Not much progress to report. I am still knitting on the Tangled Yoke Cardigan but it is taking time. I finished the main body part up to the armholes and started the first sleeve. Now I think that I will have enough yarn.

My older son Thomas and I went to the Renegade Craft Fair yesterday. We had planned to go on Saturday but it felt too chilly. The weather was beautiful yesterday and we had a great time looking at all the handmade offerings. We made a few purchases, too. I bought one skein of hand-dyed sock yarn by Aisha Celia and one skein of handpainted lace-weight yarn by travelingrhinos.com. I am very excited about both and cannot wait to get them on the needle. But first the cardigan ...
The icecream cone is for my daughter. It is made out of felt. One of her first words was 'Eis' (German for 'icecream'). It is still one of her favorite foods. And she sees icecream cones in a lot of things (a microphone, picture of an acorn).


Since I don't have anything newly finished to show - here is a picture of Ellen wearing the Polly Pocket Dress from the Miss Bea's Seaside book knitted in denim yarn. I knitted this a while ago and she wore it a lot last winter. It is getting a bit small now, and I am considering knitting her a bigger one, either the same or a similar one. She loves the pockets on this one so I know a new one would have to have pockets.

Back to school for the boys -

means back to knitting for me.

School started on Tuesday and we are getting settled in to our school routines. That also means that I can get a little bit more knitting done during the day if Ellen takes a midday nap. And it also means I can work on something bigger than a sock because I can knit for more than 5 minutes uninterrupted. To "celebrate" this I cast on for the Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang from the Fall 2007 Interweave Knits.


I am using yarn that my husband had bought in Ireland during a layover there last year. I had started knitting a sweater for Thomas but felt that the yarn was too nice for a boy sweater and so ripped it. The yarn is called Luxury Tweed and a blend of wool, alpaca, acrylic and viscose. It is not quite so dark as in the picture, more of a charcoal color with specks of colors throughout. Now I only hope I have enough yarn. I keep my fingers crossed.

I finished the scarf from Victorian Lace Today but didn't do a very good blocking job and so I am re-blocking it. When that is finished it will go to a friend who had given me a lot of hand-me downs for Ellen. I have another skein of this yarn and as I mentioned before didn't enjoy knitting with it. The scarf has a very nice drape and feel though and so I think I will hold onto the yarn and make another one (just not so soon).

In early summer some vines sprouted in the garden, and I let them grow wondering what I would get. I got a lot of these beauties

and now I am getting a lot of these

So far I have "harvested" at least 25 of these gourds and there are lots more. I had bought some last fall at the farmer's market and when they didn't look good anymore I tossed them into the compost.

I always try to have sunflowers in my garden. Last year I had some very tall ones. But this year I wasn't very lucky. The ones that are there are very beautiful though.