Mid-July Weekending

Did I say I was going to have a relaxing weekend? If so, I must've jinxed it. That's not to say that I didn't get time to myself, but when your Saturday starts with an alarm going off at 5:45 (a certain spouse of mine turned on his weekday alarm without thinking) followed by a thunderstorm, it's probably an indication that things are going to be more exciting than you bargained for.

When I took Ruthie out for her morning walk, I noticed that it smelled like a campfire outside -- different from the smoke from the wildfires, which smelled more plastic-y. When we got to the business district of our neighborhood, I discovered the source:

It's hard to make out what's in the photos, but the black and red storefront you see just to the right of center is a ramen restaurant that caught fire Saturday morning. By the time we walked by, the fire was out, but there were still five fire trucks, at least two police cars (to block traffic), and a truck from the Salvation Army there as well as two news cameras, which you might be able to make out in the photo (one in front of the person wearing the blue shirt and one to the left of that, by the rear wheel of that black SUV). No one was hurt, thank goodness, but the building is now condemned. And it was much more excitement than we're used to on a Saturday morning -- I think Ruthie was a bit overwhelmed by the noise and the lights.

We had thunderstorms and heavy rain on and off all that day, including when I took Ruthie out at midday, and we both got completely drenched even though I'd checked the radar before we left and it was clear! The rain was very welcome, though, and it helped to cool down the temperatures and clear out some of the smoke. And yesterday was beautiful and so much more comfortable.

Some highlights from the weekend include going out to dinner on Friday night, where we were seated right next to my parents (no, we didn't plan it!); picking some more zucchinis that seemed to grow overnight as well as some more ripe tomatoes; making zucchini bread with some of those zucchinis; and sleeping in on Sunday (I made sure to tell the Mister to double-check that his alarm wasn't on when we went to bed). 

This is what happens when a zucchini grows up against the side of your fencing.

I also got to measure and photograph that skein of handspun:

I ended up with about 296 yards of two-ply that's roughly sport weight, though it varies a bit like any good handspun does. Because of the high silk content, it has incredible drape and sheen. I'm very happy with it. I might even knit something with it, and soon!

The weekend ended with dinner with my side of the family for my brother's birthday, for which I made an ice cream grasshopper pie:

It wasn't going to win any beauty contests, but it sure tasted good -- especially because I made the crust with Thin Mints!

The Mister is at a charity golf event today, and I'll be meeting him for the dinner portion. Then he's away on a work trip for a few days, so it'll be just us girls at home -- and I'm going to use his absence to do some stash organization because I can spread things out on his side of the bedroom. I'll be sure to share an update on that later in the week.

Have a good start to your week, and see you back here on Wednesday!

Garden Update

We pause our usually scheduled programming of knitting and reading for this update on the state of my garden.

I got a late start this year because we kept having cold snaps and late frosts, so the garden isn't as full as it has been at this time of the year in previous summers. But things are growing! First, let's take a peek at the raised beds:

On the far left is a bell pepper plant and the rest of the green things are zucchini. The pepper came from the plant sale, but the zucchini were grown from seed directly in the planter.

The other planter holds the tomatoes -- full size on the left and cherry on the right. I've had huge success with tomatoes here for several years because the front of the house gets full sun for at least half the day. These plants went from having a few flowers a couple of days ago to having a bunch of small green fruits on them yesterday, so clearly things are going well again.

For a number of years I've planted impatiens in the beds just above the lawn in front, but this year Molly convinced me to give "chaos gardening" a try. The idea behind this method is that you mix up whatever seeds you have, throw them into the ground, and see what grows. We had about a dozen packets of seeds, some mixed, some type specific, so we mixed them up and scattered them across the beds about a week ago. Now we've got a bunch of little green leaves coming up. Let's hope that the bunnies don't eat them before they turn into flowers!

Here you see some sunflowers (the janky mesh around them is to keep the bunnies from eating all the leaves, as they did last year). These were actually volunteers -- I had a sunflower in a pot last year, and I just left it there to dry out at the end of the summer. Some of the seeds from the dried-out head found their way into the dirt and sprouted, and when they were large enough that I thought they'd survive, I transplanted them to this space along the driveway where we had a damaged shrub removed.

Finally, the herb pot:

I bought the (purple) basil and rosemary from the plant sale, and the tiny green basil plant was a gift from my next-door neighbor.

Still to come: I'm hoping to start some squash (butternut and spaghetti) seeds to plant in the strip between the driveway and the fence. We used to have rose bushes there, but all but one of them died over the past few years and we have a lot of empty space. Eventually we'll plant something else there, but for now that spot is great for growing vining plants because the vines can be draped over the fence.

I know my garden isn't very impressive compared to what some of you have, but it's a work in progress! Over the years, we've removed a number of plants that were here when we moved in and that I didn't like, and as they've been replaced, I'm getting a better idea of what I want the spaces to look like going forward. Please keep your fingers crossed that I have some flowers to share the next time I have a garden update!

It's Friday?

Good morning, friends. I have a confession to make: Since Ruthie joined the family, mornings have gotten a lot more hectic, so I've been writing my blog posts ahead of time. Maybe some of you thought I was awake enough to put together a post before 6 a.m., but the reality is that even though I'm usually awake before then, I'm rarely alert enough to form coherent sentences until I've had at least one cup of coffee. So writing the day or evening before and setting the post to publish the next morning has been working well -- at least when I remember what day it is and when I need to write a post. Yesterday I completely forgot. And this morning when I came downstairs to let Ruthie out of her crate and take her outside, I discovered her donut was extremely deflated, which required taking it off, re-inflating it, and then getting it back on in addition to getting her harness and leash on. You can imagine how much she enjoyed all that (not). All of this is to say that my usual posting plain failed me and I'm flying a bit by the seat of my pants.

It's been a bit of a weird week, not especially busy but just enough that I've felt like I'm running behind schedule. Nevertheless, I did manage to finish a sock:

The toe wrapped up at an ideal point in the stripe sequence to enable me to make the second sock match without having to wind too much yarn off, and that felt like a win. We're still having summer-like weather here, but cooler temperatures are surely coming, and I'll be happy to have fun new wool socks to wear when they do.

Another win this week? After not seeing one for a while, I found a praying mantis in the garden:

They are such weird-looking creatures, so finding one is a bit like finding an alien in the yard.

The weekend ahead looks relatively quiet, though there's Rosh Hashanah prep to do (the holiday begins on Monday at sunset). I've got a second batch of challah to bake, and because we're hosting the big dinner on Monday evening, we've got a lot of cleaning and setup to do. Ruthie would like to remind you that it's important to get your rest, so whatever you have planned, remember that naps are always a good idea.

Recovery Days

It was another quiet weekend here, which I think we all needed. The Mister has been feeling better, though he still has a lingering cough. I've had what I'm pretty sure was a sinus infection that's been getting better day by day but has been giving me a sinus headache pretty much every day for the past week. And Molly is still adjusting to being back at school and worked a five-hour shift on Saturday. Needless to say, we all were in need of rest. We did manage to get ourselves cleaned up and out to dinner on Saturday night, but other than a couple of walks and taking Ruthie out, I spent the weekend relaxing.

Saturday was pretty gloomy after some rain early in the day, but yesterday was a gorgeous fall day -- the sun was out, there was a light breeze, and because the high was only in the upper 60s, it was cool enough to wear wool socks. I decided to give my most recently finished pair their inaugural wearing:

I cast on some new projects over the weekend, but before I could do that, I wanted to finish up a lingering WIP that had some issues. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this scary-looking photo:

This is the hat I was knitting using the two 50 g skeins of Loopy Ewe yarn I picked up from the giveaway table at SSK. I did weigh them before I started and saw that one was slightly heavier than the other, but I figured I'd just use a little less of that yarn. It wasn't until I switched from the pink to the blue, however, that I realized that the blue was noticeably thicker than the pink, and that meant that it didn't go as far. So when I finished the blue half, it was shorter than the pink. To make the hat work, I needed to take some fabric out of the pink half, which I thought I'd do by running needles through two points, removing the fabric between them, and then grafting the stitches back together. In reality, my eyesight is now apparently bad enough that I didn't follow a round of stitches the whole way, so when I tried to pull the excess yarn out, I ended up having to undo it stitch by stitch to get to one continuous round. At that point, it was easier to just reconnect the yarn from the part I'd pulled off and knit up the crown again. It took much longer than it should have, but it's done now. Next time, I'll remember to count rounds or at least measure so that the length is the same!

