Small moves

Magrathea was knit on yesterday.  Much progress and in the most amazing turn of events, you can actually tell that I have used some of the yarn.  It's a very large densely packed ball and until now, you could barely see where the centre pull was coming out of.

 One of the reasons I chose this pattern was that she defines how much you need to knit the last chart of the pattern and I really do want to used up every possible millimetre.  I will knit till it is about 30% of its starting volume but it already fairly long, as you can see.  Blocking is going to make this grow substantially.  The yarn just has that feel and I can't wait to see the end result.

While there is a fair bit of knitting going on, there is lots of other stuff happening too.  I sat on my deck and planned out some changes to the area immediately surrounding it.  It is crying for more green and the deck, while I love its sunny open charm, gets hot.  I have been thinking that planting hops to climb the rails and provide just a little lush greenery might be the ideal way to keep it open but provide some cool shade to the deck floor.  Hops are a great climber.  They don't take over everything and when they die back each fall, the soft non woody stems are easy to dispose of.  Personally though, I would leave them till spring to catch the bonus of frosted hops blooms through the winter.

I also would love to have some roses. There are so many wonderful hardy varieties and my sunny home just begs for their lush scented blooms.  I would also love to see some lilacs here.  Though I would love to have the old fashioned lilacs, a slip from the house would grow a very large shrub that I might not have room for.  It might be that I would do better with one of the new small varieties.

I doubt I will plant this year.  This year, I will take out the grass and make the soil clean.  That was always my trouble before.  I moved too fast and did not kill out the grass.  I will take my time now and make it work right.  Working up this year, making nice clean edges without having to resort to pricey edgings,  and then planting next year.

Big changes in the long run.  Small moves each year.