All you bloggers with bleeding heart pictures? Eat your heart out and look at this.

That’s a pink lady’s slipper – rare and endangered in Massachusetts but not in my friend Lois’ backyard. This plant returns every year under her pine tree- not planted or cultivated, it just shows up. So of course, last night at knitting quilting, I had to take a photo with sock.

The Koigu Feather and Fan scarf is finished. I like it, although it seemed endless to knit. Here’s a picture of the scarf reclining over the wild geranium in my yard.

As for the Leaf Lace Shawl, these flower shots and a finished scarf have put me in a good mood. Let’s not spoil it by bringing up nasty things.

I have started the Leaf Lace Shawl from Fiber Trends. Frankly, I have started it 4 times, invested about 3 hours and I’m on row 17. I’m not a slacker knitter but I should explain.

First of all, I have never done a provisional cast on before and I don’t know how to crochet. So, picture me, Sunday morning, sitting at my dining room table with a book in front of me which illustrates how to crochet. I’m a fairly intelligent woman, this shouldn’t have been difficult, right? I hereby revoke everything I ever said/thought about crocheting being for people who weren’t smart enough to knit. In the end, I won, but for a while there it wasn’t pretty. Neither was my language.

Now that I’ve mastered learned provisional cast on, I’m ready to attempt the pattern. I progressed limped along, but kept noticing that what I had just didn’t look like the picture. Hunh. Keep going. Still not looking like the picture. I finally woke up realized that I wasn’t following the pattern correctly and therefore I wasn’t getting that nice knit stitch in the middle of the pattern repeats.

Dumbass.

Sigh.

Frog.

Start again – but – at least I’m really good okay at provisional cast on now.

I think I’m in over my head I’ve got the hang of it but this sure has been a long fezzle. I’m not even going to show you a picture – it’s tiny, okay? Here look at this. Cari started her shawl on Sunday, too. I’m so jealous.

The observant among you may have noticed there is something missing from the “on the needles” list. It’s not a finished object either. Those of you who need a hint should look at this. Dixie and Mason are quite enthralled, as you can see.

Recognize it? Here’s a really big clue – it used to be this.

Sigh. Yes, indeed, the sad truth is that I have frogged the entire Charlotte Bronte Shawl. I figure I invested about 64 hours of time in knitting this thing – that’s calculated at 12 minutes per row, folks – and it took about 20 minutes to rip it out. That’s life as a knitter on-the-edge, I guess.

There is good news, though. I can’t bear to look at Charlotte anymore so instead I’m going to use this yarn to knit the Leaf Lace Shawl from Fiber Trends. I’m reasonably sure I’ve got plenty of yarn (now there’s some famous last words) and I actually like this pattern better than ole Charlotte anyway. I’ve ordered new addis from elann.com and once they arrive I will have forgotten Charlotte forever. Just a bad bad dream.

In the meantime, I have worked on trying to complete some things to make myself feel better. I finished the Mary Higgins Clark book in one day and multitasked by working on the Einstein Coat at the same time. Reading while knitting this is the only thing that’s going to make it bearable, I think. The bottom is finished and the top left is cast on and I feel like I’ve finally made some progress. Since I’d like to be able to wear it this fall – and I know that once (or should I say if) the weather warms up I won’t want to be anywhere near these miles of Lopi – I’m working on it while it’s warmth is actually comforting. Here’s a boring picture of the boring project made slightly less boring by the inclusion of Mason the Wonder Cat.

I’ve also made some progress on the koigu feather and fan scarf. See?

You’ll note that’s an indoor plant the scarf is draped over. Everything outdoors is soaked because it’s been raining since Sunday. Raining.Since.Sunday. Memorial Day Weekend is upon us. Will it rain? Gee, what do you think?