I am very happy to introduce Anne Hanson's newest design worked up in our Frolic Yarn.  The Whitfield Shorty Jacket is such a sweet design for either a boy or girl.

Frolic is a hard wearing, superwash merino with a tight twist that resists pilling, while retaining a nice soft hand.  I am currently knitting this for my grandson and highly recommend this pattern!
(this yarn can be ordered in any colorway using the Custom Color Yarn page.)

A while back Anne knit this little sweater for one of her nephews.  When I saw it, I just LOVED it and promptly begged her to write the pattern as I knew my own grandson would love it.

Don't you just love little boys?  I certainly do…this picture exemplifies just why I love them.  They always do what you do not expect them to do…LOL.  This model is a friend of Anne's named Kian.  He did a great job in his modeling debut, don't you think?

I am finishing the last bit of my second sleeve and hope to get this all put together on Sunday.  It's been a highly enjoyable knit!

Seek silence.
Gladden in silence.
Adore silence.
Deng Ming~Dao

Tomorrow is the end of my vacation and I have to tell you I have enjoyed every last minute of the past week.  Did I do anything special…not really, but it was a wonderful vacation for me.  The best part was having the time to catch up on life and enjoy the quiet. 

I cleaned my house, clipped and groomed the dogs and my little woolen rabbit.  I spent time with my grandchildren, worked on and finished a queen sized quilt top and caught up with the garden….but the most relaxing of all was spending some quality time with my knitting needles and never once touching a dye pot.  Tomorrow I will close out my vacation by heading into South Boston to watch my son play ball and I am really looking forward to it.  It's always nice to get out of the Valley for a day.

Now that vacation time is coming to an end, I will admit that I am looking forward to getting back to work.  A body needs a little down time to prepare for the work time. Now that I am fully rested it is time got get back at it. 🙂

~ To everything there is a season ~

Don't you just love their sunny faces?
Marigolds are my favorite flower of the summer.  They have such cheery faces and grow with a voraciousness.  I have read that they will deter insects and rodents in a garden and while I love them so, I am not quite convinced of that claim yet.

Normally this bed would be completely full at this point in the garden and the green beans along the edge would be climbing up their poles.  Sad looking isn't it?

Well…this spring a family of wood chucks made their home on our property.  Ken worked at closing up any spots that they could get into in our barn, which seemed to help, but every morning I would be greeted with more chewed bean and squash plants.  Hmmpff!!

…so last weekend, we decided that we would try a different approach with the fencing.  Ken sank another fence around the other 2 and then curved the top 6 inches over making it hard for any critter to get a good enough grip to get over that fence.  So far it seems to be working…yay!  We also had a little help from the universe as well.  Last Friday, there was a little surprise in the road……a DEAD woodchuck!  I don't like seeing animals hurt, but I will admit, I wasn't all that sad.

Except for that one particular bed, the rest of the garden is doing fairly well, other than the usual "buggy" things that one has to contend with.  I have already cut this basil back once and managed to get 12 big servings of pesto into the freezer.  I will be cutting this all back this weekend for another dozen. 🙂

The Butternut is growing in leaps and bounds, but this is always the one plant that I struggle the most with in the bug department.  Squash bugs and cucumber beetles….blech!  So far it is holding it's own in spite of the bugs. 🙂

The tomatoes and cukes are both doing really well too.  The other day I saw a HUGE moth in the yard that looked as thought it had broken it's wing.  I thought it was…yep…it was an Orange Tomato Hornworm Moth.  Stunning insect, but those worms on your tomatoes can be devastating, so I will be on the lookout for them.

…and lastly…today was garlic harvesting day. 🙂
I read somewhere that if you leave them in the ground too long they can start splitting off which is not good.  The very first one that I looked at today had some baby cloves hanging on to it, so I guess it was time to get them up.  Thankfully that was the only one that had split.  I will leave them out in the garden to dry out as it has been kind of a shady day, then I will bring them in to dry out before I store them away.

