Kittenapalooza!

There's a new lady in my life:

Lucille Clementine, better known as Lucy
(Check out those EARS!)

She came home with me last night and has been hanging out in my room ever since. Currently she's enjoying a lengthy nap on my bed. She's here more or less because I decided I don't like driving on the freeway anymore. Unlike most drivers I know I've never really been scared of the freeway, not even when I was new to it, but a few weeks ago it occurred to me that I have a lot more fun when I take surface roads. The route from E's house to mine is particularly enjoyable, as little country roads take me past cows, horses, plenty of chickens, neighbors selling summer squash & sweet corn, and one particular house with a very tempting sign out front: "ADORABLE KITTENS FREE."

Mom & I had been talking about a kitten for a while. Our cat April is very very lonesome. We lost her brother Bam a year ago to a car and Bob, my sweet silly companion for 8 years or so, passed away back in May due to kidney failure. We all miss them both every day and April is no exception. This is the only time in her life she's been the the only cat and she doesn't seem to like it a bit (I don't blame her). Of course, she and Lucy are not exactly best friends yet. They've had two brief meetings, both of which featured a lot of hissing from April. They'll get to know each other better once Lucy's been to the vet, of course, and I have no doubt that April will come around, even if it takes some time.

For now Lucy & I are hanging out in my room. She's been remarkably well-behaved, using her little temporary litter box like a pro, chasing her tail a whole bunch, wrestling with her favorite "toy" (an old rag I had lying around), and licking my hands at every opportunity. Aww! I'll try to get some better pictures soon. Black cats aren't easy to photograph and the crappy camera I've been using since my good one broke only makes matters worse, but I think my friend M, a talented photographer, will be by tomorrow, so I'll see what I can get him to do. And naturally there will be video of the tail-chasing as soon as I can manage it!

Garden Photos.

My garden is doing beautifully so far this year! I actually have two gardens now, much to my delight: the same little patch of the backyard we've been using for three years now plus a new bed along the side of the house. (Once I have access to my own land you can bet none of it will be wasted on grass, but I'm very grateful to have any space at all to grow while living at home, not to mention my step-dad's expertise and help!) I've never quite gotten the hang of taking good garden photos but there's only one way to get any better at that, so here are some from this morning:


As you can see, the bell peppers are really coming in! We've never successfully grown them before and the plants barely seemed to grow early on, so I was nervous. Clearly I had nothing to worry about. We have three plants, each stunningly productive. I think a large part of it has to do with my three fantastic, heavenly-smelling lavender plants, which the bees have been loving as much as I do. The cucumbers by the lavender are flourishing, too, in contrast to last year's cucumbers which never seemed to get pollinated. Thanks bees!

We've got some sweet banana peppers, too!

It will be some time before the cabbage is ready, but isn't it pretty? I love the color it adds.

Sadly, strawberry season is well past. This photo is from June, during which we harvested tons of strawberries as beautiful, juicy, and delicious as these two. The strawberry plants are making a valiant effort to take over the entire garden as we speak. It's tempting to just let them but I am holding them back as best I can.

That's just a fraction of what we've got, so I'll aim for more/better photos soon!

Hi blog! I know it's been approximately 8,000 years since I last posted (or 7 months, whatev). School definitely took over my life during my last semester, leaving very little time for baking or knitting, let alone blogging about either. On the plus side I took four of the best and most challenging courses of my life, so I'm definitely not complaining, but I am thoroughly enjoying my summer break. A year from now I will have a degree in Anthropology and Women's & Gender Studies and probably be freaking out about what the hell to do next. I have a few ideas (my current favorite involving going on for a Master's in Library & Information Science) but we'll see what happens.

Currently I am working on my first pair of cuff-down socks and I absolutely love them! I'm nearing the toe on the first one and it's been a fun process. As much as I enjoyed toe-up socks and appreciate their yarn-saving potential, I have to say that turning the heel from the cuff down somehow seems to make more sense and I really like the look of this heel.

Pictures of those socks will come soon. For now I can show you one kinda crappy picture of one of the only projects I finished all semester, a neck-warmer for my gentleman-friend E:

Unfortunately taken right after I brilliantly dropped my camera on the pavement in Seattle and broke it.
The pattern for that was a free one, the Darkside Cowl, and I absolutely loved knitting it. The stitch not only looks cool but produces a very springy, thick fabric. It definitely keeps the neck warm and has gotten plenty of compliments -- next time you want to make an quick & easy gift, keep it in mind!

So, is anyone still reading this? Please feel free to say hi in the comments if you are! I wouldn't be surprised if lots of folks stopped checking this since I've been so negligent. I've also noticed that I'm not the only one to have gone on an unplanned hiatus; many of my favorite blogs seem to have been languishing for a while now. Still, I will do my best to update more often, at least for the rest of the summer and hopefully into the school year, too. Hope you're all well. ♥

Hey blog! I have a hat to show you:

That is Thorpe, made with the pretty dark red yarn I bought in Toronto & some leftovers from the vest I made ages ago. The knitting was very quick and only took a day or so once I got past the initial increases (the hat is knit top-down, something I hadn't done before). I didn't know how to do the crocheted edging, though, so today I went over to my beloved Aunt Andrea's house thinking she'd show me how. Instead she just did it for me while I ate all her crackers, cheese, and nuts, and drank hot buttered rum. What a relaxing way to finish a project! :) I may or may not add some braided straps to the earflaps, but for now I kind of like it the way it is (and, since I left that yarn at Aunt Andrea's, I don't have much of a choice for the moment). I am planning to block it a bit so the flaps no longer curl out, though. The pattern was a bit difficult at first because it starts with so few stitches, but in the end I found myself absolutely loving it. It has lots of potential, too -- there are some very creative interpretations on Ravelry, of course! I have no doubt I'll be making more of these.

