Did you notice?

That all my blog posts the last few months have been more about my photographs of the great outdoors than what I've been knitting, tatting, or beading? Well, I have a confession to make -- I have been running away to the mountains with my camera a lot more than I've been knitting lace shawls. Hey, for the first time in years I was able to head for the hills and I wanted to see the beauty of the Smokies in the snow. Trust me, this is progress!

When I haven't been in the Smokies or the Blue Ridge Mountains I've been at Thompson-Boling Arena cheering on my University of Tennessee Vols and Lady Vols basketball teams. At the last home game I was accompanied by my nephew and his daughter. Isn't she the cutest junior Vols Cheerleader ever? OK, so I may be a bit biased, but then that's my job!

Lest you think I haven't been knitting or tatting, I have. I just haven't been taking any photos of my projects. I'm almost done with a Go Vols hat and I have two new shawls OTN. I've been teaching tatting classes at The Yarn Haven and making little hearts too. One of these days I'll post some of those pix :-)

All the News from Lake Plaasbegone

It's Friday night here in Lake Plaasbegone and it's been raining cats and dogs (thankfully not nieces and nephews) all day. My recently overseeded and fertilized lawn is growing greener and taller by the hour. Add rain to tall grass and you get a dachshund who doesn't want to go out to do what doggies do outside. There are no more stubborn canines on the planet than dachsies. I've seen them more stubborn than my sweetheart, Miss Emme, but she holds true to the breed's reputation just fine thank you very much.


Much has transpired since my last post. The highlight, without question, was a visit from my nephew's wife, Mary Catherine, and her daughter, Isabella. When Tyler and Mary Catherine eloped, I was a bit concerned that Tyler had rushed into marriage before he was ready. Well, I don't know much about that, but I do know that he's the luckiest sailor alive because his wife is a gem. With each opportunity I have to spend time with her, I am more and more impressed with what a wonderful woman she is. Little Isabella has the best mommy! MC and Isabella came to visit just after Easter. MC arrived bringing a delicious lunch with homemade chicken salad and lemon bars, all beautifully packed into a picnic basket. Wow! And everything tasted as good as it looked! My parents were simply delighted by the whole experience.

I. being the great-aunt with the camera, took lots of pictures of Isabella. Mom and I brought out two of the Beatrix Potter stuffed animals from the family collection for photo ops with Isabella. We took pictures with the same Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck when Tyler was a toddler. The 3 ft. tall Peter Rabbit is a treasured part of my Beatrix Potter collection, but the Jemima is destined to go to Isabella as she just belongs with Tyler's family. Beautiful Bella was quite taken with Jemima and her shawl and bonnet, so it's a perfect match.


On the knitting front, the Orkney Pi continues to grow. This photo shows the shawl with three sections completed. Section four is progressing at a slower pace given the fact that each round contains 1280 sts. and takes about an hour to knit. Depending on which option I choose, this section will have ~130-160 rounds in it...that's a lot of knitting time!!!! I've got the monster on a 60" circular needle and am plugging away on it. It's hard to get photos at this point, so there probably won't be any until the shawl is completed.

The Orkney is having share time with another shawl. Call it "and I have promises to keep". Sometime after Christmas I was feeling generous (or maybe foolish?) and volunteered to help lead a summer lace shawl KAL at my LYS, the Yarn Haven. The target audience is knitters with some lace knitting experience, or at least comfort in working basic lace stitches...not complete newbies. I thought about the shawls I've made and patterns that would be easily accessible to Sandy, the shop owner. I also took into consideration the flexibility of the pattern in accommodating various yarn sizes and differing options for the finished size of the shawl. The more versatile the design, the better I thought. And so I chose the Flower Basket Shawl (FBS) by Evelyn Clark.

