Gardening, knitting and spinning...

...seems to be all I talk about anymore, doesn't it? Well, there are worse things I could be talking about...war...economic tragedies...kidnappings (pray for these people, please! I don't know them personally, but they are neighbors of someone I know, and even if they weren't, it's freakin' horrifying!)...um, yeah. Gardening, knitting and spinning? Let's stick with these for now, shall we?

First with the gardening. I'm still totally enamored with my surprise irises...

and all of these flowers...

...are now in the flower bed (except for the two lily plants...I ran out of daylight and didn't get them in). And for once, I miraculously did NOT over buy plants! Usually I over-estimate how many flowers I can fit in my beds, especially now that I've got perennials that like to take up more space than the previous annuals used to. But this year? These all fit perfectly! Can't wait until they start to grow and fill things in.

And then there is the salad garden...we have achieved germination! Woohoo!

Lettuce, tomatillo (which were technically already sprouted, obviously, but look at the flowers on the plant already!), and onions (which kind of just looks like dirt in this shot, but honest, there are onions shooting up there...bad lighting!).

Everything in the salad garden has started to sprout, at least a little bit. I'm so excited. This is definitely a good sign for something I've planted. I've got some flower seeds I also planted, which have not done diddly yet, but I'm holding out hope they might come through eventually. We'll see.

Kevin planted the rest of the vegetables in the big garden over the weekend, too...

The tall green things behind him are mostly garlic, which he plants every fall. We always have a bumper crop of it. He's got all kinds off veggie goodness in the garden this year...onions, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant (which we've had iffy luck with in the past), cabbage, peas, broccoli (another iffy crop...hate those little green worms it tends to get...ick), potatoes, zucchini, sweet potatoes (a new experiment for us this year) and corn. And probably other things I'm not remembering right now. 

There is some space left for me to put in the melon and acorn squash seeds I didn't have room for in my little patch up by the house. If it stops raining this week, I'll put those in. And once it is all in, then comes the chore of trying to keep up with it all. I am really, really going to try and be good at this this year. I really am. I really WANT to be a good gardener and enjoy the fruits of all this labor! That has to count for something, right?

The girlie was enlisted to help her dad as he was spreading straw (to help keep moisture in the ground and the weeds at bay)...my daughter on the back of the pick up with the hay turned out to be a great photo opportunity!

I know I'm biased, but...

...she is such a pretty girl -- inside and out. I can't believe I helped create this being. :)

Here she is with her dad, who was less enthused about my picture-taking...he was hot and tired after a long day in the yard and garden, and he wasn't really in the mood for me going, "Stand next to her...no, NEXT to her, not in FRONT of her..." LOL Oh well...it's still a cute picture, even if he looks grumpy. ;)

Ok...now on to the knitting!

This is my May charity hat...a couple of different shades of gray...I'm trying to aim for more manly hats than last year. Not sure why I think there are more homeless men who could use hats than women, but I felt like I had more girly-looking hats last year, so I'm trying to be more balanced this year.

And here is the progress I've made so far on my brown shrug. It's the same DIC pattern I used for the girlie's shrug a while back...very easy, quick knit. If I was only knitting it, I'd be further along by now. (Always the issue, isn't it?) But I've been sharing my lace-knitting time with Caracia, which is now up to eight repeats (woo!), so it isn't getting my full attention. I'm liking how it is turning out, though...the Elsbeth Lavold Summer Tweed is much drapier than the merino/alpaca I made the first one from. 

And then there has been some spinning. I'm still spinning the raspberry BFL, but I took a break to spin up this...

This was one of Cosy's Subtle Striping kits. These kits include 2 oz. of a main color (in this case, pink), and then four 1/2 oz. contrasting colors. You spin the main color on one bobbin, then you spin the four other colors together on a second bobbin (I split mine into 1/4 oz. sections and repeated the series twice), then you ply them together. These came out so cool! It's very soft and the colors are so happy. I ended up with leftover contrast singles, so I plied it with itself and I figure it will make a fun stripe or something. All told, I got just under 300 yards of a worsted weight yarn. This may end up being a baby sweater (but only for someone who would be ok with handwashing) or a pair of mittens. We'll see.

That's it! I've caught you up on all my fun from the long weekend. And can I just say how HAPPY I am to be finishing up our school year this week? I am totally ready for summer break, and so are the kids! Bring it on! :)