Two Black Sheep

Two Birds On a Wire

The girls leave for Temple tomorrow . . . no photos, no words . . . just a knot in my throat trying to keep the tears jammed down just a little bit further.

Ava

Merry-Go-Round

I thought I'd share a couple of fun pictures from our State Fair trip.  The butter sculpture picture didn't turn out well enough to share.  Damn.

I Could Say

I've got a FO to share!!  The sweater has been finished for a long time, but some guests made it hard to post.  I picked this pattern book up while I was visiting Ava.  I fell very hard for the cover sweater.  I would love if SK would wear shawl collars, but that isn't happening.  I'll settle for him tossing on a cardigan!  Which also hasn't happened, but I'm hoping.  I can't force a grown man into a sweater, but my boys are another story!  I gave the pattern a test run & finished it for a friend's baby.  The gender won't be known until the day it pops out.

I have no good explanation for why I picked this yarn.  I needed Sport Weight.  I needed something fast.  And I didn't want to spend any money.  So Candi Jensen's Red Heart Sport was reluctantly chosen.  Ah the sweet sounds of squeaky yarn.  I really wanted to make it black, but I'm never sure what people feel about baby girls in black.  Personally if I had to have a girl,  she'd be in black most days.  For my boys, I plan on using a tweed minus the squeak.

This is the first sweater I've made in a very long time that required seaming.   I'd love to try & make the boys' sweaters in the round, but I'd have to figure out the stitch patten first.  Besides seaming, the pattern was pretty straight forward.  However personally, I'm never a fan of patterns where the sizes are written for the Age.  No good reason why, I just like to see 2T or 5T.  The baby is due in October, so I made the One/Two year size.  My knitting confidence is getting much better.  I knew while knitting the sleeves that I should shorten them.  Kid patterns always have sleeves that will fit a small adult.  Of course, I ignored my Knitting Confidence & kept knitting.  Tuck kept flapping the sleeves as he ran around the house.  My only salvation is that the mom & dad of this baby are both well over 6 feet.  Watch the kid will turn out to be 5'3 & a good sweater will be wasted. 

Currently, I'm in the Last Lap with Ulmus.  I've got about 20 more rows & I can't think or do anything else.  Problem?  Each row has 400+ stitches!  Knitting is my torture.

L

Wicker Chair

Ummm . . . so, a few weeks have passed and the girls and I went home to Ohio and I never mentioned it. I guess when you realize that your kids leave for college in two weeks (yup, 14 days from today), the blog kind of takes a back seat. Here are some high-lights from the trip home:

• family reunions will inevitably occur on the hottest day of the summer in a building with no air conditioning. Corona will be used in place of water since the family forgot to pack water;
• all little boys are obsessed with cars around the age of 18-months. No matter how many times one is seen, each car is identified with a point and the question, "Car?";
• who knew such a beautiful park existed in Wheeling, West Virginia? Oglebay was amazing;
• only two skeins of yarn can be purchased during a trip. It takes some doing, but it is completely possible to spend less than $25 on yarn;
• the Ohio State Fair is a pretty big deal. Nothing makes a bunny lover happier than seeing bunny after bunny after bunny. Nothing amuses me more than seeing my sister push a stroller through a pile of cow poo (until I remember that the stroller is going in my car);
• mothers embellish (deal with it);
• dinners with an old friend should occur more often than once every ten years. It makes catching up a bit easier;
• the end of the Asian Expedition a the Columbus Zoo will reduce a 4-year-old to tears every single time. Next year it will reduce a 5-year-old to tears . . . I think it's because he doesn't get to pet the tiger;
• Ohio really does have the best ice cream in the world;
• being away from the political "issues" for almost two weeks takes a while to catch up (and makes for a lot of head scratching);
• two weeks is a long time to be away from your bed (and the person who sleeps in it . . . especially when you leave on your 18th wedding anniversary - love you, honey); and
• it's never a good idea to listen to sentimental music while driving eight hours when your mind is clearly two weeks in the future.

The knitting has kind of slowed for the time being. I'm in the process of knitting a Fair Isle stocking for a class at the shop. It's all sorts of fun (using the colors from my Great American Afghan), but I left it at here when I went to Ohio. The Cable Sampler Scarf is almost done (yippee!), and I think I have about two more inches on the Barfly Pullover before I begin 7 inches of mistake rib stitch (oh, joy! oh, loveliness! oh, open a bottle of riesling).

I'll try to get a shot of the pullover (as boring as it is) and the scarf (when it is done) in the next few days. I'm sure that we will be hitting Target and Walmart with school shopping, so I am not sure how much time knitting will receive for the next few weeks.

Ava (who starts back to school in two weeks as well)