Not feelin’ the love

I can’t believe it’s been a month.  Sigh.

Not that much to report on, as far as knitting goes.  Still trying to achieve balance with the whole work/rest of life thing.  I’m having a good time, but not getting a whole lot of knitting done, and I’m not that excited about what I am working on right now.

I finally caved and hired a cleaning lady.  My house was so clean when I got home after picking up the kids yesterday I could have wept.  So nice!  So hopefully this will help me feel less like I’m constantly trying to keep up.  All I have to do is keep things tidy.  If you know me at all, you’re already laughing.  Humour me.

So, yeah, knitting.  The sweater for clevermonkey is actually coming along.  I was not feeling the love with that one, so it languished.  Then I got the first season of How I Met Your Mother, and it’s now cruising along (aside:  Neil Patrick Harris is AWESOME!).  I got past the slanting ribs part, and I guess that was what was holding me back.  It looks a little small, but it’s ribbed, so I think after a blocking, and on an actual body, it will be great.

I made a crocheted ripple cushion cover for Spinrite.  I didn’t take a picture.  That’s enough said about that.

I’m very slowly knitting mittens for Vorlon.  I have a 3/4 finished pair of Vilai socks on the needles.  Everything is moving very slowly.

I did spin a little, though!  Below is the silk/merino fluff I got in Seattle four years ago.  The one I was afraid to spin for fear I would ruin it.  It was lovely.  Practically spun itself.  I ended up with about 350 metres of sportweight or heavy fingering yarn (dime for scale).

I also went to the Woodstock Fleece Festival in the middle of October with the kids and picked up a couple of things to spin.  First, a Pygora/silk blend, which I haven’t done anything with yet, and some Cria (which is baby alpaca) in the brown colour it was born with.

It was just a big pile of fluff, cleaned but not carded or anything.  I was told I could just spin it straight from the pile.  Which I did.  You can see a pile of fluff in the photo above, hanging off the stuff I’ve spun.  I would grab a handful of stuff from the bag and spin it.  I found out later this is called ’spinning from the cloud’.  I made a deliberately thick and thin singles, which only took about two hours to spin up, and I would say it’s woolen spun.  It’s going to be something warm for the winter, I think, but I don’t know what.  It’s ridiculously soft and wonderful.  I already have a recipient in mind.

Last weekend was Halloween.  Zebula wanted to be a cat (we’ve moved away from princess!  Woo!), so I found a pattern at Len’s Mill.  Now, they had the pattern, but not the big kid size.  They had the small adult size.  So I thought “you’re smart.  You can just alter the pattern to make it fit a smaller person”.  Ha.  What a pain in the ass!  After much measuring and folding of the paper pattern, and redrawing of curves, I managed to do it.  It would have been easier in the end, I think, to just draft it from her measurements.  Anyway, it worked out.

Vorlon wanted to be a skeleton.  So I got a picture of a child’s skeleton from the web (really, what did we do before the web?), drew the bones on some newsprint, cut them, transferred the bone shapes to white felt, cut those up, and glue gunned them to a thrift store black t-shirt and some old black pants.  I wanted to paint his face white and put in black eye sockets and teeth, but he wouldn’t go for it.

(I apologize for the red-eye, though it does add to the spooky, no?)

And remember the No Gap Wrap I made myself last spring (you have to scroll down a little)?  I’m unraveling it.  Even with the modifications to the neckline and the stabilizing with crochet and everything, it still falls off my shoulders when I wear it.  Which is annoying.  So I’m going to unravel it and knit it up into something else, because the yarn was really nice, and I hate to just throw it out.

Last, but not least, this book has changed my life. (link provided for convenience only – please support your independent bookstore)  I haven’t bought bread in almost a month.  The method works well, takes almost no time, and makes fantastic bread.  I highly recommend it, even though it reads a bit like an infomercial.

 

Full life

So much going on!

It is definitely fall around here.  We’ve had a frost, I’ve turned on my furnace (it’s set to 18 during the day and 16 at night, so it’s not working very hard, but I really don’t want it to go down below that).  I’m wearing socks.  It seems like we never really got summer and that we have to get ready for the cold already.  Flannel sheets and hot water bottles can’t be too far behind.

I started working.  It’s good to be back out there.  The first few days were bizarre – I found myself looking up every once in a while, wondering where Vorlon was, and then I’d realize he was at school and stop worrying.  I’m finding that my brain isn’t working quite as fast as it was when I stopped working seven years ago, but it’ll come.  I’m working on finding a good balance between work, home, kids and everything else.  That will come too, I’m sure.

