Can All My Fridays Be Like This?

Enjoyed the Friday morning field trip for my PNW native plants class.


Bought and planted a vine maple (one of the plants I learned about on the field trip).


Relaxed during a fantastic spring afternoon.

It was a fun, beautiful day of education, yardwork and relaxation!

Birthday Redtwig Dogwood

Yesterday I spent some birthday money on a beautiful shrub, a redtwig dogwood. It's compact, growing only to 2-3 feet tall and wide. Today, I expanded a flower bed in my yard and planted it. I love it!!



It shines in the afternoon sun and is visible from my side windows and is right in front of me when I walk out the back door. Love love love it!!

Oh, I also bought a spurge (euphorbia), but lost the tag already, so I can't give you its full name. Red-stemmed or something.

On the Podium

The question was, could I knit a shawl in slightly more than two weeks?
I cast on the day of the Winter Olympic opening ceremonies, and starting knitting.
I turned on the Olympics, and knit.


I knit at the airport.


I knit in Michigan.


I knit at the hospital, visiting my mom after heart surgery.


I finished knitting Saturday, the day before the closing ceremonies.
I even sewed in the ends.
However, because I did not wash it and pin it out until the following Wednesday (see aforementioned heart surgery), I cannot claim the gold medal in knitting.



I'll just picture myself on the podium.


I love it, and I'm so proud. My O Canada is beautiful.

O Canada

The beautiful Haruni, my entry into the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. Can I knit a whole shawl during the Olympics? I don't think so, but it will be fun to try, and the color seemed perfect to celebrate the Vancouver, Canada events.


My O Canada shawl matches the lovely roses from my husband; they smell so wonderful and stand out so well in my living room. What beauties!


Starting a new, beautiful project Friday night made it easier for me to not buy anything at Tacoma's Madrona Marketplace on Saturday. Well, to not buy yarn anyway. Just some itty bitty 0 and 000 dpns for some future colorwork projects! I enjoyed a fun morning with friends, feasting on yarn and eating yummy pizza!

First Lawnmowing of the Year

She took a bit to start, but eventually sputtered on, and I cut the grass.


Spared the blade.


Happy early Spring!

A View Outside My Window

Often there is a grain ship anchored out in front of the house, waiting for days or weeks for its timeslot over at the grainery, but today there is a container ship.

I don't expect it'll hang around very long.

If you've never visited the Port of Tacoma's Observation Tower, check it out--it's a fun place to watch the big ships being unloaded.

A Little Bit of Cooking, A Little Bit of Travel Knitting

I made this mashed potato au gratin a couple of weeks ago, from Everyday Food. It was really cheesy and yummy! I also made some roasted chili potato wedges, but forgot to take a photo. New Recipes Four and Five for the year.

I headed off to the airport to try to go to Michigan and Missouri to visit family. While waiting I started some dishcloths from a partially-used-up cone of cotton.

Unfortunately, there weren't any seats (I fly stand-by, courtesy of my flight attendant sister), so I had to head home. The next day I made it out, and all remaining flights went well.
I think you can tell this is cold and snowy Michigan!

During the trip, I used up the rest of the cotton, making 5 dishcloths.

Frugal Fun

This Thursday is the third Thursday of the month, so get out there and enjoy ArtWalk! If nothing else, go to the Museum of Glass and check out the great exhibit "Kids Design Glass". This continuing program has kids draw fanciful pictures the hotshop crew then interprets in glass. It started as a program for kids to design vessels and bowls, but as the gallery notes say, it was a "horrible failure"--kids don't design vessels or write artist statements, they design crazy creatures and write silly stories. The museum is free from 5-8pm.


Photos are from First Night, Tacoma's New Year's Eve party.
I did make new recipe number four, but forgot to take a photo. Chili Potato Wedges from Everyday Food.

New Recipes Two and Three

A friend has let me borrow many of her issues of Martha Stewart's magazine Everyday Food. What a nice little food publication; it's full of normal food and great photos!

In the past week, I've made two little side dishes: Mashed White Beans--white kidney beans with garlic and sage, and Chickpeas and Tuna--garbanzo beans, onions, garlic and tuna.


The Mashed White Beans turned out not-so white. I think I smooshed them in the simmering sauce too early, and they turned very grey and sad-looking. Tastes fine, although I wonder what I could add to give them a bit more flavor. They are pictured with pork shoulder roast, which I made with olive oil, Worchestershire sauce, and some peppercorn and garlic spice mix.


I think I used too many onions in the tuna and chickpea salad; it tasted a bit sharp and strong to me. An addition of some mayonnaise helped. My husband said it would work for him as a main dish.

I'm having fun looking through the many recipes and getting inspired! More good food around the house equals less snacking on unhealthy things!

Going to Knitting Group = No Knitting

Thursday I went to two knitting/crafting groups, one for three hours in the afternoon, and one for over two hours in the evening, each with friendly ladies from church. I pulled out a lace shawl project I started last summer (which I can't detail, since it's a gift), and did manage to figure out my scratchings and notes enough to get some rows finished. Even though there are fewer than 200 stitches on the needles right now, it felt like the rows were taking forever, and in all those hours I only did 6 rows. Yesterday I did two rows and timed myself. They took less than 40 minutes to do them both. I guess trying to knit when there are little sandwiches, tea, wine, friends and craft magazines around doesn't really work!

No Lace on the Plane

I thought I would be traveling yesterday, flying across the country, and spent a bit of time before thinking about what to knit on the plane. The lacy Swallowtail just would not do--too intricate a pattern and too easy to lose some stitches on a bumpy flight. Mindless knitting is what I needed, and dishcloths weren't sounding exciting, so I cast on a hat for my husband. So far it's easy k3, p2 ribbing. The trip didn't work out, so now I have two just-started projects hanging around.

The hat is Jacques Cousteau.

First New Recipe of the Year

Pasta with Chickpeas
from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites
I have a goal I'd like to try to stick to this year--making a new recipe every week. I'm not much of a cook, so I'd really like to pull together a bunch of recipes that are easy and yummy. I thought this one was really good, even though I'm not a feta cheese fan. It's basically noodles with a tomato hummus sauce. My husband thought it could be saucier, which could of course be easily fixed by reducing the amount of noodles cooked.

A New Year, A New Project

No matter how many things I have on the needles, I just have to start something new on January 1st! This is the Swallowtail Shawl, by Evelyn A. Clark, and I'm knitting it in a dark green/grey laceweight baby alpaca. This has been near the top of my Ravelry queue for a long time, so this year it's one of my Mission Possible goals. The Mission Possible group on Ravelry asks that you find 12 works-in-progress, or 12 yarns in your stash (or combo thereof) and commit to finishing them, using them up or just getting rid of them somehow. I have lots of stash, so I always try to participate and keep my new yarn buying to a minimum! When I've settled on my 12, I'll let you know!