This is going into the charity pile, unless someone I know expresses interest. And it's two skeins used up!

The two new projects are also using SSK yarn -- I'm determined to use it all as soon as possible so it doesn't linger in the stash. First, a pair of socks using superwash Targhee/nylon fingering from Woolens & Nosh. The colorway is called Penwings, and I don't know the meaning or inspiration, but it sure is pretty! I also didn't expect it to stripe this way, so that was a fun surprise.

I also cast on a new shawl using a semisolid from the giveaway table and one of the skeins of Lorna's Laces that was a doorprize. The pattern is Tessella (Ravelry link), and it's a lot more straightforward than it looks. What you're seeing here is actually a second version; I had started it with the colors switched and realized it was messing with my brain to have the darker color associated with the light squares in the chart and vice versa, so I ripped it out and started again. There's not as much contrast between my two colors as the samples in the pattern, so it may be that the patterning doesn't show up as well as it could, but who can argue with using free yarn? And I can always make another one.

I'll leave you for the day with a little bit of eye candy: After nurturing it all summer, my one sunflower finally bloomed late last week, and this weekend, the bees found it.

Tomorrow Ruthie is getting spayed. I'm sure she'll be fine, but if you can send a good thought or two her way (and then a good thought or two my way as I take care of her after), I'd appreciate her!

Is That ... Fall?

TGIF! After rain earlier in the week followed by humidity, we finally have had some cooler weather and a hint of fall in the air. I don't think we're done with the heat altogether, but look at the forecast for next week!

Still little rain (those scattered showers on Sunday may be out of the forecast by then or miss us entirely), but look at those highs! I think I'll even need an extra layer in the morning, and friends, I am ready for it!

Our tomato plants have not gotten the memo that summer is soon coming to an end, however, and I keep discovering surprise tomatoes (because the big plant has taken over so much that they're hiding behind other plants). Here's the current harvest still to be eaten:

We sliced up a big one to have on turkey burgers on Wednesday night, and I've had some in salads, but there are still plenty to be eaten!

This weekend is the last one before Molly goes back to school, so we actually have some plans. The three of us are going out to dinner tonight at one of our favorite local places to kick off the school year. She just got asked to work another shift on Saturday and then is going to a friend's sleepover party on Saturday night, so the Mister and I are going out for a date night. And then Sunday he leaves for his annual work trip to Las Vegas that means he misses the first day of school (though fortunately at this age, Molly doesn't mind so much). Of course there will be the usual walks (alone and with Ruthie) and naps and such. But perhaps the next couple of days will be less sweaty.

Have a good one, friends, and see you back here on Monday!

August Weekending

Happy Monday, friends! I hope you had a good weekend. Ours was hot but good. As they have done for the past couple of years, some of our Chicago cousins stopped by to stay with us overnight on their way home from vacation in North Carolina. It had been more than a year since we last saw them (when we went to Chicago for another cousin's bat mitzvah), so they hadn't before met my niece or Ruthie. It was all a bit chaotic Friday night and Saturday morning, but it was a good time. And my cousin's two daughters are growing up very quickly. The two of them had a sleepover in Molly's room -- the oldest is only 12 but already pretty much as tall as Molly!

We had everyone -- the cousins, my parents, and my brother and his family -- over to our house for breakfast on Saturday morning before the cousins left for the final leg of the trip home. Leo even came over to play with Ruthie!

It's still amazing to me how similar they look -- that same white stripe down the middle and a pink spot by their nose.

I mentioned that it's been hot; after a week where the humidity dropped significantly and temperatures were more bearable, our highs are climbing again this week, but the big thing is that we haven't had measurable rain since July. There were a few sprinkles on Friday morning, but that's done nothing for how dry everything is. I've been trying to water the plants, but the grass is pretty crispy. The tomatoes don't seem to be bothered by the heat, though -- look at what I picked on Friday!

