woolythyme

catching up....

I know.  I know.  This space has once again been sort of neglected.  (sorry.)  So, it's time to catch up.  

The week....

::a visit with our son and family....we dragged daughter and her boys with us, so all the grands were together; we were only missing SIL who had to work.  We celebrated 3 birthdays, saw three grands' basketball games, went out to dinner, and managed to watch the Xavier game.  Then we white knuckled it the 5 hours---that turned into 6 1/2---home in a blizzard.  Gone less than 48 hours.  Phew.  That was fun.  (I think.)

::an antiquing trip to Nashville with a friend.  'The Plan' was to find a corner cupboard for our new renovated space...maybe a table...maybe a big vintage 'teaching poster' for one of the walls....some rugs.  I bought a hooked rug (on a stretcher, so it can be hung...but it says 'Welcome' and that really isn't appropriate for hanging on a bedroom wall, now, is it??!!!?), a teeny British metal wheel barrow, a cutting board, and a turkey cookie cutter.  So much for 'the plan'.  Nothing ended up in the new space.  It was a fun trip.

::Empty Bowl project lunch with a friend and about a million other people because it was a beautiful 70+ degree day.  (Yes, that's my bowl in the photo.)

::cleaned out the greenhouse, two closets, the basement, and the front porch (it was a pretty day, remember?)....moved an old zinc-topped table to the new space (where the corner cupboard was supposed to be) and saved us between $2500-$3500 (the prices I saw on a couple cupboards that wouldn't hold the TV anyway).  Hubby has NO idea what a deal I can be....but I'm reminding him daily.

:: read When Breath Becomes Air.  If you only read one book this year, this should be the one.  

::and then the knitting...little croft pincushion---done.  Basic socks----done.  (the black yarn bled all over myself through the whole project.  Blech.)  Started Snowfling mitts...love the Tanis fiber yarn soooooo much!  (this was a kit)

How could I have failed to put Miss Bunny in Ravelry?  (The blog is not the only space that's been neglected.) Julie Williams' patterns are meticulously written, with lots of photos...no detail is overlooked.  I think this one was about 14 pages long.  Lots and lots of finishing work, but if you do what she says, your results will be worth the effort.  And these little toys do take some effort.  I've only made one other, but he turned out just as cute as this one.  I'm thinking that this will be my go-to baby gift...Miss Bunny with a Beatrix Potter book for a girl, and the elephant with a Babar book for a boy.  A Plan.  

I'm full of 'Plans' this week...

After finishing the socks, the little croft, and the bunny---more yarn was added to the 'leftover fingering weight' yarn bag, so decided to start another (drum roll, please....)

Mitered square blanket...this will be #4.  It's a Plan.  

You've seen how some of the plans around here work out.

I'm not holding my breath. 

clean eating....

Wheaten is still on my needles; it's still an enjoyable knit.  It takes 5 skeins, and I'm only on the second one, so I'm sure I'll lose the love before it's finished. For now, I'm happy.

 

My book this week is a real goodie!  What the Fork are you eating? by Stefanie Sacks (culinary nutritionist, certified chef, MS in nutrition from Columbia University, educator, speaker, consultant, and host of the radio show Stirring the Pot.)  She very clearly explains all the additives in our food....which ones are harmful, how to avoid the worst.  She's non-judgmental, inspirational, and you come away feeling.....hey, I can do this!  I thought I did pretty well in the 'clean eating' department.  This book has shown me how I can do sooooo much better.  She walks you shelf by shelf through your refrigerator and your pantry, and offers appealing recipes to try.  An interesting appendix is included that lists common foods with 'their better halves'.  

This is (obviously) a library book, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to buy one.

 

Pass a slice of home-made, preservative-free (organic), whole grain (wheaten!!) bread, please.  (Love when my knitting and food match!)

 

(Victorian bread fork.)

 

joining Ginny for yarnalong.

some things are worth waiting for...

 

It was my birthday. 

  

Actually, my birthday was in June, but a friend and I decided to go on an antiquing outing to celebrate, and we finally found a couple days to make this work.  

