Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Another Day, Another Month...

What have I been spending my time on, you may ask? Well, not this:
It's suffering from neglect. I just am not loving the way it's coming out.

Maybe I need to let it marinate a bit more.
Now., Lady Eleanor III is moving along. She'd move even faster if she wasn't so long and didn't provide such a nice WARM lap covering. When it's 90 degrees and 90% humidity, well...
The Grandcarrot's sweater is moving right along. I do believe that it is just about to the shoulder decreases. This is one of those patterns where I don't think the "payoff" in terms of texture is really worth all the effort of creating it, but we'll see when it's done. It is a cute design!

Then there's the Wee Boy's sweater. It's got a finished back, and I'm well up the fronts. Yay for small sizes!

The yarn is Sirdar Snuggly, a really nice-feeling synthetic. It's not that "crunchy" ack-rylic, and after seeing how the Sweet Pea sweaters have held up to being washed and worn and washed and worn again, I'm very pleased with the yarn.


Ah, but this is the Summer of Crochet Love GCA for the OOPs knitters. I had several ideas in mind--even bought some luscious alpaca in black, white, and two shades of grey to make a crochet blanket.

Yeah, so not going to happen! When I saw what my fellow OOPsers are doing--Ellen and Madge and Annette especially, with their bright colors and Koigu and Babette or Babette-wanna-bes? I got out my 10-pack of Noro Silk Garden and started granny-ing.
Well, Noro is full of surprises. Four of these blocks came from one ball of yarn--I can get 4 blocks and the start of a fifth out of a skein--and the new skein I'm working from has purple in it! (No purple in the first one.) I am not joining them as I go, because I am going to get another batch of SG in a brighter colorway and mix the squares up. Otherwise I'm afraid this would just be a giant yawn. Then again, it might not. Noro is full of surprises!
One week, our group went to Abuelita's in South Pasadena for a "field trip" and for our usual knit day.

Do you really think I could go to a new yarn store and come out empty-handed?

This is the new Rowan Studio book and I'm making t he little sweater on the cover. In Rowan's Summer Tweed. I'm really enjoying knitting with this yarn, and the pattern is quick and easy so I can work on it while I'm spending time with Li'l Missy. "Watching" isn't the word for what I'm doing, exactly, since she's at a very interactive stage and has been known to grab my ball of yarn, clutch it to her chest, and exclaim "Mine!" with an impish grin.

It's summertime so the quilts on the backs of the sofas have changed with the season. I thought June 30 was a good day to put away the winter trees.

Hence, watermelons.







And ice cream.
No, these are not new. They go back quite a ways, in fact, and were class samples way back when. But they are fun and summery.

You know what else is summery?

Ripe apricots. The tree is producing a small crop this year--it either needs a heavy pruning, or else it's at the end of its productive cycle.

Kind of like me??

Anyway, I'm going to try to do better and keep the blog updated. This is going to be a busy summer, what with the Vegas gang arriving on Friday for a long holiday weekend, then later in the month the Denver bugs will be spending some time at Camp Grandma. (I'm surprised they can tear themselves away from their pretty new house, but I'm glad they're going to come to visit!)
I'm also planning to go to Asilomar again at the end of the summer, so I've started "training." The pedometer is back in service, thanks to D4, and I'm back to keeping track of my steps. Pretty pathetic when I can barely make it to half of my daily goal--but then, that's what a goal is for, right??
Right??







3 comments:

Ellen Bloom said...

Wow, Marie! You have so many wonderful projects goin' on!

I just LOVE the granny squares in Silk Garden. I think your blanket is going to be spectacular!

Mel said...

I need to undo the bind-off of my SG scarf and add a few rows; do you want whatever is left when I'm done?

Sheepish Annie said...

You are allowed to take a month off if you are going to be so busy! Look at all those projects!! It would never have occured to me to use Silk Garden in an afghan, but now that I see it, I can't imagine it being anything else. Just lovely!