With the Sunshine Throw, I officially close the 2011 Blanket Challenge. This blanket, so nicely modeled by Lola, is blanket number eight and is a beauty. There are two geeky knitting things that make the sunshine throw special. First, it uses a slip stitch technique to work two colors at once, creating the illusion of the decreasing and increasing vertical lines. Second, it has a two strand i-cord border that gives the edge a nice bulkiness and texture. Everything about this pattern came together perfectly. I couldn’t be happier with the end result and am excited to give it to a knitting friend/new mom.

As for the timing on finishing this blanket, it just makes me sad. I had planned for this blanket to take me a month, which would have meant that I met my goal of eight blankets in six months. Instead, life, work, the house and summer got in the way and it took me two months to finish. At the five month mark I had completed seven blankets and had just one to go. Success seemed like a sure thing. Oh well, I don’t regret any of the non-knitting things I did. All told, in seven months I completed eight blankets, which is still more than one a month.

Here is one of the happy recipients. He says this is the best blanket he’s ever had. The first day with the blanket he was already picking out a name for it. Last I heard the blanket was “Blue McQueen”.

This year I set a goal that we go to a live music show at least once per month. A little over half-way through the year we are doing well. June was the only month we missed but we doubled-up in July, April, and March. We also had one repeat performance and one show SB did not attend. Overall I give us an average of slightly above one show per month. So far, I think this is one of the best ideas I’ve had in a while. It is hard to complain about live music and getting out of the house and experiencing life and all. Here’s where we’ve been and who we’ve seen thus far:

- July: The Old 97′s at Summer Fest and Caravan Gypsy Swing Ensemble at Sh*tty Barn
- June: None
- May: Romi Mayes at High Noon
- April: The Old 97′s at The Barrymore and Jonathan Coulton with Paul and Storm at Majestic
- March: Momix at Overture and Portland Cello Project at High Noon
- February: Tennis at High Noon
- January: Ben Folds at Overture

Last weekend we snuck in a little visit to the cabin in Cable. This year the water was higher than it has been in years and perfect for swimming. Lola was the first one in the water and I captured this little video of her chasing down the ducks. The end is my favorite part because the water is so clear you can see her little legs paddling.

With the final strawberries of the season, I made this chocolate cake from Smitten Kitchen, Double Chocolate Layer Cake. It makes an amazingly tall and impressive looking cake, especially after you slice the two layers in half. I substituted strawberries for raspberries and made a vanilla cream cheese frosting. Inside the cake I placed two layers of strawberry filling and the center layer was frosting.

Overall I was pretty happy with it, though, in our family we have a classic birthday cake, the Black Magic Cake. While both cakes are made with coffee and oil, Smitten Kitchen’s cake came out with a courser grain of cake than the Black Magic. While the cake certainly wasn’t dry it just didn’t have the fine tenderness that my family has come to expect in a cake.

In the future I will go back to the Black Magic but use the fruit filling technique from SK. I decorated this cake with leftover strawberry filling and sliced strawberries. The drive across town and the summer heat did not leave it looking as beautiful as it had begun, but there are worse things than dripping strawberry juice.

Can finding more options actually make deciding easier? At least it is a fun tree hunt! I had the past week off for summer break, so I took a little road trip down to Chicagoland and into the arms of a true garden enthusiast. She whisked me off to the Plant Clinic at the Morton Arboretum and soon I had a whole new list of tree/shrub possibilities, plus an amazing catalog of plants, neatly circled with suggestions. These included:

- Tecumseh Compact River Birch: small, short, compact, weeping tree with pendulous branches. While we searched for this tree, we never found one in the wilds of the arb.
- Weeping Redbud: An option I was very excited about until I saw it. We both agreed to call it “swamp thing”.
- Tina Crab Apple: I’m still not sure about the crabapple.
- Dwarf Korean Lilac: These can be grafted to be little trees.
- Lancelot Crab Apple ‘lanzam’: This may be the tree that the city planted in our devil strip aka terrace.
- Magnolia x Butterflies: I still find it hard to believe that I could have a magnolia in Wisconsin.
- Brevipetala Witch Hazel: This was the winning shrub of the day. Interesting, irregular shape, dramatic branches and fun flowers.

After all that, I’m leaning towards the Witch Hazel. There are a few varieties that stay under ten feet and they have a natural, tamed-wildness that I think is pleasing.