Monday, August 03, 2009

My Birthday Weekend!

Sunday is a good day for a birthday, Jeff and I celebrated all weekend getting things done and buying some new things.

Saturday, we drove over to Tiverton for ice creams at Gray's and a little yarn shopping for me at Sakonnet Purls. I also took along my Serenity shrug to pick out a button for it. The women at Sakonnet Purls complimented my shrug and helped me pick just the right button from the overwhelming selection! What do you think?

I bought the Heartfelt book so I could make the scarf called Haven with some lovely soft Rowan cocoon yarn I also picked out. I've had my eye on this scarf and yarn since the book came out! I started on the size 11 needles the pattern suggested, but quite quickly decided to rip back and start again with size 10.5. I am clumsy with the 11's and it seemed too loose. I'm happy with it now! Also, I decided not to slip the first stitch of each row and am just knitting the edges in garter stitch. That's easier for me with the big needles. It is pretty so far, but I can tell by stretching it a bit that it will really benefit from a little blocking.

On Saturday, we also bought a new lawn mower and did a bunch of yard work. That went well except for when I tossed a big armful of brush onto the burn pile and a moment later noticed my middle finger on the left hand feeling weird. I looked down to see it swelling and turning purple! It is still a little messed up, so I am trying not to use it. I have accidentally opened the kitchen cabinets with it and the worst feeling was forgetting and using it to pull out the top rack of the dishwasher! Ouch!!

On my birthday, we got my cake and ice cream and did a grocery shop for dinner as I decided I wanted one of my own favorite recipes...tortellini with peas and prosciutto in a parm cream sauce. My cake melted in the heat a bit, but it was beautiful and delicious. We'll be having leftovers for awhile!

One of our projects this weekend was to build a compost bin to replace the old, small one. I had thought up a design for it awhile ago. It is three fence sections from Home Depot: 1 for the back, one cut in two for the sides and one for the front. The side ones are fixed to the back with L brackets and a couple of braces for stability.
The removable front section attaches with a couple of eye hooks.

We are going to staple some sections of chicken wire to the inside and then it will be ready to put in place in the corner of the garden. I'll probably cut a section of chicken wire to lay over the top to keep leaves from blowing out of it in fall. Do you like my design?

It's so wet for the garden this year, but there are still flowers to enjoy while we work or play outside.
brown-eyed susan:

a variety of bee balm (lower leaves are molded...):

butterfly bushes:

I am still not seeing many butterflies. In all the time I was out in the yard this morning, I only saw *1* monarch...other years there would be several at least.

Well, that's a sampling of things from my fun birthday weekend! Here's just one last picture to give you some idea of the dog's level of energy at this point in the summer.

4 comments:

madalyn said...

Happy birthday!

knitseashore said...

The button is perfect and looks so vintage! It sounds like you had a great birthday (chocolate cake, YUM) and also got a lot of things done. The flowers still look pretty despite all of the rain we've had.

That's a great idea for the compost bin, easy and elegant!

2paw said...

Happy Birthday, I agree that the button is beautiful!! Love the scarf, it looks squishy and warm. The Labradors here look like that all the time, regardless of the weather!!!!

Kristen said...

Glad you had a happy extended birthday! The button looks lovely- I knew SP would come through! Cool compost bin.