and more mundanely..

On more mundane news, my dear husband made wooden pens for gifts and a spindle with a perfect spin and balance for me!
And to top things off, I found an antique piano in decent condition! Okay, it does need tuning and the wood needs a little polish, but..it's solid and nothing's broken, the pads are still quite good and best of all, I paid $49. for it. It's a Cable Midget, so it fits nicely and has full keyboard. As soon as we get it tuned, I'll love teaching the grandchildren a little on it!

Emma!

And here she is! Isn't she lovely, just a few hours after birth? Mom and Dad are well, I would have posted sooner, but we were all happy and tired and enjoying the family time. Emma's three older siblings have been at our house and their other Gramma's house and being spoiled and hugged.

She will be a delight to knit for!

Just for fun

Doggie sweaters! It's not quite finished, the little sleeves have to be knitting in, but the first fitting went nicely! I'll rethink my methods and post them here, there's nicer ways to knit these in a universal way. Meantime, Cookie has totally enjoyed the attention she gets in them. This one is bright and cheerful, the first one I made was an autumn brown. It was one of those leftover skeins that had no name.

Cleanup!

That deck we so proudly painted not so long ago is in the process of being stripped. Painful process, lemme tell ya! It'll be resealed and all better in a weekend or two tho. Meantime it was nice and hot, so visions of a nice cool lemon meringue pie kept teasing my mind. Of course I was out of lemons, but when did that ever stop me! Yep, you can make Pink Lemonade Pie! Just adjust the sugar, substitute lemonade mix for the lemons and enjoy! This might be a fun thing for a baby shower too.

Another Summer's Passing.

Those fragrant herbs that blessed my back deck are infused in the knitting that got done on long, sleepy, sun-drunk summer afternoons. Along with the sounds of katydids and crickets. Fall will be along soon, schoolbuses rumble down the road and I yearn for the scent of apples and cinnamon and pumpkins.

Some of my knitting was simply remaking a couple sweaters that didn't work out the first time and needed to rest in my basket until it was their time. These two turned out finally though, and I'm reasonably satisfied. I don't remember what the yarn is for the baby sweater and R's sweater is a discontinued Tweed.

Scarves for when I wanted to watch TV or listen to a book on tape. I totally love The Yarn Harlot's scarf pattern (free) and it's become the pattern we use most for simple warmth.

Dishcloths for utterly mindless knitting, they lend great color to my kitchen.

And the Hannah hat posted as a free download on Ravelry, must make several more this winter! It's a design by Blake Ehrlich. The only buttons I had were white, but rather pretty in the textured design, so I painted them blue and wiped them to show them off.

Eventually, I'll have oldest granddaughter's top-down sweater finished. I really like those, no real pattern, all I need to know is how many stitches will fit her neck, the rest just follows neatly until it's done. I'm about to put ribbing at the waist and then will pick up and knit the buttonbands. The sleeves will be picked up last on my DPN's. If she has a sudden growth spurt this year, I can easily tease out the bottom and cuffs and extend as much as needed. It's rose heather I think, in Wool-ease, on size 5 and 7 needles.

Being summer and all, I've been luxuriating in greenery and flowers, so just out my kitchen door, we put really big pots where deer and kids won't stomp them flat in a matter of seconds. Plants like my little deck obviously. My husband says we should drag them in for the winter, which will be a fun thing. I already have a plant on top of my fridge (it's been there for years, I repot it every 2 or 3 years) that has to be trimmed or it takes over and drapes all over things. A couple huge patio pots will just about guarantee that not only will we have unlimited sage, cilantro, dill, mint, oregano, parsley, feverfew and numerous others at hand...we'll need a machete to get to the oven. You can't see it in the pictures, but there's knitting needles propping up the feathery fennel. (I love knitting in the evenings with the scent of rosemary, basil and mint in the night air. And I have been knitting, I just haven't taken pictures, the flowers were so much fun to play with.)

It's a fact ..the plainest foods sparkle on the tastebuds when a pinch of fresh herbs are added. And I do love chopping up my salsa with a handful of cilantro that's fresher than fresh!
As for the white Lillies, I'd love to know what kind they are, they're lovely and very large blooms on tall plants. And I used to remember what the pink ones mixed with the white lillies were called, they grow more like the canna lillies.

Home again!

It's good to be home, but we did have a wonderful few days visiting Tennesee for Allen's genealogy files. I took my knitting, crocheted a bit, mostly gazed happily at the beautiful hills and greenery we passed thru.
It just feels so indescribable to hold a piece of handwritten property descriptions, legal papers, the stories of people long gone. People that we came from. I know it's often said, but it's so very true..we take so much for granted.

Along the Nickajack River is simply gorgeous! The mimosa grow huge (everything does!)

And small towns are always my favorite places, so full of interesting people, things to see that you just never see in big cities.

I mean really..how often do you see signs like this in a large city?

On the way home, we stopped as we always do to collect a couple more iron pots and whatnots, our daughters are keeping up the tradition of cooking in iron (yay!). You just can't beat iron for good home cooking!

It was a great visit, Allen was happy with his researching, we loved talking to folks there and we enjoyed the Tennesee hospitality.

Sunshine day!

Been working on the family cookbook/notions book a lot, so the blog is a little dusty!

Now and then I catch myself missing my grandmother's soup or maybe her lovely dumplings. And our kids call asking how to make a dish they grew up enjoying. So...I decided it was time to make a little family book and toss in the recipes that are particular to our family, little bits of times past here and there, a knitting pattern or two...just things that we'd like to keep. Hopefully it'll be done in time to give as presents at Christmas, and hopefully I won't gnash my teeth a week later because I left out some extremely important piece that should be rememebered in it.

Today tho....I have dedicated to the sunshine and brilliant colors, wallowing in perfect temperatures and lively breezes. Yellow roses that smell like spiced heaven and brave miniature roses battling the briars and weeds! (Meaning if I had any conscience at all, I'd be helping them do battle, but that's for tomorrow..)

Some iced tea will make things exactly right!

Well day

Our old bored well became progressively unreliable so yesterday our back yard was filled with strange noises, lots of mud and water as they drilled a new one. While we are thrilled to finally be able to both get a shower and not have the well putter out as soon as we turn on the dishwasher, I can't help but wonder how long it'll be before the rest of them recall that the septic drainage field is too slow to accomodate four loads of laundry in one day....

See that really tall part of the driller thingy? The young man cheerfully climbed to the top waving a running chainsaw in one hand, leaned way out and lopped off a few stray branches...I turned pale and went in to find some knitting to focus on. Apparently this is normal for the guys. If you've ever noticed you rarely if ever see women swimming with crocodiles and hippos in order to take cool wildlife shows. Guys do these things.

We who love the guys try to find the best coverage for grey hair.

After-School Stew! When our children were much younger and due home, noisy and hungry this was usually on the stove waiting. It quickly became a favorite. The original was made one day when I realized they would hit the door at any minute and all I had handy was a bit of leftover homemade spaghetti sauce and a freezer with a bit of anything and a lot of nothing.
Ground Beef, toss in pot and cook thoroughly, drain off any grease.
Add a can of Tomato Sauce (not paste! Homemade sauce is wonderful if you have it)
Cut up an onion, a couple of potatoes, and peek in freezer for a handful of various vegetables...corn, blackbeans, butterpeas, mixed vegetables, beans, hominy, anything goes! Add enough water to make it work. Season as you like best.
As a young family our financial status was rediculously nonexistant and I usually would drop a handful of whatever frozen veggies I was cooking into a ziploc bag. This way I "tithed" a small amount that was never missed until I had a good sized bag of stew goodies. I often make cornbread in one of my iron pans to go with the stew and I never have leftovers.
Now that the children are married and have their own children, they make this regularly. It warms the tummy and soul, it's inexpensive and healthy, it's fast and easy.

Ack!!

I really, really, really haven't abandoned my blog! I did get a new camera for Christmas, lots of knitting got done and the backlog of missed blogging has overwhelmed me! Not to leave out...see the nice wedding picture of son and daughter-in-law not so long ago? Now eighth grandchild is ... is...going to be! It's semi-unofficial, until the Doctor does the official announcement, but all the little test kits say yes....(and I had a feeling about it all, so that makes it almost totally official.)
Knitting will proceed at maniacal pace for next 7 or so months, and now I'm wondering if M's new passion for knitting contributed in any way to the zen state of mind that encourages fertility. At any rate, it's thrilling news and we get to make dozens of tiny things for a tiny, new person that doesn't object to all the fluffy stuff! At our house it's not unusual to hear a knitter call out "one of you kids bring me your head for a minute!" so we can adjust or gloat over the fitting of a sweater neck we're working on. Tots have such proportional curiosities such as large heads and little necks/shoulders, it's nice to have one handy to double check these things as we knit.
Can you believe it? I just put all that in one paragraph, completely defying all sense of grammar.
I promise more pics for blog tho, as soon as I get a "stick" for my computer. The new camera can hold zillions of pics and I shudder at the idea of plastering my puter with them all while I sort it all out!