say cheese!

everyone at knitspot central has been working so hard the last few months; now that the great lakes fiber show is behind us we have a bit of a breather, so the first order of business was to have a little fun and throw ourselves a pizza night.

david and i prepared setups on monday for GF pizza shells, regular shells, and all manner of toppings. and since it was also doug’s birthday over the weekend, there had to be cake, too.

everyone put together the pizza of their choice—erica is vegan so she opted for veggies-only, but made a matching one to take home to emily, who couldn’t make it to the party.

i think doug was a little amazed at his pizza making success, haha; he might even try this at home.

after supper was cleared away, out came the cake—chocolate with chocolate frosting, yum!

doug showed us how it’s done by blowing out all the candles at once. of course we didn’t challenge him much by lighting one for each year . . .

our weekend at the fiber show was fun—it’s always great to visit with the friends we see at these events. thanks to all who made the trip to our spot under the grandstands; we SO appreciate you finding us.

while not our regular spot at the show, our space was a nice size and we were able to display quite a lot from our collection of samples—everything from the spring and winter ensemble collections was on parade, plus much more. our spring and summer yarns, lace weights, and stone soup fingering were the biggest hits at this show.

our next show is the michigan fiber festival in allegan, MI; our booth will be in the big new barn from 8/19 through 8/21—mark your calendars!

still working away on my illas cíes pullover in my spare time; i’m knitting my newest version in our hempshaugh fingering yarn, color buckwheat. we are restocked on most of the yarns that were sold out for little while after maryland, though a couple of those are already sold out again (thank you!).

i haven’t been able to work on this project as much as i’d like because i’m also knitting a secret project at the moment that’s a little time consuming (but SO worth it). that said, i’ve just about finished with this sleeve (#2) and after i bind off, i’ll just have the front to knit. and to be fair, this is supposed to be my relaxing vacation knit. but i’m chomping at the bit to get it done, too—i’m anxious to play around with those shorts i was talking about, especially now that the weather has turned so hot.

i also have several other projects started for the fall/winter ensemble that i need to prioritize before i get behind. i’ve been moving a little slow over the past week or two, but now that i’m feeling better, i think i’m about to launch into power knitting mode, haha.

plus, there is always something hanging around the edges of my well-organized (HA!) work life to derail me. these luscious little lovelies are test skeins for a yarn that’s been percolating in my head for a while—literally something new and shiny. they came in one of the boxes with the most recent shipment from our mill.

once i laid eyes on them, well, i just had to roll off a bit of each and do some swatching. i owe it to the mill to give prompt feedback after all . . .

when we get test skeins, i like to swatch them more or less equally in both stockinette and garter stitch.

plus some kind of pattern stitch—in this case, i chose a lace pattern.

they are a similar combination of fibers with one difference between them and the one on the right is spun a little finer as well. more about these as our testing progresses . . .

it’s almost strawberry season where we live—still a couple of weeks to go, but our plants are filling up with fruits. still small and green, they are almost like fairy fruits from another planet.

lottos inspiration for our pairings club going on here . . . .

peas are up and reaching for the sun and the fence to climb on. everything we planted is thriving so far except for the green beans—they’ve been in the ground a little less long and i’m still waiting to see if they will appear. i confess i’m a little worried that they haven’t sprouted yet and have ordered another packet just in case. not that i usually have to worry about having enough green beans, hehe.

i tried a new (for me) experiment this year—propagating my own sweet potato plants. we usually get ours from our friend jeff, but he wasn’t sure he’d have enough to share this year (and has since come through with a batch for us; thanks jeff!), so i started on some of my own, since i still had a few nice ones from last year’s garden in the basement. even though i was a little behind in starting,i thought it was worth a trial run and i’m catching up fast since the weather warmed up.

basically you stick some toothpicks in a sweet potato and set it in a jar of water, stem end up (kind of like sprouting an avocado). after a couple of weeks, little sprouts will grow from the top. when they get a few inches high, you cut them out and put them in their own jar to grow roots. the old potato will continue to offer several generations of sprouts; jeff usually gets enough for his own garden and more to share with friends.

we have a neighbor family whose kids seem intent on making friends with david; i thought it would be fun to offer them some space in our garden to grow these over the summer.

okay, well someone was making some noise around here about needing to knit more, so i think it’s the hour to make that happen; see you next time!