That tiny zucchini was only picked because the plant it was attached to was dying, and I ended up tossing it in the compost anyway because there was a bug burrowing into it. The tomatoes look great, though. I can't get over how the one plant has grown. I've managed to harvest about four cherry tomatoes, but that plant has been dwarfed by the full-size plant. I've got some fresh mozzarella in the fridge for caprese salads for these.

I'm hoping for an uneventful week ahead. I finished up a big work project Friday afternoon, so I'm hoping things will be calm in that arena. Molly has three work shifts this week, and the Mister has a brief work trip, so Ruthie and I will be on our own for much of the week. I hope to have a real knitting update on Wednesday (and for sure I'll have a reading update). In the meantime, please enjoy this short video of Ruthie enjoying her first taste of watermelon!

Playing Chicken

Happy Friday, friends. I am always happy to get to the end of a work week, but I'm especially glad this week, as it's been a long and hard one. I didn't mention it earlier in the week, but we found out that my cousin's son (who Mo, my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and my nephew had all been with last weekend) tested positive for COVID after they got home, so in addition to dealing with work and the heat, I've been dealing with anxiety about that. Fortunately no one has had any symptoms, so it looks like (fingers crossed!) we've dodged the bullet. But that anxiety, plus my general issues with sleep, have meant some short nights this week, so I'm very much looking forward to getting a little extra time in bed this weekend.

Fortunately the lack of sleep has not impacted my ability to focus on a knitting pattern, even one that's not as well written as it could be. Behold -- a chicken ready for its head:

I expect I'll be able to finish this fine fowl up this weekend, over which I plan to watch a fair amount of Olympics coverage. Working from the pattern for a second time, and with the intention to knit it again, I think I will likely spend some time rewriting it for my own use so that it's a bit clearer. I've been able to figure it out, but I also think I could improve on it and make knitting a chicken a bit less of an effort.

One bright spot this past week is that we've gotten some much-needed rain! We're still at a deficit, but the garden has been very happy. I've got a handful of spaghetti squashes growing bigger by the day along the fence, and when I went to pick the ripe cherry tomatoes and check on the other plants yesterday, I got quite a surprise in the zucchini patch:

This zucchini was not there just two days earlier, or, at least, it was small enough that I didn't notice it. I imagine I might have even more surprises today!

On tap for today is a run (hello, lower humidity!), baking challah, working on yet another annual report for work, and squishing my nephew for the first time in nearly a month at dinner tonight. I wish you a relaxing final weekend of July!

A Quiet Weekend

I groaned a bit this morning when my alarm went off and I realized it was Monday again, but I can't complain at all about the weekend because it was quiet and restful. Mo is old enough now that we don't have to make sure someone is home with her all the time, but all the same it was a bit strange not having her here. We did go out for a nice dinner on Friday night, but other than that, it was a very relaxed couple of days -- especially because I was able to get most of my typical weekend chores done on Friday.

A good portion of my weekend was spent working on my Rift tee, which, I'm happy to report, is officially done (but still needs to be blocked before I take official FO photos).

I can report that the fit is exactly as I wanted it, with a bit of positive ease and full length rather than cropped. I'll have a full report on it once it's washed and blocked.

Yesterday was the last day of Tour de Fleece, and though it was a much less productive Tour for me compared to years past, I'm happy with what I spun. I've finished the first bobbin of singles for my body skein:

I also spent part of the weekend tending to the garden, where I discovered we have some baby squashes!

I'd been checking the plants regularly, but as they did last year, the vines got sneaky and were growing over the fence on our neighbors' side, so I hadn't spotted the squash babies growing. This one is a spaghetti squash, but we have a few small butternut squashes growing as well. It's nice to see something other than tomatoes, which have been my main harvest thus far:

What is on the counter is what I picked yesterday -- our first zucchini, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and some basil. The tomatoes in the bowl were picked over the last week, and I used all of them, plus the basil, in the pasta I made for dinner last night.

