Starting Clue 4

After knitting endless rows of vines I finally finished the Clue 3 section of my pi shawl. I opted to work my vines in 3 sections of 16 rows each. Mindy had suggested doing 4-12 row repeats, but I prefer the look of odd number repeats. The sideways swirling of the vines balances nicely with the swirl of the peas section.

Mindy & Iris posted clue 4 on Monday so I had a few days to think about what to do next while I finished clue 3. Once again the decision wasn't exactly easy. I dismissed the onion pretty quickly, although it would have been fine with my flower & vine theme considering I *am* growing giant allium in my garden. The 4th clue was an adaptation of Ogee Lace. It looked pretty but I wasn't sure it would mesh nicely with what I already had and it looked a bit more complicated/risky to knit. I *did* place another lifeline last night, but I DO NOT plan on needing it this time. So I nixed the Ogee Lace. Ditto for the Traveling Vine option. Having just knit 48 rows of vines, I'm sick of vines. Plus, someone posted an inquiry about a possible editing issue with the TV option, so I *really* don't want to go there.

The remaining option was for tulips. The flowers are formed by openwork on a stockinette ground, similar to the daffodil option for clue 3. The tulips look ok, but the clincher for me was a simple lace "path" that forms a straight line separating the repeats of the flower motif. This kept the linear aspect to my shawl intact and added lacy interest to the pattern. The bonus is the knitting is very simple and straightforward--a good thing since I would be knitting 72-96 *very* long rows of this clue and a complicated lace pattern would take an eternity to get through. I'm not up to that much patience with this shawl. I'm on the 4th row and the knitting has been delightfully easy so far. The amazing thing is I'm still working off my 1st ball of yarn. It's amazing how far 440 yds of laceweight yarn will go. The experts say that 2 balls isn't enough, but I doubt I'll need more than 3 balls.

Now that I've updated the obligatory knitting content, I'll share some pix of what I've really been up to: Working in my garden and playing in the park--The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, that is :-) The weather has been unusually cool and we've had lots of rain lately so the Little River was really gushing and the vegetation was thick, green, & lush.