Hello everyone! I’m still here!

It looks like I’ve seriously disappeared from the blog the last few weeks, so sorry about that!

I’ve been very busy with lots of different things. Do you want to see what’s been keeping me busy?

Since we started the CSA, I’ve been cooking what feels like 20 times more than before. Now I spend a good part of a few of my evenings cooking delicious recipes so as not to waste any of our precious vegetables. The last two recipes I made were this ratatouille and and this orzo and kale recipe.

The orzo and kale is definitely a winner and I will make it again next time I get kale in my CSA bag. The ratatouille I haven’t tasted yet but it definitely smelled and looked very good. It uses tons of vegetables so is very handy to empty out the fridge!

I’ve been working on box bags to send to the Vermont Sheep and Wool festival with yarn4socks in 2 weeks. That particular batch is almost done and will be handed over tonight. This is what my sewing table looked like yesterday morning.

I’ve added a bunch of made to order box bags to the shop as it was starting to look very bare. I will be adding more throughout the week as well.

I’ve ordered up new business cards for me. The graphic designer I worked with did a fantastic job and am very pleased with the final results.

I’ve also been doing some sewing for my quilting bee. Here are the 2 wonky stars blocks I made for Amanda. I really loved sewing those stars and I can see a wonky stars quilt in my future.

Last but not least, I have been knitting as well. I am currently making progress on my Lu. It’s going fairly fast and am a little further ahead than this photo shows. I’ve now put the sleeve cap stitches on a holder and am working on the underarm.

Of course, a little a bit of this, plus another little bit of that, with a lot of this all adds up. But it’s all fun, so I’m quite happy.

Time to get back to work!

A good mail week

Last week was a very good week for me regarding what came in the mail. I received quite a few packages with things I’d bought and things I’d traded for.

With some money I’d received at Christmas I placed an Amazon order for some books I wanted:

The “Gnomes” book DH got for me for Christmas but the other two were Amazon purchases. “Rotary Magic” is an awesome book for quilters and the other one, well, I just had to have it!

I also received this really cute camera strap that I bought from splityarn to go with my new camera. I just loved that mushroom print!

I received some fabrics and some really cute wooden buttons from The HeyDay Shop on Etsy. It came really fast all the way from Taiwan!

Last but not least, an awesome package from Keri. A few weeks ago she decided to trade away some of her knits that she wasn’t going to use. It seems she’s more of a process knitter than a product knitter. In exchange for some yarn, she sent me this beautiful blanket and lace scarf.

I am a really lucky girl! Keri still has two other beautiful lace scarves up for trade, make sure to check them out!

It really makes me happy to have such wonderful packages, even if I did purchase almost all of them! I wish you all a wonderful mail week too!

Random

Thank you everyone for all the scrappy log cabin love!

• Did lots of sewing this weekend:

• • cushion covers for our couch

• • binding on my pinwheel quilt

• Got ready for Christmas with decorating the tree and putting the Christmas village up, on the mantle now that we have one!

• Did some knitting:

• Finished the latest sock yarn square

• Cast on for a last minute birthday gift (Drops Headband – ravelry details)

Additional notes:

There’s one more pillow cover I want to sew for the couch, but I need to go buy a pillow form first. I used this tutorial for all the pillows, adapting it to my needs. They’re not fancy but they’ll do the trick, and I love the fabrics I used!

I started sewing the binding on my Pinwheel Quilt, I’ve sewn the front side of the binding, now I have to handstitch the back side of the binding. That might take a while…

I wore my Calorimetry to work last week, and my supervisor really liked it. Since it’s her birthday tomorrow I thought that I’d make her one. I wanted to try this other headband pattern by DROPS, so that’s what she’ll get! I’m already almost halfway through and I wont see her until Tuesday, so I should have it done by then!

Trip to Québec

(To the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas)

On our trip to Québec there was:

• 12 moose

Yes, 12. I’d never seen a moose before that and it was a real treat to see so many. We had to be really careful driving because it was night time and with all the moose on the side of the road we didn’t want to risk hitting one. Because it was night time I didn’t get to take a picture and on our way back we didn’t see any. Maybe next time!

• 11, 10, 9° F, temperatures in the mountains of Maine as we were driving up

• Only 8 rows knit on my Herringbone Rib sock

• 7 long hours of driving (each way)

• 6 family members

We spent the weekend with my parents, my brother, his girlfriend and my two lovely nieces.

• 5 inches knit on my sock yarn square

• 4, the birthday my niece Naomi celebrated

• 3 skeins of sock yarn

I picked these up at the post office as we were leaving, so they kind of count, right! This is the yarn I received for the Sundara Artist’s Choice sock club.

• 2 turkeys crossing the road

• 1 fabric store

The Fabric Garden, really nice quilting shop, much bigger than my LQS. I made a few purchases…

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This is for Abigail: you mentioned in my last post being interested in one of my box bags, please check your spam folder if you’re still interested!

Things that make me happy Friday

New “knitted” mug from Starbucks*

3 quinces

2 persimmons

New Anthropologie scarf

My Spare Change Swap squares

Clean socks

Anthopologie’s Christmas gift wrappings

What makes you happy this Friday?

