Lisa Kay Knits... and Quilts!

I've always liked the word, "Autumnal." It evokes a feeling of crisp, cool air, images of beautiful, turning leaves, and, of course, the comfort of cozy sweaters. I'd been thinking the word and not saying it, but broke down and used it the other night at dinner. Chris said, "I was waiting for that." He knows me too well! I've been enjoying the trees. It is hard to capture a general feel of a neighborhood in one tree, but here's one I like. Doesn't it make you think of crisp air? Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay

Hi, I really like seeing things grow, especially flowering things... even more so if I planted them. There's just something rewarding about perenials, paying off their bounty year after year. These daylilies went into the beds around my front porch in 2001. I blogged about them a couple of years ago, here and here . The yellow ones came in large flats of little pots from Wal-Mart in the spring. The orange ones were mark-downs at Lowes in the fall, when they were clearing things out, and they were one of the last plantings I did that first summer. Perhaps it is time to "divide" them, after this tenth summer, but they don't seem to be suffering... By the way, in reference to the previous links, above, the swallows have come back each year. They are nesting there, now, and I can see the adult swallows taking food to the babies. They are still small enough that they hide in the nest when I come around. I tried to get a picture, yesterday, but they hunkered down. I...

Hi, I posted " Favorite Things - Flowering Trees ," while my crabapple trees were just budding out. Here they are, in full bloom. These are the "Prairie Fire" variety, a gorgeous deep pink bloom. I saw some of them at the Missouri Botanical Gardens , and I looked for that variety, in particular. My mom and I planted five of these around the perimeter of the yard, in 2001. They were little saplings at that time. Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay

Hi, With the Spring weather we've been having, the flowering trees are really putting on a show. Here is one on the street behind Troy Foods, where I happened to be picking up some chicken for dinner. I drove around the block to take a picture of this magnolia. There is another variety of magnolia on my way home, over by the fire station in town. You can see the ambulance that is usually parked beside it. The Dierberg's in Shiloh has a row of pink trees. I'm not sure what they are, but perhaps crab apples. The purple leafed plum in my own yard is about at its peak, too, and had a lot of bees pollinating it. The crab apples in my yard aren't flowering yet. They are full of buds, though. Did you know that trees that flower before they grow leaves in the Spring are called, "precocious?" Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay

...and wool in the mail. I don't know why, but I've always loved getting the mail. Even when I was a kid, when the mail was usually for my folks, I'd run to the mailbox to see if I had a letter from a pen pal. In college, I checked the mail religiously, even though it was usually empty, hoping for a letter from home or a shipping slip saying there was a care package being held for me at the front desk. Now, even though the mail is full of bills and ads that don't exactly twist my crank, I hurry to the mail box to see what's in store. My mailbox these days is a a brick affair that is even more crooked than it was the summer I constructed it, having been plowed over by a neighbor and re-erected using a backhoe. Still, it is a little project from my own two hands, and usually full of promise... Promise of knitting magazines or a yarn catalog. I used a sturdy aluminum mailbox instead of a cheap tin version. (I could never understand building a fancy brick mail...

Hi, Having a child has made me appreciate simple things. Mitchell likes soap and lotion. When I travel, I like to bring him something back, and I have found that one of the most appreciated tokens is the free soap or lotion that the hotel provides. Last week, I attended a conference in the LA area. The conference booked rooms at the Four Seasons, WestLake Village, for a reduced rate (lower than most local hotels' regular rates). I felt a certain guilty pleasure at staying there, but it was less expensive... I've never stayed at a Four Seasons, before, and I lapped up the luxury. I don't suppose that's what they mean when they say, "The lap of luxury." Did you notice that the logo looks like the "Tree of Life" Fair Isle knitting pattern? Does everyone see knitting patterns everywhere, or is it just me? I secreted away the soaps every day, and they always gave me more, so I got three day's worth of really fancy French soap. The bath soap ...

Hi, The garden fairy in my front yard always makes me smile. I have many yard ornaments, most of which are frogs, but the fairy always makes me take a second glance and feel a weird sense of rightness. I'm not sure why. It doesn't have a particular story behind it. I saw her on a "gardening supplies mission" at Wal -Mart, and just grabbed her on a whim. It was during the period where my mom and I were doing a lot of landscaping on the house, in the first 2-3 years of the Millennium . (That sounds funny, doesn't it?) Anyway, I normally just purchase frog things for the garden, but this fairy struck me in some way, and I recall just grabbing her without even really stopping my momentum as I walked by. I think my mom even made a comment along the line of, "That isn't a frog." She sits in the front garden on the northwest side of the house, stuck around the corner of the garage such that she only gets sun in the late afternoon. She faces the sun at ...