Happy September!

 While I hate to see life passing me by, I gotta say, Damn, I'm glad to see August end.  

I am SO ready for fall!

We have a giant tree, a sycamore I think it is, in our yard and it always sheds it's leaves waaaay before all the other trees.  I sat on the deck for a while today and listened to the leaves fall.  It was awesome!  I always think my favorite calming sound is water lapping against the beach, a boat or pier pilings but really, it's the sound of crunchy leaves falling.

I am SO ready for fall!

And since it's still 90 degrees in Virginia and not actually fall yet, this little guy joined me on the deck.  He hung out and watched me knit.

Happy September y'all!

Sunday Supper - Grilled S'mores

 photo and recipe courtesy of foodlion.com

Grilled s'mores that you cook on the grill or in the oven.  Need I say more?

No, I don't think I do need to say more... but if you know me, you know I will. 

This recipe is basically s'mores nachos.  Nachos are for lunch and/or dinner.... and that means that now s'mores are for lunch and dinner.  My life is complete!

I swear!

I swear, the more I knit, the more my yarn stash pile grows.  For every yard of yarn I knit up, two more yards appear in my yarn crates.  Does that ever happen to you?  My goal used to be to use up all my yarn but at this rate, I will never, ever be able to reach my much smaller goal of just making a visible dent in the pile.

Maybe I should give up my goals, become a full-on hoarder and just go yarn shopping.

As usual, that photo has bad lighting and does not do justice to the yarn.  That middle hat and coordinating fingerless gloves just may be my all time favorite knitted item.  Okay, favorite set.

So, since the last post, I'm up to 18 slip stitch hats completed, 3 pairs of fingerless gloves have been knit and one way-too-stiff hair scrunchy has been crocheted.  The hair scrunchy was super simple to make but I definitely need either thinner yarn or a much larger crochet hook.

I love how different these two hats look despite being knit with the same two yarns.

Something super exciting has happened here in our household.  Sarah, my daughter, has become a crafter.  She's chosen crochet over knitting which I'm dealing with.  I keep reminding myself that at least this way, she won't be stealing my knitting needles.  Sarah already has a yarn storage box and a project bag!  She started off making pumpkin coasters, graduated to cup cozies and is now crocheting herself a granny square sweater.  I'm just so excited that we can mother/daughter craft together,... Although, it is going to make the Montpelier Fiber Festival a lot more expensive this fall.

This cozy looks Much better on my travel cup/bottle that it was designed for but said cup is in the dishwasher so a plain water bottle is modeling it.

Another exciting thing is this pegboard room divider.  I bought it to use at craft shows and the hinges fold in either direction so it can be bent in all kinds of ways.  I'm super excited about it and plan to buy all kinds of pegboard accessories to put on it.  Meanwhile, it's taking up space in my very, very messy closet.

Oh, and one more exciting event - Hayden became an auto mechanic.  I love her choice of attire.  What else would a well dressed female mechanic wear to work besides a pink tutu and cowboy boots?

Sunday Supper - Loaded BBQ Ranch Chicken Bites

Okay, so maybe my Sunday Supper series needs to be retitled Food from Food Lion.  I just can't help myself.  Since discovering such quick, easy and delicious recipes on Food Lion's website, I can't help but pass them along to you.

Loaded Barbeque Ranch Chicken Bites, courtesy of Food Lion.com

Today I bring you Loaded Barbeque Ranch Chicken Bites.  

The most difficult part of preparing this recipe is mixing the BBQ sauce and the Ranch dressing together.  It's literally that simple!  

I sure hope these bites are healthy and calorie free because I see quite a few of them in my future.  Yum!

Busy, busy, busy

 I've been a busy little beaver lately.

Remember the slip stitch hat pattern I mentioned designing a while back?  I'm totally obsessed with it.  TOTALLY!  And yes, I realize I sound like an '80's Brat Pack movie and I don't even care.

I was going to wait until I'd launched the hats into my Etsy shop but who am I kidding.  I can't stop knitting the hats long enough to photograph them for the shop, much less to 'launch' them.  After knitting five or six, I decided I needed to order more yarn.

