Early August happenings...

I took a moment to go through my phone pics to see what I've been up to lately... 

;)

Part of the basil patch was harvested to make some Pesto.  Paul, Cassie and myself are quite fond of Pesto... on crackers, on toast, on pizza.  When planting in the spring, I elected to plant an entire package of seed.  Heehehehe.... I don't think we need to do THAT again!  We literally have basil growing out of our ears.  Some friends were invited over to help manage the basil;  we still have LOTS left over.

Excitement in the mail!!!!!  KatieZ contacted me earlier about some cotton yarn she had in excess and wondered if I was interested in working out a deal.
?!?!?!!   Ah--yah!  Candance and I were both excited to tear into the box of goodies!

And later that day, while the girls swam, I elected to finish crocheting up some Crochet-top kitchen towels.

Also on the mail-front....
Cassie gandered out to the mailbox one day...

... to be followed home by her posse!

Some shifting of chicken houses needed attention due to the newest (and FINAL) hatchlings of the season.

Big Mama with our 22 youngest hatchlings (first week of August).  She is protecting them nicely in the ground brooder, which was NOT the original plan, BTW!
Nope, nope.  Originally, we were going to have her start brooding them in the house-brooder.
But..... it seems that another Mama was interested in even MORE chickens on the Skattebo ranch!



*forehead slap!*
Yes folks---there is a chance to have another dozen or so chicks on the property in another week or so!  And, I KNEW there was a reason for the dwindle in egg production in the upper coops!

Anyway, yah, so the house-shifting started!
We started by kicking Carlos (rooster) out of the 'new' coop in order to allow the 27 oldest chicks of the season to have safe access to their permanent housing.  Together with two other year-old hens, they are now housed.  (29 birds there).
Carlos and two other older hens departed the 'new' coop together and are now mingling quite nicely with our main rooster, Steve, and his posse of 9 hens.  So...., what is that?.....another 13 birds.  (42 so far).
Then, the 14 'teenager' that had been in the ground brooder were moved into the temporary housing that the older chicks HAD been in.  (we're up to.... 56).
At that point, we were able to move Big Mama and her 22 chickies into the ground brooder (78 now; I already counted Mama as one that belonged to Steve).
So... I THINK I've taken care of counting everyone..... add to that another dozen or so that the newest Mama will hatch.... Yah.  About 90 birds.  That's fun, right?!?!!?

Oh yah... one other little minor happening in early August...

I turned 40.  

A work day - crochet top towels

Another scarf was finished this morning (my FAVORITE so far).  

Pattern:  Arugula Scarf

Size:  2" x 80"

This is the third of this pattern that I have worked up;  and other than adding more initial chains (due to the lighter weight yarn, I chained 300 to get the length to 80"), I followed the rest of the pattern exact.  

It is SO light and has almost a lacy weight to it, and the colors should blend nicely with any color.  I can totally see this as an accessory to jeans and one of those adorable cutesy T's that are all the hit lately.

I ended up using just a tad more than one skein of some el'chipo yarn from a bargain bin.  

Yarn label info:  "Flamme"  75% cotton, 17% acrylic, 8% polyamide.  50gr / 197 yards.  Made in Turkey.  It doesn't mention any yarn weight, but it has a "2" feel to it.

Then, feeling just a wee bit ambitious, I ACTUALLY ventured downstairs to the sewing room.  LOL. No quilting was in mind though.....  

My MIL sent me on the mission of working up some crochet-top kitchen towels for some craft fairs she has coming up this Fall.  She says they "sell like hotcakes," and last year she was asked over-n-over again by customers if she had any to sell.  She didn't;  this is one craft she doesn't do.  I think she would get some made up from one of her neighbors, but the lady didn't provide any to MIL last year.

So........

My kitchen-towel venture was attempted a couple of weeks ago, but I wasn't liking the unpolished look of my first few.  The crocheting bit was easy-peasy, but it was the attaching-to-towel part that I wasn't satisfied with. 

My first trial was to simply stick the hook through the towel fabric about 1/2" below the cut edge.  Eh.....it was alright, but I was worried the top may eventually fray off from the towel.  [[Can you say 'christmas gift to family' this year? ;) ]]

My second trial was to use the method shown here (tutorial), but after stitching along whole edge, I didn't care for how the front or back looked.  I thought maybe folding the edge over and seaming it with the sewing machine would work.

Well..... it sorta did, but didn't.  The seam was WAAAY too noticeable!  [[Yup, another Christmas gift will be heading to some lucky family member!  LOL]]

So.....REVERSE THE ORDER, Amy!  Seam first!

So, that's what I did.   And then, using a blanket stitch (which I knew how to do after watching this tutorial!), I attached the yarn to the top of the towel, hiding the turned over seam so nicely :)

Then it came time to needing buttons.  I simply FORGOT to look through my MIL's button stash the last time I was at her house!  Duh.  However, one lil' amazing suggestion from the first video tutorial link (here it is again) had me working on my own crochet-buttons!  Genius!  I wouldn't have thought to do that!

