Saturday in the Garden

IMG_8500

Most of the currants have been a dud this year, the strawberries are nearly gone, and the blueberries not-quite-ripe yet.  But the raspberries!! Oh, what a fantastic year for raspberries.  Many, many pints have been delivered to BCS, and many more wolfed down by neighborhood children flocking to our backyard.

IMG_8513Breakfast, snack, dessert – we cannot get enough of them.  The kids are especially loving them blended with plain kefir, a little honey, and ice cubes for a smoothie snack.  IMG_8514

Now that garden chores are finished for the day, we’re off to a Bonsai festival.  And then the girls have Roller Derby practice this evening, while the boys hang out with their grandma.   It’s going to be a busy day!  Hope you have a perfect summer weekend.

Peonies and Raspberries

Dessert last night - chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and raspberries.
Dessert last night – chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and raspberries

Well, I’ve been knocked down somewhat with a summer cold, and didn’t make the Yarn Along this week.  I finished a pair of socks for a friend, and hope to post photos next week.

Calendula in bloom
Calendula in bloom

We have company visiting, and volunteers in the garden, and swim lessons and so much summer goodness and fun.  We’ve been baking and playing with the neighbor kids and cutting posies in the yard.  And stuffing ourselves full of raspberries on a daily basis.

I had volunteers here this morning, and together harvested loads of organic produce for BCS – baskets full of Spanish shallots, raspberries, 4 kinds of mint, herb packs, French Tarragon, rhubarb, Russian Red kale, Rainbow chard, snow peas, currants, and lavender.   I was too busy picking to take photos, but will try to make a point of documenting next week’s harvests.

Hope you have a good weekend.  We are looking forward to:

-hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa B, who are visiting from Florida

-making Mujaddara, falafels, and kale salad for dinner tomorrow

– biking at Sunday Parkways with my sister

Blessings!

This and that

IMG_8498

 

After a weekend full of hiking and trips to the playground and ice cream cones, we are launching headfirst into a busy week.  The three older kids start swim lessons, my folks come to visit, and summer is in full swing.

For now, a few pictures from our weekend:

 

IMG_8493Ruth sorting a 25 cent bag of bias tape she picked up at the thrift store.

IMG_8475

IMG_8455Making kraut.

IMG_8428I’ll be back later in the week for the Yarn Along.

 

 

Gratitude

 

Sourdough on blue cornmeal. Breakfast.
Sourdough on blue cornmeal. Breakfast.

Joining Taryn of WoolyMossRoots for her Gratitude Sunday:

-Very glad to have a little free time to return to blogging, and catch up on some of my favorite blogs.

-And grateful to return to some much-beloved routines and habits (like baking bread nearly every day, knitting, reading aloud to the kids in the afternoon, making pickles).   IMG_8471-Grateful for the intense and much-needed rain this week, followed by a bolt of growth all over the gardens.

-Feeling very blessed to have such kind and thoughtful neighbors, who lavish such unconditional love on my kids.

George, almost two. On his push bike.
George, almost two. On his push bike.

-Bittersweet to see my youngest, who is suddenly full of independence and strong opinions, outgrowing some of his baby-ness as he edges up to his second birthday.  However, it is exciting to see him take on new things and discover words and concepts every single day.

-And of course, on this Father’s Day weekend, grateful for Casey, who is a dedicated and loving father.  He reads the kids adventure stories every night, whittles bows and arrows for the girls, builds Lego monsters with Hal, and gives his kids a childhood full of rich, imaginative play.

Hope you have a peaceful and restorative Sunday and a good start to your new week.

Friday

IMG_8486

 

Joining Amanda for “This Moment - A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.”

Rejoining the Yarn Along

IMG_8435

A little early morning, bleary-eyed knitting with my early-riser.

He was up long before his siblings, so we snuggled in bed as he sifted through a jar of buttons (one of his favorite past-times), and I chugged coffee and finished a few inches on this little project:

IMG_8444

Joining Ginny for her Yarn Along this morning, and Nicole for her KCCO.  I am in-between books at the moment, but have been a tad-bit obsessed with watching Wrapunzel’s tutorials while I knit.