The choir is keeping me busy too.  I am now also part of the Chamber Singers, which is great.  I like all the stuff we’re doing this year, so all the rehearsals are a joy to attend.   Though Mondays are pretty long – wake up early to go work, work, get the kids, come home, make and eat dinner, and then go sing for three and a half hours.  But it’s all great!

So what with all this stuff going on, I’m not really able to stay up until midnight knitting anymore, so productivity has gone way down.  Still, I’m managing to finish things off.

I finished a pair of mittens made out of last year’s handspun (it’s sad that I spin so little that the yarn I make can be identified by the year it was made).  It was my first venture back into entrelac knitting since a blanket I made for my first nephew four years ago that made my teeth itch when I worked on it.  I swore I wouldn’t ever do entrelac again.  Then I found myself drawn to this headband, which seemed perfect for the handspun.  So I decided to make it a set, with mittens.  I started with the mittens, kind of winging entrelac in the round.

The thumbhole is just a skipped entrelac square, I picked up the stitches to make two squares where one used to be, and continued on to make the thumb.  They’re a little bit longer than I’d like.  I’m especially proud of the top of the mittens, which (though you can’t see it that well in the picture) are made of rounds of progressively smaller squares, until I got to the top where I was just left with one stitch per square – I just drew some yarn through the stitches and pulled.  And, it turns out, I don’t hate entrelac on smaller projects.  Probably because turning the project around every x stitches is much more pleasant for a small project than a large one like a blanket.

I am now working on the headband, which is languishing in my purse.

In my continuing efforts to work my way through Sock Innovation, I’ve made one Vilai sock, and have just not gotten around to casting on for the second.  This one takes quite a lot of focused attention, so I kinda don’t want to get into the next one, which is a shame, because they’re really gorgeous.

I made a fairisle tam for Spinrite, out of a great combination of colours of Patons Classic.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture.  But it was pretty!

I’m currently making a cowl for Spinrite out of Bernat Roving.  The first attempt was gigantic!  I had taken a picture, because I thought it was so ludicrously huge and thought the designer would get a kick out of it (it’s not even done in the picture!).

When she saw the picture, she decided to make it smaller, so I’m going to do it again.  Incidentally, I don’t know why I look so grumpy there.

Progress is slow on the commissioned sweater for clevermonkey.  I think the pattern will need some redesign work – the yarn is finer than the recommended one, and I thought I could get away with just making the extra-large size with the finer yarn, but it’s still too small  So I’ll rework it and start again.

Zebula got to try out the spinning wheel the other day.  I treadled while she drafted.  I think it turned out pretty well!

It’s just a few metres (I Andean plied it after she made the singles)  She’s so proud of it, she’s been carrying it around in her school backpack ever since.

Speaking of Zebula, she had a birthday a couple of weeks ago (seven!).  Somebody (I can’t remember who.  Sorry, Curious Person!) asked for pictures of the cake.  This time around I made two – one for her party, which was at a local bowling alley:

It was a little haphazard, and the lettering is dismal, but it did the trick.  It turns out it takes a surprisingly large quantity of food colouring to make red that bright.  Of course, all the kids wanted ’some red’ with their piece.

This is cake #2, made for the first batch of grandparents to come and visit.  They came last weekend rather than on Zebula’s birthday because of Rosh Hashanah, and Zebula wanted a cake with flowers on it.

I feel a little bad, because the second batch of grandparents came this weekend, and I didn’t make them any cake.  In fact I feel extra bad, they even babysat while Dr. Thingo went out on a date.  Which my dad drove us to.  It was just like being 15 again.  Anyway, I just didn’t want to make any more cake, and never got around to making the apple crisp I promised.

I think I’ll go make the apple crisp now.  I have a very interested little girl (now seven!!) who wants to help out.

Happy New Year!

Everybody knows the new year really starts the day after Labour Day, no matter what the calendar says.

