Grass in the Desert

As Squareslant mentioned in the comments, Phoenix often looks less-than-green. So here are two pictures showing a bit of greenery. This is our front yard:



Not overly green, but not bad either. And here is a shot down the street:



Palm trees do very well here, but there are also lots of other trees that stay green all summer. We’re lucky to live in a very mature neighborhood – our house was built in 1935 so there are big trees to provide shade. But as I said, a lot of money is spent to keep these lawns and trees alive.

On the knitting front I am slowly progressing with the Mariposa front. More importantly I made a difficult and painful decision regarding this sweater:



Remember this? It’s made from Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky. I cast it on in December and I realized a few things this past week.

1. I am not longer a “small” when it comes to sweaters, thanks to Jack. I don’t know if my smallness will ever return, but I would hate to have a beautiful sweater I could never wear.

2. Rebecca patterns are horrible. I hated every minute of trying to decipher this pattern and it made the knitting less enjoyable.

3. I made a mistake in the increases.

4. After so long, it was virtually impossible to figure out where I was in the pattern.

Because of these reasons, I made the decision to rip it out. Here is the final result:



I love this yarn so much, and I needed to find a suitable pattern that will carry me through my varied chest size. A cardigan or jacket seemed the best solution, but pattern shopping is not my forte. It’s hard for me to match gauge if I already have the yarn. Luckily for me though, my mom was wanting to see the babe yesterday and Jessica’s is right around the corner. While he napped I headed over to see what I could see.

Part of my problem is that I don’t like Debbie Bliss adult patterns for the most part. I looked at a Rowan book that had some cute stuff in the same gauge, but I would have to buy two more balls of yarn at least. She still had my dye lot, but that’s another $32 out the window. I pressed on, chatting with Emily and the new girl (sorry, I can’t remember her name). Jessica actually took the day off, which I think is great, but I was sorry to have missed her. Anyhow, I finally came up with this:



It’s a Knitting Pure and Simple pattern so I know it will be easy and I can modify it if I so choose. The bad news is about needles. I didn’t check the pattern and left without buying size 17s. Darn it. I might try to get to Michaels today and see if they have what I need so I can get it started. Not that I need another project on needles, but still.

We did go to Postino Friday but no one showed up. I had lunch with my mom and Potusol, and then we waited around for about 20 minutes. Since no one came I went home and took a nap. It was lovely.