The Last Days of Summer

- Last days of summer -

sunflower from under our feeders, later to be eaten by the goldfinches!

date night in Ann Arbor

Seth & Daisy concert on the lawn...

Cinnamon Girl hard cider (in my lawnchair!)

Pleasanton Bakery loaf (in my lawncahir!!)

After our time back home, my mom came down and we had a girls weekend - bike to dinner, ice cream, movie in our pj's, shopping.  Beautiful summer, amazing last days.

Silk Flowers

Yes, I know I JUST posted, but in my excitement, I can't wait!

I started a new project outside my norm and it has turned out better than expected!  I started making (faux) silk flowers. 

I'll be selling them on Etsy (asap) as necklace/bracelets, headbands, and belts. 

More images and colors to come!

I have a media reader!

Holy-moley, it's about time.

I just uploaded 10 months worth of photos, all the way back to last fall...

There was the weekend in Ann Arbor for Jerry's speech (congrats again!!)...

It snowed, I got festive...

There was a lot of packing, going back and forth from house to house for the holidays...  Wore me out!

How about a lovely candle-light walk through the Dow Gardens for Nick and I's three year anniversary?

Oh!  How and about some recycled yarn?

Once the snow finally melted and school ended, hiking and beaching was a must...

  A summer wedding forced Nick into the Gap to find some studdly clothes... I'm very proud of him, he cleans up well :)  I doubt he feels the same way...

  Summer is here and I am one happy camper.  More relaxing than I anticipated, but extremely enlightening.  Nick and I have been so active this summer, which surprisingly has brought us a lot closer.  Tennis, running, basketball, snorkeling, hiking, biking...  But most importantly, I hold the 1st place trophy in PIG and 2nd place in HORSE among him, his brother and friends this summer.  That's huge, guys.  HUGE.  And Nick got his bike fixed so we can ride our bikes to dinner and the courts.

  But August, why did you have to sneak up on me so quickly?  I was liking this lazy rhythm.  Work early, nap, run, eat, shower, then whatever I feel like (probably more eating)!  Ah, the life.

  School will start up soon, with full force I might add, and this will all be a distant memory.  I'm sure while my head is buried in MNT I and Advanced Nutrition textbooks I'll really be thinking about laying on the beach with the boy or making silk flowers.

  This is my last 'summer vacation,' and while I have lived it to it's fullest, the next two more semesters are inevitable.  Goals for my final year?  I am determined to graduate with some sort of honors, and although my GPA is only .8 away, this year is going to be a beast.

Bring it on! I say.

wool yarn+heat wave=sweaty fingers

(long time, no post.  too busy enjoying the amazing weather!)

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We had our first intense heat wave (by Michigan standards) in May, right after we discovered our (new) air conditioner was broken.  A very long, and familiar, story short, we're waiting for our landlord to get it out and fixed.  Buuut, we learned some pretty amazing heat-proofing tricks that will definitely come in handy over the next few stormy days.

Knitting has been a struggle.  One of my formal summer goals  (I have a list!) was to knit as many projects as possible and finally accomplish some of the ideas I brew up during the semesters.  So far I've:

• knit my first shoulder bag, learned to block, stitch, and make I-Chords
• learned the wonders of t-shirt yarn and significantly added color and texture to my stash (all while cleaning the closet, another summer goal!)
• knit Nick a winter hat with my first ball of Malabrigo Yarn (love, love, love their yarn, 300+ colors, and business)
• created a list of baby hat ideas that I think will be really easy but creative and adorable
• dug into the good stuff and began my next bag (pour moi!) with some of the yarn I've been saving

One in particular, 'Iceland', is an amazingly soft, off-white yarn from my favorite shop.  100% wool and loosely spun, the 250 yard skein wound up to a little smaller than my head!  It was like a big, fluffy snowball.  A big, fluffy snowball that make my hands sweat like crazy in this heat.

Really bad photo courtesy of Photo Booth.  The tan is my favorite yarn by Lion Brand, a super soft cotton, this one in 'khaki.'  The dark gray stripe is really slate/dark navy, depending on the light, and is the most interesting yarn I've ever knit with!  Because of intentional uneven tension, the gauge varies from 5 to 3 st/in and creates an amazing texture.  I can't wait to see how this bag turns out!

In the cooking news (cooking? huh?), a fellow dietetics major (now graduated) has created a great cooking blog and asked me to be a guest blogger!  I have a few recipes rolling around... I'm leaning toward a nice summer salad with a homemade dressing (test run at a housewarming party went ok, I think?), salmon with my honey-garlic-soy glaze, and some type of wild rice.  My favorite summer meal.  Her blog is over at Michelle's Kitchen, a must-see.

More on that to come!  Get hungry!

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T-Shirt Yarn

  Yesterday was extremely dreary.  I love my rainy days but after about three days of nothing but downpours, haze, and constant drizzle, I was going a bit nuts.  So what better time to start one of the many summer projects?

  A while back I saw a post somewhere about cutting up old shirts into strips to make yarn.  I have a bunch of old colorful shirts - the kind you buy every color of at Target or American Eagle?  Yeah, you know the ones - and after years of constant wear and washing they're useless.  They're so colorful and summer-like, and even match my new sheers (yipee!), I couldn't resist.  Re-using over priced clothing (that would have been stuffed in a closet somewhere) for something awesome is pretty sweet too.

  Because the project is a gift I'll to keep details under wraps, BUT here are my first four balls of old (clean!) t-shirt yarn.

  It's an experiment, that's for sure.  I picked up a few tricks on how to cut the shirts in the most efficient way possible and some blogs suggest stretching the strips then winding it into a ball, which yeilds more yarn.  Found via Whip Up, Craft Passion has a great tutorial here.  I personally really like the ragged ends and uneven-ness of my way, which I assume will stretch naturally anyway.  Sorry, Grandma, I really don't like following in other knitter's footsteps (she loves me, but thinks I'm nuts for never committing to a pattern).

  More on this to come, along with my beaded scarf (still in progress) and messenger bag I made for Mother's Day.  Thank goodness it's summer!

A Work In Progress

  With my collection of knitted projects I am so proud of, and the ever-mounting pile of "ideas," I decided to keep log and document my knitting ventures. 

  I learned to knit years ago in a cramped motor-home with my grandparents on our way to Oshkosh, WI for their fabulous air show.  My washcloth became an interesting trapezoid, resembling an overstretched cheesecloth.  From then, my projects were all variations of a simple garter-stiched square or rectangle - if it got finished at all.

  In 2005/06, a friend and I began a Knitting and Crocheting Society, that met in the basement of a local bookstore/coffee shop once a week.  We recruited closet knitters and taught newbies.  It was the most fun I ever had in high school.  Graduation came and passed, as did a relationship or two, and knitting took a backseat to college life.

  Finally in a steady place, I have fallen in love with the fiber world with more passion than I expected.  Life is finally exciting, real, and I plan to enjoy every minute of it.  Not only do I finish projects now (woohoo!!), but I can't seem to knit my ideas fast enough.  Organic cotton, alpaca, bamboo, oh my!  Each project inspires another; the colors and textures of yarn gets me more excited than any purse of pair of shoes could (and I love my shoes and bags).  Life is too short to pick crappy yarn.

  I hope to cataloged my projects, maybe sell some things, and post my ideas for projects with steps along the way!  Bear with my poor writing skills, please.  Here's to knitting and whatever happens between the stitches!

"The heart is a stone and this is a stone bed we throw

Put your hand on the stone

It's the stone of a home you know

They say we will go far, but they don't know how far we'll go

With our legs on the edge and our feet on the horizon"