Warning... picture intensive!

Got your cup of coffee, tea, or beverage of choice? There's plenty to show you today. Let's jump right in.

I've been doing a lot of knitting, but very little finishing. Here's what I'm working on today.

John's Trekking XXL socks are coming along nicely. These are the socks I took with me to Kamloops and the trip to the hospital. The gusset on the second sock is almost done; then I'll do the foot to the toe on one, then the other. Two socks at the same time; that's the way to do it!

Then there's the Gansey sampler sweater. I worked on it a little bit at the store yesterday, but when I got to the shoulder saddles, I decided to put it away till I can concentrate on what I'm doing. So far, it's been a fun little learning experience.

This morning, I picked up John's birthday scarf again. He's working today and tomorrow (yes, Sunday and Labour Day), so I can work on the scarf without him being around to ask questions about it.

I'm past the halfway point in the ribbed section (and the scarf) and have just added the second skein... of 100% cashmere. He's worth it, though. Seeing how much he liked my cashmere scarf last winter, I'm pretty sure he'll like this one.



Then there's this mass of knitting. Well, it's not quite a mass yet, but it's getting there. Remember my last post said I'd tell you about the Irish Diamond Shawl? Well, here it is. The yarn... yes....(picture me running down the stairs to get a ball of the yarn so I can tell you about the yarn)...Here we go. It's Gedifra Fashion Trend Sportivo, colour #5712. I like this yarn. It's supposed to be a sock yarn, and I'm sure the socks would be lovely. It has a lot of "springiness" to the yarn and looks heavier than it is. It's hard to explain, but the best way to describe it is to say that it's "cushy".

I really like the way the colours are coming up, quite subtle. I think I mentioned that I might make this shawl a little smaller than written, but on thinking about it, this would most likely be a living room shawl (one that stays on the sofa to wrap oneself in when it gets a little chilly), so I might just go ahead and knit it as written. Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern.

I'm really enjoying the process of knitting this shawl so far. The pattern stitch of the first section is a fairly simple one to remember and the yarn is a pleasure to knit with.

This morning, I looked at my pile of UFO's (the pile in the dining room, not the UFO's hidden away in a Rubbermaid storage bin in the garage) and realized I simply can not start anything else until I have a few things finished, preferably all of them. You and I both know, though, that it just ain't gonna happen, right? Should I be feeling guilty?

On a completely different note, I took a stroll down to the dock this morning, camera in hand. It's such a beautiful day again today that I couldn't resist. Allow me to share with you.



John planted a row of sunflowers this spring. Considering that the soil is predominantly clay, they didn't do too badly but didn't get nearly as big as the parent plant of these seeds.

That's the plant we got the seeds from. That picture was taken about three years ago now. The head of that sunflower was over 12" across. We let the birds have most of the seeds, but John did save a Ziploc baggie of the seeds to plant. Good soil certainly does make a difference.

I have one last picture to leave you with.







Does it get any better than this?