Keeping a Clean House

The old adage is that the best way to have a clean house is to have a party. Everyone pitches in to make the place look good and the results only have to last out the evening. WE had two weekends of guests so the house had to stay clean for the week in between. Yipes! This is a lot more work than it sounds. Of course I have antagonists preventing me from keeping everything staying nice. Add to that, I was in a get rid of furniture mode, and took away our dining room chairs (8) and table, and the two polka dot mistakes I made in 2012. 

Goodwill is so handy. They unloaded the van while I just sat there with the engine running. 

So now everyone has left the building and we are back to normal, or as normal as we can get. In the meantime, I had to keep my hands busy and yet couldn't make a new messy project. So here's the results.

Now that I am embracing my gray hair, I have started thinking of gray as the new black. Of course I still have lots of color in the ol' closet, but I like the thought of white, black and gray as so flattering to my new mindset. Knitting has found its way back into my life and I also have found some wonderful batik at Joann's (with a coupon) and cut out another tunic. 

 

 

 I had to have a gray on gray Baktus for my new gray tops.
This was an 8 hour project that turned into 16, since I started increasing every two rows instead of four, by mistake and had to frog half the thing and fix it. But it was worth it. All merino, with yarns left from my sweater above.
I knit a knotted cinch for the ends, since I don't like the big clump tying the ends would make.

And then scanning Pinterest I saw this scarf...

 

The description reads:

It’s an intriguing construction; a real mystery.

How about a cowl with no casting on & no binding off?

It’s made in rows but ends up all in one piece.

There’s no knitting in the round, no sewing, no grafting, no provisional cast-on, no picking up stitches. Promise.

You can make it to your own custom size, in your own choice of yarn without having to make a tension square. No kidding.

No purling, no knitting. Oh, wait, just joking - there is knitting - it’s garter stitch - with funky stripes and some easy intermediate increasing & decreasing.

I was intrigued, nay, CHALLENGED. What I love about knitting is untangling the puzzle. I looked at the thing and and then found a photo on Ravelry that explained it all. I had to start one immediately to see if I was right.

It's knit diagonally and then joined with a mitered triangle. Right up my alley.

Here's my start:

I'm only using leftovers of the nicest yarns in my stash. This prevents me from having to decide what to break open. I have lots of leftovers. From this start, one puts half the stitches on hold and knits off in one direction to the desired length, comes back and picks up the held stitches and matches the length of the previous half. Then putting all the stitches on a circular, make a similar 90 degree triangle and voila, you're done. 

I know all you people to whom I promised jackets to are sitting up and taking notice that I am knitting again. Yes, I will follow through and get your jackets made this season. I mean it.

But...

We have suddenly been gifted with some very cool weather. The garden needs attention and now is the hour. I have also decided to take our fish out of our pond and bring them to the pond at the end of the development where everyone can enjoy them. Heh, heh. Their container will be another garden for us. The fish were mostly fine in the tub, but it was too hot most of the summer to sit by and watch them. It's another thing we tried that turned out to be not worth it. But better to have tried than not. 

This tub will make a gorgeous flower garden. I may move our fig trees to surround it. They are the highlight of my yard, to me. I have picked ripe little figs daily and just popped them in my mouth. So exotic. 

OK , Let's get started!