MY BRAIN HURTS
Despite having a lace making brain transplant a year or so ago my very first truly lacy done with laceweight yarn shawl taxed me to no end. It wasn't that the pattern,
Alaria, was difficult. It really wasn't. It was the unrelentingly focus required to not screw up royally. It seems that my mind, well, it wanders. A.Lot.
Eventually, my minds eye started to see the repeats and I was able to catch my mistakes within the pattern repeat instead of at the end of the row. That meant I only had to tink back a few stitches instead of a couple of hundred. Believe me, a HUGE improvement!
I am eager to start knitting another lace pattern but you know. I think I need to heal up a bit first.
Alaria - knit with Tosh laceweight, colorway "Rose" on 2.75 mm needles. A delightful pattern. Well written, easy to follow if you don't wander off to LaLa Land too often.
SOLAR ECLIPSE AND FLOWERS
Solar eclipse on the side of our above ground pool - how cool is that?
It's been some distance between posts and not all of it has been my fault. We were without internet access for 12 days thanks to AT&T's inability to upgrade and improve their service without totally screwing up.
Did it make me cranky? Are you being rhetorical? Of COURSE it did! We do all sorts of silly things online. You know, like paying bills, ordering checks, looking up words we don't know. Google is so helpful with my spelling.
A few weeks ago there was a very cool solar eclipse. I was on the phone with my friend Kate - both of us with our pinhole lenses chattering away trying to get the focus just right when I happened to notice that the light shining through the vegetation acted like multiple lenses.
VEGETATION
There has been lots and lots and lots of gardening. So much gardening to the point that I just gritted my teeth and ignored my lower back issues until I could do little more than stagger into a chiropractor's office whimpering, "fix me". Which she did. Sort of. I'm not supposed bend (good luck with that) or garden and I trying hard to be good but there is still so much to be done.
Hard to believe that just a few weeks ago this climbing rose was little more than bare sticks. It was an overgrown and tangled mess so I took it down to four main stalks and hoped for the best.
The last of the peonies (since departed and gone). So very beautiful.
There has been continued knitting on the lace weight shawl. I think it's winning the battle but I keep at it. There has been some sewing and I need to figure out what I want to be sewing at the next sew in over at CactusLand. I am leaning towards a very cool coat that The Enabler fitted to me last time I visited. All I have to do is get up the nerve to cut into The Good Stuff (lovely, expensive, adored fabric that I hesitate to cut and perhaps ruin). Must.Be.Brave.
