Turning of the Sumac — a September Progression

I love watching the colors turn in autumn.  I’ve been trying to document the process in my backyard this year, by taking photos from approximately the same vantage point over the course of several days/weeks.

Here is the north end (south-facing) sumac grove, labeled with dates.

09 September

16 September

20 September

21 September

27 September

28 September

29 September

30 September

1 October

2 October, after a *cold* and windy day and night

The Sumac always goes First. . . .

The very beginnings of autumn are starting to appear here on the mountain.

Two weeks ago, a *few* yellow leaves peeked out from among their green brethren on the locust trees.

And the sumac began to blush in hidden places. 

But, with Labor Day coming up this weekend (and the County Fair — more on that later), the sumac has kicked up the colors a notch.

Everything is still mostly green, as you see, including that aspen on the left and the honey locust on the right.

But more and more yellow, orange, and red are coming out in the sumac patch.

Every year it’s lovely,

and comes with cooler mornings and evenings.

One can just FEEL autumn easing on in.

It stirs something in me. . . .

How about you?

Luckier than Most?

We have a small patch of New Zealand white clover in the south end of our back yard, and it seems to produce more than its share of 4-leaf (and more!) clovers.

See what the girls and I found just this morning:

4-Leaf Clover with burn (and 3-Leaf with grasshopper bites)

Two 4-leaf clovers together

A 5-leaf clover

April Arizona Snow

I’ve been trying for some time to embed videos here. Let’s see if this one works!

Weather never fails to be interesting.

Spring Springing and Wool Fulling

(Say that out loud — it’s more satisfying that way.)
Our temperatures still drop below freezing at night, but the days definitely feel like spring.  Allergies are flaring.  Bulbs are popping up. . .
. . . in the new plot
.

(mostly

daffodils

and an iris,

I think)

.

.

.

.

. . . and in the old

.

.

.

(which I thought

I had cleared out

– evidently not).

.

.

.

.

Yesterday, I took my completed entrelac swatch,
which measured 7 1/4″ wide x 7 1/2″ tall,
and some soapy water,
combined and scrubbed.
My shoulders got tired.
Right away, my water turned pink.
(I think the Poems purple, in particular, leached out.)
But I persevered
(with a little “help”),
and ended up with this
now 6″ square.
.

(That’s the same

floor square,

for comparison.)

.

I’ll stretch those corners out, nice and square, while it’s still wet.

.

That was fun!
More fodder for project-ideas.

I’ll leave you with this image of the glorious view from my own front yard!

(Thank you, Lord, for beauty and eyes/heart to see it!)

It’s Baa-aaack. . . .

Snowy and colder again

Christmas Knitting and Cetera

What is your “Christmas knitting”?

For me, it’s this cap for my niece in San Antonio: 

I keep hoping I’ve made it to the start of decreases, but that point still eludes me.   The decision about how deep to make a cap always fills me with uncertainty, eventhough I make more caps than anything else!

The situation:  I want her to turn up the brim now, and then turn it down when she’s bigger; the ribs are stretchy enough to fit a broad range of sizes.  The one I made for DD is 4 3/4″ from cast-on to first-decrease, but she (1 year older than niece) doesn’t turn up the brim, so my current figuring is to make it about 4 1/2″ from where the ribbing changes.

What do you think?

Master Knitter has been my highest non-gift priority, and here’s the current state of the mittens (with kitty for scale)  ;-]  Thumbless and unblocked, but looking pretty good.

Several inches of snow blanket our ground this evening.  The juncos always come out in force when a storm is brewing, and you can see their tracks in this photo of my most recent charity-cap.  The yarn is Paton’s “Pooch”, a bulky wool-blend boucle.  Nice results, but a bit hard to work with, especially if you need to see the individual stitches.  This will be the to-be-turned-up brim.  I plan the rest of the cap to be plain Aran-acrylic stockinette, so I increased 50% in the first round, from 48 to 72 stitches.  Good deal — I’ve learned about a new-to-me yarn, and a local school-child will have a warmer winter!