* If I had more money, I would have bought my knitware mug from the original, Alyssa Ettinger.

B’s on Monday

Banana Bread

New Books

Box Bags for sale*

Back of Celtic Vest

Bindingless but quilted

Boatload of yarn to photo

* Measurements: 7″ long x4.5″ high x3.5″ wide, $20 each plus $2 shipping to US address. Let me know in the comments if one of these interests you or if you have any questions!

Random Monday

Sewing:

I tried a new free pattern I found over at Show Your Workings. It is a pattern for the Japanese knot bag. I ended up sewing up two bags because I wasn’t sure I’d understood everything properly the first time around. I still haven’t quite figured out what to do with the handles but here’s the second bag I made.

The bag is reversible and you can see the other side here. The first bag was made with a Japanese print and you can see it here and here.

Shopping:

This weekend, DH and I went to stART on the Street in Worcester. My friend Karen from Simply June had a booth there. I just had to purchase this cute little pouch, especially since this button came with it!

Hiking:

Also this weekend, I hiked up Mt Monadnock, NH. It was quite the hike and I have to say that I am quite sore. The view from the top was really awesome and well worth the hardship to make it there.

You can see a lot more pictures in this Flickr set. I managed to knit a couple rows on my Knitterly Things stripy sock and you can see that I’m wearing my finished Stacked Eyelet Cowl.

Knitting:

I just had to. I couldn’t resist. We just got in this new yarn for the store and I had to have some. And I had to cast on, right away… The yarn is K1C2 Ty-Dy Socks and the colors were screaming my name. So I guess I have yet another sock on the needles and I have absolutely no will-power!

BTW, before anyone freaks out, this is not my foot but a plastic foot model that was a bit too small,  I added tape to make it bigger, which is why you can see tape on the foot.

Eye Candy Friday

Yesterday morning I took advantage of the last of the strawberry picking season. I went to a farm close by and picked a little over a pound of strawberries. We’ll be enjoying them over the long weekend!

Random Wednesday with an S

Stash Enhancing

This is some Kauni Effektgarn 8/2 that I bought at Tricolaine, Carouge when I was in Geneva 2 weeks ago. Annelis, the owner is a wonderful person. I met her 2 years ago when I was on vacation there and had the chance to be a be able to spend a couple afternoons knitting with her. You can see a picture of her holding my Kureyon sock if you click here (make sure to look at her gorgeous sweater – I’ll have to ask her what the pattern is). I don’t know yet what I’ll be doing with the Kauni yarn, probably some lace when I have time for that sort of thing. In the mean time it will just grace my stash with their beauty. (The skein on the right has stripes of brown, blues and burgundies like this.)

Spinning accessories

I’ve finally purchased a tensioned lazy-kate and a larger niddy-noddy for myself. The lazy-kate was ordered for me by Debbie from Iron Horse Farm and I bought the niddy-noddy from Mind’s Eye Yarns at their booth at the Gore Place sheepshearing festival in Waltham, MA back in April.

Sewing project underway

I finally cut up my pattern pieces for the Frenchy Bag. This was back on Sunday and I haven’t had a chance to do more. I really wanted to have finished this week but I don’t know that it’s going to happen.

Special Swap Sweet Treats

I received yesterday my Special Swap Sweet Treats swap package from Yarn Yenta. She sent me an assortment of fun goodies including a muffin mix, cute patterns for felted toy animals, a chibi and a tape measure. I’d been wanting a chibi for a while now and now I have my own!

Socks in progress

On the left you will notice my Noro Kureyon Sock. It’s knitting up fairly well. The yarn is rough and has uneven spots here and there but I’m not disliking the process at all. There was a break in the stripe continuation mid-heel and at first I just knit it like that. Then, after having started the leg I just ripped it all out and decided to keep the striping sequence and split-splice the yarn together. This is the sock that I will be bringing on my trip to TNNA tomorrow. Donna and I are driving out to Columbus, OH for the show. We’ll both be driving so there will be time for some knitting. I’m really excited about going to the show, I think that it will be crazy but super interesting. We’ll be stopping here and there at some yarn shops so if you know of any in the area, make sure to let me know! I’ll be back Tuesday with details about the trip! The sock on the right is a Rococo sock by Knitspot knit in O-Wool Classic 2-ply. I only have 8 rows left to knit and then I can bind off. The pattern is very fun and interesting without being difficult. I love how the sock looks and I’m looking forward to having a pair.

So this is what’s going on at Knitting In Pink’s. I hope that once all these trips are over that I’ll have a bit more time for crafting and blogging and will be able to post more often.

Talk to you next week!

 

Blooming

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Beauty shots

Peonies have got to be one of my favorite flowers. I always look forward to finding the first ones at the store so I can bring some home! When I bought these they were still unopened and I just loved seeing each bud open one after the other, every day another one. There’s just one now that hasn’t opened yet, but I bet it wont be long!

I made sure to buy them when I first saw them so I could enjoy them now before I leave on vacation. DH and I are going on a trip to Switzerland in a few days and when we get back maybe there won’t be any more peonies to be found!