One or two of my best days of the year are spent every spring visiting various garden centers to pick out the plants for my flower beds, vegetable garden, and planters. Armed with notes and clippings I've saved throughout the year, I search out several old reliables and hope to find a few new things to add to the mix.
This past week I took those two days, and I think I've got a good start to get going on some planting this weekend. I'm a complete sucker for purple, pink, and lime green, but this year I wanted to try some new combinations, too. Colors like "Merlot" and "Salmon" caught my eye. Sounds like a good dinner, but I'm talking vining geraniums and perky petunias. Now comes the really fun part---digging in the dirt.
In the evenings, once I get the dirt off my hands, and if I've had enough energy left over, I've been continuing work on my Must-Have Cardigan. I ended up knitting both sleeves at the same time for this sweater. Once I had gotten the increases completed for my size, the sleeve still looked a little narrow, so I went ahead and increased to the stitch count for the largest size. Sure enough, when I had the time to do a little investigating on Ravelry, it looks as though I wasn't the first one who had been concerned about a tight sleeve. No worries. It's a simple construction that is easy to adapt. I only have a couple inches to go before I cast off and can begin to put the sweater together.
Of course, there's nothing that motivates me to finish one project more than having some new ones waiting in the wings, and I've got some great ones to look forward to.
At this year's local Sheep & Wool Festival, not surprisingly, I found some beautiful wool. I picked up six skeins of a mohair/wool blend for a cabled pullover pattern I've had for some time, and then a couple of skeins of a kettle dyed wool that I just couldn't resist. There's about 700 yards on the two skeins, so maybe not enough for a vest, but a shawl/scarf might be pretty. 
(Could it be future travel knitting? We're going to be logging plenty of air miles this summer.)
I'm also excited about attempting the challenge of knitting from a new Japanese pattern book that I ordered a couple of weeks ago. First of all, you have to see how this book was delivered.
My lovely new book was wrapped in brown paper, tied with some pastel ribbons, and came with a name plate. Even the bill was pretty! As someone who appreciates the effort of the presentation, I was impressed.
And and then I opened it up! Oooooo. So pretty. The book is entitled New Style of Heirloom Knitting and the designer is Toshiyuki Shimada. I'm crazy for the sweater on the cover, but I think I might try the Am Kamin cardigan at first to break into the whole translation thing. 
The charts are thorough and there seems to be plenty of help online.
So, what am I still sitting here for? Time's a wasting. Really, who in the heck has time to be bored?
