hat was selected.I was selected as a designer for The Fibre Co’s Fall 2017 Yarn Support Programme!

I proposed the hat be knit in the yarn I used for swatching, the amazing lofty and light, bulky weight, Tundra, and TFC sent two skeins in the Taiga colorway.

(Note: Both photos in this post were taken July 26. My love of flowers, and color, and hummingbirds, and summer, all distracted me and lead me to take that first photo.)

The Fibre Co requested a late fall date for the release of my hat pattern. I selected November 28. It will be my grandmother's 110th birthday. I hope she knows how much she gave to me and how often I think of her.

The hat pattern will be available on Ravelry, November 28, 2017.

More to follow.  

Yellow Arriving

I have a forsythia bush in my yard that needs to be cut back, and is long overdue for some composting or other soil enrichment.  My scraggly forsythia bush borders the woods and is easy to ignore.  The ground to the south and east of my forsythia bush rises into a small hill preventing it from getting a whole lot of the full sunlight it enjoys.  But, in spite of all that, my forsythia has begun to blossom.

My mother's favorite spring flowers were yellow tulips and my favorite spring flowers are daffodils.  (Both of these have been in my home for the Easter season.)  The goldfinches are back at the feeder behind my house.  Right now, it's still a bit hard to tell the males from the females, but in the coming days the males will molt into their bright yellow summer (breeding) plumage.

I welcome all of these yellows.

Spring, a good time to blossom.  Hope you are feeling it, too.

 

Midweek Meditation

"There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them."  ~ Henri Matisse

Red Room (Harmony in Red), 1908

Still Life with Geraniums, 1910

Annelies, White Tulips and Anemones, 1944

The Plum Blossoms, 1948

(Please, see some flowers today!)

Final Rose(s) 2014

This is my 300th blog post!

And my total number of "pageviews" recently surpassed 25,000.  (I think that means that 25,000 times someone clicked on a link -- from somewhere else -- to one of my posts  -- since June 12, 2011 -- the date of my very first blog post.)  (I do not think that is a lot for 3+ years, but it certainly has grown.)

The Playground Shawl KAL is off to a very fine start with a lot of lovely knitting happening!  I hope that you will consider joining us!

I shot all of the photos for the first group of KAL prizes while they rested on the very same corner of our deck (and on the same day) that I shot this photo of my final roses. 

(Sad it is for me.  The end of summer saddens me.)

My "final roses" are the ones that I carefully snip from my handful of rose bushes when I also make a stab at trimming those bushes for the end of the season.  I do love roses, but these bushes grow wildly in all kinds of wrong directions, and at least twice a year they require a whole lot of trimming.

(Sad it is for me to live in climate where roses bloom for only about 5 month a year.)

But about the KAL:  There is still plenty of time to get in on it!  You get a chance to win a prize for any project that you finish before the end of November.  I am getting ready to add even more prizes.  Just click on the links above to learn more!

I hope that you enjoy your fall wherever and whenever you are able!
 

Fall Flowers & Fall Knitting

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you would know that I am not a fan of winter to the extent that I also have mixed feelings about fall.  (In all honesty, I will admit that early fall can be quite lovely.)

My flowers are not looking like themselves these days.

 

OK.  I confess that since I came back from my beach vacation in mid-August, I have not been out to water them as often as I should.

I took this upward-looking shot of some blossoms on my "Snowball Bush" on the same day that I shot that first photo.  (In early fall, I do try to "look on the bright side".)

Fall is a favorite time for many, if not, most, knitters.  I have notice a small uptick in my online pattern sales at Ravelry.  There are only three patterns for sale there, but if all goes well, that number will be doubling very soon.

My yet to be released designs are still in my cupboard, but I am done with them now.  I have finished selecting what I think are my best photos.  I even think that I now have a finished "cover" image.

Edited to add:  I just set up my ebook page.

 Stay tuned for more to come..

 

The Color of Flowers

“I must have flowers, always, and always.”  ~ Claude Monet

I do love color.  My latest project has me wondering why I do not knit with this kind of color more often.

Just holding this knitting in my hands, makes me feel happy.  This is something I must remember once winter returns.

Project Name: The Color of Flowers

Pattern: Vine Street Tee by Amy Herzog

Yarn: The Fibre Company Canopy Fingering
Color Name: "Guava"

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." 
~ Claude Monet

  

Some Things I Like

I like knitting lace... even lace swatches.

I like photos of knitted lace with flowers.

The lace... a remnant of old.

The flowers... here for a season.

Both (profoundly) beautiful...

(Some of these bits of lace may be appearing in future posts.)

Summertime

Snowball Bush (Viburnum)

I did not work on finishing my intarsia project for an entire week after I posted about it.  But I am now slowly at it.  Can you see in this photo that the bottom half is done but not the top?  Look at the areas of white enclosed by navy.  The top two still look loose.  The bottom ones are OK.  (If you click on the photo to enlarge it, I think you will see what I mean.)

Secret Secret Floor Cushion

Trumpet Vine

I am loving knitting with linen this summer.

"Helene" by Veronik Avery in Quince & Co Sparrow, natural

"Annis" by Susanna IC in Louet Euroflax Paris, steel grey

Oakleaf Hydrangea

I named my Summer Olympics 2012 Ravellenic project "Cowl to Keep".  I should have no problem finishing it before the closing ceremony which I just learned has the name "A Symphony of British Music".

"Jonna Cowl" in Louet Gems Sport Weight, eggplant

Summertime is a good time for knitting and a good time for flowers.  Enjoy.

Violet

Midweek Meditation

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."        ~ Claude Monet

Forcing Blooms

Early last week, when I was still traveling back and forth to visit at the hospital in Philadelphia, I got it into my head that I would like to make some forsythia bloom.  It is called "forcing" when you bring branches indoors, where it is warm, in order to make them bloom early.  I had never done it before.

We have some very wild forsythia bushes on the edge of our partly wooded yard.  They get a good amount of shade and they usually bloom in late March or early April.  I went outside last Sunday and cut several branches.  I trimmed everything off of the bottom 8-10" of the branches and put them in a vase with warm water.  That's it.

For the last couple of days, the buds have been swelling.  This is how they brightened my dining room this morning.

Also this morning, I went out to the bush to take a photo to show you what its branches still look like.

The weather in this part of the US has been very warm and quite beautiful for March.  I love Spring very much, and I am happy to have it indoors as well!