Children's Indoor Garden

Saturday we went to Longwood Gardens for the grand opening of the children's indoor garden. The garden was lovely with a childsized seashell-lined passageway and a childsized winding staircase. The children were intriqued by a fountain which was fed by bronze animal mouths from above. That fountain also spewed upward with small blurbs of water which little hands and teenaged-hands found fastinating in their attemt to catch. Occasionally, a child would lean out and look downward, getting gently splashed in the face.

The grand opening of this amazing addition to the world famous Longwood Gardens included a fun-filled schedule: juggler's performance, bubble show, dancing rainforest creatures (by Annie Hickman) and kitemaking. We had a great time! My girls say they liked the insects (rainforest creatures) best!

It is Majestic

My knitting buddies sure like the color of this yarn. Gina, remember when we looked at the ball band for this yarn and it had a name of #589? Your remark was something like "Oooh, aaah, that name does it justice, yes, # 589, drool." Whatever you said had me rolling on the floor with laughter. I've just learned now, that according to Rowan's site, this lovely color #589 does have a name - Majestic.

I finally knit a Moebius I like, color name - Majestic!

Pattern: Cat Bordhi, Simple Moebius from A First Treasury Of Magical Knitting

Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, #589 Majestic, .75 skein

Needles: US 2, 26" circular

Start Date: 9/09/07

Finish Date: 10/24/07

Notes: MCO 360 sts, it is more narrow than I'd like; next time knit the whole skein.

It is the correct length for twisting and coming up over the ears - just as I intended!

I may add an edge to make it a bit wider.

Next time I'll knit, then purl so the scarf does not do the center switch from knit stitches to purl stitches. My knitting buddies think that may make the loose centerline less obvious.

Ta Da!

Finally, at the sewing machine, I made the mate to match the first. I'm happy with the result and what a sense of completion!

Morning Glories

For the past couple years, I've planted morning glories in the corner of the yard. This year the plant did particularly well; the opposite side of this fence looks just as lush. Against the fence hangs a rusty old bike frame that I pulled out of the creek (drainage ditch) that runs by our home. I'm an avid bicyclist in my past life and was intruiqued with the piece. My MIL and husband did not share my enthusiasm for the find and as a joke, nailed it prominently to the corner of the fence. "That looks great - perfect!", I said. Now the joke's on them. The bike frame has been hanging there ever since; you just can't see it this year due to the prolific morning glories.

See those ugly white lamp posts behind the beautiful morning glories in the photo to your right? You can't? Good! I hate those posts and I've hated them for the past four years. Thanks to another great idea from Marsha (Marsha has great ideas), this year I planted morning glories to hide the post. Why didn't I ever think of that? I thought to put morning glories in by the fence which now cover my beautiful bike frame.

The first time I planted them from 4" pots, I put them right into the ground at the base of the post. Little bunnies had a feast overnight, next morning, no plants! So, I bought new plants and put them in large pots thinking that maybe having the delicious plants up off the ground would deter the rabbits. I don't know if that's what did it or not. But, it worked.

Astrogeology

Today's commemorative link on Google's home page celebrates the 50th anniversary of Sputnik. It reminded me of my work as a cartographer for the USGS in Flagstaff, AZ from 1986- 1992. I worked in astrogeology mapping Mars using imagery from Viking missions. NASA's Viking Project found a place in history when it became the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of Mars and return images of the surface.


Our team was working on a control point atlas of Mars. I have no idea if that atlas has ever been published. Someday I should contact some of my colleagues there and find out the status of that project.

Checking out USGS's Flagstaff website allowed me to reminisce about the folks I used to work with there. Many of the people are still there. My closest friend at the USGS works with planetary nomenclature. She names new stuff being discovered out there: planets' moons, other small bodies orbitting the sun in our solar system (yep, small bodies is the technical term for stuff such as astroids and comets) and beyond (nebulea and stars) How cool is that?


I worked with an amazing group of people there including Carolyn and Gene Shoemaker - a very kind and lovely couple. Carolyn is the most successful "comet hunter" to date.

Holiday Knits

Here's progress so far on the Christmas stocking I'm knitting for my youngest daughter. There are about 120 charted rows and I've completed 20 rows. It makes the greatest snowman stocking. This post shows the same stocking I made for my older daughter. I want to incorporate some sort of change in the second stocking. I'm thinking a colorful stripe in the hat or a beaded snowflake added to hat brim.
I've got several gifts I'd like to finish in time for Christmas (in order of priority):
This Christmas stocking
Hat for my husband
Miniature stocking ornaments (3 of them!)

Celebrate Socktoberfest 2007

I found Socktoberfest 2007 and count me in. It sounds like fun, huh? Besides it is just the excuse I need to buy yet another skein of sock yarn. I visited BunkyBoBo's shop on Etsy. The seller is new to Etsy and I met her through blogging. She is a great correspondent, fellow knitter and now new found friend. Her handdyed yarns look luscious; I'm eyeing up Pumpkin Patch and Basilisk. For socktoberfest it has gotta be Pumpkin Patch. don't you think?