Go Local Challenge: Jammin'

The plan started out simple enough. A friend and I were going to take advantage of my new big kitchen to do a little jamming. We planned. We researched. We emailed and dolled out tasks. We were just going to do three jams: raspberry, black berry and orange marmalade.

But when my dear friend showed up at my place after picking up the fruit, it quickly became obvious we were in for an adventure of sticky proportions! She bought: raspberries, black berries (enough for two batches each), oranges, plums, peaches, pluots and cherries.

So we quickly got to work. And we washed, stirred, chopped, pureed, boiled and stirred some more. The final product: 85 jars of delicious jams and marmalade of various shapes and sizes.

Turns out, when you plan a jammin' session with a friend who grew up on a working farm in rural Oregon, a day of jammin' means something else altogether. Next up, we plan more jammin' this fall with pizza and pasta sauces. I can't wait!

Knitting funk/unpacking mess

I haven't been knitting in what seems like eons. I've carted my projects around from room to room, trying not to think about the unpacking mess that is slowing driving me bonkers.

But that is about to change.


How you ask?


1. The hubby and I have decided we're sick of the mess and this weekend we're finishing up all the unpacking/organizing/cleaning/etc even if it kills us.

2. I've treated myself to some soft and lovely yarn. Because I deserve it.

This should do the trick!

Go Local Challenge: Guest Blogger

I'm the guest blogger over at Living Senses for this week of the Go Local Challenge. Check it out.

Not sure what the Go Local Challenge is? It's all about eating locally, trying new foods/recipes and supporting the farmers around you.

Join the fun and eat great this summer!

Some serious R & R

Are the boxes unpacked?
No.
Is that drawer in the kitchen still scary to open?
Oh yeah.
Am I still missing a box of shoes?
Pretty much.


But for now, that doesn’t really matter (well, the shoes yes, but I’m pulling a Scarlett O’Hara on that one and will deal with it later), we’re off on an impromptu trip to one of my happy places! We’re heading to my family’s place in Cascade for some much needed R & R for a long weekend. No relaxing could be done at the house until the last box was unpacked, so we’re avoiding it all by leaving town for a few days. I’ll be recharging my batteries on the deck, soaking up some sun, catching up on my reading, enjoying the company of my family and just watching life go by.


(Editor’s note: If you’re one of my many Idaho friends who I haven’t had a chance to call and tell you I’ll be in town, sorry about that. But you know where you can find me. And you know there’s always an extra seat on our porch and a cold beverage waiting for you if you stop by!)

A quick update: Surviving the move

I thought I’d share a few insights I’ve gathered in my vast 5-days of being a true homeowner:

• No matter how big the space seems when it’s empty, it’s never big enough when your stuff gets moved in, i.e. my new closet.
  
• After years of living on 4th or 5th floors of downtown apartment buildings, you forget how many spiders do get into your home.
  
• Career note to movers: if you don’t like lifting heavy objects, find a new job!
  
• In the past 4 days I’ve made more trips to the following stores than I truly care to admit: Sears, Home Depot, Fred Meyer.
  
• The hubby is amazed that I haven’t even touched a box in the craft room yet. Honestly, it’s a bit overwhelming and frightening (pic to come later on that one).
  
• Despite the boxes, the mess and the general unorganized chaos that is my home, our garden and back patio are in perfect working order. A sanctuary if you will. And trust me; it’s well needed and used.

You say goodbye, I say hullo...

Tomorrow is the big move. We'll be officially out of rental land and into our new home.

We'll be saying goodbye to our condo and our lovely view of Lake Union. We've enjoyed the years watching the 4th of July fireworks from our living room, the weekly Duck Dodge (the Tuesday night sailboat regatta) and just the general day to day sail boat watching, sea planes coming and going and kayakers.

But, in my opinion, I think our new view is going to be even better.

(Sadly, I'll be going off line for a while. We haven't been very happy with our Internet so we're taking this opportunity to find a new provider. I just hope it doesn't take too long!)

Seattle's newest Farmers Market

The Pike Place Market Express is now set up for the summer every Tuesday from 10 am - 2 pm at the City Hall plaza. It's right outside my office door! And it was a hit today! It's starting out small but organizers say they are going to get bigger as the summer progresses. And with the lines today, I can only hope they start getting bigger next week!

I wasn't able to get out to the plaza until ll:45 am and already things were sold out! I did manage to snag two things of raspberries, a bunch of romaine lettuce and some broccoli - all locally grown.

