Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all! Today we visited the church of some old friends. We had not been there in years and it was delightful to be there. They were short a musician and a song leader so I was able to play the piano for the service, and Dad led the singing. It was a nice treat to play their piano as the church has a Yamaha upright baby grand. The message was good. I took lots of notes, I will have to review them this evening. I think we will be going back there for the evening service.

This is most of the knitting that I have been doing the last 4 weeks or so. They are shawlettes, I still need to block them all. Come May I will be participating in a Fiber Festival, Lord willing. I have been working on different projects for that. It has been a little difficult fitting in time for knitting as we have been doing a lot of sewing for my brother's upcoming wedding.

But once the wedding is over I should have about a month to get everything accomplished. I have ideas coming out of my head left and right. Every time I get a new idea I write it down on my list. Otherwise I am sure to forget everything. But back to the shawls. They are a quick knit if you have plenty of time on your hands to do some steady knitting.

Nice four layer cake, eh?

This picture here is the knitting I did last night and this afternoon. My elder brother will be getting married in less then two weeks. We are making all of our dresses and I thought it would be kind of special if each of us gals had an elegant knitted bag to carry a few necessary essentials to the wedding. This particular bag is from "Knitting Little Luxuries." by Louisa Harding. I had to modify it a great deal because it called for chunky yarn and mine was very bulky. The bag is far from finished. I just took a quick in progress picture. It needs to be embellished with several knitted flowers and mother of pearl buttons, as well as a velvet ribbon to draw it shut. I made two little bags last night while watching "The Pianist". The flower I knit this afternoon. The bag can be made in less than an hour, as can the flower. I have a different type of bag in mind for the older gals in the family. But I still need to get to our LYS to find some elegant yarn.

It is making me a little dizzy just thinking of everything that needs to be done in the next ten days!

Glimpses Of Green

A bit of lace.

Herbs in the window.

Lemon Balm on the counter.

Tea Cup

Newly sprouted parsley, leaning toward the light.

Iris Plants.

Yarn.

Turquoise Delight

Just a small doily I made last summer. I remembered spur of the moment that a dear elderly lady was having a birthday this week. I wanted to do a little more than a card so I decided to slip this little doily in. I don't have a precise measurement on it but it did fit in a large birthday card, i folded it in half.....I should have measured it. I still have the pattern so I might whip up a few more in the future to have on hand.

A Walk In The Woods

Earlier this week Jonathan and I were out for a walk with Grandma. I, of course, was ready with camera in hand for blog worthy pictures. But I was disappointed because on first glance there was nothing extraordinary to photograph. Everything had the dull, dead, grayish brown look that comes right after winter, but before spring has burst forth. On closer inspection however ( and I mean close!) I discovered that it was not the extraordinary things that I should be looking for but rather the ordinary. There was beauty all over the place. I just simply had to open my eyes to it.

I'm sure there is a great spiritual analogy there. But I will have to collect all my thoughts first before I just plow ahead and write someting. Stay posted. :)

Hand Dyed Roving

A couple weeks ago I did some hand dyed roving with my cousin. We used Wilton food dyes. I won't detail the whole process here right now for the sake of time. I do have some pictures of the whole process but they are not handy at the moment.

I was going for a green and blue look but for some reason the blue Wilton dye turns purple on roving.

The color it ended up is fine with me though. I think it is quite pretty. There are 4oz. total of this colorway. I started spinning it up last week but I have not completed much.

And yarn for another project or two.

Cascade 220. I think I'll knit a shawl or two.

Keep posted for more pics of dyeing and shawls.

Antiquing

Somewhere over the years I developed a love for antiquing. I love going to a big (or small ) antique store and meandering through tons of old things. Generally I am not planning on buying anything, unless it is useful to me and a good deal. It's amazing how many useful things you can find. Not just stuff that is going to sit around the house but items you can actually reuse, recycle, or re-purpose. Sometimes it is just interesting to see all the interesting gadgets that used to be in peoples homes and lives and used on an every day basis.

On this particular trip I didn't buy anything, although other members of my group did. However I did have fun taking photos.

On a side note, look at the lovely handwork on this quilt! That blanket stitch is hand done.

I am always on the lookout for handmade, hand quilted quilts. I found several lovely ones on this trip.

Interesting bottles

Old mason canning jars

What a cute tea cup!

Vintage cards and more red dishes.

I love stoneware.

And of course, the old brick building. Marvelous, eh?

A Bridal Brunch

Snow, Snow, Snow.

The last snow fall we had was so gorgeous that I could not resist putting up pictures. I am more than ready for spring, but I still find all those fluffy flakes beautiful. If we are going to have cold weather I'd at least like a decent covering of snow. Sad, worn out snow that has been warmed, frozen, warmed, and frozen again, with bare patches of ground showing through, I do not like.

But spring is close, just around the corner. I am eagerly anticipating planting another herb garden, as well as helping with the big family garden.

We have fields around us and I can hardly wait to see the freshly plowed earth.