the thing to pass down

On a recent visit with my sister I took a few pictures of one of the quilts she made for her new daughter, Hannah. My sister has an affinity for bright colors and fancy shapes. She probably makes about 6 quilts a year of various size and intricacy.

The practice of making quilts goes back generations in our family, though not all of the women practice it. (I knit.) From our grandmothers, to our great-grandmothers and aunts, few of the quilts from previous generations have survived in our family, because the beautiful hand work had a highly functional purpose - keeping us snug and warm.

I guess I'm okay with that . . . as long as my sister keeps sewing.

aidez by the pool

Spring break is in session for me down in sunny Arizona. So far I've read two and a half books and knit most of the back panel of my Aidez sweater. For this project I'm using some new triple ply yarn that my mom had spun from our CVM romeldale fiber.

So far my gauge is on track and the sweater is turning out beautifully.

I'm trying to finish this project in time for this year's Shepherd's Harvest Festival that takes place on Mother's Day weekend. You may think that this should be an easy goal to achieve, given the amount of time, but graduate school starts up for me again in a week and it will be difficult to find time to knit this when studio gets underway.

This image shows a test square resting on top of the yummy pile of yarn that I selected to knit this project with.

one sock wonder

Originally, I was going to call this blog One Sock Wonder, but settled on tendril/twine instead because of my love of both knitting and gardening, but these days it seems like I am only a one sock wonder.

I finally finished just one of the "windjammer" socks that I've been working on for my sister. (This particular sock appeared amongst the swiss chard growing in my garden last summer -- just to illustrate how long I've had it on the needles.) I hope I can finish the other sock before this summer's harvest of swiss chard . . . the season of flip flops will soon be upon us.

Not that I'm complaining.

I have some time to knit now, but instead of focusing on just this project I've started two more. I'm home visiting my parents today and the lure of my mother's fiber room stocked with beautiful boxes of yarn spun from our sheeps' fiber was too much to resist - I had to grab about a half a mile of the new mohair and wool blend that my mom just got back from the fiber mill and start on another sweater.

I guess I shouldn't moan about how many projects I have on the needles, or even the fact that these projects seem to be talking longer and longer to complete . . . the yarn is here and I am here and I'll just take it one stitch at a time.