Weekend Update

In a rare and unlikely to be repeated stroke of chance, I actually got much of what I needed to accomplish this weekend done.

OK, it probably wouldn't have played out that way if it hadn't been a long weekend. And the fact that the Viking was at work both Saturday and Sunday probably helped, since I wasn't distracted.

I trundled happily around my garden with my wheelbarrow and my dog, planting hellebores and irises, and digging up the old irises and some lilies of the valley (hey Keilyn, how many of those do you want?) and other such stuff. I still need to manure the daylilies and also feed the azaleas and box.

I did not get quite as far with the bulbs as I would have liked, because Saturday the Viking drove off to work with the drill still in the back of the truck from last weekend's barnraising, and without the drill I cannot use my bulb auger. Sunday I got the drill, but then we realised we'd left the 25' extension cord at the barnraising, and it is hard to use the drill, with or without the bulb auger, when it is not plugged in.

I'd have picked up another cord, if I'd been thinking, but I was called out to rescue Maman from a small automotive breakdown and didn't think about stopping at a hardware store until I'd fetched her, chauffered her around, and gotten back home. However, we are planning on being home next Saturday, so I should be able to get the bulbs done then.

It's actually probably just as well that I hold off on the bulbs since our cable went out over the weekend and the company reports that they have to lay a new underground cable to the house. I shudder to think what a mess that will be, and I would shudder harder if I'd planted bluebells all over the place and then had them all dug back up so the cable could be laid.

I also started and (this is the amazing part) finished a knitting project. I'd decided to rip out the socks and start again on smaller needles, then realised that I didn't have a set of double-points in the correct size (what the heck? I have dpns in every size from 0000 lace needles to 5mm -- except for 2.75 mm, which is a standard sock size. How did that happen?) So. I ordered a set of 2.75 bamboo dpns (I am liking the Clover bamboo dpns I picked up at Sheep & Wool. I am liking them a lot) and looked around for something else to do.

As has been noted in the past, I am a magpie. I hoard up bright things. I have tried to explain to the Viking that yarn is like cheese and wine -- a little age improves it, and no respectable household should be without a certain amount stored away. I don't think he really believes me when I say this, but he is amused and indulgent.

So of course I had plenty of potential projects to choose among; I ended up pulling out the makings of a shawl. I'm not a huge fan of Lion Brand Homespun� yarn -- which is a chunky acrylic and looks nothing like any homespun yarn I or any of my spinster friends have made¹ -- but it's light and warm and comes in pretty colours. Another bulky-weight yarn would probably work equally well.

I don't knit quickly. Since I knit as much for the process, the rhythm of the needles and the feel of the yarn slipping through my fingers, as for the finished product, this doesn't bother me. But there is rarely any such thing as a 'weekend project' for me, unless it's in the sense of 'I worked on it every weekend until it was done.'

But this worked up fast. Wow. I started it Saturday evening. I finished it last night, and that included the weird crocheted cast-off.

The cast-off was not that difficult once I got it figured out, but all crochet is weird to me. I've never successfully wrapped my brain around the technique.

¹ I am a terrible spinner. I have tried it, and I have found that spinning simply doesn't interest me sufficiently for me to put in the effort to get good at it. I would rather buy beautiful yarns from people who enjoy making them. But neither my lumpy efforts nor the more consistent threads spun by my friends who do enjoy spinning look anything like the acrylic boucl� in question.

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