Things are busy my friends - general work insanity (to be expected at this time of year), and lots going on in real life too, which equals less wordiness from me as most of my energy and attention are drawn elsewhere. So, an update on the activities of the last week (two, actually) in list form:

A new T-shirt from Connie (which has already seen a good share of wear in the week since it arrived. Thanks Connie - I love it!) - her brother’s beautiful design:

Swatching for planned projects and new designs:

A greatly improved schematic for Summer Sky with a little preview for you all, this may not be the final version, but I’m MUCH happier with it than the orginal - Step by step the redux is moving along, I’ll give an update on the expected timeframe soon.

An excellent show last week (The Swell Season) and another amazing opener I’d never heard before (Dawn Landes - check her out with the link below). The music collection grows.

A completed logo for Purling Plans by a very talented friend, to be shared with you all soon.

The Golf came home after some much needed work - followed by some brakework too, and is now running like a top - not bad for 140k - Here’s hoping for another 50-100,000.

Time with Friends & Sheep last weekend - Ironically, more pictures of the sheep than of the friends!:

Lots of time in the Garden (which is coming along quite nicely!) - Pictures soon.

An especially fantastic mess has been documented, but I’ll save that for next Messy Tuesday.

Spinning, as you saw (and helped me along!).

Yarn winding - Newly arrived z-ply Mora Yarn for more Two-End Knitting and the upcoming second installment of the Two-End Knitting Exploration (Did you happen to see? My first installment was featured by Eve in Yarnival on Monday much to my surprise! I’d been wondering where Yarnival went off to, not having seen an edition in a couple months, and as always I enjoyed some new and existing favorite blogs and projects. Thank you to whoever recommended my post!):

So, lots going on here - what’s new with you?!

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Now playing: Dawn Landes - Dig Me a Hole
via FoxyTunes

Raleigh, Meymandi Concert Hall, May 15.

Cat’s Cradle schedule

Tad’s review of Once. Suffice it to say we loved it and are so looking forward to this show!

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Now playing: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly
via FoxyTunes

1. Into Indie movies? Go check out Tad’s review of Once. It was terrific. Loved it & the music too.
2. While we’re on the music topic - great shows, coming our way. There are rumors that Cloud Cult may also make their way southeast this fall - now that would be amazing.

• Okkervil River
• Tegan & Sara
• Stars
• The Avetts (again! SO sad they went to ticketmaster though. damn.)
• Ani (if we can manage a road trip to Knoxville!)

3. More Spinning! This is a practice skein of tussah silk from the Flock Bronsanas, plied with some more Bonkers Merino Tencel…. I’m in love, again. Shooting for shawl-worthy laceweight. And can you believe it, this one’s under-plied! Guess I’ve been feeling a bit more mellow

4. Reworking (Bobble Blue - removed the buttons and ribbing and trying diffent edgings - no good pics to share yet):
5. Still working with the Fire/Sunset handspun - just cast on for real, I think. I’ll keep you posted! It’s very strange for me to have so many projects actively in the works at once. You know what that means, it will take me forever to finish them!
6. Dying to get out & go hiking. Especially after seeing where Elizabeth’s at this weekend. Damn. We’ll have to settle for a 60 mile walk on pavement for now.
7. Which reminds me - Contest!! (yes, didn’t I bring this up weeks ago? Well the time has come my friends - I’ve got prizes & lots to talk about. Check back at my 3Day page in a day or two for details.) We did 10 miles yesterday (plus an hour of yoga for me!)

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Cross-posted to tadandmel.com.

Our garden is doing so well! I’m a bit afraid that the squash is plotting a hostile takeover. And look how tall the tomato plants have gotten! I swear they grew another 6 inches over the weekend while we were gone (in Pennsylvania for my cousin’s wedding - congrats Matt & Natalie!) with all the rain that we had (leftovers from the first tropical storm of the season). All that sneaking out in the morning to water them and whisper “grooow! GROOOOOW!” surely helped too. Click on the pics to go to Flickr and see the details of what we planted. Hopefully in another couple weeks we’ll have ‘maters. And squash - and peppers - and cukes! Holy smokies look at the cuke plants!! They are totally outgrowing the box! And if we have anywhere near the amount of tomatoes that I think we will, we may have to have a salsa-making party!

We’re definitely doing some better planning for next year’s garden - we’ll add one more bed and we’ll put in some salad greens, snow peas, beans, and maybe some broccoli and cauliflower. More herbs too. You can’t have enough basil and parsely, dill and cilantro. And mint for mojitos!! While the garden has been growing, we’ve had such fun watching our little budding ecosystem and all the creatures who have arrived to take advantage of it - meet Friend Toad, Friend Chameleon (I think?), Friend Dragonfly, and Friend Ladybug (who, BTW, ate every last aphid off my mom’s rose bush - good little ladybug!) There is also a Black Skink who doesn’t show his face too often - and disappears super quickly, so we haven’t been able to catch him on film.

There’s an egg which I found in one of the herb pots when I was transplanting too - I carefully buried it again and tried not to disturb it - what lays eggs in the ground? Turtles? I haven’t seen any of those. The chameleon maybe? I had a thought that it was Toad, because that’s where he likes to hang out; but don’t they lay eggs in water (tadpoles??) I know, I’m showing my ignorance here! I hope it hatches - I want to see what it is! Here’s another of one of our friends hiding in the salvia in mom’s garden.

I love this shot - can you spot him (or her - sorry little one, I can’t tell!)?

And here’s a shot of some blooms a week or two ago:

Which have since become this:

How exciting!!

I do have some questions though, for those of you who are garden savvy (because really, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. Help me please!) So here’s a beautiful zucchini, about ready to be picked, I think. But what’s the deal with the flowers-on-the-stalks versus the flowers-that-seem-to-be-actually-growing-zucchini? I don’t even know enough to know if that’s a dumb question, I just wondered. The blooms are huge and beautiful, but only some of them are attached to baby zukes. What’s the deal?

And then there’s the cucumber plants (burpless, or so it says on the plant tag. Do cukes cause burps? That’s not my real question - I’m getting sidetracked.) My real question is this - the two fomerly tiny cuke plants are growing like weeds - overflowing the box, crawling up the hanging tomatoes, and even threatening to take over the compost barrel in the corner. There are tons of blooms, both past and still blooming - but no baby cukes to be seen. Where are the baby cukes?

Ok, and just one more, but I think I might know the answer to this one. The peppers aren’t doing nearly as well as the tomatoes and everything else. I have a theory - fact one is that the squash plants are almost totally covering a few of them, so they aren’t getting nearly as much sun as the other plants. Fact two is that the ones that aren’t covered by the squash plants probably still don’t get as much sun, because of the tomatoes on the right blocking the morning light, and the fence on the left, which limits the afternoon/evening light. Am I on the right track? There are a few growing peppers, and it might be that the plants are fine, it’s just that compared with the big dreams of their neighbors, they can’t possibly compete. Maybe they have smaller, less grandiose ambitions. Grow a just a few tasty peppers for some stir-frys or salsa and leave it at that, no need to go for full-on garden domination (did I already use that joke? Still not funny? Sorry, it’s the best I can do on an almost Friday morning after a long week!)
As for the knitting, well.

Pride comes before a fall. Never fear - I am winning (I think).

Actually, Tad did all the work to expand our vegetable bed while I was knitting (and, might I add, he did a bang up job with the design!). But I did get to have a little bit of fun too. Go check it out and see what we did!!