When I was a child, I always wondered where the rain began.

I figured that somewhere there was a line where the rain ended, and that line (of necessity) was also where the rain began.

After spending any number of hours of my childhood wondering where that place was, it turns out that line is somewhere on the back deck of the home where I now live.

I started my weekend with the best of intentions.

Things were going so swimmingly; I believed I could easily finish the flamingo-inspired bag on Friday, leaving me the entire weekend to destash, reconfigure my office, and write patterns.

Then something (what specifically, I don’t recall) happened, and suddenly Friday was gone.

But I still had Saturday, and by early afternoon I had finished with all of my Saturday chores, gathered all of the materials I would need to finish the bag, and set myself up out on my deck.

I laid out the squares for the edging/handle, I documented their positions, I got out my bent-tipped yarn needle and set to work joining the squares of edging/handle, and then — from seemingly nowhere — it started to rain.

First one errant drop and then a second.

I gathered my things and headed into the house. The rain that threatened then seemed to abate; I gathered my things and headed back out to the deck.

I resumed my work, and after bits of progress here and there, it once again began to rain.

And again I gathered my things together and headed inside — just in time — missing out on a brief, but measurable downpour.

This time, there was more rain than there had been, but when “the storm” ended, I discovered that I had finally found the rain began and ended, and that line was right on my back deck:

I gave up on working outside on my deck, but I did sew the lining of the bag into place and continued my piecing here and there, and then today, after I had finished with my Sunday errands, I was once again able to set up camp on my beloved back deck, but this time, without the interruption of any rain.

For one last time, I laid out the pieces in the order I thought they should be, got out my bent-tipped needled and a pair of scissors and set to work. By 7:14 pm, I had gotten this far:

Sunset was 41 minutes away. Could I, I wondered, finish while there was still daylight?

I didn’t give it too much thought, because I didn’t really have time to spend on thinking, so I returned to my back deck and began a final push to finish.

I whipstitched, I woven in ends, I trimmed them, and then I started all over. I checked the time; I worked faster, and then, with four minutes to spare, I finished.

I took one picture:

and another:

and still another:

It’s not often I manage to go faster than the sun, but this time I did. 🙂