Today is business as usual, and I'm hoping work isn't too crazy. Have a good start to your week!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I'm so glad that it's finally Friday; even with the day off in the middle, it's been a long, busy, HOT week. The heat wave hasn't let up just yet, but yesterday afternoon, after we'd had several days with clouds and thunder but no rain, we finally got a quick storm and a much-needed downpour. The garden has really needed the water, and I was thankful I didn't have to go out and water in the heat, especially because yesterday was the hottest day yet in this stretch. As long as I was thinking about it, I thought I'd share a little update on the garden. If you recall, here's how the big side of the front yard looked right after I'd planted my Mother's Day purchases:

And here's how it looks now (you can tell that we're running a rain deficit from the color of the grass):

The tomato, eggplant, and zucchini plants have absolutely exploded in the planter, and the hydrangeas, salvia, and lavender are doing well. I've been dutifully watering the impatiens and polka dot plants along the border, but I'm also fighting a battle with the bunnies who like to eat the flowers, so they aren't looking as robust as I'd hope. The other side of the yarn isn't looking as good, but we do have a couple of "snacking peppers" growing! In the back, I've got one sunflower in a pot that I'm about ready to transplant up front (last year the bunnies ate all of them, so I thought I'd wait until I had one that was bigger), and though the hostas have mostly been eaten, the pachysandra is looking pretty good. Unfortunately we've had some vermin in the composter again, so I am taking a break from throwing our kitchen scraps in there. I might just take a pause, spread out what compost we have, and put down some mesh underneath it to keep the critters from digging up under it.

Though the weather has been entirely inappropriate for knitting, I have been getting some in every evening (thank goodness for air conditioning!). I finished up the Bousta Beanie and found I had enough yarn leftover for another, which I started last night (and it took two attempts because black yarn + aging eyes = the wrong number of stitches the first time).

The heat is supposed to continue through this weekend, so outside activities will be at a minimum. On Sunday evening we're headed to our synagogue's big fundraising event that's held every two years, and it feels a bit like the culminating event of my board service. I don't have anything to do other than attend, however, and it's one less meal I'll have to worry about for the week.

I hope your weekend is enjoyable, relaxing, and as physically comfortable as possible. Stay cool and stay hydrated, friends!

Let Summer Begin

Did you know that meteorological summer begins June 1? So while the calendar might still say it's spring for a few weeks yet, I'm officially in summer mode. Part of the reason for that is that Mo is officially on summer break. Apologies if you've already seen this on Instagram, but I couldn't resist sharing it again here:

Her school does a really nice end-of-year ceremony for each school level -- Lower School (pre-K-4th), Middle School (5th-8th), and Upper School (9th-12th) -- in addition to the commencement ceremony for the graduating students, and the highest class in each level are the special honorees. Mo finished 4th grade in spring 2020, so their virtual event was a bit of a let-down. That made this ceremony all the more special. All the members of her class wore dresses (the rest of the Middle School students had to wear their uniforms), and they were recognized by the faculty with personal anecdotes and a rather hilarious song about them to the tune of "Gaston" from Beauty and the Beast. Some special awards also were handed out, and we were all so proud that Mo received the Scholar Award for achieving a 3.8 or higher GPA (students at her school receive grades, but their GPA is only calculated internally for awards like this or for reporting to colleges). We had our families over for a celebratory dinner on Friday night, and then she proceeded to sleep nearly 13 hours -- I guess she's really needed to catch up on sleep for a long time! She has no real plans for the summer other than enjoying it. She plans to read for pleasure, do some clean-outs of her room and the basement (which mostly is storing toys she's outgrown), and do some more cooking. We also just signed her up to do the Great Race 5K with us in September, so she's going to start doing some training runs with me soon.

This past weekend was moderately busy with chores and errands and so forth, but it felt rather relaxing in comparison to last weekend! I did give some attention to my Rift tee, and I put half of it on another needle to stretch it out and verify that it will fit.

