Last week, a record warm day, this week snow and a 10+ day run of below normal temperatures.  Everyone says, “This is New England, what do you expect?”  I think, “Yes, but I can hope.”

I don’t really have any irresistible knitting projects going at the moment.  Mostly right now, I’m knitting dish cloths for the summer reading program adult incentive baskets this summer.  They are fun and quick, but I keep forgetting to capture their images before they leave  my house!

I also have a couple of traveling knitting projects which live in my Stitched by JessaLu bags…

The first one is Hedera by Cookie A.  This was the project I started for my trip to Michigan during April vacation.  I’ve been on the heel flap for a while.  The yarn is Merino/Tencel blend from my shop.  Yup, product research, lol!  I wanted to test this yarn on a sock to see if it would be stretchy enough as the blend is more drape-y than spring-y.  The result is that I think these are going to be lovely socks to wear. The yarn is soft and smooth and there is definitely enough stretch in the fabric so that they will be comfy socks too.

The second is some kind of Summer Waves pattern that Cheryl was knitting when we went to Spa: Knit and Spin in Maine in February.  The yarn is Oasis by The Woolen Rabbit which is SO soft! It is silk and Camel in the colorway Ribbit (which I do think is a rather unsophisticated name for a yarn with elegant fiber and spectacular depth of color.).   I confess that I haven’t knit on this one too much lately either.  Maybe I need to do some more traveling?

Since it has been awhile since I have last posted, just a couple quick updates…

Reading: I’ve also  been stuck on the same book for awhile too!  I’m trying to read The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller. It is good, but, well, it is just not The Hunger Games, you know?

Gardening:  Today, I need to do some soil prep to plant the wildflower seeds that I just bought from New England Wildflower Farm.  I’m going to plant these along the edge of our new field. In the middle, the baby grasses are coming in nicely, but the edges are sparse and we also need to reduce the mowing area.  Everything in my yard so far is growing like a maniac with the early warm weather we have had.  We have had full size leaves on most of our trees since the beginning of May.  This is very unusual for where I live!

Spinning:  I’ve been spinning some yarn as R&D for my Etsy shop.  I’ve started to use Greener Shades dyes on some of my rovings and I’m going to be launching a new fiber by the end of May!  Stay-tuned for more info…

My Etsy Shop:  I had closed my shop during the month of April for travel and to catch up on home maintenance (which never, ever ends, btw).  I have plenty of great items in there now and have more to list so here is my shameless shop promotion – please go check it out!

Well the sun is out, and the Earth is calling.  I’m off to play in the dirt!  Have a great day and thanks for reading!

Things are waking up pretty quickly this year.  I can’t even believe the racket going on out my window so very early in the morning lately.  How many different kinds of birds?  There are three that I can identify – the omnipresent crows, the dueling woodpeckers, and the wacky Canada geese, and then all that uninterpretable songbird twittering.   I am sure they are up to something.  World domination possibly?  Everything is progressing so fast this year, I feel like the grass is greener and the trees are fuller with each trip I take back and forth to The School (which can often times be several trips in one afternoon).

This is all is such striking contrast to last year, the year of rain and gloom with rare occasions of sun.

And I love it!

You always hear this talk of the possibility of “an early spring.”  I thought it was a myth.  It hasn’t happened in so long.  Spring used to be my favorite season, a long time ago and lately, I could not remember why, but so far, I like this spring.  It is making me happy.  Busy, but happy.

Oh and I have been busy!  This is the year of what I’m calling our “decade quell*” of living in our “new” house.  I’ve been a bit behind in some of the home maintenance so I’m getting everything done, that needs doing. Ever.  The list includes such fun things as getting the septic pumped and the furnace and chimneys cleaned.  It also includes getting the house and windows washed and anything else serviced that could ever possibly need servicing.  Some of this has been easy, but others are taking a while, especially things that need estimates from more than one person.  I can never decide, but I know I have to choose just one.  I’ve also been doing things too. So far I have scrapped, primed, and  painted all the outdoor trim around the outside doors and window mantels.  I have to say, I think it is starting to look pretty nice.  I wish I had a before photo but I see below for the the after. Let’s just say it wasn’t so clean and white.

I’ve also done tons of yard work, which, of course, is never ending…  Last year we had a ton of stumps pulled and grass seed planted.  I wasn’t sure it would come back as that was in November directly preceding ice, cold, snow, and more ice but it is growing and it is green!  I added some lime and fertilizer today just in time for tomorrow’s April shower.

Next week is finally spring break. I think the girls are ready. They have been so busy lately with homework and sports, but there were a few more smiles tonight; I think in anticipation of at least a few evenings without homework.

We are going to be busy though.  J is off to Bermuda on a school science trip.  K and I are visiting friends in Michigan (travel knitting: Hedera, travel reading: Life of Pi) and Dave and B are going to be home. I hear that he has some fun plans for her (she mustn’t despair!).

