Knitting Iris

Rowan Butterfly Bride's Maid Dress. DONE! Phew!

Butterfly Dress from Rowan Magazine #37 and Romantic Style: Knits and Crochet to Wear or Display.  Yarn: Crytal Palace Kid Merino, # 4108, Vine Green and Rowan Kidsilk Night, #607, Starlight.  Beads: silver lined clear, not sure what size as they were prestrung on the yarn for me. 
This is going to be one of six bride's maid dresses at a wedding taking place a month from tomorrow.  Two are being knit by the bride herself, one by her mother, one by the LYS owner, one by me, and one by another local woman.  C worked for the father of the bride when we first moved here and I worked with the mother of the groom at a local nursery one spring and summer.  Both the bride an groom were homeschooled for either all or part of their schooling.  Both families are creative and talented musically as well as in so many other ways.  It's going to be such a fun wedding.

This is probably the most difficult thing I've knit so far, in terms of figuring out the pattern, following the shaping, sliding and placing the beads, degree of concentration necessary to actually knit each and every row, and overall size of the project. For the border I had to write out each row onto an index card and flip through the cards as I knit each row.  For the body, I made enough copies of the pattern repeat for the entire length of the garment up to the armhole shaping, taping them all together one above the other, highlighting each row as it was completed.  The doubled border was knit in four separate pieces that were then grafted together in four places but they could have easily been knit in two long continuous pieces requiring only half the grafting.  After knitting a few inches of the main body, I ripped back to the border and knit both front and back together in the round.  Why patterns like this are written to be knitted flat baffles me to no end.  Such a waste of time sewing the pieces together!

There is no way I would be done with this now or if ever, for that matter, if I hadn't committed to making this (still not sure if I'm crazy for having done so).  If there hadn't been a deadline, I don't think the bottom borders would even be completed by now.  It's been a push to get this done, but I didn't want to stress anyone out by not finishing it before at least two weeks to a month before the wedding date.  I'm looking forward to seeing not only mine, but all six of these dresses being worn together on that day. 

As for the photos, they're all taken around our place during the past week.  Other white blooming flowers NOT pictured include Canada violets, chokecherries, hawthornes, mountain ash, and red-twig dogwood.  In the bottom row is the last daffodil that just finished blooming a couple of days ago, giving us a full 30 days of blossoms this year.  Just imagine if I plant both earlier and later bloomers next year.  Look closely at the lily of the valley and you'll see a spider, and it's shadow, weaving its gossamer web in front of  the flowers.  After knitting this dress, I think I can relate! 

All in all, I'm glad to have knit this.  It's a beautiful design and challenged me in so many ways.  The outcome is worth it.

Off to knit something easy and soothing now and to soak in all the surrounding green.  I could go for a little lie down in the green grass....wait, it needs mowing first.  Scratch that. Maybe the hammock instead. 

p.s.  This could be a much easier and faster knit minus the beads, shortened into a tank, or both.

Added:  In response to Jen, the beads were strung on by hand by the bride-to-be, I believe.  As for how long it took to make, I never quite know how to answer that question as people invariably do ask when they see something handmade.  I don't really ever want to know.  How about an emphatic "MANY" or better yet, "COUNTLESS"?  And before anyone asks, I'm not sure what kind of underlayer will be worn with these.  I'll let you know in a month, I guess.

Trekking 107 Socks

Yarn: Trekking #107.  Super, plain 3 x 1 ribbing, toe up, over 56 stitches, doubled yarn for the heels and toes.  Left pic in the sun, right one in the shade.  Looks like I bound off the top edge if one looser than the other.  Oh well.  They're destined to be a gift for a friend's birthday.  I'm hiding the pansies in amongst snaps in hopes that the deer won't find them.  The dogs are shedding and I'm strewing it around the garden so that maybe the scent will deter the deer as well.  So far, so good.

:)  :)  :)  I was just checking to make sure that "strewing" is indeed an actual word and came across this nice post about homeschooling and Strategic Strewing. I never realized there was a name for this!  Here's another one.

