Morning

The morning glories have taken over the sunflowers. I like to keep a part of the garden a bit wild for all kinds of critters and bugs and bees. Besides, it looks kind of romantic.

Knitting, Sewing and Picking

I finished the Sunday Morning Shawl yesterday. There are almost 1200 stitches in the ruffles around the edge and it took me over 1 hour to bind them off. But I am very pleased with the result and I am now trying to find out what the pattern looks like in a thicker yarn. I frogged the purple shrug which looked simply awful on me and I am using that yarn for it.

Today I finally finished the new mantel quilt, the final step of bringing new colors into the living room.

Miss Kitty was all tuckered out after helping me sew.

And I am picking tomatoes, lots of them, I totally forgot to take a picture of yesterday's harvest, this is from the day before.

Thunderstorm and Sunset ...

... created an eerie light and fantastic colors in the sky.

This and That

The green things in the garden seem to be winding down and the red, yellow and orange things are taking over.

We planted a bed of wildflowers for birds and butterflies this year and I added some zinnias and sunflowers. I cut three of the zinnias for this little bouquet.

The thrift store had a lot of upholstery fabric sample books today, for a dollar each. Here are the ones I got. I don't know yet what I will be using them for but I am sure I will come up with some ideas.

I am still knitting hats and scarves for the homeless shelter and working on my Sunday Morning Shawl and I have been watching the Tour de France all week. It has been very hot with some thunderstorms and heavy rain in between. Not much else to report, oh well, no news is good news. :-)

Recent Harvest

Still Cooking Zucchini

Ratatouille with white beans and couscous.

Pasta sauce with bacon, zucchini and tomatoes.

More Placemats

I liked them so much, I made another set in a different color.

Finished!

Another project finished. The flowers have been finished for a while it just took me forever to get them stitched together because so many other things got in the way. Another step on the way to new colors for the living room. I still have a new mantel quilt and a second cushion cover to finish.

All Grown Up

New Placemats

Beauty In My Garden

Pizza Dough

My recipe for pizza dough is very simple and works out fine every time.

You need:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (if you like a softer chewy crust use bread flour)
1 packet of dry yeast (or 1 Tbs of the good stuff from the health food store, which ours sadly no longer carries)
salt
enough warm water to make a soft but not sticky dough.
Knead with electric mixer until ball forms then knead some more with your hands until dough is smooth. Shape into a ball.
Cover and let rise until about double in size (usually I let mine rise for about 2 hours).


PS: Yesterday's muffins were blueberry. :)

Sunday