SailingKnitter

For a week now we've had tremendous thunderstorms just about every day here on the east coast of central Florida. They usually build up in the late afternoon and come roaring in with dark skies and furious rain. Usually we can manage to get our evening walk in before the rain hits, but sometimes we do get wet...oh well. The nice part is that it is often quite cooler after the storm passes. We've even been able to turn off the A/C and sleep with fresh air in the mid-to high 70's.

I've been working on a few projects that are a little different for me. First up is an up-cycled denim cuff/bracelet that I made for ME. I've been working on this on and off over the last month, just playing with embroidery, beads, and bending up wire bits. For the edging, I crocheted a chain from some flashy novelty yarn and simply sewed it to the edges.

There's no clasp needed because I used the waistband of some old jeans and saved the button and button hole.

Vertical Garter Stitch Beanie

So far, I've embellished it with french knots in embroidery thread, assorted beads, and two squiggles (one copper and one brass) shaped and pounded flat. I left the belt loops on the piece and connected the raw edges by just sewing them tightly together.

Thinking about what to do about the two belt loops together at the join...someday I'll come across a cool "thingy" to add there, but in the meantime I'll wear it.

So, I've been knitting on a few projects as usual. This hat is an idea I had to use up those smaller balls of leftover sock yarn and make VERTICAL stripes in a hat. I choose to work in garter stitch because it is so nice and stretchy, and easy to knit. The shaping is accomplished by the use of "short rows" which make wedge shaped repeats. Many of the yarns I used are self-patterning or striping (I save the solid colors for Fair Isle use
on socks).  Because I changed yarn colors so often, I had a mess of yarn ends all at the top of the crown. What to do? Instead of weaving in all those ends at the top which would have made a lumpy mess, Jonesy suggested that I simply braid them together. Yep. That works quite nicely.

The photos are of the same hat - just different halves/sides of it! I have started writing up the pattern to be released on Ravelry soon. I think that this beanie looks a little too scrappy to send on to the Motherless Child Foundation for the kids in Kazakhstan. I like to send them nice knit wear and not something that looks too "leftover-ish". So I'm keeping this wild thing for myself. I'll be making more for the kids, but keep the colors more solid and coordinated.

At one of our weekly sewing classes, I was introduced to these adorable fabric flowers! Seems like I'm the only person on earth who's never seen these before. I was given a quick tutorial and a good sized handful of finished flowers and scraps for more.

Hmmm....what to do with these? Hair clips! I bought some colorful clips and finished off the flowers with button centers, sewed and glued to the clip and voila! The little girls in Kazakhstan have something pretty to wear.
Here's another 1st for me...I made a pincushion! At a Tea Party with my sewing friends, we all made these pincushions stuffed into a tea cup. Mine is a little puckered, but it works great just the same. Yes, the puffy part is glued into the teacup which is also glued onto the saucer.

Living on a boat, I'm not sure how long this will last before it is tossed onto the floor, but if I find a good home for it I'll be happy to let this go. I'd rather somebody else enjoy it than let it get broken on the boat.


And..socks. Yes there have been socks. Jonesy requested a pair of "shorty" socks for summer so I knit him a pair from some hand-dyed yarn. He wore them about twice before one of the socks went on walkabout. We've looked everywhere. Maybe they will turn up. But in the meantime, I will start work on another sock (starting with the cuff) with the leftover yarn and keep working until I run out of yarn. He will have to have a different color on the foot, but that's OK as nobody sees that part anyway.

NATURE REPORT

The Ospreys in the area have reared their young and we're seeing many fledglings out learning the flying maneuvers this past couple of weeks. These slightly fluffy young birds are often accompanied by a parent and they call out to each other constantly. It's been a fun experience watching these beautiful large birds of prey build nests on the light poles, lay eggs, feed their hatchlings, and now encourage them to leave the nests. We consider a privilege to be able to observe this part of their life cycle.  Yes, they do crap on the boat and it smells to high heaven, but Jonesy does a great job of hosing it off in the mornings.

Life is good.