Ocean Gale

There is a little of everything in this post...

Pattern: Gail by Nancy Bush (my ravelry project)
Materials: .81 skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in Cloud Jungle. This is the very best photo of the color that I have. Very different from the cloud jungle that I used to knit Chris' Gentleman socks.

Made for: Me (maybe?)
Needle: US6 40" Addi Turbo Circular
Start Date: 19 June 2009
Completion Date: 26 June 2009
Size: Scarf as opposed to shawl size. (Laci is very small...)

Notes: I only did 6 repeats instead of 7 because all of the Smooshy projects only had 6 repeats. I'm fairly certain that I could have gotten another repeat in. I'm not at all unhappy with this size though so I'm not going to worry about it. Otherwise I just followed the pattern as is until it was time to block it. I added a few extra points where I felt like it needed extra points. I really love this black and white of the design in the lace.

Now I need to discuss a small point on Laci's clothing. She's been dressed in basically underwear around the house. Chris has been experimenting with light or whatnot and he was responsible for her clothing. So she is hardly dressed at all. I needed clothes to take her outside and photograph the shawl. Well her stockings don't come off because he basically tore them when he put them on and it would be better not to adjust them and make them run. She's easier to dress if you can stick clothing over her head rather then removing her waist or worse her legs, so I slid her denim mini over her head. We needed a white shirt for her to model the shawl and really show it off. Well we couldn't find her white tee-shirt anywhere. So button down it was. So that leads to this outfit which is totally incongruent...

Also notice the sunflowers in the neighbors yard in front of her (tall things on the right). Those are the fastest growing sunflowers EVER. I swear they planted them as seedlings and three weeks later they were over 7 feet tall (now closer to 10). I've never seen them grow that fast and so Chris and I spent a couple of weeks speculating on what they really were because sunflowers don't grow THAT fast. Sure enough though they are sunflowers because they have those bright yellow flowers.

Speaking of crazy plants in the yard? The Hackberry trees (the source of our butterflies...) are covered in Hackberry gall psyllids. These are babies. They will come out into the world in September or October as a very very tiny bug that looks a bit like a cicada (locust). Annoying little buggers too. They make it difficult to let the dogs out at night because they want to get to the light.

Finally Abby enjoyed our playing outside to take photos of a shawl. We didn't stay out long. Too hot for her at over 100.