Up and down and back and forth...

My sister Christina has pointed out that my last post was a full month ago. And where haven't I been these few weeks? I feel as though I've hardly sat down until today, when I decided that enough is enough and I put my feet up.

I started the month with a visit to the Federal Building in Buffalo to be fingerprinted for my new green card. I learned that your fingerprints can actually wear off. Some of mine are almost gone. The officer taking my prints paused and regarded me with great satisfaction. "That's from work," she said. It didn't occur to me in time to say that it was probably caused by knitting needles. Books don't rub off your finger prints, tho if they could...

From there, we went on to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright House at GrayCliff on Lake Erie. We cruised through Cattaragus county, stopping only for Tim Horton's. We flew past the Zoar Valley which I really want to visit one of these days to it's waterfalls and old growth trees. Finally we wended our way up though Wyoming County to visit the Dancing Goat in Warsaw, where I welcomed Mara back to Western New York and purchased a skein of that Ella Ray Merino Laceweight that Chronic Knitting used for her Swallowtail. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. Eight and a half hours in the car that day and we never left New York State or went east of Rochester.

The rest of the month has been similar. I've picked raspberries in historic Egypt, giant mushrooms by Hemlock Lake and tomatoes from my own backyard. I've wandered the slopes of Harriet Hollister park. I've gadded about at the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival and followed my favorite paths at Letchworth, where I must say there are too many people these days. I've knitted socks in the woods, at the car wash and on the road. I've showed off my summer knitting at the first Guild meeting. I finished the navy blue Swallowtail out of Mirasol Nuna - luscious Merino/Silk/Bamboo. Must mail it! At the Guild, I happened to glimpse 2 beautiful and perfect sweaters that Paula made over the summer out of Nuna. Very nice!

What have I not done? I have not finished the Swing Jacket or the Blue Mosaic bag. I've made a lot of progress on both but finished they are not.

The Swing jacket is almost done - just four more inches on the collar and then all I have to do is to sew the seams. I felted the blue bag. I had a disastrous adventure with a zipper which I sewed on and then had to carefully remove because it overstretched the edges. Sister Frances (not a nun) suggested the obvious - sew the zipper to a lining and then stitch the lining into the bag - brillant! Before I do that, however I must throw the bag back into the wash to calm the overstretched edges a bit. Pics below.

Puffball mushroom:

We picked this one, ate half and dried the other half in the oven for later:

View from Harriet Hollister:

Fiber Fest:

Nuna Swallowtail:

Hemlock Lake boat launch:

Letchworth trail:

Before:

After:

Close-up after: