It worked!!

I stuck something in the ground, watered it and *presto* ... flowers!! Actually .... Kelli put it in the ground but the reason I'm so excited is that we bought two rhodies that were just full of buds but looking a bit stressed. They were large and the price was right so we took a chance and yesterday evening as I was watering I noticed that they both are starting to bloom! I'm going to take my fancy camera out this weekend and take some close ups of the flowers. The pictures I posted of the whole yard really aren't very pretty because you can't see the flowers. The Columbine are just so gorgeous! And the red red crimson red carpet roses .... well hopefully we'll be getting some good weather this weekend and I can practice with my camera taking close nature shots. I haven't even scratched the surface as far as that camera is concerned!

I visited my LYS yesterday for their Mother's Day sale. All regular priced yarns are 20% off and then there are clearance boxes. I was just intending to get the Koigu KPPPM for the trim on the Tahoe cardigan and the Rowen 4 ply for the Isabella tank but then I couldn't resist two skeins of sock yarn that I had meant to purchase before and they were out (must have had more in the back) .... really cute combo of self-patterning in purples and pinks that I loved. And .... I couldn't pass up 8 skeins of a Bouton d'Or linen blend in (what else) a green-y golden color. It would be perfect for a little cardigan or shrug. I'd rather have a cardigan but I don't know if 800 yards is going to be enough. Because of the fabulous drape this is going to have I thought some belled sleeves would be nice. This is so lovely that the pattern needs to be simple to show off the yarn so what I'll probably do is just wing it and do a raglan deep V cardigan, stop the body when the raglan is complete and do the sleeves like I want them, then finish the body making it as long as it'll go with the yarn. That's how I did that TDR turtleneck (of course I won't make the same mistake of the HUGE armholes). It's more important that the sleeves are the way I want them. It doesn't really matter how long the body of the cardigan is. So .... one more project to my already too long list.

And I have decided to dismantle the raglan and cabled Noro Kureyon sweater I made last autumn. Here's the deal --- it's UGLY. It's toooooo much. The sweater itself, the design, is nice and it fits well. But every time I even think of wearing this sweater and I put it on ... I take it right off. This is not the case with the striped scarf I made from Kureyon nor the vest that I just finished and I have figured out why. It's alternating two different colorways that makes it wearable and not so circus-y. (I'll take pictures of that finished vest this weekend too.) The alternating every two rows makes it colorful but because there are always neutral colors in the skeins it somehow tones it down into a garment that is interesting, not scary. You can see that from the back of the vest here - there are bright colors but it's muted and toned down by the neutral other stripes that show up. So I'm going to frog this whole thing and make a felted bag or two out of it. Then at least I would be getting some use from it, rather than shuddering every time I look at it!