One sock done....

Just off the needles. Need to cast on right away for the other as I'd like to do a few pairs in the next couple of weeks. I'm on holidays until Tuesday. But I need to get my fall cleaning done as well. A summer of kids in & out of the house, dragging in sand & grass, toys under the furniture and in the corners & all over the yard need to be tidied & put away. On today's agenda...laundry.

Keep on knitting.

Socks....

Here are the latest pairs. Finished pair is knit with hand-dyed wool/mohair. The pair on the needles is being knit with hand-dyed wool/nylon. Looks like I'm on a purple streak right now! :-)
Today is my last day of working on the summer break. Yeah!  A nice 5 day weekend for me & my girls. Papa Bear is working a full week.
Much cooler today - 10C when we came upstairs this morning. Need wool socks for my tootsies.

 
Keep on knitting!

Eating from the garden...

On tonight's menu - new potatoes, garden salad, corn on the cob, cherry tomatoes with bbq'd pork chops. Mmmm.....so good!  :-)
On the needles - another pair of socks.

Keep on knitting!

More flowers.....

My girls and I went out again to the cutting gardens at Avenstone. A beautiful place to spend a Sunday afternoon in August. Next year I hope to get there every weekend in August. Beautiful flowers and a good cause.

Keep on knitting!

Time to Get Back to Fibre......

It's the 1st of August and there are subtle signs of the slow change from summer to fall. While still very warm during the sun-filled days, the evenings cool nicely and it's quite cool in the mornings. Our alarm goes at 5:30 and it is still dark when I shut it off now.
And the change is inducing me to play more with my fibre. I've been dyeing some wool tops and I've got some knitting on the needles.
Today's dyepot.  Some blue-faced leicester in turkey red.
Yesterday's dyepot .  More blue-faced leicester in twilight blue. I think is such a pretty colour.
A pair of socks in hand-dyed  millspun wool/mohair .
Handknit wool socks are always a popular item on my table at events. I''ve got to get busy, busy, busy to get a few pairs done before the frosts come.

Have a good one!

Time in the garden...

has taken from my spinning & knitting time. Between keeping up with the weeding & trying to get mulch in place and importing the bedding from my chicken coop to the new vegetable garden, I'm too tuckered in the evenings to do much of anything.

Our blueberries have lots of berries on them. Just need to wait for ripening.

Garlic bed is a first for us. Just harvested some scapes this weekend and enjoyed them sauteed and added to baby red potatoes. Mmmm...

My lettuce & peas are coming along. In the back corner is my stand of Jerusalem artichokes.

Just had to show off the pond with it's beautiful irises and now the water lily is blooming.

This is the new vegetable garden. Stan plowed the lower barnyard. Turns out that about 6 inches below the topsoil is clay. Pure clay. I've been hauling wheelbarrow loads of shavings & manure from the chicken coop. I'll use it all over and then mulch with grass clippings all summer. In the fall I can have my brother-in-law bring a few loads of shredded leaves for us to spread on the garden. Hopefully after a couple of years this will help to loosen & lighten the soil. Looking forward to harvesting from this ~ we've got melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, corn, peppers, potatoes & leeks in.

Our strawberry patch has been giving us wonderful desserts and still continues to bear fruit. :)

Today it's cool & breezy here. Just have one little guy and we'll be heading out the school to join the kids for their picnic. Should be fun!

Have a good one!

It's been quite awhile...

Finished spinning two bobbins of creamy white wool a while back. Today, I finished plying the last of them. Two large skeins of 2 ply and 1 small skein of singles. I still need to wash them and measure the yardage. These will go into my shop in their natural colour. The skein of singles really seems to glow so much more than the 2 ply. I think the next few skeins will be singles that will be knit into a shawl at some future date.
Just a couple of weeks more and my littles will be on holidays for the summer. Their moms are teachers and don't need care for the summer holidays. The rest of the crew here are school-aged and able to entertain themselves. They just need supervision and someone to get meals ready for them. That should leave more time for spinning & knitting. I'll just leave the wheel on the stoop during the day and my knitting basket can live on the patio. That's the plan anyways! :)

Have a good one!