Not a magnificent obsession

Just a note about Magnificent Obsession, it's one of my favorite classic movies.  Yes, it's cheesy and yes it's unrealistic and the acting is very far over the top, but it's one of the first classic movies I saw as an adult and responded to.  An Imitation of Life was the second.  The 1959 one.  With Lana Turner.  But, I've seen at least three versions.  Oh, the drama and personal conflict.

My obsession has become my red sweater.  I've been knitting in the morning.  I've been knitting at noon.  And, I've been knitting in the evening.  This weekend, it rained all weekend.  There was about an hour yesterday morning, when I could go out and walk around.  So, I knitted most ofboth days.  And, I still can't see the end.  I've lost count of my rows, but am not needing the count to keep up with the patterns anymore.  And, I've learned another new way to take mistakes out and re-knit them without taking the whole row out.  Yesterday, I saw the words bind off this row and thought I was nearing the finish line, then I saw "repeat these rows 7 times" in the paragraph before it.  

Right now, it's in it's ugly teenage years and I have to keep reminding myself that it is not blocked.  I remember the last wool sweater I made and how I felt the same way about it and then I blocked it and suddenly everything came together.  I even bought a real garment steamer to make the process easier on this one.  I think the weight of the wool causes the work to stretch down, which makes it look long and thin until it's blocked, but I don't know for sure.  I find myself getting frustrated with it and unable to put it down and I know that's not good.  It just leads to mistakes.  And I probably spent as much time correcting mistakes yesterday as I did knitting, but couldn't stop.  Work will force me to put it away today and that's a good thing.  

I haven't worked on anything quilt related since I finished the baby quilt.  I haven't even cut out the pieces for the next flower block.  But, I feel myself leaning toward working on the black quilt.  I spent so much time thinking on my drive last week and that was one of the things I thought about.  I have my plan for the next step, but I need to unfold the quilt and make it happen.  

Before my yard got so waterlogged that I couldn't walk around, I took a few garden pics.  When people ask me 'how does your garden grow', from now on, I'm going to show them this pic.  This is the most showy plant in my garden and right now, they're on full display, even tho the rain is not doing the flowers any good.  It's a purple/black Asiatic Lily.  I bought a bag of bulbs on half off sale at the hardware store last year.  I must have put them in just the right place.

Gerber daisies up and singing a song.  These should be in more sun, but then, that's true of most of my garden.  That is Turk's cap coming up behind them and it will bloom later in the year.  

And, I wanted to show this balloon flower.  It's another one that puts on a good show.  You can see where it gets its name.  It starts as a white balloon and slowly turns purple, then pops open.  These three are from the same flower, as it developed.  It takes them about 3 days to open.  If I remember right, it has a long bloom period.  

Okay, that's it for me today.  I'm afraid I might start to mold, it's so wet and humid and miserable out.  We're so spoiled to beautiful sunny days and I'm sure I'm not the only person in town that's ready for it to stop raining.  Everybody be good.  Become obsessed with something you love to do today.   Just not too obsessed.

Lane