Looking forward to visiting the other knitters in the Yarn Along after the kids are in bed tonight.

 

Garlic Scape Pesto

IMG_8450

 

Garlic scapes!  Ever so many!  If you aren’t familiar with scapes – they are the twisty stalk and flower bud of alliums.  Removing them from the garlic (or shallots, etc) before they flower helps form a larger head of garlic.  But you needn’t compost them – they are edible and nutritious – a good source of manganese, selenium and vitamin B6.

Scapes will add a zippy garlicky bite to all sorts of dishes.  Folks on my FB page have suggested sauteing them with cracked black pepper and olive oil, or pickling them (definitely going to try that.  I bet they will make nice crisp lactofermented pickles).  My favorite way to utilize this early summer crop is in pesto.  So, here’s my recipe:

IMG_8457

Garlic Scape Pesto

15-20 garlic scapes, washed

1 cup pine nuts (you can also use cashews, pistachios or hazelnuts if you prefer)

1 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano, or other hard Italian cheese

large pinch of ground black pepper

2/3-1 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt to taste

Directions: Place first four ingredients in food processor, and pulse until well combined (scapes can be a little stringy, like asparagus, so you may wish to keep pulsing to finely process them into a smoother pesto).

With the processor running, drizzle in olive oil until desired consistency is reached.  Salt to taste.

Toss with pasta or sauteed veggies (pea shoots or wilted kale are a good choice.)

IMG_8462

Enjoy!

 

June in the Garden

Poppies in perfect bloom, nestled in the fairy garden
Poppies in perfect bloom, nestled in the fairy garden

Spent a cool, cloudy morning helping volunteers harvest in the garden.  We picked 37 pounds of produce for Birch Community Services, and finished up some weeding and yard maintenance (and tended to herds of small children).  Looking forward to a few more ladies coming on Friday to help me pick more herbs and berries.

Culinary lavendar. I love harvesting it, with the bees buzzing all around.
Culinary lavendar. I love harvesting it, with the bees buzzing all around.
Rhubarb, garlic scapes, artichokes
Rhubarb, garlic scapes, artichokes

While today’s harvest may not seem that large, it is a good size for this early in the season (greens and herbs don’t weigh much).  The good gardening weather is finally here, and we are looking forward to the raspberries, beans and potatoes coming into production very soon.

Kale, oregano, strawberries
Kale, oregano, strawberries

Tomorrow I’ll share my recipe for garlic scape pesto, and Wednesday I’ll be rejoining Ginnny’s Yarn Along.  Hope you’ll get a chance to stop by later in the week.

Oh, and speaking of being outside in the garden – be sure to check out Frontier Dreams‘ Butterbean sunscreen giveaway.

A post!

IMG_8434

Once again, I have failed to be a consistent blogger.  What can I say?  Life is busy.   I have barely picked up my knitting needles in weeks and weeks.  My camera is forgotten on a regular basis.  My spinning wheel is dusty and the laundry table is covered in at least three loads of unfolded clothes.  House and writing projects have been set aside.  Our whole family has had a non-stop run of illness and maintenance of chronic health issues.  But the kids have my attention, and we have been connecting and learning and growing in many areas.  And life is good.

And now, it’s summer!  So, we’ll give blogging another go.

Some images from the last few weeks:

IMG_8415
A portion of one morning’s harvest for Birch Community Services

 

 

IMG_8420
Goumi berries. Ruth eats them all!
Almost two weeks going shampoo-free (Bea calls it no-sham instead of no-poo, and I much prefer her term!). Still in the "transition" phase, so I've been wearing a tichel most days.
Almost two weeks going shampoo-free (Bea calls it no-sham instead of no-poo, and I much prefer her term!). Still in the “transition” phase, so I’ve been wearing a tichel most days.
image
Trying to nourish ourselves and heal from lots of illness. Been fermenting lots of good things lately (kraut, beer, a host of pickles, kombucha, sourdough), and getting back to making my own buttermilk and bread each week.

