Tough to tell the difference

Earlier this year I mistook this little guy for a Monarch caterpillar, but it's really a Black Swallowtail. All spring and summer they have been feasting on fennel, dill, and parsley. We have also seen lots of the adult butterflies flying around this summer, so pretty!








And today I found the Monarch!

I love their little antennae. Now these are the critters I don't mind running into in the garden.

My garden this year

Ah, an early start. Just look at those little guys grow!


There it is! All the little plants tucked in and ready to grow.

And grow!

But wait, what's this?

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

That's right folks. I got a lot of good grub early in the season, but once that July heat set in I kind of gave up. I should have stuck with it, I should have weeded, but that just didn't happen.

I have a few days off this week and I'm attacking it. Weeding and digging. I've got winter veg to get in the ground and I'm ready for the second round. I'll have an up-date later this week.

New hobby, or new passion?

I think I might have to classify this as a new passion, right up there with knitting. Hand spun yarn is amazing. It's not something I can do every night, or something I can spend hours on, like knitting, but I am loving it.

It's relaxing, soothing, and the end results are beautiful. My hands begin to cramp after an hour, and my already bad knee isn't liking the movement of the peddle, but I'm considering spending a sizable amount of money on a wheel of my own, so I know this is a relationship that will be well worth the pain it may cause.

Dear Spinning,
I love you...

Always check gauge

I've been working on a sweater design and when I checked the gauge I did it after washing and blocking, and boy am I glad I did. Sometime I just knit a few rows, check the gauge while it's still on the needles and call it good, but this time I had a feeling it would be better to go all the way.

I'm making a simple lightweight cardigan and I've just finished the back. As you can see from the photos below the piece drastically changes shape after it's been washed and pinned. Before blocking it measured about 14 inches from top to bottom.

After blocking it was up to 24 inches. A little longer than I expected, but I believe that once it's un-pinned it will relax a little and shrink back down to 21 or 22 inches, which will be about right. Although I don't mind long sweaters.

Next are the front pieces, then the sleeves, which are making me nervous, the shaping that is.

If this sweater turns out like planned I hope to write it out and share it. If it doesn't turn out as planned you might find a big red wine stain on it and me in the corner crying...

Not enough time

It has been tough finding time to write on this blog, and it has been tough finding interesting things to write about. After all, my hobbies are pretty normal, run-of-the-mill hobbies. I'm good at them, but I'm not cranking out things that are spectacular or anything. And lately it's been hard to find the time to be creative, and lately I've been sticking with simple projects, ones that I can do while zoning out in front of the TV.

When I first started blogging a couple months ago I had a friend look it over, to get her opinion. She laughed and said, "Oh Anna, your life looks so organized and beautiful. Ha! but I know the truth!" And she was right, I was spending too much time and thought on making my life look like I wished it looked. The truth is, my life is kind of cluttered, not that pretty, and not as cheerful as I try to make it seem. I have too many hobbies (because I'm probably trying to compensate for the boring hours I spend at work everyday), and when I do have time to work on my projects I'm often too tired and depressed to bring any creativity to the project - hence boring simple projects.

My enthusiasm for gardening usually putters out once it starts getting too hot - mid July/August , and boy has it been HOT, and the overwhelming produce from the garden makes me want to hide. I know I should be canning, drying, freezing and pickling all this food, but it takes time, time I feel like I don't have, and I'm lacking the motivation to make the time.

Ugh, enough complaining though, that's not what this blog is for. So here, here are some photos of what my life really looks like. It's messy, cluttered, full of weeds, and lacking the creativity I like to tell myself I have.

...weeds

...laundry

... messy sewing room

You get the idea...

In a few days I have some time off work and I will be spending it doing the things I love doing. Sewing, knitting, gardening, and whatever else sounds good at the time. I might even find some time to blog about it.

pretty kitty on vacation

My 10year old kitty, Bessos, is missing. She has taken little "vacations" before, once she was missing for five days and came home during a storm. This time she's been missing only three days and although I'm 99.9% sure she'll come home, I am more worried than usual because it's so hot out. We've had temps in the mid to upper 90's and heat indexes up near 110. Anyway, send good kitty vibes this way please and let's hope she's somewhere cool and safe and will return soon.

Lace & pickles

Ah, finally, some knitting. This is a lace top I've been meaning to finish for some time now, three years or give or take. I think this will be the summer it gets done. Here is the finished product.



...and while we are on the topic of lace, here is another project that I've been putting off. It's a lace pattern I've created to look like a spider web and in the center will be a name. It's for an art show this September so it will be a wall hanging when all said and done. If it gets done, and if it turns out the way I plan. It's turning out to be a big pain in the ass, but I know once it's done it'll be worth it. I'll be sure to post when it's finished, no matter what the outcome is.



On a pickling note, me and my husband put up two jars of cornichon pickles last weekend and we'll be doing more this weekend. Our cucumbers are growing like crazy, I have to go out each night to pick them, and missing just one night means giant cukes. I can only hope our corn does this well. We'll be able to do a taste test in three weeks, and of course I'll have up-dates and the recipe, if we think it's worth sharing. This is our tester year, we're searching for the perfect pickle.

We've been slightly under the weather, last weekend and this week, but I think we're on the mend and just in time too. The garden is in it's second harvest - the rest of the potatoes came out today, along with half of the onions, and of course the cukes. Tomatoes are just about ready and it might be time to plant some carrots, beets, and beans. After a week of being kind of sick I'm feeling a little ambitious, so I don't know how much of that planting will really get done.

I went to the local knitting group today, hadn't been in over a year, but it was good to be back and I promised myself I'd try to go more often. It's a good group of gals.