Halloween!

 I got to be home on call all last evening so we got our pumpkin ready for today!  Dave cut it open and scraped it all out and I carved the design.  We used one of those carving kits with the little serrated saws and tracing patterns.  We roasted the seeds too and this year I boiled them for 10 minutes before roasting them but I didn't think it made that much difference.  I'd read they were supposed to be crunchier that way.  Every time I roast pumpkin seeds, I get so excited because they smell so good, but they are always kind of a disappointment.  I like the flavor of them but they are so fibery when you chew them up.  Maybe I just like the idea of them and I do it because it reminds me of my mom roasting them.

Tomorrow is November 1st and also NaKniSweMo which stands for National Knit A Sweater In A Month.  I think I am going to go for it!  I have my yarn all lined up--10 skeins of Patons Classic Wool that I already had in my stash.  I've got my needles and pattern at the ready and today I'm going to wind the first ball and do a little swatching.  The biggest challenge will be to keep at this sweater and not be distracted starting other small things along the way.  And in a way it kind of kills me because Christmas is next month and I've got a few projects mentally lined up for that.  So much yarn, so little time!

I keep forgetting to post this picture.  When Lisa and Luke came to stay for the Cancer Garage Sale, they brought me this Hobbit cupcake!  It was decorated with a ring of The One Ring.  I just loved it and now the ring sits on my kitchen window sill.  I'd never been a Tolkien fan but I really enjoyed the LOTR trilogy and was actually inspired to read the books as well as The Hobbit.  It is a rare thing for me to read.  I love to read but I'd rather knit and watch a fabulous Masterpiece Theater production of a literary classic.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first installment of The Hobbit last December and can't wait for the second film.  Dave is so excited to take me, NOT.  He is a good sport though!

Crafting frenzy!

 My brother had his Navy drill this weekend so he and his wife and two daughters and two beagles came to stay with us.  We had a very productive Crafty Fun Time.  We made 8 batches of bath bombs for Christmas gifts and Halloween teacher gifts.

 We used my jack-o-lantern mold for some large spiced apple shaped bombs.  This was the first time they'd made these and they did a great job.  I tested out a jack-o-lantern bomb in my bath last night!

These were some Christmas ornaments that took about 3 minutes to make.  I'd bought these ornaments on sale at Michael's thinking they were plastic but they were in fact glass.  We had a harrowing moment when Annika dropped one on the carpet and it bounced onto the linoleum but didn't break.  I'd picked this greenery off the evergreen tree in our yard a few weeks ago and let it dry on the counter.  We just pulled the caps off the ornaments, snipped some greenery and stuck it in the ornaments and then put in some small red jingle bells and then put the tops back on.  We tied some ribbons through the loops for a hanger and we were done.  And yes that is my trusty old yellow Formica table.  It used to be my kitchen/dining table but now it is a full time craft table and lives downstairs in the family room.

We also made a slew of these Santa ornaments out of dried milkweed pods I'd picked last year around this time.  We painted them with acrylic paint and put the beards and fur trim on with Snow-tex paint.  These were such a hit that we decided to go out and pick more milkweed pods.

We drove out to Battle Creek Park to forage for natural craft components.  Battle Creek is not far from here and very close to our old apartment.  It is a lovely wooded area with paved walking trails and cross country ski trails in the winter.  We've seen deer and wild turkeys there and they have bow hunting in the fall.  The trail takes about 45 minutes to walk and is a favorite with dog lovers.

We found all kinds of good stuff:  acorns, pine cones, fallen birch trees for birch bark, big strips of regular tree bark, spongy moss and of course more milkweed pods.

We had beautiful weather for the walk and in places you'd swear you were in Norway or Finland.  We've already decided that we are going to do this every year.

Productive

 This is my week where I only work one shift and I've gotten a lot done on my days off which always makes me happy.  Dave's parents called on Monday to say they had a good sackful of tomatoes that were ripe.  Now that it has cooled down, the ripening really has slowed down.  We went and picked them and I processed them the next day.

 I got 8 1/2 pints of tomato sauce out of them and it turned out really well.  We thought my brother was coming this weekend for Navy drill but it won't be until the end of the month.  I was a bit disappointed but now a bit relieved because tomorrow I don't have to clean and can spend the rest of my days off knitting and working on other projects.

