Try, Try Again and Monday Challenge II

The weather has been good for getting the yard and garden in shape, so we did some work this weekend and my plan is to finish all the planting and mulching this week.
Pretty roses are blooming all over my climber "Fourth of July". It looks like a fireworks display.







In the weekend entertainment department - we went to the last BPO concert of the year, a really rollicking Duke Ellington swing fest. Now to pick out our concerts for next season.

We actually watched a movie, as all the winter time series are over and the summertime series have yet to begin in quantities and our DVR was empty. "The Panic Room" with Jodie Foster was on HBO for free, which was what it was worth. Good for knitting, though, just enough action to keep you occupied and not enough that you have to put down the knitting. Kristen Stewart of the "Twilight" movies was the young daughter which I totally didn't get until the credits.

Sigh, the knitting. My green Elektra was going great, I got to the lace bottom and started to panic when I saw how fast the yarn was running out. When I checked the pattern, I realized I would probably not have enough yardage. How I missed the yardage requirements, I just don't know.

Went to my LYS but they didn't have another skein or anything else I might want to knit Elektra in. I wound up ordering some Socks That Rock lightweight in a gold. Never tried this yarn before Can't wait to try it out.


I looked for a different shawl in Ravelry and it was amazingly easy to find just the right one using specific criteria. I put in my yardage, weight, beads and found the Pacific shawl. It is easy enough to be complementary knitting to my Frost Flowers.




Challenge #2 - The Join.

I had the house to myself on Friday afternoon, so I cleaned off the dining room table and assembled my tools.


I wanted to lay the knitting out flat and make sure there were no twists. 992 stitches is a lot of stitches to keep flat. I have KnitPicks interchangeable needles and have several 60" cables with joins. So I made a cable needle that was 160 inches long, flattened out the knitting, taped it down, then knit the first repeat, took off the tape and removed the extra cables. Time will tell if I got it completely right or not. I have only knit through the first two rows of the pattern, so I guess my challenge for next week will be to finish the first 12 rows.