Chicken in a Basket

A Beep update:  Beep is about 10 weeks old now and has the cheeky personality of her mama, Blackberry. Having been hatched in my bra (!), raised in the house and coddled by children, Beep has no fear when it comes to the whims of little boys.  This morning, little boy wanted to take Beep for a ride, so he and dad rigged up a little basket on the front of his bike, plopped Beep into it and pushed off.  Beep just got cozy and enjoyed the ride.

We still don't know if Beep is a rooster or a hen (gosh, I am sure hoping for a hen after all the roosters we hatched this year!), but we are reserving guesses for a later date.  Seeing as our precious "Princess Leia" turned out to be a prince and not a princess at all, and we didn't figure that out until he was probably 20 weeks old, we are going to wait, with fingers crossed.

Cast Off, Cast On

Well!  It's Done.  My sweater!  It's the Eyelet Yoke Sweater by Pink Brutus Knits.  And it's lovely.

No sewing, knit in the round.  I love it so much, I think I'll do another one.

And I, in fine form, now have several projects on the go:  mitts for my little lady, from the latest Taproot Magazine; and I want to do a mobius.  Nothing like spending a dark cozy evening snuggled up to the fireplace with my knitting.

It must be winter.

A Dress for Dolly

My dear daughter has become a bit obsessed with a certain type of doll - the Maplelea Doll.  I don't quite get it, but then, do I need to?  I'm more of a Waldorf-y doll lover myself, if I can even call myself a doll lover.  I was never one to play dress up with dolls; I preferred to play with my imaginary animals, or later, my real ones, or ride bikes, or run down the back alley barefoot, or make forts in the woods...

So anyway, these dolls are, like, $100 each, plus the company entices purchasers to indulge in all kinds of clothing and accessories for the dolls.  Ye Gads.  Spending this kind of moolah on dolls? I just can't wrap my head around it.  So, daughter, knowing how her mom feels about spending cash like this, finds a simple sewing pattern in one of my books:

Ta-Dah!

And this is the book:  Oliver +S "Little Things to Sew".

Yay! For moms who can sew and daughters who appreciate it!

Weekend Reading... For Kids!

"Extra Yarn" by Mac Barnett.  Another great kids' read.  This one is sweet, for the very young and upward to anyone who enjoys the reminder that a little beauty and a little effort can make a huge difference, and that there is no price for happiness that comes from within.

I've been focusing a bit more on the kids' reads lately it seems.  My daughter, who's almost 10, is enjoying very large books that I am not familiar with -- Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and other books from the pen of Rick Riordan.  I love discussing books with her, but, seriously, these novels she's reading are epic in size and content, and there is no way I have time to read the way she does.  She also enjoys the Harry Potter series, but our deal is that I will read the books ahead of her (or, re-read them) so that we can discuss them.  So that it what I'm doing with my "spare" time -- re-reading "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" before I give it to her to devour.

So, if you'll excuse me, I've some reading to do...

Tis the Season...

... for knitting!  You know all my posts before about gardening?  Well, now that the garden is pretty much put to bed (still got some lettuce in there! Yes Indeed!), the focus switches from outside to inside as we spend more and more time near the coziness of the fireplace.

For me, that means knitting.  My sweater is almost done, which means my mind is gravitating toward my next project.  Oh, the possibilities!!  I have this yarn in sapphire, a blend of merino, cashmere (!) and nylon.  It's not cheap, let me tell you, so choosing the project is quite an undertaking.  I want to do another sweater, the same as my brown one, but in short sleeves, but I'm also thinking that a really long comfy cowl would be just the thing to keep me from totally dreading the onset of winter.  Especially with this merino/cashmere blend.  Yummy.

You might wonder why the yarn I choose is a little on the pricey side.  I tried knitting with the less expensive yarns, and it just didn't work for me.  The pieces would be scratchy, or the drape not quite right.  Knitting takes Time.  And, like I've mentioned before, Time is Precious.  So why waste (a lot of) Time on something you are not going to like the looks of when you're done, or, before that even, not enjoy knitting with?  Because knitting is a process.  I feel the yarn in my hands.  I think about things; not only the thing I'm making, but who I'm making it for.  My mind wanders, plans for the day, week, or, further.  It's meditative.  Doctors say it's good for lowering one's stress level.  The better the yarn feels, the more sedate I become.  A good yarn is seductive.  It lures you into a place of quiet and peace, no matter what your surroundings.  And, when you do it in public, it's a great conversation starter.

I'm not a high-maintenance type.  I don't go for mani's or pedi's.  My clothes are almost all second-hand.  I grow a lot of our own food.  I don't go to "lunch".  My hair is wash-and-go.

But my yarn...  it's my "happy place" and it's worth a little more.

What's on your needles these days?

The Golden Nectar

Have you ever done a taste test with Honey??  Some of you might think, "What for? Honey is honey." So not true!  Honey is available in so many different "flavors" and from so many different climates, it can be mind-boggling.  I decided to try a taste test with a few different varieties for part of a 4H Cloverbuds meeting on honeybees.  I collected a couple of samples, some from local sources and a generic Costco brand.

We tried a fireweed honey and a lavender honey from Planet Bee, a basil honey from Bees Inc., a plain honey from Arlo's Honey Farm, and the generic Bee Maid from Costco.  Well.  The kids loved the lavender honey.  It was infused, in that the lavender flavor was added afterward.  I thought it tasted like bathwater.  Maybe if the flavor had come naturally from the bees collecting the pollen from lavender flowers, it would have been subtler, and I would have enjoyed it more.  To each his own.  The Fireweed honey was an all-around favourite.  The flavor was delicate and delightful.  Oh, but then the basil honey was amazing.  So clean-tasting.  Not like the costco honey at all.  The generic, factory-made honey tasted like goop compared to the small-batch, locally made honeys.  Fine for baking, but when you're actually going to taste the honey, like on toast or in tea, I'm voting for the local guy.

What is your favourite honey?

Weekend Reading

I love knitting.  LOVE it.  Have I said that before?  Hmmm.  Maybe. Once or twice.  I also love reading about knitting, whether in a magazine that tells about a certain kind of fibre, or where it comes from, or how a certain designer gets his/her ideas, or reading patterns, or whatever.  But novels about knitting.  Love them too.  Especially when I want something light that I totally get.

So I found this:

"A Life in Stitches" by Rachael Herron.  What a sweet read!  Herron is very candid about events in her life and how it related to how or what she was knitting at the time.  I can relate to this!  I almost always have something on the go, and until recently, it was 2 or 3 things.  Right now, I'm focussed on finishing this sweater for me, in a lovely warm brown baby alpaca/bamboo yarn from marisol yarns.  It's dreamy.  I'll share more when I'm done.

Anyway, again, I digress.  If you knit, you will enjoy this book.

Happy Knitting! Happy Reading!  Happy Weekend :)