ready for the weekend?

my friday flower is eggplant once again—i couldn’t help myself; it’s a great day for taking garden photos. nippy, but clearly brilliant . . .

while i was out there, i checked the green beans i planted just before leaving for sock summit. ten days ago they were covered with pretty blossoms. today they are offering another treat

mmm, just about the way i like ’em—slim and tender. i’d pick them today, but i’m not going to be home for dinner. i think they can wait one day; we should be able to get at least enough from my very few plants for a nice weekend meal.

of course, pretty flowers eventually turn into fruit and we’re still reeling in tons of it. i finally took some time away from shawl knitting to cook some of it up that’s been sitting around for a few days. i’ve been trying to pick the larger varieties of squash and eggplant when they’re still fairly small in an effort to manage the bulk. but i have plants that produce miniatures, too

and these are literally covered with new fruit every few days. i split the small ones in half and roasted them the other night to put away in the freezer; i can totally see using them that way in a wonderful middle-eastern or indian dish. if i enjoyed them pickled, i would do that with them, but neither of us is crazy about pickled vegetables. what i would like is a grill, so i could cook them outside and use wood chips to give them a smoky flavor. maybe for next year . . . or maybe we’ll find one on sale now.

while i had the oven on, i also roasted up a heap of these big peppers (coffee cup and bowl added for scale). they’re not really the right kind for good roasting (the flesh is a little too thin), so a few got overcooked. i really should have stuffed them instead, but i didn’t have time for a big project like that—maybe with the next batch.

yesterday when i was taking a break out in the yard, i had a little visitor

it’s so funny because susie was just asking in class the other day if i’d had a bunny this year and i hadn’t even seen one all summer. and the very next day, there he was.
truthfully, this one doesn’t seem that bright—look how close he let me get to take pictures—and on our first meeting, too

maybe he can’t hear very well? or maybe he’s been watching me long enough to feel comfortable and i haven’t noticed. he better not be sitting there dreaming up designs on my green beans . . .

ironically enough, we don’t have problems with critters eating away at the garden. i mean we could spare a few veggies, you know? but except for a couple of low-hanging tomatoes, the slugs, squirrels, and bunny remain largely disinterested.

but i had to laugh when i saw thist this

apparently, the squirrels think they are very clever, “hiding” their acorns and hickory nuts where no one will EVER see them—in holes every twelve inches or so all along the edge of the garden.

with all that to do in the kitchen, it was necessary to break my bond with the dovecote shawl, at least temporarily. i’ve worked almost all the way through the last section, so i don’t have much to go, but i already know i’m going to run out of yarn. i have half a skein left which i’ll probably knit up tonight. kate (oooh, check out her blog) at kelbourne woolens is sending another skein and once it arrives, i’ll finish the whole thing up with the edging.
i’ll be sad to see it end, but there is plenty of other knitting in my queue that needs attention.

yesterday, i finished one part of a secret project that i’m really satisfied with and phew!—it always feels good to be at that point, especially when it was a challenge. now i just have to whip up the other part and it will be complete, yay.

late at night, i took a break from “work” knitting while we watched TV to add some length to the socks i have in progress. i’m not sure things are going as swimmingly with these.

the cable one is totally adorable and feels wonderful in zen yarn garden’s squooshy yarn (REALLY yummy in fact; i love it). last night it was finally long enough for david to pull over his foot and as i suspected, it’s going to be too tight. sigh. so i think i need to rip this one back and start again—not a huge loss, but i feel more invested than usual in these five inches because the cabled fabric goes more slowly for me (i know—suck it UP sister).

i could keep going and save these for my nephew whose feet are not as wide, but i’m not sure he’d like the cables all that much. he’s still in training as a slut-for-socks and isn’t at the point yet where he’d take anything as long as it’s hand knit (whereas david and my brother?? they’ll wear pink and lavender my-little-pony socks with ruffles if they are available and they fit).

the blue sock (sorry about the color; the light was bad in that room this morning) is going much better in terms of fit and speed, but i think the yarn might be a little too thin for the stitch pattern—maybe this yarn wants to be something even lacier. i might cast on another identical sock in the dye dreams dream sox to compare. it just feels like the stitch pattern—which is a mix of openwork and twining rib—needs the extra OOMPH offered by a springier yarn (and i have a skein of cranberry on hand). too bad—i just love the luster sox BFL; it’s so sleek and dressy. i’m just going to have to try again with that in another stitch pattern.

so my sock knitting is evolving, rather than moving forward. i can make it up.

the other night when beckie was over, we asked david to show us his progress on the hand-sewn shoes—and i know several of you want an update.

the kit spends most of its time sitting on his desk, ignored. the project is a little more challenging than he expected, but he’s about halfway through the first shoe, having sewn on the sole and gotten partway around the seam that attaches the vamp to the lower half of the shoe

david isn’t like me (or a lot of knitters)—he works more slowly and can leave a project for quite a while between sessions and not lose interest (i, on the other hand, need to plow through each project steadily to completion or it loses its allure). sometimes, when he hits a snag, he takes time to think about how to proceed.

as i look closely at the photos in fact, it appears he’s come to a point where one sewing thread needs to be ended and another thread picked up—he may be cogitating on how to best solve that. at the moment, he’s got a knot in the sewing thread as a join and has probably figured out that this won’t work, since it now doesn’t pass through the stitching holes

i think it’s totally adorable that mid-stride, he just shoved them in the bag right at the dead-end point and put them away. it’s a tossup—i want to offer help, but i have at least as much interest in watching him come to a solution himself (which is what i’m rooting for, always). i’ll scope him out later to see if he wants a hand with it (he might not!).

otherwise, the shoes are looking good, so i’m sure he’ll finish them once he can go forward.

i’m so glad the weekend is here—i’m looking forward to some extra knitting time. i’m going to try to do what i did last weekend and spend most of the next coupla days getting project work done.

and there’s always spinning on sunday; i’m halfway through my beautiful cashmere/silk project

ready to start a new bobbin.

hopefully, i won’t get distracted tomorrow by desk work, but it could happen—i have a few non-knitting projects that are vying for my time as well.
and, of course, vegetables.