So, hi.  How you been?  Hard to believe summer is almost over (mostly because it took so long to start).  It’s been a great few weeks.  We spent time at a cottage at the beach, at another one in the woods, at a condo in the big city, and here.  Good mix of stuff, and I’m ready to get back into the school routine.  With a new wrinkle added in:  I’m gainfully employed!  Since I haven’t worked for so long, I feel like a bit of a dinosaur (I work in IT, and seven years out of the market is essentially the equivalent of being a doctor and trying to start practicing medicine again after a break, and the last time  you practiced, you used leeches).  I’ll be doing product support for some customized software, and it’s part-time, so I’ll be working on the days when Vorlon is in school.  And it’s a 20 minute walk from my house.  It’s just about perfect.  We’ll see how that goes.

And amidst all this cottage-going, and family-visiting, I’ve been a busy little bee.  In order, since my last post, I have finished:

Wanida, from Sock Innovation.  I’m happy with the final product – this is the sock blank I dyed last fall, and I really didn’t like how the colours turned out.  But this pattern seems to have worked pretty well for it.  It doesn’t get too lost in the colour changes, and it was interesting enough to work on to distract me from the barfy colour combination.

Lift and Separate, from Big Girl Knits.  Again, very happy with this.  It looks really good (picture notwithstanding – I was using the camera with the timer, and trying to fend off the kids who were very interested in the photographic process).  Hasn’t been nearly cold enough to wear yet, but that’ll happen soon enough.

Glynis, again from Sock Innovation.  It took me a sock and a half to finally memorize the pattern, which is good to keep me interested, and the yarn (Patons Kroy FX) might just be my favourite sock yarn ever.  I got to work with it last year before it was released into the market and talked about it here.

Triinu, from Lace Knitting in Estonia.  I just love it.  This is less than 50 g of Elann Laceweight yarn.  I think it’s destined for Dr. Thingo’s grandmother.

Incidentally, I have a really hard time photographing lace.  If I put it down somewhere, the lace pattern somehow becomes invisible in the picture.  If I hang it up, with a light source behind it, it gets washed out, and if I do it like I did with the light source in front, the shadows detract from the lace pattern.  Knitting photographers out there – what do I do?

A lace shawl for Spinrite, from a previously released pattern, so I’m guessing it’s to showcase the yarn, which came with no ballband.  It’s a fairly heavy laceweight, with nice, slow colour changes, which would be fine, but it’s also got a ply of sparkly metallic thread (you can sort of see it in the picture).  I don’t particularly like the sparklies, but Zebula thought it was awesome.

And that’s it.  Not bad for a month or so of work!  Though I’m pretty sure than once I start work, the knitting productivity will drop sharply, so don’t get used to it.

I have done a small amount of spinning in the past couple of days.  I finally pulled out this top, which I bought in Seattle three years ago.

It’s 80% merino, 20% silk.  And it’s been sitting in the basement for three years because I was always a little afraid of it, because it’s so pretty.  But I finally decided to bite the bullet.  This stuff, as it turns out, pretty much spins itself.  I just have to pull some off, loosen it up a little bit, and it just magically turns into a fine singles with just a little assistance from me.  I’m in love.

I’m currently working on Cauchy (again, from Sock Innovation.  I’m planning on making all the patterns from the book.  Because I’m crazy) in a different colourway of the Kroy FX, and I’m finishing an afghan.  A man contacted the Knitters’ Guild about finishing an afghan for his mother who had to move to a retirement home and can no longer knit, so I volunteered.  It’s patchwork style, different coloured squares and it’s mostly done.  I’ve done about half the squares I need to do.  But I’ve run into a snag with the yarn in one colour and ran out of one of the other colours, and I’m not sure we’ll be able to get more because it’s this acrylic from at least 20 years ago.  This stuff is hard.  Remember what the polyester clothes felt like in the early 80’s?  Like that.  Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ll find more.  I have to consult with the son to see what they want to do.

I also have a commission to work on a sweater for Clevermonkey.  This is going to be nice!  He got himself a pile of Philosopher’s two-ply in natural sheep colour, and I think we’ve settled on this.  I am waiting for a copy of the pattern it was adapted from to arrive in the mail, and will start work soon.

The garden is doing ok.  Here’s part of my crop:

Tomato and garlic.  Only, the tomatoes are cherry tomatoes, so the garlic is really teeny.

I have five heads of wee garlic. Bonsai garlic, I call it.  I’m going to keep one and split the cloves to plant in the fall and eat the rest.  The cherry tomatoes have been doing very well, and we’ve slowly been eating them over the past few weeks.  My big tomatoes are just on the verge of ripening.  And I have about 10 volunteer tomato plants in the front bed where the corns, beans and squash were meant to be.  They’ve grown like mad and are sprawled all over the place since they’re not supported, and they have lots of fruit.  But since they started so late, I don’t think we’ll get anything for another couple weeks at least.  Which means I will probably just have a big pile of green tomatoes for relish, since the nights have been getting pretty cool, and a frost can’t be too far in the future.  Speaking of corn, beans and squash, here’s my corn crop.

