Signs of Spring at Bo & Blaine's House....

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Before the breathin' air is gone...

Before the sun

Is just a bright spot in the night-time,

Out where the rivers like to run...

I stand alone

And take back somethin' worth rememberin'...

("Out In The Country", Three Dog Night)

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At our house there are but two "signs" that Spring has finally arrived. And when I see the first sign, I then try to anticipate what the other will be....

Because I know for sure that Spring has truly arrived once Little Baby stops sleeping in her food bowl and, instead, starts sleeping in the sun....and....

...and that Blaine has made his Big Decision on just how he is going to prepare food on the back deck for the warm weather season.

Will he grill it on the little table-top charcoal griller? Will he buy a larger charcoal griller? Or will he regret selling his huge gas griller and get another one? Hibachi? Campfire?

WHAT?

And then yesterday it happened---the puzzle was solved. Blaine came home with a huge box---and proceeded to build a gigantic meat smoker. Yep, a smoker..... and he built the damn thing in 3 hours --- smack dab in the middle of the living room.

And the whole time he was building it, he waxed poetic on its virtues to me. "Yeah, honey" , he said from the huge pile of cardboard and plastic wrapping, "This thing is just the right size for you and me. Not too big, not too small."

"Really?" I replied, trying to sound interested.

"Yep!" he exclaimed happily, "And it's even got a temperature gauge!"

After he finished building it, I helped him tote the behemoth out the back doors and then down to the bottom of the deck--- whereupon he promptly began smoking a huge rack of barbequed ribs that he'd had marinating in apple juice & spices overnight.

Another assurance of Spring is less impressive. I found that one of the many snap bean seeds I planted has arisen from the dirt like a green Phoenix. Yahoo! A real live bean sprout!!

No other seeds in that pot nor the other pot have yet to sprout but hope springs eternal...

Also yesterday I joined a sleeve to the Little Red Riding Hoodie, in a special way I like doing, and I'm about to finish the last inch or two of that sleeve. Once the first sleeve is designed and finished, it only takes a day or two to knit the second one because there won't be umpteen froggings like the first one required. (You can click on the picture for a larger view.)

(And before joining a sleeve to the body of a garment (after letting the sleeve "rest" overnight) I always loosely baste the sleeve onto the body several times as I approach the end of the wrist in order to check whenever the sleeve length gets to the perfect length that I want.)

The way I join sleeves to a garment on which I've steeked the sleeves and then knitted facings is that I pick up stitches a couple of rows inwards from the facing edge --- all around the entire circular hole for the sleeve (the knitting is usually neater a couple of rounds in from the facing, especially if there's been a lot of fair isle work). And then I knit one round. And then I bind it off. It is to that one-row structure that I sew my sleeves, matching the outer loops of the round of bound off stitches to the outer loop of the first round of the sleeve--and then the sewed edge usually turns out much neater than if I had picked up stitches along the very edge of the facings.

Um.... I didn't mean that a "sign of Spring" is me joining a sleeve to a knitted garment. But while I was out there taking a photograph of the lone bean sprout I also snapped a pic of the Little Red Riding Hoodie. Today I'm going to finish the cuff. I'm thinking that I'm going to make a little flared-out part onto which I can sew the tiny little leaf edging that I have been painstakingly knitting.

(I've had trouble thinking of an attractive way to end the sleeve and utilize the little leaf edging. But by God, those dang tiny leaves have been so difficult to knit on those dang tiny glove-sleeve needles that I've decided that I'm going to use them on this hoodie even if it dang near kills me....)

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