For the life of me I cannot get my phone to capture the color accurately; it's a bit more yellow in real life. The good news is that just laid out like this, it's measuring 35" around, and I'm fairly certain it will stretch when it's blocked, so I think I will be fine on the fit. I think I'm going to add a bit more length to the body before I split for the sleeves just so that it's not too cropped. I have about 150 yards more than called for in the size I'm making, so I should have plenty to add an extra inch or two. While the fabric I'm getting with this yarn is a little lumpy-bumpy, it feels good, and I think this tee is going to be worn a lot this summer (provided I can keep up my momentum on this project and get it finished soon).

Summer brings with it a lot of time outside and in the garden, and while the bunnies are still trying to eat everything in sight (they seem to be especially fond of hostas), I'm happy to report that my raised planters with fencing are keeping them out and everything in there seems to be growing well. One has a tomato plant, an eggplant, and several zucchini plants, while the other has two kinds of peppers and basil. I've got spaghetti and butternut squash growing along the side of the fence in our driveway; it worked out well last year to have them there so I could drape the vines on the fence as the fruit started to grow. And my beloved hydrangeas have exploded in the past week or so:

There are actually two plants there that were put in the ground at the same time, but the one on the right lost about half its volume last year because of what I suspect was a rabbit den in its root system that killed off a good portion of the plant. I'm hoping it'll come back eventually. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the full range of colors that we're getting!

Mother's Day Weekending

Well, it's Monday again, which always seems to happen so quickly. But at least I can say I had a pretty relaxing weekend, and that's just what I want for Mother's Day. Aside from not having a lot of plans, it was also a pretty crummy weekend weather-wise. It rained most of the day on Saturday, and though Sunday was dry, it was pretty chilly. The house was cool enough that we turned the heat back on -- even the Mister was wearing a sweatshirt inside!

I did manage to get a walk in Saturday morning, while the sun was briefly out, and then went to get my first haircut in about a year(!). I now have at least three inches less length and all the dry, unhealthy bits at the end are gone. In the afternoon, when there was a brief break in the rain, the Mister and I went to Home Depot to pick up my Mother's Day gift: plants. We do not have a great nursery nearby like some of you do, so Home Depot is the best we could do, especially because our synagogue's preschool seems to have stopped doing their annual plant sale. We didn't buy a ton, but we got some impatiens and polka dot plants for the front borders along the grass, some more hostas and pachysandra for the back bed (which is very shady and thus not great for the garden I originally wanted there), some sedum and bugleweed to fill in some of the empty areas in the back, and a few vegetable plants for the front planter -- tomato, pepper, eggplant. I have another planter coming for the other side of the yard because we had our landscapers come and remove a tree that was growing at that corner of the house and that prevented most of the stuff I'd planted on that side from growing in years past. There's not much to see just yet, but here's how everything is looking at the moment:

This is the left (and bigger, because of the porch) side as you're looking at the front of the house; if you click to make the photo larger, you might see the impatiens and polka dot plants in the dirt just behind the grass. In front of the porch are hydrageas, and to the right of them are a boxwood that we transplanted several years back, lavender, our Japanese maple, and two arbor vitae shrubs. The smaller green things in front of the downspout are salvia from last year that happily came back.

Here is the other side of the front yard. Right by the downspout on this side (and in front of the view of our neighbors' car) is where the tree used to be. Here you can see the new plants a little better. The other greens are two more arbor vitae shrubs and hostas that I planted last year.

Finally, this is the bed in the backyard where nothing would ever grow well because it's so shady. I planted three hostas and a bunch of pachysandra here in the hopes that it will spread and fill in over time. I also split up the sedum paver with the same idea. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that in a few years, all this dirt will have much more green and we'll have a little oasis in the back.

Yesterday we had brunch at my brother- and sister-in-law's house (this is my SIL who is the fabulous baker, and she's been hosting Mother's Day brunch for many years). Sadly my other sister-in-law couldn't join us, as she's been under the weather the past few days with suspected strep throat (she's going to the doctor today). But my brother and nephew were there and gave me a card that I had to open right away:

That's right -- after three nephews, I'm finally getting a niece! She's due to arrive around Thanksgiving, so you can expect to see lots of girly knits in the coming months!

