9 lives of a ball of yarn

Sometimes it seems like some projects have 9 lives.


They start out as one thing and end up as another. This yarn (from the Kaffe Fassett Regia design line) started out as a sock. I wrote about this phase of the project in a previous post over a year and a half ago when I brought it to my cousin's wedding.




The sock was never finished and the project teetered in knitting limbo for about a year until . . . my sister announced she was pregnant. Then I unknit sock and started knitting a baby cardigan. The project was almost complete, when I ran out of yarn.



And then the project got stuffed back into the far corner of the closet again because school was starting and my sister was only two months pregnant at that time. Didn't I have all the time in the world to finish this project?

Baby's grow slow . . . right?



Not our Hannah. She's already wearing 9 month clothes and she's only around 6 months. I hurried to finish this sweater a few weeks ago and sent by mail to my sister's house. Now Hannah can wear it out on chilly summer evenings.

more work on the garden

Yesterday I was out in the garden all day. G and I agreed that I was going to wait for him to get home from work (to go over the cleared patch with the tiller one more time) before I dug in. But I woke up yesterday morning, took one look at the plants waiting to be set in the ground and I just couldn't wait.


Here is some of what I planted. Saffron yellow yarrow, golden sedum, lemon verbena, lavender, maroon and magenta coleus, fragrant pineapple sage and two varieties of prairie grasses.

Are you catching onto my fragrant theme? Most of these plants give off a calming and refreshing aroma. As I weed and tend to this garden I want to be surrounded by wonderful fragrances. The butterflies were already flitting over yesterday to check out the garden.


So far this is what it looks like. I still have some annual grasses to plant around the edge and more dianthus to put in, but it's coming along nicely. These plants just need to find their roots and I'll soon have a beautiful garden on this side of the yard.

fall mitts + summer garden

These mitts were a fast knit at the start of my summer break. They are a free download on Ravelry: Camp Out Fingerless Mittens by Tante Ehm and they are knit from the yarn in my previous post.


Life has been busy here in Minneapolis, we are putting in a new perennial garden.

That's the wheelbarrow in our backyard next to the new garden Garrett cleared for me this past weekend. I can't wait to fill it with flowers, herbs and colorful grasses.


Last night I sat at the table and picked out the seeds that I'm going to plant in this garden. Sunflowers, delphiniums, sweet corn and colorful daisies.

wool and iced coffee

I knit more in the summer. It's probably because I'm living according to an academic calendar right now, but it seems strange (foolhardy may be a better word) to be sitting with a lap full of wool when the temperature climbs past 100 degrees.

I try to sit in the shade, of course - air conditioning preferably - but sometimes it's hard to beat the heat and the knitting needles have to be set aside and ice coffee must be consumed in large quantities.

Right now I'm working on some projects using this colorway of yarn. A pair of mitts that I saw on Ravelry. I'll be posting images of them soon.

wild columbine + other stories

Gardeners are some of the most generous people out there. They seem to always be willing to share stories about their own mishaps and triumphs in the garden. Most are also willing to share clippings and plants from their garden beds to those novice gardeners who need somewhere to start.

Yesterday I went to visit a friend from work. She had promised me some plants from her perennial beds and a tour of her garden. I left with three boxes overflowing with lilies, dahlias, columbines and ornamental grasses.

The collection of images above come from my garden and kitchen. The radishes I planted in April are finally bite size and therefore good enough to toss in a salad. I planted one of the wild columbines near our front steps in a shady place. I hope it will bloom this year, but all of the other columbines seem to be blooming right now, so I may have missed it. (There's always next year.)

The spill of carrots and potatoes in the bottom row were an opportunity for me to harvest some rosemary, thyme and chives - plus some shallots and garlic from last year - and roast on the grill. The hibiscus blossom comes from an ornamental tree that my sister gave me last weekend. I put it on the front steps to farewell and greet me as I come and go.

Hope your gardens are spreading their roots.

have you any wool?

the girls

I missed spring lambing at the farm this year, because of my crazy schedule at school. I missed the lambs jumping around the barn and racing up and down the barnyard. I was home this past weekend and we took a walk out into the pasture.

Sheep are strange animals, sometimes they'll ignore you like you're not even there (unless you're waving a bucket full of grain) and other times they'll come sprinting toward you like you're a long lost bosom friend that they haven't see in years.

Last weekend we got one of the sheep interested in following us out into the green pasture and the rest of the herd followed at a sharp trot. The bottle lambs were mostly interested in surrounding my mother and discovering if she had a bottle to feed them. Since she didn't they left her after a few inquisitive rises onto their hind legs to paw at her hands for the bright green grass.

Here some of last year's lambs are playing on one of my dad's manure piles. They like to play king of the hill and are very entertaining to watch. All of our sheep are coated from the earliest age, so their fleece is protected year round.

We still have some of this past springs skirted fleeces available for hand spinners as well as 2011 spring lambs for sale. Please inquire at tendrilandtwine@gmail.com.