or is it an Eastern bluebird?

Will you look at that. I do believe that’s a male indigo bunting. The first I’ve seen at my feeders ever. It’s been quite a year for backyard bird watching between the finches and the grosbeak and the rest of the colorful birds of spring.

Of course it’s entirely possible this is a bluebird, which would totally screw up my “I is for…” entry; but I thought they preferred worms and after checking the bird books I don’t think the markings are right for a bluebird. If you all care to educate this poor fool, please do. The picture was taken through the glass patio door so I’ve enhanced it as much as my skill allows.

I’m as flighty as a hummer these days, too busy enjoying the spring weather and the pleasures of digging in the dirt to spend much time at the computer. This evening I sat out on the deck knitting until the light faded and the cooler temperatures drove me inside.

Now I can’t stop yawning. Since we’re going to have a house full of a succession of workers in the morning, all of whom require a supervisor and a checkbook, it’s best I toddle off to bed at an early hour. It’s a good night for sleeping with the windows open.

Don’t let the bedbugs bite.

Halfway.

This is the Labyrinth Lace Shawl (Ravelry link) by Evelyn Clark. It’s a garter stitch shawl, knit point to point, with two increases every other row until you reach the widest — the halfway — point in the shawl and then you decrease two stitches every other row.

I’m a little more than halfway finished and it feels like the second half is zooming along. It’s all in my head because the rows aren’t getting that much shorter that quickly, but it keeps me working on it. It’s not a difficult knit. Each right side row is different but the body of the shawl is an intuitive (k2tog, yo, k6), followed by (yo, ssk, k6), so there’s only a small border section on each right side row where you have to refer to the charts. Wrong side rows are straight garter so you can just zone out.

What freaks people out are the 16 pages of written instructions and the long charts. I’ve tucked the written instructions away and haven’t looked at them. Can’t imagine trying to knit this using words instead of charts, it must be tremendously slow. There are no repeats so every stitch has to be charted.

I copied the charts onto legal-sized paper and then cut and taped them together. I use highlighter tape to keep track of the correct row. Since there are fairly long stretches of knit stitches, I also count the plain stitches and write in the numbers on the pattern ahead of time. Then a quick glance tells me that after the (yo, sl1, k2tog, psso, yo) are 11 knit stitches and I don’t miss a beat. If I didn’t have to move the highlighter tape each row, this would really be a fast knit.

I’ve hardly had to rip back since the slanting lines of yarn overs is an immediate alert if the stitch count is off.

The only mehh factor is that I’m knitting this with fingering weight yarn. My favorite shawls (Mountain Pines, Hanami) are knit with lace weight or finer. There’s something about the combination of big needles (relatively speaking) and thin yarn that appeals to me. I like that lace weight knitting looks like holes and thread while it’s on the needles, but wet it and stretch it and it turns into a thing of intricate pattern and beauty.  It’s gossamer knitting.

Spring gardens with all their shades of green.

It’s a little early here to do much planting, the nights are still getting down into the 30′s. But I don’t think I can wait much longer; the itch needs to be scratched. I’ve been out in my little patch cleaning things up. I put a new trellis up for the Princess Diana clematis since the little wooden one I’ve been using can’t handle the load. Dug up the dead butterfly bush and strung up the big trellis for the sweet autumn clematis. The perennials are providing the early spring color in all its shades of green. Violets are just breaking into bloom. Hardy purple geraniums and sedum are in a race to see who can grow the fastest. Siberian irises, with their early June blossoms are like shooting-stars in the garden.

Meanwhile I’ve invested in a couple of new pots which will be sown with lettuce and swiss chard soon. I may plant a third with radishes or baby carrots just for the hell of it. And that, along with a tomato plant or two and some  herbs will be my vegetable garden for the year.

But my sisters have both fallen under the spell of square foot gardening. Geri in California plopped her’s right in the middle of the backyard and already has shoots. Gail in New York is waiting for warm weather to arrive. They are both hoping for bounteous harvests this year.