I knit the FBS as my 2nd ever lace shawl...right after the red Kiri shawl. I don't remember it being a difficult pattern and it's very pretty. I pitched my idea to Sandy a couple of weeks ago and she thought it sounded wonderful. I dropped in to the store earlier this week and picked up some blue Misti Alpaca Lace yarn to knit a sample for the shop. Sandy just got the yarn in stock and I've been looking forward to trying out this very popular lace yarn. The yarn is fabulous. Enough said there. I pulled out my FBS pattern and cast-on Tuesday night. By Thursday morning I had a couple of repeats of the Lower Flower Basket chart completed...and was tinking back to fix mistakes. The pattern suggested US5 needles, so I grabbed a US4 Addi-Lace needle. I don't like how open my lace looks, and I found it rather challenging to read my knitting. In fact, the knitting seemed more challenging than I remembered too.

I started to freak out. Should I frog and start over with a size 3 needle? Uh, I'll have to knit forever if I do that, and I need to get this sample done fast! So I'm forcing myself to live with the very lacy FBS. I'm not keeping it, I rationalized, and everyone else will think it looks awesome. OK, fine. But what about the pattern???? What if everyone really is a newbie and they all get confused and frustrated the 1st week...and it all becomes more than I can handled myself. Yikes???? What have I done???? Needless to say I didn't sleep very well last night with all these crazy thoughts swirling around in my head. I'm a little less freaky tonight, but I still have doubts. Sandy does have beginning lace classes going on right now so I just need to chill out and trust that things will be OK. And I think I'll have Sandy get an alternate pattern in stock for those who want to play along, but really aren't ready for the FBS. Evelyn Clark's Leaf Lace Shawl will be the perfect alternative. Now I just need to stop freaking and knit. Why oh why do I have to be so detail oriented? Most folks wouldn't even have the idea that they needed to freak out over the "what if" possibilities. I can't stop thinking about every little detail that could go wrong.

And one last parting note.... My Tennessee Vols and Lady Vols basketball teams. The guys played their hearts out...and did quite well. But they showed the same weaknesses in the SEC and NCAA tournaments...and it cost them both times. Combine that with the toughest bracketing and it's hard to feel bad that they lost to a hugely talented (translation=NBA quality) Louisville team in the sweet 16. A better bracket would have had them playing in the elite 8 before losing, but brackets are what they are. The Lady Vols survived a terrifying night at the elite 8 when Candace Parker dislocated her left shoulder twice in the 1st half of the game and couldn't play for much of the game. Yeeeouchhh! The national semifinal game is Sunday night and Candace says she's ready to play. Great! The flip side? They're playing the same fierce LSU team that beat the Lady Vols in the SEC championship. It's gonna take a miracle for Candace and the LV to get to the championship game, let alone repeat as national champions. What a tough break!

Merry Christmas!

Another Christmas Day is coming to a close and I can't help but reflect back on what's happened. The long-awaited socks for Daddy were unwrapped, not with surprise, but with a great deal of joy. Daddy put them on immediately last night and declared them perfect. Ever the critical eye, I thought they looked just a smidge on the snug side. Next time I'll try either a slightly fatter yarn or a few more stitches for some extra give. They also looked a little snug across the toes. They didn't feel too tight and Daddy said they weren't, but once again, I'll add maybe 1/2" on the next pair. He wore the socks with his dress loafers when we went out today and he showed them off to everyone. For as much as I did not enjoy knitting those socks I know I have to knit another pair for him very soon. It's the very least I can do to help his poor aching and sensitive feet find a little comfort.

I showed mother what I had knit on her lace stole thus far. I have dubbed my adaptation of the HeartStrings Scotch Thistle Lace Stole pattern Thistle's Epistle. I kind of like the ring to it, and I got into knitting an adaptation because I didn't go back and read the pattern instructions (the "epistle"). Her response was favorable, although she was so tired and grouchy that any hint of a positive response was a miracle. But, since the stole wasn't going to be under the tree, I gave her a new set of Wolfgang Puck knives--ones that are sharp and safe, unlike the scary things she's using now. I refuse to touch those knives--scary!

