More Beach Pictures and MS3

Those darned squirrels distracted me so much last week that I forgot all about the beach pictures I'd promised you in last Monday's post. By now, you've probably figured out that I'm a sucker for wildlife, nature, all that jazz. Seeing critters in the wild really excites me. Today's beach pictures will futher illustrate that!

Our beach place is about 5 minutes walk to the beach, and along the way, we pass a marshy creek that is alongside a shuffle board area. There are always rabbits playing in the grass near the shuffle board court. They remind me of our Phoebe bunny. Here's one of the little guys.


I love birds--big ones, little ones, all of them. We were wading in a creek that runs through part of the beach when this guy landed. He was very cooperative and allowed me to get close for several photos. This is one of the better ones.


Because the tide was low, we were able to wander way up into the creek. I'm glad we did, because look who we found. He was having his dinner--nothing like fresh sea food!


Now, on to the knitting! I'm about 1/3 of the way into Clue 3 for the Mystery Stole 3 KAL. Daughter and I were at the beach again this past weekend, so I didn't start on the clue until Sunday night. This seems to be a trend, but you gotta get in beach time when you can. I'm so pleased that this pattern is coming easily for me. I was intimidated at first, because I've never knitted from charts nor with beads. It's not as hard as I thought it would be. There is no progress photo, because you can find a gazillion of those on line if you just look. Suffice it to say, my stole looks like everyone else's, and that is not a bad thing.

Here's my knitting set up for the MS 3. I have the chart printed out and am using a magnetic dry erase board from Wal Mart as a chart holder. (I also spotted some of these magnetic boards at Target in that little dollar and up section at the front of the store.) It's working well, but it's a tad bit shorter than the chart. I hear some folks are using cookie sheets to hold their charts, but all my cookie sheets are huge and would be too clumsy for this. I do want to get a roll of magnetic tape to use to mark my chart lines. Right now, I'm using magnet strips that came in an old cross stitch chart holder I have.

I'm a sucker for bags, and this little beauty joined the collection yesterday.

It's a Shopper Bag by Paperchase. The bag is a good size for holding projects, a book, my datebook, and other things to take along on car trips.