And then, through no planning of my own -- it just happened from the way my tails ended up... I simply used those tails to attach/tie the buttons to the towels.  SLICK!  

On my latest towel, I tried tapering off the flap to finish off with a nice "V" edge.    

So NOW, after a bit of trial-n-not-really-liking-all-parts-of-attempts, I think I have this craft licked.  With Paul still snoozing away (he ended his last night of night-shift last night/this morning), I think I'll find a movie to have as background noise, and work on some more towels to actually give to MIL for her craft sales.

I think this qualifies for Kathy's "slow-stitch-Sunday."  Right?

Happy Sunday everyone!

I wasn't tired last night...

Caitlyn's RWB afghan was set aside;  I wasn't feeling in the right mood to work on it anymore last night.  So, I started playing around with another Granny Square.... and another.... and another.  LOL

I ran out of "Caitlyn's" yarn, so I grabbed "Candace's" yarn (the lighter tan/brown/blue).  Plans for these:  I think I'm going to TRY to make up some cute lil' bags for each of the girls using "their" yarns.  Hook I/9 -- just in case I get sidetracked with something else and forget what size hook I used. 

Candace ended up posing here, but know that I grabbed the camera to get a shot of this wacka-doodle as she was scootin' through the kitchen.  August 2nd:  84 degrees, shorts, sports-bra and a SCARF!  LOL.  She is still so proud of her finish.

Honest engine; I HAVE been doing other things around here besides simply crocheting the hours away :)  The past two mornings, I have picked and picked raspberries, and I STILL haven't picked every row.  Each 'older' row has taken me two hours to pick (Cassie did help a bit two days ago); each row has filled a 5-quart bucket.  There are SO many berries out in those rows!   I have one more 'big' row to do, and then 4 rows of newer transplanted berries from two years ago.  Those rows are a bit more weeded over and haven't had lots of time to spread-spread-spread yet.  All of those rows might give me another 5-quart bucket together.  All-in-all... our raspberry patch is nearing the stage of out-growing our needs.  And hopefully, when Paul wakes up later and the day cools off, he'll be willing to help me pick the rest of the berries.  He finished up his string of night-shifts last night/this morning.  Now, he gets a few days off.  Therefore, we plan to head up to the farm for a couple of days.  MIL called earlier and said she'd LOVE to take some berries off my hands and make a pie.  10-4 good buddy!  Works for me :)

An update on the raspberry syrup recipe.

Recall I used 4 cups berry juice with 5.5 cups sugar.  Now that a jar has resided in the fridge for a couple of days (ALMOST empty now, mind you!), we've noticed it gels up a bit more than what a syrup should.  We simply shake it up, microwave what we want for a few seconds, and life is all good.  However, for the batches today, I cut back on the sugar to 5 cups. 

ALSO, I followed a recipe in our Kitchen Aide Ice Cream maker instruction booklet for Raspberry Sorbet.  The raspberry and syrup parts have to chill for at least 8 hours, so I should be able to work on that lil' goody later on tonight!   :D  Can't wait!

While making up the batches of syrup, dishes constantly needed to be washed, rinsed, dried, repeat.  I went through towels something fierce today, plus I have a bunch in the washing machine.  I hit the bare bottom of my towel drawer!!!  Hiding on the bottom was this 2-pack of Christmas towels, UNUSED; still with tags on them.  I have NO recollection of where/who/when we were given these, but they gave me a reminder idea I had last week -- Crochet-top towels that hang from the stove and/or fridge.  

Deb/VTQuilter posted a couple of weeks back these awesome crochet-top towels (post seen here), and she shared her instructions via email with me....

Deb's instructions:  (I HOPE she doesn't mind that I'm sharing these -- I simply don't want to lose the email.  I can always find the "recipe" on my blog now :)

Deb writes:
I don't have a set pattern. 
I cut it in the middle to make two. 
Then I do a chain stitch across the cut part. 
Turn and do a single crochet across. 
Then do a decrease stitch on the side, double crochet in each next 3 or 4 stitches and then do a decrease. 
Repeat that pattern until the end ending with a decrease. 
Turn and continue until you get down to 5-7 stitches to make the top part that hooks over the stove handle. 
I just do a double crochet in each stitch on each row until it is the length I want. Then I do a decrease, dc, decrease (with 5 stitches). Then a decrease for the last three stitches and end off. Add a button and you have a towel. 
Can you tell I make it up as I go .

So, with the afternoon sun still a bit too warm for outside work, I'm going to give these towels a try!  Naturally, I don't want to mess up the new, unused ones.  Instead, I cut up an older one I have.  Around this house, you can NEVER have enough kitchen towels!

Happy Friday everyone!