Hand knit baby bags

Mason's sweater is the first sweater I have ever made. I have made shawls in the past, but never those sleeves and attaching. Whew! That is why I am going to class to make this sweater. I have learned so much already, but I am not ready to show Mason's Wallaby Sweater, so I thought I would show you some of my past knitting.

This one is my own design and with all designs there is a story behind it. When we learned we were expecting Mason, as all expectant grandmothers are, I was excited. I bought a little blue lamb with "The Lord is My Shepherd"stitched on the front. I also bought a little bag that said "Peep A Blue". Didn't have a clue what I was going to do with it. The baby showers came and went and I still had the little lamb with the "Peep A Blue" bag. So when the call came that Lindsey was headed to the hospital I took off with my little blue bag in hand. Very early they put the blue lamb in the bed with Mason, and it became part of his bedtime 'have to'. So I decided maybe I should buy a 2nd one. Just in case something happened to the first one, but I couldn't find another one, but I did find him a little blue bear with "Bless This Child" stitched on the front, by the same company, so they look like a match. Oh, and the little blue bag. It also stays in Mason's crib, they use it to keep extra pacifiers in. When he drops one out of his bed he doesn't cry, he just reaches in there and gets himself another pacifier.

About this same time we found out we were expecting Noah, so I had to find Noah's lamb and bear. No blue ones to be found but I did find a beige one of each. Well, if Mason had one of each then Noah was going to have one of each. And to hold down on confusion, beige wasn't a bad idea. I had already made one of Noah's baby blankets in a green variegated, regular yarn. So I just changed a little about the pattern and created a bag for his lamb. So far Noah hasn't taken to a pacifier, but I am sure he will find something to do with his bag. Noah's bag is shown at the top. And I was even able to stuff both the lamb and the bear in his bag when I took it to the hospital.

The lambs and bears were hard to find, so I went on line. Ended out with all 3 colors of the lamb and bear. Now what to do with a case of lambs and bears? Make bags for them. When I showed Noah's bag to friends it was suggested I make bags with the lambs or bears to sell. So what you see is the first bag I made to sell. It is so very soft. I started to say awesomely soft, but as Pastor Scott has pointed out to us the only thing in this life that is awesome is our Lord and Savior. I am breaking my habit of using awesome about things around us, but it is ultra soft. I had never used this yarn before, but I will in the future. I bought it to make preemie caps, so it had to be soft.

I joined Etsy about the time I finished this bag, and I found these great labels on Etsy from another crafter. If any of you knitters need labels for your knitting projects please check her out at http://www.rememberwynn.etsy.com/ . I contacted her and she made a sample of 3 different label designs for me and displayed them for me to choose. Can even choose the color of the labels you want. I had them within a week. If you do check her out, please be sure to tell her Leedra sent you. And of course, this bag is available on Etsy at http://www.leedrasheirloomgoods.etsy.com/

The preemie caps are a challenge between our yarn store and a yarn store in Alabama. The challenge ends in October when the University of Tennessee plays the Crimson Tide. Naturally the winner is the yarn store with the most preemie caps. The pattern is extra easy, and I will show them before I turn them in. So far I have only made 5, so I am not in the running for the most made. The caps will then be given to the local hospitals, here and in Alabama.

Lavender Deal Daylily

Lavender Deal is a kind of funny daylily. It changes color as the day goes on.

Can't tell it so much in these first photos.

Because they were all taken about the same time of day.

I went to my archives for this afternoon photograph (below) of Lavender Deal. A couple of years ago I gave some of this daylily to Teresa. She sees her daylilies in the afternoon, because she works the hours of a normal person. Not like me, I work evening shift, so I am always seeing my daylilies well before the hot noon sun. This is good, since it is very hard to photograph daylilies in the afternoon and get great photos, especially if they are real dark daylilies. The darker the more they fade, but I got off subject here.....Lavender Deal looks more pink in the afternoon, instead of lavender. So you can see why when Teresa ask the name and I say it is Lavender Deal, she says "No, it is pink". We have fun with this one every year. This year I gave her a start of Addie Branch Smith, which I posted photographs of several days ago. Now if I can remember I gave her Addie Branch and not Always Afternoon, because I won't be able to tell the difference in the photograph she supplies me next year to tell her what she has.

