knitting time

While I'm sad that summer is drawing to a close around here, I'm getting excited to get back into knitting for the fall and winter. I've got two new protégés to teach (Jon and my sister, Rachel), and I'm on the lookout for new things to try myself.

 
A few weeks ago I picked up 5 skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca with only
a vague idea of what I wanted to make. I've never gone into a yarn
store and bought anything on a whim before like this, so I was lucky to
find the perfect pattern for this yarn! I'm planning on making Olive's
afghan that's featured on the cover of knitalong
(zig zag afghan, bottom middle). It's actually made in the yarn that I
purchased, so I'm all set to go. I just got the book in the mail and
now I just need to wind these hanks into a ball.

PS. You can check out Craftsanity's interview with the authors of knitalong here.

canning

My grandma gave me a do it yourself canning starter kit from her personal collection and I finally got to put it to good use yesterday. It's too bad that gardens aren't harvested in the winter when a hot and steamy kitchen would be a welcome temperature from the outside cold!

I made some crushed tomatoes

and some peach jam

My new canning book is going to get a workout this fall.

It was so exciting to boil the peaches and tomatoes and then miraculously peel off the skin in preparation for canning. But, the thrill ran out after about 3 skin peels...oh well!

For all of you canning experts reading, do you have any tips for getting the chunks in the jam to spread out evenly through the whole jar? I tried pushing them to the bottom with a bamboo skewer, but they just floated back up to the top.

And...here's my favorite new vegetable that we're growing this summer: japanese eggplant. Isn't the color gorgeous?! It's so tasty in Jon's vegetable stir fry.

garden fresh

It's harvest time around here. We are so appreciative of all our our work during the summer when we're able to use and enjoy our fresh vegetables and flowers.

We spent Saturday and Sunday entertaining friends and here are a few things that we made to eat. It was so much fun to spend Saturday afternoon in the kitchen with Jon playing with vegetables!

Lemony Tuna Salad by Rachael Ray

Greek Pasta Salad (a summer favorite! The dressing is delicious)

Veggie Kabobs

Fresh Basil for basil pesto

And, excitement of all excitement, I'm blogging from my new iMac. My four year old Powerbook, while it's been great for me, will no longer cut it for my grad school computer classes, so I had to do a little upgrade. Thank goodness for my student discount (with my new, official school ID!) and a free printer and ipod (for Jon).

fresh food/felt food

Our garden is in full production mode and we've been having fun putting together semi-local meals this summer!

This afternoon, I tried out my new cheesemaking kit (a birthday present from my parents) and attempted to make mozzarella. Let's just say that a caprese salad covered up the taste just enough to make it a good meal. Next time, I'll be sure and use a stainless steal pan, whole milk and cheese salt to make the cheese taste how it should!

We're starting to rake in the tomatoes and next weekend I hope to can up our stock with canned tomatoes and tomato sauce. Jon and I both prefer the cooked version of tomatoes, so we really only grow them to can or freeze them.

My parents also got me the book Warm Fuzzies for my birthday. I went thrifting for wool sweaters a few weeks ago and found four different wool sweaters in one store! What can I say? Michigan is a chilly place!

So, I made this little cupcake and trimmed it with some ribbon that I found at a sewing expo last year. Decor8 had a nice little feature on their booth, Nifty Thrifty Dry Goods, a while back. Unfortunately, they do not have a retail or web store.

up north

I had a relaxing weekend up north with my friend, Catherine, and her mom at her mom's lovely home in the woods. There was lots of napping, Olympic watching, reading and sewing going on.

We had lots of fun watching their 3 (or 4) hummingbirds fighting for the feeder.

 

And I finished this sublime stitching embroidery pattern (from the Craft Pad) while I was there and turned it into a tea towel this afternoon. I was a little burnt out on embroidery after my stitchette mania last winter, but it's so much fun to break out the bright thread and play around with color combos.

it isn't summer without...

-an abundance of zucchini from our garden. So far we've made chocolate zucchini muffins, zucchini bread, sauteed zucchini, zucchini stir fry, and this delicious zucchini crustless quiche...and we still have tons of zucchini to eat up!

-a trip "up north." This was my first time tubing...it seemed a lot more dangerous than this picture makes it look. I'm pretty sure I was screaming the whole time!

-Rainbow jello! I got the recipe for this from my friend's mom back when I was in college. Here's the recipe:

You'll need:
a half gallon of sherbet (any color or flavor)
6 different packs of jello: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
a 9x12 glass pan

Starting with the purple jello, mix one cup of boiling water with pack of jello mix. Whisk for about 2 minutes, then add 1 cup of sherbet. When it's well mixed, pour into glass pan and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Repeat 5 more times with the remaining colors.

According to reliable sources, this tastes just like skittles or sweet tarts.

finished quilt tops

It's been a productive week around here! I finished the Plain Spoken
top on Wednesday night. I've been procrastinating making this quilt
because I was always so paranoid about not having matching corners and
matching corners is what this quilt is all about. I guess I've been
improving in the area of accuracy because about 95% of the corners
match on this top. For that other 5%, the corners are pretty close! I'm
glad I waited a while to attempt this. Once I pick out a backing for
this quilt, I'll get started on the quilting part.

Do you have any
great up-close pictures of free-motion quilting that you've done
yourself or that you've collected in your internet browsing? If so,
please link because I'd like to try something different than the normal
stippling that I do for this quilt.

and I finished the quilt top for my Common Threads Quilt last night. You can read more details here.