Apologies, syrupy Hallmark moment ahead…

Ya wanna know the great thing about spring?
The anticipation of lovely garden promises soon to be fulfilled.
(Right, Hallmark prose done)

Had a nice albeit whirlwind holiday in the US acquainting ourselves with new environs. The cottage is very cute, small by American standards, but suits us well.

What got my heart pumping was…(okay, I should probably complete this sentence with ‘… being reunited with my husband after many weeks.’)

But what really got my heart pumping was…the garden.

A veritable Eden filled with blooms and blooms-to-be. Immediately, I found myself anticipating what the remaining months of spring would bring, knowing that some flowers would come and go before I’d return to see them. Sigh. Still, it was satisfying to witness their infancy. Will definitely need to reacquaint myself with local flora. And will also need a bit of study on a new topic…

…grapes.

The last time I visited Washington, DC, I was 12 years old.

Original Smithsonian Institution building

Washington Monument

Gotta confess that Americans do museums and monuments well…

Depends on your cultural frame of reference, I guess.

Here’s a photo.

To my Irish friends, it’s a familiar name in the weaving world with interesting clothing, home furnishings and a great café to meet up with friends.

To my American friends, it reflects a well-known sight around Annapolis, Maryland, the ubiquitous Navy midshipman.

Yep, a blend of Irish and American culture—Avoca on US soil. Sadly, though, the shop lacks the hip and trendy merchandise of the Irish-based shops. With cheesy Irish folk music in the background, it seems more a caricature, a la ‘The Quiet Man’ or Carroll’s Irish Gifts, than true innovative Irish design.

But still, it’s nice to see a friendly Irish ‘face’ all the same.

Lots of shrinkable, new wool in the yarn stash.

What I Need: Something to cover the wooden stairs in the new US house.

I love wood floors, don’t get me wrong. They look rather lovely in the little vintage cottage we’ve purchased in Alexandria (Virginia, that is, not Egypt). But having lived with wooden stairs before, they are loud under my Exuberant-Eight-Year-Old-Boy’s feet and, when the occasional tumble happens, can be quite painful. Carpeting? Huh-uh. Stair treads? You bet!

So, with that thought lurking in the back of my brain, I am now seeing all those accumulated leftover bits of wool as newly recycled raw material for just such a project, and feeling quite ‘earth friendly’ to boot!

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due Diversion
Now, Leigh Radford has a similar idea in her ‘One Skein’ book, called the Labyrinth Circle Rug. But other than the general idea, it’s at this point that I digress from her pattern. Rather than knitting it flat and having to seam it up the back, I just knit i-cord.

After knitting what seem to be miles and miles of endless i-cord (changing the colours at random to keep from falling asleep), take the i-cord snake; pop it into the washer and felt. After drying, wind into a circle…or oval…whatever shape you fancy. Pin into place and hand stitch with sturdy thread. Presto, instant felt mat, kinda like this one from a few years back…

…but this time, it’s stair treads that I want. And the felting will make ‘em durable, which is also something that I want. The trick will be to figure out how long to make the ‘snake’ to get a final mat the size of each step. I’m in for a bit of trial and error it seems. So, I’m taking my scraps of wool and 2 extremely short and very innocent looking wooden dpns for some mind-numbingly-boring airplane knitting*. But honestly, the thought of those brightly coloured mats keeps my needles going!

…sans photos, I’m afraid.

So, where are we at the moment?  In the US, at least for the next week.  Kiddies and I need to return to Dublin to pack up, finish school, say our farewells, which is the crappity part of this whole transition.  Final departure from Ireland happens mid-June.

Right then, during the next month or so, posts might be here, there or anywhere, as time and energy allow.

Because of dodgy internet connections, I can’t respond individually to the very lovely comments that have been left.  But thanks so much for a warm and hearty welcome back to the US.  Have to confess that culture shock (of the reverse kind) is creeping in.  But, all will be well as soon as I get into a knitting group and crank up the needles again.  Ahhh!

Okay, just one picture to remind me of the Dublin mountains before we left for our quick US trip…local free range sheep in the back garden.

