I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

This summer has been a crazy soup of milestones.

My oldest turned 21 and left last week for his senior year of college.

My youngest turned 18 and graduated from high school.

Today we’re moving her into her dorm at the University of Utah. *sniff, sniff*

And birthday cards for me have been arriving fast and furious. Well, not really. But at least the financial services industry still loves me.

Now that I’m an empty nester, will I post to the blog more? Maybe. I’ll certainly have to show you the lovely socks I make from the skein of Kim’s yarn that I won from Carole. Woot!

Raise your hand if you remember Project Spectrum.

It was the 2006 brainchild of the ever-clever Lolly.  While I never participated in rounds 1-4, I enjoyed rubbernecking.

Lolly has revived Project Spectrum for 2011 and this time I’m in!  It helps that there’s now a Facebook page.   There’s a Ravelry group, too, with considerably more members but I find Facebook much more convenient for these types of things.

May’s color was red and I conveniently had some lovely red Zephyr on the needles.

The project is for a lace class I’m teaching at my LYS this summer.  The piece is a mystery for the class members, but if you click here you can see the finished project.

May, obviously, has come and gone.  June’s Project Spectrum color is green.  Once again, I found myself with an appropriately colored lace project.  This one is stashed in my favorite green knitting bag.

Green has been a particularly easy color given the incredibly (and unusually) wet spring we’ve had here in Utah.  It’s nearly July but the snow has barely melted off the road leading up my favorite canyon.

Today, after a hike to gawk at the near record runoff,

a friend shared some yummy garlic scape from her garden.

I promptly turned it into some pungent pesto.

The secret ingredient was this little green morsel.

July’s color is blue.

I’m thinking blue thoughts as I sit here at the Club in my green chair with the green cushion pulled close to the green table overlooking the green. . . . . . .

A recent car trip to Southern Utah provided me with the hours I needed to finish up two scarves I started several weeks ago.  I’ve been trying to chip away at my single balls of lace-weight yarn and each of these was knit from less than 450 yards.

I came close to running out of the Habu brown silk, but with some careful planning I averted the need to purchase a second skein just to complete the edging.

Even without all the quiet knitting time, the trip would have been a rousing success.  I’ve lived in Utah for decades now but, surprisingly, this was my first trip to Capitol Reef National Park.  Both DH and I have concluded it’s our favorite park.  The hiking trails are totally accessible and, best of all, the park was nearly deserted.  No hoards of people like you now find in Moab and you always found at Yellowstone.

Tell me the truth, does my arse make this slot canyon look big?

When you have school-age children, the month of May is always frantic. My son will be home from college next week which means I have to clear all my knitting and spinning stuff out of his room so he has a place to sleep! My daughter will graduate in just one month so each of the next few weeks will be filled with “lasts.” Saturday, she and her BFF posed before being picked up by their dates for the last dance — the prom. *sniff*

Hint: My daughter is not blonde. But you knew that.