Justine's Garden

Getting the soil ready for Justine's Garden
Veronica & Gracie...and the Garden

Latest FO...diagonal rib socks...Small Project for March

Justine's last requirement for the latest Girl Scout badge she's working on was to plant a garden...and now it's done! We have two kinds of tomatoes (big and cherry), jalapeno pepper, cat nip, sage, two kinds of green beans, two kinds of carrots, green onions and flowers! Justine wanted a garden that had flowers and veggies. Mike rigged a sprinkler system with a drip line and sprinkler...he's so handy! I think we need a pretty garden sign with Justine's Garden on it, don't you? Sounds like a project for mom and daughter.

Hopefully we'll get a bountiful harvest in a few months.

Oh, and yes the shoulder is feeling better and I just can't stand not knitting....so I'm back. Taking it easy though...don't want to over do it!

Ouch.

After a few days of heavy knitting and then knitting Wednesday night with the gals, my shoulder is hurting so bad! I was up at 3:00 a.m. with the IcyHot and Motrin trying to get the pain under control enough to sleep.

So I decided...wait for it....wait.......here comes a shift in the universe....to not knit for a few days.

Hope I survive.

I've been listening to Knitta Please to try to cope. (Sorry, I can attach a video or picture, but I haven't figured out how to attach a song.) It's a knitter's rap. If you don't like rap or four letter words and if you're a Martha Stewart fan...um, or a crocheter, you might want to move along.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My wee sister, Barb, took this picture while travelling in Ireland.

She sent me this card, tooThe kids have all left for school, sporting their green to avoid any pinching throughout their day. I remember when I was a kid, there would always be one kid who would wear no green on the outside, but would have a piece of green felt or something pinned to the inside of the shirt. They did this because if you got pinched and you WERE wearing green, you got to punch the pincher. Sneaky devils.

Here is my favorite Irish Blessing. If I'm not mistaken, my mom has it in a frame, stitched by her friend, Marian.

May those who love us love us.

And those that don’t love us,

May God turn their hearts.

And if He doesn’t turn their hearts,

May he turn their ankles,

So we’ll know them by their limping!

If you really want a Irish treat today, go rent Finian's Rainbow. It's one of my favorite movies, it's a musical, corny and dated...but wonderful. You can sing along to How are things in Glocca Morra and Look to the Rainbow. What?! You don't know these songs?! The lyrics of the songs are delightful...check it out, this one is a duet sung by the "girl" and the "leprechaun" (well, he's a leprechaun who is quickly turning into a human, and he doesn't want to be human 'It's too Inhuman!' but now that he's becoming more human than leprechaun, he's noticing girls: "You're under my skin-ish, so please be give in-ish, or it's the begin-ish of the finish of me!" Fred Astaire is in it and Tommy Steele. The girl in the movie is Petula Clark. You remembered that she sang Downtown, right?

Mom and I know all the words to all the songs in Finian's Rainbow. We always tear up at the same time, too. (Ah...it's that cheap Irish music!)

Are you knitting like a fifth grader?

My brother-in-law sent this article to me (and the other knitters in the family). The last line says it all!

Thanks Uncle John!

Rural Courtship

Mike and I went to the Flea Market (that's Swap Meet for my CA friends) and I found a reprint of a painting with knitting in it! I'd seen this before in an article in Interweave Knits (Spring '08). The painting is called "Rural Courtship" and is by Daniel Ridgeway Knight. He's an American painter who lived in France beginning in the early 1870s. The article in IK had this to say:

"In European courtship rituals of the nineteenth century, knitting played a major role. More often than not, marriage was an economic contract rather than a love match, and knitting factored into the marriage economy. A wife needed to be able to oversee an efficient, frugal household, and knitting socks and stockings (locally, virtually the only items commonly knitted at the time) was proof of a woman's ability. However the young woman in the painting might respond to her suitor, she displays her proficiency in this crucial realm."



This size is quite nice 24" x 30" and has a nice aged olive green frame. It needs a little work on the back where the painting has become lose from the frame and a little clean up, too. Other than that it's a beauty!

Cold? February's HOT!

Donna, quick at work on her socks now that the Feb Lady is done!
"Geez, take that picture already!"

Two more February Lady sweaters done in our knit group.
Hot stuff!!

One of these days we'll all wear them and get a group photo.

You're done already?!

I catch a lot of grief, all good natured, of course, for quickness with which I finish my knitting projects. Many years ago my mom got me a sweatshirt that had a very cute woolly lamb knitting her own fleece with the quote "Don't Just Sit...Knit!" Over the years I have tweaked this to my own nagging mantra of "If you're sitting...you should be knitting!" Everyone laughs when I say this, but I actually do this.

Hey, I drag my ass on projects, too. I have an afghan I started over 10 years ago still undone and a sweater that I started close to two years ago waiting patiently for me to come back and finish. My problem is, if I'm not excited about it, I'm not interested in working on it. But back to getting those knitting projects done quickly...

I found this on Twist Collective and thought it was very funny and might help people understand why I knit the way I do. Enjoy!