First Strawberries of the Season

Here they are- the first ripe berries of the season and the first thing to come from the garden this year!

Cactus News!

So, this is my last week of teaching for the school year and I am really excited because that means I am going to have a lot more time to devote to my big summer project- a puppet show! My husband and I are putting on a puppet production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin in August, and it is our first full scale we are doing all ourselves as CactusHead Puppets. I will finally be getting my puppet blog up and going soon, and I will share pictures of the puppet building process and anything else related to the show there.

In other cactus related news, I went to a good friend's bridal shower last weekend and made her this knit cactus as a gift. I have a few I made for myself, and they are a lot of fun to knit, and of course very low maintenance house plants.

The garden is planted! (finally)

Hooray! My garden is planted and that means (to me) that it is officially summer. This year I did things a little differently and did not start any of the seeds inside, because lots of the plants seemed to struggle after being transplanted last year. This year it was all seeds straight in the ground or older seedlings from the nursery. I also planted more of each kind of seed but fewer different kinds. I had hoped to plant a couple weeks ago, but every time I was free to plant it poured rain. Hopefully all the plants will do well despite the delay.

The strawberries I planted last year are doing better this year, and it looks like we will actually have some to eat! I also sprinkled a few zinnia seeds in the corners of the strawberry bed, after the strawberries are done for the season I will have big bright zinnias to enjoy.



These are my tomato plants. I have three varieties of regular tomatoes and then a Roma tomato and grape tomato plant. I love grape and Roma tomatoes, so I am hoping for tons of tomatoes in a few months.

I bought two pepper plants this year, since last year's peppers that I started from seed never really went anywhere. The bigger one is a yellow bell pepper (it already has a bloom!) and the
other is a bell pepper that is supposed to grow both red and green peppers.



















I planted a whole row of peas this year, and they are already up! My nephew helped plant these and there is a random mix of regular and sugar peas.



The other seeds aren't up yet, but I planted a row of radishes, a row of romaine lettuce, a row of green beans, two rows of loose leaf lettuce, a row of cucumber hills, one watermelon hill, a row of zucchini, some chamomile, some aster seeds, and cilantro, chives and catnip planted in pots. I can't wait to post pictures of everything as it comes up!

Spring!

Happy Spring everyone! I have today off, and I am going to go out and finally get my garden planted and enjoy the weather, but first I wanted to catch up posting my projects here!

This is the knitting package I sent my penpal Mercy for March/April. (I forgot to take a picture before I mailed it, so I used the one she took.) The theme of the package was a place you want to visit, and I chose England and included some crumpets and lemon curd along with the things in the picture. The teapot towel is double knit, so it is reversible. It was my first time doing double knit, and I liked the finished product, but it took me awhile to really get a hang of the technique.



This is the package Mercy sent me. It is spring themed, and I love how it all coordinates. The little knit bag is great, and I have been using the project bag to carry my knitting around with me. The little bundle tied with the ribbon is stitch markers, and I am very excited to have real stitch markers! I have been using paper clips, which works fine, but these are much nicer.

Finally I wanted to share a great recipe I made today. It is for homemade ginger beer, and it is amazing! I love ginger, and highly recommend it if you do too. I found it on the blog Lottie and Doof, which I also recommend. Everything I have tried from there has been excellent, and the photography of the food is beautiful.

My ginger beer and some fresh spring flowers-


I hope to have garden pics to share soon!

March- the washcloth month

Hello,

March has been a busy, but good month around here. Spring is finally here, and while I miss the prospect of having the unexpected day off for snow, I am very excited to get out in my garden soon!

This month has been spent knitting washcloths for my soon to be sister in-law's wedding shower. It was actually the first time I have made washcloths, and I was surprised at how fun it was. It is a great quick project to try out new stitch patterns.

I made these pig washcloths (she likes pigs)-




and these three with a tweed stitch pattern.




I found both patterns on Ravelry, and am looking forward to trying out some other patterns washcloth patterns they have in the future. For April though, I think I am going to make it my goal to finally finish that shrug!

Felted Flowers for February

Ok, the title of this post is a little silly, but I love alliterations, and I couldn't resist! Sorry I missed posting last week, but I've been working on my first package for my Ravelry penpal and I didn't want to post pictures until she got it so it would be a surprise. I decided to knit flowers for her, and I used this pattern for the flowers, but I didn't like the leaves it made very much. So, I used this pattern for the leaves.


Here are the leaves all felted and ready to go. I did all the felting by hand rather than in the washing machine, because I just find it easier.



Here is the flower all knit, but not rolled up or felted yet.



The flowers are rolled and ready to felt here.

The flowers after felting.

Here is everything all ready to assemble. I knit I-cord to cover dowel rods for the stems, instead of using knitting needles like the pattern calls for.

Penguin supervised the assembly, as she does with any projects that involves yarn and thread.


Complete!


Not much else to report. The shrug is coming along well. I am almost done with the chevron and ready to move into the second ribbing section, but I won't get it done this month like I hoped. Oh well. The next project I have lined up is knitting fun washcloths to use as wedding shower gifts, and I will post those as soon as I get started.

No Snow Here . . .

There has been very little snow in my corner of New England this year. While it has been nice not to have to dig the car out and worry about slippery roads, I have really been missing my snow days! I love having a surprise day off work with nothing planned, and I hope I get at least a couple before the winter is over. I did have last Sunday off work, and even though it was a planned day off the only thing I planned to do was knit, watch mysteries on DVD, and snack on this lovely spread of Wensleydale cheese, hazelnut chocolate, and red wine.


The perfect day off!


I have gotten quite a bit of knitting done lately. I finished the lace scarf I was knitting, or more accurately I run out of yarn. It is not long enough to make the scarflette/neck warmer I was planning, so I think I am going to sew a lining and make it into a little clutch. I am pretty pleased with the way it came out anyway for my first try at lace, and look forward to making more lace projects.



My shrug is coming along quickly too. I am really enjoying knitting the chevron pattern too. It is simple enough I can chat or watch tv while I knit, but not so boring I am tired of it. I am hoping I will have this finished by the end of the month.