Is This What Summer is Like?

Posting again from my vacation spot in Palm Desert, CA. The Weather Channel says that there might be a record high temperature today in this area. The old record was 87F. Not bad for January, huh?

This morning DH and I went for a nice bike ride. It's really flat here and there are bike lanes on some of the busy streets, so that's nice. There are also very wide sidewalks, meant for golf carts I guess, and no one walks here, so you can ride freely on them. I try to get a run or walk in frequently and it's truly California; everyone drives everywhere. You really have to watch out crossing streets since drivers aren't used to pedestrians.

Anyway, we were riding down El Paseo (the Rodeo Drive of Palm Desert) and I heard a woman ask, "Is this what summer is like?" (The temperature was in the 70s when were riding.) I wanted to answer, since I've been here in July and August a few times, "No, at 9:00 in the morning in the summer, it would be 110!" That's not my favorite time to be here.

I've been doing some knitting and spinning. One thing about being here at this time of year is that it gets dark early. The sun goes behind the mountains about 4:30 and it gets cool, so there's lots of indoor time to knit and spin. I started this beautiful merino/bamboo two days ago and have finished half of it. I'm doing a semi-woolen, supported long draw so it's going much faster than my usual worsted spinning does.

It's from Zen String (now Wildflower Whimsey) and is spinning beautifully.

I finished my plain vanilla socks that I was making for the YOSS group on Ravelry. To recap, they're made from Wollmeise 100% superwash merino in the Saami colorway. I think they look kind of like bright tiger stripes!

I'm working on DH's bedsocks still; they keep fooling me into making them too short, and I've started the Herbivore shawl by Stephen West. I took a class from him when he was in Seattle last year and fell in love with some of his designs.

I'm knitting this out of The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in the Fairy Wren colorway and love both the pattern and the yarn. I haven't used any of the Bugga or Skinny Bugga I've collected and now I'll have to. It's wonderful. Here's a photo from the other day before I had to go out and find some needles with a longer cable. I bought some Signature circulars but got 24" cables. I should have gotten 32" as they probably would have been more useful for more projects, but oh well.

Time to go to the pool!

Comments

What I've Been Up To: Part Three. Missouri

Tuesday morning The Princess and I flew to St. Louis, rented a car, and drove a couple of hours to St. Robert, MO. My SIL joined the National Guard and graduated from Boot Camp on May 9th, so we wanted to be on hand to congratulate him. May 8th was Family Day, so we got to pick him up at Fort Leonard Wood and take him with us for the day. He looks very handsome and impressive in his dress uniform! The Princess and her cadre of Army Wives. Facebook is handy for making connections! We enjoyed meeting some of his buddies and their families and spending some quiet time, then had to have him back on post at 9:00 PM. The next morning, we went back for an impressive graduation ceremony. When that was over, we drove to a restaurant several miles out of town. The drive was beautiful and the restaurant was actually in a cave. The "shuttle" from the parking lot to the restaurant and "resort" was an old, rickety van driven by someone who might

The Great Adventure 2017 Part Eleven

Okay, we are heading into our last week and I should finish the narrative in no time! We left off as we were riding the train to Oxford, which was where we picked up our next car. Our B&B was in Stow-on-the-Wold, which should have been a fairly quick and easy drive. Unfortunately, our GPS again conspired against us and by the time we figured out we were indeed going in the wrong direction, we had made our drive into a considerably longer one than it needed to be. I hesitate to say that we wasted time, since seeing any place in England was interesting, but we did have to do some backtracking to get where we needed to be. We spent two nights in a very quaint building that was built in 1640. The narrow circular staircase and slant to the floors bore out this fact. Imagine carrying two suitcases up these stairs! We had heard good things about the Cotswolds and were looking forward to seeing some part of the area. Our first impression was that they are indeed popular with

Catching Up

It's been awhile since I've posted any knitting, but I have finished a few things. Let's see, I got it into my head that I had to finish my Cozy wrap before our trip to Ireland, so I could take it on the plane as a blankie. Well, I knitted and knitted, so much so that my elbow began to hurt (ack!) but didn't finish. I decided to take it with me as airplane knitting, even though the larger, sharper Harmony needles I was using could perhaps be a problem, but they sailed through security screening each time. (I love these needles by the way, in all sizes. I haven't had any problems with them at all.) So Cozy came with me, sat on my lap, and I finally finished it halfway through the trip. Then I decided that it wasn't long enough, so I packed it into my suitcase and planned to block it out larger after returning home. Well, I blocked it and now it's really long, but I still like it and use it to throw over my shoulders as I sit and knit at home. Here&#

Knittinggarden

Search This Blog