More Progress

First of all, there has been knitting. Here's a picture of the new dragonfly socks. I went up to a 2.5mm size needle, which changed the stitch count, so I had to refigure how to fit the pattern into that. I am not sure I'm going to like how they look, but I do like how fast they are coming along. I have tried the sock on, it seems now to be a little loose. I'll hold judgement on the size for a little bit longer. Lord knows I do not want to rip these out again!
 
Progress on the garden:
 
It may not look like much to you, but I know how bad it looked before, and this is so much better. We still have a bunch of branches and bushes and so on from the back yard to turn into mulch. Once that is done, we can mulch the new flower beds and call it a day for the major landscaping. That will be a good day. 

Progress

Knitting progress was made today.
I now have a completed pair of brown Trekking socks. I wish it were cold enough to wear them. I will take a hike with them this weekend probably. Maybe somewhere near Greeley, or somewhere between here and there.

Meg's surprise is not put together. I plan on working on it tomorrow at lunch. I really think I can finish it by Friday or Saturday.

Lisa and I were talking mittens at group on Saturday, and I told her my all time favorite mitten pattern is the one from this book. I've made at least five pairs from this pattern and like them a lot. Here's a question for you all, what is your favorite mitten pattern?

On a non-knitting note: The garden did not get finished tonight. I got home from work around 8 pm, and I was going to go in the house, throw on some digging in the dirt type clothes and finish it up. I got sidetracked my Meg, whose wisdom teeth check-up revealed she had what they call "dry socket" in the two bottom extraction sites. So I had to run out and get her a smoothie for dinner. When I got back the boys, who were finishing up some other yard work convinced me to take them to Chipotle's for dinner. We got back after 9:30 pm, which is too late to garden. So, let's all keep our fingers crossed for tomorrow.

A bonus picture for you... This is what the sky looked like when I left work. I just love Rocky Mountain sunsets

Knitting, what knitting?

There was knitting yesterday, lots of knitting. I went to knit group in the morning. Lots of fun projects going on, lots of conversation, lots of new ideas all over the place. I worked on Meg's surprise, and nearly finished it.

I went to Knitters Kove, to scope out the new digs and get a couple of new yarns. As I went through my stash last week, I noticed a lot of blue/purple mixes. So what better than a stash busting wrap? A nice big dramatic fling of a wrap. I plan on knitting it lengthwise, changing yarns every other row and creating the fringe as I go along. I noticed I didn't have any smooth yarns to mix in so I had to pick some up at the store. Why, when trying to lose some stash into the finished object pile, does it always seem as if you need to purchase some more yarn to make the idea work? It's a rhetorical question, since I am assuming that nobody will ever know the answer.

Not much gardening got done. I did get most of the weeds pulled, which was good. Then I came in and got ready to go to a bonus knit meet in a cute little part of town called Old Colorado City. It has a bunch of nice little tourist-y shops, and a friendly vibe. It also has a yarn store in the midst of the main part of the area, and another one only a few blocks away.

We met at a little coffeeshop that was nice and comfortable. I picked a cushy leather couch, and finished the knitting on Meg's present. There was only one little problem with the nice cushy couch...I kept sinking farther and farther into it. Kirsten and Chery thought it looked like a bad horror flick, "The Couch That Ate Linda".

It was so comfortable I didn't even notice that I was sinking. Getting out of the couch took some doing and wasn't very graceful. Good thing I was with nice people who don't laugh (out loud at least) at a friend with a seating problem.

But there was no knitting today at my house. I got up late, and worked on the garden from noon until 6:30 or 7 pm, when it started to rain really hard. I have nearly all of it finished and with any luck at all will be able to wrap it up tomorrow. I am so sore and tired that even though the sock just needs the toe, I'm giving up and going to bed....If I can hobble down the hall.

Finally Friday

I am so very glad the weekend is here. It's back to group tomorrow, a very good kind of therapy, I must say. I will be bringing Megan's Christmas present to group to work on. She has been asking about it, and wants me to finish it before she goes to school on the 25th.

In case anyone was wondering, here is what my dragonfly socks look like....Use your imagination, I have to! I really want these done by my birthday. I have less than 30 days to do that. Good luck to me on that deadline. I am still trying to decide: larger needles, same amount of stitches as before; or same tiny needles with a larger amount of stitches that I know will work? Any opinions out there? I may be forced to - gasp- swatch.

Part of what we did this month is celebrate this lovely young lady's 19th birthday. Man, the time flies, and some of it is not fun. But the results are worth it. Shortly after her birthday celebration, Meg had her wisdom teeth pulled. She is not so happy right now. She thinks she looks a lot like a chipmunk. She feels so bad, she hasn't even plastered on -oh I mean applied with great taste and sublety- any makeup since the 15th.

This coming week we will be helping her pack her stuff for the trip back to Greeley, CO for school. She will be taking 15 hours of classes, working part time, and playing rugby. Rugby, for God's sake! The sport every mom wants her daughter to play. Read the last sentence with large amounts of sarcasm, please.

