A close one

I went to Connecticut to keep my mom and her broken leg company for a little while this weekend.  We went to my sister's to have lunch with her and my three nephews, and it was so nice to see them all.  While we were there, we got to talking and Evan, my youngest nephew (age 9) got bored so he went outside.  I saw him in the back yard picking dandelions.  Then he disappeared for a while and came back in the house with not only dandelions, but also tulips and daffodils and hyacinths from my sister's front walkway.  The look on my sister's face was so funny - very conflicted!  She thought it was so sweet that Evan had picked flowers for her, and gave him lots of hugs and kisses for it.  But she was also slightly aghast that her flowers from the front walk might be gone.  After a surreptitious glance outside we saw that there were still some flowers left and no major holes in the pretty flower landscape. I knew that even it there were, she wouldn't really care, because he is so sweet!

In Gardening News:

Brandywine tomato seeds are planted!

I know - BORING!  Just some dirt - you have to imagine the seeds that are underneath.  I'm really hoping they actually grow.

The good news is the rhododendron and the bleeding heart did not freeze that night I was worried that they would!:

I just love the bleeding hearts -- one of those totally-amazing-how-did-nature-do-that kind of plants.

And our peonies are starting right in front of our dying daffodils:

Peonies are my absolute favorite - I carried them in my wedding (which was hard because our wedding was in May and peonies are not in season yet, so they had to order them from somewhere else and then make them bloom!)

In Knitting News:
It was a close one:

Actually, it was worse than close.  As I was binding off one of the sleeves of my short-sleeve cardi, I ran out of yarn.  See the stitches on the left needle?  And that little piece of yarn?  Totally not enough yarn to bind off the rest of those stitches.  So, I did what I probably wasn't supposed to do because I'm terribly impatient --- I joined a new piece of yarn there, in the middle of the bind off, and finished binding off.  Probably a  more patient and fastidious knitter would undo the whole bind off to start over so the weaving-in wouldn't look weird.  But, mine didn't look weird. I don't have a close up picture of that so you'll have to take my word for it!

Speaking of weaving in ends.... look at all these ends!!!:

It's really aggravating when you need 10 skeins of yarn for a short sleeve cardi because the yardage is only 82 yards per ball.  Why can't they make the skeins bigger?  82 yards of worsted weight yarn is not a whole lot to make a one-skein project anyway.  Except a dishcloth.

I powered through, wove in all the ends, blocked it, AND PUT THE BUTTON ON!  Can you believe I actually put the button on right away?  I can't.

I. Love. It.  It's comfy and since it is cotton will be nice to wear on summer evenings or in air conditioned places.  I wore it to the shop while I taught my class on Saturday and got lots of compliments.  And now it is all ready to be a sample at the shop to advertise the class I will teach to knit it!

I also cast on a new project (yes, without working on one of my other works-in-progress --- that truly is next) for a summer class, the Clapotis:

It is a very pretty drop stitch scarf (the pattern is actually for a shawl but I'm making one of the modifications to a smaller size).  It will be much easier to see once it is blocked.  I'm using Cascade Heritage Silk Paints fingering weight yarn which is very nice to work with (mmmmmm.......soft).

Oops, and I forgot that i DID cast on yet another new project, but it's a secret project that I can't show until later.... don't you hate that suspense?

In Book News:
I still plugging away at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  It's now holding my attention since it's gotten a little more exciting but it's not calling to me during the times I can't read it.  I'm not trying to decide if I should knit or read.  I'm knitting and when my hands get tired from knitting, then I'm reading it.  This will probably be the totality of my review of this book -- except to tell you when I'm done and I can finally get to the third Hunger Games book.

How about a quote of the day?:
"Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory." - George S. Patton