Off to my knitting class. Learning to make a Wallaby sweater. For the class we had to make a child's size. Smallest pattern is a size 2, so everybody can probably guess this one is for Mason. Not to be left out, I am also learning to make a Surprise Jacket, and it can be made in a 1year size, so it is for Noah. Oh, and just in case you don't know.....we are expecting our 3rd grandchild. John and Lindsey are expecting again, so Mason is going to be "The Big Brother" in February, right after he turns 2 years old.

Various Daylily Blooms

Designer Gown

Will Return

Strawberry Candy

Miss Tinkerbell

Jungle Beauty

Barbary Corsair

Dad's Best White

So Lovely

Trouble with the daylily identifications

When a person gets as many daylilies as I have sometimes it becomes very difficult to decide which one I am even looking at. Some I have I can id when somebody else shows me a photo, even from a garden I have never been in. I did that recently with Open Hearth Daylily. But then I look at my own pale yellows and I can't figure out if they are So Lovely, Good Impressions, or Demetrius, or that yellow one that Carlos gave me in 2005, that I never saw in bloom before transplanting it a 2nd time, and I don't even remember the name. Then there is the pale yellow I dug a start from the rental house while we were building this house.

I have never understood why some people plant Stella De Oro Daylilies all the way across the front of their houses, sorry if I have stepped on any toes here, but I just don't understand with such variety why a person would want all of one kind. But when I go outside and look at some of mine and cannot begin to say which one that one is I think I finally understand it. Maybe. What I am getting to....I don't know the name of this yellow one.

I also can't tell which are which when looking at Lady Georgia or Ruffled Apricot. Then there is Decatur Apricot, but it doesn't look like Ruffled Apricot, but it sure looks like Aisha.

Then there is Addie Branch Smith Daylilies.

Aren't they beautiful?

But are they really Addie Branch Smith?

Or are they Always Afternoon?

That is why beginning with the 2006 daylilies I draw it out as we plant. The daylilies I got before 2006 have been transplanted twice without even knowing what I was putting where, so sometimes you guess is as good as mine.

Lilies in my yard

Several years ago a friend and I went together and bought lilies from Breck's and we split the cost. The Pink Pearl Oriental Lily is one of the lilies BJ and I bought together. We bought Asiatic and Oriental lilies. Over the years I have learned the orientals bloom later than the asiatic lilies.

My orientals are beginning to bloom, you know me, I have to get up close.

Isn't it beautiful and amazing when you look closer?

My Calla Lilies bloomed a month or so ago. Now they have started their rebloom. Sometimes flowers do funny things on the rebloom. This Calla Lily decided to split. I gave some of these to Teresa last year, and her rebloom is doing the same thing.

Been busy, and not been blogging. Can't promise to blog more, but as time permits I will. Have a photography assignment job tomorrow morning, before going to my 'real' job. I have also been taking some knitting classes. I have knitted for over 40 years, but I am trying to branch out some with my knitting.

White Ibis on St Pete Beach

When we were in St Pete Beach in June I saw a White Ibis on the beach.

This was the first time I have ever seen a White Ibis on the beach there. So I was snapping away.

Then Mason noticed his Granny was paying attention to something other than him.

And off he went to investigate. Mason looks like he is ready to fly. I laugh at this picture everytime I look at it.

He couldn't catch him (mainly because we wouldn't let him),

so he is headed back to the water.

I was really surprised how much Mason liked the sand and the ocean. My children were not crazy about the sand at his age. Mason wore us out before he was tired of it, everytime we took him to the beach. Lindsey did a great job of keeping the sunscreen on him and you can barely tell he has gotten any sun.