I beaded socks while I waited for the new yarn delivery.  By the way, if you are ever beading socks and eating peanuts at the same time, be very, very careful.  You're likely to get confused and break a tooth.

Sadly, the new yarn went on quite an adventure in New Jersey.

According to the tracking updates, it arrived in New Jersey three different times.  When it finally arrived on my doorstep, it wasn't even in a Knit Picks box anymore.  The only label on the box was from the local postal distribution center not 20 minutes from my house.  And it was torn open on the bottom and the tape on the top of the box was only on one side so that the box wasn't sealed and yarn was poking out and stuck in the tape.   No worries though.  Knit Picks has excellent customer service and new, fresh, clean yarn was on it's way to me after just one quick phone call.

While I waited for the replacement yarn, I grew a tomato.  Yeah, don't laugh.  That one tiny "Big Boy" tomato cost about $45 and hours and hours of time and attention.  It's pretty obvious I need to stick to knitting and not farming.

The replacement yarn arrived and I started hat knitting again.

And again.  And again and again and again.  I have now made 16 of these hats and I'm not even the slightest bit bored with the pattern.  There are just so many possible color combinations!  

It's probably a good thing I've signed up to be a vendor at several Christmas bazaars craft shows.

And while I knit, I watched Hayden play in the pool.  She absolutely loves the water and while you wouldn't know it from this photo, she happily floats around all by herself.  She doesn't jump in from the side of the pool but she does like to take a step or two down the stairs and jump in from there.  Needless to say, the deck security has become like Fort Knox.  Not to wish her life away, but I sure will be glad when she's three feet taller and can stand with her head out of the water.

Until next time, happy knitting!

Sunday Supper - Bacon Wrapped Pineapple

Yep, another Food Lion recipe because once again, every third customer started buying pineapples and I got curious.  I went to Food Lion's website and sure enough, they had a new recipe that called for fresh pineapple.

bacon wrapped pineapple, courtesy of foodlion.com

Bacon wrapped pineapple

Bacon and fresh pineapple in one bite.  Is there any need to say more?  I think not.

After discovering the recipe, I started asking the customers who were buying both pineapple and bacon if they were going to follow this recipe and I was quite surprised how many people didn't know about it.  They sure know now!

And let me just wind this up with a tip for the next time you are shopping.  Please thank your cashier for bagging your fresh pineapple.  Those suckers are prickly and don't like to be placed in plastic bags.

A Peach Milkshake and the Return of Sunday Suppers

I've been wanting to get back to posting Sunday Supper recipes for a while but hadn't been able to find the motivation to actually post.

That is, until I found this recipe for Souther Georgia Peach Milkshakes.  Oh! My! Goodness!

As many of you know I work for Food Lion, a local grocery store chain. It's a fairly large chain and if you if you shop there, you probably know it as The Food Kitty.  Or simply, The Kitty.  Anyway, they have a website with recipes.  A website I hadn't ever bothered to look at to be perfectly honest.

A few weeks ago that changed.  I noticed every third customer was buying butter pecan ice cream.  And butter pecan ice cream was not on sale.  What was the deal?  Why are so many people suddenly buying this particular flavor?

Southern George Peach Milkshakes from foodlion.com

Come to find out, it's an ingredient in the peach milkshake recipe,  So I bought some too.  

I really hope your local grocery store has butter pecan ice cream and fresh peaches in stock.  And I really, really hope you'll give this recipe a try.  Yum!

It's been a while

I'm alive!  I survived Covid and have been back to work for several weeks now.  I still tire easily, I can't taste or smell anything, and thankfully my vision is better but still not 100%.  It's such a strange disease.  Three other people in the house hold got it but thankfully Sarah, who was playing nurse maid to me, did not.  She stayed healthy through it all.  Miracle of miracles because she can catch colds from comercials about cold medicines.  😛

Thankfully my too-tired-to-knit symptoms didn't last long and I was able to spend the last couple of days of quarantine knitting pretty much non-stop.  Non-stop except for those afternoon naps and early bedtimes I needed.

