"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

5/28/14

A Stroll in the Woods

As you can see, I managed to fix my blog yesterday. I was having problems with portions of it not loading correctly, or loading at all. It took me all day, with help from my computer savy daughter, but I finally figured out what was wrong. One of my widgets was causing the trouble. I eliminated it and voila! Everything started working right. I've also removed some of the things in my sidebar that I didn't want there anymore. I am relieved to have the problem fixed, but it sure was a frustrating day trying to find it.

On Memorial Day I spent some time out on my deck doing what I call "Research and Development" for Wool in the Wilde. I'm working on a pattern design for a new doll dress. This involves knitting swatches. That's what I was doing. But I did stop and take a walk with daughter Ruth, and Cable, to check out what wild flowers are blooming on the Parkarosa. This is what I found. Some of these have not been on my blog yet. Click on the pics to embiggen.

This is Starry False Solomon Seal (Maianthemum stellatum)

Maianthemum stellatum

It's a very small plant. About 5 to 6 inches tall with tiny little lacy flowers. (The yellow powder on the leaves is pine pollen.) We used to have tons of this around but after the big storm of 1995 that wiped out most of our forest, they disappeared. They prefer shade. I am so happy to see them again. The baby trees are getting big enough that things we lost in the storm are returning. I also saw a porcupine a few days ago, and heard an owl 2 nights ago. Haven't had either since the storm. I missed them.

This is all over the place right now and smells absolutely wonderful.

Prunus virginiana

It's Western Choke Cherry (Prunus virginiana). Later all these flowers will become tiny little dark red cherries. They are tiny, sour, and have HUGE pits. But they make awesome jelly. Not that I ever get the chance to make it. The birds eat them all up.

Close up Prunus virginiana

This is called Wayside Gromwell (Lithospermum ruderale).



It's about 18 to 24 inches tall. The roots of this plant is supposed to make a beautiful purple dye. Some day I'm gonna try it.



Black Pine. The flowers of pine trees are kind of odd looking. This one, like all the others around here, is loaded with pollen. Everything outside is covered in it. My car looks yellow instead of dark grey there's so much of it. It's wreaking havoc with my asthma too.

Black Pine

This isn't a flower. It's a bunch of caterpillars on a small Snowberry bush. I took a pic cuz it was interesting. I don't know which of the many moths or butterflies that live around here these guys will turn into.



This is a Wild Sticky Geranium (Geranium Viscosissimum)

Geranium Viscosissimum

Every bit as pretty as the domestic ones you find in your local plant nursery, but they only have one or two flowers per stem instead of little bunches.

We have several wild Apple trees all over the Parkarosa. They are blooming right now.

Wild Apple

This is something new to the Parkarosa. It's called Clustered Elkweed (Frasera Fastigiata). It's a member of the Larkspur family.

Frasera Fastigiata

It's on a fairly large plant, and each flower has four pointed petals. We seem to have a lot of it in the area we found it.

Frasera Fastigiata

This is one of several wild Sweet Peas we have. Specifically Lathyrus latifolius. Such a pretty flower, it is very small and low to the ground. We've got it in three different colors.

Lathyrus latifolius

This is a Western Serviceberry bush (Amelanchier utahensis). They are gorgeous when blooming, but don't smell the flowers.

Amelanchier utahensis

They stink like crazy. I took a vase full in the house once. Had to take it back outside. Smells like rotting garbage. I admire them outside only. The berries are like a small dark purple blueberry. They don't actually have much flavor, though I've heard the jelly is very good. Again, the birds don't give us a chance to find out.

Amelanchier utahensis

This last one is an oddity. We have 2 of these out in the woods not far from the house. It's a lilac of the domestic variety. We don't know where it came from. It just appeared in the woods one year. I think it may have sprouted from a seed carried here by a bird, deer, moose, or other wild animal. Everyone around grows lilacs in their yard, including me (though mine aren't this shade of purple). So my hypothesis is possible.



I hope you've enjoyed my little Parkarosa wildflower tour.

Live long and prosper. \\//

5/27/14

It's Broken

Please excuse the mess. My blog is broken and I'm trying to fix it.

Live long and prosper. \\//

5/26/14

Lizette Is So Pretty In Pink

A few days ago I decided I needed to alter this little tunic.



It was too long and rather bland for my purposes. So I shortened it just a little over an inch, and put a garter stitch hem on it. Then I knit a little belt to match. After that, I took this photo and entered it in a contest in the Imagining Ellowyne Wilde Yahoo group.

Modeled by All Natural Lizette Spice

The contest theme was Your Favorite Pink or Green Outfit. This is my favorite pink outfit, so far. My sister made that lovely little skirt. I made the hat and jewelry. I love the Martha Washington Geraniums in the background. They are spicing up my deck this year.

I won the contest. I am SO excited! The prize is 3 pairs of earrings for my dolls.

As much as I love this outfit, I specifically made it to sell and have put it up on Ebay. It already has a bid on it. Woo Hoo! And the real joy of this is if I decide I want one like it for myself, I can make another one.

