Finished

I finished the wedding shawl on Monday and washed and blocked it yesterday. It is still drying, although I think it is mostly dry. I'll unpin it later. It really turned out well.

Here it is soaking ( why is it losing so much color).

Draining.

Pinned.

77.7%

This plot in the back garden turned out to be a lovely surprise this year. The grandkids call it the island of flowers since it is an oval plot in the middle of the yard. I had it filled with perennials and over the last two years have moved all of the flowers to different beds as we added them around the new structures in the back yard. The plan was to have this bed empty and dug up, waiting for the fall so that we could plant all lilies in it. To keep it from getting overrun with weeds and to make it look nice for the summer, I put in Giant sunflowers (see how heavy the heads are with seeds?), cosmos and zinnia seeds. It turned out so well that we are rethinking the plan. It has been continuously colorful, so we think we will do the same thing next year. We will change the location of the lily garden to the perennial beds bordering the path to the back yard. Gardening always gives you surprises, sort of like knitting!

Got through through 201 rows of the shawl. That's 77.7% done. I am on the last chart. Should be able to get it completed if not by tomorrow, (which was my very optimistic goal) at least through the weekend.

Having wonderful fall weather. Sunny, warm lovely days with just that hint of coolness that signals fall. The leaves are turning rapidly so we should have some beautiful color when we go to Letchworth in 2 weeks. Can't wait. I'm already planning the books and knitting I intent to pack. A couple of socks (plain vanilla and the famous Cookie A's Monkey socks) and either the blue zip front cabled sweater or the Central Park Hoodie depending on what I get knit after the shawl is completed.

Progress

Was going to write about the wedding shawl progress last night but decided bed was more important. At the 164th row, that's a little less than 50% but not by much. A lot of running around to do today including birthday presents for my big 11 year old guy and an attempt to find my dress for the wedding so knitting may not be a priority today. The weekend should be quiet and a good time to get into the more complicated lace patterns.

Turns out that the 2 hours free in the morning doesn't get much more accomplished. Who would have thought!

Now What Do I Do?

For 41 years, more or less, I have not had mornings to myself. Not consistently, as part of my regular routine. Oh, there have been the occasional days went I would get an unexpected gift of peace and quiet but for the most part I was wrangling three girls and husband, working where I wrangled customers, students, reports, and now my retirement years where I wrangle husband and grandchildren.
But now the husband is doing his part time work thing over tax season (school and property tax) and the "baby" is going to pre-school. I pick her up at 11:00, so that means my house is absolutely quiet. I can hear the fridge running and the clocks ticking! I get a gift of two hours. Wow! What am I going to do with them, that is the question.

The first day of school prompted these conversations:

To grandson #1: What was the best thing about your first day in middle school?
His reply: "Technology. Two words, Nana. Circular saws! "

Pre-schooler when Mom woke her up for the second day of school: "Again?"

I finished the green vanilla socks for DD#2. I was going to use the Knit Picks Essential Multi in Fruit Punch for my next "vanilla socks" But I think there will be too much "pooling". I'll pick a different pattern for this yarn.
I'm halfway into the fourth repeat on the wedding shawl, so far so good.

It's a Process

Yes, this is lace that has been ripped back. Yes, this is hours of my life I will never get back with nothing to show for it. Yes, this is the third time I have ripped back. The THIRD time. Due to my own fault. This is not a difficult pattern. Knit, yarn over, knit 2 together, yarn over, ssk, knit some more. Easy. Yet I have reknit this three times and made dumb ass mistakes over and over. Deep breath.

I took Friday and Saturday and knit through the third repeat. I keep looking it over for the same stupidity, but it looks pretty good, so far. Only two more repeats until I get to the edging, where it gets more challenging.

I have knit for over 50 years. I think I am fairly good at it. I have knit all kinds of things, look for new challenges, enjoy the process, have custom knit many items for customers and have persevered with a smile on my face. But I was really ready to cry when I knew I had to rip for the third time.

I'm over it now.

Here are some pictures of giant bubbles. Homemade bubble soap, and kitchen gadgets for some great fun.

Lace!!!

Had to post something today at 9:00 on 9/9/09.

I am making the Icarus shawl for DD#2 for her wedding on October 17th.

I love this shawl and had it in my Ravelry queue

I hate knitting deadlines

The color is beautiful.

I am never going to get it finished

Really very easy pattern so far.

Boring , boring repeats

I started this on Sept 7 and have one and a half repeats done

That is only 15.6% of the total

I will be knitting on this exclusively and putting in all my love and good wishes

I can't work on all the other beautiful things I have lined up

I'm going to post my progress on Wednesdays. Will try to have it at the 50% mark next week.

Season's Change

It's September. How did that happen? Wednesday was the last day we would have the kids this summer. Asked them what they wanted to do and they said "Bake Cookies" so we did. Made chocolate chip and had a really nice day. The pool is very cool, but Nathan went in one more time on Tuesday. The nights are so cool that even though it's a nice upper 70's during the day, the water doesn't get very warm.
On Wednesday Jordyn had pre-school orientation. She starts school on Tuesday.

I took my walk on Thursday and the kids on the block were out waiting for the bus. They started on the 3rd, before Labor Day! Kenmore starts next Tuesday after Labor Day. Hard to believe the summer's over, probably because were missed one whole month with the miserable July we had.




Because of that rainy month we lost all our tomatoes to late blight. It is really sad to see this huge crop of tomatoes rot on the vine. We are taking out all the plants and tomatoes (which actually smell really bad also) and bagging them up to go in the garbage. Our other crops came in like gang busters and we have tons of peppers, eggplant, and the ubiquitous zucchini so the new vegetable garden wasn't a total bust.



I made Dante's sweater and am working on a hat to go with it. Should ship this out today or tomorrow. His 1st birthday is Sunday. How fast it goes by. My September birthdays and Jordyn in October sort of took me by surprise. I'll have to plan better next year. This is a cluster of three, while the others are spread out more.

DD#2 wants a shawl for her wedding in October, so I ordered some yarn for the Icarus Shawl Also ordered yarn for the fingerless gloves for Nathan and the yarn for hats for the kids for Christmas. Then I placed another order for a Fair Isle Mystery knitalong on Knit Picks so I had to throw in a couple of skeins of sock yarn to get the free shipping! (I know, I know, it's a sickness).


Sock Journal:
On hold while I finish birthday gifts. Want to get the green socks done this weekend.

Reality Check:
Finished putting the Lizard Ridge Afghan together. Finished up the Gold Columbines that just needed some ends tucked in.