In Order To Not Annoy My Few Friends...

In Order to not annoy my few friends, by filling their email with pictures of the darling grandson, I will add them to the blog where I can fill in my perfect comments. You know the ones that are like cartoon captions! Above is Jackson and his beautiful sister, the soccer player. Jackson, being almost 4 months old has already attended more than his life time share of soccer games between this sister or his brother. Some weekends it means 3 to 4 games. Jackson is having a look like..... 'How come S. has teeth and I don't?' And she has brand new shinny braces to add to them. They look swell!!!

Below is a picture of Jackson looking shocked to realize he has more hair than his Dad. See what you have to look forward to Jackson? Not to worry dear Grammie will knit you a wig.

Who Knew? Buttons!

Who knew that there was a Button Society, Button Clubs!!!! Serious people with magnifying glasses, small flashlights around their necks, searching boxes, cards of buttons. How was I to know there were antique buttons selling for huge amounts of money! Felted and I attended a Button Show on Saturday morning only to discover this was serious collecting. We went with the intentions of finding some unique buttons to use on our knitted sweaters and/or make some easy jewelry.

The above button is a one of a kind. I just love the curves of it and the neutral color. I bought it with the intention it would make an outstanding statement on a swing jacket. Something simple. Yesterday afternoon I found the yarn (but did not buy) that matched this and a pattern of a seed stitch swing jacket!! Perfect. I am just not in a yarn buying frame of mind. But the plan is there in my mind.

This set of buttons are old, made of celluloid. They are very light in weight which would be terrific on a sweater. I have a vision of a simple black sweater, with 6 of these down the front. The buttons would be the statement of the sweater. The one large button on upper left corner again would be a great single button on a jacket. These buttons are pre plastic and are probably from the 30's.

The buttons to the right are plastic, most probably from the 40's. There was enough for a sweater and at 6 for a dollar or 25 cents each. How could I go wrong at the price. It beats buying new buttons. The color is very accurate. Not sure what they will show up on but I love them. Mainly that they came from my 'era'. Beings a 40's child I can relate to them.


These 3 buttons are nicely stacked to make a broach or pin which ever you choose to call it. It is a matter of finding some buttons of different shapes and sizes that stack together to make designs. These came from a 10 cent 'poke' basket as the collectors call them. All in all it was an interesting venture, with minimal costs and fun finds.

Am Knitting but........

I am knitting..... garter stitch...... lots of garter stitch. I can't tell you or show you as it is a gift for a baby shower. I will take photo's and post after the shower. I just want you to all know the needles are not resting.

So instead of showing photo's of what I am currently working on, I give you one of my most beautiful granddaughters. This is the youngest granddaughter. Last Friday nite I attended the annual Author's Night at her school. On the first day of school they are given a year long study of writing books. They can write as many as they want, doing their own art work along with the stories. Then at the end of the year, they select one of their stories to read to parents and families who are invited to attend. Ms. K. made us all smile and laugh with her story. And her art work is outstanding. Isn't she beautiful? Hard to beleive she is going to be 10 soon. She looks so grown up. I still see her running out the front door of her house when she would see me drive up and leap up for me to catch her. She was about 3 last time she tried that. I would not be able to do it anymore.

Road Trip!!!

Another road trip back to Petaluma! We found a very sweet little yarn shop there last June when we went to hear the Yarn Harlot speak. The Knitterly is a great little shop full of great yarn. Even the sale baskets were full of good stuff. The staff is also just super and right there to help you. This trip to The Knitterly was for a Habu Class. On this trip was our very very good driver, Felted, seen here on the right.

And on her very first road trip with us is Auntie M. By attaching a link to her blog and with her very new lap top computer, I have now put the pressure on her to keep her blog up to date with great photo's and stories of her knitting. She does some beautiful stuff. I am happy to

report that Auntie M survived the trip and even held her own with the rest of us.

Somehow in this busy busy day, I missed a photo of SSChar who also was present and acted as the official assistant to the driver. Reading maps and the first to inform the actual driver she was going the wrong way and was lost!! She took a lot of pressure off those of us in the back seat that were just along for the ride. Please forgive me SSChar for no photo, I think it was cuz you were always hiding out in the restrooms.