I’ve been fretting over getting behind on the ABC-along and then decided who needs guilt over the letters of the alphabet? Good grief.  And as bad as the blue toe nails are above, I decided to spare you the photo of my blistered feet from my training-to-walk-a-marathon-days a few years ago. But only because the photos were too blurry.

Sunday supper

Even though this is Easter, we don’t have big plans for dinner. There’s a turkey breast thawing in the fridge, I may cook it, I may not. We might have leftovers. I might grill a hamburger. A neighbor brought us trout that he caught last week. I could thaw those but I’d have to figure out what to do with them, I’ve never cooked trout. (Suggestions?)

Instead we had a blow out breakfast. It started with a blueberry coffee cake that I made first thing this morning. And then I made fruit salad, figuring with a little yogurt and granola we’d be all set. But Jack said he wanted scrambled eggs. Which led to bacon. And of course cheese in the eggs. So you see, we’ve eaten enough to get us through until dinner time and I’m not interested in more cooking today.

I hear somebody in the jelly beans upstairs. Must go protect my caramel eggs.

It grows slowly partly because it takes some time to pick out new colors while I’m knitting. I try not to repeat a yarn within the same row or two and I try to complete the edges with a mostly dark color.

This morning I devised a plan that I hope will help move it along a little faster. I divided all my available yarn by color family with the idea that I would choose enough yarn to do two rows at a time. Since my blanket is 12 blocks wide I need 24 different yarns to complete two rows. I only had nine piles of yarn so I pulled two and sometimes three colors from each pile and stuffed them in a plastic bag. By the time I was finished I had two full bags and a third missing just about six colors.

As I use a color, I’ll throw it back in the basket loose and once I’ve worked my way through the first bag, I’ll finish making up the third bag, so I always have enough colors picked out to work at least four rows.

That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it until something else comes along. It’s all about the flexibility around here.

Oh, and the other E is eleventy-million Ends to darn in. I’ll show you what I’m doing with all those ends later this week.

Sunday Supper

You should have been here for supper. I marinated prawns in olive oil, lemon juice, zest, pepper and Jerk seasoning for about 20 minutes. Then threw them on the grill before serving them on a bed of couscous cooked with onion, parsley and lemon peel. I had fresh grilled asparagus and Jack got a stodgy old salad. (I’m not sharing the first asparagus of the season with someone who only tolerates the taste.)  The whole meal was to die for. It flunked the eating locally idea, unless I can convince you the prawns came from the Missouri River and the lemons off a tree in my back yard? No? Oh well.

And for dessert there was chocolate sauerkraut cake. Yum. There will be a recipe coming for that later this week. Just in case you have a can of sauerkraut sitting in your pantry that you don’t know what to do with.

Finis

I don’t have a cute little boy to model my latest finished project so I had to use Baby Bobby Bear. (Bobby does have a left eye, it’s just hiding in the shadows. He’s trying to project an air of mystery.)

This was the sweater that’s been on the needles for five — that’s 5!!!! — years. To say it languished is an understatement.

A few posts ago I mentioned that I knit the back an inch shorter than the front and didn’t discover it until I was ready to sew the side seams. Rather than take the sweater apart to fix it, I cut the back and knit down. Instead of using the solid blue, I added a little fake Fair Isle patch and then at the bottom picked up the red and yellow to match the front. Worked a charm.

All the particulars are below, as much as I remember. I think I’d actually make this again, as long as I have another five years to do it in.

Pattern: Devan from Knitty, Spring 2004.

Yarn: Front: Fortissima Colori Socka Color, Color 9069
Back: Dalegarn Baby Ull, color 5545

Sorry I can’t tell you how much I used, that’s lost in the mists. I think I bought two balls of the Socka and I’ve got some left. I didn’t want more of the green that runs across the front so I did some cutting and patching of the colors in the Socka. The Dalegarn is much softer than the Socka (as you’d expect) and knits beautifully. I’d use it again in a heart beat.

Needles: I think Addis 2.75 mm. I’m so bad about taking notes on patterns.

Buttons: Little apples that I picked up at a yarn shop in St. Johnsbury, Vermont last year. Tres cute.