We ventured to the middle of the state; made a rather minor detour to check off Mt. Zion covered bridge from the 'covered-bridge-life list'---on our way from a successful stop in Bardstown (vintage quilt) to Pleasant Hill Shaker Village where we spent the night.

The trip was perfect. The colors, the shops (even a yarn store!!!), the food, the accomodations, the temperatures, the company.  

P - E - R - F - E - C - T.

 

 

If we had waited another two days, we would have been snowed on.

 It was so much fun, we decided to come back next October.

Happy Birthday to me.  Cheers.

 

Color collaborative: October: Halloween

 

What a treat to be invited to participate in the colour collaborative this month!  And Halloween!  My almost-favorite 'holiday'.  (Thanksgiving remains #1.) But, I digress...

When I think of Halloweens past, my most vivid 'color' memory takes me back almost 40 years to Halloween Eve.  White.  White bones.  Hundreds  Dozens of felt white bones that I had spent weeks hand sewing onto my son's costume for his very first pre-school Halloween party---and I still had dozens to go.  Hand sewing because a) I stink at sewing with a machine; b) I apparently never heard of stitch-witchery back then; and c) he was determined to help me place all those body parts in the right place after he found I errantly put a leg-bone on the arm.  (Yes, he was rather precocious, but did end up being a physician.)

This would have been my post if I still had the costume to show you.  I'm sure it was the finest skeleton costume to ever grace that preschool. (Sadly, his sister refused to wear it the next year, when I spent far less time sequining a boo-tiful witch robe. That is--a pretty witch....she couldn't say beautiful.)

Fast forward maybe 38 of those past 40 years, and you now find me with a totally new obsession in fall color, which just happens to be Halloween color at its finest.  But, it is the color that was untouched in my crayola box as a child.  I despised it.  I never owned a single piece of clothing in it, so it must not have been a top 10 in my mom's color palette, either. My dolls refused to wear it.  And eat anything that color?  BLECH.  

Our American Halloween tradition hails from the Irish immigrants who brought with them the tradition of Samhain (the celebration of the summer harvest passing on to winter).  In Ireland, the harvest lanterns were carved from potatoes and beets and turnips; the new world had pumpkins which proved perfect carving material.   

Thank you, my Irish ancestors!  Pumpkins and Halloween and ORANGE have been linked ever since; and all have become entwined with how I celebrate the season.

 

Whether I'm crafting...

 (Russian needlepunch embroidery.)

(primitive rug hooking)

 

or collecting...

boo!

 boo, boo, boo!

ring-a-ding-rattley-ding ...

 

or cooking...

(I'd show you the pumpkin pie, but I ate the last piece last night)

 

My Halloween is full of Orange!

 

with one scary, white skeleton skull. How could I resist? 

 

* * * * * * * * * * 

 

What is The Colour Collaborative?

 

All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways."

 

 

Don't forget to visit the other Colour Collaborative blogs for more of this month's posts, just click on the links below.... 

Annie at Annie Cholewa

Sandra at Cherry Heart

Gillian at Tales from a Happy House

CJ at Above the River

Jennifer at Thistlebear

 

Playing Grandma...

It's been an exciting week around here...first off, the dehumidifier went kaput (in the scary cellar), taking the humidity level up to 98% and quickly turning things moldy and fuzzy.  Lucky for us, the CandyMan and JayBob were around this week....

I heard PapaGeek and the CandyMan talking about ramps and pulleys and the next thing I know, the old dehumidifier (that weighed about 2 tons) was tumbling into the kitchen.  (I think they would have had an easier time if the 'ramp' was a bit bigger and a whole lot sturdier than a little sheet of plywood that had to be moved from step to step, but it was a lesson in perserverance and creative problem solving and all ended well.

At least it ended better than the trip to Home Depot for a new dehumidifier.  The automatic exit doors didn't open as fast as the CandyMan thought they should as he hit them with the cart at warp-speed, sending both the inner and outer doors off their tracks.  We decided this was not the first time this has happened, since a) no one came out screaming at us, b) the check-out guy popped them back on track without using any x-rated language, and c) the glass is quite obviously tempered glass and didn't even crack.  Phew.  

