Wordless Wednesday--Wallace, Idaho

What's for Dinner Sunday

Fruit salad--fresh fruit with a little lemon and lime juice, water, and a touch of sugar
Grilled Vegetables
Grilled Chicken
Toasted Pecan Butter Cookies

New Craft Show Display Fixture

I am so excited, I picked this up at a store closing sale today...it appears to be oak, is on wheels, has bunches of hooks and can be taken apart and put back together pretty easily for transport. Cost me $20

Featured Blogger-Miesmama

Miesmama is this month's featured Blogger and if you visit her Etsy shop you will find lots of wonderful items such as the bag above which is made from a recycled wool sweater (one of my favorite materials).

Her blog is also full of wonderful things including photos like this one.
Be sure and check out both her blog and her shop.

Banner Finis!

I finished the birthday banner. I made it so you can hang the words "happy" and "birthday" separately or tie them together to make one long banner. I hope this is something that will be used for years of birthdays to come for my grand daughter. It was really a fun project. I drew ideas from the links here in making it.

Hawiian Babe Shorts set

This will give you a preview of the Birthday banner I am making because I used the scraps to make this little outfit. Size 12months, McCalls pattern M5416. I had to piece together my scraps to get enough of the Hawaiian fabric, the pocket was my personal touch.

This goes to my grand daughter who turns 1 in August.

800 HEARTS

Two bags full--A shopping spree

Do you remember this nursery rhyme?

Baa baa black sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir, no sir, three bags full.
One for the Master
And one for the Dame
And one for the little boy who lived down the lane.

The phrase "two bags full" probably more accurately depicts my week. For one, on Saturday I sold two bags of wool (raw fleece) I had in my basement for several decades to a fellow Farmer's Market vendor. I held onto this treasure for many years thinking I would again get the urge to spin. I have a wonderful spinning wheel that my father had made for my mother. It's gorgeous oak wood. Recently I decided it was pretty silly to hold on to the notion that I would be spinning that wool. I'm sure I would be much happier buying wool someone else has already prepared for spinning if and when I do get the urge. I do promise to post a photo of my wonderful spinning wheel another day when I have better light.

For many, the phrase "shopping spree" conjures up the notion of a trip to Nordstrom's or Macy's (neither of which we have here) or to the local jewelry store. For me shopping spree means a trip to my LYS (local yarn store), Mustard Seed Dreams, for their 40% off one-day anniversary sale. I took an early lunch from work to be there close to the 11 am opening time and emerged almost two hours later with"two bags full" of wonderful yarn. My bank account is significantly lighter, but I do have material for many months (years?) of knitting. One bag contains the materials for items I plan to sell, neck warmers and cowls which consists of nine skeins of Baby Alpaca Grande in an assortment of luscious colors and eight skeins of Plymouth Encore Mega in several neutrals and grey.

The contents of the other bag, for myself/personal knitting projects, pictured just above, includes the following (with potential projects noted):
1) 4 skeins of this lovely Perfection by Kraemer in the color "Valentine" (30% merino, 70% acrylic) for a February Lady Sweater
2) 6 skeins of green Cascade 220 Superwash for a Gathered Pullover
3) 7 skeins of Cascade Cotton Club (60% cotton, 40% acrylic) for the Lutea Lace Shoulder shell
4) 2 skeins of Plymouth Sockotta variegated sock yarn in peachy/green colors (45% cotton, 40% Superwash wool, and 15% nylon) for the Little Sister's Dress.

A bit ambitious, don't you think? These projects or others I might eventually use my yarn for should keep me knitting for a long time. Not to mention that I already have some (huge understatement actually) stash yarn in my possession.

If you are a knitter or are the least bit curious about all these projects I have planned, you can click on the links for each item above to see the items of my desire. And more photos of my new stash are located here.

What's your dream shopping spree?

A Quiet Fourth of July

Another spectacular thunderstorm here in SE Idaho early evening on this July 4th. It's a good thing we decided to stay in and have a quiet evening because it was absolutely pouring for quite a while.

I baked up these wonderful cookies today. I though the recipe a bit odd because you cool the dough in the fridge overnight then set it out and warm up to room temperature before forming the cookies. However, they were well worth the wait. J calls them "the best cookies ever" and he is cookie aficionado of sorts. I found the recipe here and you can too.

Knit or Eat Cake

These are just a few knitting related items I came upon on the web this week....

May every stitch you knit bring you a little closer
to that calm, clear space in the center of your soul.
--- Earth Heart Designs

Knitting for Your Health: check out this video, the health benefits of knitting (for real)

Knitting with wind power: what an idea...and I was thinking of a windmill to power the house.


Knitting a basket cake (to eat!) This is adorable AND edible...see photo above. And you thought that it was a basket of yarn, didn't you?

SUMMER MEANS FRESH VEGGIES

This week's Etsy Bloggers Carnival suggests one of the following topics. I thought I'd combine them into one post.

1) Share your favorite Summer Recipe!
2) Tell us your top five favorite things about summer! (And tell us why, of course!) (See terms in BOLD below for my favorites)

I love summer because it is WARM which means I like to have COLD FOODS like this wonderful salad. This is a repeat of a post previously on my blog, but when I think of summer recipes, I think of this salad because I never make it during the Fall or Winter. This salad includes two of my favorite summer foods, FRESH TOMATOES and FRESH CORN (cut from the cob). Nothing is better! And in the summer, I actually have time and the right conditions TO SIT OUTSIDE IN THE BACKYARD with family or friends and eat this salad along with something like this chicken off the grill.

Wordless Wednesday-heirloom wood carving