For Grandma

I have an awesome Grandma. Seriously. I love her. She turned 95 this summer and she still lives on her own. Sure, she has help. She's never driven a car, so my aunt takes her to do groceries and other errands. But my Grandma still does all her other housekeeping tasks. She cooks for herself. Cleans. Gets up on chairs to get her good teacups down. (Giving all of US heart attacks meanwhile.)

So when I was knitting this dishcloth at my parents a while ago and my mom mentioned Grandma would love one, it wasn't a hard sell. I was doing it to use up the yarn anyways, and pretty much anything I can do for my Grandma, I'm there.

I mean, considering my knitting love probably does mainly stem from my afghan love - an afghan my grandma made me by the way. So, I kinda owe the woman my life and my love of knitting. Two very important things. Right?

Thus Grandma, next time I see you, expect this to be coming your way!

I gots me some AMAZING jam!

It's no secret that I love bread. Toast in particular is a favourite of mine. Well, the toast I had this morning for breakfast was the best I've had in a long while. Why? Cause it was topped with some *awesome* jam exchange jam!

Thank you Steve for sending me so much amazing looking jam! I think he even said most (all?) of the fruit comes out of his So-Cal backyard garden. How cool is that?

I love the jars and I love the labels! And they all look so tasty! I had a hard time trying to decide which one to open first!!

I mean, don't they all sound amazing?? Green Fig Preserves, Apple jelly, Mulberry & Cranberry and Ginger-Plum. Which one would you open first?

In the end, I went for the Ginger-Plum. I have a crazy love for ginger so that tipped the scales. And while I didn't find it overly ginger-y (Um... maybe because I could probably eat ginger raw...) I did *love* the taste of this jam. I immediately went back for seconds. :)

So thank you Steve for sending such amazing jam! I'm so happy we got paired up. I can't wait to try the rest. I'm sure they will be just as great!!

Dishcloths and Jam

Blog? Hunh? What's a blog? Wait, I have a blog??

Oh yeah. ... totally forgot about that one.

Just joking. But it's been so long since I've blogged that it feels like I've forgotten about it. I have the general excuses of being busy. (My go to excuse...) But so many things have been keeping me busy and not blogging. Things like CAMPING! So much fun!! :) Things like my garden. Things like soccer 4 nights a week most of the time. Things like having a TON of tiny homegrown pears to use up. (Well, grandma-grown pears.)

I used some of those pears to make jam:

The pear jam is the one on the left. Doesn't it look yummy? It is! I'm so proud of it!! It's cinnamon/ginger pear jam. And once I was done my mom took the spatula to the pot and cleaned out every last drop. She loved it too!

So the jam above is for the Steph Chows 2nd Annual Jam exchange. Yay! I love jam exchanges. :) I'm sending Pear jam, peach jam, blueberry jam and cucumber sula. (Cucumber Sula is a family recipe that makes a relish. I don't love it, but the rest of my family does...)

And I'm also sending two granny square dishcloths. Com'on. I can't not send something I knit.

Not the cutest thing ever, but I thought they were cute in the simple old-fashioned I-just-made-jam sort of a way. Right? Plus, SUPER simple to make. I'm still liking simple these days.

So hopefully my jam exchange buddy enjoys my jam. Can't wait to see what I get! :)

Easy is good

In case y'all hadn't noticed... I've kinda been in a crafting slump of late. That's why it took me a month to finish this bolero! I just haven't felt inspired to knit or craft recently. Maybe it's because it's SUMMER. Or maybe because I'm so busy with a super secret project. Or because I play soccer 3 times a week. Or perhaps it's because I'm turning !30! . Um... no. I don't think that last one is it...

What ever the reason, I figured I'd do the only sensible thing there is to do. Go back to basics.

Garter Stitch!

I decided to make some dishcloths. You can't get more easy than that! Good thing they are super cute!!

But be prepared to see a lot of simple little projects over the next little while. I'm hoping they will pump me up and inspire me to do more exciting stuff!

That's Hew to you

I'm finally done! This bolero/shrug thing has taken me a month, but it's worth it. I think I love it!

I made a few modifications that I'm not sure I'd do again. I slipped the first stitch at the start of every row on both the body and the collar. I thought on the body that would make it easier to pick up one stitch while adding the collar. It didn't really. For the collar I thought it would make the edge smoother and lie flat. The jury is still out on that one.

The thing I like the least about this sweater is my fault too. From reading other people's notes, I added 12 sts under the arms. Big mistake. The sweater is bulky there now and you can see the shirt underneath. See. -->

So next time I won't add so many stitches, and then I think it'll be perfect! Now I have to block it. But first I'm going to wear it.

Hew

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been BUSY! And it's summer... I don't feel like knitting all of the time. I know. GASP. Did I really just say that??

So what am I working on? Well, those socks are still on the go. And I started some arm warmers last weekend. And then I frogged them because they weren't turning out as I'd hoped. But I'm going to cast them back on. I promise I have a pattern in my head that is dying to be made.

I'm also working on this shrug/bolero thing:

I have been for almost a full month!! (I got the pattern from here.)

Thus far, I think I'm going to love it! In fact there's been at least three times when I've gotten dressed in the morning in the morning and totally wished that it was done so that I could wear it! I already have an outfit planned!

The only thing I don't like about this bolero? That I was too stupid to understand the pattern. It's a top down sweater. No problem there. I've made tons of those. But this one? There was just something about the pattern I didn't understand.

It was that you add on the collar AFTER you've knitted the rest. See how I'm knitting up the collar now, picking up one stitch on every RS row? Ingenious. But a note about that might have been nice.

But I'm so excited to get this one done. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, I'll have a finished project to blog about. Finished project? Imagine that!

Summer weekend

Oh summer weekends!

They are the perfect time to visit friends, go for a long run, good talks, make jam, see a ridiculous movie, drink ice tea, eat outside, talk about future endeavours and so much more!

And based off of my Friday night drive, it's also the perfect time for high speed chases, resulting in very, very, very slow traffic.

And by slow traffic, I mean stopped. As in, I turned off my car and was standing at the side of the road for at least 30 min. So, tip for long drives: always have knitting close by! You never know when you'll get the opportunity to do a few rows. Yup. That's right. I stood knitting at the side of the road on Friday night. Needless to say I got one or two weird looks, but whatev. I thought it was a good use of my time!

Side note - don't knit while driving. I think the police might not like that very much...

But onto one of the things I made this weekend: raspberry jam!

Isn't it beautiful! And isn't that cute round jam adorable!? I want to eat it up! The jam and the jar.

I can't wait to try some for real.

Yay for summer weekends.