No excuses, I just haven't put in my blogging time - mea culpa.
This is a long shot of my Mother's Day Picnic Breakfast. (We're under the big center tree.) This is
Lake Murray in La Mesa. (It's really a reservoir, there's little open water here in Southern California.)
This is the view from the opposite direction.
Party Crashers.
And here I am trying to unwrap a roll of paper towels. (Is it just me or are they making plastic indestructible now a days!!)
We had such a good time that we're planning on a Father's Day picnic at another water side location next month. My girls gave me some wonderful presents. The gardener daughter gave me a couple of plants for the front yard remodel. (Due to up coming water rationing we've turned off the lawn sprinklers and are getting ready to take out all the grass. I'll sure miss all that cool green.) She gave me a Tree Mallow, the flowers are 2 inches in diameter.
and a Leptospermum
both plants have very low water requirements.
The traveling Photographer daughter was in Portland, Oregon last month and surprised me with Shibui Sock yarn from
Knit Purl.
When she first told me she would be in Portland I told her she could go to Knit Purl and buy me this sock yarn, intending to pay her for it; then I forgot about the whole thing. So I really was surprised when I opened her bag. I have great daughters!
Later that afternoon the four of us went and saw Star Trek. I loved it! Even better was I had enough passes and gift certificates that we ended up paying $1 for 4 tickets, two drinks AND popcorn! Not sure which was more fun the movie or buying the tickets for a buck!
Knitting Content: now what do I do?
These are the cuffs for
entrelac fingerless mitts out of Silk Garden Sock.
They're huge - I can pull them all the way up to my elbows and they're still loose. I'm using a size 1 needle and don't think that they would be much smaller if I went down to a zero needle. Only way is to rip the whole thing out and rework the pattern to take one of the squares out - not sure that's going to happen. I even tried them on as sock cuffs and they fit around the largest part of my calf but that would be ALOT of entrelac. Just not sure where I'm going from here.
Ink Spot Scarf doesn't look much different. I've been carrying this around with me but I keep making mistakes and take out as much as I knit. I'm afraid this is going to have to stay home and go back to being my early morning project. It's not a complicated pattern but what with it being black I do have to pay attention and count.
I've started sewing the barn-raising squares, getting the 4 corners to come together is fiddly. It'll get there - eventually. I bought a warm semi-sold chocolate by Mama Blue for the crocheted border.
Still working on my milkweed scarf submission; I'm on the second ball of hand-spun. No pictures because it doesn't look like much until it's blocked. I'm worried about stretching my handspun out at blocking - there are a few thing spots.
A Knitty Sweater has been started in
Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool. but that's all that I can say for now.
You've heard of
Square Foot Gardening? I found planters that are exactly a square foot and the idea just grabbed me. There are three now but I'm headed out today to see if I can find more since the original three are looking so good.
There is no way I can plant too much flat leaf parsley and cilantro!
And to close here's a photo of a visitor to the front yard. This is taken through the front window, he just sat there and stared - No Fear.
Bind off loosely is an understatement. I knit this with a size 6 needle and bound off with a size 10 which still wasn't loose enough; the bind-off was too tight to get the edging points as shown in the book. 