Here is a picture of sock number two in Trekking brown. They have such original names for their colors, like "number 78" and "number 101". The sock is about three rows shy of having it's toe put on. I love finishing projects! I don't know why I don't do it more often.This picture is taken in my travelling knitting studio. The studio is called "The Ford Bronco". I knit in my car at lunch nearly every day at work. It is so peaceful and quiet. And the view is good. We have had lots of cloudscapes these past weeks. The rain is doing wonders for the weeds in my yard, they are nice and green and tall. The landscaping project is not done, because I don't like digging in mud. I will have to this weekend since the plants are begging to be stuck into the ground. They want out of the pots in a major way.

I have posted also a picture of the three used to be almost but now totally finished projects from the last post. The links for the easy baby sweater are on the finished object page.

Another big deal this week is this...the very last "first day of school" picture for kids going to public school. I have taken these pictures by this same tree since Mike was in first grade. That is 15 years. I don't know why I didn't take one for his kindergarten first day, but I didn't. It might have to do with the fact that at the time he was 6, Meg was 4, Matt was 2, and I was tired. I will take pictures of kids going to college, but these other pictures are very precious to me. Matt, seen below, is now 17 and a senior at Palmer High School. This year will be the seventh year I have had at least one child there. I am ready to graduate.

Saturday Catch-Up

It's been a while, eh? How on earth did it get to be the middle of August already? We celebrated my daughter's birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary last week. Time goes so fast....

Here are a couple of pictures from our spin-in from a week ago. That's Kirsten on the left and Darci on the right. In the middle, more great Christy dyed yarn. It had already been partially picked over (I really mean that some people had already swooped in and snatched up the alpaca pink laceweight, sorry MJ) by the time this was taken. I don't know how Christy comes up with these great color combinations, I just hope she keeps doing it for a very long time. There were wheels all over the place, see Lisa's post for more pictures. I never remember to take enough. We had spinners and knitters and food and fiber. What better way to spend a Saturday?
Here is Kirsten trying her hand at spinning. She thinks she spun crap, we all know she spun yarn. And there is no such thing as crap yarn. All of it has a purpose, even if it's beyond our reckoning. But hers was really very nice, not anywhere near the crap my first yarn was.
Here's Christy spinning on a drop spindle some of the absolutely gorgeous silk she dyed. There were several attempts to have that awesome stuff jump into assorted bags to go home with people that weren't Christy. You can't see the color and the sheen, so stop saying you would never covet fiber so much as to hope she was looking the other way while the yarn mysteriously found it's way into your bag.....
On the home front, the first brown Trekking sock is done, and here's a picture of the progress on the second. Not too bad, I actually feel as if I can finish the pair this month and take a hike while wearing them.
I've also had my sons moving rocks around in our yard. I decided it was time the front yard had a little "curb appeal". We are thinking of downsizing our house, since the kids are getting to the point of not living here and only the dog enjoys the yard, but only if someone goes out to play with her. I bought a bunch of plants and did about a third of the work I needed to outside on Thursday. I was planning on finishing up today, but it rained and while I don't mind a little dirt, I decided to put off planting until tomorrow. Besides, I need to trim up some trees and Bob doesn't know it yet. He doesn't really like surprises like that very much.

Lisa got me to thinking about projects in progress and so I trolled around in my room (and the annex) and only found 4 projects on the needle. And one pair of frogged socks that I really want done by my birthday. I thought it was worse than that. So that's 2 pair socks, one shawl, one mobius, and Megan's last Christmas present, which is still a surprise for her so I can't say what it is, but it is red. I also took pictures and posted some finished projects.

There are three almost finished objects that I am committed to finishing today. For goodness sakes they only need ends woven in and buttons stitched on, I can probably handle it. I checked the annex and found only some yummy blue stuff, chocolate teasdale, and some llama/silk roving to spin. So that's under control.

The not quite so under control issue is, no big surprise here....stash. I have concrete plans for:
finishing a pumpkin colored lace vest from 1981 (no, it won't fit)
4 baby sweaters and/or blankets
4 scarves of various sizes and shapes
1 shrug
4 additional pairs of socks
1 felted bag
3 more shawls
1 heirloom baby blanket
13 helmet liners
1 sweater (no yarn purchased for this yet)
1 pair pink fuzzy slippers (because Meg asked nice)

This is only yarn that has been earmarked. There is much that is for other, undetermined projects. I'm not saying how much, you can't make me. I really only have yarn for three helmet liners, but 13 is the goal. Please note, no dates for completion are listed, except for the first 2 pairs of socks. I thought about it, but got a headache. I will pin down some priorities later, since the list is maybe a little long.

Here's a priority...friendship. There was a lot of drama this week, but it boils down to you can't fix what you don't know is broken, sometimes when you say your piece, it ain't very peaceful, and fixing broken friendships is a top priority for me. My son's take on the drama summed up in one word...."Chicks."