I started a beaded infinity scarf last month.  There's no pattern, I just cast on a whole bunch of stitches and started knitting.  I didn't even count the stitches, just cast on enough to bunch up on a 24 inch needle.  Figured it would be plenty.  Yes, I am definitely a lazy knitter.  I knit five or six rows then do a row of randomly placed beads.  I'm using Palette from Knit Picks.  If this turns out as well as I hope it will, I plan to knit several of them for my Etsy shop.  It would be a great way to use up some of the thousands of Palette skeins and beads I have.  

I finished the granny square afghan I've been working on for what feels like forever.  Remember  me talking about knitting market bags to sell?  That turned out to be a huge NO!  I did not enjoy knitting them and it took me forever to make one.  Probably because I didn't enjoy the knitting.  Anyway, I used all, well, almost all, the yarn I'd bought to make market bags to crochet the granny square blanket.  I started with two small squares sewn together so that it would make a rectangle but I should have started with three.  It still looks like a square when laid out on the bed.  But it's colorful and I used up a bunch of yarn so I'm happy.  

Despite my continual yarn purchases, my goal in life these days is to use up all my yarn.  Okay, not all.  That would never happen.  I couldn't use it all if I knit 24/7 for the next 25 years.  I guess the real goal is to use up a noticable amount.  To empty a few of the giant Rubbermaid containers my yarn is stored in.  Heck, I'd be happy if I just used up a few of the shoe box sized boxes of yarn.

And, despite covid brain fog, I designed a slip stitch hat pattern that I can not stop knitting.  I'm totally obsessed.  That's hat number five.  And, umm, there may be another giant box of yarn on it's way to me that will allow me to knit 42 more hats.  42!  I definitely have a problem!  I keep telling myself what I have is an Etsy shop, but truthfully, I think I probably just have a problem.  I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever receive the yarn though.  According to the tracking, my box has been sitting in a post office in New Jersey for over 10 days now.  The tracking did finally update last night to show it will be delivered later next week.  We'll see.

And, thankfully I was feeling better on July 4th.  It was my last day of quarantine and I sat far, far away from the rest of the family while they shot off fireworks.  I'm so happy Hayden loves fireworks and isn't afraid of them.  She also loves thunder storms.  Absolutely LOVES them!  Her eyes get huge when she sees the lightening and she thinks the thunder, even the sudden, loud cracking kind, is hillarious.  She just laughs and laughs.  

And that is pretty much a recap of my life for the last 22 days.

I hope you are all well and don't catch this new covid strain.  It seems to be insanely contagious.  

Stay healthy and keep knitting!

Ugh!

Sadly, not much knitting is happening here.  Covid caught up with me and between the INSANE exhaustion and the confusion/fuzzy headedness, knitting just isn't happening.  I tried to keep knitting the first day but I kept dozing off and then the stitches would fall off the needles. I wasn't making enough progress or enjoying the stitching enough to make it worth the effort so...

I pulled out a puzzle.  The puzzle seemed to help me focus a little bit better.  Focus is a huge problem at the moment.  Not only is my brain fuzzy and unfocused, I can't see properly.  Anyone else out there had problems with covid affecting their vision?  No matter how many times I clean my glasses or wipe/rub my eyes, I feel like I'm looking through a layer of Vaseline.  I can read large print books, but my phone, the computer and TV screens are blurry.  I can see the groundhog out in the yard 100+ yards away but I couldn't tell if it was a fly or a wasp in my room.  Normally it's the complete opposite.  It's very strange and I sure hope it's covid and not a new normal for my eyes.

Despite my new found blindness, I'm doing okay.  I don't feel great but there's no concern about needing a trip to the hospital.  I'm going to live through it.  Not sure what my mental state will be after five days of being shut in a room by myself but....  

I am very thankful that my husband was out of town when the symptoms started so I didn't have to worry about him.  The bedroom has it's own private bath and a huge closet full of my yarn, various craft supplies and of course, puzzles.  I have a TV in here as well as several full bookcases and a well stocked Kindle. We have a spare coffee pot so I set that up in here too.  And, Sarah has been great about bringing me food and drink... on paper plates so no one has to wash my dishes.  All in all, it's not a bad set-up.  A little lonely but I have everything I need and the family is safe from me.

And now, I think I'll go take another nap.

Pumpkins

It's going to be a very long summer.  It's not even the end of June and I've already got a fairly bad case of fall fever.

