As promised, the Staghorn Tunic! It took 3-4 skeins of Patons Classic Wool. Pattern is from the Webs online store. The bodice is stretching like crazy, so I will stabilize it with a single chain crochet edge along the neckline. One of these days.

I had just spent three hours in the yard ( some of the handiwork can be seen in the beds behind me). I was ready for that glass of wine!

Personal Best

Earlier in the day, we sallied forth to the Meet of Champions where Laserman PR’d in the shot put. Hubby even caught the throw on video…

He didn’t crack the top 10, but he was close. Here’s a random pic of the kids and I right before L-man threw.

Amazing what 3 hours of hard labor does to one’s facial expressions.

The Staghorn Tunic is complete and blocking…picture  to follow soon, I promise! It may be too warm for much wear, but it is still spring in the Northwest and we are not done with chilly, rainy weather just yet.  Meanwhile,  I have  some interesting tidbits to share.

First, a recipe!  My oatmeal-hating husband and I cobbled together a few recipes and and a twist of our own and came up with our new favorite breakfast item: Baked Oatmeal.   If you are trying to wean yourself off of boxed cereals, this is a good way to do it. Bulk oatmeal is inexpensive and this is very filling.

Baked Oatmeal

3 cups rolled oats

2 tsp. baking powder

1 TB cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

2 TB ground flax ( or 4 egg whites)

1 cup skim or soy milk

Preheat oven to 350 deg.  Combine wet and dry ingredients and spread in a  9×9 baking pan, or a pie tin.  Bake for 20-30 minutes. It can be pretty sticky,  so use whatever method you deem best to  prevent it from sticking to your pan. You can play around with additions.  Sometimes I like to throw in a handful of walnuts, but dried fruit works well also. 8 servings.

Back to the Garden

Today is shaping up to be sunny, so I am going to be working on the pile.  While I was waiting for the sun to come out this week, I spent some time researching plant sale purchases made over the last month, confirming what I suspected – they are all going to get way too big.  There’s a reason why people donate certain plants to the church plant sale.  I never learn.  I found a great site that helped educate me about just how big and invasive all these plants are going to get.  Dave’s Garden is a great site for plant research.  I ran a search for Trumpet Vine ( yes, I bought one) and it brought up lots of varieties and pictures submitted by site members. Plants have their own comment sections, which was SO enlightening. The trumpet vine had some very entertaining comments with regard to how creatively invasive it can become.  It almost scared me off the plant entirely, but I am still enamored with its ability to attract hummingbirds and for now, my plan is to keep it in a pot and train it up the kids’ playhouse. I have no problem with ruthless pruning.  Based on the comments, I could expect this vine to not only take over the playhouse,  but would probably tear the roof off, then, after consuming my children, spread its nasty tendrils over the whole neighborhood, destroying every fence post in its evil wake.  That’s OK, I like a challenge.

..complete with cartoon noise in the background and a blatant commercial endorsement. I’m the happiest mum in the neighborhood

These are knit from a skein my son bought for me as a Christmas gift two years ago. It’s a  basic sock recipe and it was nice to make something that I didn’t have to rip back for a change. Let’s hope that this trend continues.

Done! I used 3ish skeins of Cascade 220, adapted Ann Budd’s basic vest pattern to be knit in the round, and it was off to the races.  Hub asked very politely if I would please cut off his head. He’s been a little under the weather, not sleeping well, and needs a haircut, resulting in a facial expression that looks as if I tied him to a chair and fed him lemons.

Birthday Sweater time is almost upon us!  This year the decision was an easy one, as I was the winning bidder on  a sweater kit at the fund raising auction for my son’s middle school. Now this was not just any sweater kit; this kit was going to include custom dyed yarn by my friend and fellow soccer mom, Kate.  I looked at the kit as any knitter would.   Needles:  Got ‘em. Pattern: Own it. Yarn:  Two big hanks of bare Cascade Eco-Wool: Easy enough to find on my own. Custom-Dyed? Now, which kidney can I hock to get my hands on that?  Fate and an apparently knitter-free crowd of bidders combined to make the kit mine, all mine! It has been such a fun process. Here are my color inspirations:

This is Kate, who let me photograph her for the blog like the great sport that she is:

This is Kate’s book of samples:

Kate uses Dharma Fiber Reactive dyes on her fibers, including wool. I am very new the dyeing lingo, but my understanding is that acid dyes are often used for wools, and the fiber reactive dyes are used for plant-based proteins, such as bamboo and cotton. Kate makes adjustments and uses the fiber reactive on both kinds of fiber, and I must say the intensity does not suffer at all.  Voila’!

Kate teaches dyeing and weaving classes at Multnomah Art Center and I am hoping to take a class from her soon.

As for the Birthday Sweater, I was thinking of keeping it simple with a top-down raglan sweater to highlight the wonderful colors. I am also looking at Shalom (Rav link), which I think will also be a good choice for this yarn. Here’s the Non-Rav Shalom. Either way, bring on 44 – I can’t wait!

More blog fodder…

Saturday was the Tigard Knitting Guild Shop Hop. It was also my mother-in-law’s birthday, so we celebrated by hopping all over the west side, visiting Molehill Farm, Dublin Bay, Knit-Purl, Northwest Wools, and All About Yarn. They are all great shops and we had a marvelous time. How could we not when every shop offered us 20% off on everything? The raffle and goody bags were a delightful bonus.  I won a $25 gift certificate to Molehill Farm five minutes before we pulled into their parking lot.  I felt like it was my birthday, too.  Next year, we want to go on the east side tour, and that should give me enough time to save my spare change. Here’s the loot.

