Last year, Nate and the girls carved watermelons and put fireworks in them on the 4th of July. It was so fun, they did it again this year.

Clark helped carve the blue one, which was somewhat terrifying for me.

I picked up the shawl I started earlier in the year and did a few rows Saturday and Sunday.

Those 4 rows of holes towards the bottom are my own addition. I liked them in the top so much, I wanted more in the shawl than what was written in the pattern.

This yarn is my first handspun laceweight from a couple years ago. It’s camel down and tussah silk. Undyed. My original plan was to knit it then dye it, but I love the way it’s looking knit up so I’m going to leave it natural.

The problem is, I weighed my remaining yarn, knit a complete fan repeat, then weighed my yarn again. I need more. Like, lots more for what I have in mind for this shawl, (which is completely departing from the pattern). I originally spun 4 ounces, and I’m thinking I’ll need at least 8 more ounces. Maybe 12+. Which is a lot of spinning. However, I think it could be fun to buy the fiber and work on spinning and knitting simultaneously. We’ll see how it goes. After our lovely stint with the plumbers on Saturday, it’ll be awhile before I’m ordering anything.

For the border, I want to overdye some yarn. Dark red, possibly. Nate suggested purple. I might do both. Don’t know yet. But a splash of bold color along the bottom will be gorgeous. The selvege edge is rough and unsightly. The pattern says something like, “if the edge is rough, you may want to pick up stitches and knit a few rows.”

(I didn’t look it up, that’s just from memory). But the edge is really ugly, so I was thinking about spinning some 100% camel down for that part. That’ll be the edge of the shawl that rests against my neck, and a wee bit of 100% baby camel there sounds delicious. Fortunately, I already have that fiber, which is good because it is more expensive now than it was a couple of years ago.

I can’t help but look at this shawl and think it’d be lovely as a dainty cardigan.