Yep, that’s two ears of short, gnarly corn.  But it was tasty.  I got one late squash plant in a shady corner of the bed with blossoms on it.  I’m not sure anything will come of it, but I’ll leave it there.  And the beans should be harvested soon, since they’re getting pretty dry.

Have a nice Labour Day!

Cake

Last week, the lovely J had a birthday, and a few friends came over to have a few drinks.  I made cake.  It went over pretty well, and I was asked to post the recipe.  So here it is!

It’s from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook.  Say what you will about Martha’s show and her magazine and her persnicketiness and her crafting bordering on the ridiculous and her jail time and setting the housekeeping bar too high for us mere mortals etc etc… That Baking Handbook is amazing.  Every recipe a winner.  I make all my cakes from this book.  The icing recipe I used follows the cake recipe.  My editorial comments are in parentheses.

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes (only I make them in cake pans)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups Dutch-process cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoons salt (I never put salt in my baking.  I’m funny like that)

2 large whole eggs plus 1 large egg yolk

1 1 /4 cups milk

1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups warm water

Swiss Meringue Buttercream (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  (Prepare 2, 9″ round cake pans.  My preferred method, and I learned this at the cake decorating class I took, is to smear shortening on the bottom and sides of the pans (yes, that hydrogenated crap that gives you all kinds of nasty heart disease) and then flour the pans: put in about a tablespoon of flour and shake the pan around until all of the bottom and sides have been covered with a thin layer.  Put whatever doesn’t stick back into your flour canister.  Works every time.  No sticking, ever!  Those trans fats must be extra slick.  It’s my only use for shortening, so I don’t feel so bad.  I promise you that butter does not work as well.  Ask me how I know.)  Into the bowl of an electric mixer, sift together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Attach bowl to mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; add the eggs and yolk, the milk, oil, vanilla and warm water.  Beat on low speed until smooth and combined, about 3 minutes; scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Divide the batter evenly between your pans.  Bake until a cake tester inserted in the centres comes out clean, about 45 minutes.  Transfer pans to a wire rack to cool 30 minutes.  Invert cakes onto the rack, and let them cool completely, top sides up.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream (Chocolate Variation)

4 large egg whites

1 cup sugar

3 sticks (1 1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into tablespoons

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly (I use a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water.  Whatever method you like that doesn’t burn the chocolate is fine)

In the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer set over a saucepan of simmering water, combine the egg whites and sugar.  Cook, whisking constantly, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch, about 160F.

Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Beat the egg-white mixture on high speed until it holds stiff  peaks.  Continue beating until the mixture is fluffy and cooled, about 6 minutes.

Switch to the paddle attachment.  With the mixer on medium-low speed, ad the butter several tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition.  If the frosting appears to separate after all the butter has been added, beat on medium-high speed until smooth again, 3 to 5 minutes (fear not!  This has never happened to me.)  Beat in the melted chocolate.  Stir with a rubber spatula until the frosting is smooth.

(Then you even out the tops of your cakes so the layers lie flat, put one layer on the bottom, smear about a cup of icing on the top, put on the other layer.  Cover everything with the rest of the icing.  Done!  I was all fancy last time and put some raspberries on top to make it pretty)

That’s it!  The icing sounds complicated, but it’s really not, and about twenty orders of magnitude better than that crap they sell in the tubs at the supermarket.  You don’t even need a fancy stand mixer – I’m positive the same could be achieved with a handheld one.  Though I do have a love for my stand mixer that may not be healthy.  Anyway, enjoy!

It is July, right?

I’m having just about as lazy a Saturday as it’s possible to have with the kids in the house and still be awake.  Dr. Thingo is away on his summer bunch of conferences, which means we will probably be having a bat visitor any day now.  It’s tradition!  The kids and I had crepes with blueberries and nutella for breakfast this morning, and we’ve been lazing around ever since.  This all makes up for yesterday when I dealt with 11 lb of sour cherries, 8 litres of blueberries and 10 lbs of shelled peas.  Have I mentioned how much I love the food this time of year?

