An Hour More and Two Days Behind

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle. --Anais Nin

Our clocks changed last night to give us all one extra hour of sleep. I declare that I took advantage of that heartily, as I feel as though the past few days have all been a bit of a whirlwind in comparison to my mostly calm and steady life. And even with this extra hour, I feel as though I've been running behind all week.

I suppose that if you look at my photos from this week, you can't REALLY call it a whirlwind. I mean, there's barely a ripple in the water there. But I digress:

I was hoping to my this week's section of my Rozeta CAL project finished before I wrote this post, but I was presented with a few obstacles this week that set me back a few precious hours. I think I'll be finished this evening, as long as dinner goes according to plan and as long as I have no further distractions:

I'm learning so much from this project. I've learned not to underestimate the technical skill that this sort of project requires. I was doing pretty well with it all until I started the textured border this week. After a couple of rounds, I noticed that the edges were starting to ripple and ruffle onto itself, which really freaked me out. I mean, I like ruffles as a rule, but circular patterns and ruffles are a definite danger because as the circle grows, you will end up with folds along the circumference instead of a nice, smooth surface. I ripped it all back and mused on it for a while and decided I'd change to a smaller hook. This meant that the stitch height was going to be smaller, but a member of the online group for this CAL had shared this video about adjusting for stitch height, and after viewing it a couple of times I got working on the border and after the first two rounds not a ruffle or ripple was in sight.

After that, I had to put this project down because I had to pack to go out of town on Thursday. My employers were kind enough to send me down to Victoria for a conference this week and I really didn't want to pack up such a large, awkward project. And so we sent Mr. Seymour off to hang out with his frat buddies dogsitter and the hubby and I took advantage of a rare weekday away from home to enjoy a change of scenery. It was hard to leave my project behind after having such a good breakthrough, but the view near the hotel really did make up for it:

We drove back home on Friday evening after the conference because I was signed up for a day-long yoga retreat on Saturday. I'd been waiting a few years since the last one and I was really looking forward to it. There's nothing quite like a day of peace and meditation and holding awkward yoga poses for long periods of time to really reset your buttons:

Finally, Sunday morning rolled around. Seymour took full advantage of his extra hour:

And I was finally going to get started again on my project, except I had to take advantage of the light to take some photos of some yarn I had received last week in the mail. Behold these beauties:

They're all from Scheepjes, which is the yarn retailer hosting the crochet CAL I'm working on right now. I ordered it from Taemombo, which is the Canadian retailer for this yarn brand, and who I highly recommend to my fellow Canucks who are interested in any of these projects. The larger cakes are 1000 metres each (1093 yards) each of fingering weight cotton/acrylic gradient yarn, and the smaller cake is 455 metres (497 yards) of solid pale grey in the same weight and content. I got it just in case I needed something to throw into the mix when working with the other two, but gradients are so beautiful that I'm not sure I'll need it.

The one on the top is called Turkish Delight and the one on the bottom right is called Black Forest Zinger. I've never worked with cotton gradient yarn, so I'm really looking forward to playing with it:

I also had this box to open, which I had saved until today because I really wanted to see it in daylight. It's the closest I think I'll get to opening a box from Tiffany's:

It's a mini hank kit of fingering weight 100% cotton. The photo does not do it justice. I have every intention of making something that uses all of these pretties together... just not sure what yet. I'm open to ideas, but I'm hoping to get some kind of garment out of it. It'll take some clever lace and mesh stitches, but I'm enjoying daydreaming about it in the meantime:

After I did that, we took Seymour out for a walk by the river to take advantage of the warm weather and the remaining daylight. We only just got back a little while ago:

Ok, I'm off to make dinner... and THEN I'll work on my Rozeta project... I promise. Have a great week!