Starting Point - spoiler pics

I really love having my two days off in a row. Day 1 is always errand day - shops, appointments, cleaning. Day 2 is my day of home, knitting, relaxing. It is my ritual, I look forward to it, I need it. 

My Starting Point shawl is done!! I finished all the ends and laid it outside to block; it fit perfectly on my little back deck. It blocked out gently to 71cm x 203cm (28" x 80"). A generous stole, and if I knit another I could join them for a blanket. I love it; I has an intriguing construction with a pleasing symmetrical geometry.

 

   

 

I also finished the 3^rd part of my Chatelaine X garden mandala. The Algerian eyelets were the finishing touch and all 4 corners are now complete.

 The charts for the 4^th part are taped together and I'm ready to make 100's of tiny x's!!  

Happy Mail Day!! Jimmy Beans pkg arrived with the Lorna's Laces Solemat  that I ordered for the Beyond the Wall MKAL  The colours are brighter and less grey than the online pic. My fingers are almost twitching with excitement!!!

 The puppies are playing outside, no rabbit-chasing whinging to be heard, while the salmon that I planked is on the grill. It's been awhile since I've made salmon, the smell of it is so enticing. 

 I've powered through OITNB today -- how am I supposed to get along until season 6!!?? I am imaging storyline after storyline in my head. 

The Handmaid's Tale will see me through my evenings stitching. 

Have I mentioned how much I love my android box? An introverts best friend this! ☺️☺️

 Oh, I found this tiny robins egg shell on my driveway this morning.  

It made me happy, like seeing deer and rainbows. I know, I'm a bit simple, but my heart is pleased. 

Change

The last time that I had my actually cut, not just trimmed, was before I went in for treatment, and I cried. 

Since my hair grew back after chemo, I have trimmed it, but I wasn't in an emotional place to truly cut it. 

Lately, it's been driving me bonkers. I have to put it up every day for work, and I seem to clip it up at home because it's in my face and just hot on my neck. The tension on my scalp of having it up gives me a headache. Craig or I are always rolling on it in bed. The list goes on. I've been looking up short hair cuts online. I wanted to have it cut this time. 

So today was the day and I had it done. 

 

I had it coloured to cover the odd bits of red that didn't get cut off, but going forward, I'd like to forego the colouring and go back to natural, greys and all. 

I got quite a bit accomplished on my socks today; laundry day is for more than just clean clothes! 

  

I love the stiletto Point on my Signature Needles - sock knitting is extra pleasurable with them!

I'm on to the 2^nd half of the last Starting Point MKAL clue and I'm quite pleased with how it's come together.

 Clever construction indeed! 

The puppies were whining and this is what I saw when I went to see what was up. 

 I am tempted to release the wee beasties and see if they could catch the bunnies! I'm concerned at how far they would go on the chase though, and how long it would take them to return home. 

I did all sorts of cleaning and errands today, so tonight I rest and tomorrow is relax, Netflix and Knit day. 

Oh - and wow!!! I ordered the case for my Kobo Aura One from Amazon.ca on Saturday, they sent a shipped notice on Sunday, and the case was in my mailbox on Monday!!! That's service!! I love the case even more in person ... imma be reading all the time!! 

 

Sunday

Nothing planned today so we watched the French Open final, then headed out to Dog Tales Rescue and Sanctuary  I follow them on Facebook and Instagram, and I've been wanting to go see the dogs for awhile. 

You know that feeling you get when you know you want another child? Yeah. I wasn't sure if I wanted to fall in love or not, but it was a lovely day to visit dogs. 

I didn't fall in love, but these two caught my eye. I'll think on it and maybe go back for a visit. 

 

 

Craig had his serious face on. 

 

I am making progress on my last Clue of the Starting Point MKAL. I love my colour #2, Sin. It's so bright and I love it! 

 

We went to see Wonder Woman this aft. I'm not usually one given to emotions when watching films, but when Wonder Woman ran across No Man's Land, hit her mark and crouched into her power stance, fending off a barrage of bullets with her shield, I got struck with some feels. 

