pjbknit

Knit, Crochet, Plants, Etc.

One of the things is, the Granny Smith apple tree is blooming, later than the other apple trees.

I made a blueberry pound cake from a Cooking Light recipe from 1998. I remembered it all these years. I found some Chobani lemon yogurt and want to try it again.

It has been warm lately, and Belvedere comes in and lies on the cool floor, or near an A/C vent. Here he was tired from gallumping after the UPS truck.

The Bird of Paradise is budding. DH says we need to divide the plant into at least five. We got a truckload of potting soil yesterday. Wonder if he will need the machete?

I think the amaryllis missed the season. These are a some of a collection of Red Lion bulbs in a pot with the Norfolk Island pine, from Christmas presents and after-Xmas sales.

I dug up my fall-planted shallots in order to plant more seeds that are supposed to produce more shallots. We shall see.

I finished Sedona's sleeves to make sure I had enough yarn left for the body. Think I have two skeins left of the Rowan Calmer.

I started a market bag last year in crochet. The single crochet base hurt my hands, so I put it away for months, until I had the idea to pick up stitches around the base and knit the rest of the bag. The yarn is Sugar 'n' Cream.

We have tomato seedlings, plus six more at least this size in the Aerogarden. The short plants are peppers and basil. They are larger and in pots now.

More Stuff

Yes, I am on a roll with blog post titles, right?

I sewed a coupon holder, but I think it is too big for my purse, sigh.

 

Here is my first mitt from Susie Rogers' Reading Mitt  pattern-finished with picot hems and all. The second one is at the thumb gusset. The yarn is Ultra Alpaca Lite

In other knitting news, I have new room darkening curtains in my office and need tiebacks. This is Sugar and Cream cotton yarn in Earth Ombre

 

 

Sugar Snap Peas

We still have the Sugar Daddy sugar snap peas on the patio in a container. They are covered at the moment, as we are having a brief cold snap.

They are not ripening as fast as they do in the spring, but the vines are full of baby pea pods and blossoms. They get moved around to catch the sun and are under a patio covered tonight because it is supposed to be in the teens.

More Mitts and Yarn and Stuff

I started the Glam Gloves after finshing the October Leaves mitts. I strung 240 or so beads on the Cherry Tree Hill Supersock yarn  got from a Ravelry destasher. It is way lighter than the yarn for my socek, but oh well. I have finished one mitt, and added it to the Pile of Finished Objects (FOs) That Need nds Woven In. Sigh.

While I try to find a photo of the Glam Glove 1, here is some new yarn to distract you--ooh shiny.

Autumn Sky Handpanted Merino/Csahmere DK yarn from Wildethyme Art

Autumn Sky with Belvedere checking it out

Cranberry in Nebula Sock (merino, nylon, cashmere) from Ethereal Fibers on Etsy, which had to come to my house after I saw its photo on Plurk

I found the Glam Glove photo on Ravelry.  I will add a button to the ring finger for a ring. I cannot decide if I want to add a  bead bracelet to the second glove. I will have to use the crochet hook method , since I started the cuff w/o stringing the beads.

I went to  The Taming of the Ewe in Jacksonville, AL on Black Friday instead of shopping at the mall. I got this Kraemer Perfection yarn, and have crocheted a toddler hat and and a flower to sew to the hat. I have finshed that, hope to take a photo tomorrow.

I also got this Debbie Macomber Blossom Street Collection Petals Socks yarn in Flowering Cabbage colorway. I also watched about 2.5 Mrs. Miracle movies on Hallmark Saturday night, which made me think about the yarn. (Yeah, my brain works funny) At first, I thought I was allergic to its angora content, as I sneezed while in the LYSm but my sinuses are still bothering me, and I have not touched the yarn in a week.

The sugar snap peas and shallots seem to be happy with the weather

Sweet Tater Time

We finally dug the sweet potatoes. Since I decded kinda late last sprng/summer (like the end of June) that I wanted to plant sweet potatoes, we probably got more smaller ones, since they missed some growing time. Oh well, live and learn. These are Bush Porto Rico, which have a compact growing habit, instead of sprawling, rampant vines everywhere.


Vines before. They had a little frost damage on the leaves. We have had to cover them a few times.


Vines after pulling them up. Some of the tubers came up when the plants were pulled up, but most we had to dig for-mainly by hand. I found a lot of rocks and 2 frogs/toads that were a similar color to the sweet potatoes.

Where they used to be.

Tubers sitting for a few hours before we put them inside the pool house to cure, when their starches turn to sugar.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving casseroles

 

Knitting Again

First, a garden photo. I planted a handful of shallots and one came up. The flash went off in the shade. Another one is sprouting.

Someone is tired. What else is new?

Belvedere, Ursula and Beau's back

Our new addition, Beauregard. Beau lost part of his ear when he was a puppy. Think he got the muzzle scar then too. DH's friend brought the dog to us  from Birmingham. Beau is wagging his whole body and grabbing biscuits out of Belvedere's mouth.


OK, I have been knitting on the 3 Button Wrap in Plymouth Llama Silk. It is a burgundy color.  Yes, I did have fun taking pictures. The last two are more like the color.

 

 I went searching for the three buttons for the wrap on Etsy, and found polymer clay ones at Rock  Paper Scissors.

