All good things must come to an end...

...and others must begin.


Work continues on the painting front. Many thanks for your kind words - both as to our efforts so far and as to our colour choices. Green is apparently not a traditional or popular house painting shade - and we've gotten many a raised-eyebrow because of it. We, however, like it very very much.

Tomorrow is August 1st. Tomorrow is also for a group of some knitters Get Your Sockpalooza Pal Package Prepped & Ready To Go Day, as the official send-out day is August 2nd.

I have ready to go in my package:

• One finished pair of bright pink knee-high sockpal socks. (check!)
• One mini skein of bright pink sock pal pink sock yarn for darns (check!)
• One package of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans (check!)
• One lavender-scented candle (check!)
• One package tarantula gummy candy (check!)
• A large handful of locally-made saltwater taffy (check!)
• One tongue-in-cheek greeting card (check!)

Hopefully the gummy candies and candle will suitably distract her in case the socks don't fit or are too short or too slouchy or just..................not to her Sockpal taste. So that package will get prettily wrapped up and packaged up tomorrow and then first thing on Thursday I'll walk it to the post office and send it off 2-day priority mail. As the package only has to go about 2 states over I'm guessing she'll get it by Saturday. I should say, I'm hoping she'll get it by Saturday.

So that is ending. But what fun it's been!

And tomorrow (yes tomorrow!) the official Dish Rag Tag begins! I'm one of the 200 or so folks that joined up to play in Emily's fun race - and I'm on the Cotton Commandos Team. We've been discussing and plotting and chatting for the past several weeks, and we've got a loose strategy in place and know where we're mailing things and how - so all I now get to do is keep one eye on the team's forum page and keep the other on my mailbox!

Also today at work I got a lovely message in my inbox:

Dear Susan ______

A loan that you had requested:
Loan Title: The opinionated knitter : Elizabeth Zimmermann newsletters 1958-1968 /
is now available for checkout.

So what fun, too! That means that a BSJ is soon to be working it's way on my needles. The first of (probably) many. This particular BSJ will be worked up in an eye-blazing yellow/orange/green/purple yarn that I have absolutely tons of - and the jacket will be (of course) for The Munchkin.

I can hardly wait - even though the first few lines of the pattern look like gibberish at the moment. However I've always found that with the yarn and needles in hand most patterns tend to make sense after a bit of head-scratching and squinting.

Progress on all fronts will certainly show up here - including the Belle Shrug! I picked a cuff pattern and cast on yesterday and am up to the crook of my elbow as of this afternoon.......