~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a photo and share it either on your blog or on Flickr. Leave a link below to share your photo with the rest of us! ~ Ginny at small things

Yarn-along – May 7, 2014

Spring has FINALLY sprung in this part of the world … we’re all set with 55 at 0700 and going up to the mid-70s today (on Friday, it’s forecast to get really hot … thank goodness we live at a lake!). I’m really enjoying Crooked House and already have Murder is Easy queued to read next as I’m still on my Agatha Christie kick.

We’re heading into the home-stretch for homeschooling and “real” school … necessitating lots of trips up to the high school for fun celebrations like the art show/music concert last night. The students are so very talented and the 2-1/2hr show was well-worth the trip up. So fun to see the happy high schoolers sharing their God-given talents with us all.

I’m beginning plans for next year’s homeschool adventures — I may just be down to a 9th grader (putting the 11yo in the parochial school) which will seem so odd but kind of fun, too. Dh and I realized the other day that I’ve been homeschooling for 12 years! Seems like yesterday we decided to start on this journey … with two middle-schoolers who were a tad wary of coming home from parochial. But it all worked out and here I am 12 years later. Looking forward to finishing up the bulk of the work and enjoying the lovely weather we’re getting now.

With warmer weather, however, comes the need to put away heavy knitting (saving that for the full-on a/c days of July/August) and pull out smaller projects.

On my needles in the picture you can see a fun shawl design I’m creating — this one is done in Spring Gate’s cashmere(80%)/bamboo(20%) blend in a sagey-green and charcoal-navy combination. I’ve just finished the body of the shawl — knit from side to side, creating an elongated triangle with an asymmetrical apex. Kind of cool. I’ve just picked up the edge sts for a border which will be in the sage color.

Here’s a close-up of the pickup row (in the charcoal). Since I always slip the first st of every row, and since I worked alternating double-rows of garter, I picked-up from the wrong-side, giving me this cool chained edge above the edging I’m about to knit. It really makes for a professional look, yes?

close-up of shawl in cashmere-bamboo blend

So what’s on your needles and reading table? Wanna come play ….