A few days ago I was feeling the need to knit a little something simple, yet lacy as a perk me up alternative to the big shawls and stoles I have OTN. I was surfing the FOs at Ravelry and someone posted a scarf by a popular lace designer, Sivia Harding. Off to Sivia's website I went in a flash, threw open the lace files and coughed up some cash! (My apologies to Mr. Clemens, ahem) There are 3 Harding designs I'm eager to knit, 2 of which are med-lg shawls. The other is this sweet beaded scarf called Angel Pearls, knit from a single skein of Kid Silk Haze. After a little math and some scary yarn manipulations I turned a cone of cobweb wt. baby alpaca singles into a triple-stranded center-pull ball. The yarn is a rich golden yellow so I chose silver-lined gold beads to go with it and I cast on. Failure to concentrate did necessitate tinking a row here and there, but I have 1.5 repeats of the center chart completed and things look good. The yarn is a bit tricky to work with as it's very slippery and easy to split the strands, but the fabric it produces is lusciously soft and enhances the lace. The best part of this scarf design--it's knit in one piece from start to finish with no grafting or provisional cast-ons or anything complicated. I'm finding such designs in lace to be hard to come by, so this is a big deal.

My Christmas was everything I had hoped for. I knew what most of my presents were beforehand, but Mom did surprise me with a few things from Coldwater Creek. I love everything I received, but I'm especially liking the new pajamas. A nice, heavy cotton jersey, the red pants are covered in preppy plaid and green triangle "trees" with a white top emblazoned with the word Celebrate right across the "girls". My "big" present was a red suede jacket, which I adore, but I Bet I wear the PJs more ;-D

Ho Ho Ho, it was a very Merry Christmas after all!

Christmas Bliss

I had an experience in Christmas bliss last night that I shall not forget. A bit of background--I am a singer as well as a knitter. I have been in choirs, large and small, for most of my life, singing the classical repertoire for the most part. Excellent choral music is a large part of my joy in life. No one in the family was more delighted than I when my nephew Christopher fell in love with choral music as a freshman in High School. He was in a magnet high school and had an exceptional professor who carefully tutored Chris' talent. He was selected to the All-East State honors choirs every year, and All-State his senior year (maybe jr. too...I don't remember). His gift for music was rewarded with college scholarships and selection for a special a capella men's group called the Seven Bucks his sophomore year. Now a junior at East TN State University (ETSU), he is singing with the ETSU Chorale, a modest-sized group of about 80 singers. Last night was my 1st opportunity to hear him perform with the choir at their Annual Christmas Concert.

The concert was held at the Munsey Memorial Methodist Church in Johnson City, a beautiful old cathedral-style church in the heart of the historic downtown district. In the first picture I tried capture the exquisite architecture of the chancel area. Above the altar was a soaring brass fretwork engraved with images of Christ and the apostles. It was difficult to see the detail from where I sat, but I was impressed nevertheless. The choir did not use the chancel area, rather they stood on risers in front of the pulpits and along the outer aisles. For the opening number, an early 17th century work by Allegri, a quartet stood in the rear balcony, the women were on the risers and the men in the aisles so the audience was literally surrounded by a glorious polyphonal sound. It was breathtakingly beautiful to listen too. I could not believe my ears I was so stunned by the exceptional quality of the Chorale. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about choral music and *very* picky about things like intonation and timbre and the like. Frankly, I never even considered the possibility of music of this quality coming from a small university in the hills of Appalachia. I was so wrong, it was that good!!!

Perhaps the most joyous aspect of the experience for me was simply watching Chris sing (the redhead in the center on the top row). It wasn't hard to see that he was loving every minute of it. He was a bit nervous about his part in a solo quartet in a Ralph Vaughn Williams number, but he sang well. Daddy made the journey with me and he simply glowed with joy over the whole thing. It truly is a miracle that he even had strength to come and sit in a crowd for that long so late at night.

After the concert we were pleasantly surprised to learn that Alison(the ex) brought Matthew(nephew #3) and Connor(#4) up from North Carolina for the concert. The boys were *so* excited to see their Grandaddy! It was a Fuji moment and I was lucky to snap a couple of pictures--good pictures! (From left to right: Chris, Connor, Grandaddy, & Matthew) Matthew looked, well, (can an aunt say this???) HOT! He was decked out in a beautiful suit and tie--boy he cleans up good! Connor was in great spirits too, so it was a great family moment for us all. It was a concert event that will be the highlight of my Christmas this year. Ah, bliss!

Trick or Treat???

