On my toes

Life for the past two weeks has been so hectic for us, that I had to put some activities on the back burner, such as blogging. Week number one started out with some ugly head/chest colds for Scooter and I. If ever I needed an excuse to just kick back and do nothing, that was the one. In between sleeping, I did manage to get some knitting done. However, by mid week, I was feeling better, and even though it was horrific out weatherwise, I managed to make it to one of my granddaughter's concerts. Scooter was so upset that he had an emergency with his job and was stuck in about 20 feet of snow, preventing him from being able to attend. I told him no worries, there would be more before school lets out for the summer. The concert was awesome and I loved that it was held at the church my kids and I attended for a short time (we didn't care for the teachings of the youth pastor at the time). It has phenomenal pipe organs, which was used for the concert.
The rest of the week was spent getting some more rest and knitting. I started the Multnomah shawl for my girlfriend's birthday (in the pic above). She requested it, and since our friendship goes back 40 years, I decided it was high time I knitted her something. Back in our twenties, I used to crochet for her all the time. She had a particular sweater pattern she liked, and I made her a few of them. Wish I had taken pictures back then. Oh well, I do have pictures of her shawl being knitted, and once I finish it, I will take more of her modeling it.

This week began with me resuming the construction of the dress I have spoke about in previous posts. It's a civil war era dress and so far, I'm very pleased with the way it's looking. For now, it doesn't look like much, but once I get the bodice made and my granddaughter gets her hoop skirt for it, it's going to make her look well heeled, as they used to say back in the day. I managed to get two flounces completely attached yesterday! While that seems like such a simple task, trust me, it's a lot of work!! The gathering has to be adjusted evenly all the way around on those flounces, and then lots of measuring takes place to make sure its in the right place under the previous one. So far, I have all of the remaining flounces sewn up and prepared to be attached. There are three more of them and I'm hoping to have that completed today, so that I can begin cutting out the bodice tomorrow, and we can figure out what kind of trims we want to add, if any. Since it has to be historically correct, it shouldn't be too hard because there really weren't all that many trims to choose from during that era.

Even though it's a little cooler here in northern California today, it is still so gorgeous out! The sun is shining, the Canadian geese keep passing overhead, and I've even seen some bees pollinating the blossoms on my navel orange tree. My lavendar is in full bloom, my irises look like they're about to bloom, and my lilac bushes are thriving. My two fur babies enjoyed soaking up some sun this morning and investigating to make sure all is well with their backyard after the torrential rains we had this winter. They love that part of the yard, so I don't know what they're going to do when we lay some new sod there within the next couple of weeks and they have to stay off of it for a little bit.

I am going to try to be more regular like I once was with my posting here, but bear with me...in between going to my grandson's little league games, my granddaughter's dance performances, and all of my other grandchildren's activites, it's going to be a challenge!

Have a great week and I hope the sun is shining brightly in your corner of the world!!!