So dad and I went to the feed store Saturday to stock up on birdseed for the winter. Apparently, not a moment too soon since this is the scene I awoke to this morning. 
It's November 19th for goodness sake! The weathermen were all calling for rain and a few flurries. We got an inch of snow. Very wet sloppy snow. Weird but very pretty.
I've been knitting up a storm, but as usual for this time of year, none of it can be posted here until after Christmas, hee hee. Well, not quite none. Here's the felted clogs finished.
These are going to my husband's aunt for Christmas. Check out the bottoms
The faux suede works like a charm! I "soled" the bottoms of my clogs and it's made a huge difference.
I finished the Melly's Cousin Bag
So cute. I've gotten a ton of compliments on it. It's a bit on the small side for me. Only my bare essentials fit in it. So I hopped back over to Sharon's site and picked up the Ali Bag pattern. She has it shown in a red colorway and a grey colorway. I'm leaning towards blue with green and purple pipes. I'm still looking at yarns. And since it's going to cost at least $50 for the yarn, it will probably wait until I've finished Christmas shopping.
Sadly, there's been no progress on Mr Greenjeans. I really need to finish my Christmas knitting so I can get back to working on it since I would love to wear it for Christmas. And then there's this...
Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Heavyweight RAVEN KORPPI!!! SQUEE!! I'm not a total STR junky, but I do adore their color sense. So a few weeks ago a reminder popped up in my email that said "STR Raven". I couldn't remember what the hell I set the reminder for, but I had put a link in the reminder and it took me to Blue Moon's site. There was nothing there about Ravens. So I hopped on the Ravelry Socks that Rawk group and found a RAGING discussion about when the Ravens would be up. Turns out they had some sort of trouble and the update didn't go up until evening. I happened to be there when the yarns started showing up. It was AWESOME! And the whole group spirit on Ravelry at the same time made it feel even more like a party. So what are the Ravens? Blue Moon did this whole line of colors based on black. Go look. It is PHENOMENAL. And the pictures don't even do the yarn justice. The colors are intense, almost iridescent. I WILL be getting more of this gorgeous stuff. For now, I had to content myself with one skein. It's going to be mittens. I couldn't hide this something this fantastic in shoes! So it's my carrot on a stick right now. I have to finish my Christmas knitting and Mr Greenjeans before I can start the mittens. Well, maybe just finish the Christmas knitting. We'll see how long I can hold out!
It's Memorial day weekend and it sure feels like the start of summer. Our second 90 degree day in a row. The garden is loving it. I must say, I'm quite please with how the garden is turning out this year. I put in fewer plants this year and rotated where things are planted. We put down weed barrier cloth and topped everything with straw. I think it looks pretty, but more important, I'm hoping I don't have to do much weeding when it's stifling hot out. This is the main part of the garden.
In the front row there's a Tom Thumb cherry tomato in a pot (barely visible), Big Beef tomato, Better Boy tomato. Next, between the tomato trellises there is a rosemary and two basil plants, but they are too small to see yet. Next row, 2 Roma tomatoes. Next 2 Sweet Slicer cucumbers. I'm trying a homemade trellis made with steel enforced plastic posts and heavy twine. Those cages just didn't cut it last year. The rest of this bed has onions. 5 rows of Candy sweets (planted from onion sets) and 2 rows of Walla Walla from seed. The Walla Wallas aren't doing so well, but I'm trying to baby them along, keeping my fingers crossed.
This is the side bed where I usually plant my tomatoes. This year I've got a yellow squash (which I'm hoping doesn't spread too much (they can get pretty huge and that bed's only 3 foot wide, YIKES). Next are 4 Big Bertha bell peppers. I've got 3 eggplants after that, but they haven't grown a bit since I planted them a month ago. They haven't died, but they aren't flourishing either. Will have to see what becomes of them. Finally, two rows of radishes and 2 rows of spinach, both of which I was able to harvest some of today.
This week yarn porn...SOCKS THAT ROCK!!!!!!!!
I am so not exaggerating when I say EVERYONE in the knitting blogosphere is raving about this yarn. And has been raving for a good long time. But since I run hot and cold with sock knitting, I've never wanted to shell out the money to get some. Then I saw a skein come up on the KnitSwap list for $12. How could I resist? This is STR mediumweight in Lagoon. It's so soft and pretty. I carried it around with me and left it sit on the coffee table where I could see it for several days. I'm saving it for Summer of Socks. I'm REALLY hoping this sock-jones doesn't where off before then.
I also got this set of sock yarn from a seller on ebay. 
She described the yarn as "so silky you'd swear its half mohair". I beg to differ. The yarn is pretty, although the colors are nothing like what they looked like in the auction picture. But to me the yarn feels coarse. I'm not at all sure what I'm going to do with it. I had thought of knitting Montego Bay from the Summer IK. But after swatching this yarn for it, I don't think that would work. Definitely not going to be socks since it's way to scratchy. I've got about 500 yds total. Any ideas?
The Mister Joe Blanket socks are finished. Although I couldn't get a decent picture for the life of me.
This very unflattering photo at least shows off the patterning and funky heel detail. The socks are incredibly comfortable. This isn't a widely talked about yarn, but I sure like it.
Currently on the needles: I've finished the first of the Regia Bamboo socks and am well underway on sock 2. I've cast on the Katsara yarn using the stitch pattern from the Tube sock pattern from Drops. Do check out their site. Hundreds of free patterns. The search function is kind of flaky, but lots of great patterns.
It's November 19th for goodness sake! The weathermen were all calling for rain and a few flurries. We got an inch of snow. Very wet sloppy snow. Weird but very pretty.
These are going to my husband's aunt for Christmas. Check out the bottoms
The faux suede works like a charm! I "soled" the bottoms of my clogs and it's made a huge difference.
So cute. I've gotten a ton of compliments on it. It's a bit on the small side for me. Only my bare essentials fit in it. So I hopped back over to Sharon's site and picked up the Ali Bag pattern. She has it shown in a red colorway and a grey colorway. I'm leaning towards blue with green and purple pipes. I'm still looking at yarns. And since it's going to cost at least $50 for the yarn, it will probably wait until I've finished Christmas shopping.
Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Heavyweight RAVEN KORPPI!!! SQUEE!! I'm not a total STR junky, but I do adore their color sense. So a few weeks ago a reminder popped up in my email that said "STR Raven". I couldn't remember what the hell I set the reminder for, but I had put a link in the reminder and it took me to Blue Moon's site. There was nothing there about Ravens. So I hopped on the Ravelry Socks that Rawk group and found a RAGING discussion about when the Ravens would be up. Turns out they had some sort of trouble and the update didn't go up until evening. I happened to be there when the yarns started showing up. It was AWESOME! And the whole group spirit on Ravelry at the same time made it feel even more like a party. So what are the Ravens? Blue Moon did this whole line of colors based on black. Go look. It is PHENOMENAL. And the pictures don't even do the yarn justice. The colors are intense, almost iridescent. I WILL be getting more of this gorgeous stuff. For now, I had to content myself with one skein. It's going to be mittens. I couldn't hide this something this fantastic in shoes! So it's my carrot on a stick right now. I have to finish my Christmas knitting and Mr Greenjeans before I can start the mittens. Well, maybe just finish the Christmas knitting. We'll see how long I can hold out!
