I have to admit, that after taking so much time off, it is a little hard to get back at blogging. I mean, where do I start? Which activity from the past month do I highlight? What knitting project do I blog about?

Perhaps this is part of the reason why my little "vacation" extended itself.
But I'm back.. for now.. and I can't promise that I'll be blogging as frequently as I always have. Well, at least until the kids return to school anyway.

So what have we done this summer? Actually, not too much. Nothing exciting anyway. But, we did make a trip to Sandy Island Beach ...

(You will notice a complete lack of even a single picture of Cassidy. This would be because as soon as we get there.. every single time.. she manges to find a friend to play with and we don't see her, but from a distance for most of the day!)

Also in July, my spinning guild held its annual Summer "Dye Day" at Christina's house...

I didn't bring anything to dye, but after inhaling the vinegar fumes all afternoon, I couldn't resist going ahead and dyeing my holiday wool at home later that night...

I started out dyeing it "avocado green", but it turned out too much like baby poo. So I started a fresh dye pot with "sky blue" to try to over-dye that awful green... the result was, to say the least, very very surprising. I love the end result though.

And now for the most exciting news. The knitters among us will already know about Ravelympics, mostly because you just can't log into Ravelry without hearing about it. For the non-knitting readers, Ravelympics is sort of a take on the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics from the winter games, 2 years ago - but much much more organized. In a nutshell, Stephanie (the yarn harlot) had this idea... cast on a project, a challenging one, and finish that project before or during, the closing ceremonies.

Ravelympics is basically the same idea, but Ravelry forums are used to organize, cheer each other on, and see pictures of other's progress and finished items. There are even "events" for different types of projects, like "lace long jump" and "designers discus" (and the list goes on). Its cute, and its funny.. and its actually fun to be part of.

BUT... I held off committing to participate until the very last minute... the day before! So I totally missed the part where I had to actually "sign up for" a specific event. So no medal for me. And thats ok... I'm using this time to press on with the design of that lace shawl I've been talking about forever! I don't need a medal.. I'll have a beautiful, original lace shawl at the end, that I designed all by myself!

Since I didn't want to buy charting software, I searched and searched for an alternative, until I found what I needed. A font, specifically for knitting charts! And as soon as I installed it, I sat down to transfer my handwritten-on-graph-paper-chart into Open Office. I played, I tweaked, and did some more math.. then got started! I actually did cast on during the 8PM airing of opening ceremonies.

But by Saturday morning, several repeats into the project, despite the lace looking just gorgeous, I decided that my lace was too much for the body of the shawl. And that in fact, the lace I had spent so much time charting, would make a much better border for the shawl. I ripped it all out, re-wound the yarn, and sat down with my charting tools again and re-worked a new lace pattern. After 6 hours of more math and swatching, I had a new chart and casted on again...

Despite the poor lighting in an image taken at 10PM, I really do love this shot. Because I hope to make this pattern for sale as a .pdf download, I don't want to show too much. I am loving it, but I have at least 10 more repeats to go before I start the border section. Will I do it? I don't know... stay tuned!

Around a year ago on this day..

• I can't help it - 2005