Spring Break

This is how I decided to celebrate the end of my workplace's 10-week fitness challenge. My team, the aptly-named Team Guinness, lost 70 lbs. The workplace lost 4,000!

I'm not going to drink all those at once, of course ..

Let me get in my l'il bit of knitting, so this can be a proper knitting blog:

I think I've added a few since last blog ... I was home sick Monday, so I got a few more done. There are 15. I think I need six million.










I've been busy not just with the exercising and healthy cooking and knitting, but with obsessively watching my perennials coming in:

Bleeding Hearts, a favorite of mine. They grow so quickly, then poof, before Summer is even here, they're gone! It's a fleeting Spring beauty. It's so cheerful to see it coming up in the front yard, when it's still chilly. I went out and covered it the other day when it got down to freezing. What did I cover it with? Why, a hand-crocheted granny-square blanket, of course. What, did you think I'd just throw an old tarp over it?

Clematis, another favorite. Buds all over it, but they won't bloom for a few weeks. This thing really takes over the front yard, and I really don't know what to do with it once it gets going.

One of two blueberry bushes. I'll have blueberries in just a couple weeks!

And, my doggie barking at me because I was taking her picture when I should have been taking her for a walk. Duh.












Have a happy Fiber Arts Friday! As always, thanks to Andrea for hosting us, and please stop by and see what everyone else is doing! 

Another Boring Baby Blanket Blog

Wow, nine squares done ... I'm blazing right along! I have no idea how many more I need to make. All I know is I don't have enough of these colors of yarn, so I'm going to be raiding my stash for what Cascade remnants I might have. It might be a hodgepodge of mismatched colors when I'm done!

My knitting mojo has all but vanished. I don't know where it went, but it's been gone for about a month now. If anyone sees it, please send it back to me. I have way too much stash to be lacking in knitting mojo. 

Other fiber-related news ... look what I got from snapfish!

Isn't that neat? I'm going to take it to work so my co-workers can really, truly understand ... just how odd I am.

I also got a calendar, but I forgot to take pictures of it before taking it to work. It's a prop-up desk calendar, with my selected photos on each page (each monthly page). I know this sort of thing is common, but to me it's amazing technology! My photos, on a calendar? A coffee mug? Wow!





Another neat thing that came to me in the mail ... black velvet elephant ears!

They came already sprouted, and I stupidly planted them. Now I'll have to bring them in the house or erect a shelter for them, if it gets back down to freezing. But I couldn't resist. They're supposed to be cold-hardy. And, 6 feet tall. Whoo hoo!










I guess a project isn't a project unless a cat has walked across it.

Don't forget to stop by Andrea's for more Fiber Arts Friday Fabulousness!

The Opposite of the Midas Touch

Okay, the stripey hat was a bust. I finished it ... and it looked like a giant stripey condom. Complete with reservoir tip. I bought all that lovely Cascade yarn, intending to do some Brioche. Brioche kicked my butt, so I moved on to Entrelac. Ditto the butt kicking. Then the hat. I have pulled apart and re-skeined this yarn so many times ... So now I really really REALLY want to use up this darn yarn, before I start to think of it as cursed. I had to have something fairly easy, because apparently this batch of yarn inhibits my ability to knit anything.

I have the Cascade Yarn 60 Quick Baby Knits. I found this:

A faux-quilty baby blankety thing. I love knitting or crocheting stuff to sew together.

Ta-da! Five squares down. Dunno how many more to go. I'm certain that I don't have enough of this Cascade yarn, so I might have to either use some of the other non-purply colors I have laying around ...


Or go buy more.

Egad. 

I'm hoping to make a nice wooly baby blanket with this nice yarn, then give it away and pretend I never saw it.


On the up side ... it's warm outside! I know Baltimore won't be warm enough to truly garden until May, but I put my vegetable and herb seedlings in the biodome yesterday, and I've been stalking around the yard yanking up weeds. Henbit and chickweed ... why do poultry-themed weeds grow so prolifically in my yard?! I'm a vegetarian, dammit!

