works in progress, reading, apples...

I really loved reading all your comments last post...thanks for the breakfast ideas. Kim, I have to say I have never had peanut butter on pancakes, but I thought maybe my daughter would like that as she really doesn't like syrup. I have done oatmeal in the crockpot like Lisa...really good with cinnamon and apples. And thanks Jody for the cornbread idea...I have one of those cast iron pans that makes the cornsticks, but I have never done cornbread in the skillet. I hope it isn't a dumb question, but is it cooked in the oven or stovetop?

Since I finished my husband's hat, I got started on the tea cosy. It's really fun knitting with these bright bold stripes...

I've also been working on this reversible winter capelet I started last winter. I ran out of yarn at the end and it's been tucked away til now. Just the ribbing on the sleeves is left to be done...

I found this Robert Kaufmann cherry fabric at Joanns recently, and it reminded me of a Cath Kidston fabric in blue and red that I love but sadly don't find where I live. I want to make a tote or book bag out of it...

At the library this week I picked up Where Women Create. Wow, what great studios filled with wonderful ideas for storage, organizing, and just creating a beautiful work space. Definitely has me inspired...

Today I'm making some apple sauce and hopefully some scrumptious apple bread that is a favorite around here every fall. I will try to post the recipe here next week. This is the little tool that makes it all possible...

...it's the apple peeling gizmo from LLBean and it's the greatest for peeling and slicing apples. I just realized I chopped off the handle in my picture, but you can find it here.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

corners of my home & more

Although I didn't actually plan to, it seems I've taken a blogging break ~ I can't believe I haven't posted in almost a week. After a little bit of rain last weekend, we've had some really nice fall days which I've taken advantage of to work outside. One morning I spent cleaning out my front flower bed and several days were spent painting more exterior doors and shutters. Today the rain is back with us...the best shot I could get for 'corners of my home' is this pitcher of flowers on the kitchen table ~ some white roses, pink dahlias, lavender, & catmint...

Over the weekend I did get the hat finished for my husband...

So far, I have loved any yarn that I have ordered from KnitPicks. For this hat I used 'Main Line' which is 75% pima cotton and 25% merino wool ~ it has a beautiful soft feel to it. It's perfect for my husband who does not care for wool.

Lastly, I thought I would share with you some of my ideas for breakfast, which had become a bit boring at our house lately. Homemade granola:

Mix together 5 c. oatmeal, 1/2 c. dry milk, 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1 c. coconut, 1 c. wheat germ & some nuts if desired ( I love pecans in this). Sometimes I also add some sunflower seeds or flax seed.

Mix together 1/3 c. veg oil and 1/3 c. honey and pour over the dry ingredients. Mix well.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, stirring halfway through.

After baking you could also add dried cherries, dates, or raisins.

I have also been making homemade yogurt in my new Salton yogurt maker. So simple and much more economical than buying the little cartons, and less sugar!! I love to have a bowl of it with some fresh fruit and granola sprinkled on top.

And something I haven't made in ages...crepes. I cooked some the other morning and we ate them with some fresh peaches and a little whipped cream ~ heavenly!!

What is a favorite for breakfast at your house?

Vintage Knitting

I love to buy old knitting patterns, the weirder the better, from Laurie at Vintage Knits. My personal fave vintage pattern is one for a tiny knitted golf bag (with clubs!) which I've shown here before.

Often these old booklets have hand-written notes and recipes tucked in them. The front of this one says, "Mildred, I have another like this so keep." Apparently the knitted turban pattern was quite popular in 1962.




This 1961 issue of McCall's Needlework and Crafts shows a living room scene. Do you think many people in 1961 had gravel and ponds in their living rooms?



I love the photo styling for these patterns, don't you?




Check out the wild knitted cottage tea cozy. To the bottom left of the photo is a brown knitted bull. It doesn't really look like a bull but I'm glad I have a pattern for one anyway.

