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Done Done Done! I’ve knit and reknit myself nearly a sweater no less than half a dozen times over the past two years. I am extremely fickle and extremely picky when it comes to clothes for myself. I’m one of those gals who tries on 20 shirts every morning looking for just the right one. I finally buckled down and picked out a classic style cardigan pattern and a neutral yarn. That way I can wear it with anything and it won’t ever go out of style. I also chose it because there isn’t any shaping. I wanted something that would fit over anything and fit over my body regardless of what shape I’m in since the plan is to continue to get smaller and in better shape.

So…. tada!!! I’m done! I’m thrilled! I love it! Woot! It’s the Flyingdales (now known as Fylingdales) cardigan pattern from Lisa Lloyd. I’ve had my eye on this pattern for literally years. I used 1247 yards of Cascade 220, plus size 7 &  9 needles. I did one of the medium sizes since I was definitely up on gauge. That worked out though because I sure didn’t use much yarn! No where near what the suggested yardage would be.

This was such a fun knit… and surprisingly very easy! It was knit in the round from the bottom up to the armholes and then back and forth to the top. Three needle bind off on the shoulders, and then the sleeves were picked up and knit down. It was very easy to try this sweater on as I was going and get just the right length. I made the sleeves a bit long so I can double them up.

I love love love Cascade 220. The heathery blue-purple-grey with sparse flecks of red in it is so pretty. I actually had 2200 yards of this in my stash so obviously I have a lot left over to play with. I found the pretty shell buttons at JoAnn Fabrics. They’re sentimental to me because they remind me of the New England coastline.

This sweater saw a lot of public knitting… I dragged it to me each week to one coffee shop and then another cafe. When I was done knitting it… phew… it needed a bath! It smelled like I’d been working in a restaurant for 12 hours straight. I put it on the presoak cycle in *gasp* my high efficient top loading washer and let it take a cool bath in Kookaburra wool wash. I set it on the hand wash cycle and even let it spin out. I did check it about every 90 seconds to make sure it wasn’t felting. After that I just blocked it out on my dining room table and it transformed in to a super soft, squooshy and warm cardi that I’m going to wear the heck out of this coming cold Iowa winter and for years to come.

Hooray for sweater success!

Wow, this summer has already come and gone! Well, not technically, but with my older son back in school and the weather being unseasonably (or seasonably) cool, it sure feels like fall around here. Plus, my cottonwood trees are already dumping gobs and gobs (and gobs) of leaves in our back yard so it pretty much is fall already at my house. I am resisting the urge to start getting out all of my fall decorations… but it is still August after all. Plus, as soon as those fall decorations come down, the Christmas ones go up! Wow time flies. I am going to try hard to enjoy the end of summer and not get too far ahead of myself.

This summer we were so busy. Good busy. Every weekday was an adventure with my two sons. Every weekend was a mini-vacation when my husband was around… he’s always thinking up something for us to go do. We just went and went all summer long.

Now things are quiet around here. With it being just my youngest son and myself, we’re starting to get in to a new routine. He’s almost 18 months old now and is so interested and in to everything. I’m starting to think about taking just HIM to the zoo, and just HIM to the science center. So far with the two of them in tow, the focus has been on my older 9 year old son. It’s going to be fun to go back to this younger age and see things through his eyes.

My knitting needles have been non-stop lately. This time of year definitely amps up my already huge enthusiasm for all things knitterly. I have way too many projects on the needles. Fortunately though, I have finished a couple, too.

I just cast on the cutest sweater for my younger son today… my friend and I are both knitting Halloween sweaters for our youngest kids. It’s a black sweater with a skeleton torso on the front! The kicker? The white yarn used for the skeleton is glow in the dark. It’s Bernat yarn and the pattern is from a bernat book. Here’s the link.

I find colorwork to be frustrating, challenging and ADDICTIVE. I already have half of the front done. This sweater has colorwork just on the front of the sweater. With this type of project, I like to do the colorwork portion first as opposed to doing the back first like usual. That way if it’s a disaster with the colorwork, who cares? At least I didn’t already knit the back. But so far so good.

