K.D. weekend

For the third year in a row, May Day arrived and I was completely unaware of the date until we received a flowering May Day celebration plant from some wonderful friends. Just to the left of these cheerful flowers on my desk is a cross-stitched lop-eared bunny picture made by my Gram many years ago and sent in a card that said "Somebunny loves you." I framed it and have had it near my desk ever since. Gram is 88 now and doesn't do much cross stitch anymore because she's busy solving crossword puzzles and trotting around the world to see interesting places! This weekend, she's at the Kentucky Derby, and when the Preakness and the Belmont happen, she'll be at those too. Can't wait to hear all about it!

With these cheerful things on my desk yesterday, despite the dreary, rainy day, I was able to get my work done quickly and decided it was as good a day as any to swatch for the Durrow-like sweater I planned to make for Jesse. I've never had sweater amounts of yarn in my stash before, so being able to shop in my own stash and have multiple possibilities in front of me was really fun! I figured out yardage with the borrowed McMorrow yarn balance from the same thoughtful friend who brought the May Day flowers, knit some swatches and, because they're coned weaving yarns from the yarn tag sale Bonanza two weeks ago, I washed the swatches to get the spinning oil and lanolin out of them and watch them bloom. Nice changes with that, so I'm looking forward to the transformation of the finished sweater too!

Since the Magknits debacle left me with only the text portion of this pattern in the Wayback Machine/Internet archives and Jesse and I weren't too crazy about the original cable anyway, we browsed Leah's cable Stitchionary and settled on the Genesis Hall cable. A few hours later and I'm up to the elbow -- woot!

We have some pretty exciting things to look forward to this weekend, so in between those events, while Gram's romping at the Kentucky Derby, I'll be Knitting Durrow. Excellent!