July 3, 2009
july, my eye . . .

a little redder today . . . brought to you by tomato cam.
something tells me we’ll be eating “green salad with tomato wedge” later on.
it’s been really dreary and cold here all week with lots of rain—it hardly feels like any july i ever remember. we’ve had to look really hard to find some bright spots, but there are a few

one of my favorite garden delights this year has been watching this pot of gold chard develop—i don’t have a great history growing multi-colored greens (well, or any greens, actually); they just never seemed to take in our plot before. the bright lights chard i tried to grow for two years didn’t even germinate. but this year both the red and the yellow chard have thrived and added some joyful color to the mix.
of course, the knitting always offers some color and this week we’ve had a particularly strong dose of it. pompa came off the needles the other day and i blocked it on wednesday

all pinned out along the floor, it looked just like a parade of flags. the pearl bison yarn washed up so beautifully and was a dream to thread and stretch to a nice size (11 by 48)

and it dried very quickly, even with so much dampness in the air. i love the particular red that this is—it’s clear and bright, but not too-too, you know?

we’re all set to release this pattern except for some nice modeling shots. hopefully, we’ll get that done over the weekend—david has been too busy the last couple of days doing something with rental equipment to take pictures

i’m getting a floor, i’m getting a floor!
seriously, i never thought i’d say that in quite that way . . .
yes, we are getting closer and closer to finished workroom space every day now. this floor and this wall coating are a thing of the past. there is all new wiring (i won’t even tell you the wiring situation we found inside the walls, shudder).
and best of all—a new cedar closet

big and deep enough to be the future home of the knitspot yarn stash and shawl collection. now my personal stash can have its little closet back to itself. can i show you more? i hate to flaunt it, but david even made upper cabinets over the closet for the bigger boxes of stuff i don’t need to trip over access as often.
they’ll hold a couple of stacks of those under-the-bed boxes easily. we had this kind of cabinet in our new jersey home and i loved them.
the plaster is all done; it just needs the final buffing and coating. after that, i think he just needs to trim and finish the floor and install the wall cabinets along the other side.
he’s been busy, alright.
last evening amanda came over to listen to some banging block the artichaut shawl sample she knit for chris’s sock summit booth.
we put the shawl on to soak and knit for an hour or so

i worked on nightingale and added another repeat to the length. she worked on her edging for the lerwick lace shawl (amanda loves really thin yarn and really complicated lace).
then we pulled the shawl out of the water and started threading.

see the artichokes?? amanda’s knitting is SO beautiful—the edges were nice and stretchy and easy to thread; it was a complete joy to do. it’s still nice to have two people on hand to block this one, though—it requires a really good stretching to reach it’s true, light-as-air potential.

and of course, it wants to dry right away, even as you’re threading it.
we got it blocked very quickly, however and gave it a good spray—by this morning it was ready to come off the wires (after a few photos).

sigh.
we had to chuckle though . . . amanda brought back the leftover yarn

and i think there’s enough here to make another shawl. keep in mind that i had one skein, which i knit my large shawl from. then i passed it to her and she knit a petite shawl. and we still have this much left over. who knows, we may turn it into something else; maybe a rectangle at some point?
after amanda left i sat down with my maze sweater to get reacquainted—it’s been way too long. too many secrets in between us . . .

i was sorta dreading this moment because i thought i’d be lost as to where i was int eh pattern, but no—i found my spot right away and managed to get all the way to the neck bindoff before it was time to join david for some relaxing movie-watching.

anyhow, after all the knitting i’ve been doing with little yarn, the progress i made in just an hour or so seemed astounding. i think i’ll be able to get lots done on this in the next couple of weeks, yay. and you know, fall feels like it’s just around the corner (oh right, that’s because summer is never going to come).

everything is blooming and producing on time (if not early) but man, the weather has not been warm at all. the hostas are a sea of blossoms right now and the bees are gorging so well on the nectar they can hardly stay afloat—they end up looking terribly drunk with it and this cracks me up no end.

you can see how dim and wet it is; but like i said, it doesn’t seem to be hurting anything either.
i know this post is getting long, but i haven’t even talked about the socks yet (or the eggplant). and truthfully, i was thinking that maybe i’d take the weekend off in order to get some knitting done. so i’ll give you all i’ve got today and then if i’m not back til monday, you’ll have plenty to look at.

how much do i love this sock?? i do—it’s so vintage-y, and so fun to knit. i can’t wait to have it ready for david to try on. it is really him. i dunno if nate likes it, but i definitely caught david eyeing it the other night.

my dark regatta sock is done, too. beckie is coming over on tuesday night and has agreed once again to do some sock modeling (she doesn’t know it yet, but i’d like her to model pompa as well. maybe i should warn her?). maybe we’ll even get david to join us.
tomorrow we’re going to a friend’s house for the fourth of july holiday and i need to think of something to make. i have LOTS of squash, so maybe something with that? hahaha. i’m hoping to bake a couple of quiches this weekend; we have all manner of greens and squash that would be yummy in them.
yeah, it feels like just yesterday that i put up all those greens in the freezer and now there are at least that many more out there to pick, yikes.

and the eggplant has doubled, at least, since the other day. i even found a nice japanese one that will soon be ready to pick for stir-frying.
it’s grown another inch since i took this picture. i can see already that a produce management plan might be a good idea for the coming weeks.
alright now, i’ve still got one more important thing to finish before today ends—my sock summit handouts. another thing i was dreading, because i thought i would never think of a cohesive to organize my thoughts about sock design.
in fact (and this is VERY unlike me), i’ve been having terrifying sock summit dreams. now, my dream life is very weird and fellini-eque almost all the time, but not usually scary (at least, not to me). but i woke up yelling the other night and that did it—time to get everything done and decorated so i can relax and move on—and knit for heaven’s sake.
but you know what? when i sat down yesterday and started writing, it all came together and i got the big picture of how it should be. now, i just have to create some worksheets get the whole thing proofed. so, time to get crackin’.
have a wonderful independence day and enjoy your weekend.

Filed under: food and garden, lace/shawls, projects
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