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Virtual Yardsale – Updated 2/11

Welcome to My Virtual Yard Sale.  I’m spring cleaning, so I’m looking for good homes for art supplies, children’s clothing, and other household items.  It makes me sad to see things going unused on the shelves.

Kiln for Precious Metal Clay and other PMC Items — contact me at joyce at elliebelly dot com if you are interested in any of these items.  I would prefer to sell it all together

Lot of Boys 4T/5T clothing for $20 plus shipping

image from www.elliebelly.com
size 4 navy blue “place” long khaki style pants
5 gap kids khaki shorts with great pockets
4/5 red bravaa soccer shorts
4/5 grey crew cuts cotton jersey shorts – only work twice
100 hanna anderson blue jersey shorts
unknown brand green plaid shorts
4 gymboree plaid shorts
4 polo jeans company tee in nice worn in boy shape
4-5 crew cuts navy tee
5 T circo yellow/gray striped tee
4/5 crewcuts lobster tee — very very cute
5T cherokee white/argyle vest-cute for easter with 1 very small minor stain at the neckline that should come out but you have to look pretty hard to see it. Including light blue shorts that look cute with them but do have a nickel sized stain 4″ down from the waist — again i think this will come out

 

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Sunday Randomness

A little bit of random for a Sunday…..

Having spent the morning pulling out the scraggly remains of our 12 year old rosemary border, which runs along our driveway, and then replanting it with incredibly small, new plants, I stopped to enjoy the roses, which are in full bloom.

 
Bloom

I'm getting ready to knit my wonderful friend Carina's Faraway-So-Close shawl pattern in yarn hand dyed by Morwenna of Mosaic Moon.  I feel so lucky to have four skeins of this sought after yarn, and am hopeful I have enough to knit a hat to wear as well.

 
Mosaic moon selah

The reason I'm eyeing a new project is that Emmaline is close to being done.  Fourteen more rows to be exact.  I'm a little bit nervous about how the neck rolls at the top — I see one other Raveler who had to do a fix with a line of crochet around the edge, so I'm contemplating that I may have that same issue.

 
Emmalinebelow

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And Now……A Sleeve

I really like Emmaline.  It's quick, it's fun, the pattern is well written — what more could a girl ask for?

 Emmaline progress

It's also good airplane knitting — easy to transport, or at least until this point, when a little bit of careful management is required to keep all the stitches on various needles.

 Emmaline sleeve

But, a couple of quick go-rounds on the double points, and a cute little cap sleeve with a purl bind-off ridge emerges. 

 Emmaline ready to sleeve 

Definitely one of the pleasures of the Summer of 2010!  I'm thinking about converting the pattern to a smaller size and knitting it as a knee length dress for Miss Princess.

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Today at Target

Today was not a day for knitting or art at all.  I've been waiting for today for a long time — ever since I learned that Target was going to team up with my all time favorite fabric maker, Liberty of London, to produce an eclectic and low priced line of clothing and home decor.  Liberty has been my favorite fabric since I was 11 and my grandfather took me into their shop on a trip to London.  I still have the little silk fabric photo frame he got me — with a picture of him tucked inside.

Willing to take a chance, I drummed a few small children out of bed at an indecently early hour and went off to Target. I bribed them with the promise of sushi and Starbucks, a time-honored if disgusting breakfast tradition in our household, so fun was in store even if the shopping was not as exciting as anticipated.  It was, however, quite exciting.  Miss Ellie ended up with a new summer wardrobe and I found bathing suits that were surprising flattering on the middle-aged-mama-body.

My favorite was probably these clever baskets, that I purchased a number of for stacking cosmetics, brushes, hair-dryers, and so on for the bathroom.

 Libertybaskets

And, the menswear ties were pretty amazing.  I'm tempted to pair one with a knitted vest and wear it myself.

 Libertyties

I also grabbed a couple of big sofa pillows and an umbrella, along with some Melamine serving plates to keep in the kitchen at work.  Lots of Liberty goodness out there!

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Back to the Barn Raising Quilt

My Barn Raising Quilt (oh the folly of knitting a blanket on size 2 needles) has been languishing for some time now.  This is due to a series of sad circumstances involving a mean stewardess, some missing stitch markers, and a charming, but wool loving, mutt.

I'm back to it, though, knitting two squares at once.

 Multi Varigated blue purple square

This quilt is probably the best use ever for leftover sock yarn.  And it's a fun knit — pretty good Olympic knitting, which is what got me started again.

The quilt is made up of 42 knitted squares, which means I will probably finish that at some point in the year 2018 at the rate I've been going.  It's meant for Ellie, so as long as I pick it up and finish before she goes off to college, I should be ok.  Fortunately, I have lots of sock leftovers and plenty of plane flights ahead of me — this is the perfect airplane project — so stay tuned for more progress.

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Amazingly, We Have Snow!

Snow.  In Alabama.  We haven't had this much snow in over a decade.

 Snowberies 

Admittedly, it's only an inch or so, but for us, it's everything.

 Bamboo

 Snowkids2

Here are three special things about snow:

1. There is an increased appreciation for knitting

 Snowellie

2. You notice things you've never seen before, like this beautiful tile on our neighbor's gate

 Snowtile

3. Finally, at long last, some serious erosion for my erosion bundles!

 Erosionsnow 

 Erosionsnow2

Even more amazingly, the snow hasn't yet melted so we are off to enjoy another day of snow balls, fires, and, the incredible snow cow.

 Snowcow

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Erosion Bundles — Not Much “Progress”

My erosion bundles (see here for details) have been outside for just over two weeks now.  Snow didn't materialize here, but it has been cold and yesterday's rain deposited leaves and some dirt on my bundles.

I don't notice much if any change yet.  It occurs to me that I may end up with — ewwwww — a bunch of mold.  For those of you who are following, here are pictures of the three bundles: Art, Phoenix, and Canvas, as they looked this morning.

 Artjan15 

 Phoenix 

 Canvasjan15