Saturday, May 3, 2008

GiftYarn!!!! And Needles!!! And Rocks!!!

You know, I've heard of this, but never been the happy recipient of one - a knitter's care package. My friend and fellow knit-fiend Wren came into a stash of knitting needles, and sent me a bunch. Check this out!


I've never knit on anything larger than a 9 or so, so of course I have to jump right on getting some super bulky yarn and knitting something up on those 15s. Just to say I did it.

She also sent me this ...


... a hank of Mountain Colors Bearfoot, handpainted superwash wool! Yummmm! It's awesome ... I'm just going to keep it here on the kitchen table to admire and pet until I figure out what it wants to be.

Thanks, Wren! You rock!

In other knitting news ... I'm almost hesitant to post this, because every time I do, something goes wrong, but ...


...I started the Triangles Shawl over again. I've been very, very careful ... to the point of obsession. I check every row against the chart before I move on. Last night I hit the spot where every other attempt has gotten screwed up beyond fixing. This time I did a few things differently. I put in a couple extra markers to give myself good places to stop and go back and compare the stitches to the chart. Now that the stitch count is getting higher, I want to be able to do this in increments as I work across, rather than trying to go do the whole row at once - that's going to get too tedious and leave too much chance of making a mistake as it gets bigger.

The second thing I did was I finally did the lifeline. Putting it in wasn't hard at all. Knitting around it on that first row was kind of a pain. Since I picked the beginning of a section to put it in, and since the first row of that section happens to be one of the hardest rows in whole pattern (well, I should say, most intricate - lots going on), that didn't help. Perhaps when I decide to put the next one in, I'll move it to an easier row.

I'm determined to make this shawl. One way or another. And so far, so good ... last night I made it past the row that usually screws me up. So, we'll see.

When I was taking pictures of the new landscaping done last weekend, there was one I didn't get because, I believe, it had gotten late and dark. I make amends now. The other project that got done with the pallet o' rocks was this:


The Dread Reverend built this - isn't this awesome? There was a spot right off the porch that was low and everytime it rained it turned into a big mud puddle. We couldn't keep grass growing there. So he built this in the spot, and it's working great. We're actually hoping to enlarge it a little bit later on, when we can get another pallet of rocks. But we had a few rocks left over, and today he's going to build a matching one of these on the other side of the porch.

The yard's coming along really nicely this year. I'm pretty pleased with it all.

But for now, I'm off ... I have a crazy busy day ahead. I have to go into work for a few hours (ugh - I hate working on Saturdays, but I'm too far behind, and with the days I missed this week I have no choice now); go to the bank; stop at Border's (book I want, still have gift cards from Christmas); go to the grocery store; and if I have time and don't run out of energy, I'd like to stop at one of the local garden centers for some things. And this evening, while the Dread Reverend is at band practice, I'd like to get in some practice time myself. I'd like to get back to the studio for another session, but don't have anything ready yet. I've been slacking on this project. The timing's bad - it's much easier for me to work on 'indoor' projects in the winter, as long as the weather's nice I pretty much live outside on the porch.

Anyway, I'm off to the busy day.

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