Deb on the Web

And those photos

By having another day I actually have a couple more photos to add to this post.
Let's talk garden first--I thought I'd gotten a photo of my peas ready to climb up the trellis (nice that no one pulled it down last year) and one of the just planted pansies.  But alas you will have to use your imagination.  Here instead are the starts that now reside in different parts of the garden. 
I just love violas and pansies.  I add a few in as plants and started some seeds.  In the starting to pop up from last year category the chervil is coming right along.  I love a bit in salads and it's always good sauteed with a little butter over cheese ravioli.  The parsley, marjoram, sage and thyme also survived the massive amounts of snow we've had this year.  Look at this poor rosemary It had so much snow piled on it!  It is mainly alive just flat.
One bright spot of Spring in the house as it really poured the last couple days

And on to knitting--
Here is the finished stole (not finished in 7 days, but 10 wasn't bad) This is a gift for a very helpful Italian friend.  I loved knitting with the Woolen Rabbit lace weight and the drop stitch pattern was fun (although I highly recommend addy turbo lace needles), but I just don't think I would ever wear this stole myself.  The drop stitches kept catching on my ring and had to be worked back into the pattern.  Luckily my friend is not a big jewelry wearer.
This was the next project on the dock A hat pattern (Windward) from Going Straight--knitted hats.  That is a ravelry link--here is the download link  Yep, the entire book was downloaded.  I love that idea--I've only been printing the patterns as I make them and I love that I can print the written portion and not the charted pages.  Yarn is Lime and Violet Sasquatch in "Cha Cha".  That has been sitting in my stash awaiting the perfect project for over a year.  Here is a close up of the pattern  All the patterns in this book are knit side to side on straight needles.  Here are some progress shots This was started with a provisional cast on for grafting at the end.  Here she is waiting to be grafted.  This is a gift for a friend that recently found out she has breast cancer.  These are her colors, but I realized part way through the pick was more than appropriate.  I wanted this to be a light Spring hat, but I do think it might look better with a heavier yarn. 
Also slated to get finished before we leave town (5 days woooo!) is the main portion of the Icelandic shawl The white section will be finished soon (decreases by 8 st every other row).  I will leave it there for a while as you then pick up along the outside edge for the final portion.  The pattern stitches have given me all kind of ideas for other knits.
I came back into town this morning to a perfect in plane knit project!  My first installment has arrived for the The Verve sock yarn from Unique Sheep is really Springy!  The pattern is perfect for a multi-color project and I love that there is a separate sock key chain project as well:)  That is in the Leili yarn from the ladies.  In addition to the projects there are needle protectors (in socks of course) and you might spy a few jelly bellies sneaking in (to my mouth).

Enough for today!

New yarn site

Well, new to me.  I am probably not the first person to discover this, but I am so happy I did!
lace weight Malabrigo yarn at Handpainted Yarn.  I just ordered two colorways (as Summer always makes me want to knit lace) and some beautiful kettle dyed roving.  The great prices were what I couldn't believe.  880 yds of lace weight for 5.95!

Ravelry?  Yea I still love it!  I spent a good part of yesterday photographing and uploading my sock yarn.  I can tell I'll have to wait until next month to finish the whole stash as I am going to run out of space on my Flickr account very soon.

Oh I did it again--forgot to take pics at another MS3 meetup!  These ladies and some more met up at the new yarn shop in town.  I love Twisted!!  I will definitely put it in my travel path.  I unfortunately drank a french press coffee for breakfast after not drinking any coffee for a couple weeks.  I was so antsy I finally had to leave-waa.  I thought I'd go see HP last night, but I was so antsy I just did some knitting, spinning, cleaning, photographing....maybe I should drink more coffee;)

Ravelry is dangerous!

I came home from work at 10p to discover I had been invited to Ravelry.  It is now almost 1am.  I may not be back for months....Honestly this is really cool!  I have been trying to get organized around here anyway.  It is a race between me and the moths these days.  Unfortunately I have a total of one photo on Flickr and that is the only way to upload photos to Ravelry.  My organization may be a long process.  I am definitely going to give myself a daily time limit.  I am going to come back and read that daily;)

We are at $245 for the CFFA donations right now.  Just a little way to go for the next prize drawing!  I haven't told my cousin about the fundraiser yet.  I decided to surprise her on the day of the walk--Aug 19th.  Think of the money that could be raised by then!