Through this past winter’s seemingly innumerable “snow days,” I often spoke longingly of the summer that would eventually come, and thinking of summers past got me through the seemingly endless days of cold, snow, and ice, and now it seems that it is suddenly summer.

I noted that this year winter seemed particularly loathe to loosen its grip, but since the letting of the pollen that occurred over the past two weeks, spring has gotten the upper hand.

This weekend the promise of summer asserted itself with the temperatures in the upper seventies and lower eighties, while all of the trees were decked out in their new, green leafy splendor.

I took advantage of the picture perfect weather and spent nearly my entire weekend crocheting on my back deck.

While most of my crochet time was spent on the flower shawl, I also did what I could to generate some finishing mojo to power me through the shawls.

To that end, I got out this “ideal sphere” which I had begun work on last weekend:

Using Red Heart Super Saver hot red, a 3.75 mm hook, and Ms. Premise Conclusion’s pattern for the ideal crochet sphere, I gave it a whirl.

While my stuffing technique left room for improvement, overall I was pleased with the final product:

With the sphere completed, I grabbed a bent-tipped yarn needle and did what I could to harness the finishing mojo that had been generated to transform the first five rows of the first flower shawl from this:

to this:

leaving me with another 31 rows to finish this shawl-to-be pictured above, and another 35 rows for the shawl-to-be pictured below:

I know that summer will fly by far too quickly for my taste, but I will enjoy it while it is here, and move my way through the season, one stitch at a time.