Sunday, June 22, 2008

Recipe and Baby Pattern Suggestions Welcome!

Forgive the gratuitous kitten shot but they're really cute. The kittens have been growing like weeds.



The other thing grown like weeds? The weeds in the recession garden. I'm plugging away, I think I'm a week or so away from the first red tomato (Take that salmonella!) of the season. And if it doesn't happen at least I know I was able to grow basil and oregano like a rock star.



Although the basil and oregano are very eager for their friend tomato to make an appearance on our dinner plates. Anyone have good non-tomato based recipes for these other than pesto? I know it sounds odd but I'm really not a pesto person... Tonight I'm making some tilapia with a lemon/oregano type of seasoning, hopefully it comes out ok.

The other cool thing I grew this week, this beautiful morning glory.



Chris gave me these seed for my birthday and I love how they've taken off and wound themselves around the banister of our front steps. With really very little care to them, just water mainly. Unfortunately the blooms only seem to last only a day-they come out in the morning and are pretty wilty by the next. But there are lots of closed pods growing on here so hopefully we'll see more soon.

On the knitting front, I can't believe I'm actually typing this but the Mason Dixon Log Cabin baby blanket is almost done. I originally thought it was going to be 5 rows of 4 blocks, but from where I'm at now it's clear, 4 rows of 4 blocks is more than enough.



I'm attaching the blocks using single crochet which surprised me. I usually don't like to attach with single crochet because it can produce kind of a bulky ridge on the wrong side at the seams. But this yarn has just enough drape to still let it lay pretty flat, and I can only imagine it will lay flatter with blocking and time and use. So I think it's working. Once I have the squares all attached I'm just going to do an applied i-cord border and call it a day.


Which leaves me of course with the leftovers... Can you believe it looks like I will only be using half of the yarn I ordered for this project? We were talking about buying yarn at our little knitting group the other night and unlike the folks that felt like sometimes they have a tendency to under-buy I confessed that I think my problem is that when I do buy yarn I buy it like I'm preparing for the apocalypse. The thought of running out of yarn really scares me! So I have a slight tendency to over-buy. How much did I over-buy with this project? Well, using only half the yarn for this baby blanket means I probably could have knit 2 of them if I wanted. Or (it's a pretty big baby blanket) I really probably could have just used all of it to make a full sized adult throw. Seriously. I over bought that much.


So here's a question. I will probably have 8 balls of Comfy left. About 200 yarns of each color. Which is ok-because I do have babies to knit for and this is a great worsted baby yarn. So what are your favorite baby patterns right now? I don't know if I have enough for a sweater, maybe one of those baby kimonos from Mason Dixon? I think I might want to try those. And some hats and booties. Any suggestions? I hear those are little and they go fast. Works for me!

3 comments:

Jodi said...

The kittens are just too cute! The blanket's turning out beautifully. Have you looked at F Pea's Super Natural Stripes Baby Sweater? It's a great pattern for leftover yarn. The Tulips baby cardigan is really a great pattern, too. Or how about a striped BSJ?

sunneshine said...

I love the blanket - it is really turning out to be amazing! I like the tulips sweater and the MD baby kimono, but you might look at the Old World Booties on Ravelry - they are whimsical, fun and a quick knit...
Happy Summer!

Unknown said...

Those kittens just kill me, they're so cute! More photos of them are alright by me! ;)

You are making me sad that I don't have a garden this year. Mmm...basil is just the best seasoning ever. I read about someone who makes half basil/half spinach pesto because they find full basil pesto too strong.

Baby blanket is gorgeous!