Knitting 40 shades of green

DDELC, week 2 update

During a weekend filled with lots of Guinness and champagne and celebrating (and one of the best root vegetable salads I have ever had plus mac and cheese with butternut squash). I was able to have a quiet lunch on Sunday of spaghetti squash cassarole and a green salad. It was a lovely simple meal after all of the party foods.

• spaghetti squash, Three Way Farm, Warsaw, VA (62 miles)


• pesto, from the freezer


• ricotta cheese, Natural by Nature, Avondale, PA (98 miles)


• Italian tomato sauce, canned last year from local ingredients


• salad mix, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)


• feta cheese, Blue Ridge Dairy, Leesburg, VA (32 miles)


• honey, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)

Non-local: salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, olive oil

Vacation Knitting

I had a few days off and my uncle and aunt invited me up to their vacation house in the Poconos to get away for a spell. They have a house in Hawley, PA which is about a 5 - 6 hour drive. I knew there would be lots of sitting on the porch and looking at the leaves. I would need a project that would allow me to concentrate on the conversation and not the chart or tricky pattern.

The weather was lovely and we even got a bit of much needed rain which helped the colors come out a bit more.

While Autumn Rose was sitting there haunting me, I needed something a bit more mindless.  I came out of the gold (that is what I tell people is in there so they will understand why I won't let them see in there), stash, extra bedroom with the "Striped Silky Wool Jacket" which had been marinating in there for a couple of years.

I choose a slightly less bright colorway and the project fit my purposes perfectly.  I was able to finish one sleeve and get started on another before driving back to Virginia.  Here is a picture of the left front that I am currently working on.

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge, Week 2

This has been a long week with lots of meetings and work obligations, and a few social obligations

in the evenings that hasn't left me with much of a chance to cook.  I am hoping between the events requiring my attendance for a wedding of good friends, I will be able to get a little extra cooking in this weekend so that I will have meals to pull from the fridge this week.  With the cooler weather and rain it is no longer too hot to turn on the oven and roast some veggies and winter squash.  So  I did just that after work and before I have to run off to the rehearsal dinner

While I had the oven on, I decided to throw some cooked spaghetti squash in a casserole dish with ricotta cheese, pesto and tomato sauce.  It smells yummy but I will have to report back with how it tastes tomorrow (and pictures, ingredients and food miles)-- as the rehearsal is drawing to a close and there is a guaranteed non-local Guinness waiting for me.

A rose is a rose is a rose

A good friend from late night and MDSW excursions has been putting a bug in my ear about Eunny Jang's Autumn Rose.  She mentioned it back in May -- a fair isle with shaping.  She brought the book in to Late night to continue to tempt me.  She posted about it on her blog and then she started a knit-along.  Well, I broke down and bought the kit fromTwo Swan's Yarn.  My saving grace was that the popularity of the kit had stripped the distributer of all of the stock of Old Gold the most prevalent color in the sweater so I had to wait an extra month and a couple of weeks ago, on a Thursday I came home to a box wedged between the front door and the storm door.  (In this day and age of air conditioning, I can never figure out when I should put the screen back in the storm door -- seems I have to change it four times a year.)  My kit had arrived.

I let it sit on the coffee table for a day before opening it.  But the colors were beautiful and I am excited to start it but then there is so much else that I should be finishing at the moment. It may come out for swatching soon, we will have to see.

Since I promised pictures yesterday, here are my two purchases from the Fall Fiber Festival of Virginia.  They were both bought at the both for Knitting Notions from Nashville, TN. First, I bought a skein of sock yarn in a lovely semi solid called Thyme. 

It is kettle dyed Classic Merino Supersock.  I also bought a shawl pin/hair stick which I wore in my hair today -- have you ever tried to take a picture of the back of your head?

I believe the wood is called Zebra Wood.  It really is lovely (something that might be tricky to tell from my pictures).

Festivals, festivals and more festivals

For those of you slogging through posts about Rhinebeck, I didn't go but I have some old festival news to report. Two weeks ago I had quite the Festival weekend. It started when I got talked into going to the Cap City Brewery Oktoberfest.

With 27 breweries sampling more than 54 different beers...well let's just say that I needed to show a little restraint so as not to over do it before heading to another festival, the Mount Vernon Fall Wine Festival.

