Swans and Rosebuds and the Black Lung

Wow, that was a heck of cold I caught.  It is still hanging on, but about all that is left is a nasty cough that is keeping me up at night.  My husband is currently suffering a milder version of my cold, and my strong, wee little man had the sniffles yesterday and that’s it.  I swear, his immune system is made of steel or something.

So, what have I been up to besides languishing in bed convinced I was dying of consumption, Black Lung, and goodness knows what else? I’ve been stitching, of course!  I’ve made great progress on Happily Ever After, a Marie Barber design published by Just Cross Stitch.

Happily Ever After by Marie Barber (WIP)

As beautiful as this design is, I’m a bit frustrated with it.  There are no less than three symbols in the chart that are not in the colour key.  I did call Just Cross Stitch about two weeks ago about the problem, but I didn’t hear back from them until yesterday.  Thankfully, with a bit of detective work, I was able to find three unused symbols in the colour key and figure it out from there.  I’m glad it was that easy, otherwise my progress would have been seriously delayed. As it is, I’m hoping to have this swan scene finished by the end of the long weekend, and then I’ll move on to the rest of the design.

Oh, right, not all of you celebrate this long weekend.  This is the Victoria Day long weekend in Canada; also known as May 2-4 (two-four) weekend, because the holiday Monday is on or as close to May 24th as possible.  Which, I suppose, is because that is/was Queen Victoria’s birthday.  I’m not sure why we still celebrate it.  I mean, why don’t we celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday instead?  I suppose because it is in April, and having a holiday in May is nicer. 🙂  This weekend also marks the safe planting date up here.  It is generally accepted that most of Canada won’t see frost again until October. *fingers crossed*

Enough about Canadian holidays. I have been knitting.  No surprise there, I’m sure.  I’ve started Empire Lace Cardi, but it is all black and there isn’t much to see yet, so I haven’t bothered to post a picture.  I’ve taken what I learned in knitting Hey Teach earlier this year and have hopefully adjusted the texture division properly for my bust.  I think it is odd how, while there are changes in width for different bust sizes, patterns generally don’t take into account that a larger bust will likely start much lower than a smaller bust, if you know that I mean.  And a line of a texture change going across my boobs is not my idea of a nice pattern feature.

Friday was my monthly visit to the office, which meant I needed to get a small knitting project on the needles for my commute.  So, Thursday evening I cast on Rosebud Socks from Wendy Johnson’s book Toe-up Socks for Every Body.  They are knit from the toe up, obviously.  This isn’t my favourite way to knit socks, but sometimes it is nice to do something different.  The yarn is my current favourite: Panda Cotton from Crystal Palace in colourway Rosewater.

Rosebud Socks by Wendy Johnson

And that’s it. I’d really hoping to make a good deal of progress on Happily Ever After since I would like to have it finished in a month. (hahahaha!) I’ve got a few projects I’m eager to get too, so they are my additional motivation. Wish me luck!