Art in Bloom

The last of winter melted away yesterday with a visit to the MIA.  My friend, Lynne, and I spent the rainy day at the museum taking in the Titian exhibit before it goes away and it was also cool to watch the floral artists set up for the Art in Bloom exhibit all over the museum.  Florists chose works of art as inspiration and arranged flowers to display along side the art.  Lovely colors, textures, and smells!

A nod to Alenander Calder

This is the painting to the left of...

Hortense! 

Renoir is to her right.

This one was so beautiful and captured the light and color of the painting.

Ahhh, Monet...

This was a clever and very Americana interpretation
of Grant Wood's work.

Chagall needed no flowers!

Lynne's friend did this arrangement beside the monkey.

The art teacher at CRHS made her vase and arrangement.

This was one of my favorites--simple and elegant.

The Quant is finished!

I finally got photos of the dreaded headband.  I like the Great Adirondack yarn much better than the Noro for the project.  I used the pattern modification to make both ends the same.  The left sleeve of the Aranmor is almost finished and I started the cuff of the right sleeve.  Light at the end of the tunnel--at last!  The weather is still dreary today, which is fine--I do not have class until later.  I hope the rain stays away during the baseball game, as Jim and some colleagues from work took the train into the city to see the Twins play.

I like the pattern modification to make the ends match

A sleeve and a cuff

I have a lot of catching up to do.  I lost a few days with being miserable.  Bronchitis = ugh!  We received some "medicine" in the mail the other day from Bernd and Angelika--Ritter Sports and Milka chocolate bars, a chocolate bunny, and Milka eggs with little purple spoons for scooping out the cream centers of the eggs!  That will make me feel better really quickly!  Danke!

Spring--at last!

It finally really feels like spring today. Sunny and breezy, just the right temp (even though we're a tad below normal), and my hanging baskets seem to be doing okay. Unlike Kathy I'm not the gardener--I can paint flowers, I lack the talent for growing them!
My attempts at Ravelry are improving. I've listed one of my stash yarns. Lordy, I have many more to go!
I'm back to finishing the back of the vest. I have to re-think the little cotton cardigan. I love the yarn--not the pooling color, even though it's very pale. I'll probably use it for the Vogue pattern and leave it at that. Thanks for the head's up on the corrections, Kathy!!
I still need a great project to take to Germany--maybe socks (did I really say that?), or a neck down something or other. I know I'll not be on the lookout for yarn, two years ago was disappointing compared to the years we lived there. They have great buttons, which I will be sure to bring back bunches!
The shop just got the little DPNs in and I have to go check them out!!

Seeing red in the immediate future

While I wait for the skein of green (the gals at the shop ordered one for me), it looks as though I'll pick up the red cardigan for a while. I've been reading over the pattern again to wrap my brain around the construction and the mistake in the center back cable. I know it's two stitches off. This book has no charts, just written instructions, which I don't really like. Interesting sweaters, but don't pay full price for the book. I purchased a used copy years ago.
The collar on the Lopi cardigan is bound off and looks nice--I don't think I'll frog that. However, I may rework the cuffs by putting the stitches on double-points and doing a snip-snip with scissors. We'll see...
I have lots of flowers around, and I'll keep a few Easter-y things up until the weekend. There's a little cake left. It's really good. The recipe was from an old Betty Crocker cookbook I no longer have. It was called the Bonnie Butter Cake with French Silk Frosting (three layers of yellow cake frosted with chocolate!). It's got 2/3 cup butter in the cake and 2/3 cup butter in the chocolate frosting. It's Jim and Ben's favorite and Jim's always called it the Debbie Butter Cake.