I've had a few questions from people about downloading my patterns and booklets at the Lulu store. You go to the store, add the items to your cart, then pay. Then you click on "My Account" at the top of the page. Then you either click on the name of the item or the little round download graphic at the right to download it.

Let me know if that works out - otherwise I can email anyone the .PDF files if they're having problems. Also, I wanted to let everyone know that
Stranded Color Knitting has now sold over 600 copies. I remember when I wrote it thinking that selling 300 copies would surpass my wildest dreams. Thanks to everyone for purchasing it and helping rabbit rescue!

Tomorrow I'm going to have some wild and wacky vintage knitting patterns to show you.

work in progress Friday...

My yarn order has arrived from KnitPicks...this should keep me busy for some time. Plans include a sweater, hats for husband and daughter, and some fingerless gloves.

My husband has been waiting most patiently for a hat since last winter, so I have started on that first thing. I'm using Main Line, which is mostly cotton with some merino wool [he and wool don't get along well], in Ink with the lighter color around the brim. It was so comforting and relaxing to sit knitting last night with a cup of camomile tea.

When I was at the library this week I picked up this book ~ Hip Knit Hats. Looking through I saw a lot of cute hats, as did my daughter. She has several picked out that she would like...

And this is the Lion Wool, Lemongrass & Rose, that I bought for the tea cosy I saw in the Lion Yarn catalog. I am just itching to get started on it. The colors are not my usual choices...I'm usually kind of boring, sticking to more neutral or calmer colors. But, when I saw the picture in the catalog [the cosy on the far right] it looked so appealing ~ reminds me of the colors in my coleus!

The weekend weather forecast here is predicting rain ~ not good, as I'm working the refreshment booth tomorrow at Stephanie's riding event; but for the rest of the weekend I'm looking forward to keeping dry & cosy inside, fitting in as much knitting as possible.

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

corners of my home & some finished sewing

In my sunroom I have a little three legged stool that I found at a sale. It looked pretty sad and needed recovering. I love to collect old & new pieces of needlepoint, so I chose a piece to fit the stool and stapled it on.

To cover the edges and to give it a more playful look I added some pom pom fringe. I love refurbishing old footstools ~ it's usually quick and easy which makes for a fun project.

I finished up some of the several sewing projects I have started. Last night I finished this bag for myself. I had seen something similar, a book bag I think, at American Eagle recently when out shopping for my son. It's a very plain khaki twill on the outside, so inside I lined it with a large floral in fall colors and lined the handle in the same. I added grommets to the sides and attached the handle with some large metal clips. It has a magnetic clasp and some roomy pockets inside...

I also finished up a batch of tissue holders for the shop...

Thanks everyone, for all your wonderful comments ~ I look forward to them so much!

Although DH and I are procrastinating about buying a house, I have been thinking a lot about my future knitting/sewing room. I've been looking over photos of people's craft rooms at this Flickr site along with the artist's studios HERE. There's a lot of inspiration on the web for getting organized.

I know the room will be white. I plan to hang a lot of my knitted items and designs on the walls so this will be the only white room. I also know there will not be carpet - if we have to we'll install Pergo or even a fun color of linoleum. I need bookcases and storage for spools of sewing thread and a cutting table and a sewing desk and a file cabinet and a spot for my spinning wheel.

And of course I need a place for all my yarn. I'll probably continue using the neat cubes storage system I already use but I really need to neaten it all up.

scrapbooking/collage

A while ago Lisa asked to see some of my scrapbooking/collage work, as I had mentioned that I keep my scrapbooking supplies in an old suitcase. This is it ~ it's great for holding my collection of clipart, decorative papers, old books, photo corners, glue, etc...

I don't have any scrapbook pages to show for all this...the only projects I've done so far are of a collage nature. This little decoupaged noteholder below is from a Charlotte Lyons book, which I posted more about here...

I have also done quite a few notebooks like the one below, which started out as an ordinary composition notebook...

My daughter is a much better artist than I, so I thought I would include some of the collages she's done.

