Monday, February 23, 2009

All buttoned up





I've just finished up the baby bunting that I've been working on since before Christmas. Whoohoo! I found the perfect leather knot coat buttons to match. The pattern is a freebie from Garnstudio, and can be found here. The pattern was simple and I love the feel of the Valley Yarns, Berkshire bulky that I used for this piece. The colors are stone blue with coffee bean I-chord trim. Sadly, it looks like the baby may not be coming in time to get much wear from this. Hopefully we'll be parents before the Fall, but I'll try to knit on patiently and accept whatever time frame this journey to parenthood takes us on.

Meanwhile, I've also finally found buttons to finish up two projects from the fall. They are Baby Surprise Jackets designed by the late Elizabeth Zimmerman. If you are connected to Ravelry you can find all the details of these projects here.




More coming as I bind it off the needles.

Starting from seed

Well, the sun is creeping up a little earlier every morning, much of the snow has melted off of the tops of our raised beds and the raspberry canes made it through the winter. There's talk of another winter storm coming this weekend, but no worries. I'm swirling with ideas for this years planting. We had some definite winners last summer...purple bush beans, red skin potatoes, sugar pumpkins, butternut squash, some good cherry and plum tomatoes...we had some trials that we'll give another year's effort before giving up on them...eggplant, corn, broccoli. And some additional things to add...elderberries, cranberries, a cold-frame for a winter crop of hearty greens and root vegetables next fall and winter...hmmm. Much thinking going on.




But before too very long, we hope to be seeing our first asparagus shoots coming up, watching the unfurling of the rhubarb and witnessing the tender green scapes of the garlic.

Time to send in the seed order, dust off the seed-starting area in the basement, fill the potting trays and get ready for new beginnings.