The hardenburgia shawl is blocked, and I am pleased. In my usual bass-ackwards way I will now add the edging. There is logic to doing it this way, at least in my own mind. I’m thinking the edging will have a bit of a ripple or ruffled effect, and that blocking it might diminish its ripply effectiveness. At this point, it’s 48″ long and 16″ wide. I even toyed with the idea of turning it into a shrug… pinned the ends to form sleeves and tried it on, but decided it looks more graceful as a wrap. I’m close to the end of the only skein I have, but hope there is enough remaining yardage to add a 6″ border to each end.
On the other hand, once the edging is in place if I don’t like the looks of it, I can always go back and block the whole thing again. That’s the beauty of blocking, right? And now for the money shot:
I’ve also been spending valuable knitting minutes here and there in the garden, dead-heading roses and weeding. Picking a few veggies but not nearly as many as I expected by this point in the summer. It has been unseasonably cool by East Bay standards; a few hot spells but many more days that simply don’t get hot enough for the tomatoes to ripen. Only the squash like this weather, and tomorrow I will be stuffing a great slew of them with a blend of ricotta, thyme from the garden, sauteed onion, and parmesan… a little variety from the grilling that is my usual fallback. There are always flowers, however, like these:
The Eden roses are back in bloom, looking lovely with their soft blush of innocent color. Their timing coincides with the gladiolas – which I detest in the garden (all those long reedy stems that refuse to stand up straight) but loooove in a vase intermingled with roses.
Now I need to grab an hour to fertilize the citrus trees in hope that they’ll produce lots of fruit this coming winter. I’m still picking lots of rather wan and pallid Meyer lemons, which at this time of year have little of the fragrance that makes them so divine in the winter. In January, there’s nothing more satisfying than to rub the bright yellowy-orange skin of a ripe Meyer lemon and inhale that luxurious scent. For now, they make decent enough lemonade and marinade for grilling chicken or fish, but they’re definitely not at their best.
Comments welcome