Having fun is soooo exhausting!

I've been busy as usual. Take yesterday for instance...we left the house at 10:30 am to go do a demo dance at a "retirement community". We danced from noon until 1 pm. Then they fed us lunch (hot dogs and watermelon, but I only ate watermelon. I just don't care for hot dogs). Then we danced a little more. When we left there, one of the other couples invited us all over to their house for wine, snacks, margaritas and visiting. Fun, fun. We left there around 3 pm. I made a quick call to some other friends whom we've been intending to go visit. We figured...hey we're on a roll. Might as well do it. Yes, they said, come on over. So, another hour or two was spent visiting with friends. Got home about 5:30. There was a message on the answering machine from another couple. Hey we're going to take the boat out for a cruise this evening. Want to come? Sure! Gulp down a quick South Beach dinner (nasty things but they do come in handy). Change clothes, grab a bottle of wine and we're off. There were 7 adults and 4 kids and one dog on the cruise. It was really nice. We cruised over to Rick & Cheryl's "manse" and played in the pool for awhile. The return cruise was really great....full moon and Camp Champions had a gorgeous fireworks display so we just sat out on the lake and watched. We pulled into our driveway about 11:30 last night. Whew! Being retired is hard work!

So, I have been knitting a little. The Myrtle Leaf Shawl from VLT was cast on a week or two ago. I'm using Claudia's Handpainted Laceweight in DF Green. Love the yarn! I'm not sure about the shawl though. It seems too holey and I don't know that it's worth the time and effort that it will take. It is patterned on both sides with SSP and P2tog on the WS. SSP is a PITA! There are so many other shawls that I love...Icarus, Adamas, Fir Cone, Swallowtail, Highland Triangle....why should I spend time doing this one if I don't love it? Anyway, here's a picture. I tried to smoosh it out so you can see it. This is after one repeat. Oh yeah, another thing that I don't like about it is that on row 13 the first stitch of the first repeat is done as a K1 and on all the other repeats on that row the first stitch is a k2tog. The last stitch is a k2tog. So that totally screws up the markers for that row and the next row. PITA!


The Featherweight Fantasy is coming along very fast. I am more than halfway done with it. I'm using Zephyr DK in Ebony. I LOVE Zephyr DK. It has such awesome stitch definition.

Success!

There was no bloodshed in the house. MS3 is done. Can we all breath a sigh of relief? Well, I will anyway. You can see the seam down the back, but I'm ok with that. I'm just so thrilled with it and actually once I got the groove of grafting it wasn't so bad. But, I will certainly shy away from projects with that word in them. Or at least lace projects.







So, now that that's done. And, by the way, it took me three days less than one year to finish it. Of course, I didn't work on it exclusively. In fact, I didn't touch it for several months.



Last night I finished this really cute crocheted Floppy Brim Hat. Pattern here. I had to modify the pattern to make it fit my tiny head and it still turned out a little large. But, I like it fine. Except that I don't look nearly as glamorous as I'd hoped. A good grip on reality has never been one of my strong points.



Next up...Featherweight Fantasy Shawl in black Zephyr DK for mom. I'd also like to start the Myrtle Leaf shawl in the Claudia's laceweight that I got at WHIBSIB. The VLT yahoo is doing this as their KAL for July.



We're dancing this afternoon so I better go get my butt in gear.

New Year Knitting Resolutions

So, Dawn had this knitting resolutions thing on her blog and I thought it was a cool idea. So without further ado....here are mine.

1-Finish MS3 (even if it kills me).

2-Design (& knit) a sweater. (who am I kidding?)

3-Finish mom's afghan (which was supposed to be Christmas '07 gift)

4-Knit at least one item from each of my books. (I edited and added this one because I saw it on someone else's blog and thought it was a great idea!)

Ok. I think that's enough. I feel a little lightheaded.

I finished the Montego Bay scarf a couple of days ago and I think it looks great. Better than the photo. But here's DH in all his workclothes glory posing for me. What a guy!

I have cast on for mom's afghan and knitted about 3" on it. So, I'll put it in a gift bag with the yarn and a picture of the finished afghan. Also, I bought her a nice pair of gold hoop earrings.

I cast on the scarf from VLT on pg 100 with the Hempathy yarn that Carrie gifted me. I love the yarn. Not sure I love the pattern. It uses k2tog for all the decreases and I'm not sure I like how that looks when the decrease line is pointed left. I cannot believe that I even recognize there might be a better way. I've only done about 2 inches on it so no loss. I can frog and try another pattern.