Sunshine and Rain

Happy Friday, friends. It's been quite an exhausting week, full of ups and downs. We've quite literally had sunshine and rain, and it's been a mix of the good and the bad. The bad has been how busy I've been this week, but that is coming to an end. My in-laws are also down with COVID right now, which is a bit scary because they're both high risk (my father-in-law is a cancer survivor and my mother-in-law has asthma and other health issues). It sounds like they're both pretty miserable but not too seriously ill, and any good thoughts you can send their way would be appreciated.

Since the world turned upside-down three years ago, I've been trying really hard to focus on the good to combat my innate pessimism, so today's post is going to focus on happier things. For one thing, yesterday's long day (a full day of work followed by two synagogue-related Zooms) let to a completed baby sweater:

This is the Flax Light sweater from Tin Can Knits, knit in the smallest size (0-6 months). I omitted the garter stitch detail on the sleeves, mainly because I thought it would be much faster to just do them in stockinette. I did try to make the sleeves match as much as possible, which involved winding off yarn to get to the same point in the stripe sequence (and, before that, rewinding my second skein of Felici because it was reversed in the order of the colors compared to the first). I did a tubular cast-on for the collar but regular bind-offs for the body and sleeves. I've already woven in the ends but not yet blocked it, and if you embiggen the photo, you'll see there's a little white spot right on the chest where the dye didn't cover a small section of yarn that I may duplicate-stitch over. Funny story about this: Our rabbi (who is also a knitter) was on one of the Zooms last night and messaged me to ask if this sweater was for another member of the board, because if it was, she wanted to make sure I knew the recipient is being induced on the 20th and won't be at our next meeting. So now I know I will have to mail this rather than delivering it in person!

In other good news, earlier in the week I found that our Butternut squash vines have produced a baby!

I purposefully planted them next to the fence that divides our driveway from our next-door neighbors' so that I can use the fence as a support, and in fact I've lifted up this section and draped it over the fence to keep the squash away from our insatiable bunnies. A bonus of this arrangement is that I can now see the squash from my bedroom window!

My final bit of good news comes after some drama last weekend. You may remember that when I was at Parnassus Books last month, I preordered Tom Lake so that I could get a personalized signed copy. Based on what I was seeing on Instagram, everyone else seemed to be getting their copies, so I had a feeling mine would be showing up soon. Last Friday, I finally got an email from the USPS saying that it was out for delivery. While we were at my parents' for dinner, I got notification that it was delivered -- but when I got home, nothing was there. I took another look at the email, and it turns out that it wasn't delivered at my house but rather (according to the tracking) to a PO box. Except that I don't have a PO box. I spent more than an hour at two different post offices on Saturday morning trying to figure out where it was, and no one was able to tell me anything other than that it was probably incorrectly scanned. I was given a supervisor's number to call on Monday if it hadn't showed up, and I was convinced that it had gotten lost in the system somewhere. Then, on Saturday night, a minor miracle happened:

Tonight some cousins are coming to visit and are staying overnight with us on their way back to Chicago from vacationing in Virginia. We'll have a full house, so that means cleaning is on the agenda for later this afternoon!

I hope you all have more sunshine than rain to end this week!

Half and Half

This weekend was a mixed bag. I told Mo that it was a good thing we had a fiber festival to go to on Saturday because the weather was just miserable -- it poured for most of the day. That made for pretty awful driving, but I had company, so it wasn't so bad. And the festival, though small, was really nice. We both came home with some nice stuff:

