bachelor buttons and wedding pinwheels.

Bachelor buttons in the late afternoon.

One and a half rows to go on the wedding pinwheel. (I will finish it today. I must, if I’m going to block it before I head home for the wedding!)

Tuesday = farm day. Thus, my kitchen overflows with flowers.

If I were to hang this photo on the wall, its caption would read: Pesto. Soon.

The boy and I picked about 12 pounds of sugar snap peas today…and ingested another pound or so, I’d imagine. After a string of hot, humid, sticky days, today was perfect. Breezy, partly sunny, and cool. An afternoon in the pea patch followed a morning spent with my friend T. picking strawberries on the second last day of the season.

A perfect day. These are destined to become jam.

I love summer.

And now, back to that pinwheel.

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pesto makes everything better.

I made a jar of homemade pesto on Tuesday morning, and yesterday, as soon as I had finished ripping out my ishbel and posting the sad photos here, I made a beeline for the stuff. Pesto makes everything better.

Boh and I took a nice, slow walk yesterday morning — extra slow, because this rooster pulled a hamstring in last weekend’s soccer match. Boh waited patiently while I photographed neighborhood flowers with my phone. Aren’t they lovely?

When I look at this photo I hear: “Now wait just a minute young lady…”

And this one! What a ham! Thank goodness for a decent camera phone.

And now, since this purports to be a knitting blog, I give you my citron. I’m in the middle of section 4, and I’m planning to add a few more sections to make a more substantial shawl. I spent a few hours on this last night while catching up on podcasts, and fell in love with it all over again. I intend to work only on this and the pinwheel for the next week, in hopes that I’ll finish both in time for the wedding. I’m counting on Boh to keep me on track.

lace FAIL.

This morning I sat down with my first cup of coffee and replied to all of your thoughtful comments and advice about lace knitting. And then I picked up ishbel, determined to finish the second chart. I knit another row, and then realized that it just didn’t look right. And so, I ripped. And when I got back to the stockinette portion, I realized I just did not have the patience to pick up 200+ stitches and get them all back on the needle facing the right way. So I just kept ripping.

These photos are from my phone — I didn’t have the energy to get up off the couch to get the camera in order to photograph my failure — but on the whole, I’m in good spirits. One less project on the needles for now, and I’ll be back. There is plenty of lace knitting in my future…but next time I’ll use a lifeline!

Time to get to work!

ishbel revisited.

Hey, remember when I was afraid of lace? Well, I’m working on that. This week I dug out my ishbel, and started the lace section. I may have had a slight freak-out when my count was off by one at the end of the first chart, but after lots of squinting at my shawl, I’m pretty sure I did something silly near the edging, because everything *seems* to be lined up in the body of the lace section. So I k2tog’ed the offending stitch, and moved onto chart B. Fingers crossed that everything will turn out…

Also, I picked a few more quarts of sugar snap peas, and turned some of them into these most delicious, incredibly simple pickled sugar snap peas again this year. Yum.

The pinwheel blanket has entered blob-land, and I’m well into the second skein. Hoping to keep cranking away on this so that it is done long before the wedding (on July 2).

Boh in a blanket. Or in more traditional dress, depending on your reading of this photograph. This look really seems to highlight Boh’s soulful eyes.

Alright, time to get to work!

sensing a theme.

“Boh wants to go shopping.” (Clearly. Because he’s wearing a hat, a scarf, a down vest, and has a canvas tote bag on his arm.) I don’t think Boh would tolerate this from me, but he really likes the boy. And so, as you can see here, yesterday he got ready to go shopping.

It is so hard to be a big dog.

Oh, right. Some knitting! After finishing yesterday’s book, I realized that I really should cast on the pinwheel blanket I am planning to give my cousin on the occasion of her wedding, which is in a few weeks. I’m using Cascade 220 and size 7 needles. (Note to self: dedicate some time to citron, too!) I watched the pilot of Arrested Development (how have I not seen this show?) and listened to a few podcasts, and miraculously the fiddly mess that is this pattern in its earliest stages began to look like a real pinwheel. It took three tries for me to get this started — I’m not sure joining 5 stitches in the round will ever get easier!

Boh and I have plans for a woodsy walk with his best friend (and one of mine) later in the day. Happy Friday!

fruit cup.

Fruit for breakfast, in all forms. Soon the strawberry rows will be open for u-picking at the farm I belong to, and I can’t wait.

The professor I TAed for this spring invited me to join his neighborhood coed over 30 soccer team, and yesterday was our first match. (Nope, I’m not quite 30, but apparently being a woman trumps being old enough, and my “extreme youth” is not a problem.) Let me just say that I didn’t FEEL any younger than anybody else on the field yesterday! Despite today’s aches, I had a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to my weekly summer soccer game — something I haven’t done since I was a little girl.

I’ve made progress on legwarmer numero dos, thanks to a laid-back un-birthday bbq for a knitterly friend on Saturday night, and a This American Life listening gathering, complete with beer and dessert, last night.

And now, some Boh to help with Monday morning. I did not do this to him, but once it was done, I couldn’t help but take a picture. Poor Boh. Life is so hard sometimes. Time for more coffee and a little bit of knitting before I start today’s reading.  Hope your week is off to a good start!

half-calf.

I crack myself up. And yes, my coffee is fully caffeinated this morning (and every morning). More pictures of legwarmer numero uno? Why, of course!

I have not yet mastered the art of photographing my own legs. Clearly. I bound off very loosely, and I’m thinking that when I block these, I’ll tug a bit to get the ribbing a tad more snug. Otherwise, I’m thrilled with the length, the shaping, and the stripes! I’ll post my cast on/increase numbers when I finish numero dos.

After a very productive lunch date (and delicious sushi), a grad-student friend and I wandered over to a little antique shop downtown. Not only did I score a sweet, ruffly, polyester shirt in this adorable red print, but I also found these pins, which I intend to use to secure the many shawls I am going to knit this summer and beyond. Aren’t they gorgeous?

Also, this excursion solved a lingering dilemma. Remember my shalom button problem? (You know, four button-holes, three buttons, only two of which match each other?) Check out these glittery big red buttons. I’m planning to sew these onto shalom this afternoon, and send those orange buttons back to the jar. Hooray!

Happy Friday, folks! Hope your weekend is filled with sunshine and knitting.

Oh, and popcorn, popped on the stove. Definitely popcorn.

smarter?

Boh: Umm, do these make me look smarter?

Rooster: Most definitely.

I’m almost to the cuff of legwarmer numero uno, and if I can keep up this knitting pace, I should be able to wear these to yoga next week. (The class I like to go to on campus starts up again for the summer session on Monday, and the room is always cold. These will be perfect.)

from scratch.

Time to stop petting my handspun and start knitting with it! Boh and I spent our lazy, rainy Sunday morning listening to podcasts and winding yarn into cakes. Well, and then taking pretty pictures of them. I have plans to cast on projects in all of these yarns…this week, even!

Following Adrian of Hello Yarn’s recipe, I cast on a legwarmer out of my Hello Yarn patchwork merino 2-ply handspun. This stuff is super soft and squishy, and I am obsessed with the way it is striping. (It has doubled in length since I snapped this photo.) I cast on 48 stitches to start, and will post my notes once I finish the pair.

Here’s another shot of those stripes, against a less busy (Boh) backdrop.

Making yarn cakes is exhausting, clearly. Alright, time for some coffee and morning knitting. I can’t wait to get back to my legwarmers — and then, back to work. Happy Monday!