Hoppy Easter!

When I was a little girl my grandmother bought me a record of Easter songs. One of them began "See the funny little bunnies, / how they work and play making eggs all day . . . ." It's been stuck in my head for over a week, and since I've been listening to a lot of reggae lately, I find myself wondering how it would have sounded if Bob Marley had covered it.

These knitted bunnies were my effort at a calorie-free chocolate bunny. I made a plain orange hat for this first one, but then, what can I say, I had to knit him a different hat because of Bob Marley and the bunny song. (shrug) His ears actually are the same size but I guess I stood him up oddly.

This is his girlfriend; she's a bit more petite and conservative in her headwear. The pattern is at http://petitepurls.com/Summer11/summer2011_p_fruit.html. It says you'll get 8" bunnies but mine are bigger, maybe because I used worsted weight yarn or maybe because I knit a bit loosely, or a little of both.

Outdoors it's definitely spring. This verdin has me refilling the hummingbird feeder much more often these days, and it's worth it to see him (or her - male and female verdins look alike) while I'm busy just a few feet away in the kitchen.

And this is the full moon, taken at about 4:30 a.m. a couple of days ago, just as it was about to set. I'm never satisfied with my night sky photos, but these are better than most I've taken.

Several years ago it snowed on Easter, but that won't be happening here this year. It's warm and gorgeous and things are growing like mad. If it's not warm where you are (and you want it to be) I wish you warmth and flowers and bunnies and eggs and all those nice spring things. Happy Easter, Happy Spring.

A Bit of This and That

I was listening to Leonard Cohen the other day - always a good way to set one's head straight, in my opinion - and the song "Waiting for the Miracle" came around. That's how a lot of us feel here in Tucson, right now, waiting for the miracle of the monsoon. We've had a couple of teaser trailers, the best one about a week and a half ago, which I missed because I was indoors at a museum with a friend and her granddaughter. We caught the tail end as we came out, and it was a good one. I had never seen water running like this is the washes near our house and I had to pull the car over to document it. My friend's 6 1/2 year-old granddaughter thought the adults were really strange, but then, she lives in Portland, Oregon, where rain is not such a rare and precious thing.

Greasewood Road at Ironwood

Greasewood at Speedway

Nameless wash by our house where we walk most days. I've been trying to get Joe to relocate that big green rock to our yard, but he says no, and he has a point; it must weigh over 400 pounds (bigger than it looks in the picture).

We've had a good deal of sunshine since then, with temperatures in the mid-100s, so whatever we do in the yard and garden gets done in the early morning. I even got ambitious inside the house, at least a little. I cleaned and organized the linen closet, which had become a rather scary place, and in the process made some happy discoveries, like finding out all the extra pillowcases hadn't run away together to Mexico.

It won't compare to Martha Stewart's but now I know where everything is and I have a nice full box to take to Goodwill.

I've also had time to do more knitting, etc., though this isn't mine. I received these two potholders as part of a knitting swap and they are so pretty, so big, and so thick that they're currently living on the table, ready to protect it from hot dishes.

I'd been going to give away this little shelf, but instead I hung it over the bookcase between the living room and kitchen, and got the egg cups out of the cupboard so I could enjoy looking at them.

 The green glass owl on the upper left (holding incense sticks and a woodpecker feather) belonged to my grandmother - it's actually a toothpick holder - and most of the rest I've found at antique shops and thrift stores. The tiny pomegranates on the upper shelf hardened before they could get any bigger, but I couldn't throw them away. And the glass cup on the top right holds a cardinal's feather and butterfly wings I found in the garden. Someday I'll find just the right way to use them in some kind of art piece.

 This little shelf I found for a dollar or two at a yard sale. I know I want to paint it, but haven't decided on a color, so I hung it up where I could see it, to help me make up my mind.

Both sets of chicken salt and peppers (more thrift store finds) have the pouring holes in the front, which seems very silly. Apparently they weren't intended for use!

This little pitcher and cup belonged to my grandmother, who would be 118 if she were still with us, so they're quite old. I don't have too many family heirlooms, but those I have, I treasure. These are what's left of a children's tea set and I just love them.

