Postcards from Florida

It has been ten years - ten years! - since we went to the beach, a wonderful whirlwind trip with family when C3 was just 3 years old.  So when a parishioner offered a beachfront condominium for just the three of us to spend a whole week in Destin this summer, we started packing.  Swimsuits, goggles, sunscreen, boardgames, bucket...done.

And yarn, of course.  Plymouth Jeanee cotton in brown and blue and a soft light gray to make hand towels as a thank you to our hosts (I just chose a few stitch patterns I liked, and added a seed stitch border).  I mostly knitted on the balcony, but a little on the beach, stitching a little sand and sunscreen in for good measure.

It was the most marvelous trip, filled with waves and walks and seafood and sand dollars and laughter and late nights.  We returned only a little sunburned and a lot rested and entirely ready to do it again someday.

No bunny 'til some bunny...

C3, now 13 years old, was just in preschool when it started.  Even with only a handful of Easters under his belt, he had accumulated a number of stuffed bunnies.  Every year they make an appearance around the middle of Lent (they're so adorable and soft, how can we not let them out early?) and pile up on C3's bed to await the arrival of Easter morning and (the resurrection of Jesus Christ and) another new bunny in C3's basket.

That preschool year, somewhere around Easter, my husband and I went into C3's room to say bedtime prayers and kiss goodnight.  We found him sitting on his bed surrounded by his bunnies, and as we made room for ourselves in the cozy warren, C3, with a particularly fuzzy stuffed rabbit in his hands, looked up at us and said with a precious sigh, "I love you more than bunnies."

Melt.

We still say it to this day when we want to emphasize just how strongly we feel.  "I love you" is all well and good, but "I love you more than bunnies"...that's serious.

So, last year as Lent got started, I began wondering whether it was time for me my son to grow up a little, whether stuffed animals were still something he would want.  His heart has a generously sized soft spot, though, and because I wasn't ready for him to be too old because of that I decided to do just one more bunny.  Store shelves had long been filled with Easter rabbits, ducks, lambs all waiting to be chosen to sit among chocolate eggs and speckled jellybeans in some child's basket.  But if this was going to be the last bunny, I wanted it to be special.  I decided I would make it.

Knit it, of course.  I had already eyed some patterns, precious knitted toys with button noses and cotton tails.  I finally chose Sophie, by Ysolda Teague, for its long, floppy ears and sweetest face.  For you knitters reading along, I couldn't recommend the pattern more highly.  It is knit in parts, but there are no seams - beginning with the head, you simply knit, stuff, and bind off, and then pick up stitches for the next part.  I used Caron Simply Soft that I've long had in my stash

Much of the bunny was knit right in front of C3, who never asked what I was making, even when it looked a little Frankenbunny-ish as I picked up for legs or arms or ears.  I loved the project, and smiled often as it grew, just as C3 has grown.  It was ready just in time to nestle in C3's basket - the same one the very first bunny appeared in - on Easter morning.

C3 smiled, and perhaps it was just courtesy, but he kept it out when the rest of the bunnies went into liturgical hibernation at the end of the Great Fifty Days.  This year there was only a chocolate bunny in the basket.  Still, he didn't complain or roll his eyes when all those stuffed rabbits appeared outside his bedroom door, and when I looked later he had brought them into his room.

I know they'll be outgrown, and in some ways so will we as our teenager (wasn't he just that preschooler?!) continues to come into his own.  But no matter what, we'll always love him more than bunnies.

Homeward Bound

We had a few souvenirs to bring home from South Carolina to Mississippi... yarn... "gemstones"... peaches... a bazillion pictures and memories... and a new friend.   Meet Momma J.

Momma J was waiting for us in mom's guestroom.  Mom wrote about her here.  Momma J apparently heard a call to lead a new flock in Mississippi, so she's heading home with us.

She is already shepherding me through the start of my Kudzu Shawlette.  I love this pattern, even though the cast on was a whopping 253 stitches.  The yarn, Twilley's Freedom Gorgeous DK, is a little splitty, but that's generally not a problem.  I can tell it will live up to it's name, giving this shawlette/scarf a gorgeous drape.

Welcome home, Momma J!

What I Did, Day Seven...

The last day of summer vacation!  The List was complete, and I think we even did a few things that were added to the list and crossed off after the fact.  All that was left to do was enjoy being together, take last minute pictures, play last minute games, and top off a great week with Fourth of July fireworks.

