A Girl's Gotta Knit

It dawned on me, during one of my regular stops at Carpinito Bros, that summer is drawing to a close. What? SERIOUSLY? How can that be? Well, the zucchinis don't lie! Each visit to the farm had mounds and mounds of zucchinis and rock bottom prices per pound. Of course I would load up with what I needed for the next week or so (which is quite a bit since I have discovered I love zucchini in EVERYTHING) and be on my way until the next time. (Keeping in mind I am not currently mentioning the other $40 worth of vegetables I HAD TO HAVE until the next time).
Well, this particular visit came the discovery of the itty bitty bin of zucchini. I was panic struck-literally! How will I make it without zucchini in my food? How do I get some and save them for winter? Is there enough, if I buy them ALL, for the winter???? You should know that I DO appreciate the fact the biggest panic in my life at the moment is how to preserve zucchini for winter use!!!

Anyways, I bought 10 lbs of little tender zucchinis and 5 lbs of green pepper and eggplants and headed home to start slicing and dicing for freezing these summer pleasures. The 10 lbs of zucchini took about an hour and half to slice up-not too shabby of an investment since in the winter the price for imported zucchini is more than 4 times what I paid today! Now that those are in the freezer I am once again panicy...is that enough? Do I have enough for the spaghetti sauces??? AHHHH!

I am half way through the eggplants, since you have to slightly steam them first to be able to freeze them and this morning the green peppers are calling my name...begging to get sliced, diced and frozen so they can be enjoyed another day!

If I get all that done and my work for today before 6pm, I am headed back to Carpinito Bros for more zucchini!!!!

Autumn Colorways

After an all the responses I got with suggestions for new colorways, the direction was clear...

Time for some Autumn colors!!!

How about a stroll down Autumn Lane

Or an afternoon walk through a Pumpkin Patch

But be on your toes...watch out for those Wicked Pumpkins

Very spoiled chickens

This moment brought to you by my very spoiled chickens!

Oatmeal & yogurt breakfast!

Do you think they like it??????? :)

Our first eggs!

OK, I will try to keep my overwhelming enthusiasm to a minimum with this post :)

WE GOT OUR FIRST EGGS!!!!

Yep, after two straight days of our Speckled Sussex clucking non-stop, Wednesday just after 3pm she layed her first egg. Since she had been clucking non-stop for so long, I hadn't really thought much of it on Wednesday...but the added squaks caught my attention. She was going on and on and on. Then she found her way to the nesting box and our Barred Rock went in and joined her (I think more for moral support because she was making such a fuss).

After a bit the Barred Rock stood up and I heard a little thud. I admit I gasped a little with excitement right then at the thought that we might have gotten our first egg.

I waited a little longer for the Sussex to stop clucking and walk away too...she was not leaving! She was too busy building a nest around herself! So Ken reached in through the chicken door and she hopped out of the nest.

TWO EGGS!

Each had layed their very first eggs at the same time!

And let me tell you what, she had a thing or two to say about her eggs being taken! Oh My Gosh...I didn't know a chicken could get so angry!

Needless to say, it was a very exciting chicken day on the Kreutzer Critter Farm! :)

First thing from the garden

It was time to do a little snipping to my basil plants to get them to leaf out even more. By the time I finished snipping I was excited to see I had enough leaves for a small batch of pesto! MMmmmmm, pesto :)

So I picked off all the leaves and tossed those into the blender. Then I threw in a few cloves of garlic and some olives. I then drizzled it with olive oil.

Other great additions, if I had been prepared, would have been grated parmesan cheese, pine nuts, and sundried tomatoes.

Then I pulse the blender. Because this was a small batch I had to keep pushing the stuff back onto the blades. Went you do a larger batch the stuff seems to stir itself a little better. I didn't mind the extra effort, we were gonna have fresh pesto tonight for dinner!!!

Still blending...but almost there!

Perfect!!!

As it settles, the oil will rise to the top and seal in the freshness. The flavors will start to blend together and by dinner time, we will be able to have pesto over pasta, pesto on some toasted bread, pesto in spaghetti sauce, pesto on top of crackers with cream cheese...oh my gosh, I am suddenly very hungry!

I L-O-V-E hats!!!!!

I am a hat person! Everyone who knows me has seen me in all kinds of hats. Baseball caps, country cottage hats, knitted beanies, berets, ear-flap hats, bandanas, ANYTHING! I love 'em!

Well, this hat sky-rocketted to the top of my list! I started it on a Friday and finished on Wednesday and my poor wrists were not happy about the constant knitting!

This thing is soooo cool. You knit it flat and sideways! So your row is the brim to the crown and back. There are short rows for the decrease in the crown and the band around your head is super cool too!

I have already cast on my next one! Duet Yarns of course and I am doing it double stranded. It's going to be sooo pretty!!!

A commentor was kind enough to pass on this amazing info!!!!

Just some info. you might want to know:I did some internet searching and found that the hat book can be downloaded in pdf format for £11.50 (or about $22.00 US dollars) directly from the author: http://www.woollywormhead.com/going-straight/The author also is selling some patterns from the book for $5.00 each through patternfish - and I think the pattern you used is one of them.PS: the hat looks great on you!!

Too hard to resist!

Admittedly, Duet Yarns are my favorite yarns and I realize I may be a little biased :)

I love the base yarn and I love the colorways. Of course...otherwise I wouldn't make it.

There are some batches, however, that I just cannot bare to put them all on the website and this was one of these batches!

These puppies just SCREAM summer!!!!

Daffodil, Peaches, Mandarin yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!

I do my best to resist keeping one of every color I make...but my will power was not strong enough on this batch. Yep, I admit it! I kept a couple colors for myself! If you want to get your hands on any before I keep them all for myself, I suggest you get on by the website as soon as possible!!!!!!!

Gwen's Preformance

Over the weekend, Gwen-a fellow knitter, was in a belly dance preformance at a local pub.

What a cool experience. I had never been to such a thing!

In addition, if you ask me, I think Gwen's preformance was the very best one!!!

Here is a little snippity of her preformance!

Thinking about Father's Day and new babies?

Have you started thinking about Father's Day? Are there some new babies you are knitting for? Then you will be very excited about the new Sale Bundles of Duet Yarns!