It's been a long week...and it's only Tuesday

Somehow it feels like a verrry long week - and it's only Tuesday. Monday felt like it should have been Thursday at the very least.

A lot of people told me today how tired they were, and felt. It was an overcast day, and somehow the weather seemed to suck the life out of people, quite literally. It was a day of baby steps - 2 steps forward, three steps back..it seemed, all day.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be better and sunnier. Maybe it was just because last week I had a lot going on - the exciting visit at the office, relatives from out of town, and met a friend at Spinnaker's for a yummy meal...and then, I got a lot of stuff done at home on the weekend.

..could be the lull before the storm ?

A brush with greatness

Tuesday, my boss at work brought her daughter in to meet us.

Her name is Gillian Carleton and she and her teammates won Bronze at the London Olympics for the Track Cycling. She brought in her bicycle and bronze medal to show.

Gillian talked to us about her bicycle, being at the Olympics, her ride, and the race itself.
On the left with her bicycle (weighs 16lbs, or 14.5 with her race wheels on); and on the right with her Mom (Nancy Carleton), also a triathalon champion.

   

   

With her medal-which is surprisingly heavy. 

According to Wikipedia, the bronze medal is made up of 97 percent copper, 2.5 percent zinc and 0.5 percent tin. Info about the London medals on wikipedia here.

I also finished up by Seastorm of Petals (#8 of 12) - i think I could have made the shawl smaller to be more of a tight cowl; I think it will be more like a staged shawl.

Yarn is Sweet Fiber Yarns in Heirloom (70% Silk; 30% Cashmere Top). It is so soft; such a lovely hand. The colorway is seastorm. Shown below the cowl blocking, and the original skein (shown right):
























and I'm continuing with leaves - this is Strip 3 in Arkady - coppery-brown and blues:

Scalene Shawl Complete

TA DA!





and



Interesting technique - this shawl has 2 keyholes, to allow you to tuck in the ends, and make a neckerchief.

To allow more versatility, I modified by making the first keyhole red, and the second keyhole black.
I also modified Section 4 of the pattern to end with a larger stripe of black. This makes the shawl more striking next to my face, but less symmetrical.

I was surprised at my commitment to complete the shawl even though it's garter. A very boring knit, but I like the result. Also, I my shawl is rounder and larger than most people's as I inadvertently increased on the middle band (section 2) on both ends, so I increased at a faster rate  - I ended up with 437 stitches before the Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off. I was supposed to have 302 stitches total. ha! yes, as you know, I cannot follow a pattern.

As for my other project, I decided with less than 2 days left to the Ravellenic timeframe, I wasn't going to start another project and be frustrated so I decided not to start the other planned project - the Strands of Pearl shawl, that will have to be for another day.