Making apple crisp

First you peel the apples. 

Also, this time, I cooked up a bit of rhubarb,

but neglected to take a picture of it!

You mix the oats, brown sugar and butter.

Then, you take the apple peels out to the compost,

and stop to admire the flowers on the way. 

All this rain must be good for the flowers!

And maybe shoot a basket or two.

Then you put the oats on the apples and rhubarb and pop the whole thing in the oven.
The end.

It is almost the end of red month, and of Macro May! June will see lots of green, and you know I can do green! I'm looking forward to it. And looking forward to making these fruit skewers:

Always proofread carefully

I put this photo up on Flickr as part of MacroMay and Project Spectrum, and it got picked up by the Daily Qi as their Photo of the Day!

It is immortalized there as an ornamental onion flower bug, because that's how I labeled it when I uploaded it to Flickr.

Bud! It's a bud, not a bug!

Two quick pictures, or maybe more

Today we have for you a picture showing the perils of gauge! You would think that the 25th square, knit with the same size needles and the same yarn, would be the same size as the other 24....

But you see here the nice, neat tension of the right-hand square, and the loose, not so neat tension of the new square. Some might rip and redo, but I know that that square was made from three scraps of yarn; that I am now working to a deadline on this blanket; and that the square will just squish in the corner and no one will ever notice. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I can't explain the deadline bit just now, but all will be revealed in a week or so!

The second picture is of a small selection of our excess Allen keys. We got one with each Ikea bookshelf we've ever owned, I imagine. I saved a couple of each size, though why, I'm not sure, and here is the whole lot that I have declared extra:

Quite a lot, eh?

Stephen is out of town. Do you think he will ever notice if they just disappear? Will he, one day, wonder why we only have a dozen various Allen keys and not 47?

MM and PS

MM is Macro May, on Flickr.

I am finding this an interesting challenge, and find I am better at taking pictures of static things like a gate latch than plants or, heaven help us, animals!

Sunny weather is always helpful, too. Something that stays still in a sunny spot is just what I like!

PS is, of course, Project Spectrum. Today we have red from the bookshelves.

The cat's cradle book has seen a bit of use lately, but we are not experts. Much practice is needed. Perhaps we should buy a summer cottage if we want the kids to excel at this.

Debrett's is just a joke, really. While my friend was sorting books for a book sale, she came across it and recognized just the sort of silliness that we like around here. Too bad I am unlikely to ever have to address envelopes to archbishops and marquesses.

I must say I use the Scrabble dictionary a lot! Useful words include qi, za, xi and jo, just for starters. (Blogger's spell-checker only likes xi, by the way.) I have a sort-of-standing date to play Scrabble IRL once a week, but it's been a while since all the gang got together. And when the kids are off school in the summer it's almost impossible for everyone to have an afternoon free at the same time! Ah well. There's always Facebook Scrabble...

Colourful in the sun

The sun peeped out yesterday evening so I ran outside to take pictures of Botticelli! The back is progressing like anything! I have this idea that I hate stocking stitch, but it certainly does speed things up if you just knit one row and purl the next, I must say.

Red, Orange, Yellow(ish), Light Green, Dark Green and a row of Turquoise

When I got to the dark green, I swapped out the dark brown and replaced it with grey. Now I think about it, I could have done that with the red, as well. Not changing it now, though!

Ohh, those greens

I had to have a peek at some plants in the garden.

I took euonymus cuttings from a neighbour last year, and after a bit just jammed them in a hole in the ground and hoped for the best, and they seem to have rooted okay. New green leaves!

Then we have the weird alien thingmabobs, which are, in fact, fiddleheads from above.

This hint of spring reminds me of a funny thing I saw on Facebook:

INSTALLING SPRING…
███████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 44% DONE.
Install delayed….please wait.
Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error: Season not found. Season “Spring” cannot be located. The season you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please try again.

What to do in May

I don't think I ever made knitting goals for April. In fact, April just whipped by a bit fast and here we are in May! Arthur has only 6 weeks of school left! The garden has sprung into being without me digging out that wretched patch of grass properly! Aaaack!

Okay, so let's settle down with some knitting.

1. Felted Tweed Botticelli
2. May square
3. grey socks -- or perhaps start another plain pair of socks??
4. sew together that dang blanket. Actually, if I finish it soon, I might even have a baby to give it to! 

It is the start of a new Project Spectrum. I have not really participated in the last couple of years, but now we are back to a colour family a month, and I am keen. I took some pictures of my red/orange/brown Botticelli, but it is dreary outside and the flash pictures I took inside look awful. Never fear: I have some others for you.

The rusty orange yarn, mmm.

A shiny red apple, mmm.

Ick! Pretty colour, but do I really have to interact with them?

I have joined a group on Flickr to participate in MacroMay. It just means one takes pictures through the macro lens... So I took a few red ones, and a green one, too!