 Speaking of which, I baked the first batch of these yesterday and packed them all up this morning.  I sent 16 with Dave to school for the faculty, I will take a container to my one shift tonight, and these are little gifts for Dave's parents and our neighbors.  I have to say I was quite pleased with how they turned out all packaged up.

I was especially excited to use my color coordinated twine.  I got this a while back at Joann's with a coupon.  I'm off to the couch to knit for a while and entertain Lopi who is quite antsy this morning for some reason.  I am loving this cold, rainy weather.  Blankie weather!

Baking Bliss

This morning is a beautifully chilly rainy day which is perfect for baking.  I work night shifts the next 2 nights for my weekend and I always bake cookies to bring.  Saturday morning is fabulous for baking anyway because I turn on all the cooking shows on PBS.  Those are my Saturday morning cartoons.  And I just love my kitchen helper!  She likes to insert herself between me and the counter in this little corner just in case I drop something.  The Gophers play later today so she is now wearing her doggy football jersey and she'll sit with her dad for the game.  What did we do without her?

Anniversary Outing

Dave and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Saturday.  Good grief, where did this year go?!  Since the first anniversary is paper, we were planning a simple night out to a restaurant and the movies with a paper admission ticket.  Well Dave brought home the goods this year!  A guy he works with gave him tickets to the Wild hockey game because he had a wedding to attend and couldn't use them.  It was so nice for once to be actually ATTENDING something when normally I am fighting traffic and crowds trying to get to and from my hospital downtown. 

It is no secret that I am not a fan of organized sports but I had a really good time.  I do like hockey, but I sit and knit while Dave watches it on the TV.  I must have been paying attention to all his instruction though because I answered his quiz questions correctly during the game.  ("Now Winnipeg has what here?"  "An extra player?"  "Yes.  And what is that called?"  "A power play?"  "Power play is correct.")

There is something too about being in a large crowd of people as they react together.  You could feel the excitement of an attempted goal and the collective despair if we missed.  I was also impressed with how well they entertained the crowd during breaks with the music and the big screens and the kiss cam, etc.  And I loved that Nordy the mascot had hockey hair!

Garden Bounty

 My In-Laws have such green thumbs.  They kept me supplied with fabulous produce all summer long!  We are very lucky that our local farmers market is just a couple blocks away where we bought some potted herbs, bagels, eggplants and cilantro this summer, but everything else has come from Dave's parents.

 It seems every time I turned around, Marianne was bringing me cucumbers, zucchinis, tomatoes, carrots and peppers.  When you have produce like that, you have to put it in something and we really enjoyed pork maifun this summer.  I thinly sliced pork chops and marinated them in Chinese sweet barbecue and Dave was in charge of grilling it.  Then you stir fry up your veggies and some fried egg with maifun noodles.

So good.  This stuff doesn't last long around here.  We get about 2 servings and 2 sack lunches out of this.

They had 10 tomato plants this year that were taller than me!  I would go and pick tomatoes by the sackful and Marianne picked them by the clothes basketful and for every beautiful red tomato you'd pick, there were 5 more green ones on the vine.  They could literally feed an army with their tomatoes.

My sister gave me a canner and tool set at my bridal shower and I finally got a chance to play with it.  I am hooked on canning!  My dear friend Brenda always talked about how she loved it because each batch was a separate concoction and you could try all different variations on a theme.  Now I know what she meant!  I canned 4 dozen pints of salsas, tomato puree and tomato sauce.  I am just sorry I didn't start earlier in the summer and now I can't wait until next year.  We are going to try a little gardening here next year too.  We are not self sufficient by any means but finally having your own home somehow makes you want to homestead your yard and garden.  I love the idea that we'll be eating and cooking our own tomatoes all through the winter.  I can't wait!

What IS that you're blocking?!?

 My niece Annika has the same birthday as my husband.  She is currently very excited about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  I have to admit, I didn't even realize they were popular again.  They have entire lines of action figures and toys and accessories and a new show on TV.  Boy am I out of it!  We asked her which one in particular she liked and what color he wore.  She favors Raphael and his color is red.  I perused Ravelry for TMNT patterns and found this combat scarf thing and whipped one up.  It is mostly stockinette stitch and so just rolled right up on itself and needed blocking, but it looked so funny on the board!

