Sample Shawl Finished and On The Body

 Here is the finished shawl!  I love it.  Well, I love that it is an actual shawl the way this old lady likes to wear a shawl.  The bibs that all the designers make and call shawls these days rather turn my stomach.  Even if they are knitted in beautiful and expensive yarns.  I ALSO don't like wonky shapes.  A nice rectangle or triangle is what I like.  This is a triangle which I widened with short rows to make the point of the triangle more rounded.

This shawl started off with five cast on stitches.  This is the pattern I wrote up:

You will notice some Yarn Over increases that look rather wonky.  I did not know what I was doing really, but wanted to add a few more stitches to increase the width.  It seemed to work but in retrospect, I am sorry I put them in.  The band at the bottom with the more red and orange and other multicolors was to make the shawl as long as I wanted it...ie to come down almost to my wrists.  It worked.  It was Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn.  I don't but I did not want to drive two hours to Joann to see if I could match the Amethyst and Wildflower Big Twist Carousel yarn....so, I took what I could find.

Today I wore the shawl in 45 degree F weather and was very comfortable.  Makes me happy.  Now on to the next started project. I really want to finish everything by the end of this year.  I won't tell you how many items are on the needles.  Too embarrassing.

A Quick Post: Hope-to-Make Edition

Today while going through Ravelry I found something I hope to make.  So cute.

This is it!  Cute heart coasters.  Some day I will knit them.  They are mosaic knitting which is very fun to do and so easy.  Once you wrap your head around it a little bit.  Watch for it here...but not any time soon!  Too much going right now.

A Marvelous Monday!

 Today I crawled out of bed hours before the sun showed up and hit the road to help a friend by taking her for an early morning surgical appointment.  Eleven hours later she and I were both safely home. I expect as I write this she is in bed recovering. I will soon be in bed myself.

During the day I spent in the hospital waiting room my fingers and knitting needles were flying.  I have been working on a sample shawl, having now used three balls of Big Twist Carousel yarn in colors  Amethyst and Wildflower.  Since more was needed to make the shawl as long on my arms as I desired, I purchased two balls of local yarn from Hobby Lobby in Orange Rust or some such thing.  The name is probably on my Ravelry page....

Anyway, today I spent nearly seven hours knitting and finished the first half, spliced in the second ball of Hobby Lobby yarn and managed another couple rows on the second half of the shawl.  Earlier I think I showed a picture here of my thought on how to make the shawl more rounded at the bottom by using short rows.  Today I put that into practice.  I did short rows in both directions.  This is what it looks like currently:

You can see the spine of the shawl here with the first half rounded by the short row shaping on the right.  Well, the photo is not really very good but I think you can see it.  The part that is more towards the top is actually the bottom of the shawl. I did not want to continue knitting the shawl with a sharp point at the bottom and I think it worked.  Eventually I will be showing the full shawl, including the nice "tree" shawl pins that arrived today, 

So, it was a great day helping a friend.  This time I received my own help by being able to knit for hours with no interruptions or self-guilt-tripping.  So great.  Having gotten so far today, I am inclined to really go to town on finishing the shawl. I now have the goal of completing the shawl by the end of the week so I can wear it to Church on Sunday.  I love the cool temperatures in our church building but sitting for a few hours makes me cold...so the shawl will be a blessing.

To top off a nice day I had just arrived home when one of our grandsons FaceTimed me to say he received the socks I made for him and that he wore them to school today.  He had them on under his braces as we spoke!  So nice of him to call.  How I love all our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It makes me so happy that they like the things I make for them.  That is the whole reason I make those items.

AND ON TOP OF THAT CALL!!!  I saw a note that our missionary elder grandson had sent a video!!!  Is that not the coolest...!. Truly it is.  He sent a sweet two minute video which was the absolute coolest thing.  He actually did receive the washcloth I had woven on our 16" Ashford rigid heddle loom and sent as a Christmas gift.  Earlier this very week our oldest son sent a picture where he used his cloth as a placemat under his healthy-filled dinner plate.  So happy.  So very happy.  I miss our family and friends so much.  These notes and calls and videos take the sting away and make me smile from ear to ear.  If you are fortunate enough to have family and friends nearby, give them hugs as often as you can.  Don't let them wonder if you love them.

The nice thing about moving to South Carolina, besides the no snow and ice on a regular basis, is that the people here are so nice and have taken us in.  The pain of leaving lifelong friends is covered up in the loving kindness of our new friends.  What is that adage: Make new friends, but keep the old.  One is silver and the other is gold.  So very true. I love love love the silver and gold in our lives.  May you all be safe and happy.

Friday Fun!

 The sample shawl I am knitting is not pleasing me. Well, it is so nice except that first: I did not think it was going to "go around" me the way I wanted it to so I added some extra stitches, and second: it seemed like if I kept knitting as I was going (to get the shawl to go to where I wanted it  to stop on my arms) the point of the triangle was going to be way too long...maybe even hitting the floor. SO that was not working for me. 

Last night it crossed my mind that if I did short rows I could stop increasing the length and just add to the width. I do not know if this will work but I am going to give it a try,.

This morning I made a little sample shawl to try it out.