Have you seen the new Knitty yet? It's so inspiring! I'm making these socks as soon as I can. I also, of course, loved the knitted wire earrings. I tried knitting with wire probably a year and a half ago or so and absolutely hated it but these are so lovely that I tried to push that memory from my mind & ran out today to buy wire and earring hooks. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), knitting with wire has not gotten any more comfortable or fun since the last time I tried it. My first attempt at an earring was very ugly and I still feel like I'm about to go crosseyed and my fingertips hurt. Plus the wire is a mess of tangles & kinks. Bleh. I might get the hang of it yet but I kind of doubt it. Tips would be appreciated!

Finally, remember the cookie contest I was going to enter? I spent all of last week experimenting in the kitchen until I came up with a decent recipe for pumpkin snickerdoodles. It still had a few kinks I could've worked out to make it absolutely perfect, but the cookies were definitely tasty & creative and I thought I'd have no problem winning. So I went to sign up last Thursday, only to be told I'd missed the sign-up deadline. I must've looked distraught, because the men who told me that started making phone calls & trying to find a way around the deadline for me. While they were doing that, though, it occurred to me that I might want to make sure the prize really was a decent sum of money, like I thought. It definitely was not -- it was a $15 gift card to some crappy chocolate store! I like gift cards and I like chocolate, but the chance to win that honestly didn't seem worth the extra drive up to campus, so I didn't enter after all. Oh, well -- at least I came up with a cool recipe. I will definitely post it here once I've perfected it a bit more.

Can I bake my way to a scholarship?

Probably not.

Can I try?

Yes!

My school is having a cookie-baking contest next Friday. The prize is some amount of scholarship money, I think. (Really there is like no infomration about this anywhere save a few fairly non-detailed fliers on campus.) I need to select & perfect a recipe in between writing papers and studying for finals!

(This is clearly why I should've stuck with my ill-fated 50-cookies-in-'08 plan, because then it would be like I'd been training for this moment all year. But, um, I didn't, so there goes that.)

What would you submit? I want to do something unique, something that will stand out. Right now I'm thinking chai snickerdoodles would be a hit if I could kick up the chai flavor enough, but something with pumpkin also seems like a good idea.

Home & done with National Blog Posting Month.

Well I made it to the end! Believe it or not, I posted every single day in November. Topics ranged from the election to links I liked to events around the city to, of course, recipe links & photos of my knitting progress. A few of the posts were only long enough for me to say that I didn't really have time to post, but, hey, they still count.

All things considered, just yesterday I was saying that I wouldn't do NaBloPoMo again. It was kind of fun but also another thing to worry about each day, and who needs one of those? More than that I disliked the feeling of posting just to post, rather than posting because I had something to share.

Today I found myself reconsidering that, though, when I read that December's theme is Thanks. (November didn't have a theme.) I still won't be participating, but that's one I like and could see myself having some fun with. I think that's what I need, actually, a theme of some kind to keep me going. So perhaps I'll do something like that in the future, but for now expect to hear from me a little less often. Thanks for taking this little month-long journey with me and I'll see you when/if I manage to crawl out from under the mountain of homework I should be doing right now. ♥

Hola! No time for a real post, of course. I leave here at 1:00 tomorrow morning so I need to fit lots of fun (and packing) into these next few hours. I'll have lots to post tomorrow though!

We went to Lettuce Knit today! It was so so cute and I loved the whole Kensington neighborhood. There were so many cool-looking shops and restaurants and I'd like to spend a lot more time down there someday.

Making a purchasing decision at Lettuce Knit was damn near impossible but eventually I settled on some big dark red wool, which will likely become the Thorpe hat (I have some brown yarn at home for the trim). I still don't have my camera cord but I just did realize that Linn's computer has Photobooth, which is quite novel to me, so I can show you the yarn after all:



Linn just called to say she's on her way back here, so maybe it's time to stop using her computer for silly yarn photos. Hope you all have an excellent weekend!

Gratitude + food = a pretty good holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

My Thanksgiving dinner was just me & Linn at the very swanky 7 West Cafe, where I had pasta primavera, garlic bread, and some crazy blue raspberry martini and we split an amazing dark chocolate cake for dessert (I also had some of Linn's raspberry amaretto tea, which was delicious). I may be in the minority here, but to me that is at least 80,000 times better than traditional Thanksgiving fare (except maybe pumpkin pie). Linn's company also could not be beat, though of course having a holiday without family is a bit strange. Christmas is definitely soon enough, though!

Tomorrow we're going to Lettuce Knit and I can hardly wait! (Were I at home I'd be participating in Buy Nothing Day, but this is the best time for us to go and Black Friday isn't even that big here, so...it kind of doesn't count, right? Right. Oh, actually the website lists "international" BND as Saturday, so I guess it really doesn't count. Sweet.)

Hey I am in Toronto! I am also typing this on a Norwegian keyboard, which is...different.

Posting from here is not going to be easy -- I meant to bring my camera cable so I could just do simple photo posts each day, but of course I forgot it, so there goes that idea. I am going to try to put something up each day, though, if only so I can say I successfully completed NaBloPoMo.