Garden, part 1, and the "Kumo" Sweater

When it began to pour rain this morning shortly after my morning run with Kate, I have to admit I was dismayed.  I'd wanted to photograph David's new sweater; I'd wanted to weed my woefully neglected garden and dig it over and (maybe) get things planted.  I thought the weather would ruin all those plans.

Fortunately, by the time I got back from my appointment at the dentist and from running a few errands, the rain had more or less cleared up, so I went out to dig anyway.  I was probably out there for 5 hours.  I was unbelievably hot, sweaty, filthy, and exhausted by the end of that time.  But I got the vegetable garden cleared!

So here's a "before and after" - weeds on the left, cleared and turned over on the right.

Tomorrow I hope to spread it with compost, turn that over, and then plant!  I've got three sorts of tomatoes, sweet red peppers, hot peppers, and zucchini, and I'll make it pretty -- since this bed is in the front of the house, I like to try to make it look nice! -- with morning-glories climbing a string in the back corner, and nasturtiums in the front.  The flower bed on the other side of the front door still looks as bad as this one did, so if I have time and energy I'll tackle that as well.

As a break from digging, mid-afternoon, I took photos of David's new sweater.  He chose the design, and I started knitting it, back in the summer before my freshman year of college - so it has been three years now, and I figured it was time to finish!  So this past week I dug it out, knit up the front piece which was the only thing remaining, and put it together.

It's a very "David" sweater: the pattern is "Kumo" from knitty.com, kimono-inspired.  The original has a design of clouds on the back (hence the name: "kumo" means "cloud" in Japanese) but David wanted a dragon instead, so he designed and charted one for me to substitute.  It came out a little stretched-looking, but pretty good, and he's pleased with it, so I won't argue!

The designs front and back were supposed to be knitted in but they kept coming out looking warped, so I ended up duplicate-stitching them on after the main pieces had been finished and blocked.  The sweater is pure wool, so it's warm, but the kimono styling has "vents" under the arms, so it sort of works as a summer wrap too.  And when David likes something he wears it in all weathers, anyway; I expect this will get a lot of use.  (I'm not really sure why he added the tie from his bathrobe to the red one I knitted to go with the sweater, but whatever makes him happy, I guess!)

(A rare shot of him smiling!)

It feels so good to be finishing things again!  When I am at school I do a lot of alterations and hemming, but rarely get the time to sit down and make myself a dress, or knit anything - even though I can read and knit simultaneously, if you throw note-taking into the mix it becomes impossible.  So this summer has been very fulfilling, as I've finished a couple projects already and removed some long-standing "UFOs" from my stash.  Of course if I'd been able to find a job I would not have all this time for knitting and sewing - there are upsides to even the most unfortunate of situations!

P.S.  I'm sorry the font is two different sizes - I've tried to fix it three times and it's not cooperating.  Sorry!