 
So all in all the garden is doing well in spite of it's ups and downs and working with these cheery marigold faces makes it that much more enjoyable. :0)

Bzzzzzzz…….. "Summertime and the livin' is easy"

Carole gets me everytime with her Ten on Tuesday when it sports a music theme.  This week's list is 10 favorite beach (summer) songs. 

I had a lot of fun running around the beaches as a youngster, so many of these songs bring me back to that time…..here we go…

1.  Camp Granada

2. Summer In the City

3.  Lazy Hazy Days of Summer    

4.  School's Out For Summer

5.  Summertime

6.  Sealed with a Kiss

7.  Boys of Summer

8.  In The Summertime

9.  Anything Beach Boys

10.  Suddenly Last Summer

As usual, I could keep going on and on and on…what's your favorite summer song?

 

Ken is making great progress on my dye kitchen/studio.
Cabinets are attached and the stove tops/hoods are in as well.  Originally we were going to go with a stainless steel back splash, but I was worried that the heat could be a fire hazard, so we went with subway tiles instead.  You would be amazed at what steam from dye pots can do (just ask me how I know), so I think the tiles were a better choice.

I had Ken put black grout in the white tiles…..better to hide all the dye spatter that would end up staining a lighter colored grout.

The men who will be installing a monitor heater this week will also attach the gas piping to the stoves and then we can put the cabinet doors back on. :-)  So each week gets me a little closer to moving everything out of my kitchen…yay!!

Just to give you an idea as to how much work Ken has done, this is a picture of the same space after he pulled down the gross wallboard that was in the barn.  At this point he had re-wired the entire space, added new insulation and had painted the right side of the barn.

Mr. Woolen Rabbit is one awesome guy to have around!!

Can you believe that is already July??  Yikes!!

Because we kind of skipped right over Spring this year I am finding it hard to move into Summer mode even though it's been hot, hot hot!  This is the first year that we have not put our pool up in a number of years because it felt too cold for so long…and my garden is actually flourishing in spite of me. (busy, busy, busy)

 

We have had a bit of a rocky start to this Summer season, which is leaving me to understand why in some species of animals, the Mom's have been known to eat their children….but I will leave it at that.

Given that I am a bit sequestered right now a lot of knitting and other things have been happening.

A while back, Anne posted a picture of her nephew sporting this adorable little jacket.  The little jacket was a smaller copy of a sweater that she made for her husband.  When I saw that little sweater, I just knew I needed to make one for my grandson…..so….I prodded……and suggested with yarn…..and pleaded.  Yes…maybe even harassed (gulp).  Ok, so harassed may be a bit strong, but finally Anne agreed that a little Whitfield Shorty Jacket just might be a good idea.  Yay…I just love Anne!

I am working on the test version and I can tell you that the pattern is mindlessly addicting.  Kind of like stockinette, but so much more interesting. :-)  The pattern will be available very soon.

I have also been working on a sweater.  The pattern is called Vitamin D and this is ONE FUN PATTERN!  Heidi's instructions are spot on and very complete, making this complicated looking sweater easy peasy. 
Sorry about the large closeup.  I accidentally deleted the rest of my pictures of this wip.

So in-spite of some family stress there has also been some relaxing knitting in between …..growing up can be hard to do for both parents and children.

~

On another note, the shop is closed until July 23rd.  One of the nicest things about being the boss is actually being able to take a vacation.  I will be dyeing yarn to prepare for the Woolen Rabbit brick and mortar shop for a week and then I will be taking a week to just enjoy my family. 🙂

I hope that you and yours had a wonderful holiday!

A special thank you to all the young men and women who are
fighting for our freedom.

It's been a while since I have participated in Ten on Tuesday, but Carole's choice this week had to do with music and I just love my music, truly I do!

