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.