The picture was shamelessly stolen from Knucklehead Wendy, who is not a knucklehead but is from outside of Pittsburgh. She came over and drove me (see above) to the wine festival where we tasted local Virginia wines and snacked on bread and cheese spread while listening to live Blues music.

She then spent the night so we could get an early (OK, so this is relative) start to what used to be called the Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials and Fiber Fest and is now known as Fall Fiber Fest of Virginia. I had hoped to finish my mother's sweater while there and present it to her since the yarn was purchased at this festival 2 years ago and she has been longing for the sweater but with the heat and dust it didn't happen. Instead, I spent the day looking at sheep and watching sheep dog trials and enabling Wendy to buy yarn.

I did buy a skein of sockyarn in a lovely green and a shawl pin/hair stick but haven't taken pictures yet and will have to show them to you tomorrow. We drove home after many hot sweaty hours of yarn and sheep and fun.

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge

I have been rather lazy about cooking and eating locally lately and it is starting to show. So I have joined the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge hosted by Urban Hennery I recently stocked up with Byrd Mill flour, grits and peanut 'flour'. The farmer's market peak season is winding down but this warm weather we have been suffering means we are still seeing some summer veggies. This past week I made some ratatouille (from the original, non-updated Moosewood Cookbook)

I sauteed the onion and eggplant, added the peppers and squash, threw in the tomatoes and spices and then let the flavors marry.  It was quite good and I think I might make some more this weekend to freeze for the coming dark days. I served the dish with a bit of dressed romaine lettuce for a wonderfully satisfying meal.

• eggplant, Three Way Farm, Warsaw, VA (62 miles)
• onion, Three Way Farm, Warsaw, VA (62 miles)
• summer squash, Potomac Vegetable Farms, Purcellville, (40 miles)
• zucchini, Potomac Vegetable Farms, Purcellville, (40 miles)
• red peppers, didn't catch the name of the farm -- I bought them at the Kingstown farmer's market
• tomatoes, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)
• garlic, Potomac Vegetable Farms, Purcellville, (40 miles)
• bay leaf, plant on my window sill (0 miles)
• oregano, plant on the back porch (2 yards)
• rosemary, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)
• red wine, Rappahannock Cellars, Huntly, VA, (55 miles)
• romaine lettuce, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)

non local  olive oil (CA), dried basil, tomato paste (CA), marjoram, tomato juice, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar

Thanks, Holly!

My wonderful tea swap pal Holly sent me a terrific package full of all sorts of lovely treats.  Want to see?  There was so much stuff that I couldn't get it all in one photo (but that may also have to do with my lousy photography skills). 

I opened the package to find she had hidden everything in tissue paper but you can see my teapot and tea cozy sticking out with lovely stitch markers attached.  There was tea...

with a lovely tea pot and cozy, there was a matching cup and rock candy stirrers and tea bag rests and scones and jam... note cards and a shopping list. All in all it was a wonderful swap package and I think I am addicted to the Cherry green tea. Thanks Holly!! oh, and I almost forgot the lovely Cherry Tree Hill Yarn in greens and blues This will make some fun socks.

Still here

I have about 4 blog posts waiting in draft form but am having a hell of a time uploading photos. Hopefully tonight I can try to figure out the issue or get my computer to behave -- if not I will have to battle with the work ibook in Safari (which has limited interface with typepad). Hope to post for you soon

Questions

What is "slightly stretched" exactly?  Knitting away on button bands.

Almost finished with more abandoned knitting...

In an effort to finish some things up and put some order to my house, I have been rescuing abandoned knitting from various parts of the house and dedicating myself to finish things rather than start new things.  (Although while searching for matching yarn or previously knit parts I keep finding things that I want to start but then I imagine that I need the needles that are stuck in some piece of abandoned knitting.)  Well, two different people had asked about my mother's sweater in the past few months and with just the fronts between me and a finished sweater I figured I better get working on it.  The weather will soon be turning crisp and my mother will need a warm sweater for her walks out to the chicken house to gather eggs.

I have finished the five pieces and now must work on the button bands, pocket edgings and collar.  I should be able to get to the seaming by tomorrow and will easily be done before the Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials and fiber festival where I will see my mother.  Now if only I can find the buttons that my mother bought for this at MDSW year before last.