HOT WEATHER IN ARIZONA!

So that's not so much an unusual headline - "hot weather in Arizona", but it's getting a little carried away.   The 110+ numbers have been going on for a few days now and enough is enough.  Today it hit 115 (humidity in the 10-15% range).   We ran some errands up in the Phoenix area this morning and have spent this afternoon in the house with the a/c working hard.   We're currently getting late afternoon/evening duststorms/thunder/lightning and a little rain.  Its rained "buckets" but lasts only 5-10 minutes.

The one good thing about the heat is I don't feel guilty staying inside and doing some knitting.

I'm working on one more dishcloth (I know I said I wasn't going to knit anymore), but I just couldn't resist this pattern with more lace around the points.  I'm calling it "creamsicle" after the orange sherbet/vanilla ice cream frozen on a stick Popsicle back in the day!

I also started a new shawl - Miami Beach Shawl.  This means I now have 4 unfinished shawls.  Hopefully this one will be a "completed" one.     I've really got a case of "startitis". This shawl is being knit with Cascade Ultra Pima - a very soft cotton yarn.  The yarn color is "purple ice", but it looks kinda gray in this picture.  It will be perfect to wear in "over" air conditioned restaurants, etc.   I knitted on this last night at our Thursday night knit/crochet group and was amazed how fast it is going and I'm not making counting mistakes.  This is coming right along and so far it's a pretty easy knit:

Hope you're keeping cool and getting lots of knitting done.

STORMS and KNITTING

 A mixture of weather and knitting in this posting.   

 First of all, we've had some pretty severe weather going on during this monsoon season which has been going on for nearly a month now and another month or so to go!  I mean heavy rainfall, flash flooding, dust storms, and lots of thunder and lightening.   These pictures I took out the car window yesterday on the way home from Phoenix.  Our temperatures have dropped down to the low 100's, which is nice.

As for knitting,  I can't get off this knitting dishcloth kick.  It's been fun making these "pointed" dish/washcloth or hotpads, whichever you want to call them. 

I started this baby blanket (Sea of Dreams) back in May of 2013.  I love the yarn - Madtosh sock, love the color, love the "finished" look of the pattern, but it's given me more than my fair share of "fits".  Main problem being I can't seem to count correctly.    Now I have a purpose to get it finished - I'll be having a new grandbaby next spring, so gotta get on it!  So here it is and I'm off to work on it for a little while today.

FINISHED A FEW

Well, I have managed to finish a couple of projects this week:

First and foremost, the Happy Dance Socks, which make me happy they're done!!  These have been fun to knit - the colors keep me "happy", but am glad that 2nd one is done. I'll probably gift these at Christmas to someone who lives up North where they have cold winters. 

A friend in my knitting group posted a pattern for The Almost Lost Dishcloth or search for it on Ravelry if you're a member.  It looked like a fun knit, so I knit up the first one, but my choice of yarn wasn't too great.   The "striped" yarn didn't turn out too well on the points, so I'm working on the second one, in a "firey" variegated color which is turning out so much better.  These are fun knits and will make nice "thank you" gifts:

We've had some extreme weather ever since the 4th of July - it's our monsoon season, so should be expected.  However, last summer's monsoon season was nothing like what we're having.   After having our humidity hovering in the single digits up to 15% or so for so long, it's difficult to navigate in these 100+ degree temperatures with the humidity in the 40-50% area.   We're having clouds, thunderstorms, lightning and quick shots of heavy rain every afternoon/evening.  I'll be glad when we get back to just plain "hot" without the humidity!!  Last evening we got one rainfall that lasted maybe 10 minutes and another that lasted maybe 5 minutes, but the thunder rumbled heavily for hours around midnight.

Happy knitting, or whatever your craft may be!

 

STORMY WEATHER

Wow!  What a storm we had last night.   We've not had any rain in this part of Arizona since January, but we got more than our fair share last night around 7pm.   We had what they call a "haboob" by locals around here - which is a severe dust storm first caused by high winds blowing hard towards the ground and raising the dust.  During this wind, the temperature takes a severe drop - in this case from 100 degrees down to 80 degrees in a very short period of time.  After the 3,000 ft. wall of dust moves on through (during which you can't see your hand in front of your face), it is followed by heavy rains - somewhere in the area of 1 and 1-1/2 inches last night.  Then it's all over in an hour and things are back to normal!!!!  
I left the house around 6:30 and could see the dust coming, so hurried to my knitting meetup group and we all sat around looking outside as the storm passed us by.  We "had" to stay another hour or so longer before we dared go out in the storm - darn! 
Here's a picture as the storm is just entering downtown Phoenix:

This picture is of the Phoenix airport, which closed down for a while during the storm.

 Today things are pretty much back to normal, thank goodness.