rain in July!

We've had company for 3 weekends in a row. It has been great! The weekend before last it was my husband's sister and her husband. They've been living in Pittsburg, but have purchased a place here on the coast where they plan to retire. Both of them were raised here, so they are looking forward to coming home. Then last weekend 3 of our kids (son Steve, daughter Greta and son-in-law Todd) were here. Todd put a new roof on my Mom's place and installed my new storm door. Love it!

It has been raining for 3 days now. RAINING!! Our lawn is turning green again. This is nutsy weather for July!

The weekly shipment from Lorna's Laces arrived and Sarah quickly put it all away. The popular yarn these days appears to be the Lace Weight yarns of Helen's Lace and to a smaller degree Heaven. Heaven is my favorite, but I'm crazy about lace weight mohair anyway. Sock projects appear to have slowed down a tad. And judging by the size of the orders, knitters/crocheters are ordering their supply of Cascasde 220 for their projects destined to be gifts this coming holiday. Yes, July is probably a good month to think about your hand made gifts and getting all your yarns and supplies in order. (this is a picture of part of our Shepherd Worsted rack. everything in its place!!)

My needles have hardly been picked up this past week. The brown and gold jacket is done, but I think I want to remove some of the whip stitching on the zipper. The outside is flawless, but the inside has room for improvement. I think I will set the sewing machine to a large loose stitch and open up the feed dog so there is no pressure on the stitches and see if I can't get something nicer. Took it to my month Fiber Arts meeting and got lots of oohs when I took it out of the bag. The wow factor is always good!!! I want to do another with feather and fan for the sleeves and hood (again in Cascade Superwash 220). Couldn't help it but had to do a small feather and fan swatch. But I promise not to start it until the 2 jackets and husband's sweater is done. I'm so close, it is just plain silly.

Today is weekly cleaning day. Friday afternoons are busy with our weekly open house of knitters and crocheters who like to meet. And Saturday one of the local SW Coast groups has asked to meet here, so the next few days will be busy ones!

CSS & Men's Neck Down Henley

Another week has flown by and the winds persist here on the coast. They promised us warm weather yesterday, but it was never quite warm enough to sit outside for lunch. And the wind!!

Been spending most of my free time either working on hubby Neckdown Henly or reading about CSS (web design). Hubby's sweater was started probably a year ago. All that remains is about 1/2 of the arm. I had him try it on and I will have to add about an inch in length. Otherwise it looks quite well. Raglans aren't the best style for him, but this is an "around the house" sweater and I think he will enjoy the comfort of it. I am going to clip a row about 2 or 3 rows above the ribbing, pick up the stitches, knit an inch and then knit off on waste yarn. Then block it. Then graft it back to the ribbing. Should be flawless!! The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted and the color is Camelot. One of my exclusive colors. He wears a lot of brown and creams.

2 big shipments will be arriving today to the store. Our weekly box from Lorna's Laces and Cascade Yarns. I'm really satisfied with my decision to cut back to only 2 yarn companies, but stock all the colors and as many yarns from those companies as possible. And it is a sinch to special order yarns when I am already getting so many shipments each month. Really, I mean, Cascade has all the basic, classic yarns, plus novelty yarns. And Lorna's Laces is all about quality and color! I love it!!

Summer Color

Summer is so much fun with family visiting. And when you live on the coast of Oregon, warm sunny days are a real treat. The visit by Kerry and Bill was great. Kerry has not been here for years, and this was Bill's first visit. We went to dinner, visited, watched family movies of Kerry's children and did a really nice boat tour of Tenmile Lake on Saturday afternoon. The weather was great.

Today, it is slightly sunny and slightly overcast. I have my fingers crossed that it will clear off and be really nice as the weather forecast is predicting.





My garden has never looked better, thanks to my Mom. She loves to garden and has an incredible style and knack for it. I have 3 garden areas, 2 of which Mom keeps in tip-top shape and the 3rd is in front of the Yarn Store and I manage.

On the knitting front, the zippers arrived for the jackets. I'm pretty pleased with them. Now I have to stitch them in. Have not been knitting too much. Still plugging away on the hood of my hand knit jacket. With the warm weather, I seem to have struck a lazy streak. (store garden by the entrance to my store. All in pots -------- >>>>>>>>>>)

Web work is nearly caught up and I'm thinking the site looks very dated. I look at other sites and I sure can tell I have minimal experience with sites. I'm unsure if I want to tackle learning CSS and a major remodel or not. I still get alot of comments on how easy it is to navigate the site, so I am really unsure.

You tell me! My site is www.yarn-store.com . Your feed back is what drives my decisions. You all have a great 4th of July!!