941582_560650573978315_1295707004_n
The backyard. Potatoes and poppies abound.
1319_10201238761638876_2022720642_n
Picking strawberries and currants with George

Hope to be back later in the week.  (Unless the evenings continue to be too beautiful to deny ourselves a long after-dinner walk.  Summer in Portland never disappoints.)

Blessings on the start of a new week.

Waiting for spring

IMG_7861

It has been a while since I’ve posted.  Life is tremendously hectic (I feel like I say that too frequently).  Friends having babies, and they need meals.  Kids sick with colds that become pneumonia and bronchitis.  Hours of garden work every single day.  House chores I cannot keep on top of.

The grey rainy days and too many hours inside being ill are starting to wear thin on everyone.  We are looking forward to spring.

IMG_8142

During George’s nap today, Harold and I went outside to spread mulch (an unending chore when you are trying to build biomass and increase fertility in a garden with poor clay soils).  Much to my surprise, 5 of the 8 rhubarbs are beginning to wake from their winter slumber.  Oh, it made my heartbeat quicken for a moment – a sign of spring!

IMG_8146

In the front yard, underneath the honeyberry bushes and prune plum trees, the first of the daffodils and crocus are beginning to emerge.   Here in Oregon there are many, many more weeks of grey and rain and chilly weather, but the end is in sight.  Winter is beginning to ebb at last.   We look forward to the rebirth of spring.

Saturday Garden Planning

IMG_8117

I spent a considerable amount of time in the garden this week thanks to temperatures in the high 30’s ad low 40’s.  We had planned on finishing the chicken run re-do this morning.  However, a bank of freezing fog moved in, and the children quickly got chilled, despite being well-bundled.

IMG_8116

So, we headed inside, to make raspberry-swirl brownies.  While the brownies baked, little George and I sat in the dining nook – he played with toys and rosemary sprigs, and I tried to finish up some garden planning for the coming year.    The big kids sat warming cold fingers and toes by the heater (oh, how I wish we had a woodstove!).

I am working on a new map of the garden.  We did a basemap when we first started the gardens, and every year it gets updated.   I have added pears and plums and an apple tree, as well as many new currants.  Several beds got moved around and reshaped in the fall.  The new map will show all of the improvements for the coming year.

IMG_8121  Our Baker Creek order arrived earlier this week.  I save many of my own seeds, and also carefully store purchased seeds from previous years.  We start many more seedlings than we have room for, so that we can share with volunteers and BCS participants, and I do need to reorder some seeds every single year.  (It’s like Christmas in January!)

I am anxious to get the garden going.   Looking forward to having the front sunroom full of little green, growing seedlings very, very soon…

 

 

 

Yarn Along – Just Barely

IMG_8090

Life is so frantic lately, I almost didn’t make Nicole’s KCCO or  Ginny’s Yarn Along this week.  I am having trouble keeping my head above water some days.  It seems to be a constant problem – four kids, busy schedules, deadlines, nowhere to cut back and simplify.  When life gets like this, I’m going to drop a ball somewhere, I just don’t know where yet…

This week, I’m re-reading some of of my favorite permaculture books.  I am working on a research project, and while I thought most of my reading would take place late at night (thanks to chronic insomnia), the kids had other plans.

Ruth and Bea (ages 10 and 8) found the stack of 7or 8 permie books and asked if we could read through them together.  Ruth, ever the artist,  is fascinated with all the diagrams and base maps and sketches.  Bea, ever the idealist, enjoys thinking about designing for conservation of resources and regeneration of the land.  We all enjoy reading them together.

(Our favorite is Jenny Allen’s Australian book, Smart Permaculture Design.  Oh, if only we could grow mangoes and avocados!)

IMG_8096George is growing like a weed, and has outgrown some of the wool soakers I made him a while back.  Those that still fit take a while to dry on the line, so we’re a little short in the rotation.  Over the last few months, I’ve collected some cashmere and merino sweaters from the thrift store (for $1-$2/each), and today I hope to get them cut up for more longies and short soakers.   There should be enough to make four for George and two infant-sized ones for baby shower gifts.

IMG_8106In the late winter, I tend to be a little burned-out on knitting, and try to fill the void with spinning projects.  Last week some folks here and on the Facebook page commented on all the spindle spinning, and asked what I had going on the wheel.

