Summer Productivity…It Ain’t Easy!

Tiny Dancer went out into the world last week and I’m on to the next design now. Remember the Louet Riverstone I talked about the other day? It’s been swatched to death over the past couple of weeks and I finally have a design fleshed out, after being stuck deciding on a good edging pattern.  Here’s a pic of one of my swatches:

After having my concentration disrupted to the max last week with contractors in the house, I’m now able to get some real work done. I was getting so frustrated with my inability to focus and work out the math part of the pattern. But I’m on a roll now and it’s coming together quickly.

I’m a bit worried about being able to get good photos of stitch details in this dark green yarn though. I should have chosen something that wouldn’t pose such a challenge for my photography-challenged self. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes.

The knitter who’s making my Renewal Wrap has been sending me progress pictures every week and I am SO excited to see it finished. I shared a sneak preview of my swatch here. This is the first time I’ve let someone else knit up one of my designs before I’ve knitted it myself. It feels scary and weird to send my stuff off to someone else, but wonderfully liberating too. (Thanks Veronica!)

Speaking of contractors being in the house, take a look at our new skylight:

New skylight

I know it doesn’t look very exciting to anyone else, but it brings light to a room that was much too dark before. I’m just thrilled with it. I almost wish I’d had a couple more of them put in…. I’m not totally used to it yet — when I walk into that room I always feel like there’s a light on. (Which is exactly the point, right?) I think it’ll be especially awesome in the winter. We need all the light we can possibly get up here in Michigan.

We also had the exterior of the house painted and a bit of deck repair done. There’s a big tree that grows up through a hole in our deck and it was getting so big that it was lifting up some of the boards around the hole. So we had the hole enlarged and the contractor suggested a little planter box which turned out really cool. This picture is before it was stained and before I got flowers planted in it, but you get the idea. Pretty neat, huh?

Deck planter box

So guess what happened during the week all these jobs were being done? Yes, Murphy’s law kicked in. As I was stressing over writing too many checks to contractors already, we had a gas leak that had to be repaired. Emergency plumber bills….gulp. And of course our “very complicated” programmable thermostat for our 4-zone heating/cooling system decided that it had had a long enough life and went kaput. For the past 2 years our HVAC guy has been saying stuff like, “They don’t make that kind anymore, so when that one goes we’ll have to rewire the whole house…” And the air conditioner unit itself is on its last legs too, but we’re hoping we can make it through one more summer with that relic. So after just finishing what I called “elective construction”, we’re now faced with what might be called “non-elective construction” to the tune of $5000 for the thermostat and another $6000 for the air conditioner when it goes. And of course, vacation is on the horizon….more $$. Mamma mia! Anyone wanna buy a ton of patterns???

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