Phoenix

Leaving Scottsdale after five days, we drove to Phoenix for a week's stay. These grapefruit trees were just outside our door! Fresh, ready-to-pick grapefruit greeted us every day!

We spent the most wonderful afternoon at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden which includes cacti and succulents from around the world and a beautiful Butterfly Dome.

 

From low-growing ground cover

to these towering old plants,

the desert offers breath-taking and unique beauty.

 These feeding stations in the Butterfly Dome enable visitors to see how the butterflies feed through the proboscis.

 This beauty landed on DH's hat and rested their for quite a while as people stopped to look at this lovely creature.

 Then, this plus-size butterfly landed and scared everyone away!! hee-hee

Succinctly Yours – Week3

Succinctly Yours
Word Of The Week: procrastinate

Without time to procrastinate he wore an orange jacket to meet her at baggage, sure that only he could save her from herself. She smiled.

Friday Prayer Shawl Update

I've picked up the prayer shawl again with the hope of finishing it before wandering to of my other WIPs. This James Brett "Marble" yarn is so nice to touch and knit. This is my first experience with it and I quite enjoy it. Fortunately, I have another ball of it in tans and brown for a prayer shawl that I might use to crochet a triangle shawl. The current pattern is the Bernat "Mosaic Wrap" though I plan to omit the pom poms.

What are you creating?

Wednesday Microfiction Muse

Luscious Lula, bearing the burden of broken promises and misplaced trust, felt more alive when she wore her ruby hat to visit his grave.

The Microfiction Muse #1 at http://dianeestrella.com/?p=5129

Yarn Along Wednesday

 http://www.gsheller.com/2011/04/yarn-along.html

 

Here is another patch I'm knitting in ever exciting stockinette stitch for my crazy afghan that I am inventing as I knit. The yarn is Louisa Hardig "Jasmine" in a chocolate brown with a silver strand running through it.

I'm listening to The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen, an amazing author who creates plausible, yet magical, stories. The setting for this story is Walls Of Water, NC, a beautiful location surrounded by water falls. Isn't that just lovely?

What are you reading?

Are you knitting, too?

Teaser Tuesday

 From Knitting In Comfort by Isabel Sharpe:
"He went to the University of North Carolina, and could have graduated, probably with honors, but he missed Megan and wanted to settle." She shook her head as if Megan were responsible for bringing Stanley down from a sure shot at the White House." Stanley had actually failed out of UNC all by himself.

http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/

What are you reading?

Scottsdale

March was a month of travel in our motor home beginning with a week in Scottsdale, AZ, to watch three Rockies' games at Spring training.

The first game that we attended was especially fun since it was against the Cleveland Indians. DH and I are from Ohio--long, long ago--so DH wore his Indians shirt and his Rockies cap. Rather like a split personality, but it was a conversation starter!

There's a dog under there! Lailah found a shady spot of relief from the hot Arizona sun.

Coming from brown and blustery Colorado, I was immediately drawn to the green, desert vegetation.

So, I snapped pictures of the gorgeous cacti and succulents whenever one caught my eye.

Stunning!

 Praise to God the Creator for nature's beauty!

 A trip to a LYS was on my itinerary, so I visited Jessica Knits.

 The store was arranged with the heavier weight yarns at the entrance.

 As you move through the store, the yarn weights are arranged to become lighter.

There were bargains! Much of the yarn was on sale, so--of course--I took advantage of that to buy some novelty yarns for my Crazy Afghan.

The warm sun, baseball, and knitting! What more could an antique girl want?

Succinctly Yours

Visit Succinctly Yours to add your micro-fiction and read what others have written. The word of the week is cater.

" I cater to you dear Chair, so let's cuddle." said Pillow. "Even if I get dumped in the lake?" asked Chair. Loving to float, Pillow smiled.

Yarn Along

This book is comforting and gentle, Knit in Comfort by Isabel Sharpe, and tells the story of a city woman moving to a small Southern town. At 27 pages into the story, I am enjoying the writing style and vivid descriptions of the setting and looking forward to getting into the story line.

This "Bistro Shirt" from Oat Couture has been a WIP for a few years. OK, several years. It is this close to completion. Silly me, I just put it aside, waaaay aside and let it marinate. Apparently, it has been calling to me as I pulled it out yesterday and decided to finally-finally finish it. If that ever happens, you'll see it here!