Since my garden is looking better than my knitting ....


Bleeding Hearts that come up every year.

Clematis ... this year it will be joined with Black-Eyed Susan vine, for which I have 75 seeds ... thanks, Parks ...

Unfortunately, there was something wrong with the bag of catnip seeds. Turns out, I was actually planting cats.

At least it was a variety-pack.

 

Coraline is mighty impressed. 

Buh-bye! Thanks for stopping in. Don't forget to visit the lovely Andrea for Fiber Arts Fridays Fun! 

So Now I Have Six WIPs

Well, I'm still in a bit of a knitting slump, but it's that time of year ... All I can think about is turning over soil, making a rock border, stuffing seeds into holes, and carefully zipping shut a portable greenhouse cover over a nice selection of young seedlings. I really love Spring. I really do. I can't wait to make my annual pilgrimage to Behnke's , and select all the herbs for my herb garden. I raise my vegetables from seeds, but I don't have much luck with herbs, so I just buy those. I've already inventoried my seed collection, but I'm resisting the urge to plan out the garden. So far.

I haven't been knitting very enthusiastically for the last few weeks. I was just sort of piddling along with a project or two. I got this in the mail the other day, though, and it sort of slapped me out of a funk:

Isn't that a lovely colorwork purse? I was quite excited by it. I immediately set the magazine aside and went and reviewed my handspun collection.

Despite the four WIPs I already have, I started the purse.

In true Spinster Beth fashion, I've made some sort of mistake that I can't figure out yet. Perhaps I should read ahead to the end, and see if maybe there's a "but before casting on...." that I didn't see.

I honestly don't remember when I started this. It's a silk matawa hanky that I got ages ago, and didn't do much with. I just looked up the other day and poof! It was on the needles. Since the silk is in hanky form and has to be wrestled into a yarn-like shape, you'd think I'd remember doing that. Especially since it happened in the last few days.







I think it is going to be a small, lined jewelry bag, to put my jewelry in after work, when I change into gym clothes. I'm forever tucking earrings into my purse or gym bag or coat pocket. Perhaps if this silk project magically knits itself into a drawstring bag (and magically inserts a lining), I can use that to stash my jewelry!

For those of you who occasionally visit my "Three Friends Fitness" blog linked at top right, thank you for stopping by. I share the blog with my two BFFs, and we chronicle our adventures in fitness. I am doing quite well pursuing my new self. I have lost 31 pounds, I don't know how many inches, several cholesterol points, a lot (!) of size 18 clothing, and I now feel confident I will reach my goal of "running the Armed Forces Week 5K without stopping to walk." Of course, all this exercise and the hour or so in the kitchen making healthy meals is really cutting into my knitting time ;-). Not to mention, my house is an absolute mess. Housekeeping is last on my list of priorities!

Please don't forget to visit Andrea! Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Really Not Doing Much

I've been a bit of a sluggard on the knitterly front lately. After finishing or frogging all of my projects, I find myself in a bit of a knitting blah. I halfheartedly knit a mitered scarf, then had oodles of yarn left over ... so I halfheartedly started a hat.

I'm hoping to make it really long and tapering, with random decreases in the middle, so that there aren't any obvious seams. Just a funny, whimsical hat to wear around the neighborhood while walking the dog, or on the track if it's a really cold day.


And here's a Zauberball sock.

I guess I'm just in a wee bit of a slump! I'm sure it'll pick up soon. Usually I get these in July or August. February/March is prime knittin' time! I don't know what my problem is.

I'll leave you with a photo I took at work the other day, a sticker on the back of someone's Cooper Mini (Remember I live in the Baltimore area, and Baltimore has the absolutely absurd nickname of "Charm City")

Don't forget to head over to Andrea's on Friday, for Fiber Arts Friday!