So far this summer, the weather has left much to be desired.  We’ve had a total of maybe 5 warm days (and by warm, I mean above 27 degrees) in two intervals so far, both of them before the kids’ summer vacations started.  It’s been very rainy and cool.  Pluses:  I’ve only had to water the garden three times since April;  I (and consequently, those around me) haven’t suffered from Grumpy Heat from 6 days in a row of 30+ degree weather; Dr. Thingo isn’t making noises about having AC installed.  Minuses:  I’m using my dryer more than I’d like; I’m not sure the tomatoes will ever ripen; I haven’t taken the kids to any splash pads or outdoor swimming pools yet (with one notable exception, but I thought they were crazy to be playing in the water); it’s July 22nd and I’m wearing jeans;  I’ve heard exactly zero crickets so far this summer, and one lone cicada during a brief sunny period yesterday; the dehumidifiers are working overtime.  Anyway, I guess I should be happy that it’s been cool enough to be comfortable sleeping at night.  Still.

I just returned from a few days in Ottawa to visit my folks and celebrate my nephew’s birthdays (one and three!  Woo!).  I will take the opportunity to say here that S, the older of the two, is about as cute as it’s possible to be, and that little M with his crazy facial expressions is made of awesome.  I miss them already.  We hung out with my mom and her new husband, my dad and stepmom, often all at the same time, which would have been pretty much impossible even 5 years ago.  I got to play the guitar (yes, I sucked.   But I want to start playing again)  Saw lots of my brother and his family.  Bought some yarn – Berroco Lustra in a beautiful dark coffee colour (3130).  I lurve it.  I need to find a project worthy of it.  My mom even bought me some Vachon cakes, to which my kids were introduced (yes, they are delicious).  I did not, however, satisfy my chip wagon craving.  Maybe next time.  (Why aren’t there any chip wagons in town here?  There are forty million street meat carts.  Don’t get me wrong, I love me a sausage on a bun as much as the next guy, but wouldn’t they be better with some delicious fresh fries on the side??)  The only downer was that I forgot the baklava.  My brother, who makes the most delicious baklava I’ve ever had (including all manner of Middle-Easter restaurants and grandmothers), had saved me some, but I foolishly left it at my mom’s house.  Much to her delight.  I hear it was delicious.

In my last post, I mentioned something large, and lace, and beads.  I settled on only one of those – I’ve cast on the Lift and Separate cardigan (so, large, but no lace or beads) from Big Girl Knits with some Cascade 220 in an awesome raspberry colour.  I’ve finished the back and half of one of the front pieces, and if I keep completely neglecting housework, I should have it done by August.

I made Sam for Dr. Thingo.  I recently bought Sock Innovations by Cookie A. and plan on making all the socks in it.  This is the first pair.  I just finished those yesterday.  Here they are, on my  feet, hence the bagginess:

This was a fun pattern.  The cables are fairly easily memorized, and I like the extra touch of having the cables come out of the ribbing in an esthetically pleasing way.  Looking through the book, they all do this.  The ribbing is often unusual to accommodate the pattern on the leg later.  I have cast on Wanida, also from sock innovations, out of the sock blank I dyed with Kool Aid in the fall, tried to turn into socks, and ripped out because the colours looked awful.  I’m hoping the large patterning on this sock will detract from the ugly colours.  That rib is totally weird (P2, K2, P2, K3, P2, K2, P2, K1; repeat), which is good, because I’m not a great fan of ribbing as a rule, and this keeps it interesting.

I also got around to taking a picture of the socks I made for Vorlon a while ago:

Plain socks, but his sock blank knit up really well also (like Zebula’s a few weeks ago).  Which just goes to show you, I guess, that making splotchy, random spots on one’s sock blank results in a better sock than trying to be all careful and geometrical.

Gardening update:  Everything is certainly nice and lush and green.  In fact, it looks a lot like Seattle out there.  So green.  Ironically, apparently they had a dry hot spring and early summer.  Anyway, the lone squash plant that germinated and was about to bloom got dug up by some critter while we were away.  The tomatoes and basil are coming along nicely, but really need some sun, and the bean plants, despite being really squat (maybe I got bush beans by mistake?) have bloomed and some have tiny, skinny beans on them.  The two remaning corn stalks are about half a metre tall.

Still craving fries.  I’ll see what I can do about that the next couple of days.

Fruit!

