You make the call: perfect garden? perfect chaise?

That trellis is falling down. Must. Replace. Trellis. 

 OK, it's been a great year at school and all, but I'm so ready to be done with it. In fact, today, our last day at school, was an opportunity to clean up some equipment, help the Prairie kids get their ice cream machine working, spend some time in Ashby's classroom, and say goodbye to the guys in the basement (read: hard workin' men at an old fashioned Catholic church...space in the basement? use it!!!!).  I'm already home, packing for my weekend adventure, but not a minute too soon to blog real quick about the shawl-turned halter that I just finished last night in time for our fifth grade graduation.  This is a sample of working the pattern as it goes...in the world of crochet, you never, never, know for sure what you're going to end up with.  An example, also, of pre-blocked work (Yes Doris Chan, I'm humiliated to admit, but on this perfect weather afternoon I wasn't about to go into the basement to block the thing).  Post-block pictures available sometime this summer.  Will save that for Ravelry.

 Oh, who the hell cares!!!

 So, another crochet project checked of the list.  With a newly opened schedule, I hope I won't spend the summer in a chronic state of fatigue post-workout style.  I've got a pile of yarn and other projects that are calling me as loudly as the open road.  And so, it's another attempt at the ol' balance principle.   We'll see how it goes.  There are also family responsibilities, cleaning, yard work, braces, and so on and so forth.  Wishing myself many, many, many more moments like this in the free aluminum chaise lounge from the estate sale two doors down.  I love free stuff, I especially love free stuff that never went in our car!
So the ol' life-coach in me also says: I'm not just wishing myself these hours in the chaise, I'm wishing it for you.  We all want that perfect yard/house/bedroom/body, but to hell with it. It's summer, here in the midwest. Enjoy every bug-free outdoor moment available to you. We've earned it!

This delightful pattern is painfully easy, 7 chain, one single crochet!

The family at work and play.

A lovely Spring day.  We're all outside, taking advantage of the warmth, sun, absence of mosquitos. Life is good.  I've just put the finishing touches on Ashby's celery shawl to match mine.  It'll be a hit!  And on to the lawn.

What should we do about this?

Alas.

Impediment.

Did we survive the holidays?

OK, it's not as if I spent all of the holiday season crocheting, but the time away from usual routine does allow a gal to complete some long standing projects.  Shawl #2, finished and blocked this morning.  Something about this shawl, I must admit, says: "beware of seriously skilled hooker".  Take, for instance, the lace work, the fine yarn (that would be LACE weight, or otherwise known as ZERO) the fastidious adherence to pattern, and, well, the seriousness of it all.  In fact, I threw the thing on today and had to take off all the regular clothes that I wear (oversized flannel shirt, thick brown crochet skirt, scarf, and hat.  So what does this mean?

Photo credit: Peter

Yes...it needs cropping, but look at our fantastic new shelf!!!

I'm trying to take it all in stride, lest I veer down the "wrong" crochet path.  Take, for instance, the very magazine that I found this pattern in.  Sometimes I look at the photos of yarn, patterns, models, the whole nine yards, and I feel the consumptive pull that is the very thing that I was trying to get away from when I resumed my yarn work.  Well. Duh.  Just like triathlon, cooking, parenting, music appreciation, house-improving, and every single other thing that touches our modern lives, there's somebody out there better, faster, more beautiful, more clever, and probably posing on a mountainside with a long flowing head of not gray hair with a really nice looking frock that could be modeled in the sundance catalog or garnet hill or wherever we want to be when we grow up and finish the work of accumulating the things that we think we want.  

This is more like it....I am learning that we're supposed to take pictures of handwork that enable the viewer to actually see the product.

So I'll go ahead and say it: it's January 2nd at it's time to assess or look forward or whatever it is we want to do when we turn the page.  I want to make every kind of crochet that ever existed. I don't want to be the best, and I don't even want to do one sort of crochet really well, but the other day when I read about crochet socks from Tajikstan, I thought to myself: "I have to make me one of those socks!".  So that's it, pretty simple. It's that simple desire, like reading all of Cormac or Joyce Carol Oates or like working one's way all the way through Prime Suspect or The Wire or whatever show ever mattered to us.  So, in the coming years, I can expect to keep on plowing through projects, and try not to get too bogged down in that afghan that can cover soldier field (remember the sweater that ate Oakland?), but we'll get there....or at least die trying.