Happy Halloween

Dear Mom, 

When you are just a puppy, 

this :  

  

is VERY SCARY

  

Love,
Kim

Start your holiday shopping early....

This Saturday!

Dear Mom,

Your sewing circle has pooled their impressive creativity and put together their first craft bazaar. Elle will be there modeling your aprons. In addition, there will be some of your original art notecards, some of my knitted jewelry and handpainted mugs. Anyone in the central Indiana area who is interested in some special, one-of-a-kind gifts will do well to stop in and have a look.

Love,

Kim

A Good Dog

Dear Mom,

She might not be the smartest dog I've had, or the biggest, or the prettiest, or the softest.
But God knew that Olive is just what we needed, and she is growing up to be a Good Dog.
And I love her.

Love,
Kim

Potatoes

Dear Mom,
Last spring, inspired by something I saw on Pinterest, I decided to try growing potatoes in my garden this year.
The idea was to build a "potato tower", which would (I hope) allow me to grow potatoes above ground level, using up less square footage in the garden and making the harvesting easier.
I built a cube with some cheap garden fencing, lined it with straw, and built up layers of dirt and seed potatoes as I filled the cube.  The potato vines would grow through the straw and the potatoes themselves would all be contained within that cube.
Easy enough.
I planted 5 lbs of seed potatoes. I'll be honest and admit that I told just about everyone who was unfortunate enough to bump into me  about my Potato Tower. I envisioned having such an abundance of potatoes that I would have a serious problem storing them.
This weekend, when I cleaned up my garden, I harvested my potatoes.

Net yield from 5 lbs of seed potatoes? 1 pound of potatoes. Some of them smaller than a grape.
(Such was my determination and dedication to those potatoes that I rooted around in the dirt ( literally ) for grape sized potatoes.)

Our hot, dry summer may have had something to do with my results. I may try again. Maybe.

Last night we had our homegrown potatoes for dinner. I announced the fact to the Young Lady and My Hero and I broke out in laughter when, in unison, we said, "ALL of them!"

Love,
Kim

Answered

Dear Mom,
Like most moms, I pray that my children will grow up to be healthy and happy. I also secretly....well, maybe not so secretly..... hope that one day they will WANT me to knit something for them.

Let me qualify that statement.

I want them to want me to knit them something I want to knit.

That hope was fulfilled a few weeks ago when the Young Man, home for Fall Break, asked if I could knit a scarf. For him.

Within 24 hours I had that boy in the yarn shop.

Having grown up in this knitter's house, he knew the right answer to question #1, "Will you be taking care of this scarf, or throwing it into the washing machine?", which allowed him to choose some baby alpaca for his scarf.

I used three skeins of Cascade Yarns Baby Alpaca Chunky Paints and a size 9 needle. I found a simple reversible slip stitch pattern in one of my Barbara Walker stitch treasuries (Row 1: *k3, sl 1 wyb* rep bet we *'s to end of row, ending with k3. Row 2: K1, *sl1 wyb , k3 to end of row, ending with k2), cast on 31 sts and a scarf is born.

Love,
Kim

Best Halloween Decoration, ever

Dear Mom,
I drive past this house on my way to and from the yarn shop.
I love their Halloween decorations!

Love,
Kim

In which my absence is explained. (a little)

Dear Mom,
Teaching 4 knitting classes and knitting samples for said classes, knitting for gifts,

 Young Man home on fall break, jury summons,


Annual Up North trip,

fall yard clean up, and an obsession with James Fraser have kept me away from the blog a little too long.
I'm back now.
Love,
Kim

p.s. Olive is well and has My Hero properly trained.