New Project

What other knitting/sewing/crochet projects that are already started? I started Plymouth's 3 Button Wrap, Pattern 1164, in their Royal Llama Silk yarn in burgundy. (Despite its pink appearance in the sun.) This is a nice pattern, and the yarn feels very smooth and soft.  The seed stitch rib is more interesting than usual rib, and when you get tired of rib, there is the cable pattern.

There will be fewer bugs in the rosemary plant, I do believe.

Oh yeah, I forgot to note that since I have so much trouble finding Kash's Mayan Harvest Bake frozen entrees, I try to make something similar on occassion. It has polenta, grain pilaf,  black beans, sweet potato, kale, pineapple mango chipotle salsa and plaintains. Pumpkn seeds are sprinkled on top.

 

Heading South

Or at least getting ready to head south. My knitting has not changed much, because I have not done much of it lately. (The i key on my laptop sticks or something-I can spell.)  I have been waiting to get more Rowan Calmer yarn for Sedona. I got some on eBay and it was even the same dye lot.

I made pumpkin spice granola today. I had not found canned pumpkin, but had to get a pie punkin and cook it to make puree. I misread the recipe and added less brown sugar, but it tastes good anyway.

So I thought I would distract you with hummingbirds. (Not only shiny, but iridescent. )  I bought a 10 pound bag of sugar today. I have been canning and DH has been feeding hummies.

We are covered up in tiny, twittering brids zooming by our heads. They perch on plants, the basketball goal, the pecan tree beside the house and the wires for the antenna. No longer on the TV antenna, however, which fell over during the April tornado.

Of course, some of us here are not fazed by 20 or so twittering, zooming things around the patio.

Hummingbirds? What hummngbirds?

 

 

Jam Up and Jelly Tight

That was one of my mother's expression, though I never heard the song. YouTube. I made lemon basil and cinnamon basil jellies. It seems like cheating to use the Certo liquid pectin and have jelly so fast, while everything else I have canned has had to cook for a while.

Basil jelly photo shoot. The lemon is the lighter, more yellow one.

That is Genovese basil in the blue jar.  It is in the tomato jams I made earlier. It has rooted in water.  I always wonder what my antique Mason jars have seen-what they have held in their lives.

  The other thing that I have canned this past week is a second batch of Salted Caramel Pear Butter. I had some Fleur de Sel sea salt that I got to make caramels last Christmas, that got put in the pears with the brown sugar and nutmeg. I also broke out the Ball Elite half pint jars, as I now have a canner in which they fit, with a flat rack.

 

Canning and Caterpillars

I saw some decapitated parsley plants, and kept looking for swallowtail caterpillars. I found some in the next couple of days after finding the chewed parsley. They were on the dill in the next planter.  I was wondering if frass serves as fertilizer.The red in the background of the caterpillar shot is the periwinkle (vinca) that DH has nutured through 2 winters.

I left the pupa alone to try to see the butterfly emerge. I always wanted to do that when I was young, but my mother would rather have the parsley and dill plants.

I made real old fashioned fig preserves yesterday. No ginger, just figsm sugar and lemon. I have one Dutch oven that six pounds of figs and five pounds of sugar barely fit into. I cooked it over an hour, which is about how long it takes the canner to boil on the extra burner because we have a ceramic cooktop. I really have to start using the hot water pot.

I also made some more crushed tomatoes today-using the 5.5 qt Crock pot, rather than several. I made some oven-roasted sauce with onions and garlic and fresh basil, rosemary, thyme and oregano for lunch.

Speaking of tomatoes, I picked some cherry tomatoes (below) and froze them whole, after being inspired by this blog post. The Virginia Peach was too pretty to cook today.

In other gardening news, the gourd vine is encroaching on the patio. I have dubbed it the John L. Ells, Sr. memorial gourd vine because my FIL loved to grow gourds and make birdhouses. We think the seed was from one of his gourds. One year, a vine went up the gutter and on the roof and TV antenna.

Look, knitting! I have gotten a lot done on Sedona (in Rowan Calmer yarn) in the past couple of days. DH had gasric bypass surgery Wednesday, and I knitted in waiting rooms and his room. I have the pdf of the pattern on my new ASUS Transformer tablet. It is an Android 3.2 tablet, which looked really different from my Android phone, until the phone updated itself to Android 2.3.  Now they both really look pretty much the same. At least I only have to get used to the new operating system once. Does that even make sense?

UPS brought me a new canner. I broke down and ordered the Ball Elite stainless steel canner. I could hardly get my graniteware pint canner's lid to close yesterday with six pints of fig preserves. It does better with half pints.

I did not can anything today because I had a bad headache, plus, after it was gone, I spent time getting that label off. I peeled part of it off right away. I should have listened to the reviewers and either set the box outside for a time, or used a blow dryer on the glue. I refused to use Goo Gone and bring back my headache, so I tried soaking it in soapy water, and got the paper off. Then I Googled, and tried rubbing alcohol. Then I found the Simple Green and sprayed the glue and let it sit. Then I was able to get the glue off with an old  toothbrush and elbow grease.  There is a Ball logo above the label. as well as on the glass lid. It has a flat rack, which allows more jars to fit. I  need to pick figs.