Will It Ever End?

The tomatoes just won't stop. I may end up with more sauce & salsa than I can use in three years. AND THEY ARE STILL SETTING FRUIT. I may still be picking by the time the first frost comes around. Plus, we got one pumpkin off the vine before the borer beetles got to work... August may be a little early for pie, but it seems that we have no choice!

Tomato Garden

It is well known that, if one plants six or eight tomatoes in the early spring, and then lovingly tends them, stakes them, weeds them and feeds them, by late August they will supply more tomatoes than the household can reasonably eat, and one will be canning & freezing & drying & generally trying to think of creative ways to use tomatoes.

However, I have discovered that if one plants six or eight tomatoes in the early spring, and then undergoes a difficult time wherein one's husband has a mid-life crisis and takes up with a twenty-something slut bimbo and eventually abandons the family, or some such nonsense, and one ignores the garden in favor of trying to salvage the marriage or dealing with the kids after he leaves or perhaps simply pulling the covers over one's head for a little while, and then one looks out one's kitchen window on a day in late August and thinks "Gosh, I really ought to get out in the garden and see if there's anything alive out there," the garden will supply more tomatoes than the household can reasonably eat, regardless of the astounding degree of neglect to which it has been subjected. The only difference seems to be that the tomatoes, having not been staked, will have sent out runners and will be growing in a big tangled mat that makes it difficult to avoid stepping on a few of the better-looking fruits. And quite a few will have been lost to rot or bugs, but it won't really be noticed in the abundance of the harvest. And there might be a few ignored zucchini that are as big as a well-grown Labrador, but I am calling them compost at this point.

So now I am canning & freezing & drying & generally trying to think of creative ways to use tomatoes.

Snowy Saturday

After the mildest MO winter anyone can remember in a long time, we're getting a bit of a late-winter snow storm coming through. Usually we're sick of snow by this point in the season, but this year it's actually kind of fun to get a February storm. It helps that it's hitting on a Saturday when we don't really have anyplace to go, so we can play in the snow & then come in and lounge around with some hot chocolate afterward, without the driving-to-work worries or any of that.

The forecasters said yesterday that we would get 2-4 inches, but we're already at 5" and it's still coming down. So much for accurate weather predictions.

Entrelac

When I picked up a couple of skeins of Noro Taiyo at the knitting retreat a couple of weekends ago, I mentioned to a couple of other knitters that this would be the perfect time to teach myself entrelac, a technique I've been meaning to try but just haven't gotten around to casting on. I was informed that entrelac is pretty complicated and I should probably sign up for a class -- I might not be able to teach myself.

Well.

If you are reading this blog, you probably know me well enough to realize that no one tells me that I can't do something. So this weekend, I printed off a basic pattern & started futzing with it. Behold the results of the self-teaching.

The Elms Retreat

I am freshly returned from a lovely weekend of knitting, knitting, and more knitting! I went to The Studio's annual Winter Retreat at the Elms in Excelsior Springs. The Studio's staff really put on a wonderful weekend... there were lots of interesting classes -- I took a really neat one featuring Vivian Høxbro's mitered squares technique -- as well as great food, a fabulous trunk show from Interweave Knits, some really awesome door prizes, and lots of cool new people to meet, all at a lovely old grand hotel that just oozes ambiance. The best part of the weekend, however, was just hanging out with friends old & new in the beautiful lobby to knit & chat. Here, Laura & I wasted no time getting down to business on Friday night.

One of the best things about the retreat is the market, where the Studio debuts some cool new things for the next season. One of their new vendors is... you guessed it... Dome Hill Yarns! I had many kind compliments about my yarn from quite a few of the attendees.

One of the regular features is a student fashion show on Saturday night... I determinedly finished the languishing Angelina, the lovely bedjacket from White Lies Designs, in time to wear it for the show. It was a hit! It is really very fun to wear with the dramatic collar and deep cuffs.

Adventures with the Drum Carder

In an effort to avoid the cocooning that we tend to do all too much of in the winter here, we had a very lovely dinner with Chelle and her family last night; it's always nice to get out of the house & spend some relaxing fun time with friends. After dinner, while the guys chatted, we (Chelle & I) couldn't resist some serious goofing around with fiber. She had a fabulous new drum carder from Fancy Kitty, but was still a bit tentative about using it. Now, I'm no expert on drum carders, but I used them a bit back at Yarn School, and the main lesson I came away with from that experience is this: Throw whatever you like into the carder, it's almost impossible to make a mistake. So, we started cranking away on the thing and made a couple of batts.

The first batt was mostly brown wool with a little grey & green thrown in, and some bits of blue/green silk hankies just for fun. We didn't separate the silk nearly enough, which made it a bit difficult & clumpy to spin. I think next time I'll pull the silk into much thinner & shorter bits before feeding it into the carder. We just kept feeding this thing until it was quite fat and lofty; it weighed about half an ounce.

The second batt we tried was burgundy and brown wools, and some burgundy silk bits that were smaller (but still a little too big.) This one was lovely, and a little smaller at 3/8 oz. We could have made it bigger but it was getting late.

Chelle kindly gave me both batts to spin up, which I did... spinning from the batt is a bit different from spinning from a roving strip, but not significantly so. I had a couple of fat spots where it got away from me, but for the most part it came out to a nice worsted yarn when I plied the two singles together. The two colors, so different, worked together in a rather unexpected way! There's not a lot of it, but maybe enough to trim a collar or something. I like it.

Spinning buddies

Chelle and I went to a spinning class over at the Yarn Barn this weekend. We had a ton of fun! We got to test spin several wildly different fibers, some of which I loved (Chelle & I both liked spinning silk so much, we each bought a bag of silk hankies to take home) and some not so much (I'd be happy if I never had to touch cotton again.) Best of all, we got to hone some old techniques and practice some new ones. And we got to hang out with some very cool fiber artists for the afternoon. A great way to spend a Saturday!