In between rain showers we scooted outside to photograph a few finished objects... Here is the Chevron Scarf, blocked a few days ago.  It's so light and airy and soft, but wrapped a time or two I think it will keep away fall's first chills. I found a pattern (and a lovely sample knit) for it here.

It was fun and so simple to knit, and I still have about a third of the skein of Malabrigo sock left.

And here are our Five-Hour Baby Sweaters.  Mom's is pink (Caron Simply Soft) and mine is blue (Cascade Pacific).  I altered the pattern a teensy bit to reduce the width of the cuffs and the hem along the bottom.  Although we used needle sizes indicated by the yarn, mom's turned out larger than she expected and mine is much smaller...probably just the right size for a teddy bear or doll.  Mom's has buttonholes; I plan to crochet a tie out of a contrasting yarn for mine when I get home.  There are tons of versions of this sweater on Ravelry, with lots of ideas for trims and alterations.

I would definitely knit this pattern again, but instead of seaming the sleeves I would knit them in the round.  I don't like the ridge the seam creates inside the sleeve.  Still, it's an interesting pattern as written, allowing you to knit the entire sweater (and even do the seams) without breaking the yarn.

Oh say can you see how the colors of the sweaters are exactly the colors of the sunset as we waited for the 4th of July fireworks to begin!

Tomorrow we head home...but there's still plenty of summer left!  

What I Did, Days Five and Six...

The weekend of summer vacation included a few day trips, which were lots of fun in and of themselves, but even more fun for all the car-knitting-time they allowed!  I finished the Five-Hour Baby Sweater and started the Kudzu Shawlette on the road.  Pictures tomorrow, I promise!

On Day Five we drove down to Columbia, SC, to visit my brother and his family.  The ten-year-old got to spend the afternoon with his cousins, all of whom share the same passion for Legos and Star Wars that my mom and I share for knitting.

On Day Six we drove up to Linville, NC, to see Linville Caverns, an active limestone cave (which means don't touch the walls, they're still forming).  The tour guide was both brilliant and funny in a Blue Ridge Mountains sort of way, and gave us an excellent tour even though it was his first day on the job.  When the tour was over, we all had to spray our shoes with bleach to keep from spreading some kind of disease that's killing bats, which keeps bats from killing mosquitos, and, well.  You didn't have to tell us twice.

Back outside we stumbled upon butterflies bathing in creekwater flowing out from the cave.  And of course, because it's my weakness, I had to take pictures of some flowers growing near the gift shop.

We drove toward Little Switzerland along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and had lunch at a little cafe just a few miles away from the Big Lynn Lodge, where mom and I go for her knitting guild retreat every September.  That would be in exactly 72 days.  This year, I'm taking a spinning workshop, taught by Terri from Day Two.  Because I need another hobby to fill all my free time.

After lunch, we followed the signs to Emerald Village, where we mined for gems scooped out of the mountains and strategically loaded with lots of dirt and regular old rocks in plastic buckets for suckers tourists like us.  It was hard to tell what some of the colorful stones were, but I think we did leave with at least a few emeralds and rubies, a lot of garnets and amethysts, and all sorts of other stones...citrine, sodalite, unakite, moon stone...

Finally we wound our way back down from the mountains, past peach orchards and pastures...ready for one last day of vacation!

What I Did, Day Four...

Some summers we are nearly done with vacation before we get to the end of The List of everything we want to do.  Other summers we get through most of The List early on and just turn lazy for a while.  This is one of those vacations.

On Day Four we went back to Flat Rocks.  This time we walked a trail on the side of the falls we don't know as well.

Oh, ice cream is definitely on The List.  Chocolate for the grandson, chocolate raspberry for the grandmother, and birthday cake (complete with chunks of blue frosting and rainbow sprinkles) for the mom taking the picture.

Late in the afternoon we went to Hatcher Gardens.  Once upon a time it was simply a wooded backyard full of gullies and streams and garbage.  But the elderly couple living there saw its potential and began cleaning and digging and planting.  One flower, one pond, one sapling at a time, and with the help of local garden clubs, the garden grew and quietly attracted visitors seeking sanctuary along its shaded trails.  When the Hatchers died, Mr. Hatcher at the age of 96, the gardens were given to the city and are now a woodland preserve.  Signs along the trails teach about the many things growing there, and benches along the way invite visitors to stay as long as they desire.

There was knitting between all the hiking and ice-cream eating...but mostly there was just being lazy!