My Birthday

It's my birthday, one of those significant numbers so I think it's about time I blogged again.

The garden has been blooming spectacularly...forsythia,azaleas, peonies now it's the roses turn. The first picture is a red bush rose, can't remember it's name. I cut it back in the early spring almost to the ground since it was overwhelming the plot that it is in. My reward is blossoms nearly covering the whole bush. The second one is the climber "Fourth of July" that was transplanted last year from the front of the house to the garden by the pool deck. It is a beautiful pure red and white variegated color, each blossom has a different variegation so it does almost look like fireworks on the fourth of July! It, too is loaded with blossoms. We put in a vegetable garden and a raspberry patch behind the garden shed and both are doing very well. I will be picking lettuce and spinach tomorrow for our dinner.

I am taking a class at "Have Ewe Any Wool?". It is the Lizard Ridge afghan using Plymouth Boku. Believe it or not it is a real challenge doing the short rows. I have to pay close attention to the stitch count as I go or lose it completely. I must say I have ripped this back more than I would for any other pattern. I have 9 of the 24 blocks completed and am enjoying it because of the constant color changes of the variegated yarn. I am easily amused.

I finished and wore today the Peach Cap sleeve cardigan. The heavy worsted cotton yarn that I used (old, old Bernat Gloucester, from the NeedleBasket, no less) was a trial to my hands. No give to the yarn and such a lot of cabling I couldn't wait to finish it. But after washing and blocking it is soft and very wearable.

I took stock of all my yarn and lined it up with projects and put them all in my Ravelry queue. I have 33 projects that have yarn and are waiting for me to get busy. Of course this does not include sock yarn, since that doesn't count toward stash.... (and I just ordered 1o more pairs of socks worth of yarn from KnitPicks since they were having a sale). I do have a plan in mind, I am lining up all the sock patterns, books and yarn, working from simple to the more complex patterns and planning on having a real sock learning experience this summer. I also finally got Cookie A's Sock Innovation and a lot of the sock yarn stash is going toward those amazing socks.

I think I will have the Lizard Ridge done in the next week. I have another cotton short sleeve cardi that I want to start soon and I also started on the Dinosaur afghan for Chiara. That will be a sit at home knit because it will be too unwieldy to transport. I should get going on the gray Classic Lines cardigan, but I am not inspired . I think it is because it is wool and will be a fall and winter sweater that is keeping me from getting to it. Yes, I think it will be cotton and socks for the summer.

We went to the Pancake House for breakfast and we are getting Chiavetta's chicken for dinner ( the library is having a fund raiser). I'm going to make myself a strawberry short cake for dessert. I got a new refrigerator since our old one is not keeping things frozen. Unexpected of course. But the fridge is about 15 years old or so...I don't think it owes us anything. The washer, however is another story. Fortunately we have a warranty that covers everything. That will be fixed on Monday...I have actually hand washed undies.