You can click on the links for more information.

1. Knitting 2009 055, 2. Knitting 2009 054, 3. My first Koigu, 4. Spinner’s Web laceweight, 5. Sea Wool sock yarn, 6. Ty-Dy sock, 7. IK swag – I have felt this way at times, 8. The rest of the TKG Goody bag

Still cheaper than dinner and a movie!

As part of her preparation for  first communion, Pumpkin helped bake the bread that was to be used at the service. Our church observes first communion at the Maundy Thursday service following a Passover seder.  She seemed to enjoy every part of the experience, particularly hopping on up to the rail at Easter to take communion together as a family for the first time.  However, the subtleties of  transubstantiation are wasted on a seven year old and, if you ask her, the best part by far was baking the bread. I couldn’t let all that bread-baking energy go to waste!  The recipe is Pain Ordinaire and is easy peasy.  We froze half and used it later for pizza dough  – totally brilliant.

I love watching her knead the bread. I could watch her hands all day.

No, it’s not an April Fool’s prank, seriously. These pictures were taken on the last sunny day; it has been raining hard ever since.  I am itching to get the vegetables going, but I need to get some row covers first, and do some clean up. Our crazy winter has left some damage in its wake, but not as much as I had feared. I am going to enjoy these pictures and use them to remind myself that the sun will come out again and I will be able go outside to play.

Our asparagus came back!  These are the first returnees.  I can only eat a few this year as the asparagus are still making themselves at home. Next year we can really go for it. I had a heck of a time figuring out how to go about asparagus. We really love to eat asparagus, but planting and harvesting seemed so confusing. The best description I read came from Animal,Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver.  The rest of the book is worth a look as well, though I don’t plan on butchering heirloom turkeys any time soon.

Arctic Blast didn’t kill my newly transplanted artichoke – whew! We may not get too many artichokes off of this plant this year, but next year’s harvest should be better.

Our newly transplanted salmonberry survived the winter.  Last fall, I moved many plants around, and I’m afraid that some couldn’t make it past the colder-than-usual winter.  I am encouraged by the few that did.  I hope that spring brings a few more nice surprises.

This is the theme that is emerging in my knitting life this year.  February Lady?  Can’t count, so had to frog the increases twice.  Leyburns…well, I’m still scarred over those, though I have worn them several times and recovery is imminent.  The trend is continuing…Hubby’s vest?  It seems the man has lost some weight and measuring against existing sweaters for size is a bad idea. Rip-it!  Staghorn Tunic…let’s just say that gauge swatches are helpful but sometimes they lie like a rug.  In this case, I realized that a 54″ circumference around my butt was going to be way too big for my rather (ahem) pleasant proportions.  Rip-it!  I swear I had gauge…yeesh.  Last night I did finish something that I managed to start  and finish without ripping out at all.

I kitchenered that toe with no mistakes while watching Battlestar Galactica Season 4.0 on DVD and drinking red wine. Thank you very much. Maybe my fortunes are changing for the better.

Looking forward…

to custom dyed yarn! That’s what the Eco-Wool is for, and I am so excited! I was the winning bid at the middle school fundraising auction for a sweater kit, including yarn to be custom dyed by my friend Kate. She’s very good and I will take lots of pictures and blog them, I promise. She teaches weaving and dyeing at Multnomah Art Center and everybody should take classes from her. The kit included a pattern and needles, both of which I already had, but I was after the yarn and now I am on the hunt for color inspiration. This may be the Birthday Sweater for this year.

Also looking forward to the Tigard Knitting Guild Shop Hop. It’s April 25, which is also my mother-in-law’s birthday, so I bought her a membership in the guild along with the shop hop, and we are making it a girl’s day out. I’ve been to most of the shops on the route this year, but I’m tagging along for the camaraderie and the experience…and the goody bag, of course!

What’s going on in your knitting life?  Hopefully, the word “frog” hasn’t popped up as much as in mine.

I can’t  believe I let more than a month go by without a post!  I battled a major case of startitis, which I am still grappling with, truth be told. I juggled my various projects with the following and in no particular order:  A Lenten resolution to exercise every day ( I don’t know what I was thinking, really, yet I am doing it and am the better for it) A Contractually Unmentionable, middle school multicultural fair, various and sundry volunteer commitments too numerous to mention, graduate program application ( again!? Didn’t I just do this 15 years ago?), sick kids, playdates, oh yeah, more sick kids.  Every morning my son gets a glass of Airborne on his way out the door just in case. The Neti pots are working overtime, and so far no one has had to go to urgent care.

But I digress…Knitting!  Did I mention? I finished a few things:

My Leyburns in STR Lightweight, Knitters Without Borders colorway, aka the Bane Of My Existence. I ripped at least 4 times, all for stupid reasons. It’s not that hard of a pattern.  The knitting muses were not with me on this one, yet I did managed to finish them. They feel great, and I ‘m sure my shoes hide all the times I forgot to knit a row before slipping all those godforsaken stitches.

The Muse returned for this one…My February Lady!

As Pumpkin would say, “I don’t like it… I LOVE it!” I used almost 4 skeins of Cascade 220. I took the advice of the thousands of knitters on Ravelry who have knit this pattern and went for a size smaller, and it fits perfectly.

I couldn’t rest on my laurels, my knitting basket just looked too empty:

Generic vest for DH from Ann Budd’s book

Staghorn Cable Tunic

Here’s the one I am most excited about:

Hmm…what could she be talking about? More on this one later…