We have made it to Friday, friends. It's been a long week. One reason I so rarely take time off from work is that it ends up being incredibly busy both before and after as my coworkers anticipate my absence by loading me up with work, and that's been the case this week. I just need to make it through today and then I get to relax for the next nine days.
I wish I had something more exciting to share, but I'm still chugging along on the sweater. The collar and button bands aren't that much knitting in the grand scheme of things, but the rows are very long and a bit slower to knit because there's the weight of the entire body of the sweater on the needles that has to be manipulated. On the plus side, I am almost done with the short rows shaping the shawl collar (they get shorter as I go, too), so pretty soon I'll just be working back and forth again and will only need to may more attention to what I'm doing when it comes time to do the buttonholes. On my to-do list this weekend is to dig through my button collection to find something suitable.
I'm not knitting quite every spare minute because I'm still spinning for Tour de Fleece. Yesterday was a challenge day, and the challenge for me was just to find time to spin (see the aforementioned piling-on of work). Luckily I had a Zoom meeting for work in the afternoon, one where I had to sign on and listen but didn't have to participate, so it was a perfect time to get in a little time at my wheel. I'm roughly halfway done with the third bobbin of singles, so my hope is that I can finish it up today or tomorrow and then ply before the Tour wraps up on Sunday.
In another instance of same old, same old, I have some disappointing new from the garden. I moved the tomatoes and peppers to the front yard this year because it gets a ton of sun, and they were doing really well (provided we remembered to water them!). The increased sunshine helped with growth, but I'm still dealing with the same old problem of critters getting at my plants. First, some bunnies (I'm assuming) ate Every Single Leaf off my pepper plants; they've started putting out new leaves, but I doubt they'll grow back in time to produce any peppers. Then yesterday I went to harvest my first tomato, only to discover this:
I found another one that had been gnawed on later in the day. I guess next year I need to put some screens or cages around the plants to keep little mouths off of them!
The weekend is shaping up to be very hot and muggy with a good chance of thunderstorms, so I plan to stay inside the air conditioning with my knitting for much of it. I'll likely be back on Sunday with a Tour de Fleece wrap-up and then Monday it will be time for our monthly One Little Word check-in. Have a great weekend and stay cool!
It's SO heartbreaking when our gardens are decimated by critters. We had a woodchuck a couple of years ago that took a bit out of EVERY tomato on the vine. I would have gladly given him one or two but nope, he had to take a bit out of each one so we had none. Good luck with your button hunting, I'm looking forward to seeing the finished sweater.
ReplyDeleteSquirrels, chipmunks, and mice are the bane of my garden existence. They chew everything (beans, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini) and the only reason they aren't chewing the peas is that we pulled them out. I think your brother's sweater is exciting and it's looking good!
ReplyDeleteWe have two neighbors who feed the squirrels peanuts... one would think that with an abundance of food elsewhere, they'd leave the tomatoes alone. Nope. They still do some nibbling. Grrr.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have good luck in finding some buttons for that sweater! :)
It is an ongoing struggle in the garden . . . to deal with unwanted creatures. That's a lot of the reason I moved away from growing veggies. But I still struggle with bunnies and deer feasting on my foliage! The deer are eating my rosebushes, thorns and all. Ugh. Anyway, your sweater is coming along beautifully, Sarah. It's going to be so nice to be OFF WORK for 9 days!!!
ReplyDeleteI am still gobsmacked every time you post a picture of the gray cabled sweater. If I decided to knit that it would be in time out more than in time in.
ReplyDeleteOh those darn critters. I sprinkle cayenne pepper around young plants and it helps but doesn't completely eliminate the problem. Once tomatoes are sort of orange, I usually pick them and let them finish ripening in front of the basement sliding glass door. It can be pretty sunny in that spot. You are so close on the sweater.
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