swatch mania

since i’m down to two current knitting projects—my cashsilk scarf and my rene cardigan—i’ve been devoting a somewhat disproportionate amount of time to swatching, so that i’ll have plenty of knitting projects to tide me over during my upcoming travels.

not that there’s a lack of unfinished knitting to do—i have a couple of those laying about as well—but i am designing full-swing now for our upcoming fall in full color club. and to make myself feel like i’m actually in control of my life, i sorta want to get all of those pieces finished—next week if possible, haha.

well, that’s what my inner OCD freak wants, anyway.
the outer me is walking in a lavender and patchouli scented circle of calm.

right.

samples of all the yarns are now in the house (woo-hoo!) and yarn shipments are beginning to arrive (we’re getting another big box today, yay!). as david readies the house and our supply closet for packing and shipping, i’m filling my little notebook with swatches and calculations.

it’s actually even a little more bulging that it appears in this photo; the shoestring helps keep it tamed, heh. anyway, three of the club projects are in progress already and one pattern has even made it through proofing. the excitement is building.

and have you been over to the FiFC clubhouse?? holy cow, they’ve got the shingles shakin’ over there. many thanks to kat and kim for heading up the funnest club ever—they are really keeping the waiting period interesting. they’ve had so may great activities during the ramp up that i’m a little worried the actual club shipments are going to be a mere distraction from the REAL fun, haha.

just kidding, i’m pretty sure everyone’s going to like those too.
(circle of calm, circle of calm)

ok, now besides that stuff, i have made big progress on my scarf, but let’s face it, another photo would not really tell you anything new. ditto for my sweater front, which i’m embarrassed to say i have not yet finished (i know—tonight, maybe).

and despite the fact that i did not finish that front, i still allowed myself to swatch more on the sprössling sibling. oh yes, it’s a slippery slope; this time i’m justifying myself to bring you blog fodder—pathetic, right?

i’ve got one, maybe two more swatches i want to do and then i’ll wash them all and see which ones survive that step nicely. you never EVER know until they’ve been washed, especially with this type of yarn.

i’ve been thinking about the name . . . sprössling is the german word for sprout or shoot (a baby plant) and i kinda want something in the same vein. so i’ve been poking around in my german dictionaries and in google translate (dangerous, i know, haha) and i’ve come up with a possibility: schössling which means offshoot and even sounds similar, which i like.

now, i’m not married to this yet and admittedly, i don’t speak german, so i’m not even sure it’s appropriate, but our german/swedish/norwegian/dutch speaking friends are welcome to throw in suggestions any time—i’d like something that goes with sprössling phonetically and has a meaning in the same general vein if possible.

ok, that’s really all the knitting i have today, but i do have flowers

tons of them, in fact. along with the wealth of rain we’ve had comes a veritable sea of floral abundance

the honeysuckle bloomed this week and will probably continue to have flowers throughout the summer. this year our 5- or 6-year-old vine seems to have matured a lot and is covered with flowers.

i got these begonias for the pots we have near our doorways and i’m really happy i did. the blooms are full and so pretty in yellow and they coordinate nicely with our day lilies across the yard (not that i actually organized that look; it’s more of a happy accident)

the lilies are very thick this year with flowers; later today i’ll do some dead heading on them to encourage a longer blooming period

i love this line of them along the back of the garage—the flowers really pop against all that green.

along the path from the garage to the house, i planted my summer squash and surrounded them with a heavy planting of marigolds in the hopes of driving away squash bugs.

we’ve yet to see if that will work, but even if it doesn’t, i’m VERY happy with the merry making of these flowers in that spot—just look how they’ve filled out. even if we lose the squash plants in the end, we’ll have lots of great color. and again, coordinated with the lilies, which was totally unplanned.

closer to the house, the new magnolia tree we planted in the fall is in bloom

the flowers are small and only last a day or so, but the fragrance is beautiful. in a couple of years, when the tree has filled out, we’ll be rewarded with more of the same. we have a lot of space to fill in near the fences and we decided on a few new trees the other day—a forest pansy redbud, a daphne shrub, and some oak leaf hydrangeas for under the porch windows. we’re also getting a chinese fringe tree to plant in front of the office window, which is desperately in need of some shade.

and when i get back from my trip, i’ll start dividing some of our giant hostas to transplant into the beds over there.

our hydrangeas have more flowers than i’ve ever seen on them—all shades of pink and blue.

of all our bed plantings, these and the hostas are probably my favorite.

and right now they are at their peak. we haven’t had any nasty storms to tear them down or damage the petals. and it’s been so wet that they look very fresh every day. if i wanted to save them for winter, this would be the time to cut them for drying.

my very favorite moment for these flowers though, is when they are at this stage—almost completely open, but still showing those beautiful green undertones. wow.

oh look—the first-ever flowers on my variegated shrub have begun to open (this shrub is six or seven years old). this has been an agonizingly slow process—the one thing i can’t wait to see and it’s taking forever, naturally. looks like this is a lace cap variety (i had no idea til now). i wish i knew which one—haha, we might have to name a sweater after it!

wow, it’s so pretty—i didn’t know what to expect, but i love it. and if our climbing hydrangea is any indication, this shrub will make more and bigger flowers every year from now on.

ok, speaking of the garden, i owe mine big time and have a day of catching up planned, so i better get cracking. not that i don’t love you, but i can’t wait to get away from this desk and out into the sunshine.

something tells me that the next post will be all vegetables . . .