New Knit Socks (et al.)

 Some more crafty updates today!  Earlier this year my senior graduate student graduated and she got a taxidermied mouse as a graduation present.  She asked me to make it a lab coat and a knitted shawl.  The lab coat was ok, but I decided to make the shawl crocheted intead of knitted.  No pattern, but I think it came out ok.  Sadly I don't have any pictures of the mouse wearing these items.  Science crafty mice for the win!

Also earler this summer, while at a wonderful cerebrovascular biology conference, I knitted a pair of socks.  I the same general approach I always do but I screwed up the heels twice.  And after un-knitting once, I gave up after the second time.  Somehow the socks are the right length but the heels are gigantic.  The were frankensocks (to use up scrap yarn) and I love all the colors, but I just wish the heels weren't so big.  I guess if I ever have lower extremity edema they'll be great.  Of course I'm wearing them anyway!  I saw a book called "How to knit socks that fit" and I think I need to get it!

Summer Baking

 

I haven't had time to keep up with weekly blogging I like posts, but I wanted to drop in and share some of the things I might normally share in those posts.  This includes things I've been baking and cooking during the last few months, especially with fruit and veggies from the gardens.  I had a really good crabapple crop this year, but didn't have time to deal with all the ones from the tree.  I harvested about half the tree, but then unfortunately a bunch of them fermented while waiting for me to get around to processing them.  It's ok, I still have lots left from 2023. 

In any case, I did make 3 dozen jars of jelly this year along with some fruit leather.  Since I had so many jalapeños in the garden I added a bunch of them to the jelly this year for the first time.  The jelly isn't spicy, it just has a delightful complementary pepper flavor to it.  I think it turned out really tasty!

I had a good blackberry crop in the garden this year as well.  I only have a couple of plants, and of course I had to pick them as soon as they got ripe, so during blackberry season I went out every day and picked.  Usually I got a handful each day and I just put them mostly straight in the freezer.  There were enough for a couple of cobblers by the end of the harvest and they are so good.  

And of course with so many jalapeños there have been several batches of poppers.  They're always a hit,  the danger is they're not really particularly healthy.  But super fun for a game night or ballgame.

And not from the garden, but my friend Brett brought me back a cookbook with Italian baked goods, and I tried this chocolate espresso torte recipe.  It was very delicious and rich, definitely a fun thing to add to the  baked goods rotation.

Squash bugs ate all the squash and pumpkins in the garden, so none of that.  The pepper plants, tomato plants, and green beans are still producing though, so more of that should be coming for summer harvest.  And my flowers are growing ok too.  Right now we're in the really hot time, hopefully I can get the flowers through to september and then they should do better.

Summer Crafting

 I have been working on art quilts lately, but the progress has been slow, but I thought I'd share a few posts on other crafty stuff that's been going on.  My nephew Alex broke his arm at summer camp so can't do quite as many activites as usual.  But he loves succulents, so when he and my sister came up a few weeks ago, we had fun making these little terraria (including adding in some lego minifigs).

He also wanted to make spool people.  We started out with spools but then branched into some rubber stoppers I had from work. Just fun with random craft supplies.

Later on in the summer, my friend brought over her two crafty granddaughters and we had another crafty evening, this time making notebook covers.  I had a bunch of small empty notebooks and we made fabric covers for them.  The girls picked out fabrics from the stash and did the sewing and cutting.  It was fun!  They also had fun making a little bow for Blue's head,  I'm not sure what he thought of the proceedings.

One of them chose this delightful orange and black cat fabric that I picked up somewhere on sale after halloween.  I also used it to make a pillow cover for a friend of mine.  

And around the same time I stitched up a cover for another one of our choir books.

And a final random crafty project,  my mom's dog chewed off the top of her favorite hiking hat.  She sent it to me to mend and I was pretty proud of how good the mend turned out.  You can see the patch, but given the fact that the whole top had been ripped off along with part of the front I think it turned out pretty well!

Hope you're all staying cool this summer and having some fun crafty time.

Graduation Present for Julia

 At the end of May the daughter of a close friend of mine graduated from high school.  She's a lovely young lady, and I've gotten to know her better over the last two years. 

She's a cellist and is headed to Eastman Conservatory in New York this next fall so I ordered this cello fabric from spoonflower and made her a zip-top tote bag to carry music in. I know it's hard to tell the scale from the pictures, but it's big enough for binders, etc.  The Cello front is a patch pocket and there's a zip pocket inside.

Then I made a smaller zip pouch (more like pencil case sized) with her initials on it.  It was fun to scratch my bag making itch on these two simple projects.

Very many congratulations to Julia!