In case you haven't guessed, she loves horses...has been riding for 11 years. To the one below she added some cork at the bottom to hold notes...

I just want to thank everyone who purchased the travel tissue holders from Firefly Farm. Hopefully I will get some more listed in the next day or two. The weather is so beautiful, I'm headed out to do some more painting...the barn door is today's project.

Enjoy the day!

Here's the photo I chose of Peaches to enter the CO HRS rabbit photo calendar contest. There really weren't any other finalists. I have cuter photos but this one completely captures her grumpy-sweet essence. You can't quite tell if she's about to come up to you to be petted or to charge growling because you're not opening the treat container quickly enough. I'm keeping my fingers crossed as there are prizes (baskets of rabbit treats) for the top finishers in the contest.

Corners of my Home Thursday

O.K., this is probably not a [kitchen] corner that anyone is dying to see, but it is a rainy gloomy day here and I was pretty limited as to where I could get a half-way decent picture. I just wanted to show you this idea I borrowed from Martha for disguising the trash using an old pickling crock....

In Martha's book, Good Things for Organizing [love this book], she had a roofer make aluminum lids to fit various sized crocks which could then be used to store garbage, recyclables, or even dry pet food. Instead of an aluminum lid, my husband made a wooden lid for me out of a 3/4" thick piece of plywood cut to the diameter of the crock. I added a wooden ball for a knob on top, painted it, and distressed it a bit. Then I bought a tall plastic wastebasket to fit inside and lined it with a trash bag...voila!

Have a great day everyone!!!

I'm working on the foot on the PGR socks. The colors are a bit darker than in this photo but still not as exciting as the colors used in the book.




We got lots of good stuff in our CSA box this week including roasted green chiles and more excellent strawberries. I have to admit I'm not that fond of purple potatoes even though purple is my favorite color. I'm going to make baba ghanoush for the first time with the eggplants.




I have to choose a photo of Peaches for the Colorado House Rabbit Society's calendar photo contest. I'll show the finalists here tomorrow.

Tuesday ramblings...

Life around here has seemed a bit hectic of late...this past weekend we spent some time splitting and stacking firewood for the woodstove, which I know I will really be appreciating before long. The other night, temps in some of the surrounding areas dipped down into the 40's.

I did finish up the travel tissue holders and managed to get them listed in my shop, along with a zippered pouch. For a limited time, I will be offering the tissue holders for $5 U.S. with free shipping in the continental U.S. ...

Thanks to dear Clarice the first sale is wrapped and was shipped out today...

The chickens have sensed the shorter days and have not been laying their usual amount...some days I have to go out to the henhouse and give them a pep talk :) Sadly, I had to resort to buying a dozen over the weekend. But yesterday when I went to gather eggs I had a pleasant surprise; one of our new araucana chickens had laid a little pullet egg in a beautiful blue~green color...

Over the weekend I also ordered yarn from KnitPicks for the fingerless gloves, hat, and a sweater. Then today the Lion Brand Yarn fall/winter catalog came, and it has some really cute knitting projects ~ some of my favorites are a tea cosy by Nancy Meier, some striped pet mats, felted ballet slippers and potholders, and some beautiful felted flowers. A lot of the patterns are available for free on their website. So many projects...so little time...

Christmas Knitting in Color booklet

The Christmas Knitting in Color booklet is officially ready for purchase at my Lulu store. There are four patterns - the Hollyberry Gauntlet Mittens, Knitted Christmas Lights, Child's Holiday Gift Hat, and the Knitted Poinsettia. I also included my recipe for Painted Sugar Cookies. The price is $11.99 for a print copy or $5.51 for a .PDF/ebook download. There are quite a few color photos and color charts and as before, all profits go to nonprofit rabbit rescue.

More information on the booklet and my other knitting patterns HERE.
More info on my Stranded Color Knitting technique booklet HERE.

