April 55 -- or May 25

 I really do not know where the month of April went.  I do have the luxury, if one can call it that, of blaming the loss of time on a traumatic brain injury.  The reality is that I just ... existed in a daze of brain fog.  I know that I have had previous concussions, and that medical science says the damage is cumulative.  To that end, I will endeavour to not knock my head again.  

I know that I was getting ready to make a blog post in April.  I took photos in preparation.  Sadly, The Blog, Google and my tablet are not speaking kindly to each other.  Every blog post involves taking photos, selecting photos, e-mailing them to myself on the desktop computer, fighting with Yahoo/Google to get access to my Yahoo e-mail account ... saving the photos to a folder on the computer, fighting with Blogspot/Google/Yahoo to get access to The Blog.  This is an exercise in frustration, and possibly the universe attempting to teach me some patience.  Who knows, because I surely do not. 

I can happily report that at the current time I have 9 projects with needles in place.  Several are included here, and the nine do not include the finishes detailed below.  

We taught a class at the Uxbridge Library last fall.  The project was a Nightshift shawl.  I finally got it finished!

 I will freely admit this is a bad photo.  Can I blame the TBI for it?  I thought not.  In any event, this was made with stash wool.  The background is a mystery wool; I don't even recall from whence it came.  The colourwork was done with wool that was gifted to me by ... well, several degrees of separation.  It was hand-dyed and possibly hand-spun.  All I know is that the shawl is beautiful, colourful, and there will never be another one like it.  For the record, the design is from Andrea Mowry. 

My Central Park Hoodie ... well, again, this was stash wool.  It is Sisa from Mirasol, and was ignored for far too long in an exposed state.  There was some moth damage to many of the ten skeins.  I thought I had enough tho ... what you see is a back, two fronts, and most of one sleeve.   

 I was not certain that there was enough wool to finish this poor, lonesome project.  Fortunately, I did find one more skein in a relatively undamaged condition.  I should be able to finish, altho it will not have a hood.  That's OK.  I find I am not a big hood person.  The design is from Interweave Knits. 

This spring we were once again invited to teach a class at the Uxbridge Library.  We decided on the Athena Scarf  by Tonia Barry.  Actually, this was a two-for-one -- we used the same pattern for a class at the store.  The combination of 4 weeks at the store and 6 weeks at the library (albeit with some overlap) should have been enough time to finish the scarf.  However, when you consider that most of the first 4 weeks of that time was spent assisting our students ... I am approximately one-third of the way to the finish line. 

The wool is a beautiful blue 100% silk lace-weight from Madeline Tosh that my daughter was silly enough to abandon when she moved out west.  She didn't mind at all that I snatched that skein from the "donate" pile, laughing like a mad-woman.  I have doubled the strands so that it is closer to a fingering weight.  And I keep knitting away.  It is going to be stunning when finished. 

 Another recent finish is the Besties Cardigan from Tin Can Knits.  We wanted to teach a fairly basic cardigan for our June class and this one fits the bill.  We especially like Tin Can Knits designs for the clarity of the pattern writing and we love the design esthetic. 

The sleeves look short ... as in really short.  They do match the schematic provided tho ... The beauty of this design is that it starts at a newborn size and goes up to 6XL in both men's and women's sizes.  Size inclusivity is them!  I used King Cole Emotions and Estelle Spark for the trim and a 3.75mm needle for the body.  An interesting note here -- the folks at Tin Can Knits do not like to use a smaller needle for the bottom ribs on their designs.  I followed directions.  Not sure whether I like it or not, but time will tell. 

Finally, I also finished this little teddy bear whom I have named Grady.  He was knit with King Cole Velveteen with scraps of pink and black.  There really is a mouth, but the fluff kind of overpowers it.  He is soft, cuddly and huggable.  I expect my granddaughter will get this little guy.  

And here we are at the end of May.  My sock knitting is sorely lacking this year.  I have one pair finished, and the first sock of the next pair underway.  This may become a problem, but not until December!

In other news -- summer is here!  Itty-Bitty was launched yesterday and I sailed it home.  There was rain threatening, but it never materialized.  The wind was ... not steady, but also not overpowering.  All in all, it was a great first sail.  I am still grinning.  

And so, I am off to do some sailing, some video gaming with my grandsons via the internet, and finish up the evening with some knitting on the afore-mentioned nine WIPS.  Cheerio!