See You Next Week!

WWKIPD

Saturday was World Wide Knit In Public Day and the nearest one to home was at Citrus Park mall. When I arrived it was nice to see a mix of both old and new faces. The organizers had a little raffle and among other prizes there was a skein of Noro sock yarn that I would have loved to get a better look at. I hope Susan brings it to the UnMeetUp on Wednesday!

A little guide to navigating the faces at our knit out:

Thanh, Sharon (better known as Madame DeFarge), Kathy, Kim, Susan, TobeyL, Linda (thanks for those two names Kathleen), Sandy, Kelly, Lori, Me, and Kathleen.

Kathy was crocheting a mystery shawl with some Paton's Lacette that was just so pretty I'm feeling inspired to use it to make this for my mum for Christmas. In addition to the creative stimulation floating around there was, of course, fibre. Kathleen brought me a bag of black Shetland (I think) roving to play with. Surprisingly enough I even tried! Today I took the wheel down from its perch between the television and fish tank (fish tank is currently empty and dry) and took a legitimate crack at making yarn. No pictures because there is no yarn but I did manage to conclude that my drive band was a little messed up. A length or two of tobacco string and some Ravelry surfing later I had my double driven wheel spinning in the right directions but it's still not quite right. We'll mess with it tomorrow and hopefully get it going nicely.

Mememememe!

1. What is your first name? Robyn


2. What is your favorite food? Today? Chicken with Broccoli and steamed rice (searched chicken broccoli rice)


3. What high school did you go to? T.L. Kennedy (an actual photo of the school. I was quite surprised)


4. What is your favorite colours? purple and green


5. Who is your celebrity crush? Heath Ledger (loved Knight's Tale . . . in spite of Shannen Sossamyn)


6. Favorite drink? Chocolate Martini


7. Dream vacation? Right now? Cottage with Mathboy and the dogs.


8. Favorite dessert? Ice Cream . . . for the moment


9. What did you want to be when you grew up? Veterinarian


10. What do you love most in life? Mathboy


11. One word to describe you: Quirky


12. Your flickr name: Cornsss

Want to play too?

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image. (I misread this and simply chose the first image that came up . . . Mathboy, your pretty eyes were still on the second page of that search)

c. Copy and paste each of the URL's for the images into Big Huge Lab's mosaic maker.

d. Leave me a comment so I can come see what you came up with.

Credits:

1. Robyn Weeping Willow, 2. Chicken Broccoli Casserole, 3. Cooksville, 4. purple and green, 5. Jake Gyllenhaal's tribute to Heath Ledger, 6. dark chocolate martini, 7. to my friends in the south, 8. Flickr meltdown, 9. Amelia Update: Desperate Times, 10. DSC00643, 11. Eye Candy, 12. Old Blanket

Last but not least . . . a photo that much better represents my beloved:

Spinning my Wheels

Still not spinning my wheel though. My latest excuse alternates between "gee, I should really have another bobbin or two so I won't have to worry about stopping once I fill this bobbin" (note the optimism that I seem to be feeling about reeling off a whole bobbin when I've barely ever touched a wheel or drop spindle) and "gee, I shouldn't really start anything on the wheel before I've properly refinished it". We'll see what happens this week when I'm all by myself with it for eight hours a day.

The Champagne Mimosa is . . . well I'm still only on the fifth row. I've made it to the eighth row a few times but I keep needing to rip it back a row or four. It's all good though. She'll be beautiful when we're done with each other. I think.

The front garden bed is moving right along. We (read *Mathboy*) are nearly finished digging it and the mulch and ground cloth are waiting patiently to be put into place. Even better, it seems like maybe the rain is here for the summer so we'll be back to a nice evenly green lawn again. w00t!

Are We There Yet?

My countdown widget tells me that I've got fewer than 21 hours before I'm officially on Summer Vacation. I've got to tell you that it can't possibly come soon enough. Not only have the kids this year been exceptionally trying (like the creepy twerp who spent his entire ride today tying the seat belts into knots) but it's just plain ole' hot. I'm tempted to take a thermometer on the bus with me but somehow I suspect that verification that it's 100+ degrees would be disheartening to say the least. Now, in knitterly terms, how hot is it? Almost too hot to knit with linen for Pete's sake. Your hands get really sticky and the yarn just won't glide smoothly along the way you need it to.

What's all this doing to the Mimosa (ravelry link) that I'm working on? Well, I can't count any more and have to keep ripping back a row or five because I can't even figure out where I've gone wrong. I had hoped to be done with the border chart by the end of the week and it's just not going to happen. I spend my days knitting in between trips and my nights correcting the mistakes I made during the day. Oh well. I might be able to make up some time once I'm not captaining the cheese wagon seven and a half hours out of the day.

In other news, we're putting in a front garden bed. It's kind of a learning curve for me. I had a pretty decent little garden in Ontario but stuff that works in zone 4 or 5 will probably be deeply unhappy here in zone 9. Take Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra) for example; They're one of my favourite plants but they like moist, rich, well shaded soil. They're probably not going to do really well in our southern exposure, full sun from about 11:30 to sunset, sand/clay soil. It's all good though . . . Year round Canna Lilies will be nice. And more roses!