Around the bend

More sock progress today – have turned the heel and am on to the foot.

Green phase

Painted with a friend the other night; feeling very zen.

And the sock continues to chug along, only about a half inch from the heel and the color has transitioned back to green. Love this yarn!

Do-over

Negative progress on the sock, thanks to my persistent case of gauge swatch aversion. Yep, got all the way to the heel and then tried to put the sock on, only to be reminded that this is smaller yarn than I typically knit socks with and therefore my typical stitch counts just weren’t going to cut it. *sigh*

Look familiar?

More sock

I love watching the color changes.

Knit in public week

I always do, but I made a special choice this morning in commuter knitting in honor of Knit in Public week – a coveted skein of Zauberball and extra pointy sticks. Figured it’s more impressive to non knitters to see someone making socks with a porcupine on a moving train.

Sunny day and blue heaven update

Today’s training walk was six miles, but it had way more “up” than usual, so I am calling it a hike. It was a beautiful afternoon to be outside, and especially near the water as we were (hiking through Seahurst Park). Saw lots of other folks out enjoying the sun but surprisingly few boats out on the water.
Now I’m enjoying a bit of well-deserved knitting time, with a kitty on my lap. I’m making good progress on my Blue Heaven shawl – though I’m nervous about running out of yarn. It doesn’t look like much yet; the lace won’t show it’s full beauty until it’s blocked, but every now and then I stop and stretch it out with my hands to check for errors.

Show time!

Yeah, it’s been quiet on the blog – but far from it inside my head. You see, I went a little crazy a couple months ago and signed up for way more shows (street fairs/bazaars/craft shows) than I normally do – and for a few days there I got a little panicked about my ability to actually do them. The blog, therefore, took a backseat to my craziness while I prepped and fretted and generally neglected large aspects of my life (including housework).

And ultimately, it seems that I was overreacting just a wee bit and things really are OK. I have a fantastic husband who puts up with me, a daughter who is quickly becoming a young adult, and a great friend who all pitched in to make this weekend not only survivable, but successful and fun.

I spent the last two days manning my booth at the Mother Earth News Fair, at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. It’s rather large and quite a big deal; there were hundreds of workshops and hands-on demonstrations, a huge bookstore, and tons of vendors hawking everything from handmade soap (like me!) to solar panels and composting toilets. Everything was geared towards being more sustainable, environmentally friendly, and self-supporting. It was a great crowd for my soaps, and I met a lot of really great people. I was over-prepared (made too much soap), but this was a total unknown and I always err on the side of “I’d rather have it and not need it than the other way around”, and the good thing is that I have another show in just three weeks and there’s very little I need to make for that one now.

Here’s a couple of pictures of my booth setup.

It’s always a work-in-progress. The dark crates are new this year, so I’m figuring out how to best utilize them. There’s a couple of shelves that I don’t like, and that will be getting replaced before my next show. Overall I’m pretty happy with it but I definitely had too much product so it’s more crowded than I’d like.

There hasn’t been a lot of time for knitting, but I am still in my “finish it up” mode and have finished a pair of vanilla socks in Socks That Rock:

and have been cranking out the lace edge of a shawl that I hope to submit into the state fair this fall. The pattern is My Heaven, and I’m knitting it in “Filigran”, a heavy lace-weight wool. You knit the lace bottom edging first, then pick up and knit the triangular body section. It’s going to need serious blocking to open up the pattern.

This morning I got to the end of the lace edging, which means that next I get to pick up fifteen million stitches along the edge and knit the body of the shawl. We’ll see if I can manage that on the train home tonight.

 

Out of touch

We headed to the mountains for the long weekend, which meant sketchy cell service and no data. It also meant hours of playing board games, walking in the woods, assembling puzzles, reading, knitting, eating too much, and laughing with family.

Enjoyed quite a bit of gorgeousness while getting my miles on in the great outdoors:

Got a chuckle over the excessive restroom signage at a trail head, complete with disabled access —- but you’d have to negotiate between the boulders that surround the building and then get over all that gravel first.

On yesterday’s walk (in the pouring rain, I might add), we were sorely tempted to get some fuit, but we were on the wrong side of the river.

And because this made me chuckle: saw this the other day at the park-and-ride: someone who doesn’t seem to understand how the bike racks work…

Doctor’s Orders

Walking is just fine (in fact, he encourages it) but running is probably not a good idea. He took several x-rays and says that my knees look fairly normal for a woman my age, just minor signs of aging and wear that are well within what he would expect, especially given the surgeries I’ve had. Minor bone spurs on the tibia and irregularities on the back of the knee cap, and slight variance in the cartilage from one side to the other, but he sees no reason to get an MRI unless these flare ups continue to happen. After the usual poking, prodding, pulling, and twisting that goes with any orthopedic appointment, he doesn’t think there’s anything serious going on.

His main suggestion for why I’ve had more frequent flare ups lately is that perhaps all the walking is creating imbalanced muscle strength that pulls on my permanently-weakened knees. Combined with the impact of running, inflammation and pain is to be expected. So, he recommends Aleve for the next couple of weeks to reduce the swelling and a few visits with a physical therapist to evaluate my muscles and see what might need balancing out. Oh yeah, and no running.

It was a good visit, we chatted quite a bit about knees in general and the preventative surgeries I had back in high school; he is of the opinion that they were the best decision we could have made and that it undoubtedly added decades of life to my knees.  Yay!

AND – he asked why I was doing so much walking, and when I told him his face just lit up; he has been on the medical board for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day and highly recommends it and the foundation in general! He was excited that I was participating and says he has thought about walking himself.

(almost) all grown up

A very happy birthday goes out over the interwebs to our youngest, who is now just one year away from being a legal adult. It’s amazing how much she’s grown up in the past year. And equally amazing how in some ways she hasn’t changed at all. She doesn’t get to relax on her birthday, but we’ve got some fun stuff planned for a belated celebration.

Happy Birthday, baby girl! I love you!