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.

Hello Again!

Hello! I've been away from this blog for quite a long time, but I am ready to start up again finally. So here is the plan- I am going to jump back into blogging about my various arts and crafts and creative endeavors, but I am not going to focus on my shop much at all any more. It will be active and I will add things occasionally, but I don't have enough time to really make it a good business. Instead I am going to share projects I am working on for fun, or creative work I am doing for others jobs that seems to fit here.


So, here we go!

I am on a knitting kick lately. I knit hats for three people for Christmas this year, and was pleased really pleased with how well they came out. That got me wanting to knit something for myself. Then I joined a local knitting circle and they got me to sign up for Ravelry and now I am hooked. I want to knit everything! Right now I am working on two projects. I knitting my first lace item with some yarn I had stashed for years. I am pleased wiht it for my first try at lace, but I don't know what excatly it will end up as, since I don't think I have enough yarn to make the neckwarmer I had planned. Here it is in progress:



I am also knitting my first big project. I am making myself this great shrug. This is what it will (hopefully) look like when I am done.



I am about to finish the collar ribbing and start on the chevron pattern. Here is mine in progress:




That is all for now, but I do plan on posting weekly again, so I will see you soon!

My Garden!

So, my little break was a little longer than I planned, but hey, that's life right? I did get a lot of stuff done while I wasn't blogging though, including planting my garden! I planted everything on Saturday, plants and seeds alike. I know I should have gotten the seeds planted a little earlier, but there was just too much to do getting the ground ready this first year. So, here are a bunch of pictures of my garden taken on Saturday. The only things you can't see are the recently planted seeds (of course), but planted carrots, radishes, lettuce, spinach and arugula seeds. Hopefully a few will be popping up today when I go check on everything.


Here it is- My Garden! Up at the top in the small section I planted 6 strawberry plants and all my zinnia seedlings and the big area has all the rest of the veggies as well as the three little poppy plants that came up.


A couple little critters I found crawling around.

My strawberry plants! I bought these and the tomato plants and I am so excited about fresh strawberries.


This is the one bean plant that I didn't break while transplanting, so I planted a few more bean seeds in hopes to make up for that.


Green pepper and Jalapeno plants.



Eggplant!



Peas plants, I have some of both sugar peas and regular peas.


Watermelon. I have never successfully grown a regular watermelon, so I planted the small personal sized variety in hopes that will be easier.


Cucumbers


Honeydew melon.


Tomato plant. I planted 5 tomato plants, 2 of which are cherry tomatoes and the other 3 are of the regular variety.


Zucchini

Yay plants! I finished my sock too last week, and I will post about it and any exciting garden progress soon.

Working the Week Away

Just a quick post today to apologize for the lack of posts this week. I am working a bunch of extra hours this week, and I just haven't gotten a chance to sit down and do my regular posts. I'll be back next week when things are back to normal. I can't wait to post pictures of the seedlings- they are starting to grow new leaves!