Can you believe that October is over??? If you ask me, it's really some kind of cruel trick, especially considering we've had no real "Autumn" to speak of. Here in East Tennessee we've had nothing but record drought and record high temperatures. Today, on Halloween, my rose garden looks more spectacular than it has all year. Go figure? The little sticks of lantana that I planted back in May have grown into an enormous hedge where, this afternoon, I had my first little Trick-or-Treater come to visit. Isn't that a spectacular photograph? I was stunned by the beauty of this Monarch butterfly perched on the lantana.


I haven't posted in a week (blame Ravelry), so I have lots to say. Of course I can't resist a beautiful baby, especially when that baby is my great-niece. My nephew, Tyler, and his wife, Mary Katherine, had their first child back in June while Tyler was in specialty training with the Navy. He graduated last week and is on leave for a few days before he has to report for duty at Pearl Harbor (I know, rough assignment--Hawaii!). I don't they were in TN more than a day before making a bee-line to our place so that great granddaddy Plaas and great aunt Kristina could get their hands on baby Isabella. Oh she is just too cute for words! She totally looks like her daddy...everything except the red hair :-) She has the same tiny ears, and cheeks and chin, and....there's a lot of Plaas in that child. Bella loved my Father...she couldn't take her eyes off of him, which simply delightful to us all. I was thrilled to get this especiialy good picture of Bella with my Mom.


I've been doing my fair share of knitting this week too. After excessive agonizing over what should be my next lace shawl project, I finally cast-on. The funny thing was I pored over a long list of "wanna knit" shawls for weeks only to rather spontaneously jump in an cast-on for a mystery KAL (Mystic Waters) after liking the image on the 1st chart. I didn't think about it much, I just grabbed some purple cashmerino I recently acquired from ColourMart and started knitting. I'm not quite finished with the 1st clue and the 2nd one was released today, but I'll catch up. So far I'm quite pleased with the outcome :-) You never know with "mystery" knitting... bwah-ha-ha-ha


I couldn't focus exclusively on the Mystic Waters Shawl because I was busy with a lace scarf project I volunteered to do. I love Sandy, the owner of my closest LYS, The Yarn Haven. She has been so gracious to me and I'm thrilled she opened her shop in a location that is literally just across the street from where I live. I want her to do well. So when I dropped in about 2 weeks ago I was thrilled to discover she had added Madil Kid Seta to her lace yarn section. But when she showed me this viscose thread the vendor had persuaded her to buy as a carry along fiber for the MKS, I had serious doubts about it's "marketability". So, in a moment of spontaneity I volunteered to come up with a lace scarf design using both yarns and knit a shop sample for her. If folks could see how they could make something wonderful with these fibers, then I knew it would sell.

I left the shop with my offer open and the next day Sandy emailed me back to take me up on it. I was quite excited and went over to pick up the yarn. I bounced a few ideas off on her at the last FNKC meeting and went home to finalize my design. It was to be for newbie lace knitters, something easy to knit, yet pretty enough to make for holiday gifts. The picture here was taken after 2 days of knitting. I used size 8 needles and the yarns together were bulkier than my norms, so my body protested with screaming pain in the forearm. I had to slow down for a few days until the flare subsided, but even still I had the scarf finished in only 11 days. It could easily be knit in a week as I'm not a particularly fast knitter (I'm good, just not fast ;-)

I took the finished scarf to Sandy this afternoon. We were both thrilled with the outcome. I'll post my details and photos (hopefully) tomorrow. I still need to finish writing the pattern up. I promised to deliver it on Friday when I head over for the next FNKC gathering. This was so fun and I was pleased to be able to do it just because, not for money or to get anything back for myself--well, other than the sheer joy of doing a good deed for a really good person. That's the best part of all :-)

This Teddy is...

dressed to a T! A great big orange and white University of Tennessee Volunteers T! I accepted the challenge of the Football-A-Long group to knit a teddy bear sweater in my team colors, something I had never done before. Not only did I use orange and white, but I did my 1st stranded knitting (fair isle) in the orange and white checkerboard and my 1st embroidery in the cross-stitch T--both iconic symbols here at Tennessee. This was my 1st top-down raglan, knit on DPNs due to the (not-so-small) size, and so it was truly a challenge for me to create/knit.

