Nova Scotia

I've been busy knitting from these fabulous locations on Morris Island in Nova Scotia...


...actual progress to be shown another time.
Gorgeous, no?

Pay It Forward

I signed up under Nichole for this, oh ya know, like weeks ago :) I've seen it floating around the knitting blogs but never managed to catch a post before it had the requisite 3 people who already commented.

Pay It Forward is based on the movie with Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey. It was a book first, written by Catherine Ryan Hyde. With all of the things happening these days, random acts of kindness are a good thing.
What is the PIF exchange all about? The knitty gritty is… I’ll send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange! I don’t know what that gift will be yet ... and you may not until 2009… but you will receive it within 365 days, that’s a promise! It may be knit, it may be beaded, it may be painted...I'm not 100% sure just yet, but it will be handmade and just for you!
The only thing you have to do in return is then ‘pay it forward’ by promising to do the same on your own blog.
So... do I have 3 people who want to play and receive a handmade item from me?

One Month, One Week, One Day Contest Winners

We're still in the week after the Olympics, right?

The Champlain Valley Fair is in town so I've been busy mullet watching. A good mullet is getting harder and harder to find. And eating fried fair foods. And visiting the fluffy chickens and llamas and sheep and bunnies and horses and cows.... But not to worry, online random number generators were hard at work picking medalists.

And I even found stitch markers that I had actually bought for the purpose of contest prizes, so bonus. (Lets pretend that you can't see any dust...)
The Bronze winner: Kristen, has won these gorgeous stitch markers not made by me :)

The Silver winner, of the "knitting bag" is Turtle

And, drum roll please...the Gold winner of the soft Purewool is:

Debbie

Congratulations medalists!

Thanks for competing!

The race is on

And I appear to be losing. At this rate, I will not be finishing this shawl in time for the October wedding.

Last weekend, we were in western MA for a wedding Friday, then attempted to go to IKEA to buy something for the wedding my husband is standing up in this weekend. Apparently, that was a grave mistake. Last weekend was tax free weekend, unbeknownst to us, and not only was IKEA bearing a strong resemblance to LAX, but apparently the thing to do on a Saturday afternoon is to take the Mass Pike to 495 to go...to the Cape? to the Tweeter Center? (or whatever corporation it is named after now...)...I might never know. So instead of spending the majority of the afternoon shopping in "LAX" for the trendy/cheap/modern/prefab items that ended being out of stock, we counted our minutes passing per mile. (48 minutes to go 11 miles...) My appreciation of the lack of traffic in Burlington is renewed.

This weekend Matt has a bachelor party Friday night. In western MA, of course. Then there is a shower on Saturday in eastern MA for a piece of the October wedding madness. (I mustn't neglect any corners of MA when I come down) and then the actual wedding Matt will be standing up in on Sunday night.

I have high hopes to get in some knitting though, on Labor Day weekend. We'll be spending the weekend on a small island in Lake Champlain. With nothing to do but hike, camp, kayak, swim...and knit around a camp fire.


And look, my Dahlia is finally blooming :)
I promise to be less sarcastic once I get a vacation...in September...

One Year, One Month, One Day Blogiversary Contest

I can't believe it's been a year already. Time's fun like that. Since my one year, one month, one day anniversary falls so conveniently during the Olympics, I've decided to do this, not unlike the post title, in sets of three.

Prizes:
Gold is the 2 skeins of lovely Purewool pictured below.
Silver wins you the bag pictured. Since this is a knitting blog, lets pretend like it's a knitting bag, shall we?
Bronze will be stitch markers made by me, at some date in the future, 'cause I'm a slacker like that and haven't made 'em yet.
How you win:
You get one entry for commenting on this post with your favorite summer game. If you don't have one, make one up, I'll never know if you're fibbing.

You'll get a second (or silver, haha) entry for sending people here. As usual, you only get the entry if they mention you in their comment.

And the gold entry goes to those more patriotic and Olympic loving than even I. You have to show me an in-progress or finished knitting project with the USA or Olympic rings involved. Picture proof can be through Flickr or Ravelry, just let me know where you have pictures posted.


I will run this contest until the end of the summer games: August 24th, 2008.
Winners will be chosen the last week of August.

Happy Summer Games!

By the way, my favorite summer game has always revolved around the Equestrian events, being as obsessed with ponies as I am. However, in 2004, I found my new favorite: the trampoline. Has anyone else ever seen happier athletes during an athletic event? They bounce and smile and smile and bounce. It's excellent. I'd recommend trying to catch it if you can.

Lets Not Talk About My Shawl

, Instead, look at the pretty rocks I get to kayak near. And the pretty boys bouldering on them. That's my friend Meagan in the red kayak. She took the great sparkle picture.
On the rare day of sun this summer, I love going on or near the lake to watch the sparkles. It's definitely magic.

It's also occurred to me that I missed my one year blogiversary. I'll definitely be having a contest, but rules and prizes will be discussed at a later date. I have to go enjoy the sunshine while it's here.

My plants are making progress...

First strawberries of the season. This is a strawberry herb, not a strawberry grown for fruit, but believe when I say that if they berries seem small, they make up for it in flavor. Plus you get leaves for strawberry tea and fruits. I heart multipurpose plants :)
My shawl is to the "boring" phase, as most Ravelers call it, where I'm knitting 42 inches of the same rows. Being that I have the attention span of a gnat lately, I'm enjoying these same two rows because I don't have to check the chart every 7 stitches. Plus, I can both get some knitting done and watch TV. Before, I was only pretending to be able to watch TV while I knot, I really am not that talented. If I knit and don't look, I drop stitches all over the place.
I'm really going to have to put more time in on this if I want to get it done for the October wedding though. I do love the slight variegation in the Purewool.
I'm still giddy over my plumeria. My second plant is budding. It still amazes me that those little nubs turn into this:
I only wish there was a way to share fragrances via blog :)