Another BIG Thank You!

I don't know what I've done lately to deserve this, but last weekend I got another wonderful sheep-related gift, completely out of the blue! Chris's mom, Dianne, has recently been experimenting with a new (to her) medium, oil pastels, and last weekend she surprised me with this beautiful framed work of art. I love the way she incorporated the full rainbow of colors without making it look cartoonish or unnatural. I think its just exquisite and can't believe how fortunate I am to have such a talented artist in my family! I have it hanging on the while in my studio so that when I'm seated at my winder (where I spend a lot of time!) I can see it.

Wedding Season

So far I've been to three weddings since May, and will be attending my fourth (and final) tomorrow. All of them have required traveling, but its been fun to see old friends and family and to enjoy other people's weddings without the stress of having to plan one myself. The wedding I went to last weekend, July 4th, was especially fun because it was my friend Shanna's. I know Shanna through the yarn shop where I used to work, Knit Picky, and she invited a number of the gals from the weekly knit night. I haven't seen much of these friends since I moved a year ago, so it was a lot of fun to catch up with them over yummy barbecue-- Shanna hired the same caterers as we had at our wedding, Little Richards Barbecue and they did a wonderful job, again. Shanna also did a wonderful job with all the wedding details. I loved her bridesmaid's bouquets of wild flowers and the simple beauty of her flower adorned cake. And of course Shanna was a beautiful bride. I know people always say this, but she really did seem to be glowing with joy!

You might recall that Shanna is one of the people that I was making aprons for earlier this summer. I don't think I ever posted pictures from her shower, though. Shanna seemed to really like the apron, and I hope she gets some use out of it. I know that she likes to cook and she is a seamstress herself so I know she appreciates the work that went into it. The pattern is Emmaline by Sew Liberated, the fabric is by Amy Butler.

Homemade Bagels

Did you know that you can make bagels in your own kitchen? And that its really no harder than making loaf bread? I know- I too was stunned to learn this. My favorite bread book even has a recipe. You make your dough like usual, then pull it into a bunch of little balls and let it rise. Then poke a hole in the middle of each ball and they are ready to go into the boil pot. The boil pot is just sugar, water and baking soda. Next time I'd like to try adding malt to the mix since I've heard that gives the outside of the bagels a better color and texture. After a brief (1-2min each side) dip in the boil pot they bake in the oven for 20min and, ta-da, fresh homemade bagels! I also made a couple of flavors of cream cheese to go with them since the bagels themselves were plain. I just mixed your basic reduced fat cream cheese with a) chopped nuts and honey b) sundried tomatoes (pureed) and fresh basil c) chopped and smooshed fresh peach. Yum!

Farmers Market

One of the greatest things about this time of year is the abundance of local produce available. My favorite of our many local farmers markets is the one held on Wednesday afternoons in Carrboro. Now that we are living in Hillsborough, I don't make it to the Wednesday market every week like I did last year when it was only a few miles away. In fact, it had been several weeks since my last visit and wow, what a change! The selection is always great but today the booths were overflowing with so many different colors, shapes and smells. Earlier in the summer only one or two crops would be plentiful at a time- for example all the booths would have leafy greens, but not much else. But today there were too many things to keep track of them all. Now that I'm home I wish I had gotten more, but my arms were loaded down with as much as I could carry by the time I was done! I managed to come away with a dozen ears of corn, a dozen peaches, okra, peach jam, ground goat meat, eggs and some kind of bean that looks like black eyed peas, but green (I forgot to write down the name, oops!).

Using these instructions the dozen ears of corn quickly turned into these bags of corn, ready to be frozen. Each baggie contains about 2 ears of corn (the missing 2 ears I saved to have corn on the cob for dinner later this week). Later this fall or winter when the fresh produce isn't as plentiful it will be so easy to just grab a baggie from the freezer and heat it up in the microwave for a fast, easy, delicious and healthy side.



Now, what should I do with all those beautiful peaches?

Pickle Relish

This week's CSA box contained tomatoes (both full size, heirloom and cherry), an onion, a purple bell pepper, black berries, cucumbers and basil. Chris used some of the cucumbers, basil and tomatoes to make a yummy salad almost as soon as we opened the box. But we still had a lot of cucumbers left over. Especially when you include the cucumbers left from last week. And they look like they won't last much longer. I knew I had to take action, so I decided to make relish!



I used this recipe, but using the amounts and ingredients that I had on hand.

1.5lb cucumbers, diced
1/4 cup onion, diced
1 purple bell peppers, diced
1/4 cup kosher salt


1tsp each: mustard seed, turmeric, whole allspice, whole cloves
1/2 cup sugar
1.5 cup white vinegar



The mixture has to marinate for at least a day before its ready for canning (and sampling!) so I don't know yet how its going to turn out. Cross your fingers that it ends up edible-- I've never made relish (or pickles of any kind) before!