Daylilies in mass

I have had some request to see the main daylily flowerbed. I am attempting to show it here. This first photo you can see the Crepe Myrtle in the right corner.

The next photo you can see a hint of the same Crepe Myrtle in the left corner. So these are both sides of the Crepe Myrtle although the house almost looks the same. If you really knew the lay of the land here you would swear I was hanging on by my claws to get these photos. I did try several different angles and best I remember I was standing in the middle of the road to get the first two. But I must have been on a ladder. :)

There are a couple of things I would like to point out. The color you see close to the house are gladiolus, calla lilies and daylilies. Also notice in the first photo, to the left of the Crepe Myrtle there is one tall lily. I will posting some photos of this lily at a later date. I bought it last year at the daylily festival.

There also is a daylily flowerbed in the back yard, at the edge of my deck. And this year we have added some dayliles to the opposite side of the driveway. Some of you might remember the driveway is lined with iris on both sides. The dayliles start right behind the iris. Click here to see my iris flowerbeds. The daylilies that were added on the other side of the driveway were transplanted from the back of the property. We still have not moved all the daylilies from their 'temporary' location they were given in 2005. When we moved them from the temporary location to the front they were not in bloom and that is why the flowerbeds are all colors just mixed together. Some of you have made comments about all the digging for the 15 new varieties. The hard work for it was done about a month ago. When we moved some more daylilies from the back Jimmy tilled the soil for those, plus enough room for the festival (he knows I will come back with plenty) and mulched it all. With all the rain we have had this spring the soil was still soft and the actual planting took about 30 minutes. Oh, and the dreaded 'Common Roadside Orange' has it's own flowerbed on the opposite corner of the front yard.

The last two photos are both taken of the section shown in the first photo, looking in the opposite direction. The dead looking part on the right side is the Lolipop Lilies that are finished for the year. Yes, Darla you do see an old bloom hanging on the double orange, missed one. It takes me 1 hour and 10 to 15 minutes to deadhead the daylilies if I don't stop for anything else. I only deadhead a couple times a week. Takes about the same amount of time each time whether I skip a day or do it everyday. So I skip, for the sake of time. I have been noticing while I am out there I am having some real slow drivebys right now. Glad they are just looking at the flowers.

The green you can see behind the daylilies is across the road. Appears to be hedge, but it is the guardrail covered in honeysuckle. The daylilies are planted right up the edge of the bank that drops off to the road. I walk very carefully around that edge to photograph the daylilies on that side.

I really do enjoy my daylilies, I always think whatever is in bloom at the time is my favorite. I love daffodils, iris and daylilies, but I do think my absolute favorite are the daylilies. Who can compete with 60,000 varieties? Yes, I miss-quoted it last week, not 70,000, but just 60,000 varieties of daylilies introduced since 1900.

New butterfly to the yard

I thought this butterfly was a Fritillary although it is much

smaller than most Fritillaries in my yard. I started my search in the Fritillary section of my reference book.

I changed to the Pearly Crescentspot,

then started looking at all the Crescentspots in my book.

After I have a species in mind I usually check it on

http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/ to see if I think I am right.

I couldn't find any "Crescentspot" at all. So then I found a Pearl Crescent
I checked here and think I have it right.

Maybe they have updated the name to Pearl Crescent.

I have had several different butterflies, but have not had alot of any species of butterflies. I keep hearing others say they think the butterfly population is down. I looked back at my post last year to see the dates and I think we are just getting into the butterfly season in East Tennessee, if it follows last year. I also remember last summer the Cabbage White Butterflies were the first ones I saw. I have really started seeing the Cabbage Whites real good in the last week, posted some photos on Monday. I went to UT Gardens at the University of Tennessee on Tuesday and only saw the Cabbage Whites there. I went just to photograph the beautiful gardens, as if I didn't have enough photos waiting for me to go through.