The sun!! It shone today on this side of the clouds! I took advantage of the cool-but-sunny weather to rake the leaves in my small backyard. This year I decided to put a layer of leaves into the four raised vegetable beds to mix with the soil in the spring so I ended up with four topped-up beds and one garbage bag of leaves.

I’m just about to turn on a movie that I picked up at the library the other day and pick up a sock that I’ve been working on intermittently for months. I can usually (or "lusually", as B would say) motor through a pair of socks in no time but I haven’t knit in ages and so these have been stuck in a plastic bag, languishing. 

So I’m off to knit and movie-watch while the dehydrator whirs on the counter, filling the house with pleasant smells and causing me to anticipate these,  raw Cinnamon Raisin Flax Crackers. And speaking of raw, I found an interesting new-to-me blog this afternoon. Bart of Raw Bart began a 30 days raw food trial this fall in his words "embarking on a journey to discover the raw food lifestyle." His tagline resonates with me personally as I’m entertaining thoughts on a constant basis about the raw food lifestyle: "Going raw. Maybe. Perhaps." I love it.

(Ah ha! I just went hunting through the archives and found a post from September 1, 2008 in which the sock in question (the first of a pair) is at about the same stage it’s currently at. It was quite a bit further along earlier today but I frogged it back to the ankle because though I’d been knitting on in denial, I wasn’t happy with the loose fit of the leg portion. So it ripped it back and took out four stitches and though it doesn’t seem like much reduction in width I think it’ll be perfect. I really need to take a picture in the daylight though; that picture from a year ago doesn’t show the colours accurately.)

The yarn I won a little while ago came in the mail today and is just as beautiful on this side of the computer screen. Amy was very generous and included a small bar of wool wash soap, some tags co-op’d on a message board I used to frequent (they’ll be perfect on mama unders), and a piece of knit fabric printed with transformers which will be included in the making of summer pj’s for B as per his request. Thanks again, Amy!

Since I was taking pictures, I did attempt to lay out the February Lady Sweater and snap one for it too. There’s not much to show but here it is.

I’m using some cotton/acrylic yarn from my stash. I’ve had to go down to 3.75mm needles (the pattern calls for 5mm) to get gauge but that’s not unusual for me. The yarn is Cottonella Novita (or is it Novita Cotonella?) made in Finland and has a slight bit of texture to it; one of the plies is much finer than the other two and is plied loosely so it loops out a little bit. I’m not sure how this is going to turn out but I plan to plug away at it, wash/block it and see what happens. I didn’t do a true swatch as I should have so I have no idea how this yarn will behave. Onward ho!

No photo of the knitting as half-promised yesterday. B and I made an unplanned trip today that ate up all of our morning from 8 o’clock on until almost 1 p.m, so I didn’t get much knitting done. I’m also becoming a little disenchanted with the sweater despite only being at the end of the yoke section. I’ve been looking up other FLS knit-and-show blog posts to try and revive the feeling I had when I first saw the pattern. I’m going to keep plugging away at it because it does look like such a fabulous sweater. If I hate the end result when it’s done, I’ll either rip it out and start over with different yarn or just start a second one anyway. So, pictures possibly tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some gorgeous examples of the February Lady Sweater:

• I absolute love the colours of Tanis’ sweater
• Katie’s at Erleperle
• the lovely Yarn Harlot’s handspun FLS
• Green Apples made a gorgeous green FLS
• Salihan’s first cardigan ever!
• Brenda’s version, a nice neutral shade
• another beautiful green one from Kate at Hello Knitty
• Shana at Silver Tuesday also picked a neutral colour
• the square buttons on Kristi’s sweater are to die for!
• the divine Ms. Rachael tweaked her sweater to make a fully-buttoned short-sleeve version
• and the collared version knit over at gleek.net

It’s another absolutely gorgeous day. The sun is shining, the temperature is spring-like, I’ve opened some windows, the curtains are billowing slightly, and the smell of freshly baked bread is permeating the house. Those few simple things have me feeling truly blessed. Until the next occurrence of B choosing to defiantly stand on my laptop. He’s currently cutting out tracings of his hands and feet though so is suitably occupied and I’m catching a couple of minutes before my boyfriend comes over from grocery shopping to make supper together.

