WIP Wednesday

I ran out of yarn for the white shawl which is not a problem since it is a no dye lot and I can buy more when I get to Michael's the next time and I don't need it finished until the end of October.

I made some progress on the mint green shawl but I still have a long way to go. I am at over 200 stitches per row now and it can get a bit boring knitting these long rows.


And my little curtain has grown a bit too.


No sewing here this week. I was a bit under the weather and did not feel up to much of anything.

Beans

I harvested the first dry pinto beans from my garden, aren't they pretty?


I had not even planned on growing them but after my tomatoes died I just stuck three beans in the soil and they did really well. The watermelon I planted just for fun is doing well too and we have several melons growing on it.

We have a winner!

The drawing (my assistant was sound asleep most of the day):

And the Winner is:

Cindi, please email me with your mailing address and whether you want booties or a dishcloth and which color you would prefer (I try to match it if I have it).

Giveaway

To celebrate my 350th blog post I am giving away either a pair of baby booties or one of my dishcloths. If you want to play just leave a comment on this post and my trusty assistant and I will pick a winner on Saturday. Winner gets to chose what she/he wants. :)

Everyone is welcome to play.

Note: This post will stay on top of my blog until Saturday, scroll down for new ones during the week.

Pink Rainbow

Busy Day

I just finished the top for the table topper that will become part of my Fall decoration this year. I forgot to mention in my earlier post that all patterns are from the book The Quilter's Home: Fall by Lois K. Fletcher and that all the fabrics for everything I made recently came from my stash (blush).


I have bread dough rising nicely in the kitchen and I will now fix myself a very late lunch - tomato and cheese tortilla, fruit and homemade ginger ale - then settle down with some knitting and crocheting until it is time to start the pizza dough for dinner.

Bookmark

I just finished the bookmark for my Dad. I used 6 different green fabrics from my Dear Jane stash, a crazy patch pattern from Sew Precise and some gold colored thread for the decorative stitches. I found the beaded trim recently at our dollar store. The bookmark is not quilted but I used a stiff interface when I did the embroidery, that gives it enough body. I like the way it turned out and hope my Dad will like it too.


We have heavy thunderstorms move through our area today. Yikes. We need the rain but I sure could to without all the lightning and thunder, as does Miss K.

WIP Wednesday

I am currently working on some quilted Fall decorations for the house. A mantel quilt, a tiny squirrel wall hanging, that will be hung from a twig and a table topper.
So far the tops for the mantle quilt and the wall hanging are finished.


I am also knitting two shawls, same pattern, completely different yarns. The white one is worsted weight (Red Heart Soft Yarn) the mint one is lace weight (no idea what yarn it is, I bought it on Ebay because it looked pretty). They are both meant to become birthday presents this Fall.


And I am crocheting a small curtain for a shelf in my pantry that holds mainly tea packages and cookbooks. It will look a lot neater with a curtain. The pattern is from an old German Burda magazine.


Today I will also make a crazy patch/beaded bookmark for my Dad's birthday.

Cooking

My pantry needs a turnover so I decided to cook this week mainly from what I have plus a few items we bought on Saturday and whatever is ready in the garden.

Last night we had a ratatouille like veggie stew with white beans served with couscous and watermelon (store bought) for dessert. The tentative menu for the rest of the week:

miso soup with green beans, cucumber sushi-rolls
rice and bean burritos
tuna pizza with onions and olives
potato and pasta fry (old Austrian recipe, better than it sounds ;) ) with green salad

I am also going to bake bread tomorrow and make a batch of chocolate cup cakes for Del's lunch box. For desserts we are going to have watermelon and maybe some Jello along the way.

Sewing

I finally decided on how I wanted my kitchen curtains. :) I used a white cotton fabric with yellow lemons printed all over that I bought a long time ago at Ikea. I ruffled them a bit so they would not get tangled up with the cactus on the window sill and I am pleased with them.
The days are getting noticeably shorter and it is still dark when we get up in the morning and I don't like seeing myself and my kitchen reflected in the dark windows. Now I see sunny lemons instead. :)

Storm Clouds

Outside my Window

A Day in My Life - July 14, 2008

Woke up at 6 am to a dark and wet day. Fed my last remaining garden cat, the resident princess had been fed earlier by Del. Started the coffee, packed Del's lunch box, made breakfast. Del left a bit after 7 am and my day began.

I spent some time on the computer, downloading the daily photos from Webshots, checking email and reading through my daily blogs. Then I cleared up some paperwork (mainly craft patterns and recipes that have collected everywhere) and played with Miss Kitty, who hates dreary weather and is very restless. I picked out some photos to send to my parents with my next letter, tidied up a bit and then headed to the kitchen.

