Some early favorite images from our afternoon out playing with the Peevey family. We had such a blast with this crew, especially Miss Claire, who totally hung on to the promise of rainbow lollipops much longer than any girl really should have to. More to come!
This summer, hubs and I got to spend an amazing weekend in Philadelphia, thanks to the lovely wedding gifts of some wonderful friends. We stayed in the Hotel Monaco, and had a lovely room overlooking Independence Park. Waking up to the sounds of the bells ringing from the very building our country was founded in is not a bad way to start the day, let me tell you. (The first shot was the view from our room.)
One of my favorite parts of the trip? Enjoying all the pop-up parks that make their appearance in the summer in the city. We visited the Elipse and played corn hole and Jenga while we ate food from local food trucks and relaxed beneath the trees in a temporary beer garden. We hung out in hammocks along Penn’s Landing in the Spruce Street Park while enjoying lemonade cocktails and watching container ships float by. For very few dollars, we were able to stroll the city and enjoy the warm summer nights and meet locals and fellow travelers. The whole experience was completely wonderful, and we can’t wait to go back again.
So I am finally getting around to editing images from the summer, including these straight up gorgeous shots of Miss Marla for her graduation. I completely loved taking pictures of her, and would love to keep her in my pocket and just take pictures of her whenever I can. The sunlight was perfect this day, and the light breeze blew her beautiful hair in the perfect way. What a treat!
After taking most of May off today anything but work, exercise, and attempt to maintain sanity, I finally have FO to share. I knit these mitts for one of Hub’s co-workers. She is fantastically supportive of him and just plain fun to be around, so when she mentioned off the cuff how much she wanted some fingerless mitts, I set to work. I didn’t have the chance to set up a great photo of them before gifting them, but here they are. They are less even than I would like, but I think it will come with more practice on DPN’s. I’m still a little stumped as to why the ribbing at the bottom looks funky, so if anyone has any great ideas I’d love to hear your feedback.
Hoping to get some editing done of little fancy teaparty Gracie girl had this week as well as some shots of my next project on the needles!
Pattern: Et Frais by Alicia Plummer
Yarn: Nice and Knit Fingering in Driftwood. Read about my first time ordering this yarn here. (Note: it will not be my last order.)
Joining Ginny today for her Yarn Along. Gracie and I have been reading Anne of Green Gables together. I never read it as a kid, and now I know why. There is just so much dialogue that I would not have had the patience for it when I was young. She really seems to be enjoying listening to it, though. She sits in bed at bedtime, knitting a cowl she has decided to make for herself while I read about a chapter a night. It’s even become a motivator for getting through our nightly routine in an expeditious manner. Take too long getting ready for bed? No time for Anne.
I cast on my Et Frais mitts this week, but have since ripped them out because it seemed impossibly small. I attempted yet again to just start a project without swatching. One of these days I’ll learned my lesson. Now there is a gauge swatch drying on the guest bed, ready for me to count some stitches tonight and make sure that I’m not completely off the mark. So far, I’m enjoying with the Nice and Knit fingering yarn. The color is gorgeous, and it feels soft as you knit it up.
While I was attempting get a somewhat decent shot of the knitting with not enough light I grabbed a shot of our backyard. No kidding, this is straight out of the camera. It’s been raining FOREVER, and everything is so green I can hardly stand it. Here’s hoping it’s helping the grass seed we put down this weekend.
The Magrathea Shawl is finally finished, and I’m so happy with it. I am so hopeful that it will bring tons of comfort to my mother-in-law in the coming months.
I recently read the Yarn Harlot’s post on blocking, which came handy. She reminded me that the blocking isn’t about pulling the fabric into the shape you want, but rather gently pushing into place. I was much less aggressive pinning this down as I have been with some projects, and it seemed to removed the need to use blocking wires. So far, I’m happy with the results.
Before moving out here to the sticks, I was city dweller for almost a decade. Mama only had a 10′ x 10′ patch of land to keep alive, and I failed miserably. Everything was always half dead, but you hardly noticed because there was so little there. Now we have this huge lot (for a DC suburb) and I feel like others notice when things aren’t alive. I’ve resolved to make it look a little more pleasant this year, and we are off to a good start. There is actually grass seed coming up, and tulips that I put in the ground all the way last fall have found their way up. It’s a pretty amazing feeling. Gracie and I even planted a teeny-tiny Rosemary bush along our front walk this weekend. We thought it would fill out nicely and allow our company to be greeted with great smells as they approach our door.
My favorite tree this season is quickly becoming the Redbud. It’s completely beautiful, perfect for climbing, and gives great shade after the leaves come in. I will say, this neighborhood is not for the allergy-afflicted. I think we would be miserable right now if we weren’t immune to flowering trees.
Any other tips out there for some sunny beginner plantings that I can not kill and feel good about?
This weeks photo challenge was #ontop and when I saw Grace sitting on top of the seat the our president once snagged, inspiration struck. This town is about power, and it’s nice to have those moments when you see that these incredibly influential people were just kids once too, put their pants on one leg at a time just like us, and occasionally enjoy some home made custard (courtesy of the Dairy Godmother in Del Ray, Virginia).
Who knows? Maybe this little gal will end us as one of them someday.
I have been following this lovely blog Nice and Knit for about a year. Two sisters posted beautiful photos of their knitted creations and their families, and I just couldn’t get enough. I love the look of the blog, the architecture of their old homes, and the wooly goodness was decadent. When I saw that they had started a line of hand-dyed yarns, I really wanted to support their work and give it a try. I ordered a skein of their fingering yarn in the Driftwood colorway, and it’s great. There’s 490 yards to each skein of superwash merino for $26.
I have to say, this thing is a pile of smooshy goodness, and I can’t wait to knit it up. This stuff has a lovely destiny – it will be knitted up into a pair of Et Frais mitts by Alicia Plummer for a co-worker of Hub’s. They are completely fabulous.
Can’t wait to cast on these babies and get started!
Yarn: Nice and Knit Fingering in Driftwood. Find their website here.
Pattern: Et Frais by Alicia Plummer. Find the pattern here, and Alicia’s site, Two Little Plums, here.
We celebrated a lovely Easter weekend with Hub’s family, and I think I needed to go back to work to recover from the fun. Gracie girl did some fancy egg dying and even laid out some carrots for the Easter Bunny. She was so surprised to see them nibbled on the morning. We went for a nice spring walk after hunting for eggs, and then started baking some fun Peep-inspired cupcakes for dessert. I love photographing the mess that comes with baking. The colors are always so vibrant, and getting the graphics of the packaging on ingredients makes the image so interesting. Grace set a beautiful table for us, even with the piles of stuff from the kitchen in the corner.
Little progress has been made in the kitchen as we wait for our contractor to finish up a job and come knock ours out. In the meantime, we just walk across sticky floors and try to keep the rest of the house together so we don’t feel like we are living in total chaos. This will come to an end soon, right?
katie's photo project 