I have put my Etsy shop in vacation mode to get ready for these trips and to get this house stuff done as quickly as possible. I have been missing some great dyeing weather, but I just know there will be more to come. My plan is that when I arrive home from Michigan, I will finish up my house stuff as quickly as possible and get back to dyeing. I have some new stuff I want to try and I just can’t wait to submerse myself again.

Thanks for reading and hope you are also having a great spring!

* Yes, I’m going to “ thoroughly overwhelm and reduce [my house] to submission or passivity.”

[Edited to add just for the record:  We had record high temps here in CT yesterday on 4/7/10.  It was 93 in Windsor Locks which was warmer than Florida!  It was in the 80's here and it was nicer than summer!]

…of The Unofficial Olympic Temptest rides in Spring Fling Mondo!

Can you believe 2 sweaters in such rapid succession?

Here are the details…

Pattern: Mondo Cable Cardi with Cap Sleeves by Chic Knits
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in GoGo Grassy (2.25-ish skeins)
Knitting Enabler: Cherylz
Yarn Shop Enabler: The Knitting Experience
Needles: Sizes 8 and 6 Addi Turbos
Modifications: I “slimmed down” the neck band for spring weather.  I also think I’m going to leave off the buttons in favor of closing it with a shawl pin.

Thoughts:  During my Spa: Knit and Spin weekend with Cherylz, starting this sweater was all that she could talk about and apparently it rubbed off!  There is actually so much to write about Spa, but for the sake of posting this sometime this century, I’m going to jump ahead to our trip home when we stopped at The Knitting Experience (which is rather like the knit shop version of “Cheers” btw, I just wish it was not as far away as Maine!).  I loved the pattern when I saw it. Choosing the yarn was a bit difficult, but after knitting with Dream in Color Smooshy and knowing how soft the merino is, how could I not choose it?  I had some doubts about the color not being sophisticated enough for the design, but I think that due to all the subtle variations and depth that it has, it works great for a Spring Fling Sweater – one which also goes great with jeans!

Well, I’m running out of time for now…  I have a couple of smaller  finished projects to post and a couple to start. I also have last year’s spring sweater to finish.  I don’t know… we’ll see!

Have a great day and thanks for reading!

Oh yeah, and a few more photos:

My husband was making me laugh!

Check out all the subtle colors!

Love these cables!

Last Thursday was cold and windy and there were still very, very few signs of spring in my yard. Since then we had a mini heat wave and spring is everywhere!  It is truly a beautiful day!  Not too windy, not too hot, very few clouds, the leaves are starting to come out so everything is covered in a blanket of green haze.  Gorgeous!

We are also on a home maintenance marathon this spring. We are trying to get things done that we should have done 9 years ago like finally getting our water fixed.  Our well water is way too acidic and needs to be neutralized.  Thusly by altering the pH, we must also condition it so it is soft enough for soap to lather.  While acidic water may not be good for copper pipes, it is really good for dyeing wool.  Of couse pH is easily altered with citric acid, so I wasn’t too worried, but I was happy to learn that the netralizer has a bipass valve.  Happy day!

I have some great new yarn and fiber photos to post soon, so stay tuned!  I hope to get back to at least posting once a week as soon as we catch up a bit.  Thanks so much for visiting and have a great day!

One more day…  I think that is what we have to get through here in Connecticut to make it to some nicer weather. Of course what counts as nicer weather around here is temps in the 50’s!!!  I can’t believe we have waited all winter for April just to have snow flakes flying in the air!  I’m trying my best to get through this.  What this involves is trying (usually unsucessfully) to not complain too much about the weather and spinning a lot of pretty wool.

I dyed this color the other day.  I wasn’t so sure about how it would look spun up so I decided to spin a roving myself.  I’m still in the process, but I did make a small plied sample to see how it would look.

I’m enamored.  The colors are so subtle – the 2 darker colors, blue and apricot, are diluted out by the gold, cream,  and light green so they are not bold and flashy, but much more gentle and alluring.

OMG!  I just looked outside and there is SUN.  There is blue sky and sun!  Oh glorious SUN!  Actually the colors out my window look a lot like the colors in this roving.  I still have a lot of oak leaves out there showing up in the woods that look a lot like the apricot and gold colors.  The grass is starting to look a bit green, but still quite a bit of dead and it looks like the cream and gold colors and well, the blue and white looks like the sky.

The girls only have one more day after today before Spring Break.  They are already worried about how much homework they will have.  Agent B, my fifth grader, will have a project to work on over break and  I just hope the other 2 don’t get too much.  I think more than they need a break from going to school, we, has a family, need a break from the homework.

Tomorrow I’m going on a mini-scrapbooking retreat with a couple of girlfriends.  I can’t wait to get all my scrapping supplies out!  Scrapbooking is really quite a bit like dying in that you get to play with combining different colors.  I think it will be good for me to take a bit of a fiber break (and QuickBooks break) and reboot my creativity with paper, scissors, and glue dots.

So today, I have tons to do!  Thanks for reading and have a great day!