Miscellaneous Stuff & Some Knitting

I got an e-mail notice from the owner of my LYS (local yarn shoppe) this afternoon saying she had just given away the last chemo cap and it was time for us to make some more. The challenge thrown out to us rabid knitters was 30 caps in 30 days and I've decided to accept the challenge. So in order to get my 30 caps done, I'm going to have to take a little break from blogging (and probably Facebook too) and concentrate on this knitting challenge and also some other home and garden activities. Before my break though, I'll share some of the miscellaneous stuff and knitting that has been occupying my time these past couple weeks.

We moved the deer hunting ladder stand last weekend in anticipation of the upcoming archery deer season opener. (Actually we had to move it off some private property where our hunting privileges have recently been revoked.) Anyway, Mr. Johnson had this tree in mind and the ladder stand worked perfectly there. In this picture, he's cutting off a large grapevine that's grown up on this tree. This is a perfect spot right at the intersection of two heavily used deer trails, plus not much underbrush in the woods, so it should be good for birding if the deer activity is slow.

I picked the first zucchini from our garden. They have a somewhat stunted shape, but were very tasty nonetheless. There are plenty of blossoms and more little zucchinis on my two plants. I like this golden variety because they're easy to spot (not like the green ones that sometimes grow to the size of a baseball bat because you couldn't see them under a leaf!)

I'm finally starting to see more juvenile birds around the yard. Here's a cute little cardinal who visited the birdbath on Sunday afternoon.

This juvenile Red-Bellied Woodpecker easily figured out how to get inside the cage to the suet log. This is the first one of these youngsters I've seen this summer too. The adults have also been noticeably absent from my backyard--although they were regular visitors during winter and spring.

And now on to the knitting projects. I've been looking for this book ever since I saw it on another knitting blog and last week I found it at Michael's. There are so many cute patterns in here, so I also picked up three balls of cotton yarn to try some of the designs out.

I don't think I have to tell you what this design is.......

This butterfly turned out really cute too.

Sunflower

Leaping Frog

Hummingbird

I'm still working on the square lace shawl, but have finally gotten to the edging. Here's what I've managed to complete this week for the edging. I know this shawl will be much more impressive once it's all blocked out. I'm still not liking this pattern very much--the written instructions aren't very clear and I wonder if the person who wrote it was a really experienced knitter or expected only advanced knitters would be working on it. I've spent plenty of time re-reading sections and scratching my head trying to figure out what she's doing. The real challenge will come when I get to the first corner with my lace edging, but I'm hoping that once I'm there the written instructions will make perfect sense and the chart will correspond exactly to the number of stitches I'm working (I would hate to give up now that I'm almost done!)

I've also been whipping up some of these "coffee cup sweaters." Aren't they cute? And a good way to use up some of my leftover yarn scraps.

Here's a couple more pairs of the knitted half-mitts I've finally finished too. I love the colors in this self-striping yarn.

This color is called Pink Camouflage. (I honestly don't quite get the pink camouflage thing......but I thought the colors knitted up rather cute for these half-mitts.)

Most of these knitted items are destined for my Etsy shop, which is in desperate need of restocking, so between knitting chemo caps, watching birds, pulling weeds and all the other fun stuff going on around here, I hope to get the Etsy shop "shelves" full again.

I'll be checking in with occasional posts when I can and hoping to stay caught up with everyone's activities. In the meantime, I hope you all have an enjoyable summer!