Summer monster post

Well, it's mid June already and the flowers are blooming up a storm and the garden is starting to produce edibles. We've got fruit planted pretty much everywhere in the garden. There's peach, apple, pear and plum trees, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and hazelnuts. Those big green leaves surrounding the foxglove are kiwi. The thing puts out a ton of fruit these days, we're talking several hundred. I even made some kiwi jam and marmalade last year. I didn't manage to get the vegies in yet, but there's still time if I just buy some plants. Time got away from me. What were the odds?


Even though the monkey's home, I still manged to get some stuff done this week. Finished spinning the first pound of Targhee in the 3 ply sport for level 4 next month in Olds. I won't bore you with a pic as it's white and there's miles of it. Took me two hours to ply it and my hand went numb. It was still tingly 30 minutes later. Only one more pound to spin. Um... yay?
The first pair of Trekalong socks is done and I really like 'em. Cool pattern that knit up in no time and they fit great. The second pair is already on the needles. I'm using color 101 in the Yukon Leaves pattern. Looks good so far.
I took some other crazy knitter advice from the last post and started both the Wave stole and the cardy. The cardy pattern is not so good. Has anyone else done that one? Seems really poorly charted. I did what I thought it should be, but it's almost impossible to tell from the pic what the lace should look like. So the cardy is stalled, but the stole is really coming along. I've got the first half done and I'm 6 repeats up the second. Of course, it's got the mother of all knit on double borders, so it's not even close to finished.


More spindle porn. Couldn't let you down. The one on the left is from the always enabling Kerry. It's an Avi Wasserman. I was having so much trouble getting one of those effing things that I was starting to think they were the grail of the spinning world. But here it is and it's pretty damn neat. The other one is a Duane Larson I got off ebay. It's pretty big and heavy, but it should good for plying. Attractive spindle and you know me, constantly compelled to buy the shiny things.


Speaking of shiny things...
The monkey brought me some from Israel! Of course, which one do you think I totally love? The one he got in a proper jewellry store, or the one he got from a guy on a blanket at the edge of the desert that will probably turn my neck green? Yup, the blanket one. I'm such a cheap date. It looks like it was shaped around a horn, very cool. Don't get me wrong, the other is really gorgeous too, it's just not funky and weird.


Last, but not least, something you don't get to see everyday, monkey on a camel! Keeping the Israeli tourist industry strong!