On to the knitting!!

AS promised, I am back, sooner than later. This time I am opening with a picture of just some of the tomatoes that I need to process tomorrow. I will probably just make them into tomato sauce. Although some are nice enough to leave as diced tomatoes. But seriously, don't you love all the color in these? Yes, some have a tad more ripening to do, but mostly all the color differences come from the variety itself. I have Cherokee Purples, Striped Romans, Cour d'Bue, Yellow Pear and I think some garden variety Big Boys thrown in for good measure. The variety that has done the best for me this year are the striped Romans. Will definitely plant those again next year. And the yellow pear. But for the rest, I think I will go with all new varieties. And keep picking the best each year til I have a full orchestra of tomato colors, flavors, styles and sizes.

And now on to some knitting. Now I warn you ahead of time. This is not nearly as colorful. Not at all. In fact, much bland, in my opinion. But this yarn was on sale. A good sale, a darned cheap sale. So I bought it. My plan at the moment is to finish said sweater. Wear it once and decide. Is it too boring? Or does it look great in the throes of a dull dreary winter. If it is indeed too boring, it will get dyed as a garment. Probably something in a deep bricky red color to cover up the oatmeal gray. But time will tell. On to more pertinent details. First this sweater was designed by Jared Flood and its name is Seneca. Seneca is half way down this page. He designed it to be knit in Classic Elite's Lush yarn, which is a wool/angora blend. But I think that whipping this up in Cascade 220 is still a worthwhile option. It will for sure need to be worn with something underneath, if sensitive skin is an issue at all. Mine is getting a bit more that, all the time.

So far I have gotten the body knit up to the underarm join. I am well into sleeve #1. The sideways cables on this sweater are easy peesey to knit but will demand a really good blocking to set them into the fabric the first time. Jared mentions that, which for sure made me feel better when I could not get my hem to lie flat for the pictures I was trying to take.







Maybe it is because I have knit on some small gauge yarn this last year, but this project seems to be going pretty fast. Of course, when knitting a raglan from the bottom down, you are working on the smaller rows of the project. Just join the body and arms to start knitting that yoke and then you get some long rows to knit!! But when you get to that part on this sweater you get to throw in some interest following the 2 different cable charts. And you get to do those decrease rows every so often.

And yes, I did get all that pumpkin processed. Some went into freezer after much prep work. Pumpkin has a lot of water in the flesh. And to get it to something akin to what comes out of the can made by Libby, you really have to work at it. I think I have the process down to an art now tho and can hopefully breeze thru the other 20 giants out there. I also used some to make Daisy some dog treats. And if you throw some into her dog bowl along with her food she will scarf it down and lick the bowl. It is supposed to be really good for dogs, just as long as she doesn't start turning orange from all that beta-carotene!!!