Christmas Hand-Knit Hats and Scarves and Sock Earrings

Handknit hats for little S and E

 For Christmas gifting I knit some hats and scarves. I used washable variegated sock yarn and a coordinating gray. The lower part of little E's hat has several purled rows, then a couple knit gray rows, so that the sock yarn would come forward and the darker gray retreated. Little S's hat every few rows, after the hat was knit, has chained gray, creating scallops. Then I added the ear flaps and crocheted an edging adding tasseled ties.

Splarah's hand-knit hat and scarf

I took into account Splarah's dark brown hair and blue eyes for her hat design. I bought several varieties of the new ribbon looking "yarn" that pulls out into a lacy effect. It's slower knitting than normal, so it's not something I want to do a lot of, but I supplied several people, including myself some of these scarves.

Little E wore his hand=knit hat all day

Hand-Knit Sock Earrings

I've posted before about these sock earrings I've knit for years. Probably all my friends have a pair now and I've sold some.

Nuno Felted Scarves

Some day I'll show tutorial steps in nuno felting. I'm still working the art and perfecting it, if there is such a thing. These are some of what I've done ...

Nuno Felted Scarf on cotton gauze

Nuno Felted Scarf on cotton gauze

Felted Wreaths

This is my second Christmas of making these wreaths. This year I wet felted the wool to the styrofoam wreath, then needle felted on the details. Some are wrapped with a coordinating wool yarn. I'll make the leaves and some other details separate, needling on a foam pad, then adding them to the wreath.

Felted styrofoam wreaths

Felted styrofoam wreaths - 2 stacked

I've mentioned before, probably in the felted egg post, that the styrofoam needs to be the rough, not the smooth kind for needlefelting.

Felted Soap or Soap in a Sweater!

"Soap in a Sweater" - felted soap

Felting over soap is SO easy. I've read and watched several tutorials. I'm going to tell you how I do it. You can use any soap. I've even done it using hotel soaps. But usually I use my homemade soap (which I posted a recipe for at my kitchen blog), primarily because that's the main soap around my house, since I've been making and using my homemade soap for probably twenty years now. Since the last soap I made was heart-shaped, that's what this tutorial will show.

wrap wool tightly around the soap

add some color variety if you want

 Wrap wool tightly around the soap, covering it totally. If you leave it too loose, it'll take longer to tighten/shrink around the soap, and you can end up with some wool flaps that are impossible to adhere to the already felted soap. Once wool is felted it won't accept anymore wool layering, unless you needle felt it (I tried this, but wouldn't want to do it too much to make the soap start crumbling - I am going to try needlefelting a little design first in some wool before starting the wrapping process sometime). Looseness can be worked more - I've done it, even after it's totally dry and I want it tighter around the soap.

put the wool wrapped soap in a plastic bag

Now put the wool wrapped soap into a sandwich bag. Here is where I differ from other tutorials - they put the soap carefully into the toe of a nylon sock, usually knotting it. Wet felting with kids, as well as teaching felting in a setting where water accessibility and dripping water isn't easy, taught me to use plastic bags. And who wants to unknot something. I just put some hot water in the baggy, twist it tightly around the soap, and start rubbing all around the soap. Most wet felting has you using hot soapy water, but here you've already got the soap. It'll get quite sudsy, which would rinse out easily with a nylon sock, but I just pull the soap out and rinse it and the plastic bag, then put the soap back in if it needs more felting. When I had the Valentine Tea crafting party, we just left the bags by the greenhouse sink and people coming to that craft station reused the bags.

after adding some hot water twist the bag tight and rub all around the soap

rinse the felted soap and let it dry

Total time for the process? Only about 5-10 minutes! And you've got a unique, creative, functional work of art.

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

This is a long video! I watched it (listened to it) while skimming through my RSS Reader, emails, and Facebook. Watch it while knitting or something. It is truth. It's message needs to be known and shared, AND thought about when we're making our food choices everyday, for the rest of our lives - hopefully healthy long-lived lives!

Felt and Jewelry

In my current felting jag, I made this jewelry set. I'd bought the jewelry blanks at Hobby Lobby. I needle felted a long strip of the blue-green background, then cut it in squares to fit the bracelet blanks and one to fit the necklace blank. Then I needled in the small designs in colors that would go with an outfit I wear. The picture shows the jacket. I'm going to be making more felted jewelry!

Spring Fever

I've got the fever ... to get out in the dirt! I took these pictures early this morning and my hands were freezing as time wore on. But today is supposed to get up in the mid 60's, so I'm heading out soon to clean up all my perennial beds. I'm going to pull around a tarp the take my giant scissors, cutting back all the dead top growth, and rake the beds. I've got a lot of wildflower seeds - mainly annuals - to reseed some beds.

"Glory of Snow" bulbs in my grass

I used our electric drill and a 1/2" bit to plant 100's of the above flower bulbs in our grass several years ago. I guess that's one way to aerate!

Tansy

To the left of the above tansy plants are my first two perennial beds to the east of our front porch. Monte had brought the soil up from the woods. Wild raspberries came with the soil and I let them grow along with my flowers. So far they are the better producers of raspberries than the ones I've purposely planted. We freeze quite a bit of raspberries. The yellow flower heads of tansy dry beautifully.

Nights still freezing - frozen bird bath and old Sunflower head

I've not successfully planted sunflower seeds and gotten great plants. The chipmunks do the better job of planting birdseed sunflowers. All I have to do is pull out the extra hundreds!

The Herb Garden

I made herb labels several years ago out of Sculpey dough you bake in the oven rather than buy the expensive ones at the nursery. They're just tied with twine to bamboo poles. I could see the winter savory, thyme, sage, lemon balm, and oregano starting to send out green shoots. Behind this bed the tarragon, lavender, and sweet cicely bushes are popping up too. And then there's the crab apple tree ready to burst into bloom - by the end of the summer it's totally entwined with a clematis vine.

Chives readying to bloom

Autumn Sedum Joy beautifies the winter garden

Forsythia starting to bloom

Greenhouse garden seedlings started

I started my seedlings a bit late this year, but it'll be ok. There's broccoli, cauliflower, kale varieties, tomatoes, and then nasturtiums, clary sage, marigolds ... I've got to start basil, winter squash and more things next.

Clematis entwined in grapevine in greenhouse and green tomatoes

Grapevine needing to be pruned - starting to invade potted plants

Sterilizing Kitchen Sponges/Washcloths

Monte took off to run errands and I'm hearing a beeping in the kitchen. Nowadays all appliances ding or beep when done, or when the refrigerator is not shut tight, and my washer and dryer 'sing'. I just checked - he'd put a sponge in the microwave to sterilize. I've heard that some types of sponges could catch fire, so check on yours. We put dishcloths and sponges in microwave for 3 minutes to sterilize. Monte's mom, who was always bleaching hers to sterilize, loved that tidbit of info. So I'm passing it on.

Baked Cod Parmesan

Alaskan cod was on sale yesterday ... so what to make ... I was thinking of a homemade pasta dish. I made lasanga last week when Travis and Sarah came along with another young couple to stay a couple days and dye Ukrainian/Pyasanky eggs (check it out at my overflow blog). We made homemade lasanga pasta and it was THE BEST lasanga I have ever tasted - and they agreed. We were all rather silent savoring our first bites! UmmUmmGood!!!! I am going to make another homemade pasta lasanga this weekend, so I'll take pics and post.



I could have googled cod recipes, but looked at the few fish cookbooks I have instead. Several Fall's ago Monte and me visited Boston before heading up to New Hampshire. We walked all over Boston for several days and loved it. We were told, besides the historic trail, to visit the Legal Sea Food restaurant - we bought their cookbook. This cod recipe sounded good. I'm eating leftovers now as I'm posting this ... still good.

BAKED COD PARMESAN

2 lbs cod fillets

1 C fresh chopped tomato or Marinara Sauce

2 Tb chopped fresh basil

3 Tb freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

1 Tb olive oil



Preheat oven to 425. Place fillets in baking dish and cover with the sauce and basil and bake about 8 minutes. Add the grated cheese and dots of olive oil and bake another 5 minutes, or till the cheese melts.



The fish smelled rather fishy when I opened the wrapping. Unless I have fresh fish I always soak most store bought fish in some salt/ sugar/ and milk water. I'd read those will rid the fishiness of fish. After about an hour Monte thought it still smelled fishy so rinsed it well and soaked it longer in ice water with lots of lemon slices. I cooked it a bit longer - 10 and 10 minutes and never added the olive oil. This winter I've had fresh herbs in my greenhouse - so I had fresh basil. I'm guessing I added more marinara sauce and cheese, but don't know, I didn't measure - just put enough to cover all the fish.



The cookbook suggested serving it with rice and broccoli. I usually like a rice mixture with wild rice and needed to pressure cook it since it takes longer to cook. Broccoli grows very well here and I usually freeze at least 20 pounds every year - in 1/2 pound bags, now that it's just Monte and me. The cookbook also suggested that mushrooms and chopped peppers could be added to the fish topping. That sounds good too. I usually always stock lemons/limes, mushrooms, peppers, and marinara sauce.



I like recipes that have menu suggestions.

Greenhouse Gardening

Plant shelf with heat coils and grow lights

I'm back to blogging again. My commitments are past; my color design class, after a year, is over. I've been busy exploring various textile crafts and taking pictures but not taking time to write blogs.

Lettuces and Greens

My plans for now? To get my garden spaces cleaned up and ready for this year's growing season. Spring flowering bulbs are starting to bloom and things are greening up and starting to grow. I anxiously await this time of year ... 'Anxious' because some things die from lack of Winter moisture, or pocket gophers and voles. I have started veggie and flower seedlings in my greenhouse: broccoli, cauliflower, kale varieties, tomato varieties, and favorite flowers.

Herbs

I will not bother with growing carrots, radishes, beets, or lettuce again over winter - too labor intensive and a huge electricity draw for keeping it warm. What I will always keep going tho are herbs. I enjoyed having fresh herbs all winter: chives, parsley, rosemary, cilantro, basil, mint, oregano, sage, and thyme (I should have typed some of those in the song's order ... it's now running in my head!). The grapevine's leaves are filling the entire greenhouse ceiling space and Monte keeps looking for newly forming clusters. The clematis vine that twines into the grapevine is just now starting to flower - it's the deep violet Jackmanii variety. Tomato plants in the corner have been giving us cherry tomatoes, but I don't know if I'll grow them over winter again either.

Entwined together: Potted Fig tree, tomatoes, and grapevine

Mock Orange - been babying over a year; seeds from Monte's family homestead