March 10th-I've Mowed the Yard!

 Yes!  Those are leaves coming out on a tree!  It is early March!  The redbuds are already starting to put on little teeny pink things!  My forsythias are late blooming, but they are starting to show color!  I mowed the weeds yesterday.  I am digging grass out of the front flower bed as fast as my back will let me, because plants are springing up everywhere!  It is early March!  I decided to plant some seeds just out of reckless abandonment!

Now on to the fun stuff!  This is a report picture of the vest.  I have placed the steeks and I am climbing up the stupid thing.  I have never centered a  motif before; I have just started knitting willy-nilly and I thought it looked okay.  But now that I have experienced the way this looks, I am certainly going to do that next time.

There is a low-contrast color change in the center of the OXO pattern.  You can't tell that much in the upper ones, but the lower one shows that contrast.  The blue is really a beautiful color with a hint of purple.  I just looked up the color and it is Fjord. 

Now on to the bitching  part of the knitting.  Meg Swanson's video is a god-send.  I placed my steeks without any difficulty.  She says to knit around to the next steek and knit it.  So I started doing that when I realized that my motifs' vertical placements were not lined up.  It took a lot of swearing and futzing around and unknitting and a lot of grumbling.  I even stopped to look up steeks in three of my reference books.  Nothing about how to maintain the vertical motif markers.  I did find a reference that says to knit "being careful to keep the pattern motifs in established vertical alignment."  That's as much as I could find. 

So here's what I do-after all the problem-solving, I find the first center stitch on the motif, count back to the beginning, and start there on the chart.  It works for me.  I am starting to gain a little bit of speed now.  I am fortunate that I know how to "read" my knitting.  That helps a lot.

In the past I have never aligned anything.  I just knit along being quite happy.  But I do like the precise alignment thing.  It looks much nicer.

I am so happy to be almost done.  I have set a new goal of Easter, but I am not sure whether I will make it.  I think I have done really well to get this much done in two months. 

Yard work is calling.   I need to get this winter project off the needles.

I am going to call the groomer next week to get Patty's Spring-do.  She gets so hot and huffs and puffs.  Noodles has been fighting with ugly boys who are entering our yard while roaming around looking for love.  He is being locked in the house at night.  He is not adjusting well, but the cool evenings help.  I noticed he isn't able to jump or climb as well as before his broken leg.

So I am going to leave you with this quote I have on my refrigerator.  Remember a long time ago I mentioned that I collect quotes and place them everywhere.  I was getting something out of the refrigerator when I "saw" this again.  It seemed appropriate after last night's tantrum.

One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.
                                                                                                                 Renoir