I made yogurt, a batch of granola and apple crisp, baked an apple loaf cake and banana chocolate chips muffins. As some of my regular readers might be guessing by now, I had some wrinkly apples (happens quickly in the heat) and overripe bananas. :)



While the various goodies were baking, I worked on another scarf for Christmas at Sea and read a few more chapters of my current book - Women's Voices from the Mother Lode. I also made a gift bag for the mittens using a brown paper lunch bag, I printed out a picture of some balloons and glued them to the front, made two holes in the top and treaded one of my ribbons through them.


By 10.30 the weather had cleared up and the rain never came so I washed and hung a load of laundry. By 11.30 it was very warm and sunny so I washed a second load. By then all my baking was done and I treated myself to a glass of iced coffee and a slice of my freshly baked apple cake and one of the muffins too.


In the afternoon I weeded out some magazines, tried a new knitting pattern, copied some patterns for a new Fall quilt, washed dishes, took the laundry in and made pizza dough for dinner.

Del will be home soon, we'll have pizza with spinach and feta cheese for dinner, watermelon for dessert. Then we will be watering the garden, take Miss Kitty outside for a bit and end the day watching the newest episode of The Closer.

Knitting

We have been invited to a birthday party next weekend and that gave me the perfect excuse to start a new knitting project. ;) I wanted to make these for a while but since I have so many projects in work right now I did not allow myself to begin them. Well, not only did I start them I even finished them in one weekend. I used a ball of self striping sock yarn I had on hand and although I was doubtful that they would fit (they look so tiny) they turned out nicely and they fit. They stretch enough to fit bigger hands as well. I combined two of the patterns making a ribbed cuff and smooth body, finishing with a bit of garter stitch to avoid rolling. I am quite pleased with them and will make some for myself as well.

WIP Wednesday

I currently have two quilts basted and waiting to be quilted.

And I am working on two yarn projects. One is a knitted lace scarf, that will hopefully become a birthday present this fall. I am using this pattern for it.



The other one is a crochet scarf for myself. I am using the same pattern I used for the dishcloths, it is actually a pattern for a wrap and you can find it here.

Food from the Garden

Yesterday's harvest.

Bird Watching

The Watcher

The Watched

Monday

I am feeling a lot better, looks like I am finally getting out of the dark place I have been in the last one and a half weeks.

Today I did some sewing. I made 10 cooling scarves for Project Keeping Cadence. Our church pledged to make 300 of these and I took 30 of them. Turning them takes longer than stitching them up. ;)


I also got the background for my next 12 x 12 x 12 piece made.


Here are some new dishcloths I made over the weekend. They are crochet and I mainly wanted to see how the yarns turn out when worked up.


For dinner I made a zucchini tart. I changed a recipe for asparagus tart around a bit and come up with this:

You need:

1 pie crust (I made mine from scratch)
2 small zucchinis
2/3 cup of buttermilk
1/2 cup grated parmesan
2 eggs
salt, white pepper, nutmeg to taste

Put the pie crust into a 9" pan, pierce all over with fork and bake for about 15 minutes at 450°. Let cool on rack, reduce heat to 375°.

Slice the zucchinis, boil in saltwater until crisp tender, let them drain in a sieve for a while, then arrange them on the crust.

Mix the eggs, buttermilk, parmesan and spices in a bowl and pour over the zucchini. Bake for about 35 minutes at 375°.

It was pretty good, maybe next time I add a little ham. The zucchinis came from my garden.

My garden is doing well. Since the unfortunate cat incident we have only one cat still coming and occasionally the big yellow tom shows up. But now we have more birds than ever and tonight I saw a hummingbird for the first time. We put up our hummingbird feeder two weeks ago and I was hoping there would be some in the area. We always had them on our balcony in the apartment and I love watching them. Tonight when we got ready to take Miss Kitty out into the garden one of them was sitting on the clothesline, then he flew down and hovered by the nasturtium. I am really happy about it, I love the tiny birds.

This is what we picked the past few days:



And last but not least a picture of my little princess. :)

Wedding Gift

Friends of ours back in Vienna are getting married. I wanted to give them a handmade gift that was simple, pretty, useful and easy to mail (and light considering the price for overseas shipping these days). I found inspiration here and came up with this:


Simple white gift boxes, ribbons from my collection and pretty gift tags that I got in a pay it forward exchange from Deb round out the gift. I hope they will like it.

Summer Reading

I have quite a collection of books about pioneer women and I decided to start reading through it this Summer.

Happy 4th of July