I am just plugging away at my second sweater sleeve. It’s completely uninteresting at the moment, no picture to be taken. I have 15 decreases every 7th row or so, until I can begin the ribbing on the cuff. And, I have completed 3 of those decreases. Things will continue to be completely uninteresting until right before the 5th decrease where I begin the stripes. That being said, I am very pleased with my progress! It has slowed some, but that’s to be expected after knocking out the first sleeve in a day and a half. After all, I really DO need to do things that aren’t knitting.

So instead, I will finally show off the wool/flax cowl that I finished last week! You may remember this is out of handspun 2 ply.

It’s the duotone cowl, and it’s another knit in a tube then graft tube together cowl. This one was far more fun than the last one and I wasn’t nearly so bitter about it. The gentle changes of colors in the handspun were interesting enough to keep me moving, and the needle size was appropriate for the yarn.

Knowing that the yarn was a bit on the itchy side, I did wash this one very well and add conditioner in hopes to soften it up. It didn’t help much I am afraid. It’s still a scratchy one, and will only be able to be worn over something else. Perhaps a nice turtleneck or something.

Yesterday, Mr. Ink and I went to the local botanical garden to take a nice long walk and pick up our family membership for the year. I am thrilled with this, as Mr. Ink gets so inspired about his own gardens when we are there. He takes a camera and takes photos of trees and labels so that he can look them up when he gets home. All the while grinning from ear to ear. It’s hilarious. I am mostly in it for the walk, and it really is a lovely place to walk at all seasons. Very quiet in the winter and on game day. We enjoyed seeing the magnolias forming their buds, discussed various trees, discussed our own garden, and all the while I kept hearing something strange, something right out of my childhood. I thought that someone was using a turkey caller, and wondered about it. Then, we came upon this:

This is perhaps just 1/8 of the flock. They were everywhere! And not particularly concerned about us humans walking around them. I could get within 3 feet from them before they started moving away from me.

We did enjoy a trip through the greenhouse before we left, even though we were mostly there for outdoor activities. I found this amazing bloom:

It was hard to get a good photo, but do you see that blue bit in addition to the orange? It was really incredible.

It was a good relaxing weekend! Plenty got done, but there was also plenty of time to just be knitting. Now I am back to grants, another deadline today and I’ve got one that has to go in and while it’s not as late as usual, meaning in pretty good shape, I do get nervous when we push even the deadline of that day. Thankfully, this leaves me with only 3 more for the month after today. The end could be in sight now!