Summertime

I have summer knitting. I hadn't actually focused on this before, but the only time I work steadily on the Barn-Raising Quilt (from Knitalong? Remember?) is when we're on the road. And we are only ever on the road in summer.

In fact, we were on the road this weekend and I'm still recovering. To and from St. Louis in two days. All five of us. And while we had to book it on the way down (Exchange/Renewal of Vows at 6 and Their Father asked to take the part of Best Man), the ride home was almost leisurely. We didn't get close to the Gateway Arch, but we stopped at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers - you know, where Lewis and Clark started off.

There and back and in public at the breakfast buffet/Sunday brunch at the hotel on WWKIP Day, I expanded my collection of Barn-Raising squares. They're perfect travel and/or warm weather knitting. Small. Portable. Easily remembered even if I leave the pattern behind and easy to read if (when) I make a mistake.

I've added some colors. The dark green that shades closer to brown than I expected --over there on the right -- is Claudia Handpainted in Navy Olive. I note that she seems to have lost the navy in this dye-lot. The brighter green on the left is Claudia Handpainted in Jungle. See, I needed the Olive Navy because the colors were all too bright. Then the Olive Navy turned the Moss into kind of a bronze-ish gold, so I needed a real green to take it's place and . . . never mind. It made sense at the time.

At the rate I'm knitting them, I should have enough squares to complete the afghan in, oh, say, about four more summers.