Creative Achievements

Things are beginning to come to an end in the garden now. I picked some tomatoes and the last of the cucumbers this week. I used up the pickles by making Sweet Pickle Relish, which made the house stink a bit, but will taste lovely on a burger or with some cheese and crackers.

To add to the homely smells, I have baked about 6 loaves of bread. My family adore them. The sandwich diet inherent to Norwegian life has left us all with a love of quality baking, so my investment in a bread machine when I moved to the US has really paid off. I've found that if I load up the machine with 2lbs of ingredients and set it on the dough cycle, it produces a wonderful dough that is easy for me to throw into two loaf tins and bake quickly in the oven. I make brown and white and then load them into the freezer to get us through a busy weekend (or week depending on what's going on.) I love to bake with yeast and have made all kinds of dough over the years: cinammon rolls, pizza rolls, German Stollen at Christmas....... the list goes on. Recently I found out that my Great Grandfather was a baker. It must be in the genes!

On the knitting front, the Frog Tree yarn was so tempting that I cast on for Nicky Epstein's Chameleon hat this week. I love the colour of this yarn and have nicknamed it raspberry sorbet. The design is looking amazing. It's easy to achieve once you get into it and so far so good with the yarn too.

I also recycled an old yoga mat last weekend when I was clearing out the garage. I cut it into 5 widths, one for each of us, so that we have something to sit on at football games this season. Those metal bleachers can be quite cold in October!

Finally, my piece de resistance for this week has been the completion of the Heart baby Blanket for my niece. I pinned it out on the bed, spritzed it with water and left it to dry. It turned out beautifully and I'm hugely proud of it. Hope she enjoys living with it as much as I enjoyed making it.