Sunday, February 22, 2015

now for something a little different.....

Well, I never made it to madrona, and I haven't knit much at all this week.....
Instead I did this...

Two new bowling balls done and ready to be grouted. One for my pond scene I'm making and one for the butterfly garden.

I'll also be pouring a couple of stepping stones today,. and maybe painting the garden ball (sorry miss kitty).

I've been hanging around inside taking care of a boxer girl that had some pretty big surgery on Thursday, making sure she's comfortable and not licking her stitches. She seems to be doing well. She gets the stitches out in two weeks. It's going to be a LONG two weeks for miss frankenbutt, but it had to be done. Hopefully she'll be a happy doggie for a long time to come.

Next week, maybe some knitting, maybe some more glass. I have one more bowling ball, and an idea for both a pond surround and some lily pad stepping stones for my bird - pond - river scene.......stay tuned.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

a bee and a half

In the spirit of the massive spring fever I've acquired, I started this little project last week........
If you squint a bit, you can start to see the bees there at the bottom.

I hemmed and hawed about making this pattern for quite some time because it has more problems that you could count. The designer has been unresponsive, and her idea of fixing it is to let another knitter who purchased the pattern from her post corrections on her ravelry page and then put up a link to that. I didn't want to support that kind of bad business, even if it was only $2.99, but the bees finally bit me, and I decided to forge ahead.

It DOES have a myriad of problems, and, although the knitter who made the corrections did a pretty good job, considering.....there's still problems to be had. So far, I've made it through the worst of them (I think), and it seems to be coming out OK. Just taking my time, not doing the bobbles (I HATE bobbles), and really making sure the stitch count works on every row.

This is a gradient set, that's why it looks a bit darker at the bottom. I made it through the first bee with the first of the gradients, and I'm now on the second skein. I haven't gotten completely frustrated yet, although there has been some frustration, so I'm slowly forging on.....

I decided to skip madrona this year. It would have only been for the shopping, and quite honestly, there's nothing I need that I can't buy online. I don't really have any projects that are demanding to be done.....just gardening and glass right now while the weather holds out.

Speaking of glass......I did this on a rainy day. Flower and butterfly on a bowling ball. It needs some background done still, and to be grouted, but the hard part is there.

Next up for the bowling balls....a waterlily I've been thinking about and then an owl.
patience......