ADIOS APRIL

Bye Bye bunnies, see you later chickies - no more spring weather or delicate flowers. 

April has been a busy month - my birth month - so I always seem to be in the "12 days of birthday" mode during April.  It's been a fun month and I hate to see it go and with it our cool temps.

I did a few fun things in April - most recently I went to a retreat with our rug hooking guild on St Simons Island.  I did some yarn shopping at the Stitchery - that's always fun.  My mom was admiring a granny square afghan they had there done in Noro yarn and so under the pretense that she would learn to crochet - she bought yarn for one of those.  Needless to say I am "hooking" along on *HER* afghan but it is fun and I probably have not done any granny squares in 30 years, this is just one giant square - you keep going round and round and round until it is as big as you want it.  A photo next time I promise.

This is the year I am hoping to finish some rugs - yes RUGS plural - I really didn't want to work on a fall rug in April but this rug was more than 1/2 finished.  After another long concentrated weekend of hooking - I am happy to say I'm in the home stretch.  I only have 2 more leaves and a few picket fence pieces left.  This is a fairly large rug 28" x 32" and I believe done entirely in a 6 cut for those rug hookers who may be interested.  It is a design by Beverly Conway and most of the wools are from Bev.  I took the workshop a few years back.  Actually the color plan is my creation - it was a private workshop with lots of newbie hookers and she had her hands full so the experienced hookers were basically on their own to pull wools from her massive stacks and see what we could create.  Some of the greens and the browns were from my stash.  I really really like this rug - it is one of my favorites and I will be SO glad to see it finished so I can use it this fall.

 Here is the view from our room overlooking the marshes surrounding the retreat center.  I always say I am going to spend some time on the balcony but it was quite windy on the marsh and when we weren't shopping or eating - we were trying to get some serious hooking done.

The other fun workshop I took this month was with a very famous knitting celebrity.  Sally Melville came to Jacksonville - to my LYS Knit Witz.  I took a class called knit to fit that went along with her newest book which I purchased at the workshop.  Sally is just beginning to make some of her designs available on Ravelry - so for you knitters out there - check out her Stair Step Shawl - so cool.  I don't know what has been wrong with me and the photo-taking. She brought a ton of designs and I only took this one photo of her lecturing in class.

I am still stitching - I promise I am but I just have not been doing much for the past month.  I started a couple of new pieces - you know an attack of my start-itis.  I started BBD Violets Blue and Mary Moteshed by Needlework Press - I'm still trying to devote time to my SL focus piece - the Hart sampler but I just have not been motivated to work on it, sadly  . . . .   I am supposed to be devoting at least one night a week to that WIP.

I have a couple of fun things coming up in May - our annual rug guild hook in and then a needlepoint class with a teacher I had last fall.  So I am looking forward to those two upcoming events. 

I wanted to take a moment to welcome my new followers - I'm finally over the 100 mark and it makes me happy to know that people find my ramblings of interest.  I hope you will leave me a comment - I am always excited to hear from you.  May Day is tomorrow - give someone a flower if you get a chance.