FO's

Check it out!  This is the first tomato that I harvested.

 

It was rather tasty as were the other 4 that I harvested after this one. It's a meager harvest but it's mine and I am so excited that my container tomatoes are producing such tasty treats :D

I have a few FO's to show you! I managed to finish little man's back to school socks in JULY. July people! AND, I've started in on little miss' pair.

 

 

 

I got the big pair out of the way first - these are actually a little longer than the socks that I make for myself... It would figure that the minion that wears the handknit socks is the one with the biggest feet. At least I know my hands wont be idle ;)

This is the next pattern that I will release on Ravelry - the Gamekeeper Wrap.

 

 

 

This baby is large (it sort of got away from me there towards the end). Fully blocked it measures approx. 18 in wide and is roughly 9 feet long.

 

 

 

The inspiration for this pattern was Hagrid from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series. I pictured Hagrid knitting himself a scarf which would be a wrap for the normal muggle.

 

 

I need to take some closer shots of the individual sections for the pattern and I will put it up on Ravelry. This one was a lot of work; it contains 12 charts and naturally most of the stitch patterns contain a different number of stitches so even though my Harry-Potter-inspired patterns have been free, I will most likely add a small fee to this one just because it was so much more work than the others. That said, I will be creating a smaller (and more manageable) scarf sized pattern utilizing a few of the charts and will list that for free on Ravelry once I get it knit up.

There are a lot of things that I love about this project, one of which is that I knit it using some of the yarn from my Au Naturel line. It was really nice to knit with and plumped ever so wonderfully with a wash... Good stuff.  I think I'll use the darker gray worsted/aran weight yarn for the scarf.... 

Hopefully I can crank that out rather quickly - I am making steady progress on a few other WiP's and have a slew of new patterns written up (I just have to find time to knit them all).  Plus, I have been brainstorming some new dye colorways along with the upcoming batch of Fantastical Creatures.  I need a longer Summer break - we're down to the final stretch now!  I remember when Summers used to seem endless...  :) 

 

Here are a few views of an Iowa Summer though.  The location that I wanted to go to for the above photos was closed due to construction/improvements so I meandered about and finally got around to taking a few pictures of this old barn that I've driven by numerous times without stopping.  I love old barns.  I don't know what it is about them, I just love them!

 

 

I don't know if you've ever spent any time in a corn field or not but this is your basic view - (complete with the bugs like the one you can see flying above the tassels). 

 

 

 

I was having flashbacks to my Summers spent pollinating and detassling while taking these photos :)  Speaking of corn, it's getting to be sweet corn season and nothing beats the sweet corn from Grandma D's farm!