(Apologies for the fading light – it’s so hard to photograph in Oregon in January.  The color on the bobbin below is more true than above.)  Almost three years ago, I purchased a lot of mill-end Brown Sheep roving at a ridiculously cheap price (less than $8/lb).  I have worked through most of it on drop spindles, but this full pound of  teal with blue and black streaks (85% wool 15% mohair) is on the wheel.

IMG_8103

My beat-up Louet S10 came with only two bobbins (it was supposed to come with three…long story.  Buyer beware on Craigslist!), and both are currently holding this yarn.  Trying to fill this bobbin so I can hurry up and ply them.  My goal is to make matching vests for Harold and George (There should be ample yardage out of a full lb), which will be sized to fit them this coming fall (you have to really plan ahead when planning a project from a bag of roving!).

And now it’s back to school work with the kids:  Ruth is tackling addition and subtraction of mixed numbers with unlike denominators, and she needs me right there to work through the problems with her.  We are trying to wrap up school work early today, because Bea has an appointment to read to the therapy dog at the library this afternoon (such a great program for cautious and struggling readers!), and Ruth is desperate to pick up her book on hold (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).

I will catch up on the other Yarn-Alongers later tonight.  Happy knitting and happy reading!

 

 

Yellow Dresser

IMG_8031

Casey had his eye on this at the local thrift store for quite a long while.  (I’ll admit, I thought it had charm, too!) It was originally priced far too high at $75.  So, we let it go.

Apparently no one else saw we we saw, because week after week after week it went unsold.  And then the price started dropping.

Now, we needed a new dresser upstairs – storage for the girls’ various craft supplies.  The dresser we had been using was too small, missing a handle, had a broken drawer, and we had gotten far more from it than the $8 we paid at a Goodwill nearly 12 years ago.

On a recent trip to the thrift store, they had marked it down to $17.  Yes!  (That’s below our self-imposed maximum of $20 on thrift store furniture.) I snatched it up right away and took it home.  Casey had a big smile on his face when I told him what we’d brought home.

IMG_8034

Here in the front sun room (Ruth calls it her Yoga Studio), I gave it a good scrub, and candle-waxed all the drawers so they would slide more smoothly.  Then I took off the original knobs (ugly orange wooden ones) and put on some ceramic ones from World Market (they had a sale, buy two and the third was free).

George seems to think it is his dresser, and he keeps opening the middle drawer to stash toys in it.  Now, to shift it upstairs and get the craft supplies organized!

Alpaca and Social Permaculture

I’m tackling spinning for the Yarn Along this week.   Little by little, I am working my way through a 4 oz bag of first-shearing unwashed alpaca fiber (isn’t the coppery color lovely?).  This buttery soft fiber was a gift from my sister some years ago.  She picked it up from Foothills Fiber in Hood River, OR.

Originally, I was going to put this on the wheel, but both sets of bobbins are already full of other fibers, so I’ve been working on a drop spindle.  (I have 6 or so spindles going at any one time, so progress on any one fiber is fairly slow.)

This week, we have been thumbing through Discover Nature in Winter, as well as the classic primitive/survival skill book Participating in Nature.  The children and I are looking for winter activities out-of-doors that extend beyond the garden.

I have also just begun  The Sweet Spot: The Natural Entrepreneur’s Guide to Responsible, Sustainable, Joyful Work.  Lately, the Buddhist ideal of “right livelihood“  has really interested me.   It is similar to concepts of social and economic permaculture, in which the ideal is to take work that benefits the renewal of the land or the care of people and eschew jobs that damage the land, overuse resources, and exploit people.

Both my husband and I feel our careers (paid and unpaid) fall within this sphere.  I don’t think either of us could embrace a career that did not, and we love what we do.  I simply thought the book might be an educational read.

Okay, back to spinning while Bea does her read-aloud this morning.  Have a wonderful second half of your week!

Play Kits to go

Joining Nicole’s KCCO this week with a project I finished before the holidays, but am just now getting around to photographing.