I think I'm going to enjoy having a farmers market outside of my office. I just need to get out there earlier. Hopefully work won't get in the way of my local produce shopping!

Go Local Challenge 2009: My garden

How does your garden grow?

Hopefully, pretty damn good.

We got into the house this weekend. And while the big move isn't scheduled until next Saturday (I originally had to work this Saturday), we were able to get in clean, move a few things in, and most importantly, work in the garden.

This is what I showed up to on Saturday morning:

Yep, it was a mess. A woefully neglected garden. Those really tall weeds that were basically my height turned out be carrots. Really old, neglected carrots. I pulled up about 1/2 a dozen of them along with some really old radishes. After a while in there, I finally had it garden ready.

So we headed out to Home Depot to get some goodies. One of the best things about moving to a new neighborhood is exploring and finding new haunts. On our way to HD, we found the West Seattle Nursery & Garden Center. We pulled in and I quickly met Kathy, my new garden BFF. She was very impressed that by 2 pm on the day I moved into my house I was out shopping for stuff for our garden. She gave me some advice, a fabulous selection of greenery and sent us out the door with the confidence not to kill everything.

Back at the ranch we started planting. Here's what it looks like now:

We've got tomatoes, corn, 2 types of squash, carrots, onions, radishes (the last three are all seeds) plus basil, chives, rosemary for my herb pot. I also transplanted the kale and lettuce starts from my bucket, but I've got to be honest, I don't think the lettuce is going to make it. I'm also a little worried about the transplanted tomato. Fingers crossed!

We also bought a raspberry plant and I've got my eye on two blueberry plants back at the nursery center. I'm also hoping to get some zucchini, spinach, more lettuce and a few other things, but I'm not sure what yet. Any suggestions? (You can't say strawberries. the hubby thinks I may have pulled up a strawberry plant in my zest to weed out the garden. But in my garden, strawberries are weeds!)

A little help from Linnea

I finished the baby cardigan but I'm a little concerned that's it's a bit small. I opted to make the 0-3 month size instead of the usual 6 month size I generally give as gift.

At knitting the other night, we had a special guest who offered to try on the sweater for me.

Linnea is 2 months old and the sweater was a little small on her. Her mother assures me that Linnea is big for her age and that yes, babies are that small. I'm thinking of skipping the buttons and opting instead for a pretty purple ribbon to tie it off.

I'll have a different picture of the sweater once it's blocked and finished with the tie.

Two Years

Two years ago we said I do. Now we're getting ready to move into our first house. The adventure continues...and so far....it's one great journey.

A weekend recharged

Place: Lincoln City, Oregon.

Objective: Hang out with the family. Walk along the beach. Explore the wildlife. Reconnect with the world.

Mission Accomplished.

The next baby project

Two baby projects have recently been finished. Now it's time to start another (really, there must be something in the water around here.)

I've cast on for the Eiji Sweater from Shibui Knits. I'm using a pretty purple shade of Manos Del Uruguay Wool. I'm making the 0-3 month old size and it's for an Idaho baby due this fall. She'll need a nice wool sweater for the Idaho winter!

Look, I was able to wind the yarn myself with my new swift! I'll admit, I did wind a good chunk of my yarn stash the day this baby arrived on my door step!

Go Local Challenge:Week One - Nada

Well, what can I say but the truth. I sucked at week one of the Go Local Challenge. Time got away from me to get to a market. There was a "heat wave" for a few days this week that knocked power out to our place on Wednesday for about 7 hours (no cooking, no shopping, just sweating, a game of scrabble on the deck and knitting with a head lamp.) It was just one of those weeks.

However, I feel slightly redeemed with this act of local eating: for my job, I wrote a story about Seattle's newest farmers market coming to folks of downtown Seattle. And the best part about this story (aside from exposing more folks to local farmers), is that this new market is literally outside my office! Starting in the end of June, there will be NO excuse for me not to be shopping locally. I'll simply grab my cash (the ATM is also in my building), grab my bag, then walk out the door to go shopping!

For Dia

Pattern: Amelie Dress from Natural Knits for Moms & Babies

Yarn: Rowan RYC Cashcotton DK

This dress is for a dear friend's second baby girl. I made the 6 month size. Although, I think she'll need to wear it with a turtle neck and stockings with it by the time she's 6 months old since it'll be cold where she lives at that time.

I thought the pattern was a pretty easy knit, although the directions around the neck line were a little confusing. I also only put on 3 little flowers instead of the 16 the pattern called for. I'm a less is more kind of girl. I would make this pattern again. It's a super cute one and I can't wait to see Dia in it!

You know you scored the best deal at a garage sale when...

When you're walking down the street and people are coming up to you and offering your twice the amount you paid for your new treasure.

And here it is:

I've been on the hunt for a silver tinsel 3-ft tall Christmas tree for years. Literally years. I've looked at pre-Christmas sales, Christmas sales and post Christmas sales. I've looked online. I've looked in year round Christmas stores. And nothing. They were either too tall. Or entirely too expensive.

But not this one. I found it at the third house of the annual Bigelow St. neighborhood yard sale in the Queen Anne neighborhood. It was in the back. And the teenage son wasn't quite awake yet. The original $50 price tag was still on it, but nothing else. I asked him how much. He looked at it like he didn't know what it was. He uttered:

"I dunno, $7, $8?" as several other women looked on.

"How about $7?" I said as I handed him the cash and hoped his mother didn't see what he was selling this gem for. Then I high-tailed it out of there before she came outside.

All day, everyone kept asking about the tree. Several other people I passed offered to pay more for the tree, including others holding their own yard sales.

It's like Christmas came early this year for me.

"Um, excuse me, the shopping cart is for your groceries, not your dog."

That is what I should have said to the lady at the Issaquah Trader Joe's who thought putting her dog in the grocery cart was the cutest thing.

Let me tell you, it wasn't. She drug this dog into the store. And we're not talking a tiny little purse-type dog. It was about 20 lbs. It looked a little bewildered as she giggled at it in the cart and went about her merry-little-totally-oblivious-way. The rest of us in the produce section just stood there and stared.

Now, I'll admit, I'm not a dog person. But, I've got nothing against the responsible dog owner who loves their dog with all their heart. I know people like that. They are good, responsible, loving pet owners. They also feel the same about dogs in shopping shopping carts, grocery stores and Nordstrom as I do. Yes, Nordstrom. I once saw a woman with her greyhound dog (on a leash) strolling through Nordstrom. The dog had a rhinestone collar. I guess she felt that gave her the right to take her beloved pooch to Nordstrom.

Incidentally, in case you're wondering, it's not OK according to the King County Health Department to put a dog in a shopping cart. And they'll be letting the folks at Trader Joe's know that.

Go Local Challenge 2009

Summertime is here and with that the fresh green bounty from the farms are trucked into the city! That means farmers markets are bursting at the seams with all sorts of fresh, yummy goodness that I can't seem to find at the grocery stores!

Lucky for me, SewHappy Jane over at LivingSenses is here to encourage all of us to take advantage of this delectable delightful season by setting up the Go Local Challenge! It's easy to participate. Just hit your local farmers market, buy whatever your heart desires, and make at least one meal a week using local ingredients! It's a great way to try new fruits and veggies, meet the folks who help put the food on your table, and help the environment by reducing your carbon footprint by making sure your dinner isn't shipped from some where very far away.

It's a fun and tasty way to spend the summer!

Quilt #2: Done

It's finally finished! My second quilt! I have to say, I'm pretty proud of this one! I designed it myself. I really enjoy that aspect of sewing. The quilting, well, I'm still working on that whole "sew in a straight line" thing. I guess it'll come in time.

This quilt is for a dear friend who's going to have her first baby in early July. She's having a boy and as of yet, baby boy doesn't have a name.

(I picked out this cute yellow flannel farm animal print for the back! It's so cute!)

I can't wait to meet him and seeing laying, playing and sleeping on this blanket! It was made with lots of love!

Creme Brule Quest: My kitchen

Since my parents were here this weekend, I wanted to celebrate my mom's birthday a little early. Instead of making another cake or some cupcakes or even recreate the year I made her a lemon meringue pie and whipped the meringue by attaching the beaters to my dad's drill because the beater stopped working. (Yes, it worked just fine but the damn drill was soooooo much heavier than your average kitchen beater. I don't really recommend it unless you're in a pinch like I was).

I kept things a little simpler this year and decided to try to make creme brule. We enjoyed it so much on our trip to France, I thought it would be fun to give it a whirl. Luckily, my mom is also a bit of an adventurous cook so she wanted to help.

We got our recipe from the Better Homes and Garden The New Cookbook. Instead of using a blow torch to caramelize the sugar, the recipe calls for caramelizing it on the stove top and drizzling it on the dishes.

