Magenta October Gift

 Magenta October Gift....11.5x24" Silk and cotton, hand dyes, fused and machine quilted, hand embroidered. $300.00

Lowering the neckline

This is the view from the shoulder seam. In the previous designs I didn't have a seam and joined the front and back by picking up stitches and knitting the shoulder triangle attaching  both sides.
Now that I have done it this way I think I can pick up and knit a half hexagon from these triangles. Or at least I will try.
Essentially, the back is straight across at the neckline and in order to meet it I added a tiny triangle atop the last half diamond (the triangle knit after the last diamond). The tiny triangle is decreased on each edge, like the very bottom triangles at the hem.

Here's a view of the top of the neck, so it is obvious how wide the back neck became, the way I ended it. I am going to try knitting the fronts and back together with a three sided unit, but first I will make a swatch and figure it out stitchwise first. I don't like seams, as they are lumpy.

Here's a diagram of the last unit and the decreases. Those interior decreases will be Sl 1, k2tog, psso. The edge decreases will be just knit 2 tog. I think...haven't done it yet.
Best wishes!

Unfitting

This is the day I realize I must stop eating like there are no consequences. This cute pattern looks and feels awfully tight on my body, and is a size 16, so it should fit. Obviously I am kidding myself. The bust is so tight that it shows stretching across the front. The sleeves are squeezing my arms like a girdle. My butt is sticking out like a big blob. The bust darts are way above the bust, and wrinkles form under the armpit. What a disappointment or rather what a wake-up call. I won't be wearing this to church tomorrow.

 I guess I can no longer deny that I have reached an endpoint and must diet. So now that we have moved, it is the perfect time to take control and end this self-indulgent behavior. I will need your encouragement, of course. Luckily I still can go to Loseit.com and work it out there. 

The End of the Garden Bins

Carl and Carl Jr. from up on the mountain, came with our old trailer and their truck and took away all 6 bins, in minutes. We're getting things off our checklist of things to do before we move.

Garden Bins

 We have five troughs that are about 3'x8'x28" and one six foot circular one. All have drilled drainage holes. We spent about $1000 to buy all of these. 

 

Redesigning the Garden

Los trabajadores were bangin' away early on the new house next door, so it was a good day for us to get outside and start doing something about the yard. We planned to transplant the six redbud trees into the back bed but were going to wait until the first frost to killed our flowers. But no...we pulled them out and relocated them in the handy dumpster which lives at the end of our driveway. The white tubs which held the redbuds were hauled on a dolly to the back bed and we rolled and pulled until the trees came loose from their pots. Then they were placed in the empty-ish beds by the herculean effort of SuperDave. The soil from two troughs was used to fill the remaining areas of the bed. We had raised that back bed to two tiers of concrete blocks, and we still have 1/3 of the area to finish. The excess soil is going to cover the low spots of the yard and then we'll sod it. We have lots more soil and troughs to empty.

  The troughs were sitting on ten concrete blocks each, which we used to raise the back bed. To get the blocks we first had to empty the troughs of their soil. More to go...

The New House

This is the Barlow design. with lots of upgrades ($$) on the facade. Brickwork, iron railings and a window in the top, and sidelights and screen door on the front door. They also added the arches on top of the columns.

This is the plain Jane version with a single window on the right and no railings on the porch. We are still discussing what we want to do with the facade, but we are now discussing the color of the exterior. I vote for RED like this two storey below.

And I would like a picket fence like this: