The Bradford pear trees are in bloom again and they’re literally all over town. I shudder to think how unhappy my sinuses would be if I was not taking a daily dose of cetirizine (generic Zyrtec). Even so, I haul off and sneeze at frequent and random intervals during the day. So annoying.
May I just say again how much I hate the new WordPress block(head) editor? It’s supposed to make using WordPress easier, they say. Easier compared to what? Trying to do a blog post while being simultaneously hit upside the head repeately with a board and being made to listen to K-P0p with the volume turned up to 11? It’s not the least bit intuitive to anybody who was born before the year 2000. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! It drives me nuts.
Update on Stuff I need to do:
Rake my back yard and put the rakings in the dumpster. — I’ve started on it. Got the roses in the front bed pruned, and one trash bag filled on Tuesday, but the City had not emptied the dumpsters, which were all full, and I blew it off today. Tomorrow afternoon I have stuff to do (see below) all afternoon. By Friday, the dumpsters will probably all be full again.
Do a major sort out on my yarn stash, with a rearrange of storage units, a sort through and weed out of yarn, do a realistic frog-it-or-finish-it sort, and frog the stuff I know I won’t finish. The spirit has yet to move me.
Block a bunch of knitted shawls and send them to their new homes, which entails getting out the folding banquet table, the steam iron, and blocking mat. No spiritual movement on this one either.
Make two lap robes. I have the blankets. I just need to haul out the sewing machine, the banquet table, and sew the lap robes. I’ve bought a little foldable sewing table. It’s probably been held up in the Suez Canal, so no movement on this one yet either.
I talked to mom on the phone the other day, and at the end of the conversation, I got one of those, “Oh, by the way’s.” Now you have to understand my 96-year-old mom is old school when it comes to hair styles. Really old school. Like 1950’s old school. Like go to the beauty saloon once a week, have it backcombed into a bouffant, glued down with hairspray and sleep on a silk pillowcase to make it last, old school. She hasn’t fixed (or washed) her own hair in probably sixty years.
Basically, her “oh, by the way” problem is that showers are built “one size fits all” and the pipe the shower head goes on is set at a height that will accommodate a man over six feet tall. My mom has shrunk over the years from 5’7″ to about 5’4″, so she can’t get the shower head angled right to keep from getting her hair wet, and shower caps mash her bouffant. (Ça ne se fait pas!) The old shower head dribbled rather than sprayed, and she had to get right up against the wall to get wet. The new shower head I put on to fix that problem sprays too forcefully, splatters all up into her face, gets her hair wet, and practically beats her up. The camper is not happy.
Moi? I’m 5’4″ myself, but I wash my hair in the shower when I wash the rest of me. The standard shower pipe height is at the wrong angle for me, too. I got me one of these little gizmos and have it angled out so my shower head is positioned right over my head. Turns out my little gizmo is the answer to her problem, too, and I got her a shower head with an adjustable stream. Hopefully,it’ll have a setting that won’t hit her like a firehose. I need to get with her to see if I can put it in for her while I’m out and about tomorrow. I got the parts, the wrenches, and the Teflon tape in a paper bag all ready to go. Once I get it installed, I’ll have to get the trained chimpanzee to show her how to adjust the flow on the shower head . . .
I’ve reached the point on the Sweet Irene shawl where I needed to make the knit-as-you-go edging turn the corner and become a knitted on edging to finish off that edge of the shawl. Took some figuring out, and involved two little changes to the edging pattern: changing a kfb to a k2togfb and adding a sl1p wyif*, but I worked it out. I’m very pleased with the way it looks. It’s hard to photograph, but the edging looks like it was crocheted on using a row of double crochets followed by a row of single crochets. It’s pretty slick if I say so myself. The pattern is up on Knits From The Owl Undergroundc.
The knit as you go edging is worked (kfb, yo, k2tog, p1, ssk) over the last six stitches of the right-side row and (k6) on the first six stitches on the wrong side rows.
The knitted on edging is worked (k2togfb, yo, k2tog, p1, ssk, turn work) over the last 7 stitches on the right with a (k6, sl1p wyif, turn work). You don’t have to do anything to make it turn the corner. You just go straight from one to the other. It turns the corner by itself.
I’ve been getting in the mood for a knit-together, and mentioned it to a friend. Both of us have been COVaccinated. (But I still wear my mask.) So I’m going to her house tomorrow afternoon with knitting in tow. It’ll be my turn to have it at my house next time, which means I have a week or so to clean house, bash my stash and finish the yard.
Nothing like a deadline to provoke the spirit to get out and push . . .
* k2togfb - knit two together front and back; sl1p wyif - slip one purlwise with yarn in front
The Owl Underground 
Odd: I’ve never thought of Bradford pears as a source of pollen. Of course they surely must be, but around here our attention’s so focused on oak and pine, the Bradford pears hardly are in the running. Now that they’ve changed the admin page, too, there’s one extra step to getting the classic editor back, but if you want it, I can send directions.
LikeLike