Missing....

The companion to this earring is missing.
I'm pretty sure it jumped out of my ear sometime yesterday. Though sadly that means it is in downtown Minneapolis, somewhere.
If you see it, drop it off at my store. My good friend Nicole made them and they are one of my favorites.

Though if the match doesn't end up being found, I may just have to make a necklace out of the lone earring. Though it will look sad hanging there on its own.

On a better note, Beth for Darn.Knit.{Anyway} was coming along great.
See.

There is the back all knit up.
That said, there is something not right about it. I messed up one of the rows and now the pattern repeat is too long in one spot.

You can see it better in this close up.
Now if it was just for me, I might let is slide. It is not for me though. That my friends means that no imperfections can be let to slide.

So I'm re-working the back as week speak. Nice think about chunky yarn, it will go quickly the second time.

One thing did go pretty well today.
I made jam out of some of my raspberries and some of the chocolate mint. I even took the time to push it through a sifter to get the seeds out.

I topped a little vanilla ice cream with the cooled jam as a treat. It was very nice. So I think more jam my just be in my future, when it's cooler out.

Breakfast

Breakfast is one of my favorite meals.
It can be light and airy, creamy and filling or just so nice you want to take a nap after.

Today we had some of the first raspberries of the year.
Just a few so as not to upset the intestines.
I'm thinking there will be a lot of jam and seed straining this year.


I'm very smitten with my garden as of late.
As you can see, some of the plants are really growing.
The fluffy stuff in the center is chamomile.
I think I'll be able to make some essential oils and maybe some tea out of it.

So look out for your gifts this year. The plan is to have them all come from the garden. If only in part. :)

Just some pretty things

It would seem that my "case of the Mondays" is starting a bit early. I would dearly love to have just one more day of. But someone has got to pay for my meds. :P

So as to battle off this case a bit early, let's look at some pretty things. Mostly things that I've found on Etsy.com
ps: all images link back to their shops. Take a look.

This dress is really lovely. I would be just the thing for a night on the town. Maybe a little dinner and dancing?

I really like the idea of vinyl wall decals. I've been thinking about having something like this in my guest room. Paint the ugly closet doors white, get this in gray and silver... might just look pretty cool.

Now, good photography is a great way to sell things. If you are creating an image of a camera (even a necklace camera) it better look good. Something about this just say "Let's travel the world and shoot all the film we can get our hands on"

Might be a fun thing to do one of these days.

So there you have it, 3 pretty things that will hopefully make your Monday a little less blah.

Now to win the lottery so as to get all these pretty things.

Rad...

...ish?
I did a little thinning today of the radishes. I think I should have done more when they just started out.
The round one is so round and cute though.

I personally have never been a radish fan, but HT loves them. So, he will be the sole eater of radishes in our house.
I am hoping that my colitis calms the heck down soon so that I can eat some of my veggies. So far the garden is going like gang busters.

here's to hoping. :)

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. :)