summer greens

Yesterday afternoon I harvested our first green beans of the season. G and I ate them with grilled salmon, wild rice and a side of fresh salad - also from the garden. I planted three rows of green beans this year, all stringless bush beans because I wasn't in the mood to build something for the plants to climb up.

In a few days I should be up to my ears in green beans. I've been looking into ways to preserve them. So far I'm thinking that freezing them will be the best way to keep them, because I hate mushy canned beans.



I've had salad greens for about a month. I planted five different varieties. So far the Forellenschuss, Flame and Amish Deer Tongue lettuce from Seed Savers Exchange are my favorites. They stay tender, but hold up in a salad - especially the Amish Deer Tongue. My sister visited last week and cut down all the the Deer Tongue . . . but it's coming back.

I'm sure most of the lettuce will bolt and turn bitter here in high summer, so I'm enjoying these greens while I can.



I have my Aidez sweater blocking on the bed behind me as I write this. I won't be able to wear it anytime soon, but I have to say it was a fun and rewarding project. I'm thinking about lining the front inside edges with some ribbon and sewing on eye hooks in case I want to wear it closed on some occasions.



Here's the flower arrangement I threw together this past weekend. I put olives in the pasta salad I brought to the picnic and thought the can was pretty.

it hasn't thrown my gauge off

A few days ago I visited the bridal shop (for the third time in three weeks) and finally selected my wedding gown. The manager of the shop (a very outspoken woman - by the way) pestered me when I first arrived about my hesitation to select a dress.

"A man commits to the marriage when he buys the ring," she told me and my sister, "but a woman commits when she picks out a dress." I guess I agree with her, because over the past few days I've started to pull together all of the strings that will come together when G and I tie the knot this upcoming winter.

But don't worry folks, this isn't about to become a blog about my wedding. I just thought I'd share the news with you. I usually don't wear much jewelry, but I've finally gotten used to my engagement ring.

It hasn't had an effect on my knitting.


I've been working on the Aidez sweater. Only one more sleeve to go.

This 4th of July weekend G and I are camping out and having a bon fire with family and friends. I'm going to try to sneak some knitting into the mix, but I may have to set it aside and join in on some lawn games.


It will be waiting for me when I get home.

still life with garlic

The irony is my life has been anything but still this past week. I've been busy with the garden, work and - of course - all of the knitting projects I have halfway complete.

I saw this arrangement of bowls and vegetables on my table the other night and snapped a quick photo. If I were a painter I think I would be interested in how the garlic shoots and onion skins compliment each other.

Luckily, I'm not. No time!



Rhubarb stalks are also beautiful when they curve around the base of painted ceramic bowls. At the start of the weekend I tried out a new recipe for rhubarb banana bread.

When G was away at training over the winter the freezer became jammed with over-ripe bananas waiting for a recipe, but regular ol' banana bread gets boring after awhile. (Even with chocolate chips.) Adding a few cups of diced rhubarb to the batter, along with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, sounded like a new twist on an old favorite.



I also sprinkled a mixture of brown sugar and pecans over the batter before popping the loaves into the oven. They turned out delightful. I'm having a piece now, with a cup of mint tea. Here is a link to the recipe.

Knitting is also going well. I'm flying through the cabled front of my Aidez sweater. I think G is getting somewhat resentful, though, of us always having a piece of knitting between us when we settle down to watch some tv for the night.


Here's another view of the long panel of cables that runs down the front of the cardigan. I'm really loving the seed wishbone pattern and the ear of corn twisted stitches. It took me a few tries to get them right, but now I have the pattern memorized.


This yarn really makes the cables pop. It's a new colorway that my mother had spun up this past spring from her flock of CVM romeldale sheep. I believe I shared a few images of the fiber a while back, but here's another shot.


Contact tendrilandtwine@gmail.com if you're interested in procuring some of this wonderful fiber for yourself.


The gals are very busy munching grass and growing more.

poem pillow

This afternoon finds me at my kitchen table with a jelly jar of wine and my computer. Pots are simmering on the stove and bananas are thawing, waiting to be baked into a bread. It's my day off, which means I sat around in my pajamas knitting until just about noon and then rallied my forces to run errands and prep for dinner.

This project is one I've been waiting to blog about for awhile. I gifted it to my cousin Ashley (often a model of my finished objects on this blog) at her bridal shower this past weekend. It's the poem pillow from Larissa Brown's Knitalong. This is the second time I've made this project and I'm just as thrilled by the results.



I had to practice my penmanship here and make sure that all of the poem would fit on the pillow. The poem I chose to use is Mary Oliver's West Wind # 2, a special favorite of the women in my family. I read this poem at my sister's wedding reception.



While this project is a fast knit, it requires many additional skills: sewing and weaving. I had to dig into my craft supplies to find the additional tools that I would need to piece it all together. I found amazing tidbits in my craft box.


And here are the results. Something that Ashley and her future husband Jeff can treasure forever. (Well, I don't know how keen Jeff will be about the pillow . . . but Ashley's a knitter, so she will take good care of it.)

Congratulations you two!

cabbage patch socks + bean blossoms

My eyes keep catching on the pale purple accents on my cabbage and ornamental kale. This soft purple color also appears in the pair of home spun socks I'm knitting right now. I brought my project out to the cabbage patch this morning to snap some photos.

I left the "spin" in the yarn. This means I didn't set the twist before I started to knit these socks. So all of the stitches slant somewhat and there is a definite direction to the finished piece. I like this visible tension in the stitches.

I also found a few varieties of cabbage worms on my cabbage. One was bright green, the other was a pale gray-brown. Time to dust my cabbage leaves with some food grade diatomaceous earth. This has worked for me in the past. I forgot to do this about a month ago when I put the cabbages in.

Everything has grown about a half a foot over the past few days because we've received over 2 inches of rain here in the twin cities.

I need to get a rain gauge out in the garden so that I can track this more accurately - though the slugs nibbling on my zinnias should be enough of a confirmation to tell me we're a bit soggy here in Minnesota.

This is the ball of pot dyed combed top before I spun it into fingering weight single ply yarn. It reminds me of the blossoms that appear on peas and bean plants.

Some blossoms appeared over night on my snap beans. Soon I'll be harvesting beans and glazing them with brown sugar and red wine.

summer solstice

Tonight I came home from work and went directly out into the garden to plant about a dozen asters. My summer job is at a small garden shop. I spend all day surrounded by plants and then come home to pull weeds and spread compost in my own garden.






Here's a few shots of where I work . . . or I guess I should say the plants that I work with. Today there were several thunderstorms over the course of the afternoon. The sun would break through the clouds between storms and make the air hot and humid.

Hope you are all having a happy summer solstice. I'm going to start to spin the combed top I previewed above.

the red garden

This spring I had a few seeds of flame lettuce left over from last year. I planted them in my lettuce bed and my eye is drawn to their leaves every time I step out my back door. Over spring break I read Alice Hoffman's latest novel The Red Garden and I was inspired to use that as a theme for part of my garden.



This is a red dianthus that survived the winter and came back twice as big in my flower bed. I planted more of this hearty plant this year in hope that it will come back twice as strong next year.



I did ask myself if I could pull off this "stripey" red petunia in the garden but planted it anyway for its playful presence. Striped petunias make me think of carnivals and gypsies.



I love to reuse mesh produce bags. I also planted red onions in decorative clusters in my perennial beds.


Does this count as red? My radishes have been beautiful this year. Tonight I chopped them up and used them in a stir fry with grilled pork.