It’s that time of year again — my least favorite part of spring. The hill right outside my door is covered in Dame’s Rocket. Simply put — what a stink! Now it has a super perfumey smell that if not so intense, one might find pleasant. Like super strong lilacs. But if one is allergic to most perfumey smells, which I am — it just about kills me to go in and out of my door. You see it lots of times along highways in the ditches since it’s very invasive. There’s mostly purple on the hill but here and there are a few white ones. Apparently purple is most common and white and pink are rarer colors. No pink on my hill.
Even if the weather were really nice (it is drizzling in these photos but you can’t tell that — imagine that, more rain) I wouldn’t be able to leave the door or windows open because it’s so strong — especially in the evenings. And it loves all this rain. It wasn’t as bad last year because it was so dry – it doesn’t like drought. I think that’s why the whole hill looks so lush and green too — the drought last summer. The ground cover on the hill totally dried up and died (along with a few trees) and with all this rain, lots of things that probably got choked out by the taller, quick-growing grasses, etc., have had a chance to see the sun (what little we’ve had) and not be choked out by other things. The grasses, little shrubs and trees have really taken over in the woods and the undergrowth is growing like crazy.
It is pretty to look at — too bad it has a scent. 🙂
Now I bet you expected me to show my finished Camp Loopy project — well it’s nearly done but I put it aside on Sunday to try to figure out if I have enough yarn left to do one more pattern repeat or if I’d better not chance it and just bind off. I haven’t gotten back to that one but I should have it finished this week some time.
I have knit a few more rows on the Ruffled Neckwrap that I had buried in the unfinished projects basket. I forgot I had even started it.
I love the color of this yarn, which I originally bought for socks but it’s too thin in my opinion for socks. But oh so lovely in the scarfs and other projects I’ve been using it in — I have it in several different color combinations. I’m using two stands together since it’s fingering weight yarn. I’m going to make the ruffle portion a bit wider than the last one I made but I need to figure out how much wider.
Several people asked if the Ruffled Neckwrap is easy — I think so. If you can knit, purl, decreases are just knitting more than one stitch together and the buttonhole — well if you can bind off and cast on you can do the buttonhole — and I can’t remember which one I looked at but the first buttonhole I did I found a YouTube video that showed it to make it even more easy to do.
The most daunting thing is you start out casting on all those ruffle stitches and it seems like you will never be done. ROFLOL But after that, easy and very fun to make.
I forgot to post this Monday night but the poll to name this quilt has ended and the results are below. BITS AND BYTES will be the name of this Stitchin with Justquiltin project to be presented on July 28 (my birthday!) The other names were all running neck and neck. So Mel Meister congratulations for your winning name:
Justquiltin with Denise Russart 