This is the tiny shawl.  The top (the part that is down in the picture) goes across my neck and shoulders.

Here you can see that I made short rows  on the left (at the end of every row) and came out with a square.  So far so good.

Here is the shawl with the second side with short rows knitted.  I now have a little rectangle--more a wrap than a shawl, I suppose.

Here is the little guy after knitting around the outside with Yarn Over, Knit 2, then just repeated YO, K2  all around.  Finally I knitted one  time around the new ending part and bound off.  I did not, as you can see, weave in the ends...

So this seems to work.  I may inquire of the Columbia Spinners/Knitters tomorrow when I see them tomorrow.

As I am writing this I think maybe I should only do the short rows on the end by the spine of the shawl to stop the length increasing but continue the width as is.  I just don't know.  We shall see.

Blueberry Plants Today

 Today was a glorious day, weatherwise.  Well, and most other ways as well! For ages I have intended to get in a walk every day.  Most days real walks have not happened...though I have put in quite a bit of journeying in various stores that I frequent too often.  I don't call them real walks but in the back of my mind I really feel like they are better than nothing...

So today two things were part of the actual walk I started. Well, more than two.  The first thing I did was get out my lovely shiny purple Elenker All-Terrain walker from the truck bed where I put it yesterday when I started out on a trip that started with a stop at the church, the recycling center, the Post Office, the gas station (but the gasoline delivery truck was there so I drove on by...),  the Hobby Lobby store, Staples to drop off a return for Amazon--a beautiful Baggalini purse that I could barely get my phone into, let alone all the other stuff I really need to carry along with me, a quick stop at Big Lots which is going out of business in our town where I hoped to find a shower curtain liner, which I did...a map of the United States of America so I can stand in the shower memorizing the names of towns and cities in every state, if that is something I want to do.  

The last stop yesterday was at the Mi Promesa food truck.  We are working our way through the menu.  So far we/at least I,  have loved everything.  Dear One just wanted a burrito yesterday.  His burrito was like those mammoth burritos my sister and I used to get in the 24-hour taco stores when I would visit Utah.  They were big enough for three or four meals.  Same story here!  We also got a Birria Pizza.  My goodness, was that good.  Also costly.  But since you only needed to eat one piece, it made the pizza $3.00 per meal!  Good deal.  The leftover pieces are in the refrigerator wrapped in parchment paper and sealed in freezer bags.  I ate one for breakfast. Dear One says he wants one eventually.  I am not sure what he means.  He might be too late...!

So--here I was walking down the sidewalk away from our house when I noticed one of the four stakes we put up at the road side of our property to keep the U-turning people from driving over our Rain-bird spray nozzle irrigation system and breaking them.  I picked it up from the lawn where the U-turner had made it land.  I felt very good about being able to drive it into the ground again without calling in assistance from the older person in our house...!

While doing that small project I glanced down at the blueberry bed and decided to go visit them on my way home.

As I was nearly to the end of our road a sweet girl came up behind me and gave me her business card: for home care assistance services!  That was so nice.  Some of their services are: companionship, respite care, personal care, total care, in house nail technician, medication reminders, meal prep, etc.  Pretty comprehensive and good to know.  When I came home and shared this card with Dear One, he said I must have looked pretty pitiful to have someone come out of their house to offer services!  Pretty funny, Bucky!  Pretty funny.  I responded that since he had his own All-Terrain vehicle the nice girl must have realized the day might come when we did actually need help--with both of use All-Terraining around the neighborhood....  Right now the only reason we might need help is because I get mired in sloth periodically or better said, I find other things to do than house care.  Anyway,  I thought it was so sweet of her to offer her help.

When I came back from the short walk I did go to the blueberry bed and took some pictures. I had meant to talk with them  (the blueberry plants) and check in on how they were doing but I tripped over a small stick and that flew out of my head.  No falling, not even close, but it put speaking to the plants out of my head,  Here is a picture that I took:

 I think this plant is a Brightwell blueberry.

Here is another picture I took:

This one  below the Brightwell I did not bend down to check the name of and I cannot read it through the label.  I do know that we have some Premier blueberries, a Climax blueberry, and I think the other one is Alapaha.  They are all rabbiteye blueberries which is what we need to grow here,  We are hoping for the best this year. (Fourth time is the charm, right?!) 

 Now is the time to begin the heavy-duty blueberry care and culture YouTube videos chain-watching for the midlands of South Carolina.

Dear One has no interest at all in trying to raise vegetables.  We have different views on a fair number of topics but we have made it work, somehow, for nearly 52 years so I guess we will continue on.  I AM going to plant some kale seeds soon and some more lettuce seeds.

Wednesday Wonders: Night Sky

 Recently we were out at night, not my favorite thing. Well, I like being out at night; I just don’t like driving at night. I stepped outside to change the orientation of the car so we could drive out instead of backing out into the street.

I love this photo.

Tuesday Times: Spring is Coming!

At least Spring is coming to South Carolina!

 Last week I walked out to the front porch.  I glanced down and this is what I saw!!  Absolutely surprised to see these little daffodils babies shooting up.

This week they look very different!

Maybe next week there will be blossoms!  I am looking forward to that.  I LOVE daffodils!