Let me preface this by saying that I did not have plans to buy anything, but I also was not forbidding myself from making any purchases. Mo wanted to buy some soap for a teacher who is leaving her school at the end of the year and also had her eye on some sock yarn. We both came home with a bit more than that. My purchases are on the left. I could not resist the set of four skeins of Fibernymph Dye Works fingering in the bag -- they are Lisa's Ridgetop base, a custom-milled blend, that's now discontinued. I've knit two sweaters from it and really like it, so I figured these would not go to waste. I'm thinking a striped sweater. Mo picked out two colorways from Lisa's new Signature Series: Brights on Bedazzled (her sparkly base) and Neutrals on Mountain Tweed BFL. She wants to learn to knit socks this summer, so these are good motivation! We planned to buy soap from Rebecca at Dusty Tree and picked out a bar for Mo's teacher plus three others to come home with us. She also had some special mystery bags in her booth, each containing a skein of yarn, a soap sliver, a sticker, and a stitch marker for $15, so we picked out two. I ended up with the peachy skein to the left, and Mo opened the dusty pink/gray on the left of her four skeins. At Ex Libris Fibers, Mo selected another dusty pink with gray speckles (yes, that's totally her color of the moment), and we each picked out a sticker. Mine is the one that looks like a tombstone and says "Bury me in yarn and books"; Mo's says "Overwoolmed." Finally, she found an adorable project bag from June Pryce Fiber Arts. There's a large reversible bag with a square base plus a smaller zippered bag. I think we did pretty well for being there for maybe an hour!

I did not get a ton of knitting done over the weekend, but I did finish up the Newborn Vertebrae sweater and blocked it on Friday, and today it's all packaged up and ready to go in the mail.

I didn't purposefully try to match the sleeves, but it somehow worked out that they looked more or less the same, and that kind of serendipity always makes me happy.

Most of my crafting time over the weekend was spent plying my latest handspun. I still have to measure it to get final yardage and photograph the finished skein, but I'm so happy with how it turned out. Here's a preview of it on the wheel just after I finished:

Yesterday's big activity was planting more of the garden. I picked up our plants in the morning and Mo and I put them in after lunch. None of the flowers had actual blooms on them, so it doesn't look too exciting at the moment. I'm hoping we don't have to wait too long for some color!

This is the smaller and shadier side of the yard. I put the hostas in last weekend, and we added the flowers (they're dahlias, supposedly -- hard to tell without any flowers!).

On the more exciting side of the yard, we have more dahlias in the line next to the grass. There's a small patch of coleus in front of the Japanese maple, and in front of the hydrangeas, there's a bunch of salvia. If you look closely (and click on the photo to embiggen), you'll see my new planter with my tomatoes. There will be more vegetables going in soon; I've got radish, beet, bell pepper, zucchini, cantaloupe, and butternut squash seedlings in the house (though not all have sprouted).

Today I'm hoping for a quiet day at work, especially because I have a four-hour Zoom workshop for tomorrow (thank goodness I can knit my way through it!). Here's hoping you have a calm start to your week as well!

Weekending Done Right

As usual, Monday morning has come much too soon, but it comes after a really relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Saturday was pretty gloomy, with rain on and off most of the day. I still got out for my walk, but it wasn't a great day for being outside. Rainbow and I did go and get a much-needed haircut (our last visit to the salon was six months ago) -- here's a before and after:

We both got several inches chopped off ahead of summer, and we're both thoroughly enjoying the lighter feel. Also, Rainbow said that she's ready to stop being known by her nickname, so everyone, meet Mo! That's actually her nickname, but it's how she's decided to be known online, so that's what I'll be calling her on the blog from now on.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day here. I was up early to go for my walk first thing and then we went to brunch at my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house. I know you all know how much Mo and I look alike, but you may not realize that it's a three-generation resemblance:

In the afternoon, the Mister and I went to Home Depot to pick up a few things for the garden:

We'll be picking up some flowers and herbs that I ordered through our synagogue's annual plant sale next Sunday, but in the meantime I wanted a few things to fill in the shady side of our front yard (the hostas), a lavender plant to replace one that our landscapers killed, some tomato plants, and some potting mix. Our new planter is all ready for the seedlings I've got going inside:

The tomato plants are in, but eventually I hope to have peppers, radishes, and zucchini in here as well.

I did some crafting over the weekend as well. I knit up another baby hat for the Mister to give to a coworker using some scraps, which I just realized he forgot to take in this morning, and I spun up a bobbin of singles for a fractal spin using the oldest Southern Cross Fibre in my stash:

I am hoping for a mostly calm week at work because Wednesday is going to be a very long day -- I'm scheduled to donate blood, have two work meetings (one in person), and have a thing at synagogue that evening. Hope your Monday is off to a decent start!