Monday, July 16, 2012

Don't drop a stitch on a roller coaster

On the one hand, going often to a summer cottage means lots and lots of knitting time, especially if somebody else is driving.  On the other hand, if the somebody else chooses the road...

Here is the thing I remember about visiting my uncle's cottage every summer: the roads in were very bumpy and twisty and the dads' cars were very land-yacht-ish, with long long hoods that obscured the grade and direction of every descent, which led to many adventures (and, I'm sure, under-breath expletives).

Of particular Wheeee! calibre was the road you took to church on Sunday if you were super late, and guess what?  This weekend we were super late.  And when the roads were improved with paving and stuff, the bumpy twisties got left as they were when I was nine.


Naturally I forgot about all that and discovered a dropped stitch just as we were about to leave our stomachs behind on the first big bump.  Picking up a stitch while carsick and still bumping along?  Not recommended.

(I did get the stitch, but I didn't get my stomach back, so I'm a little short on my sock still.)


The church we were going to seats 100 plus overflow on the hill outside (actually it's a proper deck now, but I used to sit on a hill and listen through the open side door.)  When we sat down the priest looked around at everybody and asked, "Who feels like singing?" Somebody suggested a particular hymn everybody knows and after calling out the side door for agreement from the crowd on the deck, that's what we sang.  The rest of the mass was just as comfortable.  I could really get to love this cottage thing, you know?


Afterward we went to a gift and tea shop across the street - two cute places on either side of a heavily wooded and otherwise unpopulated road - and I bought a very exciting thing that I will have to tell you about later because I forgot to take a picture of it before the sun went down just now.  It's knitting though so you'll like it.

What I did take a picture of was the other thing I came home with:


Meet Flloyd.

Yes, I know Flloyd is supposed to have just one 'L'.  Flloyd is a little different.  And he appears to have just one word in his vocabulary which is 'Yum.'  My kinda bird.


Flloyd stayed with me in the afternoon - bouncing up and down with the sewing machine on a mostly stable card table I'd found behind a door - when, instead of floating in the lake, I was Very Responsible and finished the curtains for the living room.

Here is my setup, which misses showing the gorgeous afternoon I skipped and therefore the extent of my fortitude:


And here is the After and Before:


(please please tell me it was worth it because frankly after months of planning and prepping and measuring I don't think that one is so much better than the other)

And here is what shore looks like from the water, which I had time to get back into before bed because the thunderstorm that swept in just as I finished hanging all the panels swept out again after supper:


bliss.

Hope your weekend was also delicious!

5 comments:

andrea said...

I love your new curtains. they just bring a little more sunshine to the room.

Mary Keenan said...

Oh Andrea - thank you! That is what I was going for: sunshine. Though the very most sunshine was in between the old set coming down and the new set going up because WHOA, the view. It so does not need framing by fabric.

Marianne said...

I love the new curtains, they add such brightness compared to the older one. I am so enjoying your trips to the cottage, reminds me of my youth and trips to my uncle's farm. Had a road very similar to that one and I was always car-sick prone. LOL.

Trish said...

Love them!

justmeandtwo said...

The new curtains are definitely worth is. So much brighter and cheerier...more like the you in your blog.