It’s that time of year – fruit everywhere.  In the past three weeks, I have processed (either by eating, freezing, or baking with) 24 litres of strawberries.  So delicious!  And today I picked saskatoons from the tree outside my front door, which will become jelly for my brother-in-law.  Apparently cherries are coming to the Buying Club on Friday.  I love this time of year!

Added bonus, these kept Vorlon and Zebula busy all morning:

Why people spend money on toys when a bunch of empty fruit baskets will do just fine is beyond me.

I’ve been spinning!  What with the new living room being such a nice place to hang out now, I’ve decided that my wheel is going to live there permanently.  Also, since the floor is new and I’m still all paranoid about it getting dinged, I’ve kind of neglected the drop spindle for the past couple of months.  Because I drop it a lot and hearing that crunch of wood on wood would make me cringe.  Anyway, I dug out some batts I got during the Ravelry Rubberneckers gift swap last winter, and spun this:

This was carded by the person who was my swap partner and she listed it as “wool, mystery fiber and waste silk”.  It spun up very nicely.  I tried my hand at woolen spinning, which I’d never done since I always work from sliver or roving.  It worked pretty well, I think.  It’s nice and smooshy, and those white bits of silk look pretty good.  I ended up with about 75 metres of two-ply yarn, probably a light worsted.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet.  I’m itching to start working on another wool/silk blend I’ve had in the stash for three years.  I was always a little afraid to work on it (the roving is so nice!), but I’ve decided to just take the plunge, since there’s no point in the fibre just languishing in my basement.

I finished the Geometry Dress for Zebula:

I had forgotten how fast crochet works up.  I heavily modified the design, since it was intended for grown ups.  I used the smallest size, which had the right waist circumerence, and just didn’t do any bust increases.  I also made both the skirt and bodice shorter, so I just improvised the armholes and neck openings.  The yarn is some stuff I’ve had in the stash forever, which I received when I lived in Seattle from somebody whose grandma had died (“Hey, you knit.  Do you want this stuff?”)  It’s a wool/acrylic blend which Zebula has pronounced “a little itchy”, but apparently it’s fine with something underneath.

I feel some knitted lace coming on.  Maybe with beads.  I’m going to do some research.

Not-knitting catch up

I’ve been receiving requests to see the new floor.  Here it is, in an empty room (with a strangely sad looking Vorlon):

Here it is, with new furniture:

Ok, not the best picture, and it doesn’t put the floor to best advantage, but you get the idea.

The jury’s still out on the furniture.  It’s super comfy, but I think it’s a little large for the space.  That could just be the fact that it was very spartan in there for over a month, so this is a big contrast.  We still need to paint.  That should be an adventure.  My dad (Thanks, Dad!) helped me paint the red accent wall.  Three coats of a colour that was fairly close to the colour that was already there, and still I think it needs another coat.  Crazy.  The rest will be done in nice, light colours, so hopefully two coats will do.

The garden, you ask?  The squirrels are really enjoying it.  Or it could be the bunnies.  Or both. Anyway, my beans are pathetic, my carrot tops are all down to little nubs, and the radishes all had claw marks in them (I ate them anyway).

That’s the bed with the squash, beans and corn.  (There’s some garlic you can see in the lower right corner).  Something’s eating holes in the beans.  The corn is also getting nibbled on and the squash would probably be getting nibbled on too, if it had actually germinated.  Even the sweet peas are all holey and weird.  Not the best crop this year, I’m afraid.

See?  Lots of nice bushy radishes (a week later, they were decimated) near the top.  There are some carrots there, trust me.  And one of the fennel plants got eaten up.  I think I’m just going to throw a bunch of annual flowers in there for this year and call it a day.  However:

Those are my tomatoes and basil.  They seem to be doing well.  They’re getting lots of sun, and either the critters haven’t found them yet, or tomatoes are just not that interesting until the fruit is out.  They’re not EarthTainers as I had originally intended (I mentioned those a few posts back).  I wasn’t able to find all the parts I needed, so I just drilled holes in the bottom of the Rubbermaid bins for drainage and treated them like regular containers.  I have Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, and some kind of Delicious tomato.  I’m looking forward to my crop.  It’s all I have left!

Also of note: The saskatoons are slowly ripening.  And the smell of the Mock Orange next to my front door makes me happy every time I go by. Ecogrrl is back in town!  Zebula did a fine job at her end of year piano recital (as did all the other students), and Vorlon is finished with Preschool.  There are four days of grade 1 left for Zebula and the weather is finally gorgeous.  Happy summer solstice!

