Right now I’m working on a Tab Button Jacket by Debbie Bliss. I’m using Knitpicks Swish DK yarn in Garnet Heather.

I’ve been working on this sweater for a very long time.  I started it around Memorial Day weekend of 2011. I’ve been taking breaks in between each piece.  I’m easily distracted by new yarns and patterns, and I’m a bit bored by the pattern. The back piece was especially boring.  All those rows of tiny, stockinette stitch seem endless and dull.  It’s a good take-a-long, or knit-in-front-of-the-TV project, as it doesn’t require much thought.

Even though I’m finding it boring to work on, I like how it is turning out so far, and I have learned a few things along the way. This is my first sweater, so I am a little worried about it turning out too big, or too small, or misshapen in some other way, but it actually seems to be knitting up just right. I hope I haven’t spoken too soon. I would hate to have spent all this time on something that ends up in the donate pile.

Since I just finished the right sleeve, I’ll probably take another break to knit a small project for some immediate gratification. I just have one sleeve and the neck band left to knit. I am determined to finish it before winter ends so I can enjoy wearing it at least once.

I’ve been meaning since the last post to start this blog going again, but I always have trouble with beginnings. I never know exactly where to start. Especially now, because I’m starting in the middle – or restarting, so-to-speak.

Then yesterday morning, I received a box full of new books to read. I get a new box every new year, courtesy of the gift card to Barnes & Noble that my Mother-in-Law sends me for Christmas every year.  I figured books would be a good place to start.  Although, I’m unsure of which book in this stack to start with.  I’m leaning towards The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History (The Public Square). With all the historical fundamentalism and revisionism that has been happening lately, I think that might be an interesting and timely read.

But before I can start a new book, I must first finish Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. My husband got me a Kindle for my birthday last October and I have been taking advantage of all the free classics that come with it. Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid reading most of them. I loaded up on science and math classes during my school days, so I guess I never needed to read them. Now that I’ve reached a sort of mid-point in my life, I feel as if I’ve missed out. Now is my chance to catch up. I’m enjoying Anna Karenina so far (according to my Kindle, I’ve finished 75% of the book), but it does get a bit long. I find the relationships fascinating and engaging, but sometimes it gets a bit wordy and mundane. I get impatient for the story to move along. I’m even more impatient now that I have a whole stack of new books waiting for me.

Speaking of Kindles….of course I had to make mine a custom sleeve.  I wrote up a tutorial on how I made it.  I will post it soon, hopefully next week.

“Well….define god,” I answered.

“You know…a big, bearded man in the sky.”

“Well then, if by god you mean a big, bearded man in the sky, then I would go with a big bang. But, I think it might be a little more complicated than that. God means different things to different people. What do you think created the universe?”

“A big bang.”

“Why?”

And he went on to give a pretty through description of the Big Bang Theory for a 10 year-old; including little universes, explosions, atoms, and other things. When he was finished, I thought about what he said. I couldn’t really disagree with him, but decided to test his thinking and debating skills, because I know around here, he will be challenged on this and I want him to be prepared.

“Some people would ask who created those atoms that smashed into each other. They would say you are wrong because you can’t create something out of nothing. Maybe God created the atoms. What do you think?” I asked him.

He cocked his head and thought for a brief moment before he shot back, “Yeah but, who created God? Either way you look at it, something was created from nothing. That argument goes both ways, Mom.”

Check and mate. I had nothing.

“Christmas is not just about the gifts,” he said. “It’s also about Jesus. Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus’ birthday, even though Jesus was really born sometime in the spring or summer, Christmas is when we celebrate it. You need to remember that.”

He paused for a minute and was thinking so hard about what he had just said, you could almost the hear wheels in his brain turning. Then he asked, “Mom, why do people celebrate his birthday in December if he was born in the spring? Why isn’t Easter his birthday?”

I really love how his logical mind works. I was also pretty proud that he remembered my lecture last year about Jesus’ birthday. And then we had a very long and interesting discussion about religion, Christmas, and holiday celebrations of all kinds. We even discussed the “reason for the season”, which for us is less about Jesus’ birthday celebration and gifts and more about reflecting on our year, celebrating with friends and family, giving back to the community, and remembering everything we have to be thankful for.

I know I said I would blog this dress months ago, but things got a little busy around here over the summer.  Maybe it’s a good thing I waited so long because that gave me time to make a second dress. This is Pattern H from the Stylish Dress Book.

I thought I would have a little more fun photographing this dress.  I was getting tired of snapshots in my living room, so I went on location for a couple of the photos to an abandoned munitions plant.

And for the other photos, I tried to recreate the doe-eyed look of the book model, who likes to hold random objects.  This dress became both a photography and sewing lesson.  What a great way to combine my two favorite hobbies.

