If You Knit It...

... it grows.  Yeah, yeah, I know I said that I was going to be monogamous with this

Montparnasse Eco Cardi but I got lured into casting on that Blues Anklet the other night and then knitted the heel flap last night, but today when I got my chores done I plonked myself down on the couch, picked up the left front of the cardi and got knitting.  The great thing about this piece is that on every right side row you decrease one stitch.  That's what makes the nice even slant on the left side.  Unlike the sleeves which get wider by two stitches every four rows so the rows get longer and longer, these get shorter and shorter.  I like rows that get shorter.  The first time I made a triangular shawl I dug around until I found a crochet pattern that started with the long edge and decreased down to the point.  In my book shrinking is preferable to expanding--at least in yarn circles.

A gray bird has been visiting lately and I finally got a (blurry) picture of it this afternoon.  It's a gray catbird so called because one of its calls sounds like a cat's meow.  No, really.  And I swear that I caught sight of a hummingbird that whizzed to the nectar feeder, didn't really stop, and then zoomed off toward the honeysuckle but when I got up to see if it was buzzing around the flowers I didn't see it.



I planted pots of red, tubular flowers for them.  These on the old park bench in the corner are looking especially alluring, I think.  (And the mints that I pulled out of the garden edge to make room for herbs seem to like it just fine here.  Hopefully the mint will thrive, spread, and make like ground cover.) The rectangular planters on the edge of the patio are filling up with zinnias which the seed packet said that hummingbirds like although there're no flowers yet, and the pots on the other side of the patio by the fountain are all red and white and tubular too.  Hummingbirds, where are you?



I planted some snapdragons this year too and look at the color of this plant--deep red-violet with yellow.  Pretty.





 


The garden is growing well.  Look how tall the red-skinned potato plants are,

the butternut squash has gotten long enough for me to weave the end of the vine into the fence,




 



and the scallions and carrots are doing just fine.  Not as many scallion seeds germinated as I'd hoped but there are some so I'm happy.  The cherry tomato plant has some tiny tomatoes and the other plants have blossoms on them so Durwood should have some tomatoes in maybe a month and OJ will have tomatoes to pick for Baba.  He's looking forward to it.


June 19--Japan, Late 19th Century, Mail Runner or Postman with Irizumi Tattooing.  The substitute mailman had the whole town's tongues wagging.  He was tall, dark, and silent which wasn't a problem.  People in Streamwood were used to quiet people, especially men.  The mailman wore the summer uniform of shorts and a short-sleeved shirt.  It was the parts of him that showed below the shirt sleeves and the shorts that got the town talking.  He had tattoos.  Not just an anchor like Ed Wayne who'd been in the navy in WWII, not a heart with "Mom" across it on a ribbon like Marcus Greeley who everyone agreed had "mother issues" but tattoos that covered him like clothing.  "How long did something like that take?" people wondered aloud.  A few of them asked, "How much did it cost?" but no one had the nerve to ask.

Look at me, getting this blog post typed by 9 o'clock.  I guess getting over 9 hours of sleep last night was a good thing.  It probably helped that I didn't run myself ragged today either.  Maybe I'm turning into a grown-up after all.  Nah, probably not, probably just an aberration.
--Barbara