While the CandyMan and I made chocolate chip cookies and zucchini bread...

PapaGeek and JayBob experimented with the water-powered rocket ship.  They got banned to the backyard after PapaGeek launched the rocket in the kitchen...lots of water, but no fatalities.  double-phew.

somehow we managed to NOT land it on the roof or rocket it through a window or lose it in the flowerbeds.  It was a good toy.

 

 

The boys decided the 'pond' needed some fish---so off we went to stock the pond.  Two goldfish...one named SunKissed (she's white with an orange spot on her head) and the other, Bertha McDonald (don't ask), are now living with the resident frog.  They had been swimming no more than an hour when the CandyMan came tearing in the house yelling that there was a rat in the pond.  After the snake last week, I was ready to believe anything.

 

After much discussion, inspection, and a near dissection the consensus was a drowned baby mouse.

Hmmmm...let'see.... what's  up next?  I should have felt a little guilty as I slipped into my Tom Sawyer persona....waving pruners and snippers like they were the best outdoor toy/invention EVER....(but I didn't!)

Everyone had way too much fun to call this 'work'; the asparagus bed got cleaned out (leaving the asparagus), and the group vote was to put in blackberry bushes.  My job....to FIND some blackberry bushes to put in.  

The rest of the week...

:: swimming at a friend's neighbor's pool (we were invited, I think?)

:: miniature golf (I won!  Most strokes wins, right?)

:: geocaching x 5

:: nature center

:: screaming monkey contest

:: dismantling the treehouse (yes, this also involved dangerous tools that the boys said they weren't allowed to play with)

 

 

We all need a nap.  

And we're all r.e.a.l.l.y missing our buddies already.

indoor gardening...

In the Country Gardens Fall 2006 issue there was a little article entitled Plucked from the Past.  

I've been on a seek-and-find ever since.  

I love these little planters. Known as Mother Earth Fruit and Vegetable Plant Growers, they were made by the Morton Pottery Company in Illinois and ceased production in the 50's.  The article assured me they were readily available at flea markets, antique shops and thrift stores.  I live in the Heartland...I haunt those kind of places....I have a new collection!!!  

Here it is, 8 years later and I have found exactly ONE.  (Make that two---I just found one on Etsy--sort of cheating in the seek-and-find- department, I know--- and it hasn't arrived yet; I should have waited until it came to write this, but that would be totally out of character for this spontaneous blogger.)   

So, to date, in my possession-- ONE!

A carrot--considered the most common.  The planters are not glazed on the outside, they are hand painted. Thus, each takes on its own distinct character.  (The author of the article had 7-8 carrots---all different.  He must not have been taught to share as a child, hording so many.)

So, in my rummaging through vintage treasures----I've discovered there must have been another company also making similar little gems.  They have been slightly more easy to find....glazed on the outside.

I have a banana, a couple peppers, a couple lemons, a couple peaches, and a cucumber in the 'imitation' planters, but only one Morton carrot (soon to be joined by a squash---the second most commonly 'available' variety).

What good is a collection if it's not used....so, yesterday, I potted up a couple.  I think the allure has something to do with picturing succulents in them...there is no drainage hole, so part of the little container must be filled with pebbles, leaving room for only the teeniest of plants.

I found several.

 

The cucumber holds Crassula argentea 'gollum', a South African native, considered to be a monstrose form of the jade plant.  I'm hoping it self-roots easily like the jade, since those little 'fingers' in the very front are just stuck in the dirt, victims of jamming the plant in the planter.

The lemon has sedum hernandezii, a native of Puebla, Mexico.  This one can grow up to 4", so I'm hoping the little container will stunt its growth.

Portulacaria afra is in the pepper.  Known as 'Spekboom' by the African natives--or elephant bush, this plant can make up as much as 80% of an elephant's diet. (hoping it's safe on the window sill---if it's THAT tasty, I know some other furry someone who would probably give it a nibble.)

