flowers & fruit



saving seeds

This year I'm attempting to save seeds.

My hollyhocks are loaded with seeds,

so I guess I'll be supplying the whole family. ;)

I wish I would've taken a picture when they were all in bloom.

The mix I bought was from Burpee (see it here),

and I really loved the color comination.

I first heard of this heirloom variety of lettuce seeds in my favorite book series,

the Fairacre series, by Miss Read.

These I also bought from Burpee. (See them here).

I had never saved lettuce seeds before so I was interested to see how they would be.

They each have a little piece of fluff at the top like a dandelion seed.

(Please pardon the weeds in the background. Once it gets over 85 degrees I don't like to leave the air conditioning. ) :P

We'll find out next year if they sprout.

hand pies

I made these for my grampa (Papa)'s birthday party on Sunday.

I've always thought hand pies were just too cute,

and had to give them a try.

I made them with cherries that I had canned, last year, from our own tree!

I just get a kick out of making things as "from scratch" as possible.

*Home canned cherries & my chicken's eggs*

To roll the crust out to the required dimensions I used a ruler & marker on the underneath of the parchment I rolled the dough out on. 

 I found the recipe in the September issue of Martha Stewart Living.

Their recipe called for fresh berries. I think they may not have oozed out so bad if the cherries I used had been fresh. The crust recipe they suggested I did use, but I would not use it again. It was a butter crust, which I do like, but I have a tried and true pie crust recipe that my Grandma gave me. It uses lard. I know most people would shudder at the thought of using something they would see as so bad for you. But honestly it's natural, I could make it myself, in my own kitchen, no laboratory required. Unlike vegetable shortening with its partially hydrogenated blah blah blah.

I want to try making some meat pies in this way rather like Cornish pasties. It seems to me that it would be very practical picnic food. :)

If you're interested you can find the recipe for Grandma Linda's Lard Pie Crust on my old blog.

Next post: Saving Seeds

gossamer threads

This morning when I went out to feed the animals I saw this pretty sight & had to capture it.

Finally got a new camera. Can you tell? :)

knit

Above is a fairisle yoke sweater that I made for myself a few years back. I'm not exactly sure when. It is from the booklet Land Girls by Debbie Bliss. The original called for stone background with purple & green in the fairisle. I used Knit Picks's Palette in Mist (very light grey), Rosehip (orangey/red), Conch (light coral), Peapod (a rather bright green), & Alfafa (light green).

***

 Below is my Christmas sweater that I made two years ago this November. The original design, found in Debbie Bliss' Fall/Winter 2011 issue was meant to be done in greys and blacks. It did look very nice like that, but I had this red, green, & natural Paton's Classic Wool in my stash. I added the stripes in the ribbing as well just for fun.

Below is my rendition of Debbie Bliss Shrug from the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of her knitting magazine.

The original pattern called for 7 or 8 balls of her Prima (Viscose/wool) yarn. I happened to find this beautiful coral color of Prima at my LYS when I was there on my birthday. I had to have it! ^_^ So I searched through my hoarded magazines and came across this pattern. The original called for 3/4 length sleeves which I replaced with these fluttery cap sleeves, of my own design, with cute bobble edging. Also the ribbing around the perimeter was meant to be quite a bit wider, but this is all that I could do with the yarn I had. I'm quite pleased with the results. The vintage-y style goes with at least two of my summer dresses! 

Having recently started using Ravelry.

 I've been taking pictures of some of my recent (& not so recent) knits.

 I thought I'd share them here on my blog as well since I haven't posted for such a long time.

In personal news:

 Since I was last on here I now have two new nephews, James & Jack, to knit for (in addition to my 7 year old nephew & 4 year old niece). I'll post some pics of their upcoming knitted gifts as soon as they are finished.

Well that's all for now!

~Miss Michelle ^_^