I am so stoked! My little business is starting to take off. Time to get a state sales tax number. I've put 5 outfits on Ebay and 3 have bids. I might actually make a success of this idea. Yay! Have I finally found a way to make my knitting pay for itself? Here's hoping!

Also, Happy Memorial Day!

Thank you to all those brave people who serve our country in the armed forces. Couldn't have freedom without you.



Live long and prosper. \\//

5/22/14

Beads in the Green Silk Mohair

Another doll outfit finished.

Modeled by Prudence Not All Black and White
Beads in the Green Silk Mohair

Pattern: Not available

Yarn: Elann Silken Kidd in Forest Mist.
Content: 70% Super Kid Mohair/30% Silk, lace weight

Needles: Addi Turbo circular size1

Cast on: May 13, 2014
Bound off: May 19, 2014

Comments: Size 11 Japanese seed beads in matte silver lined green are knit in to the lace pattern around the neck ruffle and the skirt hem. 



I really enjoyed making this one. I got an idea and it worked the first time I tried it.



I decided to try my hand at making felted hats for my dolls. Here are my first two tries.



I didn't use a large enough piece of wool felt to get the brim as wide as I wanted for both of these. I need to use a slightly larger one. I made the green one to go with the above green outfit.



Its a little bit different style. A compromise for what I really wanted. I am pleased with the embellishment on this one. I used the same beads as are in the outfit so it kind of matches.

Yesterday I spent the whole day working on getting 5 outfits ready for Ebay. I made jewelry to match the outfits. Then I took almost 200 photographs, then had to spend time sorting out the ones I would use and editing them for the web. Then I carefully packaged everything up. I didn't get done until 6:30 in the evening. Consequently, we had a late dinner. Sweet Hubby doesn't like waiting that long for dinner. He comes home from work so hungry.

I am planning to get everything up on Ebay tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. I'm supposed to meet some friends for lunch in Coeur d'Alene, and there's laundry, and house cleaning. Urg. I will MAKE the time.



I must confess, I have purchased another doll. I found it on Ebay last week, never removed from box, too low a price to be believed. I couldn't resist! I have wanted this doll for a very long time, so I am very excited to finally have it. Ladies and gentlemen! I present Spock!



He's only 12 inches tall and in perfect condition. He now lives in a display case on top my piano. Don't want him getting all dusty and dirty. (Or worse, the cats getting him!)

Live long and prosper. \\//

5/18/14

Finishing Up Some Doll Projects

I got to stay home all day on Wednesday and do whatever I wanted. I was alone for half the day because Ruth was working (yay!) and it was a gorgeous day outside, so I set myself up out on the deck for some creativity and finished up some doll knits. I had some embellishment to do.

First I finished this little pullover with the lace ruffle at the neck.

Modeled by All Natural Lizette-Spice

Little Lavender Lace Ruffled Sweater

Pattern: Refined Ruffles

Yarn: Sugar Rush by Queensland Collection.
Content: 100% Sugar Cane, fingering weight

Needles: Addi Turbo circular size 0

Cast on: May 9, 2014
Bound off: May 12, 2014

Comments: The pattern calls for size 0 needles. However, I did not enjoy knitting with needles this small with this particular yarn, so future projects will be done with size 1 and a little pattern adjustment for the difference in gauge.



You may have noticed Lizzie has new hair. I like the natural super curly look of this wig. I think it's very pretty on her. I also have a new little chair for my dolls. I decided I needed a prop for photos. It seems to fit the girls fairly well.



Next project to finish was this wine dress.

Modeled by Essential Ellowyne 5

My daughter, Ruth, knitted it. I love the cabled diamonds down the front, but I felt the dress needed a little bit more oomph. The color is kind of dark and takes away from the cables. I wanted something to draw the eye toward them more. I spent a major part of the day embroidering beads on it in various configurations and hated them all. I was gonna give up when I spotted my skein of DMC gold embroidery thread.



Some Daisy stitching was all it took and now the dress has oomph. I made a necklace and earrings with the beads I was trying to embroider earlier.

This pink dress was also knitted by Ruth using some Sugar Rush yarn.

Modeled by Essential Amber Wigged Out

I was in the mood for more Daisy stitch. I also wanted a bright color. This dark pink worked perfectly. I added some stem and leaves with stem stitch. Then I found some beads the same dark pink and made a necklace and earrings to go with it too.



It's amazing what just a little embellishment can do. All in all, it was a productive day.



Live long and prosper. \\//

5/14/14

Mothers Day Flowers

It was Saturday evening. We were watching Dr. Who on Netflix, minding our own business, when our wonderful Panasonic 42 inch Plasma television shut off, all by itself. We tried to get it to come back on, but it refused. The little red light on the power button was blinking. I noticed it was blinking 7 times, then pausing, then repeating. Hmm, this must be significant. Ruth Googled and we found out it's a signal code for television repairmen and we had the blinks of doom. The tv was gonna cost a fortune to repair. Sweet Hubby declared "We're getting a new tv."

Fortunately, we can watch Netflix on a laptop, so our evening wasn't a complete disaster.

