New design!

I've put up a new design, so please let me know if anything doesn't work or if something is hard to read!

Dish Rag Tag!!!

Thursday night I got home late and the Dish Rag Tag box was waiting for me! Woo, time to get knitting. But first, the box and its contents:

the box

inside the box

the goodies!

The DRT box came to me from Carole (ravelry link), here's what she included! Her completed dishcloth in the official pattern for me to keep, yummy Ghirardelli chocolate, York mints (ooh, something new!), stitch holders, and a bamboo mini crochet hook for emergency stitches and the like! Oh and the cotton for me to make the next dishcloth with. Thanks, Carole! I'm enjoying the chocolate and mints. :-)

So I knitted the dishcloth a little bit Thursday night until I had to turn in for the night, then I spent Friday morning knitting. Luckily it came on the right day - I had Friday off work for working on Saturday. I got it finished and packaged up with new goodies to go off to Katherine around noon and off it went to the post office!

Unfortunately I didn't realize that my camera battery died without saving the last photo so I don't have a good shot of the dishcloth I finished, just this photo trying to get a closeup of the pattern. Oh well.

We only have two team members left after Katherine so I think we are in the running to not finish bad at all! Go Dishy Dozen!

Farm goodies

A photo post giving a random taste of summer... (an old draft resurrected of farmer's market goodies) This will have to tide us over for a few more months.

skinny red carrots (delicious!) and fresh lettuce blend

delicious cheeses

beautiful challah rolls

a lovely little watermelon

teeny tiny orange peppers (these were delicious stuffed), corn, two kinds of beans...

fresh local cherries and garlic scapes

like a bowl full of cherries

the garlic scapes turned into pesto and tossed with penne

a tisket a tasket, a farmer's market basket

beautiful and tasty heirloom tomatoes (the grapey looking things are purple cherry tomatoes)
the big heirlooms made the best BLTs ever...

Birthday Roundup...

Yeah, I know. My birthday month was over like two months ago. Well, I've had this in drafts just waiting for me to finish. So!

Cupcakes! We made it to Spa City Cupcakes

It was later in the day and they were out of all the "exciting" flavors but we got white with chocolate frosting, chocolate with white frosting (the m&ms), chocolate with chocolate frosting, and white with white frosting. Normal flavors but they were absolutely delicious. Like some of the best cupcakes ever.

From there we went to the drive-in and saw Wall-E and Get Smart and tried...

deep fried oreos! Oh.My.God. I've never been a fan of the deep fry everything phenomenon but these? were great.

Here's an inside view


These are the best stitch markers ever that I got for my birthday from a friend at work - they easily snap open and closed so you can use them as closed on the needle style stitch markers but still take them out at the wrong time if needed!

We attempted to go to Moxie's for the many vanilla flavors but we had the hours wrong and got there when they were closed. :-( However, we did drive by this place with the slightly amusing sign.

This is my birthday Coach bag that I got the gift cards for

inside view

I still think they're overpriced but I loves it. It's the softest thing I've ever felt, and oh so pretty. And hey, you only turn 30 once.

I used a birthday gift card to get a bread machine and have made a bunch of different yummy loaves...

This is a plain white bread,

with some homemade jam :-)

And, we went to Morrette's for the veggie steak sandwich I wanted to try.

It was huge, and yummy. Mushrooms, onions, red and green peppers cooked with butter and garlic and topped with cheese. Also those yummy skinny fries.

yeah, it was a fattening food filled birthday month.

A long finished project

that I can finally show! I made the Child's Placket Neck Sweater from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts but it's also available for free online. This little gem is for my brand new baby nephew, Zach.

I loved this pattern so I think I'll make it again for other babies. (although, I forgot to look for errata and discovered when I was almost done that there was an error in the pattern. I threw in some random decreases in inappropriate yet invisible places to bring it back in line. Here's a close up of the placket neck with the wooden bead buttons.


And here's my brother modeling it on little Zach (currently one month old). He can't actually wear it yet since I made it big to (hopefully) fit him come sweater weather (it was 84 degrees today). I made the six to twelve month size and he's a big baby so hopefully this will be spot on come cold weather.