And now it's time for a cup of tea (in a bigger cup) and since the weather forecast does give us a chance of rain (though much more in a couple of days, in time to wash out 4th of July barbecues and picnics) I'll go back to optimistically "waiting for the miracle."

Leftovers, Anyone? More with Sticks and String

Recently I've been obsessed with knitting these lovely round lacy dishcloths - I've lost count of how many!

The pattern is at http://www.knittingknonsense.com/lacyround.html. (Note that the pattern recommends knitting an extra row at the very end. I've tried it both ways and prefer it without that extra row.) Joe thinks they're too pretty to use for dishes and make very nice doilies instead. I've given a few of the plainer ones that I knitted before stumbling on to this addictive pattern to my mom, who feels the same way and uses them under hot dishes on the table. As long as they like them, it's fine with me.
     Each cloth uses up most of a ball of yarn, especially these variegated and striped yarns which have less yardage to begin with, but there are always leftovers, and I've used them to make little coasters like the one in this picture.

The pattern is at http://www.groupepp.com/dishbout/kpatterns/garterstcoaster.html. Of course there wasn't quite enough yarn to complete the coaster, so I finished it with some more or less coordinating yarn, and I'm happy enough with it. But then decided I needed another kind of project to use up those odd bits of yarn, and here's what I came up with - ta da! scrunchies!

They're about as simple as it gets. These are done with worsted weight 100% cotton yarn and an H hook. Using one of the stronger coated ponytail elastics as a base ring, single or double crochet all the way around, as many stitches as you can get onto the ring. Join to the top of the first stitch with a slip stitch and then start the outer ring: *ch 6, skip 1 st, sl st into the next st. Repeat from * all the way around, join with a sl st and end, or, if you have enough yarn, crochet another round of ch 3, sl st into next ch 6 space. I hope this is understandable; I'm not a professional pattern writer and I pretty much made them up as I went along. This is how one of them looks "in action."

Late last summer I cut off my long hair, and then after a while realized I needed a professional to trim up my less-than-satisfactory results so it could look more presentable while it was growing out again. It's so nice to be able to justify using these little goodies - I am just not a short-hair person, no matter how much I like those styles on other people. The song is right: "I gotta be me." And part of being me, I guess, is finding ways to use up little bits of this and that - like leftover yarn - rather than throwing them out.

It's Fall - Time to Knit

Time to Knit!

(No, I didn't knit the flowers, but aren't they lovely? It's a morning glory tree, not the regular vines, with semi woody stems, about 6 feet tall with flowers about 3 1/2" wide when open)

Even if it did hit 98 degrees in downtown Tucson today, the calendar says it's fall and I am so ready for warm hats and scarves and sweaters and socks - it was much cooler earlier in the week and I actually did wear socks to work a couple of days, which made me very happy. It's also creeping up on Halloween, a friend's  favorite holiday. He and his wife stopped by my office earlier today with Rory, who's almost 11 months old, so I could give her the pumpkin hat I knitted for her.

Doesn't look very impressed, does she? And she wasn't really into letting anyone adjust it to the proper rakish angle at that moment. Yeah, I know, today was hardly the weather for this kind of hat. But I had so much fun making it that I decided to use the last of some leftover yellow yarn to make a matching lemon hat. The pattern is at http://brooksfreepatterns.blogspot.com/2005/11/tuttie-cutie-fruity-hats.html

I'll probably make more in different flavors but right now I want to make a couple of skull beanies for the 2 grandsons we'll be seeing this weekend. That pattern is at http://polarknitpatterns.com/Skull-Beanie-Worsted1.pdf. Can't post a picture yet because I haven't made them. It would be nice to be able to give them to them on Saturday, but I also have some sewing to do for their mom tomorrow, so it may not happen. :-(
      I also knitted some coffee cup cozies out of scrap yarn so I could be all eco-groovy and dispense with the little cardboard sleeves. The first were made from a small ball of orange acrylic, knitted on size 5 dpns, 42 stitches in K3 P3 rib. They're okay and the baristas think they're cool. Here they are on soda cans - they also absorb condensation. I think they're maybe a half-inch too tall.

