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This and that

Spring is absolutely my favorite season. I LOVE seeing all the new little plants poke their noses through the soil, watching the colors of the spring blooms, the cooler temperatures of spring vs. summer, and I even like doing the spring garden cleanup. That last item does take time, however, even when I did a bunch of garden clean up in the fall. So that’s my excuse for why I haven’t blogged in 3 weeks.

I’ve moved some plants, making a new garden area. That’s always hard work and takes time. I’ve prepared the soil and planted seeds. I’ve weeded most of the garden and areas and mulched. Here’s just one pic that I like (I should take more).

silver dollar plant flowers

This is a silver dollar plant. Also called money plant and honesty plant. And those 3 common names are why I learned the Latin names of lots of plants. So this is a lunaria. After these lovely purple flowers it’ll make seeds, with pods that look like silver dollars and work beautifully in fall arrangements.

I had to take a photo of this house. During Monday’s wind, virtually all the blossoms on their tree blew down, carpeting their lawn and driveway in a vibrant pink.

raining pink blossoms

I believe the tree is a double-flowered crab.

And then there’s this:

New plant table loaded with plants

For Mother’s Day my sweet and talented son made me a planting table. He’d heard me whine about how the multitude of bunnies eat all the young plants I put in the ground and decided to do something about it. This table is 2′ wide x 6′ long. And it FOLDS so I can reasonably store it in my garage over the winter!

In the pots I’ve put a summer squash and zucchini, yellow wax beans, sugar snap peas, lettuce, and my favorite sweet pepper, Carmen. Then, just for fun I put in a pot each of green and red/purple sweet potato vine and a red-orange lantana. I stuck some nasturtium seeds in with those non-food pots, too.

Back in the house, I finished what I call my happy socks. I knit these from the sock blank I dyed in March.

hand knit 'happy socks'

Don’t they make you smile?

Here’s the ball I’m using for my next socks. I didn’t dye this but like the color shifts.

ball of sock yarn, blues & greens

As I was nearing the end of my 3rd warp of the Ukraine support towels, in my head I was planning what I’d do for the May woven hugs. But I wasn’t in any rush, as I still had 2 of the April hugs in my hands. (Only 1 left now.) That feeling – no rush – felt good.

Then, OH NO!! I remembered that I had promised to weave a shawl for the upcoming Alzheimer’s Association fundraising auction. Preferably in purple, which is their signature color. I looked up the date of the auction – May 20!!! It was already May 12 when I remembered, so there was no time to lose!

I knew I could always give them a piece I’d already woven if I had to, but it wouldn’t be purple. I went to my stash of Tencel yarn. I didn’t have what I consider to be a clear/straight purple, but I had lots of red-violet, so that would be the majority of the shawl. I threw in some random stripes of yarns that I had tiny amounts of to finish up those cones/bobbins, and set to work.

Unlike my usual practice of warping for at least 3 pieces, I warped for only 1. Gotta get this onto and off of the loom quickly.

I auditioned at least 6 different wefts for this one, and was surprised at how ‘fussy’ the warp was. Few of those weft colors looked great with it. I ultimately chose a medium blue, trying to shift the overall away from the red a bit and toward the blue. Then weave, cut off the loom, twist the fringe, wash, dry, & hard press.

Someone is coming to pick it up momentarily, so I snapped some shots quickly.

Alzheimer's donation shawl, wrapped

showing 2 sides of the Alzheimer's donation shawl

Alzheimer's shawl, 2 sides, closeup

And this morning I dropped off my 10 bead bags for May at the Weaving Center.

bags for Beads of Courage

5 comments to This and that

  • Judy Tutuska

    Yup… super talented that son of yours! I also saw a photo of some hillside beds he was making for his sister.

  • Judy Tutuska

    Love seeing all that you’ve been up to… so much beauty, so many lovely projects! And what an awesome son you have! Love your new planting bench! And how much easier it will be to take care of since it’s off the ground.

    • Peg Cherre

      Thanks, Judy. I hope the shawl brings in a good amount for the auction. Isn’t that son of mine AMAZING?! No written plans or design, he just winged it. What talent!

  • Your shawl is beautiful, I’m sure it will bring in lots of money for the cause.
    Your socks are very fun!

    • Peg Cherre

      Thanks, Cindie. I *may* have too many socks in my drawer. Is that possible? I should probably have made the pair currently on the needles – that green & blue yarn – long enough to gift to a friend, but I’m well past the heel already and not into pulling it out back to there. Sigh. Then again, I don’t know if she loves handknit socks. But I know I do.

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