Not My Best Effort

The most positive thing you can say about the Bee Stitch Cloth is that it's finished.  For most of it I wasn't sure that I was doing it right so toward the end there I tried it a different way, and on closer inspection I see that I got my Right Side and Wrong Side confused for one row.  Oh well, it's kind of a swatch, cotton may not have been the best choice of yarns to learn this stitch on--and it's a washcloth.  Pretty soon it'll be doing duty washing dirty faces, armpits, feet, and well, you know, and it'll do just fine for that.  This is the first cloth in my self- and BLKG-challenge (link to July 31 BLKG blog post where I flung down the gauntlet) to pick a stitch once a month, knit a dishcloth with it, and see what happens.  I will say that this one will not be going into the "to be gifted" pile, it'll go right to work to fulfill its intended destiny.  Maybe I should pick a less complicated stitch for October.

Yesterday was a sunny day.  I can't say that I have hope for much sunshine today.  Here's the rain from the wee hours slipping over the eastern horizon just before 7 o'clock, not promising, but weather moves from West to East so maybe there are gaps in the clouds out in Minnesota racing toward us even as we speak.  Probably not, but a girl can hope, can't she?

Last night just before supper Durwood looked out the kitchen window, noticed our neighbor picking his raspberries (which are migrants from our raspberry patch), and said, "Hmm, maybe you should go pick some raspberries."  So, as any good wife would, I kicked off my shoes and socks (the hill's too steep for me to feel comfortable in my "rocky" bottomed shoes), grabbed a bowl, and went out there.  I had a nice visit with LJ while we picked and here's what I brought in.  Good thing I like Durwood and don't like raspberries.  Maybe he'll get them eaten before LC sees them in the fridge and makes them go away.  She's a fan.

On my way to work I'm going to deposit money from my stash and then mail off a check to KS at The Clearing to pay the rest of the fee for my Women's Writing Retreat which I will be going to in 16 more days.  But who's counting?  I've already got my manuscript, pens, and Post-It notes packed.


September 10--Zurmuhlen/Stockline, Graffitti.  Zane loved the tick, click, rattle of the steel balls in the spray paint cans in his backpack as he rode his bike down the gravel road toward the culvert.  He had really scored at Larsen's Hardware that afternoon.  Three cans sat on the "Oops" shelf at the end of the paint aisle--marine blue, a sick aqua green, and canary yellow.  He almost left the aqua behind but for only a buck and a half a can he had to buy it too.  On the ride out he'd thought about his design and realized that using the aqua as a break between the canary and the marine would give his tagging another dimension.  He stashed his bike in the scrubby bushes that poked out of the gravel swale downhill from the culvert and climbed up.  The setting sun was low enough to shine under the tree branches and illuminate the dull gray concrete and shiny metal drainage pipe.  He laid out his paints, shook them hard, and got to work.  He had been painting for about an hour when he bent down to add his signature mark.  That's when he noticed the shoes, the shiny black leather shoes, jutting from the pipe's mouth.  For the rest of his life he wished he hadn't noticed that there were still feet in the shoes.

Ai-yi-yi!  Where does that stuff come from?  That one fairly flew out of the end of my pencil.  I do love it when that happens.  Today I get to work and then go straight to the knitting guild meeting.  I feel like a truant when I don't get home until after 9 o'clock.  Isn't that silly?  Have a great day and stay dry if you can.  I'm gonna try.
--Barbara