It's all Sarah's fault.  She found the Pumpkin Patch sweater pattern online and ....  

I was a little frustrated at first because I assumed she was buying it off Ravelry.  She knows I practically live there.  But she bought it from somewhere else.  Riply or Ribbly or I don't remember.  That pattern was fine, or it would have been if she was the one knitting it.  The problem was, it came to her computer as a direct download and she wasn't able to print it or forward it to me.  I would have had to take her computer to access the pattern.  So I re-bought it from Ravelery.  

It was worth repurchasing the pattern though because the moment Sarah first showed me a photo of the sweater, I ordered the yarn for both hers and for one for myself.  We get to have mother-daughter sweaters!   Sarah is absolutely mortified!  

Our sweaters will have different background colors.   Sarah's is dark green and mine will be a rusty brown.  She's also pretty excited that I'm making progress on hers and not Too terribly worried about the mother-daughter thing.  She knows me well and knows (or thinks she knows) that I probably won't get around to knitting the second one for me. 

I'm knitting the sweaters with Brava from Knit Picks.  Here in Virginia, fall is still generally too warm for wool and as acrylics go, I really like Brava.  And, I was able to save 20% off my order because I took advantage of the Build Your Own Value Pack deal they have going.  The Build Your Own deal runs through December 31 and I have the feeling I'm going to be taking advantage of it more than once!

Heatherly

 Have you tried Knit Picks' new yarn, Heatherly?

I'm knitting with "Butter" and it's wonderful.  The yarn is mostly acrylic but looks and feels more like cotton.  There's none of that shininess that acrylics so often have and the yarn is incredibly soft.  The knitted fabric feels like my old, favorite pair of jeans.  It has great stitch definition and, ahem, handles frogging and being reknit mutliple times quite well.  And, it comes in both worsted and DK weights.

I am finding the yarn to be a tiny bit splitty but that could be because I'm using very sharp needles and reading while I knit.  That may have something to do with all the frogging I've had to do too.  Despite my troubles, I can't wait to add all the other colors of this line to my stash.  

And yes, I am once again knitting pool-side.  I'm so glad we fiinally got the pool open again.

I'm not the only one who likes to float!

It's been a while

It's been a while since I last posted.  I told myself I wasn't going to stress over posting weekly but I never meant to go three weeks without posting.  Oops.

Life has been busy.

I turned 60.  Yikes!  I'm struggling with 60.  I was good with 50.  Fifty is old and I no longer had to worry about what I looked like or how I acted.  I felt like I could be as silly and ridiculous or as serious and professional as I wanted to be in the moment.  I had an, "I'm old.  No worries." attitude.  But 60...??? Sixty just feels like, well, Yikes!!!

I spent my birthday in the pouring down rain as a vendor at the Strawberry and Wine festival.  The day was not great.  We had a horrible booth location next to a VERY annoying and aggressive Anderson Window guy who was scaring away the few customers who'd ventured out in the rain.  

But it wasn't all bad.  I spent the day knitting and chatting with my booth-mates and they helped me celebrate with a birthday gift of yarn and a new pattern book.

The second day of the festival was much better.  Hot and sunny, a huge crowd at the festival, and we, and several other nearby boothes, complained about the Anderson Window guy so much they allowed us to move our tents to better locations.

So, what was I knitting in the rain during the festival?  

Another Reyna inspired shawl.  This one is knit with Bamboo Pop Sock yarn I bought from my LYS, Center of the Yarniverse last year.  Or was it the year before Covid hit?  Let's just say I bought it a while back.  The colorway is Muscadine.  I love the rustic red, white and blue affect.

Other things that have been going on...

Hayden got season tickets to the local theme park and asks to go daily.  She loves riding the rides!

Teddy caught kennel cough and the medications doped him up pretty good.  Instead of chasing bees and barking at groundhogs, the neighbors and the mail lady, he spent a quiet week stoned half out of his mind.  Thankfully, he's all better now.

We got to witness snake sex.  To put their size in perspective, that tree is so big, four adults can't stand fingertip to fingertip and reach around it.  I think it's pretty cool how they made a heart shape.  Guess that's the snake version of romance.

