As I mentioned last week, after I finished adding squares to my first scrap blanket I cast on for my next blanket. I thought it would be fun to show you the progress on the blanket as I go along. I’ll be posting a picture of the blanket on the last day of every month.
I can always use more scrap fingering yarn. If you have any leftover yarn you want to get rid of I’ll happily take it off your hands.
John got the art hung up on Saturday. He did not think my washi tape marking was sufficient. He said he would have preferred a sharpie mark where the nail should go. So next time maybe I’ll do both – washi for me to remember where I want things, and a sharpie so he can put the nail in exactly.
I am very happy with how the room turned out. I look forward to the day where Elliot’s art doesn’t have to be hung so high.
I continue to take my yarn diet very seriously. I have managed to reduce my stash substantially. It no longer stresses me out. It no longer contains yarn I never want to knit with. Because of all that progress I’ve decided there are some kinds of yarn that don’t need to be counted as earned yarn when I buy it.
Type 1: Yarn for presents I am going to knit. I didn’t think about factoring this in. I am working with one of my sisters on designing a Christmas present for her. It will be a cardigan/wrap combo full of color. If I had the yarn in my stash that would have been great, but I didn’t, so I bought it. 
Type 2: Scrap blanket I Cord Edging yarn. I don’t add the yarn that goes into the blanket to my spreadsheet, so I’m not going to ding the yarn diet for the yarn that will be the applied i cord edging. I guessed on how much yarn I would need for this, and I’m really hoping this is enough.
Type 3: Yarn with the same name as one of my kids or my dog. I can’t turn that down. So when I saw that Knit Picks has Hawthorne in a colorway named Eliot I had to pick some up to make socks for John and me. Sure, our Elliot has two Ls and the yarn only has one, but I think it is close enough. 
My goal for this weekend is to wind the I Cord yarn and finish weaving in the ends. Once the ends are woven in I’m getting started with the I Cord. I just hope I can find my size 2 DPNs.
The kids were gone visiting John’s parents all day today (they are really great and watch the kids whenever we ask). I though I would find some time to relax and knit, but that didn’t happen. I tackled a bunch of projects that are hard to do with kids around.
One of those things was deciding where to put the art up in the kids room. I wanted to move a few things around and put up several new pictures that have been hanging out waiting to be hung for months. I hate hammering in nails into our walls because they are plaster, and tend to crumble and make a big mess and basically frustrate me. Luckily John loves doing handy stuff, so he is game to hang 7 things tomorrow.
I wanted to make the process of him hanging things as painless as possible, so I decided to pull out my washi tape. I have a large collection of washi tape. Back when I was working I would buy cute packs off of Pick Your Plum (man, I miss that website) almost every week.
I picked seven rolls out of my stash. I assigned a tape to each photo that needs to be hung. I then used the tape that matches each piece to indicate where they should each be hung up.
I’ll let you know if it is a smashing success or an epic failure.
When the days are sunny and warm and I want to be outside all day I pull out my crock pot. Crock pots are great for nice weather – they don’t heat up your house, you can throw your dinner in as you are making breakfast and forget about it until dinner time.
One of my favorite things to make in the crock pot is pulled pork. I have a ridiculously easy recipe. It is so shamefully easy it took longer to put together than this post will take to write.
Step 1: Get a boneless arm roast. We buy our pork from a farmer that comes to our neighborhood once a month. She has excellent roasts.
Step 2: Take off the string around it (you don’t need a roast to hold its shape if you are shredding it). Trim the fat. Put it in a crock pot.
Side note – I bought that cutting board years ago on sale. I don’t mind the yellow color until I take pictures of it, and then I’m annoyed by how ugly it is.
Step 3: Add 1/3 cup water to the crock pot. Season the roast liberally with salt, pepper, and seasoning salt. I use the House Seasoning Blend from Allspice, because I love their spices. But if you don’t have a crazy awesome locally owned spice shop by you I’m sure whatever you have in your cupboard would be great here too.
Step 4: Turn the crockpot on low and walk away for 7-10 hours. Go to swim lessons. Play in the yard. Don’t worry about dinner.
Step 5: Shred the pork. It will be very tender, so this will take about 90 seconds.
Second side note: At this point in the process I remembered I have a non-hideous looking cutting board.
Step 6: Eat dinner. There are lots of ways to eat this. The kids had pulled pork sandwiches with BBQ sauce. I had a pork taco. I’m planning on using leftovers for quesedillas and sandwiches. 
It’s not a fancy meal, but it is an easy meal that will stretch into dinner for a few more nights. In the spring and summer that is exactly what I’m looking for.
I knit a lot of socks. Some pairs seem to take longer than others to knit. Some fly off of the needles. This pair of socks falls solidly in the takes longer to knit category. It’s not the yarn (Madeline Tosh Sock in the Home colorway). I love the yarn. It is knitting up beautifully. It’s not the pattern, a my vanilla socks are stockinette, so that flies under normal circumstances.
I don’t think the socks are dragging because of the project. I think they are dragging because of the weather. I’m soaking up as much sun as I can this spring, which means we are on the go much more than normal. I just haven’t had as much time to knit…
…but I still managed to cast on a hat. It’s a wool hat for myself, just in time for 70 degree days. It’s the Gretel Tam I knit earlier this year for a friend. I’m knitting it for myself this time with some beautiful light brown bluefaced Leicester. I am not sure I have enough yarn, so I might be tearing it all out and trying another hat pattern. It’s a fun hat to knit, and I adore the yarn, so if I have to tear it out it’s not the worst thing in the world.
Are you enjoying nice weather where you live? Is it interfering with your craft production?
mildlygranola 