Butterly

The other day I made this for The Bug instead of cleaning the house. Isn't cute! She loves it! Well worth the time.

Foodses

I got a new cookbook recently; Vegan Yum Yum. It's a beautiful book with lots of yummy looking recipes. Being summer, though, I haven't tried too many.
I did make these last night. My less pretty version of the cover. It was very tasty!
I also made her Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread. Probably the most beautiful bread I've ever baked. Every time I open the bag I get a wonderful whiff of cinnamon. So good!

Up to!

Keeping busy....not much to show for it....But keeping busy.

Counted

Many many times. Obsessively counted some might say. Here is the back, again, blocking, again. The sewing has begun and all is fitting together nicely. I. Will. Finish!

Bright as a Bug

This morning The Bug woke up to find this dress on her bed.I woke up to her asking how to put it on.
Then exclamations that it was the most beautiful dress ever.

And she's been twirling ever since.

Now this is sewing. Sewing and me we have a rocky relationship. At times I really want to make it work. Other times Sewing just ticks me off so much. This dress is a bit of both. I got the fabric in Virginia when I was visiting my parents. My mom got to explore a fabric store together; always fun. The pattern is from Etsy. I knew it was a Bug pattern as soon as I saw it; just as I knew the fabric was her as soon as I saw it. It seems with the sewing I enjoy the cutting out of the pieces the most. The fiddly sewing bits; meh. This dress was going great until the last two tiers. Those suckers are HUGE. And I'm not a fan of the tiny hems, I know they have their place, you can't hem a dress like you'd hem pants. But then pins and the iron and the pricking and the burning. I'm pretty sure the bottom of this dress is about a mile in circumference. The benefit is I made this dress for my lovely daughter. She appreciates and loves anything like this. And that makes all the frustration go away.

Not a darn thing

What with the heat and multiple day long migraines nothing has been happening here. Very little knitting, even less cooking and even less baking. Mr. Gnome is back to work this week so things should/may get back to their relative normal ways. But what does that really mean?

For now I bring you two pictures that have nothing to do with each other. This first is Edamame bought in the pod and on the plant at the farmer's market. Pretty cool huh! Attica liked chewing on the leaves.

And secondly a picture of the bug in her new look. Yuppers glasses. sigh. And a skinned chin as evidence of bicycle practice.

{this moment}

As seen on Soule Momma

Why...

Why does dinner only get ruined or fall apart on the evening before grocery day (thus not much food in the house) AND on the evening when Mr. Gnome has to work (thus dinner has to be at an exact time). If I'd just been to the grocery store we'd have more options or other meal plans to turn to. If Mr. Gnome was staying home dinner could be later or, heck, we could just go out. But, no, it never works out that way. Leaving me staring at the randomness of my pantry and refrigerator.Tonight was one of those nights. I'm always happy when whatever I through together on these evenings resembles food and is satisfying. But tonight I'm a bit proud too. Polenta, eggplant, spinach and basil layered with tomato sauce on top with a sprinkling of pine nuts and baked in the oven for as long as was allowed. Along with Tomato Rosemary Scones from Vegan Brunch. I would have liked to have baked the polenta thing a bit longer but we really were out of time. Thus another benefit to not eating meat; cooking time can vary.

It can be done

I can finish something. The knitting hasn't been treating me too well as of late, as you very well know.
But here are some finished socks. The Diamond Lace Socks from Vogue Knitting the Ultimate Sock Book. I did modify the pattern a bit to work with the gauge I was getting. The yarn is the Luna Aura Fiberworks, leftover after Rasen.

Unbroken

Apparently Wilton's black and Royal Blue and maybe some other colors can be broken. As in the colors that make up that shade can be separated and go on the yarn in different places or to different degrees. Now I haven't gotten any Wilton's food coloring yet. I did have some Spectrum Food Coloring and no one ever talks about that brand on the forum I read. I figured I'd give the Royal Blue a go and see what happens. As you can see it did not break. I didn't stir it so it's not too even on the yarn. Oh but that blue. I do love me a good blue! It's actually a bit brighter less turquisish in real life.

Happier Things

After the ickiness of the last post. (I tried to fix i,t made it worse, realized too lat what I should have done and have ripped out the entire back piece) I bring you our latest thrift store find. This is our first walk with the bicycle. In fact, it's her first ride outside of the store. She did amazingly well. Better than she'd ever ridden her tricycle.

It's just counting....

Yesterday I was sewing up the sweater. Got one sleeve on and sewed up then started on the body. All was going great until I got to the bottom and came to this.... At first I thought I'd just screwed up the sewing and wondered how I could have. Then I counted the repeats. Something I had also done when knitting it up. Well somehow there is an an extra repeat on the back of the sweater, or one fewer on the front depending on how you look at things. I personally am blaming some mischievous knitting elves. Obviously they ripped out a row from the front some late night while I slept. Really that is the only thing that could have happened.

Weekend

We are in the midst of Mr. Gnome's month off contract. Yuppers Mr. Never-is-Home is home for four weeks. We've been keeping busy and having a grand time. This weekend however he did some over hire work leaving The Bug and me to our usual just the two of us time. Saturday I got to catch up on house and garden stuff. Sunday we made bread, cookies, hummus and dyed some yarn.
Chocolate Chip Mint Leaf Icebox Cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Yes, Mint Leaf. As in you chop up a bunch of leaves and put them in the cookies. So minty good.
After we'd done all those things Sunday it was only 1pm and The Bug informed me that it was a beautiful day to visit the Botanical Garden. It just so happened that I was checking Facebook at the time where the Botanical Garden had just posted a Happy 4th to all and reminded people that they were in fact open.
Well when everything aligns in such a manner you can't really ignore the fates. So off to the Botanical Garden we went.

Progress

Two sleeves for the Apres Surf Hoodie. The front and back have been attached at the shoulders and the i-cord bind off has been done to the bottoms of both pieces. Now just to i-cord bind off the sleeve bottoms, sew it all up, knit the hood, and i-cord bind off all around the hood and neck opening. That's all....right...still hoping to be done before fall.

Two Socks

But not a pair. The second black one is almost done and I haven't cast on for the second blue one. I need to redo the cast off of the blue one; it's way too tight. Sewn Bind off too tight; very odd, though in my defense it was the day we got to Vermont and we'd been traveling all day. Seems like it should make a difference.