Now you ask about the class, I just know you are. Habu yarn is fairly new to the market and slowly coming into being in more and more shops. I first saw it about a year and half ago in Washington DC. Nice colorways that come on cones or small fluffy tiny bundles. But along with many, I wondered what does one knit with this? The Knitterly had a short class along with their trunk show which was full of great samples that anyone could try on. Breath taking sweaters and coats. Even a few dresses that were very lacy and cute. The above yarn is on the left Linen paper, on the right is silk. The 2 cones make up a cute small bag that is so sweet. I got the small one, Felted got the bigger size in same colorway.

The class consisted of learning to read Japanese patterns which come along with these yarns. They are very simply defined patterns and once you understand the concept of reading one it leads to simplified knitting. Any pattern could be converted to one page if written in this style. Below are the samples of a jacket pattern. ALL of the pattern is one page with the second page being a work sheet of rows. You write in when the increases and decreases are. THATS IT!! The drawing of the item has all the wording a person would ever need. I wish I could explain this fully to you. I grasp the idea but not how to share it.

After a few hours at The Knitterly, we found a wonderful tea room for lunch. The food was yummmmmmy and the setting was so sweet. I had a great egg salad sandwich on a croissant with Raspberry Ice Tea!!! Fresh fruit was also on the plate. All of it was great.
Last but not least the rest of our shopping for me was 2 balls of Kidsilk Haze. This will make up 2 scarves. I say for me now, but am betting someone will get one for Christmas. I got this at a shop in Sonoma called Bella. She had some great sale prices on yarn. I know someone else got some Rowan also on sale. Another cute little knitting shop with the owner right there to assist us.



This Merlin is a yarn by Louet. Linen and Merino lace weight. I got all 3 skeins on sale with a total of 750 yards. Not sure what is in my mind for this but at the price it captured me. This yarn came from The Knitterly.

It was a great day for a drive to the wine country. The country side was beautiful to see. Vinyards and more vinyards. Both Petaluma and Sonoma are great little towns with lots of history. We stopped at a couple other shops in Sonoma and ended the day with Ice Cream and Geleto. Sigh, Got to love a good road trip where you get to knit coming and going, someone else does the driving and there was loads of laughter.

This and this and more of this!

Some of this,

Alot of this,

More of this,


Because of this!

And most of all fear of this!!

Temps setting at 100 degrees for a few days and its only May. Current life in Sacramento!

Once again THE mtn

Once again, I share a photo of Mt. Shasta. I am attempting to learn to use my camera for some better pictures. Since I have had it I just point and click. That sounded like it is a Smith and Wesson, not a Cannon camera!!! I tend to do the easy way out, but am going to expand my horizons. I spent this weekend in Yreka with Mother. We had a nice time with just us girls. My brother and his wife take a weekend away when I can get up there. On the way home yesterday I stopped in Dunsmuir to take care of my Grandparents grave site. It is important to mother that we do this each May in time for Memorial Day. On Sat we drove out to Little Shasta Cemetery to check Dads family plots. The valley is so green and pretty. Wide open pastures with old ranch homes.

On my drive north I noticed Shasta Lake was so low, I understand better now we are headed into a drought in California. The lake is only 1/2 full. It will get very low before October rains start again.

Knitting content: none!!!! (I need to get back to the needles)

Knitting, babies and such

Knitting along as fast as I can on a baby blanket for a friends shower!! I am doing the corner to corner thing and I am almost down to the decrease side. On Weds while shop hoppin yarn stores, I found the perfect contrast color for border so am looking forward to when I can start it. Something new, and I am always will to attempt something new.

As I said on Weds we did the Yarn Shop Hop. Felted, The Swatch Queen and myself traveled to Nevada City to Meadow Farms Yarn Studio, with a stop at the best Ben Franklin store after. They have an amazing yarn section with lots of great yarns to check out along with patterns, and other important things to the knitting world. Then it was on to Fibers. Each store has its on special yarns and great owners and employee's. I was happy to see Ellen at Meadow Farms again. Starting at Babetta's yesterday, the same threesome then traveled down to Elk Grove to see Knitique and then over to The Yarn Shoppe. Each day the driver was bought lunch by the other 2. Yesterday's lunch had enough left overs I got dinner out of it. Saw beautiful yarn, great knitting bags (which we all know is my thing)! The shops are all unique in their own way, lay outs, staff and little knitting corners where a person can sit down and actually put the yarn on the needles. Had a great 2 days with 2 great friends.

The last thing of the day is my newest picture which is called:

Mommie just washed my hair and I can't do a thing with it!!!