Irises and Other Flowers

The other day I called my mom to tell her that I had decided that none of the irises in my yard were dark purple or white. I had reached this conclusion because as I drove around town, I had noticed that all of the dark purple and white irises were blooming and mine were not. Mine had not even put up stalks yet!

However this morning, as I walked around the yard and peeked into the very narrow space between the side of our house and the fence I saw this:
and this:
Notice that those are both dark purple and white! OOps!

I don't know what is up with the white flowers though. The stem on that plant is really that curved. It doesn't look as though it has ever been straight. I am wondering if it has anything to do with the snow we had earlier....

While I was writing this post, our neighbors came over and asked if we would like to have some flowers. They had been planting flowers in their front yard and had some left over so, they gave us the rest. Here they are:
We got Marigolds,
Lamb's Ear,
and Ageratum.
Yeah Flowers!!!!

WIP: Fifi

I have been working steadily on Fifi. I have to say that I love this pattern and the yarn!

I had very smooth knitting for the upper bodice. However, when I switched to the lower bodice section which is mostly a 2x2 rib, my gauge got really off. All of a sudden my stitches were really loose. I could see it all over, but it was most noticeable in the center cable. It had clearly gotten wider when I had moved into the lower section. At first I thought that it would be ok, but as I kept knitting and paid more attention to my knitting and made sure that I wasn't making my stitches to loosely, my gauge got tighter again. Now it really was noticeable that there was a loose section in the middle, so I had to rip it out. We're talking almost 3 8-row repeats! Like 2.5 inches. It hurt a lot. So I took pictures before hand to prove to myself later that I had made the right choice.

Here it is before I frogged it. It's a little hard to see here what I am talking about.

But when you look at this picture you should be able to see what I mean about the size of the cable changing. All of the cables at the top are evenly the same size and the bottom one is the same size as well. However, the two at the bottom before the very last repeat are ( to me ) noticeably bigger. Since this is the portion over my bust and this is a pattern with negative ease, a loose gauge seemed a very bad idea. I had picked this pattern because it could be worn to work without either an undershirt or a jacket. If knitted too loosely however the chemise would be necessary.

After about 4 days of reknitting, I am finally just past where I had been when I frogged the piece. While this is a horrible picture, you should be able to tell that the cable is now even and the shirt does not appear see through.



Since this picture, I have added another cable repeat while watching my embroidery machine and listening to the Librivox recording of "The Scarlet Pimpernel". Now that is what I call multi tasking!

The knitting bug has bitten!!

When my new interchangeable knitting needles showed up last week I had to play around with the smaller sizes that I had never used before so I made these with some size ten crochet thread that I had around that house. The first one got lost for a while so I haven't woven in it's ends yet. I think it will have fringe at the top. The pattern for this one is free online.



I like this one a little better, though I had to start it multiple times because I kept losing stitches. I modified it from this pattern. I decided that I didn't want it rectangular, so after 12 repeats I started decreasing by keeping the pattern stitches on the sides and keeping stockinette in the center. I actually think that mine is prettier than the one on the pattern page.

Then, last night I started a pair of socks. I keep seeing all of these socks on other knitting blogs, and the people are soooo excited about them. But I don't wear socks unless I have to ( meaning I am working out) and then I can get 12 pairs at wal-mart for $3. But then I saw this pattern , and I thought, I would wear those. Those would make great trouser socks to wear to work and they're pretty enough I could even wear them with a skirt. gasp! So I decided to make complicated socks for the first pair of sock I will ever knit. But I don't like boring knits and I don't see any point in knitting something that I will never wear.
So yesterday, while I was still waiting for my Calmer to arrive so that I can make Fifi, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some dpns and this DMC linen cotton crochet thread (I don't have a yarn store with in 3 hours of me). I am really happy with how it is coming out. I am a bit worried about how they will fit, since they seem a bit tight. I'm going to give it a few more inches and then we'll see.

My feet are humongous! See how far I have to go still? Any way I am really happy with how they are turning out. And last but most definitely not least. My gorgeous Rowan Calmer in the discontinued shade of Tangerine that will make me a beautiful Fifi. I am already in love with this yarn and I haven't even started knitting with it yet.


Thankfully it is Spring Break so I should be able to get lots of knitting done.

Flowers!!

Here are pictures of the Daffodils and Hyacinth in my front yard. I love spontaneous flowers. I didn't plant these and didn't even know that they were there until they started coming up. We just bought this house so this is our first spring here.

This is the one bunch of Hyacinth that came up and they are pink. Hyacinth are normally blue or white so this is weird.

The reason my Daffodils are leaning over so much is because it snowed! Abilene didn't get much snow, a little less than an inch, but Cisco (where I work) got over 5 inches. It was crazy. I don't have any pictures of this snow fall but I did just find pictures of when it snowed at Thanksgiving and my family was here. I'll put those pictures up next.

Great Mail Day.

Yesterday was a great mail day for me. My sister finally returned my favorite dress that I had let her borrow for Christmas parties. And I received my French Girl Fifi pattern!! I am really excited to start on this pattern. Now, I just have to wait for my yarn and needles to arrive. Until then I will be busy sewing costumes for our school's One Act production of Blithe Spirit. Then I can knit, knit, knit and have a cute top to wear soon.