Photo courtesy of B.

I doubled a recipe for wheat bread that I found the other day on Everyday Food Storage. It’ll be my first time using a bread recipe that uses any of the following ingredients: wheat gluten, vinegar, potato flour (I couldn’t find flakes), and dry milk (I used instant as I didn’t have any non; not sure what the difference will be). We’re going to have some fresh warm bread with butter at supper!

Brushed with butter because I don’t like a crusty loaf.

I also have knitting news, if you can believe that. No picture today but hopefully tomorrow. I’ve started the February Lady Sweater by Flint Knits using a 54/46 cotton/acrylic blend. I figured since spring is coming and the sleeves are 3/4-length cotton wouldn’t be a bad choice.

This is NOT my photo. I saved it to my own drive but it belongs to Flint Knits.
I can’t stop looking at the wonderful green-ness of this picture. So fresh and alive.

I believe I’ve made the sweater that inspired this one, "Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Sweater on Two Needles" by ( get this!) Elizabeth Zimmerman, found in her Knitter’s Almanac but that would have been a long time ago. Judging by the looks of it, it’s a quick and easy knit. I came across the adult version of the pattern via Tiennie Knits, a beautiful and inspirational knit blog. (Check out Tiennie’s gorgeous baby-sized sweater.)

Pamela Wynne is the talent behind the February Lady Sweater, which is the adult-sized adaptation of the baby version. She offers up the pattern as a pdf both at Ravelry (must be a registered member to access the site) and here on her blog, Flint Knits. This is going onto my Must Knit list. How convenient that I’m on holidays for nine days starting on Monday.

Like never never. I never win things. I did though. I came home from work at midnight last night (this morning?) and found a "You won!" email in my inbox. I had entered an FFS (free for shipping) lottery on the Indie Dyers Co-op a few days ago and out of 310 entrants, my number came up. This is what is going to be coming to live at my house.

I borrowed your picture, Amy, but I saved it to my drive first.

This gorgeous skein is 3.4 ounces and 169 yards of 100% merino worsted-weight yarn and comes from Amy, who shares her talent over at the Cajun Fiber Co. I can’t wait to get it and see just how gorgeous the colours are in person as I know that what presents across the screen is not completely accurate. Thanks so much, Amy, for offering this up!

Green is the colour of the day. Green knitting, green food-ing, and green blogging. And then white snow. But we won’t talk about the snow. I’m waiting for spring, which incidentally is also green (and brown but we’ll ignore that too).

Today I read back to the beginning of the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op blog. My bookmarks have now grown by quite a few. The whole blog is a gem but I found a few particular treasures to add to my gardening file, kitchen-related bookmarks, and general house ideas. If you haven’t seen the blog before or it’s been awhile since you have been over, go read a few pages and soak in all the inspiration.

There’s not much that is earthier and more pride-inducing than a growing set of cotton dishcloths. Well, maybe there is but these are doing if for me right now. A few days ago when I did that bit of organization in my laundry room and moved all of my old facecloths down there, I also put my dishcloths in the rag bucket. All but two solid also-green ones like the guys pictured above. I love this pattern. I know there are a ton of dishcloth patterns out there but to me, this one is the classic. Maybe that’s because it’s the only pattern I’ve seen knit up "in real life" or maybe it’s because I love the simplicity of it, the garter stitch creating a bit of a built in soft scrubber. They knit up so fast too. I couldn’t remember the exact stitches to cast on and work up to so I googled and came up with this adorable variation. It reminded me of a vest I knit my younger brother back when I was around 7 or 8 (or maybe 9 but not much older). It had a row of owls across the upper chest and on the back of the vest it had the owls again but this time showing their backsides. The pattern sheet was a single-page leaflet with cat, rabbit, and lion variations. I’m going to knit up a total of five cloths (that’s the plan) and then make a few scrubbies using the tutorial at Berlin’s Whismy. I have this one bookmarked too and it’s pretty similar to the scrubbie I already have but I’m really liking my variegated cotton yarn right now.