No modifications, except for doing my own thing about a pattern on the back. These yarns both seamed up easily.

And guess what? This counts as my first sweater for Knit 3, Wear 3! Hah. On to #2.

	allllmost there….
	closing in for the kill….
	What? I wasn’t doing anything….
	never mind….

C is also for Contest. If you haven’t entered my little giveaway, there’s still time to win a copy of the new magazine published in the UK, The Knitter. Entries close Sunday, February 22.

C is also for consternation. A mouse just ran over my foot. With a house full of cats how come I have a mouse?

Off to find some cheese….also a C. (And a trap.)

a Box made of Bubinga wood that Jack made for me for Christmas. The top is cherry (pretty sure) and is a shade lighter, which I think is attractive. It’s about 4″ x 4″ x 8″, just the right size to hold small knitting tools. Unfortunately, if I put it on the coffee table in front of me where I knit, it will soon get covered by books or knitting or one of the cats will nudge it on the floor. So I have it on display in a safe spot until I can reorganize the way I knit.  Or maybe I’ll just fill it with chocolates and really enjoy it.

I know he had a few problems with chip outs when he was making the box joints. But it turned out lovely after he stained it with a medium mahogany finish.

The knob on top is one I settled on after looking at several different ones at Lowe’s.

I just googled the wood and discovered I’ve been spelling and saying it all wrong. I thought it was “berbinga” and it’s really “bubinga” wood. Also known as African rosewood, it comes from Cameroon and is a natural medium reddish-brown wood with lighter veining, so they say. It’s botanical name is Guibourtia Demeusei.  And according to more than one web site it’s susceptible to the common furniture beetle. Hmmm, I wonder if we have any of those.

Next up in the woodworking shop: a two-person porch rocker. Just as soon as we make a trip to Des Moines to get the wood he wants. I have the spot all picked out for it.

Happy Bags neatly stuffed with needles

and the leftovers:

Big-ass needles that I never use

These have been put in a zippered plastic bag and stored on the closet shelf along with the other knitting stuff that I thought I couldn’t live without but rarely use.

Getting these organized revealed that I definitely don’t need more needles in sizes 3.25 mm and 4.0 mm (US size three and six). For most needle sizes I only had to allocate 2 sleeves, one for the shorts and the other for longs. For these two sizes, I ended up using 3 sleeves each and they’re pretty stuffed. The size I have the least of? Size 3.75 mm, US five. Go figure.

So it’s all good. And with “Aftermath” I came up with another “A” for the ABC-Along. Double credit.

Yes, we are easily amused these days. Oh and if anybody knows where I can buy another needle case from Happy Bags, etc., clue me in. I’ve searched and searched and they appear to be a thing of the past.

&&

I’ve corralled 2 friends and Jack to join me next Monday to do a shift at Harvesters helping to sort donated food as part of the national day of service. I’ve always been partial to community food networks because I can’t imagine anything worse than living in a society surrounded by food and not having any. So even though what I really want to do is donate time at one of the local shelters playing with the puppies and kittens, we’ll help to sort food. We’ll bring some non-perishables to donate as well.

If you have the day off next Monday, or have some free time this weekend, consider donating a few hours of your time to give back to your community. You can find all kinds of events at www.usaservice.org, searchable by zip code. It’ll feel good.

And now I have to go feed a certain cat who’s sitting on my lap and insisting on cleaning my hands while I’m typing. Each spot gets cleaned at least 10 times. Enough already

I decided to play along with the ABC-Along this year and see what I can come up a picture for a letter of the alphabet every two weeks.

My two needle bags have about reached capacity and I’ve been threatening for some time to pull all the needles out and reorganize the mess. The big needles (anything over a size that I don’t use very often are going to be put in closet storage and I’ll divide the rest by length and size so each pocket isn’t stuffed quite so full.  My goal is to be able to remove one needle from a pocket without the whole contents popping out too.

The pink looking needle in the front is really an Addi, it’s picking up reflected color from something else. Although pink needles would be cool….

ETA: I’m seeing a smiley face where there should be a “size eight” above. Anybody else?