18+ miles today to bike to Hyattsville and back with a couple of extra miles included for wrong turns.
I may not be able to walk tomorrow, but since we’re going to spend the day at the beach, I don’t think I’ll care.
If it’s Thursday, it’s time to look back at three beautiful things from the past week:
1. The UConn-Notre Dame women’s basketball game was on tv, which prompted Rudi to see when UConn would be in town to play Georgetown. Turns out it was Wednesday. It was great to see some of the Huskies’ newest talent, including spirited play from first-year student Moriah Jefferson. Georgetown’s Sugar Rodgers, who is being talked about for this year’s WNBA draft, was everywhere on the court, keeping the game far closer than I’d expected. (By that I mean UConn only won by 25 or so points.) If this is the last year the Huskies come to town (due to Georgetown’s imminent departure from the Big East), I’m over the moon that we got to see the game.
2. I hit both the Arlington and D.C. libraries to return (most of) the last of my Cybils books. And I took out books that I picked out and that I wanted to read. The first time since September!
3. Russian Christmas was Monday, which marked the end of the holiday gift-giving season between Rudi and me. To celebrate, he gave me Jasper Fforde’s The Last Dragonslayer, which I’d had to put off because of Cybils reading (and which I plan to devour this weekend), and my favorite tiny notebooks, purple and the perfect size for carrying in back pockets, purses, and knitting bags.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?
Amanda usually wraps up her weekend with a bulleted list and invites others to do the same. This week, with three days in our weekend hopper, I accept:
The Olympic Games ended earlier this evening with a fun, music-filled closing ceremony. I have spent way more time in the past two weeks parked in front of the tv than I should have. I watched a lot of sports, from swimming to track & field, from volleyball to basketball, from rhythmic gymnastics to water polo. And I did a lot of knitting on my Ravellenic Games project.
The evidence:
That would be my Color Affection Shawl.
I’ll be ripping out quite a bit of it starting tomorrow.
See that bunchy edge? It’s not supposed to look like that.
The culprit would be the yarn I’m carrying up the side for the color changes. Even though I was trying really hard not to make it too tight, clearly I did.
I had deluded myself this was something I might be able to solve during the blocking process, but early this morning I realized that what was more likely to happen is that I’d catch the edge of the finished shawl on something and it would snap, leaving me with a big problem.
So, I’m sucking it up and ripping it back to at least the beginning of the three-color section. The two-color section is also tighter than I’d like it to be, but I still feel like that part might be remedied by blocking.
I’ll get my shawl yet, just not today.
As you know, the Olympics begin on Friday, which means that I have slightly less than 48 hours to figure out my knitting project to work on during the Games.
As with every Olympics since 2006, knitters, crocheters, weavers, and spinners around the world will begin a new project or pick up a long-lingering one with the intention of completing it before the torch is extinguished at the end of the closing ceremony.
The first time this massive knit-along was conducted it was known as the Knitting Olympics — a brainchild of the Yarn Harlot. In 2008 and 2010, the field of play expanded to include crochet and moved to Ravelry, where we dubbed it the Ravelympics. This year, due to a cease-and-desist order from the U.S. Olympic Committee (accompanied by a poorly thought out letter that ended up eliciting a slew of bad press before an apology was issued for the wording), the knit-along once again has changed names. We have henceforth dubbed it the Ravellenic Games.
I already have the project I’m going to work on picked out. I’m going to knit a Color Affection shawl.
What hasn’t been decided is what colors to make it with. I’d like to use up some of the yarn I already have on hand, as it calls for three skeins of sock weight yarn, and, frankly, I have a lot of sock weight yarn. My solid/semi-solid choices are decidedly more restricted than would be my variegated options, but I think I like the way a one-color yarn works more than a multi-colored one in this instance. And I’m not above a trip to the yarn store to supplement the stash, but I’d like to rule out what’s at home first.
Normally I’d go for three bright colors — probably blue, green, and purple — but the completed shawls on Ravelry [apologies if you can’t access that link] suggest that picking at least one neutral/dark might make for a more striking accessory. Unsurprisingly, neutrals are few and far between in my stash (and life), so if I go that route, I’ll likely need to hit the store.
So, if it were you making/buying this shawl, what colors would you pick? Leave a note in the comments to help a girl out.
I’m still picking salt and sand out of my hair, but Thursday is waning, so I’ll post first and then shower.
Three beautiful things from my past week:
1. Rudi and I took the day off to head to the beach. It was our first time visiting Bethany Beach on a weekday, and the vibe is much more laid back than on the weekend. We picnicked on fresh fish sandwiches, played in the surf, read as we dried off, and played tag with the tide. (It won the first round, but we were victorious in the next two.) The sky was blue, the humidity was low, and if it was in the 90s, the beach is the ideal place to weather that kind of … weather. After we changed out of our suits, we bought ice cream cones and ate them as we walked along the boardwalk before heading back south.
2. The drive home across Delaware and the Eastern Shore is to the west, which meant we were chasing a large glowing orb for the first half of the trip. Because the skies were clear, the color changes associated with the sunset were particularly lovely.
3. I spent Monday night at the ballpark, but at a different one than usual. I headed out to Bowie to catch the Baysox, the Orioles’ AA affiliate, play the Redding Phillies. It’s been a decade since I’ve seen a minor league game, and I had forgotten how enjoyable they are. It was dog night, so my aisle-mates included a white husky with different colored eyes; the passel of children sitting behind me reminded me of the Peanuts gang with their chatter; my seat was in the seventh row, behind home plate; and the Baysox won (three RBIs off two homers). The stadium employees were all pleasant, and the stadium itself features a carousel. Plus, I got to have a tasty stadium dinner of a veggie burger, tasty fries, and pink cotton candy.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?