As you may remember, there was some debate on which yarn to use, but in the interest of durability, I opted to go with the Allhemp6 in “Brick”:

This is an interesting yarn to work with, I must say.  It was a lot like working with twine while I was crocheting it (although it was still easier on my hands than Manos.  I CANNOT use Manos.)

Once I finished it, it looked like this:

Typical lace.  Crumpled and rumpled and less than fabulous. After a trip through the washer and dryer, though…

Ta da!

OMG I love hemp. It’s SO soft and flowy, but heavy enough to lay really nicely.

I made a simple cotton a-line skirt to wear under it, since crochet is a bit… sheer for everyday wear. (And Amby – check out what I used as an impromptu purse. )

And here we have Irene, me, and Carrie at the Renn Faire (And no, we really weren’t posing.  Kris got us while we were chatting about something):

I LOVE this skirt, and I see more crocheted skirts like it in my future, especially since I have a pretty simple way to make the skirts to go with it.  Plus, they are just fun to wear!

And you may remember why it was that we had guests this past weekend – this was the porch-raising party. Unfortunately, due to some redesigning-on-the-fly, we didn’t get anywhere near as far as I had hoped, so we still have no roof. Kris and I are working our way through hanging the joists, and I am hoping that we can get them all up in the next week or so. At that point, I’m going to beg/bribe/whatever it takes our friends to help us get the plywood up onto the roof so we can place it, because that is NOT a job he and I can do by ourselves. The joists, and the paneling for the lower parts of the walls, totally.

A couple of highlights from the weekend – the rest of the pictures are in the Flickr set, starting here.

Kris and Scott, putting up the first corner post:

Starting to look like walls!

Kris, with his new tool belt (Please insert Captain Hammer joke here…)

And where we stand, as of the end of the weekend (OK, we really have one more joist and a couple more hangers, but it doesn’t look substantially different)

My folks will be arriving this Wednesday for a few days, so we’ll see what all we get done.

And big, BIG thanks to Steve, Mindy, Jason, Amanda, Carrie, Scott, JAM, and Drew for being WAY too awesome and helping us. We could NOT have done this without you guys, and we really owe you big for all of your hard work. (Oh, and Scott – you need to let me know what I owe you for those donuts)

*Next time I say I’m going to make a project that involves lots of little pieces that have to then be put together, someone slap some sense back into me, ok? I don’t like doing it, I get halfway through, and I want to stab my eyes out. And yet, I continue to do it.  And no, sweater pieces don’t count.

So current status of the shawl is…

52 of 82 motifs complete. Progress has slowed a bit, obviously. I’m thinking I might take a break from it and start the skirt, just to break the monotony. Plus, carrying around 4 different colors of yarn and changing them all the time is a little cumbersome. And with Trivia Bowl, erm 20? on Sunday, portable = good.

Oh, and you might remember the February Lady sweater. I haven’t worked on it since pre-Olympics, but I also hadn’t posted a recent status picture, so here we are:

One more sleeve to go!

And do you see a little something on there? No? Let’s zoom in.

Buttons! Kickass dragonfly buttons that Carrie brought me from her recent trip to see her brother and sister-in-law.

See – aren’t they cute?

(Obviously, they aren’t actually sewn on just yet) They are TOTALLY perfect, and just what I was looking for.

Speaking of really nifty gifts from people… I lent a couple of my Knit Picks color cards to a friend on the Knittyboards recently so that she could pick some colors for a sweater, and check out what Arsinoe Selene made for me as a thank you:

Aren’t they fabulous? They are TOO cute. And there are exactly two pair in the world – mine and the ones she made for herself.

OK, not by much – that’s 45/82 motifs done, but I’m still on a good pace.  By the way, that dark red flower-shaped motif up on the right corner is the upper right point, and the one with the blue marker is the bottom point.  That should give you an idea of the size when this is done.And yes, we have a new background for the picture tonight. I’m hiding out in the bedroom watching the Olympics, because Kris has taken over the downstairs tv. He’s been sucked in to playing Halo 3 on the XBox with Carrie‘s boyfriend and some of his buddies. It’s ok, though – I think he needs that boy-centric stuff sometimes.

So, yes, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying watching the swimming again, and I’m even considering looking into finding someplace around here to start swimming again myself. It’s been a really long time, but I really did enjoy it. (And no matter what me-Nikk says, I really wasn’t very good. She’s just too sweet to say that.)  And in watching beach volleyball earlier, I think I’ve got a total girl-crush on Kerri Walsh.  She’s just adorable.  Plus, I totally want her hair. 

See, what you probably don’t know about me is that when I was a kid (erm… junior high-ish), I swam. I won’t say competetively, because I was never very good. I had pretty decent form, but I was just not very fast. I LOVED meets. I love watching and screaming and cheering for my teammates. It was all I could do last night not to bounce up and down and cheer while I was watching, but since I was in bed and Kris was asleep, I opted to stay quiet. Jason Lezak was AMAZING. I swear, it was like watching someone hit a turbo boost button in that last 25-30 meters.

ETA:  Broadcasters, please.  “Alain” is prounounced Al-ahn, not Al-ayne.  It’s French.  Sheesh.

My heart did break a bit for Katie Hoff, though. She swam such a beautiful race, and then just to be out-touched at the end. Gah.

In other news, thank you all for your smart thoughts yesterday! We are going to finals next week! It was a pretty good game until the final question. We were tied for second after the first half, and were in second before the final question, but we missed the last one and ended up in 5th. They take the top 5 from each of the two semifinal rounds, so we did still make it in. And I got two more motifs done while we were there, so I’m up to 32 of the 82 done. Today should be a bit more productive, so I’m hoping to be well past the halfway point by tonight.

