I knit, sometimes I spin, and I blog about it all here.

Do you “Tweet”?  If not – you may want to consider it.  Susan at Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm has some lovely incentive if you follow her on Twitter.  Check it out here:

Farm Fresh Yarn Giveaway : Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm | Hudson Valley Fiber Farm.

Fun Quiz at Potter Craft’s web site. Click the sheep to go there.

It seems like my knitting has been just somthing to do with my hands lately.  I haven’t completed anything.  Although I had the best laid plans to join in on a KAL for another BSJ that too seems to have escaped me.  Hopefully, by the time the ASJ KAL comes up, I’ll be ready to wrap my brain around a real project.

Currently on the needles is another slouch hat made with my “recipe” that I used to make the Gray Slouch Hat.  I ended up frogging the Pi Are Square shawl for now.  I do intend to make it, just didn’t have enough of the yarn I was using for it, and would rather it be in a lighter weight yarn anyway.

So what HAVE I been doing?

Well…

1. We did the cold/cough thing for the month of May around here, plus life got busy as it almost always does in the late spring early summer months.   So, that’s my excuse for nothing to post to the blog on actual knitting progress.
2. I’m planting a container garden that started because I was gifted some tomato seeds.  Once you start buying the pots and soil to plant your seedlings though – at least around this house – it seems like now you’ve embarked upon much more than a pot of tomatoes.  We have been wanting a garden for the last few years though, so finally we have been able to actually do just that.  There’s no option for planting anything in our soil.  It’s either rock or clay – and where the clay is workable, the gofers have first option.  So, we’re going with pots.  Besides, where we go, our “garden” can come because it will all be portable.   That’s a good option if you rent.
3. So, with this nice long Spring and late rains, I’ve mostly just been watching the flowers bloom.  Not such a bad thing really, although I do think it’s time to mow the ones that have bloomed in the lawn.

Possible Links of Interest

• Emily Ocker’s Cast-on Tutorial
• Container Gardening
• Elizabeth Zimmermann Books

Really, I did!  And, even though everybody says they “never” win anything – I really never do.  So, imagine my surprise to read my name and my blog’s name over at ‘Yea, I knit” as I was trolling my favorite blog reads the other day.  I nearly fell off my chair. It’s a great blog, so if you’re looking for more knitting fodder – that’s a good place to put into your Bloglines.  She recently lost her beautiful dog to age/sickness.   So sad when we have to tell them good-bye even when it’s the right thing to do.  So, yeah, doubly sweet for a blog-owner to post a give-away, when life has gotten bumpy.

I’ve been keeping the knitting simple lately.  Mostly because I have only had time to knit when there are interruptions, so a lace project is best kept waiting under those conditions.  Not a problem though, I often find that having miles of garter-stitch or stockinette can soothe the troubled soul – and, as EZ would say – it doesn’t hurt an “untroubled soul” either.  (She always makes me smile.)

This little baby hat is in one of the Dalegarn (#152) books from a while back. It’s not difficult though.   It’s just your basic 2 x 2 ribbing, then stockinette for a bit, and then a few rows of evenly-spaced double decreases (k2tog k1 k2tog) until you get down to just a few stitches left, then you knit an I-cord, cast off and tie a little knot on the top.  Looks kind of like a starfish after all the decreases are done.

It’s made in Sirdar Snuggly DK – and it’s very soft.  MP brought a skein home from my LYS when he made a trip to Sonora and swung by the shop to see what was on the sale shelf.  How’s that for a well-trained husband?

Speaking of Elizabeth Zimmermann and garter stitch – next week starts a knit-along for the baby surprise jacket on the Yahoo Group called “Knitbabysurprise.”  Haven’t made one in a while, so I’m looking forward to making another one for the long-range planning bin.  Nice to have little items like that available for baby showers as they present themselves.

Related Links:

• Yea, I knit blog.
• By Hand Yarn blog.
• KnitBabySurprise YahooGroup

I’m starting to notice a pattern. A pattern in my yarn-buying/project deciding of late. If I get just a couple of skeins of worsted weight wool, I’m quite likely to turn it into a hat or a scarf.  This is the second time I’ve bought enough yarn to make a pair of felted clogs, and ended up with a different project than intended.

I have wanted to make EZ’s “a very warm hat” for a while now, because it’s such a clever project.  It’s two hats knitted together, and then you push the one up inside the other and voila! “A Very Warm Hat.”

I did the tan part just plain, but decided to use one of her stranded patterns from The Opinionated Knitter and do some colorwork on the green side. The snowflake worked out just about perfectly for this hat.  I then kind of made up a little band of color just before starting the decreases.  The  hat pattern is also in Knitting Around and I believe in Knitting Without Tears only called something like “Two Color Hat.”  It always makes me smile to make one of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s small projects. Some day, I’ll buy enough yarn to make one of her sweaters.  Hopefully I won’t end up wth a houseful of hats and scarves if I do that.