I used this pattern.  She put it right on when she opened it but she did say it itched.  I knit it out of Cascade 220 because that is all I had in the stash in the proper color.  I think it was the leftovers from the Gopher hats.  Hopefully she can actually play in it.

More Booties

 Lord knows there are plenty of babies around here or on their way so I've been kicking out a few more pairs of booties.  This pattern is so quick and easy from 60 Quick Baby Knits and the best part is they are knit with worsted weight yarn.  Who doesn't have a homeless stash of worsted sitting around?

These will go to my new niece Laina and were knit from the very last remaining yards of the Lornas Laces Sherpherd worsted.  I had enough to get to row 14 on each one and then finished them with some gray Patons Classic Wool.  I would have given them to Melissa but they only fit a 6 month old. 



 

These were knit from Malabrigo worsted and will go to cousin Christine.  These are Maynerd buttons again.

We've had a run on pins around here lately...

 My dear, dear friend Melissa is adopting a baby girl!  The child is actually a relative of hers and although I haven't actually spoken to her recently, it was supposed to be finalized yesterday or the day before.  She and Brenda and I are getting together towards the end of the month to have a belated 1 year birthday party for her.  Well of course that means hand knits so I produced this for her.  I tell ya, I am knitting the crap out of my Reno yarn because this was knit from the two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted (Midway) I got at Jimmy Beans Wool with the baby in mind.

This pattern is called Presto Chango and was the result of a design contest held by Jimmy Beans Wool.  That connection was total coincidence but how cool is that?  I was simply looking for a 12-24 month sweater pattern that took 450 yards or less.  This thing was so simple to knit too and only 2 seams to finish it.

 I think I spent more time sewing on buttons than I did seaming.  That is my kind of sweater!  I sure hope the baby likes it and gets plenty of use out of it.  The yarn is machine washable too so that makes it more "Mommy-friendly".  I've said it before, if there was anyone put on this earth to be a mother, it is Melissa and I couldn't be happier for her!

I used some shell buttons that I got years ago because I needed 14 and these were the most uniform that I had.  I have slowly used these for different things and I store them in a spice bottle I bought in a grocery store in Paris thousands of years ago while backpacking.  The herbs are long gone but I am a nerd/pack rat and love little containers.

These I am not sure will fit.  I had a terrible time finding booties for 12+ months.  This pattern went up to 9 months and I'd made a pair before and they seemed large.  I thought I'd do one better and knit them with needles 2 sizes larger than called for.  I guess we'll see.  She can always use them as pot scrubbers or fire starters if they don't fit!

Baby for Christine

My wonderful cousin Christine is pregnant with her first baby.  She and her husband Paul are expecting a girl in September.  I bought this Koigu at Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno because I loved the colors and thought I'd use it for a pair of socks.  It looked so nice next to the leftover gray from my last Sprinkle sweater so it became another Sprinkle instead.  I thought I'd made a mistake on the last one because the neck edge was slanted and the picture in the book had a straight edge.  This neck edge turned out slanted too.  My mom has had problems with errata in that same book so I am chalking it up to that.  The two buttons came from Grandpa Maynerd's button box.

 

Of course I knit my go-to baby items to go with it.  There was enough Koigu left over for some multicolored sockies and I used some Spud and Chloe to knit a star baby cap.

These I kind of came up with by accident.  I was looking for some appropriate leftover worsted in my stash for a different hat and booties.  I didn't really have enough scraps of anything but I have all kinds of white Patons Silk Bamboo.  It is so soft and perfect for baby items but I thought it would be kind of boring or would look too baptismal.  Then I remembered I have 3 different colors of leftover Rowan Kidsilk Haze that I didn't know what I was going to do with.  I stranded the two together to make this pair of booties and a Aviatrix bomber helmet.  The cap is finished with another Grandpa Maynerd button.

This is the raspberry bush in our backyard.  My dad had raspberry bushes when I was growing up but they were short, scrubby actual bushes and ours is more like a vine.  Every day we've picked the handful of ripe berries and saved them in the freezer for a rainy day.  I wanted to make jam if we got enough but I found this recipe...

