Pensive Frog

Candy corn and pumpkin hats

Yesterday, the high temperature was 48F. It’s foggy, drizzly, and all over hot chocolate weather. It makes me really glad I spent a lot of the summer knitting. Although now I’m having regrets about giving my knitted candy corn hat away to Goodwill. It was traffic-cone orange Red Heart yarn, plus [...]

Last Saturday we went to see the Seattle Opera’s production of Rigoletto. It was quite good – Verdi is one of my favorite composers. The performance had a bit of a bumpy start – the supertitles didn’t kick in for about 15 minutes, and one of the performers had laryngitis, so while he [...]

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything2 C pumpkin seeds, rinsed and dried (from about 2 pumpkins)1 t cayenne pepper1 t salt1/2 t sugardash cumin2 T olive oil
Toss the pumpkin seeds with the other ingredients until evenly coated. Spread on a baking sheet and bake at 350 F, stirring every 20 minutes, until toasty [...]

This year’s Jacks

Last year’s Jack

We carve our pumpkins today! Woo-hoo! I certainly hope they aren’t moldy inside, because we bought them over a week ago, and just the other day I noticed a white velvety mold growing on the stems. Gargh! I washed it off, and then coated the stems with a slightly diluted dishsoap [...]

Here’s a sneak preview of the projects in the Winter 2004 issue of Interweave Knits. I am drawn to these Nordic mittens. That might be because I’ve been making a lot of hand accessories lately. Either that, or I enjoy fair isle frustration. My first and only fair isle project is [...]

…from Interweave Knits Winter 2004

That makes this blue hat look like it’s floating above my kitchen counter. It, in fact, is an ethereal hat. I can’t remember what the yarn was - I bought it from Smiley’s and the color was blueberry ice. 100% acrylic, to be sure. The best part is that it knits [...]

Blue ribbed hat!

Ok, so maybe it’s 65 degrees out, but it will be cold soon. I’m glad I have my hot water bottle all cozied up and ready for snuggling. The pattern is BAWK, by Rachael, pattern available here. I used Schoeller Esslinger Merino Light in bright pink and orange, originally purchased on the [...]

I think I’ll call her Marlene…

So I made the Kool-aid yarn pictured in previous posts into a French Market Bag (pattern via Knitty). Here it is pre-felting. I was afraid I would not have enough yarn to make color-symmetrical handles, so I made a sample handle in red and green to “calculate” the required amount of yarn for [...]

French Market Bag, pre-felting

To eat random mushrooms one finds in the bushes. These were hiding at the Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens on Whidbey Island. Apparently there is no way to tell poisonous mushrooms from safe ’shrooms, though it’s commonly believed that if you dip a silver spoon into the cooking water of poisonous mushrooms, the spoon will [...]

Shady mushrooms

This picture of early summer tomatoes is presented in lieu of a photo of late summer tomatoes, currently dangling in all their moldy, splitty glory from my tomato plants. Since people with heart conditions might be reading this, I thought it would be safer to present the prettier fruits of the vine. Although [...]

Early summer homegrown tomatoes.

Kool-aid yarn dried, wound up, and ready for action!