What's Been Going On

Friday our son had a school field trip to Lake Michigan. The kids ate their lunches, played on the playground at the park, and then teased to go down the stairs to the lake.

The plan was that we weren't going to let them go in the water -- that plan didn't last long! It was in the 80s F. and even the water was about 60 degrees F.

While the kids splashed in the water and dug in the sand, I tried to get a good shot of the smooth stones in the water without getting my camera wet.

I'm not a serious rock collector, but I usually go home with a smooth stone or two in my pocket. There was a nice little Petoskey stone in this picture, which I didn't see until I was cropping it. So that one's still on the beach if you want to go look for it.

Saturday was hot and very humid. Sunday was cloudy and rainy. I mostly stayed indoors and got more of the sides of the flower bag knitted.

I've been jazzing around with the "Dragon Skin" pattern, trying to round off the scales at the bottom. That means each repeat has been different. I haven't quite got to the look I want, but changing the pattern does keep me alert. And I've gotten a couple of inches of the sides knitted, so it's looking more like a bag than a ruffled-edge doily.

One thing I realized as I was knitting this was that I'm not controlling the stitch flow with my fingers at this scale (size 30 crochet cotton and 00 knitting needles from the Susan Bates "Sock Set"). I'm holding them with my left middle finger nail. When did my left hand figure that out? I'm telling you, a lot of the time my hands are much smarter than the rest of me!