Summer in a Bottle

It's been 4 days since I picked up knitting needles. FOUR. WHOLE. DAYS. What could possibly keep me away?

60 pounds of tomatoes
7 heads of celery
several pounds of onions (couldn't keep track through the tears)
40 peppers
3 days of my life
________________________
53 - 500ml bottles
7 - 1L bottles
3 - jumbo 1.5 L bottles



SALSA!!

Knitting resumes tonight.

Grace

Another Christmas present is well underway - I'm on fire over here people.



This is the completed back of Grace, a very cozy DB cardi from the cotton angora book. I'm using some Jaeger Shetland Aran that I bought from Janette a few weeks ago (great yardage on this stuff). I love the sagey color - although it has looked grey in every photo - I had to saturate this picture to get it to even look green let alone the warm sagey green that it actually is. This will be for my mom and I know she'll enjoy it. The cables and ribbing are making it very luxurious and "cushy" and this yarn has absolutely no itch factor. I want one for ME too!

Fun With Flowers

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading through Heidi's blog and saw that she had done some dying in her studio with goldenrod. Liking what I saw, I decided to give it a try myself! It turned out to be super easy and quite a bit of fun actually.

The first step was to run around the yard collecting my dying material. No sweat - there is an abundance of goldenrod around these parts.


Into the pot it goes... (I just filled my stock pot - not sure how much water this was - it wasn't a very scientific experiment - if I had to guess I'd say it was about 2 gallons.) The information I found online suggested 1 pound of goldenrod to 4 gallons of water to 4 TBSP of alum.


After about 30 minutes of simmering the goldenrod, I strained out the plant material, added about 2 tablespoons of alum and let that heat for 15 mins. Yarn time! I only had one skein to dye and I let it simmer for a little over an 1 hour.


The resulting color is not a bad yellow at all. Inside near the lamp, it has a warm, golden hue.


Outside in the sunshine, it has cooler tones...


Either way, I'm pleased with the result and can't wait to knit me up some yellow socks!


Thanks to Janine once again for gifting me this Knit Picks "color your own" skein!!

Last Socks of Summer

It's that time of year... Harvest season. Time for bottling salsa and pickles. Packing up the canoe and deck furniture. The leaves are just starting to turn and the mornings are refreshingly crisp and cool.



These are my favorite socks for my favorite time of year. A cozy fitting rib not too heavy for slightly chilly mornings and evenings.



As much as I love the fall leaves, I'm hoping to get in at least a few more weeks of this...



Project Specs:
Pattern: Fine Socks by Briggs & Little
Yarn: Briggs & Little Sport 100% wool
Color: Grape
Needles: 2.75mm DPNs
Comments: I make these socks in both fine gauge and heavy over and over. They have such a comfortable ribbed fit and are perfect TV knitting.

Mousierama!!

The boys got some new felted mousies today and they were very excited. I barely got a photo of the mousies before they were over to claim their own.



Bigsy decided on the green one...



While Niblet preferred the more "natural" looking gray one...



Their mousie "kill" strategies were also vastly diferent. Bigsy used his ample frame to advantage with a series of crushing manoeuvres.



While Niblet took what I like to call the "nutbar" approach which basically amounts to a lot of flipping and jumping around really fast without any real damage being inflicted to the prey.





So glad I took the time throw together a couple of these - it was fun to watch them play.

Project Specs:
Pattern: Free Pattern by Jo Chandler found at About.com.
Yarn: Scraps of Briggs and Little Heritage 100% wool
Needles: 4mm DPNs
Comments: Results in very cute sort of medium sized mousie with the worsted weight yarn I used. I love the bobble ears - your cats will get months of enjoyment out of one of these little guys. I throw a little cat nip in with the stuffing and it gets their immediate attention.