Crochet Fun

I treated myself to a lovely new crochet book and could not resist trying a few of the patterns immediately with yarn from my stash. I am pretty sure the fall colored blocks (and many more of their siblings) will become a blanket next year.

My Weekend

Finished socks for April.

New yarn.

A new book.

The first harvest.

The weather was very nice, the garden is ready for planting and my allergies are being mean to me but there was cake, cake makes everything better.

Yarn Along

A cold and icy yarn along today. But at least it is sunny. We had some snow on Monday afternoon, quickly followed by freezing rain and now everything is covered with a layer of ice. It thaws a little in the sunshine and then freezes over again.

I plan on knitting at least one pair of socks every month this year and I am already one month behind. These are my January socks. My boy Jack is terrified of the noise the dpns are making and so I try to avoid knitting with them when he is around (I don't like scaring my cats) and since he hangs around me a lot I am not making much progress on my socks. I have already ordered some bamboo needles.

These are the squares for my 2015 Crochet Blanket project. I decided to use the colors I used in the Doctor Who scarf, using up the leftovers and then buying what is needed as I go along.

I am reading War Brides by Helen Bryan.




Joining with Ginny.

Yarn Along

It is a gloriously sunny day with frost on the pumpkins (and everything else) and time for another Yarn Along with Ginny.
One can never have enough shawls, right? That's why I am knitting another one, this one is called "Shaelyn" and I really enjoy it. The pattern is easy to memorize and has a nice rhythm to it. I am knitting with Caron Simply Soft in a dark grey.
I am currently reading "All God's Children" by Anna Schmidt, I am almost finished and I like it a lot, enjoy would not be the right word to use in this case as the story is rather grim, but it is a gripping tale and hard to put down.

Cookbook Purge

As part of my spring cleaning I purged and sorted my cookbooks. I looked through most of them to see if there is anything in them I might actually be cooking and I found two books with really nice recipes. I kept seasonal and international cookbooks, some for reference and some I just can't part with.
I also rearranged the bookshelves and now the smaller books are in the dining room, the big ones on the shelf in the back hallway and those I use a lot are on a shelf in the pantry. And a big laundry basket full of books is waiting to wander over to the library.

Before:

After:

Yarn Along

I have decided to take part in Ginny's yarn along again this year. So here we go.
This week I am knitting Stonecrop, a pattern by Jared Flood as part of a KAL. I have just started on the weekend and the thin yarn makes for slow progress. And I am alternating my reading between "The Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne and "Edge of Eternity" by Ken Follett.

Weekend

We had a nice long weekend, interrupted only by that pesky grocery shopping, which I hate but needs to be done every now and then. The temperature has come down thanks to the first hurricane of the season to hit the Carolina coast. We got a little rain from it, but not as much as we had from other storms in the past, so putting water on the garden was the first thing I did every morning.

We stocked up on fresh fruits and vegetables again and all the makings for cold dinners because we are heading into another week of temperatures in the 90s. Yuck!

Taking advantage of the cooler weather I baked something yummy for the weekend. You can find the recipe here: bake or break
The crust needs some tweaking for my taste, it is way too sweet for people who eat little sweet stuff and it got rather hard, next time I will reduce the baking time for it and use less sugar. The yellow color is from our farmer's market eggs, which have deep yellow, almost orange yolks.

I snapped a couple of pictures of our bunny, through the fly screen, so they are a little fuzzy. It is a very pretty bunny with huge dark eyes. It is really happy that we don't mow that often and is merrily munching the plantains which are plentiful this year.

I even found some time for a bit of crochet. I am still working on squares for my various blankets, but I could not resist another test square for a project that has been rattling around my mind for a while. This time with worsted weight yarn.

I started a batch of fermented pickles, took a FB fast on Sunday, raided the 'Free for Kindle' section on Amazon and started reading one of my 'bucket list books'. "Ulysses" by James Joyce.

Have a great week everyone, stay cool and be kind to yourself.

Reading

I am currently reading "Charlotte Gray" by Sebastian Faulks, one of the many 'yet to be read' books on my shelves. Although the description sounded very interesting it has so far failed to grip me. But since I am only on page 30, I hope it will get more interesting.

This Week ...

... I started fall cleaning with re-organizing the linen closet which left me with a basket full of towels that need new hanging loops and deep cleaning the bed room which yielded a basket full of stuffed animals to be donated to the thrift store.

... I baked something every day (yes, I am baking something today too).

... I cooked dinner every day as usual, these two looked especially photo worthy.

... I took time for having tea, reading and some knitting.

... I spent time with these guys.

It was a good and busy week, how was your week?

Books - Did I like them?

Well, I must admit that I did not care much for "Lark Rise to Candleford", all the class distinction and the lording it over the poor people and them being expected to enjoy their station in life got to me eventually and I gave it up before the end of the third part. Just not my cup of tea.

I did not like the end of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin". It is hard to imagine a guy haunting a woman for 50 years without ever making his presence known to her just because he saw her holding a baby. Come on, not even back then would a man have reacted that way. What a wuss! She was probably better off without him anyway. Other than that I liked most of the book.

I really enjoyed "What Did You Do In the War Mommy?", I have always been a big fan of oral history. The books about the Donner Party were written by survivors who were both children at the time of the tragedy and wrote the books later from memory and with the help of what other people could remember about it. And "Blood Sisters" is an interesting book about women in the French Revolution.