Knitting catch-up

After my last post, Dr. Thingo mentioned something he’d read in one of the blogs he subscribes to.  The author claims there are three kinds of blog posts. The “Hello!  This is my blog!” post, the “Sorry I haven’t posted in a while” post, and pictures of the blogger’s cat.  My last post was the second type, apparently.  This one too.

I haven’t really been all that productive with the knitting.  It seems like I’ve been working on socks forever.  I finally stabilized the neckline of the No-Gap Wrap (there’s a picture here.  Scroll down a little).  I didn’t manage to take any pictures of myself in it that didn’t suck.  The neckline, though it was great when I first put the sweater on that morning, continued to grow throughout the day.  I’m hoping that washing it helped that.  Though last time I washed it, I hung it up outside, and then it poured rain, so it’s all stretched out of proportion.  I have to re-block it.  Then we’ll see if that neck stretching was permanent.

Aside:  Is Environment Canada having its summer interns make the weather predictions lately??  Sheesh!  That day that I hung the load of laundry I was talking about, the prediction was for a sunny day around 20 degrees with no mention of rain.  Turns out it poured for over three hours.  The whole week was out of whack like that.

I worked on a great project for Spinrite.  Some socks:

They look like tasty desserts all lined up like that.  I really enjoyed working on these, mostly because there was no way to tell from looking at the ball what the striping was going to look like.  Excuse me while I indulge in lots and lots of unnecessary pictures:

Would you have been able to guess how they were going to turn out??  If only I could remember what the yarn was.

I had started making a sock from the sock blank I dyed for myself with the kids last fall.  I really don’t like the way it knits up very much.  Plus, the pattern I was using totally didn’t work, so I’m going to unravel it.  And I would have taken a picture of it to show you, but I am embarrassed to say I don’t remember where I put it and couldn’t find it in the usual places, which is a good indicator of the way things are looking around here.  I’m thinking of making them into this.  They may still be kind of ugly, but the pattern looks really interesting to work up.

I’ve also been working exclusively on some gift socks for the past two weeks:

(Those are representatives of two different pairs, of course.  I’m not that mean.)  The yarn is Meilenweit Mega Boots.  I love the long colour changes.  Plain sock pattern.  And at 9 st/in, they’re a bit of a slog to work through.  And I’m not very good at knitting exclusively on one project at a time, so of course I’m seeing all kinds of patterns I’d rather be starting.  But I’m almost done (one pair done and almost half of another).

Oh, and this:

Isn’t it hideous?  It’s too bad, because the pattern is kind of neat. It’s the Cushion Conglomeration Caper, by Ashforth/Plummer.  It’s all garter stitch geometrical shapes based on one square (you can see it in the upper left).  You start by making that square, using whatever yarn you want, and then using the number of stitches you get on the diagonal of that square as your basis, you make the rest of the shapes.  The yarn is this assortment of stuff left over from a zillion previous projects, or just random stash, cut up into approximately 1 metre lengths for another long-abandoned project.  It might yet become a cushion and live downstairs where hardly anybody will ever see it.  Or a doll blanket for Zebula.  Or I’ll make it bigger, felt it a little, and donate it to a pet shelter for them to use as a doggie blanket.   Something.

And that’s it.  I feel something big coming on next.  Like this (for me).  Or maybe this (for Zebula.  I don’t know that I would look very good in this kind of thing.).  Or this (for… Somebody.  I probably can’t pull this off either, but, pretty!)

Stuff

How’d that happen?  I blinked, and suddenly more than three weeks have gone by.

Highlights (non-knitting):  New floor, Vorlon turns four, two (count ‘em!) visits from my parents, one from Dr. Thingo’s parents, moving of furniture, and a most excellent weekend away with some fabulous ladies.

Highlights (knitting):  Completely finished the No Gap Wrap by crocheting around the neckline to stabilize (no photos yet) and sample socks for Spinrite, started an ugly cushion cover, an ugly pair of socks, and a not ugly pair of socks.

Highlights (garden): planted corn, beans and squash, and a few have sprouted.  Squirrels have eaten most of the carrot tops, herbs doing nicely.

I’ve given up on posting the garden photos, but if you really want, you can see the progression on my Flickr account here.

Details and photos about some of the above items to come later.  I will post more regularly from now on, I promise!

New floor coming tomorrow

The living/dining room is completely empty:

the office, not so much: