Snail Spirals

At last! Progress on the urchin shawl! My new contacts came on Wednesday afternoon, and though I didn't knit Wednesday, due to the lingering one-contact headache, I did on Thursday night. I managed six more rounds, and am now so close to the halfway mark that I can taste it. (Halfway in terms of rows only, of course. They just keep getting longer and longer.) Perhaps tonight I can finish the first half of the chart.



I wonder how many pictures of shapeless lace-blobs there are on the internet? Here, this one shows the pattern a bit better.



I've also been doing a bit of spinning. Once again, it's some Ashland Bay colonial top. If you've been reading for a while, you know that I'm helplessly addicted to this stuff.



Beautiful rich jewel tones: purple and red and turquoise and fuchsia and blue and green and just a smidge of yellow to make the rest of the colors pop.



The colorway of this is "Burgundy," but when it spins up, it looks more like "Grape" to me.



Lastly, another aquarium plant is happy! The Amazon Sword has TWO new leaves!



I'll also have you know that this picture is taken through the long axis of the tank, yet is perfectly clear (or would be if I could get my camera to focus on the right thing...). I absolutely love the Penguin Bio-Wheel filter. It's the best. The beneficial bacteria colony is fully established now, and I never have any measurable ammonia or nitrites in the water. I just change out about a gallon of water a week to keep the nitrates under 15 ppm or so. Nitrates are the end product of the nitrogen cycle in the tank, and aren't nearly as toxic to fish as ammonia and nitrites. They also serve to fertilize the plants. Love, love, love this filter.