And here's a bonus of Zach trying on the Rainbow Marley hat I made him (also big for later)

(cheese part 2 coming up next)

"Gromit, that's it! Cheese! We'll go somewhere where there's cheese!"

Today we took my inlaws on a driving tour of small cheese farms in a county about an hour north of us, near Vermont. There were six cheese farms that you could visit and we managed to make it to five of them.

We started at Gillis Acres Farm in Greenwich, a goat farm.

These little cuties are Alpine goats. We talked to the farmer about the cheese process, saw the equipment and the baby goats (the milking goats were in a different barn), and tasted all the cheese!

We decided to get the Alpine Queen which is similar to a gruyere.

Next we went to 3-Corner Field Farm in Shushan, a sheep farm. This was the first time I ever had to wash my shoes on the way in to a farm!

On the way in the gate, they have disinfectant buckets and scrub brushes and ask you to disinfect to protect the "bio security" of the farm. This farm is also all about sustainability, they have water pumps that do not use any fossil fuels, and solar panels on the barns for the refrigeration and milking/cheese making equipment.

Here's one of their cute sheep dogs taking a little break from his work...
And, here's the cheese we picked out. This is a smoked artisanal sheep's milk cheese and it is heavenly. It's also $22.50 a pound so we only got about a quarter pound.

This is getting long so I'm going to break it up into two posts...

All Hallow's Eve Dishcloth Swap!

Vampire Pumpkin, originally uploaded by Alissao.

Yay, another seasonal dishcloth swap is coming up! There's only a few days to sign up if you're interested...

Here's my questionnaire that needs to be posted before the end of registration:

Knotting Yarn
1. Do you knit or crochet? For how long?
knit; a little over a year (I do know how to crochet but don't do it actively right now)

2. What sort of needles or hooks do you enjoy using the most? Are there some you've been dying to try out and haven't?
I have just about every different kind of needle, and enjoy them all for different types of projects.

3. What kind of projects do you most enjoy? Small things you can take with you, or big complex ones that are just gorgeous when they're done?
both!

4. List one pattern for a dishcloth that you love to make, or just tell us about one you've made or received that you loved.
I'm a big fan of the "petal" dishcloth pattern, and I also like the ones that make different pictures in the center.

5. What are your 'must have' notions? Are there any notions you need or can never have enough of? Any that might make you cry if you owned more?
hmm, stitch markers? I've been doing a few projects lately that need them. I can't think of anything I have too much of...

Petting Yarn
6. What are your favorite yarns to work with? Any you hate or are allergic to?
cottons and intriguing cotton blends (cotton with linen or silk, etc.). I am allergic to wool, even a small amount in a blend. Not only can't I wear it but I get rashes when I work with it!

7. What colors do you like to use in projects? Any we'd never catch on your needles?
I am partial to pinks. I can't think of any absolutely hated colors, just depends on the project.

8. Any cottons you'd like to try you can't find by you, or just haven't gotten around to getting?
Nothing specific I can think of.

Halloween, Fall, and General Stuff
9. Do you like to use bar soap or shower gel more? What kinds of scents do you love? What kind do you hate?
Shower gel! I'm not a bar soap person. I love food scents (fruit, baked things, pumpkin, etc.). I don't like vanilla (yeah, that's a food scent but the one I don't like!)

10. What's more 'Halloweeny' - Ghosts, Pumpkins, or Witches?
I'd say all are equally Halloweeny but I guess I'm partial to pumpkins of the bunch.

11. What's your favorite Treat to get? Sweet or Salty? Anything you're allergic to or just hate?
chocolate! sweet and salty is the best combination! I'm not a fan of nuts unless they're ground like peanut butter.

12. What was your favorite Halloween Costume as a kid? As an adult??
hmm. When I was in kindergarten I was a nurse with a coffee filter cap... I don't think I've had any costumes as an adult? My usual halloween gig these days is the Target halloween tshirt of the year with goofy socks and the like.

13. Are you on Ravelry? What's your ID?
yup. yarnlibrarian surprisingly enough ;-)

14. Anything else you'd like to be sure your pal knows?
um, can't think of anything?