I love a movie with a strong female lead, and this one goes to the head of the class. Though Kill Bill is still a strong fave. 

I started knitting on my sock but I couldn't keep track of 2x2 ribbing 🙄 and there were mistakes. I knit the tail into the fabric 

 And something wonky happened here.  

So I just watched the movie. Sigh. 

The new kobo is fantastic! The balance of it in hand makes the larger screen a total win. The yellow-tinted night-mode lighting is a noticeable upgrade and my eyes are grateful. 

Settling in now for an easy evening, making some visible progress on the shawl.  

Lemongrass

I finished the front of Lemongrass and I'm onto the back.  

Should be fairly quick as it's simple stockinette. 

Not a great picture, but I can't be bothered to move to lay it out. 

I've been struck by The Dreaded Lurgy. Not the worst one ever, but I'm feeling downright oogy. The puppies are good nursemaids. Not much on fetching tea, but they are great for long naps in bed. Petey has finally mastered jumping up on my bed!! He's a better snuggle buddy than Chica; she's still working her bitch streak, though she's mellowing out a bit.  

I finished my Flamingo Beach socks! They took almost three weeks, but they were done strictly at work; I was off one day and in the plant for 5, so basically two weeks of found knitting time! 

 Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I don't deliberately make my socks identical. I finish one and just start on the next one. I didn't change my strategy on this pair, so it is mere happenstance that they are as identical as one could hope, even if they had tried!! I love the colours and am deciding on the next pair. Though it may be another Hitchhiker instead.   

This one will be for Craig's mom; she knits too so will be especially appreciative of the effort put into it. 
 

We had quite the snowfall here yesterday! Barrie and Alliston weren't hit as hard, but we finished up with 60cm/24" of the fluffy white stuff!!

 

Lovely to look at though. 
 

The end of that, the start of this

I finished Sorrento, pockets and all! Yeah, you know pockets aren't my fave thing, but they really add the perfect touch to this sweater.  

I did discover an small error on the inc section of the back; the correction is on the errata section of the Erika Knight website. 

I'm sure that Julie will post better pics, this one is rather dark. 

I have moved from the plant at Honda to the dock crew. There is more parking, driving, and getting driven back around. It's a smaller crew, just 4-5 of us and Mark is chill and lets me knit while we're in the bus. Seriously, it's just dead head time. I take the expected teasing in stride, just happy to be able to fill in the time productively. 

 I started these on Tuesday, and considering that I spent most of Friday helping out in Plant 2, I'm well pleased with what I got done. I estimate that if I only knit socks in the bus I could get approx 1 sock knit per week. Impressive for straight up bonus knitting time yo!! 

My plans for this weekend fell through and with Sorrento finished, Craig and I decided to head to Ancaster to trade a finished sweater for a potential sweater and chat with Julie and Cathy. It was a decent day for a drive when we set off. Ditto has been in play in Pokémon, and we've both been capturing low level Pidgeys, Rattatas, and Zubats like crazy trying to find one. Well, Ancaster is the place to go! 5 between the two of us, and I caught my first whilst I was sitting in The Needle Emporium!

 We stopped at Costco for my work week snacks (chicken nuggets, eggs to boil and yogurt) and when we came out it started pouring bone-chilling rain. I dozed off on the drive Back and woke up when Craig stopped at a Tims just south of Orangeville. We went in for a coffee and when we came out it was snowing giant, fluffy flakes like someone had just shaken our snow globe!! 
 

Needless to say we started to think that we should stop stopping and just get home!! HA!! 

Since we decided on chili for dinner, there were a couple of stops for provisions, then I set to the making as soon as we got in, getting Craig set to his sous chef duties. 

 This is the start of something delicious!!

We are enjoying a lovely bottle of red while the chili cooks down.

 

 As soon as I post this, I am going to wind one of the giant skeins of Cascade Yarns Eco in Turtle and cast on for Lemongrass  I was admiring pics of her new Vneck Boxy on Jojis instagram feed, so I'm excited to knit this up!!

Bread's ready - gotta go!