happy long weekend

I hope everyone is having a good weekend (long or short).
A lot of my friends decided to stop by for some Grillin'.
We had fun, played games and just enjoyed each others company.

(raises glass) here's to friends, family and our service men/women. May we all have a great day.

Collecting?

When does collection turn into something nefarious?
I really do wonder. I have a habit of starting collections and then wondering of to the new shinny thing that catch my eye.

Right here (pictured above) we have my collection of Honey. That's right Honey. I stumbled onto this honey one Thursday Downtown Farmers' Market. It is Ames Farms Honey. They put their hives in places where curtain types of vegetation grow. The single source ones are my favorite. With flavors like melon, raspberry and buckwheat I just had to try them. The fact that the reason they taste like melon ect is due to the pollen the bees collect is beyond, well fabulous.

So now, when it is Thursday and I have a little extra cash I have to get a new flavor to try. Thus began my collection.

Now I have a button collection, the little 1" kind.
There is a growing collection of yarn and fiber, but we all knew that.
And as a point of interest, there is a fabric collection starting.
Not to mention the books, mags and random vinyl toys that are collectibles.

I'm just hoping that you all don't find me on one of those hording shows one of these days.

Though all my little collections would be enjoyable to photograph.

long time no blog

So the question becomes, what have I been up to.
Saving the world from evil space invaders... and mostly knitting.

I just completed the above pictured little neck tie scarf thing. It's made out of 100% Iki hand spun. I think it turned out pretty nice. I'll have to wait till fall now to try it out, but such is the way of things.

I got my first PhatFiber sample box (just came today). It was all thanks to a 4th quarter bonus. Oddly enough the 4qt of last year was better than this new one is.
I'm really excited to spin and play with all the fiber.
They are all inspired by blooms and bark. I really am loving the cherry blossoms inspired roving that I got.

There was also Shepard's' Harvest 2 weekends ago. It is always held over Mothers' Day in Lake Elmo MN. It a treat to go. I scored some pretty unusual roving to spin. This picture is of yak and silk.
That's right yak. Its super lovely feeling on my fingers.
I also found a woman selling BFL for 18 a lb. Not half bad really.

My mom, auntie and sister came up for that weekend. They had a really good time and helped me out with the garden afterwords.
If you go, get some kettle corn. Its worth the upset tummy.

But mostly my time has been spent on the garden.
Getting protection up for the plants was a must. The neighbor cats that live outside seem to think that my raised beds are a great spot to pop.
It wouldn't matter so much but they dig up the seeds.
The seeds that haven't been disturbed by kitty feet have started spouting. We even tried breaking off some garlic clove pieces and seeing if they would grow. They are, though I'm not sure if they will add more cloves to themselves or what.

I've even got corn growing along the property line this year.
I'm not sure how much of the lovely garden food my colitis will allow me to eat, but I'm sure going to sample things.

So there is the life of Iki for the past few weeks. I'll try to keep up dating more often. Oh, and as for Aprils craft book review, I was going to review the "Square Foot Garden Book" but well this is all that needs to be said about it... Good ideas, nice lay out, fallowing it will defiantly work, so didn't like the infomercial feel of it.

Now for May... I think I might talk about some of my magazines. There are always people wondering if it is worth it to subscribe to one or another. I'll try to write something coherent about what I subscribe to and why.
Till then. :)