The creme brule is in the dishes and in the water bath ready for the oven.All cooked up and cooling.The caramelizing starts (above) and finishes up a few minutes later (below).

I gotta say, the creme brule was pretty good and I'd make this dish again! It wasn't quite as good as the ones we ate in France, but it came pretty close! We had three dishes left over and ate them the following night. And it tasted even better the second night! The vanilla was very distinct after it had time to really mix in with the creme and eggs.
And you can't have creme brule without French wine! We opened the bottle from Domaine Terres Blanches that I hauled back from France! It was a great dessert to cap off a great weekend!

Urban Gardening

This Memorial Day weekend, my folks came for a visit. They said they just wanted to hang out with us. I had already planned on attending the West Seattle Edible Garden fair to learn all I could about gardening, composting and whatever else they wanted to share with me. The folks also enjoy gardening so they were up for it.

My mom and I approached a booth called Urban Gardeners. They had this beautiful display of buckets filled with tomatoes, chives, lettuces and herbs. My mom asked if they were for sale. They weren't. They were free. We could pick out what we wanted to grow and they would show us how to plant a buckets so you could grow a garden anywhere! Uber Urban Gardener Helen, helped me pick out a Jubilee tomato plant, some chard and different types of lettuce seeds (they were out of the lettuce starts). She gave some fertilizer and showed me what to do once I get to move into our house and give my gardening skills a bigger test! It was a great event and I'll be back there next year ready learn more!

My lovely garden start! These greens are as ready as I am for all of us to get into our new home!

It'll soon be mine!

I've been looking in stores and online for months now. Just keeping my eye out for the perfect deal. And I finally found it. Or, it found me. It showed up in my email inbox yesterday!

And how could I not resist getting my very own swift for only $50 from knitpicks.com! It took me approximately 2.5 seconds to hit the order now button while at the same time fumbling around in my bag for my handy-dandy Visa card!


The best part is (aside for the price!), now that I'll have a craft room of my very own soon, the swift will be able to stay out all the time! I can't wait to start winding yarn!

Celebrating a change

A very dear friend of mine has recently come to a crossroads in her professional life as a television journalist. After nearly a decade of working in her chosen profession and many of them in her dream job as a main anchor and producer for a TV news station, she is moving on to something different.

She wrestled with some very serious and emotional issues while trying to come to this decision. At times I know it was very hard for her. But she is a hard worker who is determined to take on new challenges in life. And that's just what she's doing now that she's at this crossroads. She's blazing her own path and incorporating some of the things she truly loves best: writing, interviewing, cooking, blogging and of course her family.

I'm so proud of her for launching her new blog anchormommy.com. It's a fabulous site designed to pass along insightful interviews, helpful parenting skills, and some seriously fun stuff as well. The thing I love about this site, is that it isn't just for moms. For example, she had a great video interview with a new author who just published a book on tips to save money. Now really, who doesn't want to do that?

So whether or not you've got kids, I highly encourage you to click on over to anchormommy.com and check it out. I'm so thrilled for Shannon and I know she'll be incredibly successful!

Secret to a straight line?

Is there one? Because I've tried a few things and they don't seem to working out so well.

- Walking foot - done

- Marked out the line - done

- Sewn slower - done

These things all helped a bit but my lines, shall we say, wandered a bit. Still, I know the mama-to-be will love this quilt. She possesses the same kind of attitude I do about crafting: Life isn't perfect, we're not perfect, so why stress out when our crafting isn't perfect.

Besides, the Baby Boy who will get this quilt will love it so much he'll enevitably throw up on it. And I'm just fine with that.

A productive weekend

After last Sunday's post of how overwhelmed I was with all my projects, I thought something really needed to happen this weekend. Actually, it was really when the hubby said, "Um, it seems like you have a lot of little projects all over the place."

That's when I knew, my weekend of quilting and knitting needed to be sideline so I could de-clutter the serious clutter.

So I sucked it up and took care of things.

Done:

- Reorged the knitting bag in the living room that held about 7 projects or the goods for 7 projects even though I'm only working on 2.

(The hubby wasn't sure how this new mess was part of my organizing/cleaning day. I assured him it was. Really, it's a small miracle that I didn't start another project while I was sorting.)

- Ripped out the hubby's socks and the Spring Time Bandit Scarf (needs bigger needles).

- Cleaned up the sewing area - got it organized and off the dining room table just in time for my folks to visit next weekend.

- Finally got rid of all of the boxes from last month's charity auction so my parents can stay in the guest room

- Cleaned the house.

