slow, slow knitter

Well, I've still been knitting but I've got no FOs to show. I'm onto the lace portion in Ishbel:



I've learned that I need absolute silence when working with charts. I sequester myself in the bedroom if Josh is around (and all he's doing is typing on his keyboard. Seriously.) or sit in the living room and get aggravated when the A/C kicks on. So yeah, this is slow going. I'm still on the first lace repeat.

I have knit two more repeats on the Clapotis that never ends - and I'm happy to say I've moved on to the second skein of yarn (STR mediumweight in Tlingit). I cast this on in January so I'm hopeful that, at one or two repeats a week, I'll be done in, oh, November?

And I'm cheerfully knitting away on the foot of the mate to this sock. Etc. etc.

Nothing else to report in knitting land except that I've been lucky enough to win two blog contests in the past week. I won a beautiful skein of Misti Alpaca from The ADD Knitter, who is a witty gal whose posts make me laugh and whose FOs (many of them knit with Malabrigo) make me drool. I also won a skein of STR to be determined as from Carrie, aka Irishgirlieknits, over here. She is an STR enthusiast just like me. Oh! and she sent me a copy of her newly written pattern, Cotty. So I am a lucky, lucky gal this week, and stay tuned for a giveaway soon-to-be-announced here ...

almost my weekend!

Today is my Friday, and I'm really looking forward to having the next two days off. You wouldn't think I'd be so desperate for a weekend, because I just had four days off to go to Ohio, and, a few days later, a three-day weekend (thanks to a furlough day). But I am. I've been keeping my mornings busy with running and errands and dates with friends - I went to the beach Sunday, to a new Trader Joe's on Monday, and had a great run yesterday. I like having busy mornings because they feel more productive, but today rolled around and I just didn't want to do anything. I took Gracie on a nice walk and decided to go for a run, but I ran maybe half a mile and just wasn't feeling it. No motivation. (And I was hungry, since I hadn't eaten breakfast and set out a little before noon on my run. No wonder I was ravenous.) So I made the choice to come home and do a little stretching instead. I'm slowly learning to be OK with skipping runs in favor of something else ... like knitting on Ishbel!



I'm totally digging the colorway. I'm flying along on the stockinette section and I'm hopeful I don't run into too many hiccups on the lace part - hoping to get to that point tomorrow. I've got another trip to the beach planned with friends, a pizza party at work and knit night. Fun stuff!

I'll leave you with a pic of my herb garden. A few weeks ago, I had just transferred the plants to flower boxes and they looked rather floppy. But check out the basil now:



Grow, baby, grow!

I had a blast in Ohio. I was there for less than 72 hours but it felt like I was there for a week. Perhaps because I spent all day Friday knitting and ended up with a sock?



STR mediumweight in Cockamamie, basic ribbed sock

I'm already past the heel of the second sock. I really love the fabric of STR mediumweight on US 2 needles.

I've also cast on for what I'm hoping will be my first shawl, Ishbel.



Yarn is what else but STR (Mustang Sally, lightweight).

I thought the cast-on was kind of tricky, and I'm not quite sure I did it right, but I'm just going with it.

Yesterday was my return to running after the Capital City Half Marathon last Saturday. I woke up early and ran 2.3 miles before going to the beach with my pal Steph.

Oh yeah, and as for how the race went, I'm disappointed because I didn't push myself as much as I'd have liked. I didn't feel as strong as I did six weeks ago at the Shamrock Half Marathon, and I know that's because I wasn't able to complete my long runs (thanks to my two untimely falls). But I know I'm going to focus on improving my speed this summer, despite the mugginess that's to come. No excuses for me this summer.