I didn't want to start yet another sweater that would never be finished. Maybe it could work into a wall hanging of some sort. So I cast on ten stitches and figured I could knit some semblance of a Log Cabin block and just keep going until I was tired of it. Kept at it for about a week, at which point the piece was almost a yard square and heavy on the needles, so I stopped. Blocked it flat, stabilized with MistyFuse and fused it to black batting. Now what? I found lots of good colors in my silk stash (but not all the ones I needed, of course). So off to High Fashion Fabrics in Houston, trolling among the silk bolts, found what I needed and also a perfect backing fabric. You can see some of the silk strips surrounding the knitted portion in this process photo. I'm doing hand stitching now, almost ready to put on binding. Then, I have some additional ideas for telling a story with the piece, because handwork is such a contemplative activity--ideas burble up from that cerebral tarpit while I'm debating thread colors. More later about that.
Well, then daughter in law Kristi and I went plant shopping so I could quit feeling guilty about the yard. A lot of plants had died during this last winter, everything needed pruning, sweeping up, raking, etc. I had cut back the moribund hibiscus to the ground and by golly, baby hibiscus leaves are starting to shoot up! I bought a couple of climbing roses, a blue plumbago, a sunset-colored esperanza, some succulents to put in pots. And then I saw it: the Godzilla Dutchman's Pipe. No stranger plant have I ever approached--a climbing vine with HUGE purple sac growths and ivory-colored "blooms". Apparently insects are attracted to the liquid in the sac and the plant obtains protein from their entrapped bodies, according to Master Gardener Kristi. Well, the botany and the fanciful name are fine, but any knowledgeable woman or honest man will agree that its name has to be "the scrotum plant."