{wool and sticks}

The Family Blanket

Yesterday I was chatting via Ravelry with French Press Knits and the topic of knitting husbands came up. I mentioned that the only knitting my husband has engaged in was a a square for the family blanket.

It is a tradition in our family to knit a family blanket when there is going to be a new arrival, however this is only done for the first baby in the family.

Yarn is sent out to the respective family members and everyone knits a square and then returns it back to the organizer (usually the grandmother) who then arranges it and seams the squares into a blanket. Each knitter's square is identified and in the past embroidered patches have been used, or embroidery right on the blanket.

Here is our family blanket.

 

 

What are your favorite family traditions?

Last Minute Crafting: Welcoming a New Friend

Tomorrow brings the baby shower I have spent the week preparing for. I love to do things by hand and when friends and I decided to make the food, I jumped at the chance to do some creative cooking. I am contributing the standard cheese and crackers and I am making various breads and dips/spreads to accompany them. I settled on 3 breads (no photos of them, they are not baked yet but maybe tomorrow) a foccocia, an olive rosemary and Soulemama's WHO Bread. Each bread has toppings meant to match it. For the foccocia, I have some bruchetta, a roasted red pepper one and a simple tomato. For the WHO bread, I made 3 different flavored butters, a sweet honey vanilla, a savory sun dried tomato and a tart lemon butter. Lastly, to match the olive rosemary, I made a simple herb infused olive oil. 

Of course, I have some photos to share...

 

My wrapping is inspired by the signature wrapping of French Press Knits. Aren't her packages amazing?

Inside we have something nestled in tissue paper...

 

It is a hat and mittens!

I also made some bath salts to give to the guests as favors. The salts are a blend mixed with relaxing lavender and chamomile oils. I added dried lavender, chamomile and rose petals to the mix before jarring them. They smell heavenly.

 

After all our hard work, Kennedy and I took the time to do some raking outside, our front yard really needed it.

 

After all our hard work, we took a few moments to enjoy the sunshine.

Busy Week

This week is pretty busy which is nice after a low key weekend. We spent much of the weekend outside and I channeled Martha (Stewart) by cleaning the (inside and) outside of all our downstairs windows. I did the rest of the windows upstairs yesterday. For a few hours of effort there was a huge impact and I am committing to doing this twice a year.

I also spent some time baking various foccocia's this weekend. I was trying to perfect my recipe before a baby shower on Saturday and I think I succeeded. I am baking 3 breads for the shower and making various infused oils and compound butters as toppings. 

I made some relaxing bath salts as shower favors this week and I need to jar them this week. I would like to purchase little scoops to attach to the jars but I am having trouble locating something suitable. Anyone have any suggestions?

Also on the schedule this week is finishing up some UFO's and starting some more projects. I am feeling a bit of knitting pressure as I just added 4 more projects to my holiday queue. They are all small and for Kennedy but they require deadlines nonetheless. I would love to knit this little guy for Thanksgiving but I do not have the proper yarn or the time, maybe next year. I do have another yarn related project this week but since it is part of my gifts, I will say no more. It is a great stash buster, a good way to use scraps and I will give more details when the time is right.

What are you busy doing this week?

A Wonderful Weekend + 1 More Day

great friends

great food

whiskey sours (egg and all) 

the sound of waves at night

the feel of the sand at the beach

an easy drive

family 

peameal bacon, mashed potatoes and corn + heirloom tomato delisicousness

lots of love

For friends and family

As I mentioned earlier, 3 of my friends have just given birth. I spent a good portion of today getting their special post partum gifts ready.


Lactation cookie mix


Knit hats


Post partum bath salts

Yesterday, Kennedy and I spent some time getting ready for Jacob's upcoming birthday. He requested homemade sauce for his birthday dinner (and fresh sauce rather than jarred was a promise made to him in our wedding vows) so we spent the afternoon letting our sauce simmer.



And what good would homemade sauce be without fresh pasta?

20

I have been talking a lot about cooking lately, and not much about knitting. I have many in progress projects and I am trying to hard to finish them so I can get to work on the incredible Botanica Medallion Cardi from Blue Sky Alpaca. Anne Hanson also just published her Trevi shawl knit with seasilk which I have plenty of. I still need to finish my first lace project before tackling a massive one like the Trevi.

So what am I working on? This Danica scarf is taking up an insane amount of time. It is not knitting up quickly like the pattern says. I like the complex look of it but as soon as I get into a good rhythm, it is time to change yarns, pick up new stitches and start all over. I also have this silly Socktopus in the works. I have 1 leg finished but it is on hold until the Danica is complete. Next up is the Hamsa, my first lace. I love how it is knitting up and I am starting to enjoy the laceweight yarn. As a longer term project (done for the fall) I have the Imogen sweater. The first sweater I am knitting myself. I am almost halfway done with the main body. It knits very fast but I only pick it up when laying in bed at night. It is so straight forward that it is easy to do half asleep. Lastly I have this sweater for Miss K. I am knitting it in a cream colored summer weight organic cotton. The yarn feels incredible in my hands and it is easy to alter the length to fit my girl. The chest will only be a bit large on her.

So I chug along.

I have some serious project ambitions for this weekend. I'd like to make serious progress on the building of my garden and I am hoping to get outside and dig in the dirt this afternoon. I also have some serious cooking going on. 3 of the mama's in my playgroup have given birth in the past 2 weeks and I am bringing them all a meal. I am putting together a meal of fresh pasta, sauce, bread and banana bread with ginger and chocolate. So I need to make, well...everything. All this labor for a simple meal has another purpose...Jacob's birthday dinner. He has requested fresh pasta and making pasta for many is as easy as making pasta for a few. He has also requested a serious chocolate cake and I am happy to oblige.

Congratulations to Andrea, Gittel and Marcela!