The Extremes

Good morning from the tropics, or so it's seemed lately! We seem to be following a pattern here where the temperatures vary wildly from week to week. In April, we had snow every other week. Now we seem to have moved to having the heat and needing wool sock one week and needing to blast the air conditioning the next. This weekend we had highs in the upper 80s, and we're supposed to have on-and-off rain and thunderstorms all this week. The good news is that as of yesterday, all the roofing work is complete! The roofers just need to come back to attach the gutter to the back of the garage and finish cleaning up their materials. And then as soon as the "Turdis" (our nickname for the port-o-potty in our driveway) is taken away, we'll be able to put the cars back in the garage and truly feel like the project is over.

In another moment of "how did this happen already?" this kid finished fifth grade yesterday:

We were worried right up until when she got to school that she wouldn't make it for the last day after she had a terrible allergy attack over the weekend and was still dealing with an annoying cough; as part of the COVID protocols, she has to pass a health screening every day, and a cough is one of the symptoms that would keep her home. But the school nurse said it was fine for her to be there because we knew it was an allergy-related cough, so she was able to see her all friends and teachers one last time.

A lot of knitters might view summer as a time to put away the big wool projects, but that's not me -- I am always freezing in the summer and welcome the chance to have my lap covered in wool! So I've been working quite happily on my Threipmuir and have made some good progress since you last saw it:

The body was finished on Sunday during my weekly Zoom call. I am now working on the first sleeve, still alternating skeins. Lest you worry that I don't have enough yarn to finish, let me reassure you that what you see attached isn't all the yarn that's left. I used up the first skein of blue shortly before starting the ribbing on the body, so before I started the first sleeve, I took what was left on the second skein and divided it in half. The third skein of blue looked a bit lighter than the other two, so I wanted to be sure to blend it with what was left of the second skein as much as possible. I'm not sure if what's left will get me all the way through each sleeve, but if not, I'll at least have alternated two skeins for most of the sleeves and, I hope, avoid pooling or an obvious line. I have Zoom sessions tonight and tomorrow and plan on knitting my way through both, and it would be amazing if I finished this sweater up this week. That might be a bit ambitious, but go big or go home, right? As long as I finish by the end of the month, I'll be happy.

I hope to see some of you tonight for the Read With Us discussion of Shuggie Bain, and I'll be back tomorrow with a big reading update!