The toy baskets were getting out of control.  One of the children would be rummaging through, looking for all the pieces of a playset, and end up dumping over the whole basket in frustration just to find a missing piece.

Christmas was coming, and I knew something had to change before the chaos in the living room got worse.

My solution:  just before Thanksgiving, I retrieved a  little coat rack from basement storage.  A dear family friend had made me when I was a very small child, and it used to hold my dress-ups.  I screwed in the rack at child-height next to the play kitchen.

Then, during George’s nap one afternoon, I made some drawstring bags of different thrifted prints and of varying sizes.  Into each bag went a playset (wooden tools, Playmobils, finger puppets, flower fairies, cars…you get the picture.)  The most frequently-used sets went up on the rack, and some others were tucked into my purse and into the car for “emergency” situations (church, doctor’s office, waiting in line at the post office…).

So far, the system is working well.  The kids can find the toys they want to play with, and when they are finished, it is easy to scoop the pieces back into the bags.

Back tomorrow for the Yarn Along.

Making Butter

I made a bit batch of beef stew for dinner this weekend – enough to last for two meals.  We rarely eat beef or pork (other than a small amount of ham or bacon to flavor veggie dishes), so it was a real treat for all of us.  All day long, the kitchen was full of the aroma of leeks, smoked paprika, merlot, allspice, and cinnamon.

Ruth suggested we make butter and loaf of bread to go with dinner.   I happened to have 2 cups of organic heavy cream in the fridge.  Okay, let’s make butter!

To make butter

take a 1 quart mason jar, and add:

2 cups of heavy cream

a pinch of ultra fine popcorn salt (optional!  I prefer mine without salt)

screw the lid on, and shake.  And shake and shake and shake.  For about thirty minutes.

(Ruth, concentrating hard on the jar, willing the cream to separate!)

It was a weekend morning, and Casey was reading books to the kids, so we just passed the jar around, each person shaking and swishing until s/he got tired, then passing it to the next person.   After about 15 minutes, it was perfect whipped cream.  Then after about half an hour, suddenly there was a large chunk of bright yellow butter sitting in buttermilk (top photo).

This was the perfect opportunity to get one of the antique butter molds Casey’s grandma, Ruth Young, had given me a few years back.  I believe they were her grandmother’s.  After we had squeezed all the buttermilk from the butter (exactly one cup of each), and chilled the very soft butter in the fridge for a while, we pressed it in the oiled mold.

(The cup of buttermilk was used to make the bread later in the afternoon.)

 The butter smelled buttery and looked so beautiful, and the kids couldn’t wait to eat it.  I never got a shot of the finished molded butter, because as soon as I turned to get some crackers (the bread wasn’t made yet), the children had already dug into it with spoons!  Ah, well.  Next time.  It was absolutely delicious, though.

Great choice, Ruth!  It was a fun activity, and went perfectly with the crusty bread and beef stew for dinner.  Now, if only we had a neighbor with a cow and steady supply of fresh cream…

Out in the Chill

Some images from the garden this week:

My little garden helper.  Love spending time out in the garden early in the morning,  just me and George (and the poultry, of course).

We found some gorgeous mushrooms (Turkey Tail?) growing on old plum logs bordering the rhubarb patch.  Aren’t they beautiful?

And this feathery mycelium on the underside of a board that had been laying on the ground since the children abandoned their fort with the onset of chilly wet weather.  Every time I see gorgeous fungus in the yard, I resolve to learn more about this fascinating Kingdom that brings healing to our landscape and nourishment to our perennial fruit crops.

Dashing in to gather the last handfuls of ripe lingonberries after jubilant quacking from the ducks alerted me to their presence in the lingonberry patch.  They did not damage the plants, but stripped 90% of the fruit off.   Sigh.

We are working through the garlic in storage so quickly!  I ran down to the basket in the basement to gather a few more cloves for the beef stew I was making for dinner.  Hoping hoping hoping we won’t run out of garlic before the newly planted crop matures in late June.

Filled with gratitude for a week that included so much time out in the garden, working hard and enjoying the crisp cold fresh air.