I like this one better. It's 100% wool fingering weight yarn, leftover from a pair of socks I knitted a few years ago. It's 48 stitches on size 2 needles (I'm a rather loose knitter), 2x2 rib, about 3" tall. It's less heavy but does just as good a job of keeping the coffee warm and protecting my hand from the hot cup.

Then I also knitted a couple of dishcloths for my daughter, who loves them. It would be the perfect project for her to learn on, but so far I haven't been able to talk her into knitting for herself. They do get funky-looking after a while, so although I love the lighter colors, decided to try navy blue this time, for her and for my own kitchen.  44 stitches on #7 needles, beginning and ending with 2 rows of garter stitch and with 2 stitches in garter stitch up each side; otherwise it's all seed stitch, since the little bumps are good for scrubbing.

And that's how I've supplemented my video-viewing and passenger-in-the-car-and-on-the-bus time lately. It makes me happy and as my Grandpa would have said, it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars! (wink)

I Made This!

Saint Patrick's Day is nearly over - I hope you had a good one! I spent much of the day outdoors in the garden, not just wearin' o' the green, but surrounded by it, planting lots of alyssum, petunias, marigolds, and some herbs. We did our celebrating, such as it was, having dinner with at my mom's: corned beef and cabbage, the classic dinner. My contributions were Irish soda bread and Guinness ice cream; the soda bread I've made before, but the ice cream was a new venture. The recipes for both are at:

http://www.karott.com/guinness_recipes.htm

Here's the soda bread ready to go into the oven (the cross is not only traditional for religious reasons but lets it rise properly):

and here it is just out of the oven:

I made just half the recipe and baked it as one large loaf (the full recipe says to divide the dough into 4 round loaves) and added 1/3 cup currants, just because I happened to have them. I make soda bread occasionally when I want a quick, fresh, hot bread to have with soup or stew and haven't the time or inclination to make a yeast bread. I took this loaf out of the oven, wrapped it in a clean dish towel and headed down to Mom's, and it was still warm when we had dinner.

We ended dinner with the Guinness ice cream (recipe also from the above website):

Looks like coffee ice cream, doesn't it? It's extremely decadent - a 12 ounce bottle of Guinness boiled down to 3 ounces (presumably the alcohol cooks out), 2 cups of heavy cream, 2 cups of whole milk, and 6 egg yolks! plus sugar and vanilla. The Guinness reduction adds an interesting bitter note that's good with such a rich and otherwise potentially cloying custard base. Now that we've got the ice cream maker back out of deep storage, it will probably get used mostly for lighter sorbets and frozen yogurts. But as the Irish say, "A little bit of what you like never hurt you!" Just so long as it's a little and not too often.

But the main thing I'm excited about today, and the reason why I gave this post its title (stolen from the closing credits of an old TV show - the X-Files, maybe?) is my new IKEA dresser that I put together 99% by myself (Joe did help me turn it upside down to fasten the top on).

I am so incredibly proud of myself! It had been sitting in its box for a few weeks; I hadn't tackled it because, quite frankly, I'm married to a man who does all the handy craftsman-around-the-house stuff so well that it kind of intimidates me. But he's been busy with major garage reorganization, involving replacing a piece of the ceiling that came down when it was so cold and a pipe burst, so I though, why not give it a try. I've served as carpenter's helper often enough I thought I could handle it - and I could! And I did! And now I have room for all my socks in one drawer with space to spare! (My sock fetish started when I learned to knit on double-pointed needles - Joe's as impressed with my ability to turn a heel as I am with his carpentry, landscaping, and other know-how. One evening when we were watching TV and I was knitting a sock, he said in a tone of absolute innocent amazement, "It's just magic the way you do that!" Well, it isn't really, but I suppose the directions do look pretty arcane to a non-knitter.)

Notice the Hindu god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles, to the left of the oil lamp - I'm sure having him there in the room helped a lot, as I only got confused a couple of times and not for long. IKEA instructions are all pictures, no words worth mentioning, and I didn't use any bad words at all while completing this project! The hardest part was getting the drawers into position to slide properly, and that was my fault, not IKEA's.

