Plum Stitches

progress

Just a quick peek into what I've been up to with my knitting over the weekend.

Pattern:  Roll edge Jacket, from Debbie Bliss, Simply Baby

Size:  18-24 months
Yarn:  Berrocco Ultra Alpaca, grey & pink

fo's, windows and more heat!

I almost cried last night, when I finally decided to enter the guest room.  We cleaned a little in there once they were done replacing the windows, but honestly I've been avoiding the room because of how dirty I knew it was.  Last night I removed the sheets, that I thought were protecting my sewing, knitting and various other crafts.  Well, it was much worse than I thought - this sooty black dust was all over everything the sheets were supposed to protect!  I still need to go up there and finish cleaning, but I can't seem to do it at the moment.  Instead I'm fully immersed in washing material, blankets and a sleu of other things from the room.  Boohoo!

Jim's leaves tonight for his backpacking trip to Katahdin.  He flies up to Burlington and then drives with my stepfather to Maine tomorrow.  Fortunately for them the weather looks good.  So Chloe, Sadie and I (oh and Saba the cat) are flying solo through next week.  We have a birthday party on Saturday for one of Chloe's friends (to be fair, it's really one of my friends) and that's about it, but I'm sure we'll manage to find lots of activities to occupy our weekend.

For now, the inside of our windows remain unfinished.  Jim wants to do the framing, but I'm not sure when he'll find the time.  It's tough when you know how to do the renovations on your home, but you just don't have the time.  My concern is that it's going to get cold and suddenly we're going to be invaded by mice.  Not to mention the fact that it being dirty drives me more nuts by the day.  Boy, I guess I'm alot more anal than I ever thought I was.

It's kind of amazing how much the extra 18 inches of windows opens the room up.  Although, you can't really tell from the picture, but once things are done and the furniture is rearranged I'm sure it will be more apparent.

I have a FO too, but no photos today.  I finished the Child's Placket-Neck Sweater, buttons and all.  Just washed it and now it's drying.

Oh, and one last thing - it's stinkin' hot here!  Something 87 degrees today.  Whatever happened to fall?

travels

We're back.  Well, actually we flew back from Portugal on Friday and then hopped in the car and five hours to Vermont for a wedding.  Tiring, but to be fair, I did none of the driving!  We had a fabulous time at the wedding catching up with old friends from high school, San Francisco and meeting a few news ones.

Portugal was great.  We'd love to go back and explore the rest of the country North and South of Lisbon.  This trip we were in Lisbon, Cascais and just outside of Sintra.   I've posted some of the pictures here on Flickr.

Despite a cold and some tummy troubles at the beginning of the trip, traveling with Chloe was surprisingly good.  We didn't spend as much time in museums as we normally would traveling to a new country, but I supposed that's how it goes with a child her age.

We flew the redeye on the way to Portugal.  It took Chloe a bit to settle down, but then she was fast asleep.  I thought she was fine, Jim was a little more on edge.  Mostly because we ended up in the last three seats of the plane.  Have you ever sat in those?  They're awful!  I can't believe they sell them as coach seats.  They should give a serious discount on them, which they don't.  The seats didn't recline completely and being right next to the bathroom resulted in a constant stream of people bumping into either Jim or myself sitting in the aisle seat.  Don't you just love airline travel these days!  On our return, we were on a day flight and she was GREAT.  We broke down before leaving, buying a portable DVD player and stocking up on Chloe's favorite cartoon, Maisy.  Worked like a charm, disturbingly so.

I knit and read a few books on the trip as well. Water for Elephants (thoroughly enjoyed), The Memory Keeper's Daughter (it was OK) and I'm half way through Further Tales of the City (second in Armistead Maupin's series about San Francisco in the seventies - love these books!).

As for knitting, believe it or not I made some progress on the right front of my Phildar Swing Jacket (miracles do happen!)  I started working on Daisy, but I'll have to post pictures later. 

Some fabric and yarn purchases over the past two weeks.  The Berocco yarn is for another Rolledge Jacket from Debbie Bliss.  This one is a gift, although I'm not sure I'll have it finished in time!  Both fabrics are from Denyse Schmidt that I purchased through Reprodepot.com. 

