High Heat comments: 54

Hot, hot heat this past weekend. We sat in chairs in the river all afternoon. Best day I've had in ages. Leaves fell from the trees on the bank and flashed silver as they spun toward the dark water. Even in the heat there was a glimmer of autumn. My sister made grilled peaches glittered with lemon zest and mint. August in a bowl. We've watched hours and hours of the Olympics. Coolest sport = trampoline! The electricity went out last night for several hours. I macrameed a bracelet until it was too dark to see. Needless to say, at 102 degrees no baking or oven cleaning has happened. Though we did make a trip across town to buy pearl sugar for yeasted waffles. Priorities.

Assemblage comments: 86

My crew was busy assembling floss packets for ornament kits this week. (Yes, amazingly, it's that time of year again!) For the majority of the early summer I had pretty much decided that I probably wouldn't design an ornament kit this year, just because I've been so busy with the web site and am fried. Then, one day when my computer was broken and I was sitting there with nothing to do for an hour and a half, I started drawing and wouldn't you know it three ideas for new ornaments popped out. I guess that's what it takes — a whole hour and a half with nothing to do and I can think of a major project to do. So the machine started it squeaky but irrepressible crank back up again. And so we will re-issue a limited edition of the past four years' ornament kits, as well as this new one, of which there have been glimpses around here lately and which is called Winter Cabin. Wouldn't you know it's probably my favorite one of them all. I love the palette for it so much. More details on the new kit (and the old kits) to come! For now, my trusty sidekicks assemble floss packs and I make them cappuccinos in the afternoon (good trade off for me, no?). I got this little stovetop espresso maker the other day, and the little milk frother I got last winter has been awesome. These were actually pretty good little cappuccinos, I was surprised!

Hot coffee in the afternoon will probably be a thing of the past this weekend — it's supposed to get up to the high 80s and maybe even 93 over the weekend. Once again, it's only 59 right now so I am enjoying that while I can. Thank you for the perfume recommendations!!! I ordered several testers from CB I Hate Perfume, which several of you recommended, I think. I can't wait for them to come. Maybe my sissy and I will spend a day searching around town for the others you recommended and having a smell-a-thon while she is here. I will report back. :-)

I didn't make the roasted corn soup above (it's from New Seasons), but I aslo have to think of some things to cook while Susie is here. Dear chocolate lovers, she says she has brought the Best Chocolate Cake Recipe in the Whole World with her. She told me I had to get this kind of baking chocolate (Cacao Barry Extra Brute), which I did, so I am ready to taste proof! I'm also hoping she might help me clean my oven with the self-cleaning function because I am afraid of it and need a professional chaperone. Do we know how to entertain our guests here, or what??? Perfume shopping and oven cleaning — thrilling!!!

***The seed pod in photo six is called scabiosa — thanks Jessica!

Works in Progress comments: 59

I finished my own Alpine Frost shawl over the weekend. I had actually started mine a few months ago and I liked it so much I wanted to make one for Julie's birthday. When hers was finished I immediately went back to mine. And then finished it. It's quite a bit longer than Julie's — mine is about 90" long and about 25" wide. I blocked it like crazy, stretching it in every direction as far as I could. A pin holding every picot point. (I added the picot edging; it's not in the pattern as written, but the details are on my Ravelry page for it.) What I love about this yarn is that it really has no shine at all. It's completely matte. And downy soft. And light as that feather. And tumbles into a copious mound of frothy billows around my neck. Where it sits right now since it's 56 degrees out. Which I don't mind now that I have this thing.

Now on the needles (as it has been since May, also) is Quill, Quill the color of antler, its garter stitch center section complete and on round 12 of its Old Shale border. Fingering-weight yarn feels heavy after so many hours (and hours and hours) or crocheting lace-weight.

It's been a really busy few weeks. I've spent my time alternating between building my new web shop and working on the new ornament kits. Neither is finished. The web shop — it's shocking how many hours it requires. I'll be beyond thrilled when it's finished and functional. Occasionally I have my doubts that it will ever be either. Occasionally I feel that I've taken the DIY thing too far in trying to do this mostly myself. But that's what I can afford. And I want it to be a certain way that doesn't quite fit the standard template. I'm hoping it will be up and running sometime next month. I will be so happy!

I meant to say thank you for all of your sweet anniversary wishes last week. Thank you so much for those! I haven't had a chance to even scratch the surface of the iced tea recipes, partly because the weather has turned so cold again that it makes hot tea more appealing than cold. Not complaining, but . . . it's strange. I suppose it makes for good TV-watching weather, though, with the Olympics coming up. (Actually, there's nothing I like more than all of the programs leading up to the Olympics that explore different aspects of the host city [especially when it's London]. I love those!) The news of the world has been so sad lately (my heart goes out to Colorado this summer) I'm hoping that the Olympics can truly foster a spirit of brother- and sisterhood on an individual and international level.

My own little sister, Susie, comes to stay with us for a two-week visit a week from today. Andy has ordered the sour-cream-and-onion popcorn seasoning and I need to get stovetop espresso maker to cook up her quadruple-shot lattes. I can't wait. We're planning a movie marathon of our individual and family favorites. Obviously, Seems Like Old Times tops the list. Oh I adore that movie. Can't wait to see my sissy.

Like Alpine Glow comments: 130

For her birthday, I made my sister a lace-weight crocheted Alpine Frost shawl. It was more the color of alpenglow. I was extremely pleased with and ridiculously proud of it. One of the top five things I've ever made, I think. I gave it to her last night at dinner (the four of us went here, and it was spectacular). Last week, when I had finished it but hadn't given it to her yet, naturally I informed her that I was about to give her the most awesome and fantastic birthday present she had ever gotten from anyone anywhere in her entire life and if it wasn't then . . . well . . . well, I don't really know what, but something. So she was prepared to have her mind blown and I believe she was suitably impressed, which further pleased me. I do like to direct people on exactly how to feel about the handmade presents I give them. I am just so helpful like that. A helpful person. ;-)

When we got home last night — can you believe that sky? That photo is exactly what it looked like in real life. It only lasted a few minutes. I walked down the road in a long flowered dress with the camera. Click click click. The sky was changing second to second. Thunder ripped from several different parts of the sky, then lightning, then more thunder. We sat in the back yard and watched it as night came on. A faint rain fell and evaporated on landing. Eleven seconds, generally, between the jagged white strike and the thunder-roll. Andy lit all the candles. It was our fifteenth wedding anniversary. I looked up and made a wish on the first bright star in the ultraviolet sky. Oh I do love that man with my whole soul.

In Early Evening comments: 141

Sometimes I miss Montana, miss living deep in the mountains, miss the rolling Clark-Fork River being right there at the end of our street. You could ride your bike in the evening along path at the edge of the river, with the cottonwood puffs floating and the mountains rising and the sound of the water rushing by. Fairy-tale thoroughfare. We once saw an otter on his back, floating under the bridge, right through downtown. We lived there for three years. Everything smelled like pine and smoke, sharp and dry. I miss how small the town was, how bored I could get with it, how much I wished it would rain, how I would wander, lonely, around Butterfly Herbs half the afternoon, drinking smoothies and hoping to run into someone I knew. I was haughty and fragile. Intimidated. I tried to learn to knit and practically had a nervous breakdown. The leaves crunched dry in the Rattlesnake. I liked the path along the creek in Greenough Park, the little bridge there, the weeds and wildflowers that grew in the front yards of houses near the railroad tracks on the north side of town. Everything was glinting and strange, the light different, clearer and more harsh than it had been in Illinois. I didn't own a car. I taught tried to teach college freshmen how to write argumentative essays. After the first semester I prohibited all argumentative essays about legalizing pot (this was a favorite freshman topic; there are only so many why-marijuana-should-be-legal thesis statements you can read without wanting to clonk stoner freshmen heads together, which I assume is also illegal). We had no money. On the last morning of the month I scoured every pocket and looked through every book bag in the house, trying to find enough change to get a cup of coffee on my way to school; no luck. Found a dollar in the snow, right in the middle of the street in front of Food for Thought, and could hardly believe it. We babysat for a lady with two little boys, one of whom couldn't speak. I still remember his name, and how sweet he was, how she cuddled him, how he liked to watch the movie Fantasia over and over again. I worked at Penney's in the home dec department, and folded fluffy new towels into thirds (strangely satisfying). Andy worked in a rock quarry. He would drive out and pick me up in the truck after work. We went everywhere, so happy to finally be living together, giddy with this. It would stay light so late in the summertime. I remember one night when we were walking home late from the bar and this guy on a bicycle suddenly flew past us and nailed the curb head-on, knocking the chain off his bike and himself flat. He jumped right up and, totally hammered, tried for several minutes to nonchalantly ride the bike with the chain clanging and hanging like a necklace around the pedals (pedaling furiously, going nowhere). Then he crashed straight on through the underbrush of the embankment and disappeared. Andy and I stared at each other in amazement — what in the heck? — and fell over laughing. I remember the hollyhocks that bloomed all down the alley between our apartment and the Orange Street Food Farm, the teetering platform of wooden boards Andy built for Violet so she could jump into our window from the dark green tangle of our side yard, the way that the sun set pink behind the purple mountains, so pretty it could make you cry.

Summer Eats and Heats comments: 101

Oh, they were good. Thank you again, so much, for all of the wonderful recommendations. It was hard to know where to start because they all looked so good! But I wound up tossing some cabbage and carrots with a lot of fresh lime juice, some chopped cilantro, and a glug of olive oil (and sea salt and pepper); adding three minced (seeds removed) chipotle peppers in adobo sauce to mayonnaise (along with some minced raw garlic, more lime juice, and more salt and papper); making this grilled corn salad; and then these homemade tortillas. Andy grilled some tilapia (in a fish grilling basket) rubbed with a bit of olive oil and a little Mexican spice blend (it was already in a bottle in my spice rack, from Penzey's).

Man, it was good. I think the homemade tortillas were the best part. I highly recommend the whole menu!!!

On Sunday morning, Andy went back to work after being off sick for about a week. I had finished several projects I'd been working on and was amazed to find myself with a whole day alone and nothing to do. I was both excited and confused. I was so excited that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do (confused). Unfortunately, I hadn't slept at all the night before because it was so hot in our room, so everytime I sat down to think about what I wanted to do, I fell asleep (including during the fourth set of Murray-Federer — I know! — I slept through the entire set! I woke up to Andy Murray crying, which got me really choked up. I had been rooting for him [even though my new favorite player is Tsonga]). Then I made pancakes for myself to cheer myself up.

Swedish Pancakes

4 eggs
1 c. flour
1 T. sugar
1 t. salt
1 c. milk
a little bloop of vegetable oil

Whisk eggs, flour, sugar, and salt together into a smooth paste. Slowly whisk in milk until just combined, then add a bit of oil (just to keep them from sticking) and stir again. Ladle or pour the batter onto the griddle over medium heat, and tip pan to swirl batter into a thin circle. Flip when edges look dry.

That worked. Then I fell back asleep while crocheting on the couch. It got warmer and warmer outside. Unfamiliar with this unusual meterological phenomenon, I failed to register its effect on my already floppy hold on the day. I rode my bike to the grocery store and almost passed out. I think it was 83 degrees (but 83 and hilly?). No, feel free to laugh, seriously. I was in first gear, going about 1 mph. Wearing a dress. People were passing me and I'm pretty sure they were laughing. I would've laughed if I could've breathed. When I got home I stumbled into the kitchen and made an enormous pitcher of raspberry iced tea and drank almost all of it, along with another gallon of water (and limes — I really love limes). Then (somehow) I made a version of this superfood salad (but I made the quinoa with vegetable stock, used the leftover corn salad, and skipped the vinaigrette [didn't need it]). Then I went upstairs and laid directly under the ceiling fan. Outside I could hear neighbors in every direction having barbecues and speaking in normal tones, and not about the weather. I assumed they were also wearing actual clothes out there. HOW??? In bewildered awe of them, I fell asleep during Inspector Lewis. When Andy got home he said I looked flattened, like the cats, trying to expose as much surface area of my body as possible to the overhead fan breeze. My contacts had turned into dried up little shards of plastic. I think my hair had dreadlocked itself. I was a hot mess.

I'm not sure if it's because I slept nine or ten hours last night or if it's because it's currently only 59 degrees, but I seem to have recovered all my faculties today (so far). It was really only one of our first hot days here all summer (it did get up to 88), and that was enough for me. I honestly don't know how anyone survives temperatures in the 90s and 100s.

And another one. comments: 46

When things get hectic, the first thing to go is cooking. I guess the last thing to go are the crafts. Andy's office was the one room in our house that really hadn't been touched in about ten years. It had become a sort of repository for cast-offs and Posie overflow. This week it was completely taken apart and repainted (white). A wall of pretty grayish-brown cabinets/shelves and a desk will go in there soon. Behind the glass doors of the cabinets I'll move fabric and yarn. I expect I will need some sort of baskets or something or it will just fall all over the place, but if I can do it right I think it will look so pretty.

As the room gets put back together, it seems like my stress level is coming down. Yesterday I swept up piles and piles of leaves and dirt and pet hair from all over the house, changed all the flower vases, watered all the plants, put away huge stacks of books that had collected next to the side of the bed and in the nook, scrubbed the kitchen, sorted the mail, got my car fixed, dusted. Simple stuff that I normally do that I hadn't been doing. Funny how it piles up and makes me feel like something's wrong but I don't know what. When I feel that way apparently I should just go get the broom and dustpan.

That white thingy up there? It's an Alpine Frost scarf-in-progress made out of lace-weight Malabrigo. When I put it on my neck it feels like a cloud. It's crocheted with the smallest hook I own (3.25mm). I've been wanting to make this scarf forever and I'm finally doing it. The weather's (sadly, maybe) right for it, too. I think when the scarf is blocked it will look more like lace. I'm going to do probably a picot border on it, too, the way several people have done on Ravelry (this one's particularly gorgeous). Having a little neckwear obsession lately.

Thank you for the nice words about my new quilt. I didn't work on it at all yesterday but I will put some photos together to show you what I mean about how I put the squares together. It actually comes together pretty fast. It's the ironing that takes a LOT of time. I wanted something that felt really airy and simple but still kind of . . . delicate. I think this is the first truly traditional quilt I have ever made. It's called a Triple Irish Chain and I kind of used this (the checkerboard version) as an inspiration, but I didn't have a pattern so I just kind of worked my strippy concept out on the fly. The finished patches are 1 1/2" square. It's definitely the tiniest-squared largest quilt I've ever made. Not sure yet how I will quilt it?

(***For those who have asked, my basket is from the Mirador. Andy's birthday cake recipe from last week is here, and the lasagna recipe is here. Unfortunately I don't know the names of any of my roses or peonies. Sorry!)

Nice Week comments: 55

Carrots and potatoes are up : : Tulips finished, peonies coming : : Antiquing for Shelly's birthday : : The best potato salad at Natalia's : : My hexie cheater quilt : : More friends in town tonight from Canada : : Climbing hydrangea covering the studio window : : Picking fallen leaves out of the vegetable garden by hand : : Meditative : : Peas look a bit yellow : : Good good good good dog : : Hollyhill was adorable : : Driving the back roads with Andy yesterday and this song (cool random video) : : Finished my cross-stitch, took it to the framer's : : Finished my cowl : : Next up is Quill, just waiting for the yarn (in Antler, again) : : Going to be working on a new web shop this summer : : Starting the new quilt : : Hard to think about work in this glorious weather.

Silverlights comments: 86

Gah. This time of year. I'll call it freezing, with floral accents. It's very, very, very, very gray, and cold, outside. The light reads periwinkle. Everything's periwinkle. I've been knitting a cowl for, oh, ever. This is from the top down, increasing (getting wider at the bottom) as you go. Inspired by this one. One might think one should finish one's knit neckwear in wintertime, but then one remembers that one lives in the PNW and one knows [one sobs] that one has until . . . oh . . . June. To finish. One's knit neckwear. The yarn is exceptional (Tosh Merino DK). The color: called Antler. Warm, squishy-soft, creamy single-ply perfection. To warm the cool periwinkles, the silverlights of spring.

Last night our friend Shelly called while I was brushing my teeth. I heard Andy talking to her. He was summarizing different cable channels she might not be familiar with, lest her TV-watching habits differ from mine. Hallmark Channel was about "leprechaun experts." Lifetime was "secret lives." Not to be confused with Lifetime Movie Network, "which is, like, Girl Power. You know what I mean." I was sputtering toothpaste. I thought it was so funny. I'm afraid to hear how he would describe Bravo.

I don't know if I've ever told you, but . . . Clover doesn't like birds. More specifically, certain bird sounds. Regard the expression in the photo above: seconds after one trilled just outside the window. We can't figure it out. It's only certain songs, and I don't know exactly which birds sing them. She worries. Wind (I can understand), firecrackers (hate them!), and some birds (wha???): These are no friends of hers. Oh, sweetheart. It's okay. I usually try to distract her with something fun when it happens. Something fun like sticking a camera in her face and taking her picture. Just kidding. No, like playing, or having her give me her paw, and then her other paw, and then her other paw. Tossing the flappy toy. I think that's what Cesar says to do when dogs get nervous? Doesn't always work, but I guess it's something. Sweetest girl.

We had new pendants installed in the living room. This one hangs in the middle of the room over the little side table by the chair (and one hangs over the back corner of the sofa by the window). There's really only one way this room can ever be configured. Especially now that there's a pendant hanging in the middle of it. Chicken or egg thing, really.

Silver Snow comments: 234

PATTERN: Clara by Karin Vestergaard Mathiesen
SIZE: 12-18 months
YARN: Madeline Tosh Merino Light in Silverfox

Thank you very much for sharing our walk with me yesterday. It was really a very magical day. By nine a.m. all of the original morning snow was gone and the sun was shining as if there had never been a cloud (or a snowflake) in the sky. But then, later in the afternoon, the whole thing started up again: Tiny flurries buzzed the yard, and then larger flakes started to fall and stick, and then a full-blown snow squall enveloped our neighborhood. Clover and I sat on the sofa and watched from the window; it was like being in a snowglobe.

Taken from our living-room window, around 3 p.m.

Oh, how my heart twirled! It lasted maybe another hour. All the little girls across the street came out and threw snowballs at each other and chased each other through the yards. They reminded me of squirrels, playing up and down the oak trunks, wild in their delight. It was the lovliest of days. I really don't think I'll ever forget it.

I finished this dress last month and for some reason just never got around to posting about it. Apparently I was waiting for a fairy-tale snow to come and enchant me with its charms; the entire time I was working on the dress it seemed like a fairy-tale dress. When I finished it I was simply flabbergasted that I was able to make something like this. It felt conjured more than knitted, though I knew that there were parts of it that had been so hard, where I'd had to rip out and redo more than once, where every stitch was hard-won and utterly prosaic. But I couldn't remember where those parts were (and I definitely can't remember now). (Lord, please let that be a metaphor.) I just sat and looked at it for a whole night. I kept shaking my head. Really? How did I do that? Since I don't even really know how to knit?

That's sort of what I've been telling myself all these years, anyway. Knitting was so hard for me, and came so un-easily to me, that even though I've been able to knit and purl more or less without complication since about 1999 (I started trying to learn back in 1994 or so), I still never really think of myself as someone who can knit. I know that's strange, and not meant to sound falsely modest, but it's true. That is my perception. A year ago I wrote the story of how I eventually learned to knit. I think it is one of a small handful of things I've written in my life that help me tell the story of myself to myself. Eventually I will amend it to include what knitting has meant to me this past year. This dress will figure into that part of the story, how the whistling work of these days and their many stitches gave us hope and happiness. And confidence, when it was sorely needed. When I finished the dress, I hung it on the wall next to the sparkly lights on my side of our bed and we looked at it for a long time. For someone who doesn't know how to knit, I will admit that I felt very proud.

*For those who have asked, you can buy a kit for the dress from the US yarn distributor here. I bought the kit but didn't use the recommended yarn. Unfortunately I don't know if the pattern is available on its own; I have called Isager to see if it is and have not heard back. I am sorry but that's the best I can do, as this is just something I knit for myself and is not my original pattern to distribute or otherwise make available. You will have to contact Isager with any questions about the Clara dress pattern. Thank you for understanding.

**Update, 1/4/2014: The pattern is now available here: http://www.yarncupboard.com/shop/clara-dress-pattern