They start with snacks, wine and beer. They progress to salads, more snacks, vegetables and things from the grill (steaks, burgers) with more wine and beer. At 2200 the sun has finally dropped below the horizon and the group is more jovial with passing time and years.

the dudes relaxing - note the grey hair.....

Since he started this tradition (Maus and I think this celebration dates from the summer after we bought this house which would put it around 2002). It is a good way to celebrate. For whatever lucky reason, the weather is nicer and warmer this evening than it was this afternoon when rain with cold and grey threatened to spoil a good time.

We had an alternate plan and the living room was set up for either the initial party or whenever they chose to move inside.

Sewing

the basic skirt

Paired with the top she is planning on wearing – the skirt is done except for

all the ties on the inside so

now all the it needs

is the hemming!

Knitting

and the MTV Group which means every couple of weeks on Thursday morning has a couple of members knitting these -

a few mini mittens

Rather than hang out there today, I stayed in the apartment with great wifi access, a basket or two full of handwork projects and a camera loaded with the rest of the Mallorca pictures. Of course, that is about all there is here. The guys rented this place at least three, and I think really four years ago. Kitchen area which has the normal cupboards, a few dishes, fridge, microwave and coffee pot. The common area has a rectangular table with four chairs serving as both eating and work space. Additionally there is this squared edge orange couch of the IKEA variety and a small table with flat screen TV. In keeping with the low cost method of living – it is about an 18″ diagonal augmented with two old PC speakers.

Otherwise there are two bedrooms, each with a bed and a lamp. There is nothing on the walls. There are wires dangling from the ceiling because they would have to buy light fixtures if they wanted overhead lights. The closets are bare. The bathroom sports a small cabinet – each of them having a shelf.

My plan for the day is progressing nicely. I have managed finally to get the pictures for 2-3 July posted, have done the finish work on three scarves,

two cowls, one scarf

and the hand sewing on two jackets

jacket

purple shrug and flowered dress, mint green skirt

with another scarf in progress

another Volan

and the waistband of a Maus skirt to go, but I am going to take a break since we are headed out to dinner tonight!

someone is tired

The theory of my making some particular clothes for the Maus is that she puts in some time and assistance. To a large extent, this has happened. When she vanished partway through the day, I went to find her. All this clipping, pinning, snipping and ironing apparently has taken more out of her than planned.

Knitting

Just to show of totally and complete pictures of the City Sweater ….

the City Sweater

looking at 1/2 the sweater back

Books and Audio Books

I have been doing well in various Bookcrossing Virtual Book Boxes having been able to send off several books to people who are interested and picking up a few more that I would like to read. That takes care of the Dead Tree side of things. Unfortunately, Audible has another sale, so my “to be heard” queue is actually longer than my TBR pile is high. Go figure.

Norway - June 2010

There is also Sewing

high yoked skirt

and Knitting

Chess - Hanne Falkenberg

and finally puzzles

Foxy

Owls - Phil Lewis

I like being retired!

Of course, that means that i decided to play with this

visited 51 states (22.6%)
Create your own visited map of The World or try another Douwe Osinga project

and this

visited 46 states (92%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project

Looks like I need to move Asia and the Pacific up the list….

This house predates Napoleon. It is always cold. Once again this morning it was 5° warmer outside than in. Given the usual options, you should not be surprised that we opened up windows and doors in an attempt to raise the indoor temperature. Somehow, turning on the boiler when it is 16°c outside just doesn’t meet my common sense test.

Knitting

I have those undone projects. But then there is Ms Copper who left all her heavy sweaters at home in Germany. Her sister could mail a couple, but they wouldn’t arrive before I head out on our cruise or the kids head back to Germany end of next week for vacation.

Besides, it is not like I don’t have wool around the place. Kochoran (Noro), four 100gm hanks of purple/pink that were waiting for a project. Decided to go with Design 1 from Designer Mini Knits  (here – for those of you on Ravelry).

back and fronts

It didn’t take long to knit both back and fronts. Well, it didn’t take long to knit the back. I had to frog the first front back to the arm decrease because I had sort of forgotten to do the neck decreases at the same time. Does this mean I was smarter when I did the second front? Well…… sort of. I got to the arm shaping. No shaping to do because I had failed to do the increases… and then there was the issue of not wanting two right fronts. On the last time through, there were no problems. I bound the shoulders together and have started down the first sleeve (something about wanting the front color to carry into the sleeve cap).

The Monster Bag

No, she did not use a pattern. Ms Copper decided on her bag dimensions, added in the seam allowances and went on from there. She put together the lining first to get warmed up.

Next she used iron on interfacing and wonderunder to put together all the appliqué pieces like these clouds

bag flap

or the Monster

Bag in progress

before stitching everything down. I hadn’t ever used the embroidery attachment for this machine (deployments, moving, commuting, spinning and knitting had gotten in the way). We figured it out together.

The largest discussion was over what she wanted for handles and how to place them.

Then it was just fastening in the lining,

Bag Inside

a button hole, and the googly-eye button to finish it up (click to embiggen).

The Monster Bag

I, for one, am pretty impressed.

Podiobooks

Started Mark of a Druid by Rhonda R. Carpenter.  Like with many of my downloads from Podiobooks, I pull the first couple of episodes then decide from there.