Castle on the hill

 

While playing around on some rocks at the top of a hill in town:

"It's like a castle on top of a mountain." 

"This is better than any park (playground)!"

We came across a wide variety of wildflowers and blooming bushes, including a few Bitterroot, the state flower, which I'd never seen before.  It was growing on the lichen covered rocks amongst smashed beer bottles and knapweed.  A truly hardy Montanan!

Fewer outings and more knitting and sewing VERY soon.

(When he first opened his own cabinet shop, C rented the space under the green roof at the back of that building in the picture third row down from the top on the left.  It had been most recently the back room in a bar where bands had played.  It had low ceilings, no windows, and was painted a horrendous dark fushia color with black trim but, as it was temporary, we never bothered to make any improvements.  Eew.  It makes me cringe just thinking about it.  Since then, it's been the Head Start building, an antique shop, and offices now, I think.  Thank goodness his shop is at home now!)   

Dandy

We'd driven past here a few days earlier than this on the way home from a full day of running errands in the truck but I  just didn't have it in me at the time to stop.  Then, after getting the car back for the second time in a couple of weeks from the repair shop, it seemed a good idea to take it for a test drive.  I just couldn't resist going back here. 

It's hard to be gloomy in the midst of millions of dandelions (despite one of those typical kid/parent discipline talks we had to have even here in the middle of all this.)  We climbed through a barbed wire fence and past a whole line of "No Trespassing" signs, but really, would anybody kick out two boys and their mom taking a few minutes to walk, run, and lie around in fallow field gone to weeds?
Returning home, the flowers were already half wilted so they were pounded between paper and used directly themselves for drawing:

Hmmm.  I wonder if any of this could have influenced the (only) fat quarter purchased yet another few days later (at the quilt shop across from the repair shop again, while getting new tires this time around)?

The resemblence didn't even occur to me until uploading the pics at the top of this post.  Just one more day scheduled next week at same said repair shop and then, hopefully, we're road-trip worthy.

Not Lucky Lil's

The story goes that when the elderly woman who lived here moved out a handful of years back an offer was put in on the property with the intentions of a small casino going in here.  She refused, selling it instead to a local, family-supportive, non-profit group that intended to make it into a park, which it now is. 

No bells and whistles here, no plastic structures, just a couple of park benches, a new old-fashioned jungle gym, a decrepit little slide, and a willow trunk that's been imaginatively chainsaw carved  and painted into a castle with ladybugs, bears, caterpillars, butterflies, owls, and two big hollow holes to climb up into.  The features already in place were full-grown willow shade trees, several established lilac bushes, and forgotten flower beds here and there in the shade where tulips, daffodils, lily of the valley and pansies now grow wild.  I just noticed a little patch of thornless raspberry canes last week when we went there to play and clip a bouquet of lilacs (from the back side of those bushes) to bring home. We'll have to be sure to check back later in the summer for berries. 

It's a very underappreciated and unused park in my opinion.  I don't think we've ever seen anyone else here and it doesn't look like anyobody else has clipped lilacs from these bushes either so I don't think there's any fear of over harvesting. 

They tried to stop it, I think, claiming that it would be too close to this park, but the casino still went in on a nearby lot.  A good fight, anyways.

Blossoms and boys.

In this most gorgeous of places, an abandoned apple orchard on what is now public land, despite all attempts at pointing out what I'm...

...seeing (trees. grass. mountains. flowers. clouds. views.),

...listening to (bees. songbirds. woodpeckers. wind. silence.),

...breathing in (fresh air, apple blossoms, new green growth.),

...and gathering (apple branches and white lilacs),

this is what drew their attention most: 

Rich, dark, brown, mud.  For making cannonballs to throw and watch explode upon impact with the ground.  Boys?

Gather ye flowers, while it's May.

Since, even after 10 years here, there still aren't any lilacs or apple trees of any decent size on our own place, we've been sneaking off to some of my favorite flower picking spots: an abandoned orchard at on old homestead, a rarely used park, a fallow field, the nursery where I used to work.  Unfortunately, right when everything really comes into bloom is when C's allergies come on too so I try not to bring many flowers into the house.  Somehow they seem more fitting outside anyways, but they don't last long in the midday sun.  It's been an EXTRAORDINARY year for lilacs and apple trees so no one would even notice a few missing flowers and, besides, it's just "pruning" right?  Lilacs are one of the few purples that I love in such abundance.

That's a ball of Socks That Rock mediumweight in Apple Valley Road there that's been tempting me into casting on for either a pair of squooshy socks or else this little hat, even though there's no one in particular in mind as a recipient.

Out gathering moss.

Thank you for all the suggestions in the last post.  Each and every one of them went straight to my heart, were  so. right. on.  When in doubt, though, getting out and about is usually one of the best remedies.  A road trip is in order, as well, gas prices be damned.

We literally went gathering moss last week one day, but I'm thinking it's time to do so figuratively as well, to take a little break here and get out into the garden, the forest and fields and creek bottoms. Figure things out. Tend to things.  Watch things grow.  Slow down and let life gather a little moss around the edges. 

Been listening to a lot of Natalie Merchant's Tigerlily, something I haven't done for quite awhile, since when R was tiny and colicky and inconsolable for hours on end and I'd play it over and over and over, including this one:

Where I Go

Climbing under a barbed wire fence by the railroad ties.

climbing over the old stone wall I am bound for the riverside

well  I go to the river to soothe my mind, ponder over the crazy days of my life, just sit and watch the river flow

find a place on the riverbank, where the green rushes grow, see the wind in the willow tree in branches hanging low

well I go to the river to soothe my mind, to ponder over the crazy days in my life, watch the river flow, ease my mind & soul, where I go

well I will go to the river from time to time, wander over these crazy days in my mind, watch the river flow where the willow branches grow, by the cool rolling waters, moving gracefully and slow

child it's lovely, let the river take it all away, the mad pace, the hurry, the troubles, the worries, just let the river take them all away.  Flow away.   

Looking for the calm in the not-storm

There are just piles of pictures and things that could be blogged about.  This is all I can muster right now.  I think we're going on Warm, Sunny, Spring Day Number 5 in a row.  Some people get Spring Fever.  It doesn't really make any sense, but the first blue skies tend to bring on the blues.  Trying to savor quiet moments like these.
Maybe putting on a springy skirt, a sun hat, and going to pick more wildflowers will do the trick?  Or maybe a good, long nap in the hammock?  Maybe both?  Any other suggestions?

Mooping Around

Mini Moopies, one for my niece along with the EZ Best Baby Sweater.

The other is for the second-born daughter of our midwife that was with us at the births of both of our boys.  These were the folks we were supposed to visit with on May Day but didn't get to.  Another friend and I were going to do mendhi on her belly that evening, to embellish the scar from the c-section she'd had with their first daughter, except they called and cancelled because she was experiencing early labor.  Two days later we still hadn't heard any news until we ran into a mutual friend and found out that the baby had been born early that morning.  We went for a short visit and R and I each held that sweet, sweet 12 hour old little one.  It meant so much to see that this friend, who had been there to help us and so many others to try and have the kind of birth we were hoping for, now knows birth first hand.   Finally, she and her husband have experenced personally what she has been so much a part of as a midwife.

The little pair of pants are some that I've had around since the summer after E was born and I was making pairs of pants for him that would cover his legs from the sun but still be lightweight.  His were made from linen and while I was at it, for some reason I made this calico pair with a linen waistband.  I think I still wasn't over the fact that we didn't have a girl at that point.  I had intended to give these to the older sister of this new baby but forgot to include them with the other handknits given to them then.

Here's another one of the two Moopies just mooping around together:

Info about Mini Moopy pattern here.  Moral of the story: if there's a free pattern out there somewhere that you really like or think you just might like to make someday, print it out immediately and THANK the person for sharing it.  If you snooze and forget to and they then start selling the pattern, be happy for them that they're doing so, kick yourself, and then then support the artist by buying it.  It's a fun little pattern and I'm thinking that these will be great for teething babies.