The purpose of the challenge was to knit sweaters to be donated to a charity that gives the dressed bears to organizations that deal with distressed/traumatized children. It's a good thing, but I have one big problem--I love the sweater so much I just can't part with it. It's been a really rough week with my Daddy going through angioplasty... again and coming to realize just how close he came to dying... again. The emotions of it all kinda caught up with me as I knit on this little sweater. This little sweater is really about a different kind of team spirit that has nothing to do with football, rather it's about my alma mater where I just spent 8 long years struggling to get my PhD. It's about the University where my father devoted his life to his students and colleagues for decades. It's about the united spirit of devotion to a place he and I uniquely shared. And so it will stay in a corner of my room where I find solace and inspiration--right next to that big honking diploma that carries my name and that of the University of Tennessee and says Doctor of Philosophy in bold print. It will remind me of the Team Spirit of the Drs. Plaas and our shared love for the University and education and research and all the good times we spent at UTK together. Go Vols!

Thank God for Knitting, part 2

It's been a horrible, long week. I don't know how I would have survived without my knitting and the kind words of others who have reached out to me via my knitting. I dragged my Little River Socks with me, from one Doctor's office to the next and through 2 days at the hospital as I tended to the needs of my father and mother. It took the cardiothoracic surgeons a long time, but with patience and persistence they were able to remove the occluded stent in a major coronary artery, clear all the plaque and calcifications, and place 2 new stents to restore perfusion to his stressed heart. It was exactly what I had hoped for and Daddy came through the procedure like a rock. I *know* miracles happen and the Lord just delivered our family another one.

After spending Wednesday going to doctor's appointments (1st daddy's, then my own) I was quite dissatisfied with having to untangle my knitting from everything else in my purse. I've seen those cute little bags for on-the-go knitting, but I just don't have $20+ to invest in such things, BUT, I do have a great sewing machine and a serger and a fabric stash that exceeds my yarn stash. So I dug through some remnants leftover from other projects and started cutting and folding, stitching and pressing. No measuring needed for this simple project.
It was 10PM when I sat behind the sewing machine and whomped up the cutest little knitting bag I ever saw. Do you like the FROGS? I couldn't think of anything more suitable than frogs...besides, I needed cheering up! I put pockets on the inside-one big pocket on one side that can hold a paper pattern and any notions like cable needles and scissors or a measuring tape, and 3 long pockets on the other side to keep my dpns sorted by size. In the middle is enough space for 100g of sock yarn (balled or partially knit :-) The froggy bag performed perfectly on its test drive at the hospital yesterday so I am pleased.

I took a break after daddy had been transferred to his room and came home for an afternoon nap. I was thrilled to find a package from the Loopy Ewe in my mailbox! I've been surfing the specialty sock & lace yarn retailers online for months and finally decided to splurge and try one out. I had heard good things about Sheri at the Loopy Ewe from, of all people, Sandy, the owner of The Yarn Haven, my just-across-the-street LYS. There were oodles of yarns I wanted at the Loopy Ewe, but I narrowed it down to one sock yarn, a beautiful hand paint from Apple Laine, and one lace yarn from J Knits. Not only were my yarns beautiful beyond words, but they were meticulously wrapped in tissue paper before being sealed in a plastic bag and sent speedily to my door. I felt like I just got a present, and frankly, I needed one :-)


I have knitting progress to report, but I think I'll save it for another post as I'm pretty wiped out. Thanks to all of you who sent your well wishes and offered prayers for my family. I know they made a difference :-)

Thank God for Knitting

I can't tell you how grateful I am to have knitting in my life. I've spent a lot of time at home this past week tending to the needs of my father, who is in very fragile health. He really depends on me to be his "private duty nurse" and he'll listen and comply with my requests many times when he won't do so for my mother. Mom needs time to escape the house and nuture her own well-being and I do my best to make sure that happens. Daddy is now at the point where he shouldn't be left alone so we take turns being with him. I've had a very long turn this weekend.

