Somedays are full of fun.

A good friend is visiting this week.
The weather has been nice. Moderate temps, but still sooo much warmer the Minnesota. We've din some shopping, she found great deals on some tops. I bought shoes way discounted today.
I finished a scarf for my Aunt, a sweater for dd2, and cast on a hat that makes me and everyone that sees I smile.

Some days and weeks are just fun!

Charts and technology

I started my Camilla shawl. My first attempt at beading combined with lace. To make following the chart more convenient I downloaded the pattern to the Goodreader app. It allows me to keep the pattern close at hand. It's possible to enlarge and highlight the line of the chart your working on. A great thing indeed.

Another use for dental floss

Just started my camellia shawl. It's silky alpaca lace yarn on size 4 needles. It starts out with casting on 383 stitches. Then on the second row of the pattern, beginning the lace work, you add beads. I bought the smallest crochet hook I could find. It wasn't small enough. So I reached for my handy dental floss and made a bead threader. These may be the slowest 34 rows of a pattern ever knit.

Work in progress.

Yesterday dh and a friend started, and finished what was expected to be a couple hour project in about 8 hours. Tiling the kitchen backsplash. I really liked the look of the small tiles that combine glass, marble and tumbled stone. So did dh. It looked like a fairly simple install for a handy guy. But it involved loads and loads of little cuts with a tile saw, much piecing and fiddle work. And when he finished I believe his words were something like never again! But it looks so nice.


Now just needs the grout. A Wednesday project, that hopefully will not take as long.

All quiet

Today dd2 returned to her home. Now sheets are washed, bathrooms cleaned, floors washed, the fridge is cleaned out and restocked. It's nice to have the dust bunnies removed and surfaces cleaned....but oh it is so quiet around here without my dd's.

It was on the cool and cloudy side today. Perfect for cleaning and grocery shopping. We are hoping to eat healthier on days when we don't golf and eat out. So I bought more veggies and fruit. It's a resolution of baby steps. No firm goal of measured pounds or eliminating an entir food group. Just a return to sensible eating. And hopefully along the way better fitting clothes.

To gift there will be knitting. I finished sleeve 1 of dd1 cardigan. I will begin sleeve 2 tonight. I have some silky alpaca and beads with an eye towards a try something new project for the new year. I've never really knit with beads. I found a small shawl pattern with just a few beads I in bedded in the lace.

Married to a pirate

Dh has a tendency to develop a stye in his eye, too much wind, sun, computer time will trigger it. So yesterday he decided that perhaps the solution would be not only the drops but also a patch. So his eye could rest. The patch idea didn't last long.

Band issues

I am working on the Shapely Boyfriend Cardigan, free from Knitty, for dd2. I just finished knitting the button band for the second time. The first time after binding off, she tried it in only to find it pulled up dramatically in the front because of the tension of the band. So I frogged, picked up stitches with better light and more care, knit a couple rows, put the band on waste yarn, checked to make sure it didn't look like it would pull up and proceeded. Last night I bound off and it did the same thing only not as dramatically. Argh! I am hoping that it will block out. Sooo frustrating.

Other then that love the yarn and the pattern is well written.