Tomatoes of various types

Tomato Hat

DGD Kat is having another baby in Sept. The sweater I knit for the first one is gender neutral, so I decided to make fruit hats for both kids. The new guy is getting a tomato hat. I bought the pattern on the shop hop last week and came home to find another copy. DD #1 knits and now has a fruit hat pattern. I thought the pattern I had was the flower hat, but can't find that one. Do I need to repurchase to find where it is hiding?

Everyone has red tomatoes in their garden except me! The area where my plants are planted used to be sunny, but when I wasn't looking, trees grew up and the neighbor installed a wooden fence in a corner which also shades the plants. Score on 2 plants; 4 tomatoes on one of them.

I only planted tomatoes and peppers this year, and the pepper section of the garden is doing well. Something ate most of the leaves from the pepper plants early on, but I moved them to our back porch. We have lots of peppers of various sizes and colors. Next year I'll try a couple of other things in addition to tomatoes and peppers. Cutting back a little on work commitments means more time for other pursuits.

Quilter daughter is in town this week. We had dinner with her Wednesday night at her favorite restaurant. Nice long talk about what she's doing and how the new house moving is coming along. She moved July 4th weekend and is mostly unpacked now. Leaving Saturday to be home in Florida on Sunday.

Red sweater

Last March, I knit a sweater for the Cast On Anniversary issue. It is now out and available to the public. I think TKGA picked a model too large for the sweater. My photo shows how I expected it to fit.
The yarn is Classic Elite Classic Silk, a very nice yarn, but TKGA wanted a machine knit pattern and this yarn doesn't work on the machine. I used a more machine friendly yarn for that, and the pattern is on their website. This sweater was knit by hand. It went quickly , especially with no cable needle. The pattern is a four stitch cable, but big enough in gauge to just drop stitches and pick them up again.

My Lucy Neatby Fiesta Feet 2nd sock is mid foot, so it'll be finished by the end of the month to count for the Ravelry SKA challenge for July. Not that I have much chance of winning a prize, but I do like to meet the deadline.

Knit, knit, finish

One of the side effects of working on many projects is that they may all get finished at about the same time.

• Sunday - cotton jacket
• Tuesday - Mystery Socks
• Thursday - Swiss Cheese Scarf
• Saturday - Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf
• Monday - fingerless mitts
• Thursday - mitt covers

That's it for now. Work has been slow, and I'm the boss, so I've had more knitting time at work.

The Mystery socks were stash busters., using little balls of left overs. The swiss cheese scarf is cone yarn from a mill. I like it so much that I have started a sweater from the rest of the yarn. It is top down. all available yarn will be used and there are so many colors ot tweedy bits in it, that I can choose another color for finishing if needed.

Last Saturday was a guild yarn shop hop. We went to Columbus, OH, about 3 hrs south of us. We did have to meet up at 6:15 AM. I didn't drive, so was able to knit.I chose a simple scarf that had been sitting for over 6 months. It is the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf, knit from 2 balls of Noro Matsuri that I received as a holiday gift. On the trip, needles, sock yarn, a pattern, and a sock yarn needle gauge were purchased. Much fun was had.

One of my daughters had taken up running for exercise. She asked for fingerless mitts with thumbs. The yarn I chose is partly purple, her color, but it is also cotton stretch. (Patons Stretch socks). I decided to make mitt covers using Wool-Ease. If she runs when it is colder outside, she can use something else. All pieces were adapted from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns

Today is family day picnic gathering. DD #1 is in town from Florida. I gave her a book on historic American quilts, since that is her main hobby. She loved it.

Present sock on the needles is Lucy Neatby's Fiesta Feet, knit from Patons Kroy 4 ply sock yarn. Plan A was to use muslin as the solid, but it was knit into something else and is not available. Norfolk blue was substituted. Kroy is heavier/denser that many sock yarns, so I stuck with the same brand. Boy is this a lot of work! I made the leg longer, because I like winter socks to meet my long underwear. Nothing worse than a gap for the cold air to find. I've waited years to knit these. When I finally got to it, I couldn't find the pattern and had to buy a new copy. That wasn't so bad, as the first one was a copy a friend gave me. From her complaints, I thought she was sending me her original. When I used the muslin yarn, it was still available for repurchase. Oh Well. First sock is finished. Keep knitting!

Quick cast on - a fruit hat for grandson to be born in Sept. Stash yarn says he gets an apple. I bought a fruit phat pattern on the shop hop, thinking I only had the flower hat pattern. WRONG! I can't find a flower hat pattern, but already had the fruit hat. DD #1 was happy to take one of them off my hands. I should finish the hat tonight, started about 4:00 this afternoon. It was easy knitting at the party, round and round and round.

It's finally finished

I've been working on this jacket, off and on, for over a year. That's a long time for one of my projects! I accepted a challenge involving unfinished projects, figuring that it could be finished by September. Eek, the deadline is August 5. Knit faster, knit faster. Make mistakes, re-knit. Find that sleeves are too long. take out and shorten. Sleeve cuffs want to unroll. Remover and attach differently. Knit some more. Finish bottom band. Go to sew it to jacket bottom. Undo bind off and lengthen bottom band. Knit front bands, re-knitting the mitered corners several times.

Finally, success. It may look better buttoned. It may hang differently after washing/drying. But it's done.

One of the yarns has been in stash for maybe 20 years. It's good to finally find a good use for it.

Weekends have been busy. Last week there was a graduation party for a granddaughter.Today I saw her again and she finally has a full-time job.

This week our knitting guild picnic was held. That's always a good time. One of the members has a house with a large amount of land and a swimming pool. It was a little chilly for swimming, but the knitting, talking and eating went well.

My small garden is doing fairly well. I haven't had one for years, and started small; 2 tomato plants, 2 pepper plants, and some basil. The pepper plants had their leaves eaten, so I moved them to a window box on our porch. Survival was iffy, so I bought more pepper plants. All have had flowers. I'm waiting for peppers. One green tomato so far. Basil has been pulled and is drying. Next year I'll do more variety. There are only 2 of us and the cook still has a job, so I didn't want to overwhelm myself.