Work in Progress Friday

We've been having some beautiful weather here the last couple days, so not a lot of crafting going on. I'm still painting shutters and am also working on the doors...all getting a new color...and have quite aways to go. But in between I've been sewing up some tissue holders to add to my Firefly Farm shop. I made a bunch of these years ago for myself and as gifts. I started thinking about them lately and how they would be a good way to use up those small fabric remnants, both old and new. I have sewn up some and am in the process of adding a vintage button to each.

Now I'm off to mow the lawn.

Have a great Friday!

Here are the Northeast Iranian/Afghani Socks from PGR's Ethnic Socks and Stockings. There are a few 3-color rows and the colors on the chart aren't completely the same as the colors shown in the sock photo. The chart has several colors that are very difficult to distinguish from each other so I'm going to just end up fudging the colors as I see fit. I'm using size 3 dpns and yarn from the sock yarn stash.

Corners of my ... garden

Although I love fall, I am not in a rush. Summers here are much too short so I want to enjoy it as long as possible. As I took my walk, though, I could see that fall will soon be upon us. The pears are ripening on my little pear tree...

Over the weekend I harvested the few pumpkins we had and some gourds...well they were supposed to be gourds, but I think they cross pollinated with the pumpkins. Next year I must remember not to plant them side by side...

The allysum and morning glories by the barn are in their final glory...

This little garden is just filling out....

And I know fall is near because I have begun to think about knitting. In fact, I found two patterns from Knitty that I can't wait to try ~ a hat for my husband [long overdue] and some 'Fetching' cabled fingerless gloves because I love fingerless gloves. I think tonight I will browse the yarn catalogs...

Knitted Poinsettia

Here is the knitted poinsettia. It is easy and fast to knit and I think it could be used on top of a hat, in a Christmas tree, in a wreath, or as part of a holiday centerpiece. I should finish the Christmas booklet by Sunday night. I can't seem to get the colors right as usual but the dark leaves are green, not black.



Here are all four patterns again:




My next knitting project will be a pair of socks from Priscilla Gibson-Robert's Ethnic Socks and Stockings. I'm not sure which pattern but preferably something without intarsia in the round. I need something mindless to do this week while finishing the booklet.

Anne sent me these photos of an adorable dog coat she knit. The dog is a Chihuahua puppy named Josie who belongs to her friends. She used Kroy sock yarn and one of Charlene Schurch’s sock patterns as a rough guide. As she turned the heel, she did two 10 stitch buttonholes, and used an Alice Starmore Fair Isle chart for the center snowflake. Once the little coat was finished, she picked up stitches at the buttonholes and knitted a k1p1 rib tube for about an inch to cover Josie’s little fore-legs. I just love the colors she chose and the excellent fit of the sweater.

Labor Day weekend...

I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Most of our weekend was rainy but yesterday the sun came out and we enjoyed a beautiful day here with family. My husband and I were up early and off to the flea market, and then in the afternoon we had family over for dinner ~ marinated chicken tenderloins on the grill, oven roasted garlic potatoes with thyme & rosemary, artisan bread, and tomato, mozzarella & basil salad. For dessert, my mom made a yummy chocolate pizza which the kids loved, and I made the Gateau Moelleux au Chocolat [french chocolate cake] that Clarice posted here a while back on her blog. It is delicious!!!!

I came home from the flea market with a bag of fabrics and this pair of curtains below ~ a tote bag maybe?...

Here are the fabrics I got...some mini prints, some vintage, a linen calendar towel, and a couple reproduction vintage childrens prints...

I also picked up this vintage tablecloth and a bag of zippers for 25 cents...

Last week, I think, Copper's Wife asked how I dry my hydrangeas, so here is a shot of them drying right now in my dining room...

I like to wait til late in the summer before I cut them; that just seems to work better for me. Then I just attach a rubber band to a small bunch of them and hang. I don't spray them with a preservative only because I'm not really familiar with any. My dried hydrangeas do lose their color over time and I have often wondered if there is a product that would prevent that?

Have a great day!!!