The clammy humidity finally pushed out of here yesterday afternoon. Today, high of 78 degrees, humidity under 50%.
We knew that we had to get out and do something, anything after two days of moldering in front of a fan.

A hike fit the bill nicely:During the hike, we found some of these:Mmm...wild blueberries! Luckily, we just happened to have brought some containers to collect them with. End result:
Three quarts of blueberries (one quart shown for demonstration purposes). Rockin'.

And knitting...well, over the last two days I made it almost halfway through chart #5 (out of 8 or 9?) of Flirty Ruffles...and I'm still on my first skein of yarn (out of three). It is a slow slog but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. I also finished the fronts for the Trellis cardigan and kitchenered (not sure if that is OK to use as a verb, but what the hey) the shoulder seams:It's supposed to be nice again tomorrow, but alas...back to work.

Just wanted to report that I finally finished the Germany socks. Here they are, kicking back on the porch:By the way, those are G's beastly legs, not mine!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Hey everyone, I've made it back safe and sound! Thanks for all the cool comments about my lace. I really need to get back working on it, since I'm probably only about a quarter of the way through! I don't think I'm going to get it done by Labor Day, but that's OK.

We had a really fun visit out to Colorado. When we got to the Denver airport, I had my first-ever encounter with an actual famous person: Shaun White! I stood right next to him on the train that ran between the airport terminals. Here he is with G's cousin:Sorry for the small size of the photo...I feel a little bad that I didn't ask G's cousin if it was OK to put this on the blog, so I didn't want to put some huge photo of him here. I don't think you could mistake that hair for anyone else's anyway!

Here are a few other photos from the weekend:

Aspen trees on Lost Lake

Columbines (Colorado state flower)

Roasting marshmallows

Deepening dusk

Field near a marble quarry--there were huge pieces of marble abandoned all over the place!

As for knitting, I was planning to finish up my second Germany sock on the flight back. Unfortunately when I took out the project, my loose needle went flying and landed between my seat (by the window) and the wall of the plane! There was no way I could actually reach down and get it due to the cramped economy class seat, and I wasn't about to ask everyone else in my row to get up so I could retrieve it. So I still have about 2 inches left to knit on it, but I think I'll be done within a day or two.

That's it for now, hopefully some knitting photos next time!

Amazing Lace: Challenge #4

If I had to bind off my project right now, what could it be used for?
A lampshade fit for a boudoir seems to capitalize on the "flirty" personality:
And as a bonus, this lovely lamp shows off the lace pattern in a way that I can't acheive otherwise (since it mostly looks like a shriveled black blob).
This challenge entry is pretty lame, but hey, I'm busy packing! Off to Colorado for a long weekend.
Be back next week!

Just to prove that I have been knitting, here is the completed back of the trellis cardigan:
I love how fast baby clothes are to knit!

I guess even the "power" of my World Cup socks weren't enough to lift Germany past Italy earlier this week. Ah well...I guess I'll try to whip through and finish the socks anyway.

Hope you all have a fun weekend! I have a couple of my college buddies coming up so it should be fun here. And the weather forecast even looks good (knock on wood)!