zebra purses, pine cone snowflakes, bread, heath bar cake, jan birthday

Wednesday (10/17) was terrific.  Michael left early for golf and I spent the day in the studio, with this to show for it by early afternoon (I still have 6 left to finish):

 

 along with 7 more of these:

 

 

I headed upstairs and made a Heath Bar Cake and my last loaf of artisan bread (which of course I didn’t remember to take a picture of until AFTER dinner when I had sent 1/2 of the cake home with J&W):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and put on Italian Wedding Soup to heat up.  Jan and Walt arrived at

5:30 and we had dinner and celebrated Jan’s birthday:

Michael captured her just as she realized what it was....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This shawl has been over a year in the making.  Jan started it and struggled a lot with it.  Even though it is only a 2 row pattern, it is hard to do.  She used to give it to me at least once a week to rip out mistakes and get it back on the needle.  Finally about 3 months ago when she gave it back…I was just couldn't handle looking at it again and threw it in a corner.  I just couldn’t face it.  After about a week, I finally looked at it and fixed it…then I decided to knit it for her.  Yes, it was a lot of works and yes, I had to keep this secret for a long time, but seeing her face last night when she opened it up was TOTALLy worth it!