Things were going just fine from my perspective until about dinnertime last evening. That's when he refused to take the medicine I recommended for another bout of cardiac symptoms because it would be the 3rd time he needed it that day. He didn't like the idea of needing nitroglycerin for the 3rd time because it would look bad. Being the obstinate soul he is (I had to inherit the trait from somewhere!) I wasn't winning this war and I was exasperated. Fortunately mother came home and together we got the stuff down him and she went to work calming him down. I escaped to my knitting. Thank God for knitting!!! You hear folks talk about how soothing and relaxing it is, and I agree. Right now I mega agree!

As my stress antidote I added a lot of rows to my natural-colored MS3 stole. I let the stole languish while I worked on socks and, frankly, while I decided what to do about "the wing" on the Swan. I decided to knit the wing for the natural-colored version just to see how it turns out. I figure it's a learning experience...but... I did run a lifeline on the last row of chart F so I can frog back if needed. I won't knit the wing on the blue beaded stole, rather I make it symmetrical with the lace panel insertion at the center. I'm very confident that the blue stole will turn out great.

Lest this post sound like a downer I thought I'd end with a couple of very happy photos. The first is my great-niece Isabella who is a chubby, happy 1 month old. She has her father's eyes, but the rest looks just like mom--especially the red hair. I took the last photo, a Queen Elizabeth Rose, during my morning stroll in the garden. This is a very fragrant rose and is a favorite of mine.

Where did they go????

Let's see...the last I check there were 7 days in a week, 24 hours in a day. Yup, I think that's it...but then what happened to the last week??? Boy, that one went really fast! I guess that's what happens when you have kids. Being an Old Maid myself, I'm not too knowledgeable about these things, but I was Aunt Kristina all last week and I learned a few things: 1) I'm not used to "mothering" 7 year-old girls, even an extremely well-behaved one like Victoria; 2) Kids can wear you out to a state of fatigue previously unknown to an Old Maid; 3) The Knoxville Zoo is a very big place filled with animals that are usually interesting, sometimes creepy (snakes and spiders, etc.), and sometimes very stinky (can you say nausea?) and 4) Old Maid Aunts do things that busy Mothers don't have the time or energy to do so we are very fun ;-)


And speaking of Auntie things, I finally got some pictures of my newest great-niece Isabella. Are those the chubbiest cheeks you ever saw on an 8 pound baby? The new daddy, my nephew Tyler, is absolutely smitten with his daughter and I am getting "Baby Nurse" Aunt Kristina phone calls every 4 or 5 days with questions about joyful things like poop. Isn't it just grand to be trusted with such intimate questions? Heck, I answered the same questions for his mother when Tyler was born, why not do it again for the next generation?

I did get some knitting done in between my Auntie duties, though not as much as usual. I cast-on a new pair of socks on Thursday, the summer solstice, to mark the kick-off of the Summer of Socks 2007 KAL. Let's just say I had a learning adventure (very big laugh!) which I'll post about with all things knitty tomorrow. As for tonight, I think I'm ready to hit the hay a bit early. I think they call us Old Maids for a reason, 'cuz I feel very old tonight---old and worn out!

I'm a great...

Aunt! It's a very exciting day because my nephew Tyler and his wife Mary Katherine introduce another generation into the Plaas family this morning with the birth of Isabella Monroe. She surprised us all by weighing in at 8# 1oz and a perfect 19" long. Bella (Izzie if you ask me :-) has red hair just like her mother and her father is so thrilled he only half makes sense when talking to him over the phone. First time daddies are so cute! Really! I've met hundreds, even thousands? over the course of my nursing career and there's nothing quite so charming to watch than a new daddy. Of course my brother, the new grandfather, blubbered on quite nicely himself.

I'm just delighted that Bella made it here safe and sound and that she was born to a family where she has a mommy and a daddy who are married to each other and committed to caring for each other forever. I wasn't surprised when Tyler called last night to inform us that Mary Katherine's water has broken and they were headed to the hospital. I knew that Isabella would be born today as it is her great great grandmother Louise Emma Schubert Plaas' birthday. Grandma Plaas would have been 109 years old today. June is just a great month for Plaas women, as my sister Stephanie (9th) and I (6th) were also born in June. I'm sure that grandma and Stephanie were both in attendance from across the veil to guide this precious little one in her transition to earth. It's a wonderful day!