Also in the green category, I took a bag of frozen broccoli and cauliflower mix that I have no idea why I bought, boiled it up, pureed it, and then froze it flat in baggies in 1/2-cup portions. I was going to toss it because, as I said, I’m not sure why I bought it; I’ve never liked the feel of frozen-then-cooked carrots, broccoli, or cauliflower as a vegetable on its own. So now I have five 1/2-cup bags of puree to add to soup, pasta sauce, muffins (maybe? with a strong-flavoured fruit?), or whatever strikes my fancy. It felt very "crunchy" to do that. I felt good. So simple and practical and probably even logical but not something that I would’ve thought of 18 months ago. I saved the water that they’d boiled in too. I’m learning.

And that’s it for me tonight. I have a Junior Kindergarten Report card response form to fill out and send back to school with B tomorrow. I don’t like things like this. "At home, my child likes to…; at school, my child really enjoys…; I am pleased with my child’s development of…; I will work with my child in…" I’m off to do that and then knit a bit more on the third dishcloth. I didn’t get the back entrance tidied like I have planned on my cleaning schedule but I did get 90% of the driveway down before I remembered my doctor’s appointment for my second B12 shot (and had to shower, wash my hair, get both B and I dressed, and get to the doctor’s office in the span of 40 minutes). So back entrance back shmentrance - knitting is more fun. Toodles for tonight.

It was another gorgeous day here. At the risk of totally jinxing it all, it seems that the three months of rain we’ve just had has evolved into summer just in time for autumn. The rest of the week is forecast to be beautiful too. After growing mushrooms throughout my lawn all "summer", I may actually have to break out the sprinkler tomorrow and give my poor gardens a drink.

B had fun with his new easel this afternoon and then later in the afternoon he took a dip in his pool (an approximately 60", round, three-ring inflatable deal that I got for half price at Canadian Tire). We had a few fits and starts today but nothing crazy and nothing on the scale of what we’ve experienced in the past. Definitely a little more than what I’m willing to put up with but I’m attributing it to him being 3 and cutting out naps for the most part in preparation for school. We also introduced tomatoes back into his diet the other night; he had apple juice this morning and filched a peach yesterday. There will be no more peaches added to the mix and we’ll stick with just tomatoes and apples added back in for at least another week.

Tonight was the Prison Break season premiere, a two hour show. I got my boyfriend (S) to watch the season on DVD with me and we’re only about halfway through Season Two right now. I’ve picked up Season Three for when we’re done and my brother gets back into the country in a couple of weeks and is bringing all the House seasons he’d bought to take with him so we’ll have those too. I had been undecided on whether to watch (and, alternately, tape if I’m working) PB this season or just wait until it comes out next summer but it seems like my fingers on the remote made the decision for me. My problem is that I’m really bad at actually watching taped episodes and eventually just end up accumulating several on the tape until I either sit down and watch them all or say, "Screw it!" and rewind the tape to the beginning and use it for something else. But I only work two Monday nights in each seven-week rotation and B is going to bed at 7 now instead of 8 due to the aforementioned cutting out of his nap so we’ll see how it goes. It was definitely a good episode tonight and as far fetched as the plot sometimes seems to be, I really enjoy the storyline and the umpteen twists and turns. I’ll be sad to see the end of the series, though I do know that it can’t possibly last indefinitely.

While watching tonight I did something I haven’t done in what must be months. I picked up the pointy sticks.

Crappy photo - indoors at night with a flash. 

They are my standard toe-up pattern, original created using Judy Gibson’s awesome generator and since tweaked to suit me better. These particular socks are plain Jane stockinette all the way through, quite possible with a rolled cuff but if not, then just a simple 2x2 ribbed one. They’ve been on the go for awhile too. If I remember correctly, I finished up a pair of cabled Fortissima ones and cast on for these while at S’s parents’ house for the first time over the Easter weekend. The poor things probably won’t see any new stitches for awhile again.