This and That

The past couple of weeks have been a blurr and the next several promise to be more of the same. Even though this time of year is traditionally the slow season for the knitting industry (how many people really feel like knitting when its a thousand degrees out and humid?) it has been insanely busy for us. This June was our busiest month on record. We have had several big club shipments to work on, a number of surprisingly large wholesale orders (that all came in during the same week, of course!) plus a HUGE knitting festival (Sock Summit) that we are dyeing inventory for. The clubs are all done (for this month) and the wholesale orders are moving along, but the goal for Sock Summit is pretty much "as much as is humanely possible to dye before the end of July" so I imagine I'll stay pretty busy until then.

Of course none of that is terribly interesting to blog about. And in the few moments when I'm not working there is always laundry or dishes to be done. Thats even less interesting to blog about. I did finally finish my Secret Garden shawl tonight but since its a mystery KAL I can't post pictures. I'm very happy with how it turned out, though. Now I just need to get some blockng wires so I can properly block it.

Our plans for the 4th are a bit unusual- instead of picnics and fireworks we have a wedding to attend! A friend of mine, the one I made the apron for a month or so ago, is getting married so we'll be spending most of the day near Winston-Salem to celebrate with her. I'm looking forward to seeing some of my friends that I haven't spent much time with since moving a year ago. Its hard to believe that its only been one year since we got married last July- it feels like so much has been packed into this past year. And it feels like we've been married for much longer, but I suppose thats no surprise since we were married in our hearts and minds for years before the ceremony actually took place.

Chris begins his rotations in the hospital on Monday. Last week was 3rd year "orientation"-- basically a series of lectures designed to squash any remaining hope that the med students have of mantaining any joy in their lives for the next year. Lets hope that its not as bad as they made it out to be. To get him started on the right foot, I want to fix a special treat for him on Sunday. I'm trying to decide between Banana Pudding Icecream and Peanut Butter and Banana Cream Pie. I might also make some Chocolate Sugar Cookies to go with either of the above recipes, since I think that bananas and chocolate are awesome together.

Because of all the work-related business, I haven't done much sewing in the last few weeks (I haven't even done much knitting!). I'm still trying to finish some of the aprons I started so that I can give them as gifts-- I've already been using mine, even though it isn't hemmed and still needs the pockets sewn on! I did make myself a craft apron using some scraps from other projects so that I can keep my scissors and other small tools/supplies handy when I'm in the studio. I'll also use it to keep money, pens, receipt book, etc in at yarn shows. I need to make Kelly one, as well. I found another fun project for using some scraps-- a fabric dog collar! I have the plastic clip part from some old project in the past, so now all I need to do is dig up a D ring and I'll be set. When we take Avi on walks we use a harness, the collar's only real use is as a place to keep her tags, so I'm not concerned about its strength. I've always wanted to knit the dog sweaters but shes never cold, and is a bit large for that type of thing anyway. I think a fabric collar will suit her much better!

Well, I'd better get back to the laundry if we are going to have anything clean to wear to the wedding tomorrow. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend (if you are in the US) or simply a nice summer weekend if you are elsewhere!

Coffee/Tea Swap Box

Earlier this week I got my coffee/tea swap box in the mail from Danido! She sent me so many yummy treats. The coffee is a peaberry variety which I love. Peaberry coffee is so cute- it looks like baby coffee beans! And its from a lroaster that is local to her (in Las Vegas). The tea is a blend that she put together herself and it quite nice. I've already had several cups of each. She also included some coffee flavored candies that are surprisingly flavorfull- they are great for when I don't have time for a real cup of coffee and, oh yeah, they are already half gone. I might have to find a place to buy more. The light colored bars on the left are not bars of fudge, though thats what they look like in person, but bars of soap. We left town right after the box arrived so I haven't had a chance to use the soap yet, but it looks like it will be a very creamy, mild soap. Very nice. And She also sent two tubes of her handmade chapstick and I am addicted. I love this stuff. She sells both the soap and chapstick on her artfire shop, Pale Soap. The little skein of handspun red yarn has the tiniest bit of glittery stuff in it which is very fun. I've already used it to make a teacup handle sweater. I just need to find some cute little buttons to go with it. My picture doesn't show it, but the box also included an ArtFelt kit-- its hiding underneath the note card with the cute sheep drawing on it. I've wet felted, needle felted and fulled before, but ArtFelt uses a technique that seems to combine all three. The kit is for four colorful coasters and I'm looking forward to trying it.

All in all its a really cute package and I'm enjoying it tremendously. So thank you to Dani for such a great gift! I hope she enjoyed the package that I sent her, too!