Signs of Spring

Mim’s having a “Signs of Spring” contest, and of course my daughter and I just partook of our favorite harbinger of spring. Our first trip to the greenhouse. We have a green house that is about a 1/4 of a mile from our house. It is run by a nice Amish family. Each spring since moving down here we take a walk over after the Monkey gets home from school, we take the camera and just wander looking at all the lush green. Most of the flowers aren’t even in bloom yet, but we like to look at the promise that is waiting within. We do several trips like this throughout the season, but the first one is always the most special. So here you are Mim, our favorite harbinger of Spring, the local greenhouse.

Oh and this is Evanrude’s favorite spring announcement, real patches of sunshine on the floor to nap in…even if they are in a messy 11 year olds room.

P.S. Mim, I recently cast on for the Lightweight Mountain Peaks Shawl while I was down and out with the flu, and your pattern was clear and simple enough to read even with severe brain fog and flu fatigue! Loving it!

Isn’t she lovely

Look at this kid. She’s a young woman? When the heck did that happen? Sheesh. On her day off yesterday we had a girls day out that included, Nathans hot dogs and fries, ice cream from Brusters, a trip to the library, capped off by a walk around the Greenhouse. I had her sit on the bench, it was just so lovely there. And look at her? Isn’t she lovely? That’s my girl.

And for your viewing pleasure, some springtime, brought to you by our local greenhouse. *Clicky to embiggen*

The bump…are you happy Kelly?

I keep forgetting to take pictures of the baby bump, so tonight I finally remembered and the hubby captured the Tad’s temporary condo. Which, by the way, he/she is quickly outgrowing! Only two more months to go…eeps! May 22nd. I have to say, despite the heart burn, the constantly being hungry (especially for things that aren’t good for me), and the fact that it is getting harder to bend over and tie my shoes…I am loving this.

Bump

Do not talk about farting before someone takes your picture, you laugh and have squinty eyes.

I picked it…problem solved?

* A note before we begin. This post is supposed to have pictures of several blocked swatches. But it won’t…for a while as the hubby is on the poop list. You see he built me a new ‘puter last night and was so eager to show me the built in card reader. He kept poking around the tower until he found the slot and shoved my poor little memory card in, then he couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t read the card. I figured it out this morning when I removed the card and tried to put it in the camera. He bent one of those teeny little plastic slats on the back. *grrrrrrrr* He’s been a computer tech for over ten years. Unfortunately, he’s been a man for a lot longer. Pictures to follow when thoroughly chastised hubby brings home his card for me to use while he sees if he can fix mine. Grrrr again.*

For nearly all twenty years that I have been knitting I have had a problem with purl. Oh I like purl well enough and when it’s just purl and me, we get along fine. It’s just that when knit comes along right before purl, well let’s just say purl doesn’t like to be that close to knit. So all of my ribbing has a weird laddery effect between the last knit stitch and the first purl stitch when ribbing. The rest of the ribbing looks great, even the last purl into the first knit, nice and smooth and seamless, but if knit gets to go ahead of purl…forget it.

See?

I have even tried different things on advice from others, to pick up the slack between these two stitches, so to speak. Here is a swatch where I tightened up the knit stitch just before moving into the purl section. See? Big honky-wonky knit stitch and still some laddering.

In this swatch I tried tightening up just the purl immediately after the last knit stitch in a ribbing pattern. Again, wonky last knit stitch and some laddering.

At this point last night when knitting these examples of things I have tried in the past, I was near tears, swearing, and stabbing someone with my needles. Here in the last example I tried tightening up both the last knit stitch and the first purl stitch. Again, no improvement except that it really tightened up my knitting and threw off my gauge.

Somewhere between the second and third swatch a nagging thought started tickling my brain. Continental. “What? No way, I’m a thrower, shut up.” Continental. “Um, nope, tried it once, holy slow.” Continental, it takes practice to get faster dummy. “Oh for crying in the mud…FINE! I will try it.” So I did, and boy was it awkward. I felt and looked like a kindergartner just picking up the needles for the first time. The hubby was even laughing he said, “You look more awkward than I did when you had me try a few stitches! You should see the face you are making.” I resisted the urge to give him a good jab with my needle. Finally after consulting a book or two and just being frustrated to death I came to bed at 12:30 with a smallish swatch of continental in hand. Yeah, see? The ladder has definitely improved. *sigh* My only fear is that it has improved because I have that “I’m-still-learning-death-grip-gauge” going on right now. What if it slackens again once I get comfortable with Continental?

So? What’s a girl to do? I’m tired of my cabling looking crappy. I’m tired of weird laddery ribbing. I’m at my wits end? I have emailed a “knitting doctor” to see if they can help. Any suggestions here would be great. I’m willing to try anything at this point.

Hee, hee, a funny

The Monkey has fallen for the site opposite of I Can Has Cheezburger…I Has A HotDog. She found this little gem and emailed it to me. Hee, it’s pretty funny.