The booklet also has a skull/crossbones pattern that I might do up for big brother. I also thought it’d just be fun to knit some glow in the dark stocking caps for trick or treating.

Three weeks ago we left on a last-minute vacation back east. We moved out here to the midwest from Connecticut five years ago and haven’t been back since. We had an amazing time. Our first stop was Old Saybrook, Connecticut to visit good friends of ours. Then we went on to our old hometown of Niantic where we drove by all of our old spots, went to our old favorite eats, and dug our toes in to the sand at ‘our beach.’ It was so good to be ‘home’ again.

From Connecticut we headed up north to Maine which was our favorite getaway spot while we lived on the east coast. Again, we went back to all of our favorite spots… first and foremost Long Sands Beach. We have lots of great memories there. Then of course out to the Nubble Light House, Ogonquit, Kennebunk, all over the Portland area, Portland Head Light, and Popham Beach. Then we headed west and stayed in the mountains overnight, wound our way through NH and Vermont before heading to Niagara Falls on our way home.

In total, we drove 3375 miles over the course of one week. My guys were troopers… I have a one year old and a nine year old and they both handled the trip VERY well. Both of our sons are major beach bums like their parents so they enjoyed all of the time spent on the beach. When we were in Hawaii this past March, the babe couldn’t walk yet so he couldn’t fully appreciate the beach, but this time I couldn’t keep him out of the water! The ice cold Maine Atlantic water… haha! He just couldn’t get enough of it. He laughed and played. Our favorite beach during our trip was Popham Beach because when the tide goes out, there are channels of water left behind that get warm in the sunshine making it a very fun and family friendly beach.

Anyway, summer is already winding to a close. We’ve had a wonderful summer, the trip was definitely the highlight, but we’ve also hosted some family and friends for some great visits, we’ve done a lot of fun things and also have had a lot of ‘chill time’ which is what summer is all about. We’re all anxious and refreshed for school.

Here are a few more of my favorite photos from our vacation:

Portland Head Light, Cape Elizabeth, Maine

Cleome, Harkness Memorial State Park, Waterford, CT

Fishie Fries, Fred’s Shanty, New London, CT

Nubble Light House, York, Maine

Yesterday I broke down and bought a book I’ve been wanting for a while: A Fine Fleece by Lisa Lloyd. I’ve long admired her patterns mostly through Mary Beth’s web site. I love her classic designs. I bought the Flyingdales Cardi pattern a long time ago in hopes to ‘knit it someday’ and have recently completed the body of the sweater which just made me want to buy Lloyd’s book even more, especially after browsing the patterns on Ravelry.

I couldn’t wait to settle in and read this book last night. I read it cover to cover. I simply must knit pretty much everything in the book. I can’t rave enough about this book. It’s definitely on my short list of favorite knitting books. But I had a one big revelation while reading through the book.

!!! It’s not Flyingdales, it’s Fylingdales !!!

Right away I felt so silly… I’ve been calling it Flyingdales not only online but out loud for a long time. Then I looked on Ravelry to see if all of my favorite knitters have been calling it the correct name and if I was the only one mispronouncing it. But no! It’s about a 50/50 split between the FLYingdales and the FYLingdales cardi’s. Anyway, I got a chuckle out of that. Hahahaha… haha.

some lessons learned + notes for planting next year… this will probably be an ongoing post or category. I seem to forget from year to year what I want to do with our gardens…

- plant east/west not north/south

- not so much lettuce. we (and by we I mean my family and several of my neighbors) couldn’t keep up with the massive amount of lettuce we planted. It was good though.

- plant more beans and peas

- do the three sisters planting method

- plant pumpkins! squash!

- more peppers

next year we’re also going to be tilling under another good portion of our lawn for natural flower gardens…

- more cone flowers

- more black eyed susans (divide from existing)

- more gooseneck loosestrife

- more daylilies (divide from existing)

- more delphiniums

- more bee balm

(as much from seed as possible)

We went to see the movie Mamma Mia! last night… what a FUN MOVIE! It was just a blast. Eye candy! I was sad when it ended! I think the best part was looking around and watching a few of the other ladies in the audience who knew every word to every song. It was so fun to watch how much they were enjoying the movie.

