Corset top finished!

I finished knitting the corset top yesterday, although I half-assed the pattern a bit...details and pictures to come after the ends are all woven in, the buttons attached (or should I lace it up since I did put buttonholes up each side?), washing, blocking...I cannot wait! It's so pretty already!

I have had a deflowering of sorts yesterday on the fiber front. I ordered two skeins of this yarn from handpaintedyarn.com. That is 850 yds of lace weight per skein. It arrived snuggled together dyed and wrapped just for me...The thing is, I have never ordered yarn that did not come in either a center pull skein or a ball. I got online to try to figure out what to do with this yarn so 1) it did not turn into a tangled mess and 2) I did not collapse in a tear-stained cursing mess. I finally came to the conclusion that I would have to wind it into a ball by hand. All 1700 yds of it...by hand...it took almost 2 hours and I only got one of them wound.

Cinnabar lace yarn
lovingly twisted, loathsome
will the winding be.

But never fear, It was enough to get me started on this Lovely Lacy Shawl! I am loving lace these days. I guess I feel as if it is my next knitting hurdle. I love that there always seems to be something else I can learn or do with knitting. It really prevents me from getting bored! Trucker Papa even commented that he is really proud of me for sticking to knitting like I have since I have such a tendency to be so flighty. I am really great at starting thing and thinking up things I would like to do...I just seem to have problems with the execution...Just when I get one thing going I get an awesome (at least in my mind) idea for another thing-sometime I gotta tell y'all about my earthworm farm...oh well, it is part of my charm, as my Mamma says...

There is a fitness trail for the University track kids to practice on near our neighborhood. The family and I often go back there to take nature walks and such. On one of these walks we discovered there are wild blackberries growing along most of the trail. Yesterday the kiddos and I grabbed a few baskets and went blackberry picking. The Boy and Girl Wonder had a great time! The Girl Wonder picked about as many berries as I did, while the Boy Wonder was a bit less productive... We picked over three pounds of sweet, juicy (free) berries and headed home while thunder rumbled in the distance. We decided to cook blackberry cobbler before we even arrived home. The Girl Wonder suggested we make one for our neighbors as well. Since "They are such good neighbors to us!" She and the Boy Wonder split up the recipe, she cooking the berries, he preparing the crust (I supervised). Twenty minutes later two bubbly cobblers were put to cool on the counter. After they cooled a bit, the kids insisted on delivering the cobbler next door alone, remembering to mention that they made it themselves and thought they were lucky to have such good neighbors!

I woke this morning thinking I was covered in mosquito bites...and when I mean covered, I mean it! I have 40 bites that I can see to count...however, after a strong cup of coffee and putting 2 and 2 together I think I have chiggers instead... I always heard my Grandma warn people of chiggers when berry picking, but I never thought it could happen to me! So now I feel itchy, yucky, repulsive, and generally grossed out by myself! Did I mention I am really itchy...I also have the phantom skin crawling itchiness that sometimes afflicts us that are grossed out at the thought of having parasites feasting on our flesh...um yeah...at least it is not contagious, and the kids do not seem to be afflicted or infected as the case may be...they stayed to the edges of the berries to avoid the thorns-and the chiggers apparently- lucky them... send hydrocortisone cause if it gets much worse I am going to have to tape oven mitts over my hands...