Master Knitter Vest

Peach Vest, for Level 2.

This project has held most of my concentration lately, and I’ve made some progress, some discoveries, and some design decisions. 

You can see the progress.  “What discoveries?”, you may ask. 

Well, I found that, although I had centered the lace panel in the fabric (31 sts, 16 st panel, 31 sts), when I divided the motif into its left-travelling and right-travelling “halves”, I discovered that the center stitch of the motif is nearer the right edge.  (With an even number of stitches in the panel, it would have to be uncentered, right?  sigh.)  The side points both reach the edges of the panel, but on different rows.  So, when I split it, I had more leftover stitches off the left side.  Since some of this designing is seat-of-my-pants style, I expect to run across things to have to decide about.  For this one I considered a few alternatives:  (1) go on as is and write the pattern as worked, but note for the evaluators what I found and what I decided and why, or (2) go back to the armhole shaping and bind off 1 additional stitch on the left (wearer’s right) side and mention it (or not) in the write-up, or (3) write the pattern with one fewer stitch on in the original cast-on and hope the discrepancy goes unnoticed (honestly, I didn’t consider this one for too long, but it *did* occur to me).  I decided to go on as is and wait to the end to see if a change still needs to be made and make it some place unobtrusive.  The places the centering will *show* are at the neck-division and at the shoulder-join.  If things are OK at the shoulder, I’ll just finish it off; if not, I can still rip back to the underarm.

(I’m taking careful notes!)

As I got closer to the shoulder, working both sides of the neck at one time, I realized that the stair-step bind-offs would be on different rows for the 2 sides of the neck and this might be used to my advantage in the mismatched-stitch-count dilemma.  I bound off the wearer’s-left half on a RS row, but worked the stitches on the wearer’s-right half for that one more pattern rep, so the final decrease ended up in the same (mirrored) L-R position as that on the other half — hey!  (I also inconspicuously decreased one stitch at the neck edge in this final row.)  They now look the same!!  Both have 14 sts, with the decrease-line 1 st in from the outer edge.

So now I’ve gone back to the back piece, to make it match the front.  I’ll need to bind off those shoulders in the same rhythm, too. 

(More of those extra-careful notes!)

And, since the pattern’s movement determines the depth I can make the neck-opening (it moves outward 1 stitch on each RS row and eventually runs up against the edge), the front’s opening is about 1/2″ shorter than I want, so I’ll need to add a 1/2″ dip in the center of the back piece — being VERY careful about how I center it, yes?!!

The real test will be in the sewing-up.

Leaf Fall.

We had a deep-cold snap about 2 weeks ago, and the leaves turned brown and gray (instead of gold) and are now falling. 

See that deep blue?  That’s really how it looks on a clear day here at 7000 feet+ elevation.  Just not that much air between us and outer space!

Days are currently in the 60’s; nights in the teens or 20’s.

Saw the doves again the other day. 

And the Dark-eyed Juncos have appeared at the millet feeder, too  (no photo yet, sorry) – a sure sign of approaching *winter*.  And I’m trying to keep the thermostat down . . . brrrr.  I need a new knit shawl!

Seasonal Sumac

I thoroughly enjoy watching the (always early) seasonal changes of the Sumac in our backyard.

In a few short months, it goes from this. . .

July  

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . . to this. . .

 

August

. . . to this. . . 

Sept 11  

 

 

 . . . and this. . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . . to this!

Sept 27

 

Wonderful!

Fall Colors and “Carnivorous” Sock Designing

I love seeing the colors change at this time of year.  Our sumac turns earliest.  Here it is on 24 August, with just a bit of yellow peeking through from under the green. 

And here is today’s palette.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just love it!

Sock Madness designing had been “eating my lunch” last week (hence the term “carnivorous” in this post’s title!), but this week it’s more or less in hand.  I have the pattern written out to the heel, but am fine-tuning some neat tricks for the ankle.  No photos yet — don’t want to give away any surprises for 2009’s competition!