Today is the day we do all the final signing of papers for the new house in the US. But it was yesterday when I found my ‘new home.’

It took no more than 14 hours after the Kiddies and I landed on US soil before the family walked by this shop in Old Town Alexandria.

Knit Happens

As you can imagine, the gravitational pull was overwhelming, and shamelessly leaving the others to find their own amusement, I dashed in. Okay, I say ‘dash,’ but it was more like a leisurely stroll, for who could zip in and out of this fine establishment without taking time to appreciate its ambiance, right?

Doing a poor job of controlling saliva glands, I tried to look like the Well-Traveled-Just-Arrived-From-Europe-and-Other-World-Destinations knitter, but I think they saw through that façade. In mere moments, though, I learned of their knitting night, community outreaches, drop-in-and-knit opportunities and (gasp) the Maryland Sheep and Wool Show going on this weekend with the Ravelry gang in attendance! Hey, don’t I live near Maryland now?

Well, it probably won’t happen for me this weekend (sigh), but there’s always next year…plenty of time for my Irish friends to plan a fibre field trip, eh?

Lace project is still waiting, but before I put away the cotton yarn, it’s time for one more go on an impromptu baby hat.

Been knitting for a few years now.
Have indulged in intarsia.
Have copped onto cables.
Have dabbled in design.
Am fearful of Fair Isle.
That is, until now.

The thought of Fair Isle has scared me, to be honest. All those strands of yarn thwoinging themselves into a shameless tangle, maintaining order only by my feeble attempts at manual dexterity. Ack! Had the same feeling when subduing the intarsia beast.

But something small was an ideal way to overcome my irrational fear. Right, so taking a simple design from a Debbie Bliss bootie pattern and adapting it to another pattern-free cotton baby hat, the result is, well, a fairly passable imitation of Fair Isle. Kinda wishing I’d put a couple of rows of ‘checker boarding’ above and below the main design, though. Looks a little plain, I think. But, something to consider for next time. And I have to say that I’m liking the ‘SKP’ rather than ‘K2TOG’ decreases on the top of this hat, creating a cute swirl on the crown, although the photo makes the hat look a little wonky…needs a cute little baby head in it!

And now that I have a few babies among my acquaintance, the opportunities for experimenting with various designs will be plentiful, I’d say.

Well I thought that by this time I would be busy.
Really busy.
Extremely busy.
But we’ve decided to let the professionals come in and pack up all our worldly goods.
It will take them about 2 days to pack up and load the container.
Self packing would entail about 4 weeks of chaotic upheaval.
So let them do it.
Nice and easy.
Costly, but easy.

So, what do I do with all this time not spent packing boxes?
Deciding what will fit into the limited space, sorting, organizing, giving away, throwing away…

…and the odd bit of furniture-restoration-style-crafting. See that china cupboard?

A lovely old primitive piece, filled with wood worm and destined for the burn pile. Can’t envision that, but thanks to the generosity of Lucy-Of-The-Lodge, I can now envision it holding cones and skeins of yarn in my new fibre workroom (studio would be too lofty a term, I think).

So, time to roll up the sleeves and de-bug it before the movers come. A few coats of bug-killer and oil should do the trick before it’s loaded into the container. And here’s hoping that the bug’s life in this case is a very short one.

Yep, a nice little souvenir from Ireland.

In the midst of moving our family to the US after six years in Ireland, I ought to be up to my eyeballs in boxes, right?

Need to pack up the house.
Need to switch the utilities and forward the post.
So what shall I do today?
Pick up my needles and knit.

Need to finish the lace bolero.
Need that jacket for upcoming summer weddings.
So what shall I do today?
Knit a baby hat.

Spoiler Warning for Sharon, Cathal and Baby Rohan:
Not a lot of knitting going on these days and am desperate for a fibre post, so if you continue reading, please be forewarned that the package coming to you welcoming Baby Rohan into the world won’t be a surprise.

Where was I? Oh right, baby knitting.

