Another hellishly hot day!

Ana and I were planning to watch movies all day today, and start work on our sweaters for our Japanese sweater knitalong group, a group with two members. I, of course, took way longer to fix our food than I planned. It was all meals-in-minutes sorts of dishes, but very little takes me only minutes to prepare. While things were cooking, we put Ana’s lovely sweater on the wooly board. Isn’t it fabulous? Then we took pictures of my brown scarf – or is it big enough to be called a shawl? Maybe a scrawl – sort of in between the two. I made it from 100 grams of sock yarn, and it is a nice size for everyday wear, I think. We finally got to our movie, and the first one we watched was “Nancy Drew, Detective” from 1938, and starring Bonita Granville. Somewhat surprisingly, we liked it a lot! We are now both Bonita Granville fans. Maybe we will start another group - a fan club - also with two members. Then we decided to watch “Scoop,” given that it had a similar theme – intrepid girl reporter/sleuth goes after monstrous murderer and nearly gets murdered herself in the process. But the temperature was rising and about 20 minutes into Scoop, it was well over 90˚ in my upstairs. We couldn’t stand it. So, drooping sadly, we came downstairs, took cold showers to revivify ourselves, and worked on our knitting in the
relative comfort of my sitting room. Our knitalong group is finding that this sweater project is a little more confusing than anticipated. I am glad I am part of a group. That will help in figuring out the arcane directions.
Here is a picture of the delightfully simple and simply delicious midday treat we had. Tomatoes grown by Ana on fresh from the oven ciabatta! Yummissimo!

A fruitful day

Ana and Ken came for dinner, which they brought with them. (That was my gracious invitation – “I would love to have you over for dinner, but I just don’t feel like cooking.”) So, the best of all worlds – good company for dinner with no cooking for me and no driving home after. I am always the designated driver, and I get tipsy very easily, so I have to be extremely restrained when I have dinner elsewhere. And I love a nice wine. Actually, we had a lovely, hearty ale to go with our macaroni and cheese. Here is the sweater which Ana finished just as our dinner was heating in the oven. After dinner we put it on the wooly board, and I now admire it each time I go through my dining room. It is based on one of the Fairisles in Ann Feitelson’s book, but Ana chose her own interesting color scheme. It is unusual and quite attractive, I think. Finishing this was a triumph, because this sweater has been the years in the making. Usually Ana is a very prolific knitter, whipping out one thing after another, but this sweater has been the victim of many setbacks – not the least of which was having a hole eaten in it by Ana’s dog. Sometimes these disasters take a while to recover from, and the knitting sits idle during the recovery period. In fact, picking it up again is often a true test of strength of character. My Hillswick lumber was one such, and it took having to sit at my mother’s bedside in the hospital, and the prospect of many quiet, uninterrupted, booooring hours to get me back on the track with that one. But now it is one of my favorites. So I have my mother’s colonoscopy to thank for finally giving me the wherewithal to fix a really egregious mistake and soldier on.