OMG, she lives! And blogs!

Back in May I promised photos that never materialized. Let me tell you, a broken leg is no picnic. Especially in a multi-level house. For a little while I mostly felt sorry for myself and because of that I was pretty quiet. But then it got easier to get around, and I started going down to the kitchen again, and into the livingroom to sit and knit and read. I even ventured all the way down to the family room to watch television occasionally. But I still wasn’t feeling like dragging out the camera for photos and if I did, it was a quick point and shoot and be done with it.

And now (FINALLY), the cast is off and it’s full on summertime here. Our weather is lovely and the garden is blooming and we have vegetables! We planned a huge project for this Spring, complete with a greenhouse and replacing a fence that had blown down a couple of years ago in a crazy windstorm. Then when I broke my leg I really didn’t get to be part of the building and planting, and that really honestly bummed me out. I used to love to get out in the garden. A couple of days ago I ventured out to take photos, another thing I’ve not done in a long time, and it felt really good. I still have to watch how much walking around I do without at least one crutch, but it gets easier with every passing day.

The weird thing about bringing out the camera was that I felt I’d forgotten everything I’d ever learned about composition and exposure. Rather than let myself be discouraged and pack it in before I began, I just tried to have fun with it and play with the exposures and such without being too hard on myself. These photos are all in and around the backyard and the garden. There’s more over on flickr. I hope you’ll enjoy looking at these new photos. I’d really like to get back into it again.

As you can see, I haven’t lost my love of taking photos of insects or flowers. I’m trying to get more into taking photos of my knitting projects and perhaps now that I’m happier with my weight (a story for another day), you may even see me in photos instead of my favourite dress dummy! I did a lot of knitting during my “down” time. The biggest problem was that I couldn’t block anything since I was pretty immobile in the first months, which is why I just kept knitting and didn’t do much finishing. Now I’m faced with a really cute summer tote that needs to be sewn together and lined, as well as a gorgeous cabled sweater coat that is SO close to being done that I actually knit up during the winter Olympics! I’ve got several new projects on the go too, and will post a few pics in the days to come.

I knitted up a scarf just before I injured myself that I’ve not yet posted about and I am really happy with how this pretty little bit of mesh loveliness called Icing turned out! It was knit up with some gorgeous handpainted yarn from the very talented Melissa of Yarn Candy. You have to go see the new yarns she’s bringing out for Fall, the colours are wonderful. I see several projects in my future with her luxurious new colourways.

Enough rambling for one night, see you again soon!

A broken leg will do that for you. Gave me a vacation from housework and cooking and also took away my ability to get things for myself. This has frustrated me endlessly over the last few weeks, since I tend to be a “do it for myself” person.

I thought about calling this post “forget the mug, save the leg”, since that’s how I ended up in this predicament that has turned out to be a stay-cation of the weirdest kind, with me spending most of my time leg up, trolling the internet on my daughter Kaiti’s laptop, and beginning an endless assortment of new knitting projects. Seems that laying on your back for hours on end affects the brain, since I suddenly have the attention span of a gnat.

I’ve started a pair of new socks, despite having several socks crying out for mates. I justified this by saying to myself, “it’s not like you need two socks at the moment...”

The sock pattern I fixated on is the Fishnet Anklets, from Whit’s Knits over at the purl bee. I’m knitting this trial sock (notice I didn’t say pair) from some old stash - elann’s Peruvian Baby Silk in a lovely shade of cornflower blue. It’s a fast and easy pattern, once I see how it fits I anticipate making more of them, since it’s such a cute pattern!

Also on the go are a couple of lacey things - Calais, a lovely little shawlette pattern from Judy, knitter extraordinaire (her blog:purl bumps). First started in some stashed Handmaiden mini maiden in a lovely purple, then switched to some Sweet Georgia Sock yarn I picked up at Fibres West. But then I went back to my original mini maiden. The purple just was the right way to go after all, or so it seems.

Started Kieran Foley’s amazing Sound of Waves in some delicious yarn from Sweet Georgia called silk lamb lace. Wasn’t working with the needles I had on hand, so I ordered more Addi Lace and they should be on my doorstep Monday! So look for more on this one later next week.

Lastly, because I can be such a Lemming at times - I cast on a Citron shawlette in some Mal Lace that has sat in my stash,was almost traded and then ended up back in the stash to simmer a little more. I love the pattern.

I promise photos, maybe tomorrow. I need to rest my leg at the moment - it took me more than two hours to shower and wash/dry/style my hair. Broken legs, how they slow you down!

Oh, and if you are on Ravelry, feel free to look up my projects there!

SO… long time without saying much. If I can fix my broken installation of Expression Engine I’ll be back, if not I will probably just say adios to blogging.

I need to get that /?/ part out of the urls so that search, etc will work. I found a hack in the wiki that might work. The fix I’ve been using in the htaccess doesn’t seem to work anymore and I don’t have access to the php.ini to fix the path info there.

Any EE geeks reading? I’d love a little push in the right direction!