I used cotton poplin for both dresses.  The first one is made from a Vera Wang print I bought at Fabric Mart.  The second one is just ordinary poplin from Joanne’s Fabrics.

I like this pattern the best so far from this book. It is definitely the most comfortable of all the dresses I’ve made from this book and it kind of reminds of the house-dresses women used to wear back in the day. It’s a great dress to wear while running errands. And it even made an appearance at Disney World’s Animal Kingdom, making it the most comfortable day of our trip for me.

The instructions were a little confusing, especially with the language barrier.  I ended up not consulting the instructions and just constructed it myself, based on what I already know and what made the most sense to me.  I also thought the back was slightly odd-fitting, so I made a few adjustments to the bodice for a better fit.

I also made the sleeve pleated instead of gathered on the second dress and added an exposed zipper just to make it a little different.  I like how they both turned out, and I’ve gotten quite a few compliments on the polka-dot one.

I still recommend the swedish tracing paper for these projects – you can trace the pattern, add your seam allowance, and then sew it to check for fit before cutting your fabric.

And keep in mind that these patterns are all one length, so you may need to make an adjustment.  I am 5’4″, I made this dress the length of the pattern, and it hits just above my knee, just to give you an idea.

If you need a little help translating the pattern and instructions, check out this helpful series over at Label-Free.

And Google translator is always helpful with conversions and translations.

At the start of the growing season, I couldn’t get anything to grow.  Now I can’t get it to stop.  We went on vacation a couple of weeks ago, and when we came home my garden had turned into a jungle.  My cherry tomato plant had grown to over 6 feet tall, maybe not an impressive height to some readers in the warmer climates, but up here tomatoes aren’t known to get so large.  My other 4 tomatoes that are inside the garden, which includes 2 Roma plants and 2 Lemon Boys,  are almost as tall.

I had to sacrifice the beans for the good of the garden.  They were so unruly they threatened to take over their half of the garden, which they were sharing with the peppers, and had begun to grow in the neighbor’s yard.  I’ve replanted a different variety of beans and hopefully it’s not too late to see some results.  In the mean time, I can take advantage of the local farmers’ beans.

Is anyone else noticing some odd growing patterns this season?

I ended up with a stocked freezer, that is how out-of-control my garden had gotten while I was away.   I did a pesto experiment last season, and tried different methods of preserving it.  I found that simply filling up small, 1/2 cup tupperware/gladware containers and tossing them in the freezer was the easiest.  There didn’t seem to be any loss of taste, and I used them all throughout last winter.

Here is my pesto recipe.  It is so easy to make, there is no reason to ever buy pesto in the store again.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of fresh Basil
• 1/4 cup of toasted pine nuts
• 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 cloves of garlic
• about 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Put your basil, nuts, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a food processor and chop.
2. While the food processor is running on its lowest setting, drizzle the olive oil in.
3. Stir in the cheese

That’s it.

I also make a thyme pesto where I substitute the basil with thyme and parsley and use walnuts instead of pine nuts.  It is very tasty on fish and chicken.

I made stuffed shells the other night for dinner.  I asked the kids if they wanted cheese on top.  “Yes, please,” was their reply, so I sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on top.  My son, who didn’t see the source of the cheese because it was not his turn to set the table, took 2 bites of his dinner, put his fork down on the plate, and asked, “Mom, you didn’t buy the cheap cheese did you?  This doesn’t taste like the cheese from Italy.”

I wouldn’t consider the cheese in question expensive.  But I also wouldn’t consider the cheese in question cheap.  While it was pre-shredded, at least it was not in a can with a shaker top.  The Italian deli wasn’t open, so I couldn’t get the real stuff.  I didn’t think the kids would notice.  Apparently, he did, and the middle-of-the-road cheese was deemed inferior according to my 9 year-old’s discerning palate.  He pushed his plate aside and asked for a replacement without cheese on top.   My daughter, who is a little less discriminating, happily ate all of hers and finished her brother’s inferior dish.

Goodness sakes, what have I done?

INGREDIENTS

• 1 loaf of Ciabatta bread
• 8 thin slices of pancetta
• olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• Buffalo mozzarella cheese
• 1 or 2 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
• Oregano
• Baby arugula

DIRECTIONS

1. Slice the bread down the middle the long way and place the two halves on a baking sheet, cut side up.
2. Drizzle olive oil over the cut side of each half
3. Spread half of the garlic over one slice of the bread and the other half on the other slice.
4. Lay the pancetta slices over the cut side of each half of bread
5. Place the bread under the broiler until the pancetta starts to get crispy.
6. Remove from the oven and place slices of the mozzarella cheese over the top of the pancetta and sprinkle the oregano over top of the cheese.
7. Place the bread back under the broiler until the cheese is melted.
8. Immediately after removing from the oven, top each piece of bread with tomato slices and arugula. The heat from the bread will lightly steam the tomatoes and arugula.