This week...

I finished this sweater (have a new button just haven't replaced yet).

 Spent some time trying to perfect the zipper bag thing...

by making this bag.

Went to Portsmouth with a couple of my peeps.

Appreciated the setting sun on the trees while mowing the lawn for the first time.

And enjoyed some verdant farmer's market goodies while perusing the new Uppercase.

Sometimes it's good to review and appreciate all the fun and all that got done.

Rock On

This is the story of a Sunday that started out somewhat lazily despite the fact that all hands were due on the lane at 8:30 that morning for our semi-annual "road day" and ended up with a new outdoor entryway leading to our most oft used door in the house leading to the mudroom. 
All the of us on the lane gather in the Spring and Fall with rakes and shovels and clippers to generally clean up our "private road". Private road sounds fancy - but that just means we don't get any services from the municipality so we are left to plow, repair, and maintain on our own. At least this Spring, unlike in years past, we didn't have potholes to fill. That job entails trips to the local excavation/road building company to fill a couple of pickups with reclaimed macadam and much more organization and planning, so without that chore this year's maintenance was mellow by comparison. It started lackadaisically and didn't take as much time. For a while this easy going start pervaded the mood of the rest of the morning and early afternoon that is until Jan decided she just might try doing something with the entry area.
That area has been an eyesore ever since I moved into this house but has evolved into even more of a blemish since Jan has redone the foundation gardens and front yard over the past three years. Most recently, it had been covered by straw so Ella could navigate the slippery snow and ice with her failing hind legs so it was really a blight to the sight.

Knock yourself out, I said. Let me know if I can do anything (but I was secretly hoping not). A little later I got the not-so-bad assignment of going to the nursery for creeping thyme and grass seed. I came home to our neighbor's truck blocking the road in front of our yard as Tim and Jan tried to maneuver a LARGE rock that Barb, Tim's wife and rock connoisseur extraordinaire, had deemed imperative to the project.

This is how they got the rock up the driveway to (near) it's final destination. Need I mention that they were pretty pleased with themselves at their engineering feat?
Once undone from the truck, they were left with the challenge of moving this monster. First they wedged smaller rocks underneath the behemoth to help lift it, then once it was finally on it's side, decided to try to split off part of it with the goal of making it lighter and less deep. That resulted in a near perfect splitting of the rock which gave us the unexpected bonus of another paver.

Now, to roll it into place. 

Jan had already prepped the area with compost and had another paver rock in place.

And, here is what it all looked like at the end of the day. Amazing!

Forgot to mention, for a bit of time during this endeavor, we had a visitor across the road.

May Day

It's the first of May and the earth is dressing for a celebration around here. It's visible everywhere. Looking down...

And, looking up...

Seeing Purple

I'm noticing a theme... there's a lot of purple turning up in my world lately. Not that I'm complaining. I like purple. It's just that, in general, it's not a color that is typically in my daily life despite the fact that as a teenager I painted my bedroom a deep purple. Maybe that did me in for a (long) while. Maybe now I'm ready to reconcile with purple because I've chosen it for a baby sweater I'm knitting for someone in my office.

This is the back of this baby jacket that is still a work in progress - but I am making progress!

Learning some new things on this one like adding on stitches at the end of a row to shape the sleeves (thank you YouTube).

Surprise purple crocus in the yard that must have been transplanted by squirrels or chipmunks since they are in an odd new place. 

And a purple pansy that I got at the farmer's market last weekend to brighten my kitchen. 

All in all, I can say that I am happily in a purple phase - not haze (yet). 

Ziphobia

So maybe I don't have ziphobia, the supposed moniker for a fear of zippers (devices I've often thought were rather marvelous in their engineering), but I have suffered from a fear of putting a zipper in a sewn object dating back to home economics trauma in high school and haven't attempted such a feat since - until yesterday.
Having lost my beloved iPhone on Sunday (a whole other sad story), I bit the bullet and got a new one yesterday morning. Can't say enough about how amazingly wonderful Apple products are. All my fears of the data being gone forever (never mind the fears that it was in someone else's hands) were dispelled a few minutes after plugging my new phone into my laptop. Miraculously every last thing that had been on my old phone, including the screensaver photo from Palm Springs last year, populated the new device. I instantly downloaded the MobileMe app which allows me to locate my phone and to erase, if I choose, all the data on it so I won't be in this position again. Everyone should have this app for peace of mind. Anyway, I digress...
The new phone needed a new home so was my reason to make a little zipper pouch. 
Zippers come in such great colors these days and I had picked up a couple the last time I was at Alewives in anticipation of confronting my ziphobia one of these days. I found a great tutorial here that I had bookmarked a while ago. The tutorial was perfect for a novice. Got the job done but next time, I am going to work on setting the zipper in the top in such a way that it doesn't extend to the edges so the corners aren't angled like this ended up.

I played with the decorative stitch options on my machine for the vine embroidery.

See what I mean about the corners?

I do love the lining though. All in all, I learned a lot. I overcame my ziphobia, even if I do have a ways to go to perfecting zippers, and my new phone has a new home. 

Oh yeah, almost forgot, here was the first pic taken with that new phone of my best friend and trusty sewing companion who often sleeps on the job.