That’s 19 motifs completed out of 82, with ends all woven in.

As of a few minutes ago, I am here:

30 motifs complete, so about 35%. And you will notice, no dangly ends. I decided after weaving in all the ends on Friday night that it was WAAAAAY less annoying to weave them in as I go, so, I complete a motif and weave in the ends before moving on.

It’s definitely coming along, although not quite as fast as it did on Friday because I’ve actually had a few things to do. Well, that, and I had to let my hand un-cramp from Friday. I may have pushed it a little bit.   Still enjoying it, and I think it’s going to be so pretty when it’s done.  I’m VERY happy with the colors that Kris helped me pick, and it will be nice to have something that’s not blue or green, since those tend to be my default colors when I plan shawls.

Today is the semi-finals for our trivia team, so think smart thoughts at me around 4 this afternoon.  If we move on, we have a chance to win actual cash. 

I grabbed my hook and yarn, and the Santa Fe Shawl began!

As of 11:02 am, I had 7 motifs complete, out of 82 for the whole shawl.

I love the join-as-you-go method of this pattern. I’ve got lots of ends to weave, but I’m thinking I’ll tackle that each night, sort of as a wind-down.
Off to grab lunch, and then back to the hook!

I’ll be sitting here tomorrow morning, ready to start work on the Santa Fe shawl.   I’m hoping to get into a groove with it so that I can get it done in fairly short order and get started on the skirt.  I realized yesterday that the Ravelympics (and, you know, the ACTUAL Olympics) run from tomorrow until August 24.  The problem with that?  August 23 and 24, we’ve got our crazy friends lined up to come help build the porch.  So… no crocheting for me those days.  Somehow I don’t see some people being ok with building a porch while I sit in the A/C and crochet a skirt for myself.  So, instead of 17 days, I’ve got 15.  Wish me luck ok?  Realistically, you won’t see too much in the way of wordy blog posts, but I do plan to update with status pics, hopefully daily.  And for those of you who I talk to on GChat… yeah, you may not see much of me there either.  I am DETERMINED to finish these if I can.

Did I mention that I signed up for Mystery Stole 4?  And that I may have suckered enticed Amanda into joining me?  I’ve got a crapload of beads here (Thank you, Beadwrangler, for ridiculously fast shipping), and I’ll be deciding between them post-Ravelympics.  I’ll post my options here, just to see what the general thoughts are, but that will come later.  For now – Must.  Focus. 

ETA: As promised/threatened, here are the stash yarns I am thinking of for the skirt.

First, the SWTC Bamboo I mentioned – the color is “Bougainvillea”. It’s a nice variegated pink/purple.

Not my usual, but nice. (Anyone? Anyone?)

Second, Paton’s Brilliant in “Beautiful Burgundy” (And yes, it has silver sparkly bits through it):

Third, also Paton’s Brilliant, this time in “Prettiest Plum”:

Fourth, Hemp for Knitting Allhemp6 in “Brick”:

And finally, Karabella Manipur (100% silk) in #20177 (Would it kill them to give it a name? It’s a red-coral color, brighter and a little lighter than the hemp, although they look similar in the pictures.):

I have enough of any of the these (just enough of the burgundy, plenty on the rest), but I’m torn on the variegated vs. not debate. Also, trying to determine the wisdom of putting something sparkly on my not-exactly-tiny butt. I think the hemp will work nicely, and the silk would be just neat, assuming it’s not going to get all weird.

So, thoughts?  Opinions?  Ohpleasegoddon’tdothats?  Seriously, folks.  Me = not capable of making decisions on my own.

Oh, and since I’ve had a few people have problems with the spam thingy, I’m disabling it.  If anyone knows a WP plugin that has a word recognition or something, let me know!

Anyway, yes, I am still planning to update the design here, although it is not likely to include either a preponderance of pink OR the liberal application of googly eyes. I have to leave something for you, Annemarie! You’ll probably still see plenty of green (shocking, I know), but I want something a little more “fun” than the current green and gray.

So, in spite of the sweltering heat last week, I spent part of last Wednesday with the fabulous Yorkie and her equally-fabulous hubby and son at the National Zoo. We had a complete blast, and laughed our way through most of the zoo, particularly the small animal building. She and I discovered a talent for narrating the lives of Golden Lion-Headed Tamarins. They have such cute wise little old man faces, and I just loved watching them run around. I did get some pictures of the day, which are posted on Flickr. Click on the Tamarins to see them.

And Yorkie, I’d just like to point out that I didn’t post the mask picture ON my blog.

Also, I have caved to the ubiquitousness that is the Ravelympics. I really enjoyed doing the Knitting Olympics in 2006, and since I will be watching obnoxious amounts of Olympics coverage anyway, well, why not? I’m doing a crochet project this time around – Edie Eckman’s Santa Fe Shawl from the cover of the Summer Interweave Crochet. Mine will be in Elann.com’s Lara in shades of burgundy and pink lightish red. I will, of course, be keeping the blog updated with the status on it, so you’ll see it take shape.

Other than that, just doing some reorganization and general cleaning around here. Finally got the scary, scary gutters cleaned out this weekend (YAY!), and we’re almost ready to build the actual porch walls and roof, since we’ve got suckers fabulous, wonderful friends bribed with beer and hot tub time willing to help out of the goodness of their hearts in a couple of weeks.  Again, pictures will be forthcoming.

Hope everyone is having a good Monday!