I swore I wasn't going to buy anymore yarn and then I got an email from Knit Picks.  They are having a Build Your Own Value Pack sale.  Buy ten skeins of certain yarns (you can mix and match the colors - Yay!) and save 20%.  That box arrived today.  I'm obviously now ready for Christmas knitting.  And oops!  An even bigger box is due to arrive in 3 more days.  Good grief!

And last but not least, I've been watching old Emergency reruns.  Do you remember that show?  When it first came on back in the '70's, my big life plan was to marry Johnny Gage. And now, when I watch it, I can only think how old and outdated the fire trucks seem.  Were the 70's really that long ago?? 

Good grief!  I feel old.

Almost

The beachy shawl is almost finished.

There's probably enough yarn left for another row or two but why put myself through the stress of a good game of yarn chicken.  I think I'll go ahead and start the bind off now.  But first, I have to go to work.  

I'm seriously struggling with the new working girl lifestyle.  For the life of me, I can't seem to figure out how to fit in work, the knitting life, house work and any sense of a social or family life.  How do those of you who work do it all?

Still knitting

I'm still knitting and freaking out over having enough merchandise to sell at the Strawberry and Wine festival in two weeks.  And, I'm still enjoying my new job but boy! It sure takes up a lot of time.

Besides all the things I'm making over and over and over again for the festival, I've been knitting this beachy shawl.  I don't have an actual pattern but it is loosely based on Reyna.  I got the yarn at Hobby Lobby last year.  It's Yarn Bee, Authentic Hand-Dyed Tiger's Eye.  It looks nothing like a tiger's eye to me.  I think it's quite beachy looking.  I've been very pleased with the yarn.  I'll admit, I'm a bit of a yarn snob, specially when it comes to shawl yarn, but this yarn has been a joy to work with.  It's the second project I've made with Yarn Bee's Authentic Hand-Dyed wool and I've been happy with both projects. 

I'm hoping I can get the shawl finished and blocked in time to take to the festival but.... It can be tricky blocking large items with Hayden in the house.  The dining room table is the only place big enough for shawl blocking and Hayden is a very curious young lady.

But now, it's time to go put that new shirt on and go to work.

And if you are reading this, thank you for sticking with me.  I know my posts have been pretty eratic lately and they will most likely continue to be for a while.  I'm sorry about that but I sure do appreciate you being here.  If it weren't for you, I'd just be some crazy lady talking to herself.  So, until next time...

Happy knitting!

I got a new shirt

 Wow!  It's been over a month since I've posted.  I've been busy.  I got a new shirt.

I went back to work.  Food Lion (a grocery store) this time.  I'm a closing cashier and I love the job.  Not sure what it says about me that I absolutely Love running a busy cash register, but I do.  The job is fun and the people are nice.  But my arms are falling off!  I'm on my third week there and my arms still haven't fully adjusted.  I knew I had no upper body strength but...  Good grief!  Gallons of milk and cases of beer are heavy and, well, wow!  My arms and shoulders are sore from the nightly workouts.

We are also house hunting once again.  That takes up a surprising amount of time.

Between the new job, a recent craft fair and another one coming up mid-May, I haven't been doing any exciting knitting.  I just keep making the same few things over and over and over again.

There's been soap bags and f-bombs,

and beaded socks.

Lots, and lots of beaded socks actually.  They sell well and it's been difficult to keep up with demand.

And of course, lots and lots of pot holders.  They sell well too.

And while I deeply appreciate all the sales success I've had, I am looking forward to May 16th when the last craft show I'm signed up for is over and I can go back to knitting for me.  Or at least knitting something different.

So no, I don't have anything new and exciting to show you.  But I do have the day off from work today so I'm going to wind this up, go get another cup of coffee, knit another f-bomb or two and maybe crack open a bottle of wine later on.

I hope you all had a nice Easter.  And I hope those of you in the path of yesterday's blizzard survived.  My idiot husband was trapped in his truck, wearing shorts and flip flops when they closed the roads in western Pennsylvania.  That will teach him not to watch the weather before he heads out!  No worries though.  He survived and made it home this morning.

So.... Happy knitting and I'll check in again on my next day off.