France, Chapter 2: Who was there

Our tour was lead by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes, a.k.a French Girl. Her husband Phil and son Deva kept us on the road and organized. I don't have good photos of Phil and Deva because they were alway on the move.

Our classes were lead by Annie Modisett, a.k.a. the Knitting Heretic. She's the one in the foreground. She is just about the wittiest teacher I ever had. We laughed almost as much as we knitted. We learned about combination knitting, using a chart for lace, cabling without a cable needle, a super way to bind off, entrelac, and a really nice bobble technique.

We were pleased to meet Miriam Tegels, the World's Fastest Knitter, a la Guinness Book of World records. She is from Holland and is a delightful person. She gave us a demonstration of her technique.

My beautiful daughter Amy was there, of course. I just had to post this photo. It is so lovely, it almost makes me weep. It was taken in Pezenas, which you will learn about in another post.

Amy's business partner Sheryl was there too. This photo was taken in Collioure, a town on the Meditteranean.

Tune in next time for Chapter 3, Where we went.

France, Chapter 1: Where we stayed

We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast called La Vigneronne. It is in a tiny village called Faugeres and is a working winery as well as a central retail wine cellar for vineyards in the immediate area. See the two little windows at the top? That was our suite. You could leave the window open even though there was no screen because there were no bugs!

The lovely arched entrance in the second picture is to the kitchen area. We never went in there, but lovely things came out. Do you see the building extension coming out below our window in the first photo? That is where we ate breakfast everyday. We would wake up to the sound of someone crunching across the gravel from the kitchen to the table, carrying our croissants, bread, yogurt, cheese, jellies, juice, and COFFEE! We ate dinner 4 times at La Vigneronne and everyone agreed that they were the best meals we had while in France. There were at least 2 different local wines with each dinner, one with the appetizer (I can't spell the French way to say that) and one with the meal. The food was always exquisite and dessert was tres bon. The best dessert I had was fresh figs covered with a vanilla cream sauce which was incredibly delicious.



I will have to post my report of our trip in chapters since Blogger says 5 photos is the limit per post. Tune in again.

Bon Jour

Did I tell you that my daughter, Amy, her business partner, Sheryl, and I were going to France? Did I tell you that we were going to be having knitting classes with Annie Modisett, the Knitting Heretic? Oh, gee, maybe I forgot to mention it earlier. Sorry.

Oh my gosh!!! We had a fabulous (and I mean that in the best way - inside story here) time. I will not even attempt to post pictures or describe what it was like while I am in my jet-lagged state. I can only refer you to Annie Modisett's blog which she posted from France. There is no way I could approach how well she has illustrated and described our adventure. Please take a look at www.modeknit.com/blog. You might recognize some folks on the post titled the Miracle of Mirth, especially on the Wednesday section.

And OMG, we met Miriam Tegels, the Guiness Book of World Records record holder for the world's fastest knitter. You can check her out at http://www.speedknitter.nl/.

I need to go sleep some more now. More later.

Newton's Law of Inertia

Objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Last week I eagerly loaded some photos onto Photobucket in order to post them on this blog. Then in tried to go to Blogger Dashboard. But BD would not open, and would not open, and would not open..for several hours, so I gave up. This is where the inertia comes in. So I didn't try again for nearly a week. But obviously, I have moved beyond inertia, so here goes.

We just made a trip to the West Coast. Included in that trip was climbing a mountain, Mt. Ellinore in the Olympic National Forest (6000 ft.!) and an 11 mile hike to the end of the Dungeness Spit and back. We were with my brother-in-law, a dedicated outdoorsman. How I wish I had carried my knitting to the top of the mountain. That would have been a great photo. But I didn't.

After climbing the mountain, I wasn't sure that I could complete the 11 miles to the lighthouse at the end of the Dungeness Spit, so I did take my knitting in case I had to sit down and wait for the other hikers to go on without me. And I did make it to the lighthouse. Here is the proof.

What I was knitting was a baby sweater from Reggia sock yarn.

After the time in Washington, we went to San Luis Obispo, CA. And had more adventures (and were wined and dined in style by another brother-in-law, a dedicated gourmand.

With all the time spent in airports and airplanes and driving around, I was able to finish all the pieces. Once I got home, I found a surprise gift from my DD, Amylovie - a beautiful blocking board. I put it right to use. I am in the process of finishing this little sweater and will post the final outcome later.

I've always wanted to give my husband the finger.

Not really. He is a wonderful guy. However he is sometimes jealous of the time I spend knitting. So I try to find things to knit for him, which isn't easy. He has a very conservative taste in clothing and doesn't light bright colors. He also doesn't think it gets cold enough for sweaters in Texas. But I am just about finished with a successful project that I think pleases him. These are gloves knit from Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere. The cotton is good because his wool gloves gave him a rash last winter. The pattern is from Knitty.com and is call Cigar Gloves. The pattern as shown on the website has open ends on the thumb, index, and middle fingers so that the wearer can smoke while keeping his hands warm. Since my husband doesn't smoke, I just finished all fingers to the end. I'm using two size 3 circulars. The pattern calls for size 5, but I had to go down a bit to get gauge.





I am having fun knitting these. This is the first time I have ever made gloves. I haven't even knit mittens. And I like using two circulars. I plan to do the 2 circs thing with the next pair of socks I make.

Update: Since Blogger seems to have been off line most of yesterday afternoon and evening, by the time I finally got this posted, I had finished the second glove and presented the pair to my DH. Just imagine the left glove with all five fingers done. It looks just like the right one.

Fairly Easy Fair Isle

This is the Fairly Easy Fair Isle from Stitch 'N Bitch. I haven't blocked it yet or found the right buttons, but I wanted to get it on the blog ASAP. I knit it using Duchess by Classic Elite. I really like it a lot, and can hardly wait until it gets cold enough to wear it. The only problem I had with it was that one skein of the yarn had 6 (!!!!!) knots in it. Considering that each row is around 150 stitches on the bodice, when I got to a knot at about 135 stitches, I was somewhat perturbed. On two occasions, I just kept on rather that tink that much. I wish now I had bitten the bullet and gone back to the beginning of the row, because now there are two little "nipples" on the inside. The color is a little brighter than the photo shows. Bright colors are good for women of a certain age. We need all the help we can get.

First photo on my new blog

After a good bit of trial and error, I think I will finally succeed in getting this photo posted. This is the swatch for the lace pattern I will be using for a sweater I am knitting for Kristeen of French Girl Knits. (I would provide a link, but I don't know how.) Kristeen will be publishing a book, and I will have a small part in that. I won't be able to show you anymore of the sweater until the book is published, of course. This was knit with Louisa Harding Grace, which is a silk and wool blend. Fabulous!

First post on my new blog

Okay, so I haven't been blogging for almost a year. I now have high speed internet, so I thought I would start all over and make a new blog. I am very out of practice with posting pictures, so I am not going to do that with this post. It is enough that I got the blog set up and my cartoon on there. I don't know how to transfer stuff from my old blog to this one, so in case anyone out there needs to review, you will just have to go to my old blog, mamenagerie.blogspot.com.

I better explain the title of this blog. When all my children were still at home and they would ask me what I wanted for Christmas, birthday, Mother's Day, or whatever, I would reply "I don't need anything. All I want is peace, harmony, and a clean house." I never got it. Being retired and an empty-nester, I now have peace and harmony, but the clean house usually eludes me. But that is my own fault.