- Finished quilting the baby quilt. (Ok, got in some quilting).

Um, is it time for another weekend?

Sold!

We are officially grown up! OK...not totally officially...we sign the papers in a few days, but the sign says it all!

The hubby and I have bought our first house! It's perfect and we love it! It's a lot bigger than it looks in this picture. It has three bedrooms/2.5 baths, a big yard and two raised garden plots just waiting for me to get in there and plant lots of home grown goodness! It has a detached two car garage with lots of storage and an artist studio! It's in the neighborhood we really wanted. And within walking distance of shops, restaurants, the farmer's market (a long walk), parks and the beach! (Keep in mind, it's the Seattle beach on the Puget Sound so we're not talking spending lots of days lounging in the sun running into the water to cool off. This is Seattle after all.) So it's fitting that the garage has a huge rain barrel to collect rain water to water the garden. And the previous owners set up a compost bin. Now I just need to convince the hubby that composting is good and not another of my, quote, "Crazy hippie ways."
(The garden plots. Don't they just look like they're ready to be planted?!)

We actually don't get to move in for another month. The sellers need to rent back to us in order to get their new living situation squared away. That gives me plenty of time to mentally decorate my house. We'll have a couple of empty rooms for awhile so I'm taking one and making it my craft room that I've always wanted. I may not have enough furniture for this house, but Lord knows I can fill a craft room before the hubby can finish unpacking! I'll also be doing lots of reading on what to plant that will still grow in late June.

(This is the 2 car garage and artist studio. We're not really sure what we should do with the artist studio space right now. We're taking suggestions.)

If you have any planting tips, or any good homeowner advice, I'd love to hear it! This is a new adventure for us and we're ready to take it!

Not the way to start the new week

At the beginning of each week, I like to think about all the stuff I have to do for the coming week, both fun and work oriented. This week, or really, before this week even starts, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. And it's basically all my own fault.

There are the little projects I've started that need completing: a knitted baby gift; a baby quilt for a shower that I'm hosting in less than a month!

There are the yet to be made baby gifts for dear friends expecting little bundles of joy: there are babies due in July, August, September (2 actually) and October. My friends have been very busy...

There's my new organization projects that I recently bought new plastic bins for and even got my long awaited label maker! (The hubby has been mocking me endlessly about that one but just wait until he sees how wonderfully organized everything will be. If I ever get around to it).

There's the hubby's socks that he's patiently waiting on and asks about every time he sees me knitting a new little something.

Oh yeah, and I have a few work things that will be encroaching on my free/crafty/relaxing time that are sadly unavoidable.

Sigh.....is it the weekend again?

Mmmm....muffins

I've been super hungry lately. Eating lots of snack and still trying to be healthy at the same time. Let me tell you, it ain't easy to do. I don't why I'm so hungry these days. Maybe it's because I've started working out again (yeah!) or maybe it's this weird weather. Or maybe, I'm just hungry. So I whipped up a batch of healthy muffins tonight to keep on hand. Muffins are one of my most favorite things to bake - and I do love to bake! I'm also always on the lookout for a new healthy muffin recipe. Here's the latest batch:

They are Banana Nut Muffins with Oatmeal Streusel from Cooking Light. Only I left out the nuts. Not a big fan in nuts in baked goods.

They are still cooling right now, but they sure smell good!

Adventures in Lace Knitting: Part Four - Sucking it up & ripping it out

Thanks to everyone for your support during these, um, challenging lace knitting times. All of your suggestions were quite encouraging, helpful and funny - giving me some much needed laughs!

But I've made my decsion - thanks to some consultation with some Purly Girls tonight - I'm ripping out the whole darn thing. You can't really see my YO in the lace so they sugessted I move up a few sizes in needles. Hopefully that will help. And getting all the stitches right. That should help too.

Stand by for the next portion of this journey.

Adventures in Lace Knitting: Part Three - The Distractions

While the STB shawl project is still in time out, I've found a few nicer things to occupy my time this spring weekend.

First, I started knitting the Amelie Dress from Natural Knits for Moms and Babies. I've been eyeing this pattern for a while now. And the perfect opportunity came up when my dear friend announced her new baby is a girl. Act surprised when you get this Jen!

My other distraction is this baby quilt for another friend (seriously...I think there's something in the water...). I'm especially excited about this quilt, because I designed it. I have to say, the thing I'm loving most about sewing is the designing process. It's no secret that following directions isn't my best feature, but I do love getting an idea, sketching it out in my book, then getting to work.