Sunday, July 31, 2005

Fresh Sweet Corn

It’s been a full week of knitting. I have 2 baby sweater starts to be unraveled. One is the blueberry sweater of last Saturday. The knit purl design was killing my hands and the dark purple made it impossible to see the pattern in anything but noontime sunlight. I will try using that yarn in a different pattern. The other is Baby Ole in a cotton sock yarn that is poling instead of striping. It looks like a snow leopard. Nice enough but not what I wanted. I will put it away for a while or possible claim the yarn for socks.

Now a project that is going well is Child Hood out of Mission Falls 1824 cotton. It’s going pretty fast now that I have gauge. It took 3 false starts and moving down to a size 3 bamboo needle. This is from a yarn that recommends a 7 needle. I know I knit a bit loose but really! I do love the way the yarn feels in my hands and on my needles. The yarn has been discontinued and I keep wondering if I should buy some more while it’s still available.

My spinning wheel has been humming away on my cotton, linen, rayon blend. Last night I divided the fiber I had left into 9 portions, thinking I could be done spinning in 9 days. As of this morning I only have 6 left. The hard part is deciding what is next on this wheel. Do I finish the mostly full bobbin of ramie? Do I start the cotton silk blend? The cocoon waste? Cotton Wool? Colored cotton? I have a soft pink beige called candlelight that has been waiting for 5 years now. I recently found it and it’s so pretty. Silk Top? SO many choices. If I was a good, dedicated, project finisher I would spin the ramie but right now I think not.

How did I get so much spinning done? After all those weren’t little hanks I had divvied up. Well Saturday morning I snuck out the back door at work to visit the farmers market again. This time I came home with a huge bag of sweet corn, seven pounds of peaches, and a watermelon. Himself inspired by the Iron Chef corn battle made a wonderful corn bisque with straw mushrooms, while I made corn bread, and a friend grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob. After a good and thorough stuffing with everyone saying we couldn’t eat even one more bite, Himself made a peach blueberry cobbler. Oh so tasty. It’s a good thing we took a mile walk while it was cooking since I don’t think I ate so much at THANKSGIVING! With all this cooking and eating taking well over 4 hours I had plenty of spinning time too. I just love summer food and some soft summer cotton spinning. Hmmmm… so good….

The little tid bit about finding the candle light cotton reminds me. I forgot to mention I cleaned out the fiber studio. I put all of my roving into my car and parked it the sun for an incredibly hot week while I deep cleaned and organized the room. Today I will vacuum everything, including behind the bookshelves and under rugs. Hopefully these preventive measures will keep the room m…. free for another year.

Fresh Sweet Corn

It’s been a full week of knitting. I have 2 baby sweater starts to be unraveled. One is the blueberry sweater of last Saturday. The knit purl design was killing my hands and the dark purple made it impossible to see the pattern in anything but noontime sunlight. I will try using that yarn in a different pattern. The other is Baby Ole in a cotton sock yarn that is poling instead of striping. It looks like a snow leopard. Nice enough but not what I wanted. I will put it away for a while or possible claim the yarn for socks.

Now a project that is going well is Child Hood out of Mission Falls 1824 cotton. It’s going pretty fast now that I have gauge. It took 3 false starts and moving down to a size 3 bamboo needle. This is from a yarn that recommends a 7 needle. I know I knit a bit loose but really! I do love the way the yarn feels in my hands and on my needles. The yarn has been discontinued and I keep wondering if I should buy some more while it’s still available.

My spinning wheel has been humming away on my cotton, linen, rayon blend. Last night I divided the fiber I had left into 9 portions, thinking I could be done spinning in 9 days. As of this morning I only have 6 left. The hard part is deciding what is next on this wheel. Do I finish the mostly full bobbin of ramie? Do I start the cotton silk blend? The cocoon waste? Cotton Wool? Colored cotton? I have a soft pink beige called candlelight that has been waiting for 5 years now. I recently found it and it’s so pretty. Silk Top? SO many choices. If I was a good, dedicated, project finisher I would spin the ramie but right now I think not.

How did I get so much spinning done? After all those weren’t little hanks I had divvied up. Well Saturday morning I snuck out the back door at work to visit the farmers market again. This time I came home with a huge bag of sweet corn, seven pounds of peaches, and a watermelon. Himself inspired by the Iron Chef corn battle made a wonderful corn bisque with straw mushrooms, while I made corn bread, and a friend grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob. After a good and thorough stuffing with everyone saying we couldn’t eat even one more bite, Himself made a peach blueberry cobbler. Oh so tasty. It’s a good thing we took a mile walk while it was cooking since I don’t think I ate so much at THANKSGIVING! With all this cooking and eating taking well over 4 hours I had plenty of spinning time too. I just love summer food and some soft summer cotton spinning. Hmmmm… so good….

The little tid bit about finding the candle light cotton reminds me. I forgot to mention I cleaned out the fiber studio. I put all of my roving into my car and parked it the sun for an incredibly hot week while I deep cleaned and organized the room. Today I will vacuum everything, including behind the bookshelves and under rugs. Hopefully these preventive measures will keep the room m…. free for another year.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

blueberry summer day

It’s been so long since I posted and I have done so much it’s overwhelming. So I will skip it all and just start with now. Yesterday I slipped out the back door at work to go the farmers market across the street. I was hoping for some corn but it’s still too soon. Instead I bought a gallon of fresh blueberries.

After work I turned into the LYS since I hadn’t visited it in months. I was looking for easy care yarn for a baby sweater. I picked up a deep purple the color of blueberry pies. Once I got home I spent the afternoon making and freezing blueberry waffles while casting on the purple yarn. A baby sweater is now well on it’s way and those blueberry waffles are the best I’ve ever tasted.