Alright, enough of my ramblings for the day.  It's good to be back, not I have to work on unpacking and getting things organized.  We're still kind of a wreck from the windows being replaced.

windows, packing and...some yarn

Well...the contractor showed up this morning and...viola!

Ok, so it doesn't look so pretty at the moment, but they did manage to get the old windows out AND remove the bricks that were there in just a few hours.  The workers are at lunch right now, but will be back soon to install the full length windows.

The windows that you can see on the third floor are the new historic approved windows.  They'll be painted to match the cornice (dark green).  I can't tell you how happy I am to finally have these in!  And, the best part, at least up until now, is that with these windows the dust seems to be minimal, due mostly to the plastic sheeting we hung and sealed with tape.  I didn't think it would work, but it did!

I managed to get an extra ball of the yarn I needed to finish the placket front sweater, so now I'm good to go.  Trying to decide what project (s) to bring along on the trip.  I have some fantasy that I'm going to be able to knit and read on the plane, but who am I kidding?  Remember those days (if you don't already have kids) when you could fly and the only person bugging you was the one overflowing in the middle seat.  Ah, those were the days.

Based on all the feedback I've gotten on Portugal (from all of you out there!) and other friends, I think we're going to have a great time.  Only wish Jim's conference was in the beginning of the trip, so that he could relax at the end, but what are you going to do?  Have a great week! 

new windows, knitting and upcoming trips

We spent one last weekend at the beach.  Jim put away the boats and took the air conditioners out of the windows.  Of course, with the weather being hot and humid it didn't in anyway feel like summer was over.  Next fall, with Chloe probably going to pre-school, I'm sure it will feel even more like fall.

We leave Friday for Portugal, spending a night in Lisbon, two days in Cascais and then three days in Penha Longa (where Jim's conference is).  Then we come back and drive directly to Vermont for a wedding.  My roommate from San Francisco, whom I also went to high school with, is getting married in Middlebury where we grew up.  They're using the same caterer we used when we got married, so this time around we'll get to enjoy the food! 

Once we get back from Portugal and Vermont, the craziness doesn't end.  Jim is headed on a backpacking trip to Mt. Kahtadin in Maine, with my step father for four days. The following weekend I go to San Francisco for a week.  I'm spending five days out there visiting friends before Jim arrives.  Another friend from high school is getting married in Tahoe.  I'm very excited about this trip - I lived in San Francisco right out of college for almost seven years and still have many, many friends there.  I really would love to move back there some day, but for now it's not in the cards.

We have more travel coming up later in the fall, but I'm tired of thinking about the next few weeks, so I'll fill you in later.  I find all of this travel exhausting, although sometimes I wonder if we've just gotten so used to it and wouldn't know what to do if we stayed put.

Our contractor is supposedly installing the last two windows in the front of our building today.  We're restoring the windows on our Parlor level to the original floor to ceiling profile.  In order for the new windows to fit, the contractor needs to bust through the bricks to make the opening long enough.   So, hopefully after today, the dust subsides and we can actually return to a somewhat clean house!

As for knitting and sewing....I'm almost done with the Placket Front Sweater and...of course...I've run out of yarn!  So, I need to get one more ball to finish it.  I seem to be working on several other projects and will post later in the week about their progress.  I ordered some additional fabric, which arrived the other day.  Now I just need to wash it and figure out what I want to make...Oh, also check out Patchwork & Quilted Gifts from Joelle at Purl.  I'm sure this will be a fabulous book!

Chloe still sporting a crazy hairdo...

tennis, anyone?

Not much sewing going on in this part of the world at the moment.  Although, I have been knitting away on my Child's Placket Front Sweater and hope to finish it over the weekend.  Yesterday, I did go to the day session of the US Open with a few people from my knitting group.  The initial plan was to bring our knitting, but that fell apart in the end.  Tennis is one of the few live sporting events that I actually get excited about.  We'd been a few years in the past, but since I was pregnant and Chloe's arrival, we haven't been.  This was the first time I had been to a day session and it was great. 

Big news for the day in my world is that the contractor delivered our new windows yesterday and started the process of replacing them this morning.  So far they've removed the three windows from out guest room on the third floor.  Boy, does this job kick up dirt!  It's kind of gross and I'm dreading when they move down to our Parlor Level and into the kitchen, but I guess that's how it goes.  This isn't the greatest picture, but here's one window completely removed from the guest room: