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:

Arthur on his way to school

A bit of eccentricity does run in the family, I suppose.

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!

A new never-ending project

I have a plan. These slides are a wee few from the four moving boxes full of slide trays. These all have cardboard, rather than plastic, frames, and the pictures are all bluish. Seascapes, skies. So far I have Australia, New Zealand and Portugal.

 I also have a hole punch and some other odds and ends. Bits of white paper, jump rings from the bead store, lampshades from the thrift store, taken to bits.

Ayers Rock!

It will be a lamp! I have enough slides for, oh, 100 lamps, I figure... But let's get one done before we plan too far ahead.

It needs several more layers. I took great care to put the pictures landscape-portrait-landscape-portrait, but the people who put the slides in the frames took no particular care to make sure the writing was one way or the other, so sometimes it says Kodachrome at the top and sometimes the bottom! Of course, the pictures from Australia were taken years before... or maybe after... the ones from Portugal!

Let there be light.

A square for May

This is the first lacy square for the Block-A-Month afghan. I found it a bit weird; I wanted to SSK when the pattern wanted me to K2tog.

The skirt, the blanket, and the circle of life

The blanket is done, and in the hands of Nancy, who is getting on a plane tomorrow at noon. Silly me, I didn't take a picture before I gave it to her, but she took some, and she will send me one avec bébé when she gets back to where the bébé is.

The story begins... many years ago, when Nancy moved to New Zealand. Fast forward to a month or so ago, when her mother, here in Toronto, suddenly passed away. Nancy comes back from NZ and stays with my friends, her brother John and his wife Sally. (As opposed to my brother John and his wife Sally, not to mention my sister-in-law Nancy...) While she is here, she learns that her grandson is born in NZ and attempts to knit a blanket for him -- she in fact knit herself a lovely wool shawl with Manos, or something equally soft and beautifully dyed, and some curly green-gold bouclé stripes and fringe! It was just not quite right for a baby blanket, but it's a fine wrap for Grandma!

So, one day the knitters get together and Sally brings Nancy. Of course, when one entertains knitters, one has to do a bit of showing off, so I showed them the Felted Tweed Botticelli and my half-finished blanket and my cuff of a sock, and Nancy oohed and aahed over the blanket!

It was one of those first hot days (Hmph, not had many since then, either...) and we were sitting on the back deck, knitting and drinking sangria. Nancy had on a pair of trousers with a skirt on over top, and it was getting warm, so she stood up to take the skirt off, and I said, "That's a nice skirt," so she gave it to me! Just like that, said she had too much stuff to take home and I should have it. And it fit!

 So, a blanket for her grandbaby seemed a fitting return, and being a nutball obsessive, I hemmed and hawed a bit and then just figured out what to do, lickety split, and knit that damn 12 feet of edging and that slightly off-gauge square and everything, and got 'er done.

And! When I went around to give it to her just now, Sally was trying to encourage her to pack and she had "stuff" all over the front hall of the house, and made me try on her mother's wool winter coat, which fit like a dream and which I ended up bringing home with me! Because she couldn't fit everything in her bags, you know.

Phew! Now I shall attempt to clean up the house, because things have got a bit wild around here!

The blanket now

I'm beginning to believe it can be done. A bit more to knit, a bit left to sew on, and I'd like time to toss it in the wash, but that is optional, I suppose.

No time to blog

Halfway around, 2 days to go. Finger muscles sore! Trying not to think of sewing and ends and tidying joins ....

Almost done

This is the edging I have chosen for the cotton baby blanket. It is just garter stitch: increase for a few rows, then decrease again. I am doing it separately, then sewing it on, because that seemed simplest, rather than deal with cast-on edges and sideways edges and different gauges of stocking and garter! So.

I only have about 11 and a half feet to go, and I have 4 days! Ay ay ay.

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?

Happy Mother's Day

Wishing you all Amore, and a good lunch, too!

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.

May the fourth be with you

No good knitting comes to mind from the Star Wars movies. But it's fun to say, "May the Fourth be with you."

ETA: You can make this necklace out of tin foil!

Clarification, please

The Chia Pet has survived the winter and will soon be surrounded by baby cilantro plants, by the look of things. Very good, very good. Today, however, we are concerned with the red box beside him, containing tea -- special mountain grown tea from Taiwan, given to Stephen for his birthday recently.

I read the "directions" on the tin, and must share them.

1. A tea quantity, may depend on the person to like, the quantity soaks.
2. Soaks the tea set, uses the ceramic, the chinaware tea or the big tea cup, the drinking glass may.
3. With the mountain water seepage or pure water, the taste is good.

I assume this all means "pour boiling water over the tea leaves," but who can say for sure? And where does one find "mountain water seepage"?

Now, to vote! 

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!

From the sublime to the ridiculous

You may recall that I urged you a while ago to go help out Melissa on her I Hate Cancer blog. Well, it turns out that I won the yarn she was giving away! Lucky lucky me!

It is Malabrigo, in Lettuce, Rhodesian and Bobby Blue -- the colours seem a bit garish all together like this in a photo, but really, the subtle Malabrigo semi-solid magic is certainly there! I was thinking I needed to make some mittens for next winter, but with all this I might have to come up with a bigger, bolder plan! Stay tuned. And huge thanks to Melissa!

And look how nicely the yarn matches this crazy dolly dress!

 

The other day I was in Romni -- just looking, just for fun, you understand. I was feeling a bit faint next to the wall of sock yarn, and speaking sternly to myself about that, when I noticed a woman getting very excited about this stuff called Marina. She said you could knit a scarf in a couple of hours, and they looked all ripply and cool, and the yarn looked just like a big tape, but spread out outrageously. Well, I couldn't help myself! I picked the most garish ball I could spot.

But it wasn't thrilling me as a 10-stitch scarf...

So I knit a whole double colour repeat of it, back and forth over about 42 stitches, matching up the colour repeats. And then the question arises: what the heck do I do with this?

I knit the mesh with 9 mm needles, and when that yarn ended, I switched to dishcloth cotton on 6 mm. Buttonholes, a couple of seed stitch straps with buttons, and we're set. The doll had better stand demurely, because there is no seam up the back of the skirt, in fact!

And now everyone is happy!

We're ready for Project Spectrum

My fingers are itching to get going on the next big thing. I have knit all I'm going to knit on the big black shawl for now, though I still have enough black to do a big swag of some kind across the top.

As you can see, it is huge. It's drying on three beach towels on the study floor.

Here's the bottom bit, with zigzaggy trim on the left and leaves on the right. Beads in the very bottom of the triangle. A dark grey dangly bit on the left.

The top. I love that leaf pattern! And look how it opened out so marvellously.

One of the unattached bits. I'm not sure if they will get tacked up onto the body of the shawl or left to dangle leprously. In any case, I am not obsessing about that anymore, but will let it dry and trim my ends and wrap it around my shoulders and see if I need to do more at some point. But, it's time to move on!

So, I could {mumble mumble finish mumble socks blanket mumble} or I could start my Felted Tweed Botticelli!

I have a great excuse now: Project Spectrum starts with red, and my sweater starts with red, too! 

If I ignore everything else, I could get this baby done in the red, green, blue and pink/purple months. Yeah, we know how that will work, but I will surely get started.

I figure the back will be something like 150 rows long, which means I can do two-row stripes, changing contrast colours every 16 or 20 rows, and go from red and orange, through my various greens, to blue and purple. I'll sort out the sleeves when I need to! I'm trying not to worry about matching two-row stripes through a set-in sleeve just yet...

I would like to do the whole thing in one piece to the armholes, but there is side shaping and front shaping and I think it will work better if I actually follow the pattern.

Who knows what a tweedy rainbow on a tweedy brown background will look like, but we shall soon find out.

A picture show

I am back, and getting up at the local getting-up time, but I don't quite feel settled. I have to get provisions and prepare for Easter (a quick chat with the bunny, for example) and do my laundry and say hello to the kids...

But I will quickly show you some pictures!

One day we went to the "countryside" for a family get-together and had a little party here:

 

Actually we were on the deck of the perfectly fine house, looking down at this one. It was kinda cool, don't you think? It comes with appliances, too.

We saw this at a sculpture garden.

Some trees by the river in the early morning. I must say it was nice to be out of the city, though maybe I should have gone in early May instead of mid-April -- as you can see the leaves aren't out there yet, either!

As usual, I paid a visit to the thrift store. One has disappeared into thin air, and one was closed Monday mornings, but the last available store had some treasures. The Mary Maxim fish sweater is my fave, I think. The books for men have lots of sock patterns, which should come in handy!

As well as these patterns, I got a cream pitcher that matches a little sugar bowl I got last summer, white pyrex with gold trim. I put the lot down on the counter and the woman said, "How about $1.50?" Deal!

My mom has a little collection of old tea cups, and she offered me a couple. This one is Coalport, and likely belonged to her mother, so it might well be close to 100 years old.  

This one is Royal Albert Petit Point pattern and I've always thought it was quite lovely.

I put them in a shoe box, wrapped up in paper napkins and dirty knickers, and they made it home intact, hooray! So now I have two fancy cups for those sophisticated tea parties....Note that my usual cup holds about 3 times what you could fit in one of these!

And my usual table is set with bits of knitting, as well.

I just have to graft the toe of the second sock and then I can call them finished. I was supposed to knit a grey pair this month, but I have made no progress at all on them. So we'll call these kid's socks the March/April pair, and move the grey ones down the queue!

I also made this petal dishcloth once I'd finished the sock knitting. Stephen says it should be called a throwing star, which makes me wonder what sort of movies he was watching with the kids while I was away...

Finally, I was delighted to learn that Lolly is running Project Spectrum again this year, and going back to the one-colour-per-month model. May, which is just around the corner, is Red month, and really all the red I have is dishcloth cotton, or some very nice lace yarn. I think I have enough on my plate without starting another lace project, but I will participate by making a red dishcloth and hoping for some red in the garden!

Hey, I still have my old PS button!