And finally, in the peach/plum/apple (never quite sure what this one is supposed to be) is anacampseros rufescens, also a South African native.  Supposedly the leaves will turn purple in bright light.  I'll let you know.   

In case you, too, want to start a collection....there were supposedly 18 different fruits and vegetables made by Morton.  I've seen photos of a pumpkin, red and green peppers, tomato, banana, red cabbage, lemon, apple, carrot (check--have!), summer squash (check---almost have!), and have heard about the rare, elusive eggplant.  Wonder what the other 7 could be....

any ideas?

does anyone actually have any?!!??  Please, do tell!!!

my funkiest yarn tool...

 

Be honest.  Do you know ANY knitter not obsessed with knitting tools, toys, or accessories?  I thought long and hard before I wrote that, and I couldn't think of a single one.  Anyone willing to fess up?  

 

If it's different.  If it's funky.  If it's remotely useful.  I'm going to want to give it a try.  And if it's OLD!!!  Then I'm all over it ('need' it or not).

 

This little yarn keeper is a precursor to the yarn bowl.  It's a reproduction of a 1920's Danish yarnkeeper, and when I saw it, I just had to have one.  The spring is mounted on a wooden base that is heavy enough to keep it from dancing off the table, but not heavy enough to be cumbersome.  

 

 

It flips open to insert the yarn (a ball of sock yarn is the perfect size....I would guess not so good with bulky yarn, but I really wouldn't know---never touch the stuff!), then latches shut.

 

You then thread the end of the yarn ball through the top hole and begin knitting.

I bet you've figured out the drawback, haven't you?  Yep.  You are locked in to this contraption until you finish the project.  I'm not sure if it encourages finished socks...since I find it looks just fine decorating my table. 

 

 

What is YOUR funkiest knitting accessory?  Your oldest?  (I'll most likely need one, too!)

the old bird still has it…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

the old bird still has what it takes.....

spinning.... (my wheels, not fiber)

Nice, quiet (but fairly busy) weekend....with absolutely NOTHING to show for it.

 

:: a friend told me about some antique 'cubby holes' she saw last week.  I've been looking for something like this for years....these were metal, and while I had had a nice painted wooden one (with lovely patina!) in my dreams, I thought metal could work.  The shop was 45 minutes away, so I called, got dimensions, price, and spent a couple hours 're-arranging' furniture to make this work.  (where there is a will there is a way!!!)  Yes, I even sort of dreamed about it.  Got up early, picked up Miss V who is such a good sport and was ready for a road trip...and off we went.  All it took was one look....no go.  Not even close.  I'll have to keep looking.  Before coming home, we ducked into the yarn shop there....I. bought. nothing.

 

::  still sort of in a rearranging mood, I fluffed a little here, cleaned up a little there and ended up with an empty tote that I thought would look great filled with buckeyes (conkers/ horsechestnuts)....so off I went in search.

 

 

.

 

found some other cool stuff...(found more knitted acorns!), but no buckeyes.  (I have a couple more leads...maybe today!)

 

:: reminder to self....stay away from Ravelry when I don't want to watch hours slip by

 

 

:: this only looks like a new project.  It really isn't.  It was an experiment.  I don't crochet.  Well, I sort of crochet, but don't read directions well (you know, when they say...connect the round---connect to WHAT?  and trc but leave a loop on the needle and do something or other?????  huh?)  Anyway, I love (LOVE) this afghan pattern and have even more dk wt leftovers than fingering wt, so I was just trying this out.  I think those things might block into squares---or be forced into something square-like if I sewed them together.  I might have to make a few more.  This is not a new project.  (This is NOT a new project.)

 

:: and then, there was the 'yarn closet'.   Being in a cleaning/rearranging mood doesn't happen just all the time, so I thought I would tackle the worst place in the whole house.  (Even worse than the scary basement!)

 

 

?????????????!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

.

 

solved THAT problem!

 

a single moment......

oops!  The joy of decorating with antiques!!!  (the dog DIDN'T do it.....this time)

a single picture from the week....joining amanda at Soulemama.