How I spent my summer vacation

I've been on vacation this past week and it's been a potentially expensive one. It started last Friday night when I, by chance, found a leak in the roof. I had a roofer come out to look at it, and there are some problems with it. There is hail and wind damage, plus a lot of "nail pops", where the nails are popping up out of the roof. Oh, and the chimney is leaking and has been shooting mortar onto the roof. While I'm replacing the roof, I figure I might as well get new gutters, which I've been thinking about doing for a while anyway. The only good news is that since part of the problem is storm damage, my homeowner's insurance might cover at least part of the $7k bill.

In addition to that, I had to have some minor air conditioning maintenance done and a couple of lights replaced on my car. Yippee.

However, it hasn't been all bad. My friends from opposite coasts were in town at the same time. We haven't all been together in 10 years, when we took this picture:



Wednesday, we went to the Akron Art Museum to see the Paula Nadelstern exhibit, then went out to dinner in Kent, where we took this picture.


We haven't changed a bit, right? :)

Yes, the second picture is missing one husband, who wasn't driving in till Friday and one teenager who was off doing other things. It was really nice to have (almost) everyone in the same place at the same time. We're talking about renting a house on the Oregon coast next summer. That would be very cool.

Since my last post, there's been food, made from the yummy CSA produce:


Blanched green beans with zucchini, yellow squash and grape tomatoes, in Ken's Light Northern Italian dressing.


A FOUR pound cabbage that became freezer slaw and regular coleslaw



Blueberry zucchini bread

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Katie had her baby shower. My friend Lisa and I made this for her:


Red, white and black because we don't know if it's girl bump or a boy bump

We put paw print fleece on the back.

Check out the awesome job Lisa did on the binding

We also made some matching burp cloths.




It's a diaper with fabric sewn down the middle

There has been other sewing and knitting, but this is long enough already. I'll leave you with this for now.


Blue likes yogurt

The shawl...

You might remember that last year I made this shawl.


Splendid Triangle Shawl in black Lionbrand Homespun

It's big, simple and made out of yarn that I didn't particularly like knitting. It comes in beautiful colors, but it's kind of splitty and snaggy. If I didn't knit as tightly as I do, it would probably be fine.

Fast forward to May and this lovely swatch:


Madeline Tosh Merino Light, Tart colorway

I wouldn't have bothered swatching for a shawl, but I was adding beads that aren't in the pattern as written and I wanted to make sure I liked where I put them. I think it turned out pretty well.

When I finished and took it off the needles last weekend, it looked like this.


Where's the beads?

Since I took the time to put all those beads in, I want you to see them.


Here's the beads.

I gave it a nice cool bath, then put it on the rack.


I love whoever thought up blocking wires. So much easier than a blue million pins.

Again with the not seeing the beads. Here:


Better


After it dried, I took it out to lounge in the back yard.


"Aaahhhhhh.... this is nice"

Ready for it's close-up:



I'm pretty happy with it. Except for the two beads towards the bottom along the spine. They bugged me, so I took a hammer to them yesterday and they're gone. Ruthless, yes, but I'm much happier now.


Wendy's Summer Mystery Shawlette

Max tried to help with the blocking.


"I think I look lovely on this, Mama."