And grateful for the privilege of having little George in our family – for being able to watch his transition from babyhood to boyhood.  He is adding new words and signs to his vocabulary almost daily.  He is blossoming into his own little person, with a personality so different from his siblings.  Loved watching him playing in a flake of straw, squealing with utter delight and scattering the straw with total abandon.  It is the ordinary little moments like this,  in the midst of ordinary days,  that I will hold dear in my memory.  Such a blessing.

Yarn Along for a New Year

Glad to be joining Ginny this morning, as she restarts her Yarn Along for 2013.

Today is our first day back to homeschooling after winter break. This year, in an attempt to better meet our children’s educational and emotional needs, we’ve made some changes to the way we “do homeschool”.  From the outside, I think most observers would still label us “unschoolers”, and sometimes I would agree, but sometimes we need some more structure.  That is the beauty of educating at home – styles, focus, areas of interest, can all ebb and flow in order to best facilitate joyful and natural learning. 

A friend, who is having a similar journey with unschooling/homeschooling, connected us Melissa’s blog- Here in the Bonny Glen.  Her concept of “Tidal Homeschooling” describes where we are at, and what works for our family.

I rose early this morning, long before the three big kids.  Sitting in the front room, drinking my coffee and thumbing through books, I am trying to finish a pair of fingerless mitts for Ruth, who turns ten tomorrow.  She specially requested them (she has a raspberry colored pair she has nearly worn out).

George woke a few minutes after me, and has been reading library books along with me, and gleefully scattering his granola…

Well, off to get a pot of oatmeal going before the three other children wake, and then tend to the poultry chores in the absolutely frigid weather.  Then, after breakfast, we have a busy day of science experiments and math puzzles lined up.  Looking forward to reading the other knitter’s in the Yarn Along while Geroge naps and the big kids listen to a book on CD this afternoon.

Late December in the garden

Our Christmas was the first spent at home in Oregon, instead of visiting Grandma and Grandpa B.  We had a peaceful and happy holiday.

Since, in the past, the children and I have been in Florida for 4 to 6 weeks in the winter, we have missed out on enjoying the garden in this season.  But not this year!  Every morning, we have bundled up and spent two or three hours outside.

Our temperatures have been mild (high 30’s to mid 40’s) and we have taken full advantage.   The poultry love it that we are out improving the garden, too.  Every shovel of earth turned over yields a bounty of worms for hungry beaks.  When we are outside, the birds are ever underfoot!

Back in October, I planted several rows of our heirloom garlic in the front yard.  In order to improve our bulbing garlic over the years, we save the biggest and best cloves from our late-June harvest for planting.  This year, we also set aside many small inner cloves to be planted in clumps for a spring harvest of green garlic.

With November temperatures still well above freezing, I was able to do a late planting of shallots (on the left), as well.  However, the addition of many perennial veggies and fruit trees has reduced space for annuals in the front yard, so there were bulbs leftover.

This week, the ground remains unfrozen, despite morning frosts.  I was determined to get the rest of the garlic and shallots planted in the backyard.  After 2 hours of reshaping a bed that formerly grew beans, turning in composted manure, adding a dormant rhubarb to the end of the bed, and mulching the paths around the bed, we were reading for planting.

Once the garlic is planted, of course it has to be mulched to keep through the winter.  Well, chickens LOVE fresh straw mulch – whether they are actively looking for seeds and snacks, or just reveling in scratching, whooshing, crunching.  A fence is requisite.  Bolt, our Speckled Sussex, only needs a few moments to find a weak spot in a fence.  (She was removed and the fence mended before she damaged the newly planted garlic.)

It was good to have rest time over the holidays, but I am glad to be back to posting.  And with the approaching New Year, I am looking forward to green things growing again.

Time to go thumb through seed catalogs and finalize my orders for the 2013 garden year!