It was just such a fun summer movie. I highly recommend that you all go see it. I’ll go again with you, for sure. I downloaded the soundtrack today and can’t get enough of it. And yes, I’m driving my husband and older son crazy… haha… but at least the littlest man in the house will dance with me.

….. See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen

We’re having lots of summer fun around here… Lots of swimming, going to all of the parks, bbqs, camping, late nights out and about just enjoying the summer sunsets and humid air, of course lots of gardening, and oh yea… knitting a warm and woolly sweater in the middle of July. Haha! I just had to cast on for a project that I’ve had in my mental queue for a couple of years. I’m knitting the Flyingdales Cardigan by Lisa Lloyd. I bought this pattern as a handout on her web site quite a while ago and it’s not available now. However, it is available in her fabulous new book A Fine Fleece.

Flyingdales Cardigan by Lisa Lloyd
Cascade 220 / US 7&9 needles

This pattern is pretty mindless knitting but still very satisfying. The body is worked back and forth in one piece to the armholes and then split to knit the fronts and back separately. I’m almost done with the upper back portion.  I love this heathery Cascade yarn. It’s flawless and soft and woolly. I look forward to getting a lot of use out of this cardigan this fall and winter.

I just looked at the calendar… school starts August 20! Can you believe there’s only about a month of summer left?! Crazy!

The first daylily exploded open in the bright morning sunlight today. I have hundreds of tall stalks of buds just ready to put on a show around my yard. These are the old fashioned daylilies and I’ve noticed they bloom much later than their newfangled hybrid cousins. I especially love these because a very good knitter friend of mine gave them to me out of her own garden a couple of years ago. Just a few stalks have turned in to gobs and gobs of daylilies. That’s one thing I love so much about gardening… how plants can remind us of life, love, and friendships. It’s got to be sending good karma her way because they give me such happiness. I think we should all divide our perennials and spread the love.

I got the latest Vera Bradley catalog today… it’s the fall edition. *squeal!* I love this time of year. Fall seems so far off and yet in pour all of the lovely autumnal catalogs. I LOVE Vera Bradley. It started last year, I don’t know what set me off, but I quickly fell in love with all of the vibrant patterns. Truth be told, I only have one little coin purse that’s VB, but I’ve been coveting the bigger bags for a long time. Yes, some may carry the more expensive brands, but I have a problem forking over $90 for a purse. It’s silly, really, considering I buy more yarn than that a month.

Anyway, I think the newest pattern from VB may finally push me to buy one. I’m coveting the Morgan bag in the new Puccini print. SO. Cute! So practical, too! Stylish and it’s only $63. I’ve wanted the cargo sling in the kensington print since last fall though… that would be the perfect baby/everday/knitting bag for me. See, I’m afraid to buy one… it’ll be like that potato chip ad: You can’t have just one.

The Fourth of July is usually quite a festive celebration around here. My brother usually comes down to visit however he isn’t able to this year. He’s growing up… 16 years old and so busy. That’s how it goes. It’s sort of the end of an era… I know I’m a sap.

Anyway, the fourth will be fun as per usual… the parade, the carnival, the fireworks. It’s always a good time. I have to say that our town has the best fourth of July celebration around… and yes, I’m biased. I loved it.

Although it’s just the beginning of July, I have to admit that I’m already itching for FALL! I love fall so very much. It’s such a short season. Far too short! But each year I soak up every moment of it. There are lots of fall yarns that are coming out right now and that has me kicking my knitting in to high gear. I can’t seem to knit fast enough to keep up with all of the things flying in to my Ravelry queue. I’ve got to remind myself to slow down and enjoy the knitting. That’s what it’s all about, right? I’m a bit ADD with my knitting projects right now… I have way too many things on the needles.

Anyway… I’m going to live in the moment for the rest of the week and thoroughly enjoy the Independence Day festivities and I hope you do too. Happy 4th!