Irises from the back yard that were transplanted from mom’s garden last Fall! And some zinnias grown from seed in the background)
Roses… getting rained on….
This was a mini rose plant that was a Valentine’s gift from some order online flower company…. it is now a year and a half old and growing strong. Who would have thought!
Momma Bear here, it has been a long while between posts, busy time of the year I guess. My progress on DD’s crochet blanket is coming along. I now have only four more color changes left and about a million ends to deal with. Loving the wool eater pattern but I think next time I will try something like a Russian Join to minimize the ends I have to deal with. How do you all handle projects with lots of ends?
I have also been working on a pair of socks out of Socks That Rock “Hot Flash” and man are they bright. I love their yarns as not only are the colors out of this world but the base is nice and consistent. They also wear well no matter how many washes.
The weather here in Jersey has been getting better although we are still getting a few blasts of cold that jeopardize the new seedlings. It looks like I may get strawberries again this year from the plants my DD gave me last year. I tucked them in a protected area over winter but was not sure they would make it. Now I just have to fight the birds for the berries. It is so nice to see all the signs of spring begin to show. How is the weather by you?
I haven’t been doing much knitting lately, but what better way to get inspired than the Maryland sheep and wool festival!!!! We headed down with a group on a bus trip, which was much better than driving ourselves.
We didn’t get to spend too much time with the animals because we were too busy shopping….
Since the last festival, I’ve been wanting to get myself a big ball of colorful fluffiness. I don’t know how to spin or felt, but that didn’t stop me!!! It’s so soft and reminds me of ocean colors.
This is a kit I bought that is mean to go with the “Albers Cowl” pattern. It is a log cabin type pattern.
Some pretty, pretty worsted weight golden yarn!!!! Had to hunt for this one!
A hand dyed silk scarf….
We had a great time!! Hopefully some inspired knitting to follow!
A few weeks ago I was working on the second orange sock. I was turning the heel and I tend to have a problem knitting the wrapped stitches together with the stitches that they wrap. Does any one else have this problem? Well, it ended with ripping out the whole sock 
There may have been tears. I haven’t managed to re-start the second sock. I have been doing a little knitting on the striped scarf/ cowl, but not too much. Also, I started a new job so there hasn’t been as much time for knitting. BUT, everyone has to eat right?
Spanish style garlic soup with poached egg! Last week we went to a Spanish restaurant and on a whim I ordered the garlic soup… and it was awesome and different. You might expect it to be extremely strong, but its not. There are many recipes online.. I browsed through them and came up with this concoction:
INGREDIENTS: garlic cloves sliced thin, olive oil, chicken stock, water, salt, pepper, chives, paprika, egg
DIRECTIONS: peel and slice garlic and then saute in olive oil for about 3 minutes. Add broth. (I used chicken stock because that’s what I had, maybe beef stock might be better?). Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 10 minutes. I seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika, and chives (I threw in the chives just because I had them in the fridge and they were gonna go bad soon). Crack an egg or 2 into the soup and poach (just until the whites are cooked and the yolk is still runny). I thought it came out pretty good and made the house smell yummy 
** And yes, that is my new le creuset pot that my family got me for my birthday !!! **
Too tired to cook, but hungry for dinner? Here’s a quick fix… pasta, olive oil, steamed arugula, and fried egg.
My mom got me my very own yarn swift + winder woohoo! (And of course she snuck in a ball of sock yarn). I had a little trouble putting the swift together, but with some help from the engineer in the house… we got it together. Tested it out today, and it works perfectly! Way easier than winding yarn by hand!!
The yarn is made by three irish girls and is called something like “holidays on ice?” Its a larger ball of green-red-pink yarn and then a smaller ball of ice blue. It’s made of merino + nylon. It looks very pretty all wound up. I think I would rename this yarn something like “elf puke” though 
(Sorry for the poor lighting)
And here is Romeo (my mom’s kitty). When I was home for the holidays he sat looking over my shoulder while I was reading a book. Then he decide it looked pretty interesting and sat right on it!
This week I made some homemade oreos for a friend using this recipe. I’ve made them once before and they were a big hit. I decided to use a star, heart, and square cookie cutters and make the icing half red and half green for a christmas-ey touch. They taste AWESOME (like everything that is bad for you;) 
most of the ingredients…
Some creamed butter and sugar on the left and a flour+ cocoa mixture on the right….
red + green frosting….
And a bowl of yummy treats for santa!!!!
I really love these cookies, they use dutch processed cocoa powder and they have a really good, strong cocoa flavor. They are kind of time consuming to make because you have to keep putting them back into the refrigerator, but so worth it! Also, i think I need to invest in a smaller cookie cutter because they came out as jumbo sized cookies!
