Socks..... and seasonal savories.

I'm coming down with a cold. I've already drunk four cups of tea and it's only 10.30 am. My nose is dripping and my head feels as if it's about to explode, so I think I have a hot date with my PJ's this weekend.
Creativity has not been diminished though. Last weekend I took receipt of a box of yarn from Canada. It's always so exciting, even although I know exactly what's in there because I ordered it. I just love to take out the balls of yarn, luxuriate in their texture and dream about the projects that I have planned for them. In this case it's hats.

I'm doing well on The Little Guy's socks too. I have chosen to just do a basic stockinette with the Reggio sock yarn, keeping it quick and simple so that I can get back to my hats.

My sister loved the baby blanket, which arrived safely in the UK by mail at the beginning of the week. It was surprisingly quick. My mum even called to say she'd seen it and what a beautiful keepsake it is. They all adore it. I am hugely proud of it and very happy to be able to express the love I have for the niece that I've never met, in such a personal way.

Tomatoes are still flowing in the garden. I'll be picking the last of them over the weekend I think. I've managed to make two quarts of pasta sauce this week and I have more tomatoes soaking in hot water (to remove their skins) as I write.

In the mean time, I think I'll be curling up on the sofa with a box of tissues, a movie and some knitting. Mind you, it is football season and I do enjoy watching a good game. I just have to be careful that I don't stab myself with my knitting needles when things get too exciting!

Until next week,

Keep clickin'

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.

Small Is Beautiful!

The children went back to school this week (at least they did towards the end of the week) so there was little time for creativity. Sorting out everyones supplies, problems, timetables etc and transporting them too and from events has taken over as we struggle to re-establish some kind of routine. I managed two rows of knitting on the baby blanket while sitting in the car at soccer practice on Tuesday, but then realised I'd made a mistake and had to unpick the work I'd done!



Aside from flinging together a delicious sweet'n'sour chicken dish inbetween chauffeuring commitments, I have managed to make a super little hat this week out of remnants from my stash. It is going to Tanzania to help an African child keep warm. It was hugely satisfying to create something from scratch that could make the difference between life and death for a child living a world away. Small things can mean so much.

Peace and Knitting.

This week I actually made it to my knitting group for an hour of sanity, having escaped the warzone that my home has become. How many days of the summer vacation do we have left?

I worked a few more rows on the now considerably large baby blanket that I'm making and basked in the soothing effects of fellow knitters talk. It was wonderful to admire the pieces that everyone else is working on and to just be away from the bickering for a while.

I have found the camera cable and returned it to its rightful home, so here are a few pictures that should have gone with my last post.

The Bread and Butter Pickles looked so pretty soaking in the brine.

The Dill Pickle Spears made the house smell like McDonalds (according to the children!) I'm not sure whether this was considered a good thing or a bad one.

The curtains came out really well and have changed the feel of our breakfast area quite considerably. As usual, there's still the painting to do though. Slowly but surely we're making our house our home.

Harvest Time

I've been busy in the kitchen this week. It's harvest time in the garden, at least as far as the cucumbers are concerned! I'm overrun. I managed to make several pints of Bread and Butter Pickles yesterday. Thankfully the weather turned cooler so it wasn't as hot work as it might have been.

I also made about 8 pints of mint jelly out of some fresh apple juice that the children didn't like and mint from the garden. It'll go well with lamb in the winter. My tomatoes are beginning to go orange too so we're all very excited. As soon as they ripen, I'll be busy again!

I've almost finished my second set of curtains too. Just had to wait for the rod to be put up so that I can hem them to fit. It'll be good to have this done and return to some semblance of order in the house before the children go back to school.

On the knitting front, I am making headway on the blanket I am knitting for my niece. Just two more pattern repeats to go and it will be finished. I have enjoyed working on it while watching the Beijing Olympics in the evenings. I can hardly believe that it is almost over.

I have also contacted Plymouth Yarn about the disasterous batch of Oh My! that I used. They wanted lot/dye numbers etc. I am now awaiting a response from that e-mail.

(Sorry there are no pictures. Can't find the camera cable. I suspect someone else in the house has used it and not returned it yet!)



I also recently received this wonderful Blogging Friends Forever award from my friend Kimmie over at Art In Red Wagons. Do pay her a visit. She is a wonderfully talented artist. (Thanks for thinking of me, Kimmie!)

Sadness

I finished the dreaded hooded jacket - thankfully. It was such a relief to get it done. It was a good job that I took a picture of the finished product before I washed it though. It turns out that I was right about that yarn. I decided that I should wash it before sending it to my sister as I didn't want her to feel bad if the stupid yarn decided to play games and stretch or break. Look what happened when I did.......

I'm so upset about this that I can hardly talk about it. I'm just glad it happened when I was dealing with it and not when my sister tried to clean it. My poor niece will be receiving her cuddly toy minus the handknit that was supposed to accompany it in the parcel. I have instead returned to the blanket that I'm making for her and am seeking solace in a pattern and yarn that are nothing but wonderful compared with this project!

To console myself further, I headed to the kitchen and enjoyed the therapeutic effects of creating a zuchini quiche. We then grilled a marinated flank steak on the BBQ and I cooked carrots to die for, which I've added here at "Cooks Casserole."

More Excitement

Well, I've had yarn coming at me from all angles this week. It's been wonderful.

On Wednesday my parcel arrived from Norway from my Nordic Knitters swap partner. We were linked up via Ravelry and have been planning a summer swap - 100g of yarn plus anything that reminds us of summer where we are. It's been great fun. I have sent her Knit Picks, as she can't get it over there and she sent me the most wonderful sock yarn by Drops Garnstudio called Fabel.

I really enjoyed putting together my parcel. I found some MarketSpice tea bags from Pike Place Market in Seattle, some M&M's, a beaded stitch marker, a card showing the Seattle skyline at sunset and some packets of Kool-Aid, which I'm told are great for dying yarn as well as being a summer drink. I dread to think what they do to our insides though if they dye yarn so wonderfully!

My parcel from my pal contained some chocolates, iced tea, beaded stitch markers, coffee and some seeds - a real summery package:

The same day my yarn from Yarn Forward arrived in the mail. I'd bought this several weeks ago as I started making a blanket for my niece last Autumn and, not quite getting a handle on the whole Imperial and Metric thing, managed to run out of yarn. My LYS no longer carried it, so I ordered online from Yarn Forward in Canada. At last I can continue my blanket. I'm so relieved. The plan is to knit in both yarns alternately to try to avoid getting a line across the work caused by different dye lots.

Yesterday, the pull of "Let It Rain" closing its doors was too much and I just had to go back to that yarn store to see what they had left. I'd debated last Saturday about getting some lilac Cascade 220 and some gorgeous Frog Tree 100% alpaca in cream. They were both still there so I have added them to my stash. I now have enough projects to keep me going for some considerable time!

As to the Little Guy's socks? I've started working on a pattern for them. There's been a lot of scribbling in a notebook and studying of pointed versus flat toe seams, but I'm getting there. It'll be interesting. Now I'd better go and plant the tomato vines that are growing out of control on my kitchen windowsill!