These were fabulous!  I absolutely love this pastry!  I'm already thinking about it filled with apples or using it to top a chicken pot pie.  We are still getting plenty of berries every day but next time I make these, I'll strain out the seeds.  The recipe made twice as much filling as was needed so we're eating the remainder as refrigerator jam.  I just can't believe how tasty and simple the fruit filling is.

Sprinkle

I finished another Sprinkle sweater for my new baby niece Laina.  This was knit with some Koigu PPM for the body and Shibui for the cuffs/collar/border.  The yarn was purchased at Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno.  I don't think you can ever have too much Koigu laying around.  I really like this pattern...until it comes time to attach the sleeves and weave in all the ends and all the BLOCKING. 

As much as I love Koigu and their thousands of handpaint colorways, it seems I can never find a Koigu solid color that will coordinate nicely with a handpaint colorway.  I am very happy with this color combination but the Shibui fabric is a little limper than the Koigu fabric.

 What a lovely few days off I've had.  I finished this pair of socks out of yarn I bought a few years ago in Amsterdam at De Afstap.  I wound it forever ago and of course did not save the label but I know it is Regia.  I loved the colors and have wanted to get busy on these socks for some time.

 I started knitting these in the Minneapolis airport waiting out a blizzard on our way to Reno.  I will wait until fall to wear them.  Souvenir stash socks!

 I had time to play in the kitchen a little.  Here are some cider doughnuts I baked and dipped in sugar rather than the cider glaze.  They made a nice little breakfast treat but we went to the Ramsey County Fair later that day and didn't make very good dietary choices.  They were tasty choices to be sure, just not very healthy!

 We had supper at Dave's parents' house and I baked some lemon bread for dessert.  I'd been wanting to try out these little paperboard loaf pans I got on clearance at Joann Fabrics.  I love these things!  The recipe makes 2 standard bread loaf pans or 4 of these mini loaf pans.  We also gave one to Dave's sister and brother-in-law while they were here helping with shelves and gave one to our neighbors. 

I'd been meaning to make Lopi another dog bed for the living room and finally got around to it.  Dave stuffed it while I made the slip cover.  The fabric came from IKEA and reminded me of Marimekko.  Here she is napping on it.  She is so darned cute!

I finished some booties to post in my Etsy shop and someone was kind of curious when I was taking the pictures!  What a nerd!

Puppy and Poppies

A while back I bought some really cute, really busy fabric with camping woodland dogs on it.  I'd planned to make some obnoxious pajama lounge wear out of it but instead I made a dog bed for Lopi.  She seems to like it.  I need to make her another one for upstairs.

Here are some of the poppies that grow behind and on the south side of our house.  They are pink and frilly and look more like carnations than poppies.  I remember seeing pink poppies in York at the train station but they were growing on the actual railroad tracks so I thought they were pink because of pollution.  Apparently pink frilly poppies exist in nature.

I think they are almost prettier on the underside.

New house. New scarf.

 We are moved in!  I can't say that everything is finished and put away in it's place, but everything is in the house.  More importantly, we are moved out of our old apartment and we never have to go back there again.  I can't tell you how wonderful it is to finally have a real home and to know we don't ever have to move again.  My favorite part of the house is the washer and dryer!  I never thought I'd be so excited to do laundry!  We really enjoy our deck too.  It has two levels and faces west which is perfect for breakfast in the shade.  We are discovering all the plants and prior garden plans of the house.  These are shrub roses from the front garden.  There are tiger lilies and poppies coming up in the back too. 

The Ramsey county fair is next week and I finally finished another Wingspan scarf.  This colorway is called "canyon clay" and is for my sister's birthday this month but I will give it to her after the fair.

I just love the color changes of this yarn and I think my sister will too because she loves red.  I knit 13 scallops on this one and was quite pleased with it.  We have had our new dog for 3 weeks now had much joy and frustration with her.  We are almost getting to the point where we can trust her unsupervised in the house but it was really touch and go for a while.  We actually considered taking her back to the humane society and just agonized over it but she is doing much better.  I didn't think I'd ever be able to knit again because we had to watch her every second.

And of course as I was taking these pictures, someone else trotted up and decided she should lay down on it.  I kind of knew she was going to do that because dogs like to lay on the choicest areas of the floor.  What a nerd.  We'll just say the dog is in the picture for scale.