None of the books were re-read. They have been sitting on my shelves unread, a remnant of my days as a book hoarder (inherited from my father) and there are still more. I had read "The Name of the Rose" before in German, but had not remembered how boring and difficult some parts of it are to read, but maybe I just was not in the right mood or it was too hot. ;-)

I usually go to the library or buy used books these days and whenever I read one of my books and feel that it does not need to be sitting on my shelves afterwards I donate it to the library. What they don't use will go into the library's used book sale.

I am currently reading through some books that are actually meant for young readers and I really like them. I was thinking about donating them but maybe I will keep them after all. :-)

Books

It was too hot to do much of anything while I was away so I spent a lot of time sitting in front of the fan, reading. Here is the pile I worked my way through. They are all my books, some have been sitting on the shelves for quite a while. Not only do I have a fabric stash, I also have a book stash. ;-)

Yarn Along

Well, here it is at last, my new knitting project. It is my second try at the "Hermia cardigan". I knitted my first one with a wool yarn that had been in my stash for a while and while I was working on the sleeves I noticed a huge hole in the back. The yarn had simply disintegrated. Maybe it had been in my stash too long, there was no sign of moths or anything, it just fell apart.
Now for my second try I am using a wool blend, the blend part is the sprinkles, the wool is the green yarn. I like the color, it is definitely a new one for me. I just started on the lace part but I ran out of yarn and need to get some more this weekend.
I started my 'summer reading'. Pure entertainment, Jan Karon - the first 4 books of the Mitford series and some Rosamunde Pilcher books that have been sitting on my shelves for ages.

 

Joining with Ginny over at Small Things.

Weekend

My weekend contained:

Picking lots of raspberries.

The library book sale.

A trip to the farmers market and the first peaches of the season.

Also a lot of reading and eating and a new knitting project, but more about that later.

Yarn Along

Good morning friends. Time for another yarn along with Ginny. I am on the last part of my Simply Hilary shawl. I am supposed to start the edging but I think I am going to add another pattern repeat first. I like my shawls a little bigger. And I finally put 'Under the Tuscan Sun' aside and started to re-read and old favorite of mine "Hawaii" by James A. Michener. It has been a very long time since I read it for the first time.

Yarn Along

Happy Wednesday everyone. Here it is wet and foggy this morning. I hope you have some sunshine wherever you are. Time to join with Ginny for another yarn along.

After I finished my last shawl I cast on the next one. The pattern is called "Simply Hilary" and once you get into it it is pretty easy. I had to get used to increase the stitches by making a new stitch rather than doing a yarn over as in many other patterns. The yarn is 'I Love this Wool' from Hobby Lobby. I am still chewing through 'Under the Tuscan Sun' I just cannot warm up to this book. It looks like whoever owned it before me gave up on it just a little bit further in than I am now. I found an airline ticket stub that was used as a bookmark (why does nobody ever use hundred dollar notes for bookmarks and then forget them? ;-) ).

Have a great day everyone!

Yarn Along

I did not have much time to read lately, but I always have time for knitting. I am purging my cookbooks and so I have been looking through them to decide which ones to keep and which ones to give away. We are in the middle of a major re-organizing project and I am taking the opportunity for some decluttering.
My latest knitting project is another shawl. I am using this pattern and the yarn is Diva Sequin from Yarn Bee in Scottish Heather. It knits a lot better than I thought and I have only two more pattern repeats to go.

Hop on over to Ginny to see what others are knitting and reading this week.

Yarn Along

Good morning friends! Time for another yarn along with Ginny.
I am knitting a new purple cowl. The pattern is a freebie from the yarn company, the yarn is Patons Lace Sequin in Amethyst. I was not sure about the tiny sequins in the yarn but I loved the color so much I bought it anyway. I do not feel them while knitting and they add just a little sparkle. I must say though that I like the wrong side of the pattern a lot more than the right side. Last night one of the kittens managed to quietly chew through the yarn and later I picked up what I thought was a dropped stitch, turned out it must have been something else because I ended up with one stitch too many. Had to un-knit one row (luckily just one) and do something with the extra stitch (it turned out to be a dropped stitch after all I just did not pull it all the way up to the right row). I am still reading 'Under the Tuscan Sun'.

Yarn Along

Another Wednesday is upon us and with it a new yarn along over at Ginny's.
I finished the Lush-ious Swirl Cowl I started last week and also my book. I liked the pattern for the cowl so much that I cast on another one with some re-purposed yarn. The pattern has such a nice rhythm to it. I am starting the next book from the library sale "Under the Tuscan Sun" by Frances Mayes.

Yarn Along

Time to join Ginny for another yarn along. I always enjoy seeing what other people are reading and knitting and I have found quite a lot of inspiration that way.

I have just finished last week's book - "Star of the Sea" by Joseph O'Connor and enjoyed it a lot. It is a dark story, set in the time of the famine in Ireland but very well written and it keeps up the suspense all the way to the rather surprising end.

This week I will start reading "The Road from Chapel Hill" by Joanna Catherine Scott. The story takes place in NC during the Civil War. I bought it at the library's used book sale and it sounded interesting. And I am about to start knitting a cowl for myself.

"New" Books

Just as we had finished our nice and quiet (the kittens were confined to the living room) weekend breakfast and had begun to settle in for a 'domestic' day, it dawned on me that there was something we wanted to do this morning. Oh yeah, the library's used book sale. We got dressed in a hurry and off we went. Here is what I came home with.

The craft books had either been picked over good already or there were not too many this year. Del found the quilting book for me. And since we were already out and about we ran a few errands and now we will settle in for a nice 'domestic' weekend.
Have a good one y'all!