This week's subject was Love Songs..
I have loved many people over the years, my husband, my children, my youth, etc, so these songs are just a few of the songs that make me smile from the memories……the day that it captured when it played…

1.  True Companion ~ Marc Cohn
2.  Dire Straights ~ Why Worry
3.  Nickle Creek ~ When You Come Back Down
4.  Sister Goldenhair ~ America
5.  Silver Thunderbird ~ Marc Cohn
6.  Fields of Gold ~ Sting (he still makes me swoon)
7.  Nothing Compares to U ~ Sinead O'Connor
8.  Kathleen ~ Josh Ritter  (how can you not love that face/voice?)
9.  Sentimental Journey ~ Nat King Cole/Ashley Spalding
10.  Right Here Waiting For You ~ Richard Marx
11. More Than Words ~ Exteme

Not all are really love songs, but each brings me back to a day in my life that makes me smile from the memory it envokes.  (Whoops…there are 11 and truly there could be so many more….music is what embraces my memories)

Thanks Carole!

  
Seven geese pierce straight line over frigid bay,
Intervals between them constantly equal,
Pointed wings slash as if joined to make an axel:
Today is the ideal moment between yesterday and tomorrow.
Deng Ming~Dao

For a number of years now I have been asking Ken to build a working dye studio for me in our barn.  I kept telling him I knew I could sell enough yarn to justify it, but I am not sure that he quite believed it.

Every year at Fryeburg Fair people would ask me if I had a brick and mortar store and I would have to tell them no…not yet…but soon.  It was at one of those shows when my parents were visiting with me when a good number of people asked me about a shop that convinced my Dad.  My Dad then proceeded to assure Ken by saying…"If you build it they will come"

I don't think that Ken was quite sure about any of this however until he sat with me for a day at the fair….hmmmm…… he proceeded to think on it some….

….and thought upon it did he….
This winter he has helped me to finally realize a dream.  I am really and truly going to have a working dye studio that is not in my kitchen!  I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am!

See those 2 vent holes?  Yes…I am going to have 2 stove tops which with the bigger pans that I am buying is going to enable me to triple my work.  I am excited because it is seriously going to help me shorten my turn around time in a huge way! 
I currently dye 2 skeins to a pan with 2 pans on the stove.  You can understand why I have a 10 day turn around for my dye to order shop….this will be huge for me!

The walls are painted and the floor is finished.  Today the town assessor came to inspect the work (to raise our taxes of course) so next it is on to purchase the cabinets and counter that will house the stove tops….yay! 

Now that things are really progressing, I will start posting pictures weekly until it is finished.  Have I told you how excited I am??  I am pinching myself with excitement!!

 
Pattern:  Sugar Is Sweet
Designer:  Rose Beck
Yarn:  Woolen Rabbit Lucent
Colorway:  Tea Leaves
Needles:  US 5

This is the second pattern I have knit from the e-book, Be Mine and I am impressed with the quality of Rose's pattern writing.  Very clear and clean instructions….and I love the finished shawls.  If you are looking for nice shawl patterns, this is definitely a good choice.

 
Ashley has a little break right now from her master's studies, so when I asked if she might come home today for a photo shoot and she said yes, I was thrilled.  I don't get to see her nearly as much now that her life has become so busy… it is nice to have the opportunity to spend an afternoon with her.

Courtney and I were having our hair done this morning at the salon and Ashley surprised us by showing up there earlier than I expected her.  I so enjoy watching sisters enjoying each others company…..it's the best part of having children!

 

I started out casting on for the largest sized shawl, but as I was knitting along, I kind of felt that it was going to be wider than I wanted it to be, so I stopped at 3 repeats of the shell pattern.  It was a wise choice.  Personally I like to wear a shawl of this type wrapped around my neck over a sweater or under a jacket, so the medium sized version would be perfect for this shawl.  I really enjoyed knitting this shawl…it had a very soothing rhythm to it.

   

Of course I couldn't resist this last photo opportunity….
Bzzzz….