The yarn is from the beautiful S. Charles "Mosaic Collection" which is offered at a sale price here. Mind you, I paid full price for it mumble-mumble years ago. The hand is so supple with slubs of color in silk, very pretty.

What are you reading?
What are you knitting?

Click on the yarn along link to see what other book 'n' yarn lovers are doing.





Teaser Tuesday ~ Meltzer

 "I'm afraid of heights, snakes, normalcy, mediocrity, Hollywood, the initial silence of an empty house, the enduring darkness of a poorly-lit street, evil clowns, professional failure, the intellectual impact of Barbie dolls, letting my father down, being paralyzed, hospitals, doctors, the cancer that killed my mother, dying unexpectedly, dying for a stupid reason, dying painfully, and worst of all, dying alone. But I'm not afraid of power—which is why I work in the White House"

http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/

I May Be Crazy...But I'm Havin' Fun!

 I am having oodles of fun with this crazy knit ghan! What a whimsical, free experience it is to play with yarn textures, colors, and combinations without a pattern! Thing 4 is growing!

 And, what a lovely neighbor to have! Rowan Summer Tweed held in a single strand for a grassy stockinette. Love the nubby texture, which ,sadly, is not apparent in this picture. One side is angled by decreasing on one side on every knit row for a touch of shaping. A bit of 3x3 rib is popped on top of that!

The lovely rib has a bit of sparkling gold threads amongst the chocolate fiber of Louisa Harding "Jasmine" knitted with double strands. A rectangle of double stranded garter jumps off of one end in DK weight. And, what is growing from the garter section?

 More sparkle in Louisa Hardig "Glisten" held with a neutral Rowan "purelife" for a fine stockinette bit.

And there you have the recent bit of craziness in this long-term project. Though, I must admit, I do feel compelled to pick it up and add a bit more when I should do more pressing things. I am so anxious to get to the embroidery and embellishment!! Myra Wood's voice rings in my mind telling me to do that last. Do you know how far "last" seems from now? Ah well, I will follow the voice of the Queen and attempt to go about this with some dimension of order since the rest of this project is so free-wheeling. Did I mention that I love the process? Love. It.

                                                    

Teaser Tuesdays ~ Meredith Baxter

 http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/

 

p. 125: "Right before our wedding I was offered a high-visibility role as William Holden's daughter in a big Hollywood disaster movie, The Towering Inferno, which I turned down because the shooting schedule overlapped with the honeymoon we'd planned. But we didn't go on a honeymoon."

Yarn Along Wednesday ~ unTied

http://www.gsheller.com/2011/03/yarn-along_16.html

I am yarning along on Thing 4 for my crazy quilt afghan and reading a memoir by Meredith Baxter, unTIED. Reading this book is a dream compared to the memoir by Barbara Walters. Miss Baxter's life story is quite surprising with a flowing writing style that makes it an I-can't-put-it-down book.

 The lace part of Thing 4 is a simple repeat using Bernat Satin yarn and size 8s. I knitted three rows of stockinette K3, yo, k2tog, repeat across row to the last three sts. K3 sts. Maintaining stockinette throughout, do four rows and repeat lace pattern. After blocking the lace, I started a stockinette triangle on one side of the lace using Rowan Summer Tweed in a mossy green, beautiful-beautiful yarn. I decided on straight stockinette to show the gorgeous texture of the yarn, which I will embellish later. I am decreasing with k2tog on the knit rows to make an isosceles triangle.

Phoenix is a beautiful place to be! This majestic saguaro stands in Scottsdale, though we've been in Phoenix this week after our five-day stay in Scottsdale. Tomorrow we will be off to Sedona.
Wherever we are, I continue to YARN ALONG!

Teaser Tuesdays ~ The Sugar Queen



From The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen:

p.33  "When she ran out of books to read, it only got worse. She was walking by the creek along the wood line at the end of the property one day when she was twelve, feeling mopey and frustrated, when she saw a book propped up against a willow tree."

http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/

Thing 2 & Thing 3

 DH, Lailah, and I are delighting in our stay here in Phoenix with 85-degree temps! Whew! We spent five days in Scottsdale, then relocated to Phoenix for a week.

I completed Thing 2 and Thing 3 for my fledgling crazy afghan while we drove through New Mexico. The greenish stockinette rectangle is two strands of Berroco Comfort DK held together. I then switched to a brown Millefili Fine and carried it with Bernat Matrix decreasing by k2tog on each end every fourth row to form the triangle with size 8 needles.

The adventure continues!