Just a little feng shui note: our bedroom is in the love-and-marriage area of our house (nice planning on someone's part, huh?) so red is the appropriate color, in addition to being a main color in my favorite quilt. The dresser is in the helpful people area of the room, and the pictures above it are right for that spot. Clockwise from top left they are: a print that my grandfather won for my grandmother at the fair when they were courting (and a protective angel is always a good thing to have); a cross-stitch sampler I made years ago, a copy of a Shaker design and sentiment that I find both calming and instructive ("Hear and learn to be silent, be silent and learn to understand, understand and learn to remember"); my father's church Cradle Roll certificate from Gem, Kansas, 1921; and my mother's church Cradle Roll certificate from Emmett, Idaho, 1923. So in addition to Ganesh and another angel on the dresser, both on a beautiful doily Joe's Nonni crocheted, I think we have lots of loving, positive energy there, don't you?

Settling in for Winter

As winter (or what passes for it here in the desert) gets closer, I feel more domestic, more concerned with the small things that make a house feel like a home.  These are a few of the prickly plants that live on my kitchen windowsill.  The one on the left is some kind of euphorbia - there are so many members of that vast family! I've collected a few of its kin, including a couple of firestick plants, a very large crown of thorns, and the wild Mexican ancestor of the big-blossomed poinsettias we'll soon be seeing in the stores (and yes, I know the red "blossoms" really aren't blossoms).  The wild ones have reseeded themselves at various points in the yard, no doubt with some bird accomplices.

       But I'm not really posting to talk about plants, but rather dishcloths, like the one underneath these these pots.  Several years ago, when I was in grad school, a group of us liked to gather weekly for a "wine and whine" session, to which we brought our knitting or other projects.  My friend Laurie suggested that dishcloths were a good way to begin knitting, but it wasn't until a few years later that I actually knitted my first dishcloths.  They're good small projects for driving trips (as long as the knitter isn't also driving) and for trying out new stitch patterns.

     I like my dishcloths to have a nubbly texture which helps get things cleaner.  I tend to be a relaxed or loose knitter as opposed to a tight knitter (which means I really have to check my gauge, or things can come out 2 sizes too big), so if the pattern calls for a size 7 needle, for example, I drop down to a 6 to get the right gauge.  But gauge doesn't matter so much with this kind of project.  The best yarn is worsted-weight cotton, like Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton or Lily Sugar and Cream.  Here's the pattern for this particular dishcloth:

Chevron Rib Dishcloth, to be knit on size 6 or 7 needles in worsted weight cotton;

Cast on 41 stitches.  Knit 2 rows in garter stitch, then change to pattern, keeping 2 stitches in garter stitch at each edge of every row, in addition to the pattern stitches shown below, so that your pattern stitch is framed on all four sides by a narrow band of garter stitch.

Row 1: (right side) P1, *K1, P2, K2, P2, K1, P1; rep from * to end.

Row 2: *K3, P2, K2, P2, K1, (P2, K2) twice; rep from  *  to last st,  K1.

Row 3: *(P2, K2) twice, P3, K2, P2, K2, P1; rep from * to last st, P1.

Row 4: *K1, P2, K2, P2, K5, P2, K2, P2; rep from * to last st, K1.

Repeat these four rows until the dishcloth is only 1/4" to 1/2" shorter than it is wide. Knit 2 rows in garter stitch, then bind off.

When I first heard of knitting dishcloths, it seemed a bit silly to me.  After all, I was a "real" knitter who was capable of making more important things like sweaters, socks, etc., etc.  Now I'm a convert.  They actually do make doing dishes more pleasant, they're an easy pick-up project when I don't feel like anything more complex.  Oh, and you  can use them in the bath as well as the kitchen, and they make lovely gifts.  How about a couple of these washcloths (as opposed to "dishcloths" in a basket with a bar of soap and a bottle of lotion, for example, or for a smaller token gift or stocking stuffer, perhaps just one, rolled up and tied with a bit of ribbon?  I've also given a couple of rolled up dishcloths along with 3 wooden spoons, all tied together with raffia or twine.  There are all kinds of possibilities.