Christmas Preparations

We’re finally getting the sewing cleared away and readying the dining nook for Christmas dinner. (That big bag of oats will shortly become granola for Christmas gifts. )

And putting out some last-minute decorations…

and making our traditional holiday persimmon bundt cake while the boys play with dinosaurs at my feet…

and putting out the last few pieces of the children’s new Nativity on my grandma’s marble-top washstand. (As much as I’d love to have a Nativity set like this one or this one, I am really enjoying this budget-friendly set – the children can play with it as much as they wish – and they do!  They check each morning to see if a new piece been placed out, and if one of the kids seems to have disappeared, I know he or she will be in the guest bedroom quietly playing at the Nativity.)

and running ribbons through the last batch of drawstring gift bags, so we can start wrapping up presents!

So many other projects and preparations before Christmas Eve!   I am trying to balance the pressure to complete everything with the need to slow down, connect with the kids, read to them, play with them, and enjoy time as a family.   Doing our best to keep the time sacred in the midst of so much activity.

Wishing you comfort and peace at this time of year.

Yarn Along with Tasha

The past few mornings, I have been reading through one of my favorite books over coffee.  Like so many, I have been fascinated with Tasha Tudor since childhood.   Something about her homespun quality – her eccentricity – is comforting and always familiar.

Continuing the theme from last week, this morning the shawlette is being blocked.  It was finished on Saturday, but I have been under the weather, and just now am pinning it out on the guest bed.

This pattern is exactly what I needed – simple, quick, well-designed and a relaxing knit (it would also make a good first shawl for a new knitter).

I am tall, with broad shoulders, so deciding to do the larger version (178 sts before beginning the lace section) was a wise choice.  The fit is perfect, and only a small ball is leftover from the two skeins of Peace Fleece worsted.

I am already a few inches into another Handspun Delight Shawlette.  Having gone through the “stash dresser” upstairs, I found three skeins of a heavenly alpaca I was sure had long been used up.  The joy of being unorganized is that when you rediscover something lost, it’s like a gift to yourself – a pleasant surprise.

This time, most KFBs in the pattern are replaced with YOs (along the spine, etc), and the lace section will be extended.  It will make a soft embrace of a shawl and a warm Christmas gift for a loved one.

And now to join up with Ginny’s Yarn Along, but first a wintry quote from Tasha:

Sometimes when I’ve been throwing hay around, it smells like summer in the barn, and the sun comes through the windows and the cracks in the boards and makes shafts of light in the dusty air.  But I never long for summer in the winter.  What is that lovely quote from Shakespeare – “At Christmas I no more desire a rose/ Than wish a snow in May’s newfangled mirth.” That’s the idea.  For everything there is a season.

KCCO – Christmas skirts

After what seemed like endless gathering and pinning, the Christmas skirts are finished.  Bea and Ruth are happy with how they came out, thank goodness!

The girls chose whatever fabric they wanted from a stack of thrifted Christmas prints my sister and I had accumulated over the past few years.  Ruth asked for them to be double layered for warmth and to feel old fashioned (like a petticoat).

And she wanted it long – nearly to the floor – with ruffles.  I tacked on some vintage woven ribbon along the hem for good measure.

Bea wanted a drop waist and full-bodied skirt.

We also made a skirt for cousin Ruby:

Both girls helped choose and cut the fabric and even do some of the sewing.  Ruth added the bows as an afterthought.

I’m joining Nicole for her KCCO today, and then I’m packing up the sewing machine until after Christmas.

 I’m off to wrap presents and bake Christmas cookies with the children this afternoon.  Blessings on the rest of your week.

Hearts of Hope

The events of last week are a stark reminder that this world is a broken place.  Like so many gripped by this sudden grief, there are no words…

After the tragedy in Newtown, and being weighed down by recurrent health troubles, I needed to retreat from the internet and media, and into my family.  The families who are mourning have been, and will continue to be, in my thoughts and prayers.

While our children have been shielded from the details and sadness of what has happened, I wanted to do something, even if just small gesture, but didn’t know what do do from all the way out here in Oregon.  Then, I saw Nicole of Frontier Dreams making Hearts of Hope to send to the community of Newtown, Connecticut, and knew it would be a small good thing we could do.

If you are interested in making and sending some hearts with messages of comfort and kindness for those grieving the loss of so many, please visit Hearts of Hope.

 

Ruffles

Almost done with Christmas skirts…

Joining with Amanda today, but will be back for a full post this weekend.