Gorgeous Fabric and Boring Knitting

I took the afternoon off from work yesterday to drive up to Green Bay and check out some more complete fabric stores. The Sheboygan JoAnn's had some $25 per yard shantung stuff in the decorating section which might have worked, except it was a little more rust than copper; but they were certain their Green Bay "super store" would have a wider color selection of that line. Then the seamstress suggested I look at Hancock Fabrics in Green Bay while I was in the neighborhood, and Rick volunteered to drive with me so he could look at headliner fabric, and suddenly I had an adventure of exploration on my hands. We found the perfect fabric (at $6.99 a yard!) and thread at Hancocks, and some "close enough" zippers for the skirt at JoAnns. The top calls for a separating zipper, and those don't seem to come in any sort of decent color selection, so I'm going to ask the seamstress to do a covered button placket down the back of the dress instead. I'm meeting her tomorrow to deliver the materials and measurements, and she thinks she'll have the dresses done by Labor Day, so we're on track to actually put this thing together on time!

Meanwhile, with Rick driving back and forth to Green Bay yesterday and Tasha driving back and forth to Appleton on Friday, I've made some progress on the "boring knitting" project. I wanted a cotton tank top, and cast on with an Artful Yarns shell pattern from my stash, circa 2004, which was discovered in the "free" bin of my local yarn store after the yarn was discontinued. I'm using a cone of Peaches & Creme cotton - big surprise, since that's one of my favorite yarns. It's about 7" from the bottom hem now, and I'm thinking I should have enough left on the cone to do a short-sleeved shrug to match. Or maybe I'll ditch the tank concept and do something like Klaralund from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton. (See? This is how I get into trouble . . . )

Finally, the latest from the great outdoors: I managed to harvest the food pantry produce on the actual, real food pantry day this time around (who had the bright idea to put 5 Wednesdays in July, anyway?) and delivered 3 more bags of swiss chard and a big bucket of squash this morning. There are lots of snap peas out there still in desperate need of picking, but I just haven't had the time to do it.

And look! My Lady Baltimore is finally blooming! Love the flower, just wish it didn't take so long every summer to make its appearance.