I mentioned yesterday that I’d like to knit a new shawl as my Tour de France Knitalong project (and afterwards, because I’m terrible at finishing projects in a set period of time). With Rudi’s assistance, I’ve narrowed it down to four three options (as I was typing this, I realized one pattern called for two skeins of yarn and I only had one). However, Rudi has given some subtle hints that he doesn’t care to extend this process past hour four, so I thought I’d come to you.

The three shawl patterns (with links to their Ravelry pages) are:

1. Reyna — I’d knit this in one of the myriad skeins of variegated fingering yarns I have. I even have a couple options if I want to make it two skeins large. Rudi has been underwhelmed by Reyna every time I show it to him, but I still keep coming back to it, probably because I have so many skeins of yarn that would look beautiful in it.
2. Campfire Cozy — I’d likely knit this from a bag of Cascade 220 Heathers in a burgundy color. However, I’m hung up on the fact that I bought it forever ago (pre-Ravelry) for a cardigan that I’ve never made, but if I use 6 skeins of it to make this shawl, I also never will. I could make a slightly less gigantic version out of DK-weight yarn instead and use the two skeins of Miss Babs Yowza I have:
   

   Since the worsted version measures 112″ x 41″, a smaller version might not be terrible. Rudi points out that I would wear this shawl all the time, and he’s not wrong.

3. Love Grows Here — This is probably both Rudi’s and my favorite of the three patterns and it comes from the designer who made the pattern I knit for last year’s Tour de France (Forever in Blue Jeans). I have two skeins of lilac-lavender yarn I could use as the background color, but I’d have to track down all my leftovers, which feels like a hassle right now, but that would probably be fine once I started knitting. (The versions Cally made used eight colors for her stripes, just as a reference.)

Got any thoughts?

I have several things I’m hoping to do this weekend:

• Start a new knitting project while watching bike racing — It’s time for the Tour de France Knitalong, and I’m trying to decide on a new shawl pattern to knit. Waiting for daylight to make a yarn decision.
• Pickle cucumbers — I have several just hanging out in the fridge waiting for me to deal with them and probably one more that’s ready to pick down at the garden.
• Make peach ice cream — I bought more plain milk tonight, so we’re ready as soon as the ice cream bowl freezes.
• Work in the garden — I weeded last week, which means there was plenty of space for other weeds to expand into. Sunday looks like it will be a beautiful day for this.
• Read in the park — The biting flies have been particularly nasty this year (because 2020), so we needed more bug spray. We can’t find our preferred brand locally right now, and yesterday’s bottle proved useless. Rudi picked up a new bottle with a formulation he thinks will be closer to what we want today. If it fails, I’m buying DEET.
• Bake fig newtons — I found a recipe for making them with whole figs, rather than jam.

A relatively short list this week, but with lots of making and relaxing. I probably need to wash the kitchen floor again (How does it get so dirty in a house where we wear indoor shoes?), fix the elastic on one of my masks, and do laundry but, honestly, I’m fine if none of that happens this weekend. I’m feeling a little run-down mentally and think spending time doing things I like might help.

What are you hoping to do this last weekend of August?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. In the last week, our local park and the fancy steps near it have been home to two proposals and one tiny wedding reception picnic. I don’t know how yesterday’s proposal went; we came from the same direction the beloved was expected from, so we didn’t have any clue until we got to the top of the steps, where there were signs saying “Proposal in progress. Please wait two minutes” on the ground and on the young man’s back.

2. I started a new book this week and it’s told from the first-person plural point of view. As an English major, I find this a fascinating choice for narration and less than a chapter in, I’m already invested in finding out what else the author has in store for me.

3. We had another mishap making ice cream this evening, where I decided to trust the one recipe I saw online that told me what I wanted to hear about timelines, rather than every other recipe that would have made us wait. I’ve learned from past mishaps, though, and just ladled some non-frozen ice cream into glasses and topped them with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and called them milkshakes instead. Tomorrow we’ll have ice cream.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Nothing makes you remember how lucky you are than having three friends dealing with health-related crises.

Life isn’t all Skittles and beer here, but we’re doing okay and that’s enough. Today, that’s more than enough.

Vance Gilbert and Ellis Paul cover Susan Werner’s “May I Suggest”

I often neglect to show photos from the garden in the height of summer. It’s overgrown and I spend all my time there watering and picking and weeding and then I get home and think, “I should have taken some photos.”

I have young bean plants and hope to have beans in early October, which is still plenty warm in the mid-Atlantic. I planted about a dozen varieties, so I will be pleasantly surprised by what shows up.

I have a bounty of cherry tomatoes. Marauders of the two- and four-footed varieties have plagued our community garden this summer, so most big tomatoes were picked. (I try to be Zen about it — I don’t need the food I grow. Maybe the people who hop our fence would otherwise go hungry. But it can be frustrating until I remind myself of that fact.) But the cherry tomatoes mostly have survived, and mine have branched out everywhere, including vertically down into my bunching onions.

The cucumber plant continues to be very productive, giving me one every week or so. There are plenty more flowers, so I’d expect productivity to continue through September, at least. (Side note: homemade pickles are delicious.)

I have had a stellar year with my cone flowers. Here you can see the various stages they go through:

Not pictured but also growing: Herbs, potatoes, peppers, zucchini flowers (but never actual zucchini).

I still need to get some seeds in the ground for fall greens. They’ve gone with me to the garden a couple times, but I just haven’t gotten around to planting them, although I’ve now cleared the clover and violets out of where they should go.