Saltwater Purls

Gratuitous flower photos

Well I have a new FO and I started a new project....but to show you I would have to take some photos...except that it has been too hot and I've had a post-airplane cold. Instead I'm going to show you flowers from the garden.
 

Top left: Coreopsis 'Snowberry', Top Right: Lily

Bottom left: Oriental Lily, Bottom Right Toadlily 'Taipei Silk'

Summer: Fruits of Knowledge

I am planning a series of jewelry trees depicting each season of the year: My first tree is a summer tree bearing fruit....and it is the fruit of the knowledge I've gained so far in silversmithing. I love learning and I hope I get to spend the rest of my life learning, researching and discovering.

The tree is silver, made from precious metal clay and bezeled tourmaline cabs. The trunk is a natural tourmaline crystal (I unfortunately broke it in two places as I set it grrr). It is strung with faceted tourmalines.

How Does Your Garden Grow

Ingrid, Ingrid
Quite green fingered
How does your garden grow?
With tomatoes and lettuce, cabbage and beans
And monster zucchini in a row

 

Left: Zucchini flower; Right: Lettuce flower

Left: Bush bean flower; Right: Cucumber flower

Post-Holiday harvest

Each Peach, Pear, Plum Wrap

I mentioned in the last post I brought some new yarn...the temptation was Adrienne Vittadini Fiora...a mohair yarn with small sequins throughout....and now thoroughly discontinued. I have wanted this yarn for years, so when it appeared at Webs 1/2 off in plum, it was destiny...right?
 
So I am making the wrap cardigan from Adrienne Vittadini Fall 2003 collection...which will  make this the 4th sweater I have made from the collection. In fact I adopted this collection on Ravelry...and then made the mistake of deleting one of the best projects. Apparently to prevent people being asked multiple times for their pictures you can only ask once.....so the only way to fix my screwup is for the person to reupload their picture....and they have not :( although I asked really, really nicely.

Sea to Sky Road

Finally an FO! My version of Road to Golden had been sitting aside waiting  for another ball of pale blue kid classic which could not be found locally. I didn't really wish to pay shipping for one ball so I waited until there was another yarn I wanted. Finally Webs had somehting I couldn't resist. Adrienne Vittadini Fiora....a yarn I've wanted for a long time but is thoroughly discontinued (more on that next week). So without further ado...drumroll....

Pattern: Road to Golden by Lisa Shroyer from Knitscene 2007
Yarn: Rowan Kid Classic in Feather, Bear, Oats, Glacier, Hurricane and Smoke
Words of Wisdom: After learning about the importance of dark versus light colours, I restarted the project with different colours. I added an inch to the bottom non-patterned area and did one extra 1/2 pattern repeat at the top. I also made the arms larger than the pattern The Kid CLassic grew in length so my sleeves are a little long.

another new garden

I finally finished the front garden with the help of my mother.

We began 3.5 years ago with the removal of sun blocking cedar.
 
Then came the new path.
  
Then last year we added the garden under the front windows.
 
The final touch is the garden beside the path. The shrubs are a flowering almond, a dwarf red japanese maple 'garnet', a yellow barberry and a white rhododendron.

Next will be new lighting (solar). I still have hostas and dwarf irises to add  as sales bring them in.

Owl boy takes wing

This will be a drive-by-blogging. I am around and fine just busy traveling, spending time with family and creating. Here are my two favourite silversmithing pieces thus far.

Owlfred the owl boy or night angel. He is the product of a class on precious metal clay I took a couple of weeks ago, Wow what neat stuff if you've ever dabbled in clay and the firing process uses the same tools as I use for silversmithing. I then added the stone setting (petersite - a recently discovered mineral from Jersey) and beading (faceted iolite)  afterwards.
 
Ammonite cycle of life. The ammonite was a broken piece I scored a little while ago and had ground to a triangle shape and then I paired it with rutile quartz and tiger iron or banded tigers eye.

28 days later

Remember my Vege Garden....

Here it is 28 days later...monsterous!

A little cardy completed

A while ago I subversively cleverly began a smocked cardigan similar to one in an anthropologie catalogue. Well with the help of my mum (well she wanted to know what knitted garments were lying in my dog pile and once I explained all I needed to do was the smocking on this cardigan which required some mental calmness I am lacking at present .... it was all I could do to stop her finishing it on the spot). So Here We Are...and FO at long last.

The Pattern: Loop-de-loop cardy (my own based on an Anthropology catalogue, a Rowan pattern called Earn and a Jo Sharp Fitted Cardigan from Knit 3).
The Yarn: RYC cashsoft 4ply in colourway Deep
Words of Wisdom: I would like the cardy to be an inch longer and a couple of inches narrower in the stocking stitch sections. The sleeves could either have been 3/4 length or shorter. Right now they sit on my elbows. Now I need a cute fitted dress...

A freshly minted Dr AJ

Silence on the blog represents travel. The most recent being a trip down to Cincy for my baby brothers graduation....he was one of ~500 newly minted PhDs.

We spent one day at the Cincy Zoo as well, where a young lad had to be carried literally screaming from one exciting activity to another.

The favourite activity hands down, however, was the zoo train (try and explain queueing to a very hot, tired 2 year old). 'More, more train...more, more train...'. Here are the polar bears who were amazing everyone.