hi ho off to the fair

and here they are in their glory all ready to go!

tomorrow I get to make my first trip farther than the grocery store

we're taking our entries down to the State Fair -- about 50 miles away

I'm being allowed to do this only under the condition that we stop about half way each direction so I can get out of the car and walk around

it will be good to get to do this as a break from being restricted to just around the house activities

the receiving date for the jewelry and the birdhouse and the bunny is actually tomorrow, the other things aren't actually due until next week, but the Fair coordinator has told me I can bring all of them tomorrow and they will put the other items in a safe place

one MORE complete

another afghan square all finished for the box to Close Knit Hugs

there is still quite a bit of this varigated yarn, so today I'll be making some smaller balls out of some one pound skeins of paler colors that I want to use with it next

since I'll actually be traveling a little way tomorrow, I want to have yarn all ready for working on squares in the car


I've been working on a sweater too, and it is moving right along --- the back and sleeves are done, and I'm getting really close to having the front done too --- then I get to figure out a hood --- this particular pattern didn't originally have a hood (in fact, it wasn't even originally a cardigan!)

this project, however has now been ripped back to a ball of yarn

somewhere along the way (a few rows back from where I actually discovered it) I dropped a stitch in the lace work

this project is a repeat of 10 rows, each right side row being a different combination of yarn overs and knitting 2 or 3 stitches together

after studying the problem carefully I decided that there was no way even if I could actually rip back only to the place that the dropped stitch had "raveled" to, that I'd be able to figure out what row to start with

so, I ripped it

I'm going to finish the aforementioned sweater before I start this again --- right now having 2 projects going that require close attention to which row is which is more than I can deal with


right now there is a large retirement complex being built in what was a big vacant field behind our house

this morning, as I was looking out my kitchen window, I spotted this pile of sand that is at the base of the retaining wall they have built over there

my best guess is that this form has been created through a combination of whatever they have removed with their shovels, the wind that whips around the building and the hail and rain we've had in the past few evenings

to me it looks like the head of a lion -- the ears, the mane, the eyes and cheeks --- in fact until I got to where I could see the bottom of the pile, I thought it was a concrete statue

weird (is this the building materials version of seeing animals in the clouds?)