Happy Monday to all!

I'll freely admit that it's a little unnatural to be this happy on a Monday, but there have just been so many wonderful things happening that it would be hard not to be. Here are a few of them.

This is sort of what I'm talking about. I went to Hilary's on Saturday for her crafty birthday party, which was lots of fun. On the way, I passed by this place, which just made me want to move there immediately. Who wouldn't want to? And Hilary also happens to have a mulberry bush outside her apartment, and so I got a nice sun-warmed handful to savor. I haven't had mulberries since college, I think!

But there were more berries to be found this weekend. Some wonderful person, unknown to me, planted juneberries all around the Aon building, which just so happens to be the building next to the one where I work. I don't actually go around the outside of that building often, or really at all, so I hadn't realized how many bushes there were. There are a lot. Clearly no one is picking them besides me and a few birds (shriveled up berries still on the bush are a good indication that they're not being harvested) so I helped myself. I think I picked for about half an hour on Saturday and an hour on Sunday.

This is what I ended up with on Sunday. To learn more about juneberries (also known as Saskatoons or serviceberries), you can visit this page from my friends at the NDSU Extension Office. (But a brief note on stuff that's not found on that page: Juneberries look like blueberries' purple cousins, but they're not. Blueberries, and huckleberries, belong to the Ericaeae family, but juneberries are in the Rosaceae family - the Rose family.) My immediate plans are to freeze most of them, because even I can't eat 9 cups of berries in only a couple of days. But I do see juneberry muffins in the near future, and those of you fortunate enough to work in my office will be invited to sample when that day comes. Everyone else, well, I'm sorry. I'd offer to take pictures of them, but I doubt that would help.

In other news, I had a lovely lunch outside at Millennium Park today. My usual spot is on the grass you can see behind these rosebushes, under the shade of whichever tree doesn't already have someone sitting underneath it. There are many shaded spots I could go in the park, but I love this one because of the roses. I'm sure you can see why.


Today I got buzzed by an enormous dragonfly, at least 3" long and 4" wide, almost entirely black except for two bright blue spots on each wing. It was very pretty, and just gave me one more thing to be happy about.

Baby Afghan #3 continues, and I'm happy to report that it's quite warm. I was waiting for an indoor concert on Sunday, sewing in some of the (many) yarn ends, and once the music started, I realized it was COLD in there. Really, really cold. So I pulled the afghan up over my shoulders and arms, and it kept me very comfortable. Success! Hooray!

Some day I'll actually post pictures of Afghan #3, but until then I hope you have a happy Monday as well! (Or whatever day it happens to be when you're reading this.)

Rogue Crocheter Joins Worldwide Knit in Public Day

I'm pleased to report that none of the Chicago branch of Worldwide Knit in Public Day knitters were too traumatized by the appearance of a crocheter or two in their midst. The whole event was well-attended, as seen below. (Special thanks to Aidan for organizing the Chicago gathering.) I'm bad at guessing actual numbers, but about 40 people showed their willingness to be seen knitting in public and even become a tourist attraction. There were possibly a few more who came or left earlier or later than I took my pictures, I wasn't really keeping close track of what everyone else was doing. I chatted with the people near me and concentrated on Baby Afghan #3, for CH, daughter of RH. I suspect that C has already made her appearance in the world, and that R just hasn't gotten on to the email to tell me yet. Luckily this afghan is moving right along so the baby won't be too old before she gets her baby gift! Pictures of that project are forthcoming; meanwhile you can marvel at the pictures of people showing their fiber solidarity (Note the presence of TV camera: yes, I completely forgot to watch CLTV at all, and missed the WGN Monday morning spot because I never watch morning TV):

Two Down, Three to Go!

Hooray for me! I finished off the baby afghan for CK, and Aunt C will be taking it to its new home in Seattle tomorrow. I'm so pleased with how it turned out, I can hardly stand it. I was not sure that the 3-D "tumbling blocks" effect would actually work in the medium of crochet, and very happy when it actually did.

I think most of the credit needs to go to the clever (but uncredited) designer for some really slick shaping. There are stitches of different heights in the first round, but after that it's just double crochets and chains. It's extremely easy to do, and I think makes it look nicer than if there were more different stitch heights. There's a uniformity to it that's really appealing.

My only complaint is that, being printed on the 2-sided flier as it was, there wasn't enough room to chart the pattern via symbol crochet. (I know I wasn't clear about this before, but that complex-looking diagram down on the April 25 post, the concentric ovals, is actually what I had to do to get the pattern straight in my own brain. That oval translates into one of the blocks, as shown at the bottom of the May 23 post.) That whole thing about a picture being worth 1,000 words is really true here. Being a visual person, I had to see how the stitches related to each other to be able to internalize it. Luckily I was able to interpret the words and create that diagram, which is what made this project happen.

This is the first afghan I've worked in join-as-you-go motifs, and I have to say I'm really a fan. For one thing, there's no whipstitching or crocheting together, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. For another, you finish one motif before you start the next, actually breaking off the yarn. This makes it super-easy to sew in the ends of each motif as you go. I'd like to state for the record that I did indeed sew in the ends of every motif and half-motif before starting the next one, and that's the reason that I finished this afghan on Tuesday instead of six weeks from now. When you do color changes, you drop one yarn and pick up the next within the same stitch, and it's easier to keep going than to stop, pick up a needle, and sew in the end.

On to Baby Afghan Number 3! (Already 6" tall, and super-cute.)

Turtling About in Galena

Just a few pictures here of our Memorial Day trip to lovely Galena, IL. I was so impressed with how many historical buildings there are, and how well all of them are kept up. (My apologies if the spacing between pictures & text is weird here, I'm still learning how to work with blogger.)

Our hotel was very cute, all Irish-themed and nicely decorated.










It was also next door to a Happy Joe's, which made me all nostalgic for my youth and really puzzled the rest of the girls because they'd never heard of it. (This should explain why they'd never heard of it.) Does anyone else miss the days when the best birthday party in the world meant roller skating, and then going to Happy Joes for pizza and bubble-gum ice cream?


We visited the Belvedere mansion for a lesson on how not to decorate a lovely historical home.


















The Tiffany lamp does make up for a tiny bit of it, though.












Then we saw the Ulysses S. Grant house for a lesson on how to decorate and maintain a lovely historical home.
















Although the painting of smoking children in one of the upstairs buildings was a bit disturbing.


















The Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum is but one of many lovely buildings in town.





That's it for now. Don't forget, if someone asks you for a plural noun, scream out "Dumbo!"