Mothers Day morning we headed to Sears. Our original plan, if you'll recall, was to go for a drive up in the Coeur d'Alene mountains looking for wild flowers, as is our tradition for Mothers Day. However, the tv was more important. God forbid we should have to live without television for more than 24 hours! We found a wonderful 46 inch Samsung LED set with an awesome picture, and an awesome price that would fit in the space we have.



If anyone had told me a few years ago we would be able to get a larger, better, fancier tv for 1/3rd the price I paid for that now broken Panasonic 42 incher, I would have laughed.

After purchasing, we went to Wendy's for lunch, then headed home to install our new tv. Installation went fairly well. We got done just after 1:30pm. Well, the sun was shining, it was a beautiful day, and I still wanted to see the mountain wild flowers, so we piled into the 4-wheel drive Toyota Tundra and headed for the mountains. We had a wonderful drive. There wasn't as many flowers out as have been in past years. Spring in the mountains is about 2 weeks behind this year. I took photos of what we found though.

Glacier Lily

Erythronium grandiflorum



Spring Beauty (a tiny ant is hiding in the right flower)

Claytonia lanceolata

Blue Eyed Mary

Collinsia parviflora

Biscuit root

Lomatium nudicaule

Leafy Bluebell

Mertensia oblongifolia

Last is this little beauty. I don't know what it is. Haven't found it in any of my books or online, yet.



Each petal has fur along the edges. The flower grows low to the ground and is about half an inch to 3/4 inch in diameter. When I find out it's name, I'll edit this to reflect it.

There were Trilliums, white Anemones, and Gold Threads too, but my camera battery went dead, and the spare I had with me was dead too (that rarely happens). So no more pics for me. What I didn't see was violets. A little too early for them I think.

We usually try to drive through the mountains and come out on the Montana side, but this year there was still too much snow in the upper elevations to get through, so we turned around and drove out the way we came in. Then we headed up to Ponderay to have dinner at Sweet Lou's. I love their steaks. We finished up the day watching our new tv. All in all, it turned out to be a very good day.

Live long and prosper. \\//

5/9/14

FO Friday 5/9/2014

I have a FO to show on a Friday. I've knit another pink mohair sweater for Ellowyne.



Little Pink Lace Ruffled Sweater

Pattern: Refined Ruffles

Yarn: Elann Silken Kidd in Orchid.
Content: 100% Super Kid Mohair/30% Silk, lace weight

Needles: Addi Turbo circular size1

Cast on: May 6, 2014
Bound off: May 8, 2014

Comments: This one I really like a LOT. Way more than the last one. It's easy, stylish, feminine, and easy to modify for different yarns. I can vary the lace pattern on the ruffles too. This is the design I'm going with for my shop.



The last couple days have been 5 minute weather days. I'm kind of hoping it will clear up for Mothers Day because Sweet Hubby was talking about taking a drive up in the Coeur d'Alene mountains to see the spring wild flowers that day and I really really want to do that. However, I'm not holding my breath. Weatherman says rain this weekend.

My flowering cherry is blooming. It has a couple dozen flowers on it, which looks kind of sparse, but still, it's blooming. It bloomed with one flower 2 years ago, then nothing last year. So I am quite thrilled to see as many flowers as it does. The flowering plum is blooming too. It's loaded this year and smells so good. I need to take some pics before they're done.

Yesterday a friend told me Lyle's Fabric and Craft in Coeur d'Alene is having a going out of business sale. I was surprised to hear it. They've been around forever, or at least it seems that way. I drove into town to take a look at what they had. Not much, that's for sure. I've missed most of the sale. However, I did find a few cotton quilting type fabrics I liked a lot, including these two:




Such a cute print on them. I got a couple yards of each. I have plans to sew something with them. I was thinking knitting totes.

Tomorrow is the monthly meeting of the Inland Northwest Freethought Society. I joined it a few months ago. It's a fun group and I'm enjoying it very much. I felt the need to hook up with people of like mind.



If you're interested in participating in FO Friday, please join us.

Live long and prosper. \\//

5/5/14

Pink Mohair

After much math, and more ripping out than I wanted, I finally got this little design to work for me.



Little Pink Cowl Neck Sweater

Pattern: by me. Not available.

Yarn: Elann Silken Kidd in Orchid.
Content: 100% Super Kid Mohair/30% Silk, lace weight

Needles: Addi Turbo Circular size 0 and 1

Cast on: April 30, 2014
Bound off: May 2, 2014

Comments: I've got the general idea of what I want, but it needs some tweaking. I also don't like the feel of the fabric. A little too flimsy for my taste.

My sister made the skirt with French Lace.



A couple weeks before we left on our vacation back east Wilde Imagination had a big sale. I bought two outfits for my Andy Mills. Since I was taking pics of dolls, I one of him too. He is wearing the shirt, vest, and jacket from the Rufus Totally Natural outfit and the pants and shoes from the Rufus Totally Relaxed outfit. 



I had a good weekend. On Saturday I taught a class on sweater finishing, which covers blocking and various seaming methods. I only had one student, but it went very well. Sunday I puttered about the house, went to Costco for some groceries, and surfed the net. The weather was wet, with occasional small periods of sunshine. In other words, we're in 5 minute weather season. It was a good day to stay indoors.

Live long and prosper. \\//