Warming Up

Just a quick post to prove that I'm still alive. It's warming up around these parts and we've had a few sunny days to melt most of the snow piles. The ground in our yard is mostly bare now except in areas of extreme shadiness.

I've been working on the India Stole most of the time and I'm about a third of the way through the second half. It's moving right along even though it doesn't seem like I get to work on it very much. I'm thinking it's going to be really beautiful when it's done.

I'm also working on the Evenstar Shawl (part of the Lord of the Rings Series by Susan Pandorf). Clues come out every other Friday and since it's still in it's infancy it's quite easy to finish a clue before the next one comes out. We've finished Clue #2 and are awaiting #3 which will come out this Friday. Here's a photo I took after I finished Clue #1.



It appears that I'm going to have surgery on my left shoulder very soon so the knitting will be on hold for a while. I somehow partially tore my rotator cuff and need to get it fixed and rahabed in time for mowing this spring. I hope the doctor can fit me in soon.

The start of our local minor league season is only a month away and we're looking forward to that as we do each spring. Here's hoping that we get a break and have some warm weather for our first home stand.

Charity Knitting and Baseball

I took a little time off from knitting the Lacy Cabled Scoop to knit a couple squares for an afghan we're making to be raffled off for charity. I asked the Star Wars gang to pose with the squares and Artoo Potatoo agreed to put aside his differences with Darth Tater and Spud Trooper long enough for this photo. The mayham resumed as soon as the flash died.

The afghan will be made of orange, black and cream squares knit in various stitch patterns and pieced together. It'll be raffled off at a Hagerstown Suns game (their colors are black and orange) on Father's Day (I think). Kraemer Yarns generously donated the yarn for the project.

Susan, from Y2Knit, is organizing the project and the Social Knitters are doing the squares. It's a really team project. We'll be having a few Stitch & Pitch events at the games this season. I love to knit at the ball game. What a great way to spend a summer evening. Here's a pic of me knitting the Icarus Shawl from Interweave Knits Summer 2006 at the game last year.

Opening night is only two weeks away!

Exercise or knit? Which would you rather do?

I continue to reconstruct Icarus. As you will recall, I ripped back to the beginning of the last repeat of Chart 1 on Tuesday. I've done 5 rows since then. I simply can't do this and watch tv. From now on I will listen to podcasts and audio book while I knit on this shawl. I know you experienced lace knitters are saying to yourselves, "What is her problem? Chart 1 is the easy part!" but I keep making mistakes. Complacent inattentiveness, I guess. Still when all is said and done, I'm enjoying the hell out of this and I know it's going to look great when it's done.

I am so obsessed with finishing this that I even resent the half-hour that I spend at Curves and wondered if I could knit while I work out. All the time I'm there I'm thinking that I could be knitting. Hell, I'd rather be doing just about anything else. I find Curves to be so mind-numbingly boring that I can barely force myself to go. I know it's only one half-hour three times a week and I know it's good for me but does it have to be so dull? The ladies there try to perk it up by having games and puzzles to do while you exercise and that has helped tremendously but those of us with short attention spans are still counting the seconds 'til we finish that last repeat. Or maybe I'm the only one who feel that way.

Anyway, tonight is a baseball game and if it doesn't rain (over 8" since Sunday here) we'll be going. That means a few hours of uninterrupted knitting. The stadium flooded Monday with water waist deep in the dugouts and a couple feet in the locker rooms and the offices, but they played last night after a late start. There's no stopping the boys of summer.

Work on the Icarus Shawl Continues...

Icarus at our local Minor League game.

Icarus in the grass.

I'm working on the shawl every chance I get but I'm not the fastest knitter in the world by any means. Yesterday Hubby and I went to the Suns game, they're our local minor league (single A) team. We go to most of the home games. It was a wonderful day. I know it looks cloudy in the photo but they were big white clouds with blue sky between. The heat wave ended on Friday night when thunder storms and hail swept through. I was beginning to despair that summer had come to stay. I HATE Maryland in the summer when the forecast, day after day, is hazy, hot, and humid.