Meet Barney

In a classic situation of "be careful what you wish for" a friend, who supplied me with more corks than I can ever find enough crafts to use them on, asked me to make him a cork man for the cottage.

I knew he meant a stick man and thought for over a year of how I might accomplish that.

Failing to come up with any brilliant ideas, I suddenly thought of making him a cork snowman.  This snowman, that we called Barney made the trip up to the cottage last weekend and was a surprise.  And I think enjoyed.

I covered styrofoam balls with corks, we used hangers to attach them together and then selected random buttons from the button collection that never ends for his eyes and up the front.  I used leftover Noro for a miniature Jared Flood striped scarf and the turn-a-square hat.  And Michaels supplied the carrot nose.  The base is a wreath that I made a while ago but never really had a place for.  It works perfectly to hold him up.

I think he is cute in a ridiculous sort of way.

Here he is in his new home.  I hope they like him.

The Artist's Way

Ravelry has an Artists Way group that I've joined.  My friend Jean Anne talked a lot about this book to me a few years ago when she was going through it and I was intrigued.   I didn't do much more than look at it in the bookstore but it has always been in the back of my mind as something to investigate.  Jean Anne started a group to go through another of the books, Vein of Gold a little while later but I didn't really enjoy it.  Meetings with the group were too late in the day and I lost interest quickly.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to practice writing.  I found a group on Ravelry that has writing exercises but it is not an active group so it didn't motivate me.  Then the coordinator of the Artists Way group posted a link on the writing site so I thought, what the heck.  I've always wanted to do it.  It is virtual so I can talk with the group if I want to or just listen.  So far on chapter 2, I'm really enjoying it.

I do find that writing morning pages every day is taking away some of my blog creativity but I'm hoping to be finished a few knitting projects soon so that should spur me back into blogging action.  One of those projects is the annoying shawl project.  I'm past the irritating lace and onto the easy garter stitch.  The difficult part is done and I'm on the home stretch!!

Pink Chalk Studio

A thank you to Kathy from Pink Chalk Studio!  I won a $10 gift certificate in her 50 yards of fabric contest.  I've been looking at the site for a while this morning trying to decide what to buy.  So many choices!

The lead-up to summer solstice

I love May and June.  I used to be completely enamoured with fall.  The crisp air, the colourful leaves.  Then I started gardening.  May and June are when things really start to happen in the garden.  Today, after a couple of warmer days, I really noticed the progress a number of veggie plants have made.  The warm days and the rain we have had at conveniently spaced intervals have made a big difference.

But my most favourite part of May and June are seeing the days get longer and longer.  It is 9:23 at night, I'm sitting outside and it still isn't completely dark.  And in the morning, it is light when I stumble to the gym.  It makes me feel more motivated and my mind feel less aware of how *(*&(* early it is.

Ssshhh, I'm making progress on Rock Island and a few other things

1.  I'm quietly excited that I've made some progress on my Rock Island Shawl.  I'm on row 10 and things are looking good so far.   Touch wood, of course.

2.  Baking from my new favourite cookbook, Flour, has resulted in a very nice banana bread.  As promised by Joanne Chang, the author.

3.  It is starting to get hot out but we have so far managed to survive without air conditioning.  I really hate the air conditioning but I also hate being hot so it is always a contest in our house on who can outlast the summer heat without being the first to turn on the air conditioning.  We're thinking sleeping downstairs might be the way to go tonight.

4.  The veggie patch is starting to grow.  Nothing much to harvest yet.  Except chives and rhubarb.  I think I've over exhausted the rhubarb with a frenzy of items in May - a pie, a couple of crisps, jam, muffins - but it looks like it's starting to recover.  I had 4 asparagus sprout from the crop I planted last year.  My neighbour shared some with me.  Hopefully by next summer I actually have some I can eat.

5.  I love, love, love sitting outside after dinner.  It is so relaxing.  I also love wireless internet so I am able to sit outside and type a blog post.

I will conquer this, I hope

I think I've met my knitting match.  I'm working on Jared Flood's Rock Island and it is driving me bananas.    I always find that Flood's patterns are not mindless knits overall (although some have mindless portions which I hope to get to in Rock Island if I ever overcome my current challenges).  But this one has got me.  The lace border was a bit tedious but generally ok.  I did find that I had to back up a couple of times because I did something wrong in an 8 row repeat but there weren't that many stitches in a row so despite the aggravation of taking a few steps back, not a big deal.

Then came a few rows with a bunch of straight garter stitch.  A lovely intermission.

Now, I'm working on the next lace section.  I've frogged back to the knit rows twice now because I keep messing something up.  I read a comment on Ravelry that mindful knitting was necessary to complete this shawl and I think that is where my troubles are.  I'm a pretty good knitter.  I usually love charts.  I like cables and fair isle.  But my mind does tend to wander.  Since there are 271 stitches in the first row, I think this pattern is testing the limits of my attention span.  So yesterday, I started row 1 again, but this time, I wrote the instructions out on a piece of paper.  So far, half way through row 2, I'm where I should be.  Lets hope this continues because I really love this shawl.  And I will conquer it!