The Calm Before the Storm

The man and I travelled to Bryce Canyon for a few days.  We did actually drive through the park and took a short hike to see the Bristle cone pines.

It's easy to see for 40 miles to the Paria Plateau.  Every picture I took is beautiful, there's more:

Coming to the end of the trail.  Live bristle cone pines.  Some weren't so lucky to make it for more than a few hundred years:

The one above had rings that were almost touching.  Probably a couple hundred of them.  This stump is about 2 feet across and had grown around a branch.

This is a natural bridge about halfway to the point which is around 20 miles from Ruby's Inn where we stayed.

That new project has been progressing nicely.  Fatter yarn makes for faster projects.  This sweater is very long, but it's still fun to knit.  I have the back done and am 2/3 of the way up the right front.  Sorry for the blurry picture.  I need to find a way to take pictures of it with more contrast.  Maybe take it from a lower angle and to the side so the flash will make shadows?  The bottom of the sweater is to the left.  The pretty Celtic pattern is at the waist.

Alas, I won't have so much time to knit from now on.  I am back to a real job tomorrow.  10 hour days, 5 days a week.  Yup, 50 hours a week, includes 10 hours of overtime at time and a half.   I have a feeling that this will kill me for awhile but hopefully will make me stronger in the long run.  :>)  It's doing my favorite thing, document control and a big enough company that I am getting paid very well indeed.  woohoo!!

later, friends
J

Ut oh, another new project

This is the last fleece that I spent time spinning.  It's Romney-Corriedale from Knowltons Farm.  It's soft and warm and this sweater pattern will keep my butt warm this winter.  I love sweaters that do that.

It's knitting up fast and the pattern is very easy to understand.  I did add more rows of garter stitch on the beginning edge to help it hang better than shown in the picture on the pattern.

The sweater shawl continues finally.  I have to be very careful when I crochet.  I did so much around 20 years ago that I started having carpel tunnel problems and tendonitis in my thumb.  Having a death grip on the hook really aggravates this problem so have to think about holding the hook like a little bird.  Nice and loose and relax!

You can see the first sleeve taking shape at the top of the picture.  I haven't sewn beads on the crochet yet.

Our weather is changing today.  Snow forecast for the mountains above 7000 ft.  Rain down here.  We received a wonderful downpour yesterday for about 10 minutes.  Love that.  The sun will be back this weekend so can get one lawn mowed and start cleaning up my perennials around the yard.  Yarrow will be cut and moved and especially cut back the Jupiter's Beard.  These plants got really tall this year with all the rain and are now blocking all of the walkways.  It's very annoying.

I will stay busy today inside and most of tomorrow, gloom outside gets me down sometimes so working on colorful stuff in here will help with that.  :>)
J