Now I realise that in recent months, I’ve been suffering from a disease…well, more of a knitting disability. I can’t seem to knit a pattern as it’s written. A tweak here. An adjustment there. I seem incapable of knitting something without an alteration—and the simple baby hat also falls victim to my malady.

What I love about baby knitting is that it uses small quantities of yarn—bits and bobs of cotton—to become lovely little wearables. But what shall I knit?

Love this hat, but have done it a few times before. Yawn.

Candy Cane Hats by Penney Kolb, from this book compiled by Melanie Falick…

Love this hat, but not sized for babies. Sigh.

Jesse’s Topknot Hat, from this book by Andrea and Gayle Shackleton…

So, taking the baby measurements, rolled edge and knotted top of the first hat and marrying it to the two-row stripe and basic shape of the second hat, fiddling around and making adjustments as I go and presto, a new one-of-a-kind baby hat.

Well, he’ll have to grow a bit, as I certainly didn’t do any gauge swatches after all the diversions, but hopefully he won’t mind. Matched with a pair of baby mittens and there ya go…welcome to the world, Rohan.

While other places are throwing back their blankets of winter white to reveal the good brown earth again, a stroll around the garden shows the blush of springtime in Ireland.

I do believe that pink is my favourite colour of flower.

And it’s a good thing, too, for ‘the pinks’ are in abundance these days.

Many US states boast the rhododendron as its official flower, yet I confess that I have never seen such gigantic tree-sized specimens until I came here.

And such is the sight that regularly greets me. In due time, the bits of pink and fuchsia and coral will blend into one continuous rosy wall. Really…it’s true! Why, look at an archived photo dug up from last year…

Not to be outdone, other blossoming trees also herald the coming of warmer temperatures and the brightness of longer days.

Take one part organic chocolate, add a bit of Fairtrade, throw in a free recipe book… I’d say that’s a pretty sweet deal!

Many people love Green & Black’s chocolate.
I have not been one of them.
Tried their dark chocolate and hmm…too dark?  too bitter?  Don’t know.  Couldn’t put my finger on it, but never really jumped on the G&B bandwagon.  Funny how a bit of incentive can change perspective.

Walked into the local Centra (read ‘mini-mart’) for…um, can’t remember what I went in there for originally…but saw the display for a free recipe book.  What’s this?  Buy 3 bars of Green & Black’s chocolate and get a recipe book…FREE.  Not an inky, dinky pamphlet with a few half-hearted recipes.  Nope, a substantial, real-honest-to-goodness-192-page-suggested-retail-price-of-£14.99-book of chocolate recipes!  With categories claiming to be ‘mystical’ and ‘wicked’ I certainly couldn’t leave the shop without one… and surely no one would fault my temptation to buy merely 3 chocolate bars to get it, would they?

So I did.

Was willing to give the dark chocolate another go, but none to be had and contented myself with 2 milk and 1 white.  Must say that the milk chocolate has an unusual but smooth taste.  Perhaps that’s what ‘organic’ tastes like?  So, when occasion calls for milk chocolate, it’s a lovely choice.

Have to say I’m sufficiently chuffed over my impulse buy and am looking forward to creating some chocolate delicacies from what is claimed to be the ‘best chocolate book in the world.’  Wow, that’s sweet.

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” -John Donne, English Poet, (1572-1631)

Okay, so it’s a bit ominous sounding…since he’s talking about death and all…but still appropriate in its theme that we are all connected to one another regardless of where we are physically…or geographically, for that matter.

And why am I quoting old English poets?

Simply put, the bell has tolled for our family, so to speak, and our time at The Bell House is coming to an end.

Since June of last year, Husband-Will has been commuting between our home in Dublin and his work in Washington, DC. That’s a lot of air miles and time zones and jet lag and carbon footprinting. So, we’re packing up so we can live together in one country on one continent. Fair enough.

Understandably, creative energies will play a supporting role to more pressing, non-creative things…like cardboard boxes…for the next couple of months. Yep, a bit of dejá vu from, say, just last autumn…

And so, the New Year’s photo is rather prophetic,

for we have taken a different fork in the path and stand ready to see what this newest bend in the road will hold for us.