peachy keen

 

If you see this- my kitchen counters covered edge to edge- it can only mean one thing. The Peach Truck came to town

Uncoincidentally my making thoughts this week are peach-centric. The fruits all ripen at the same time,.  Each one is the platonic ideal of a peach. We've eaten a ton as is.  Made a peach cobbler yesterday (too much lemon, turns out juice of a half lemon was not a great idea) and I'll make another one (less lemony). Some might get frozen.  One year we made a big pitcher of white wine sangria with peaches,...that was good! They are so juicy and never a bad one. Tell me your fave peach recipes please.

Knitting? Still on this sleeve. Reading? Forcing myself through the last 3 hours (audiobook) of Katabasis, on 1.3x speed to help it go.  I'll only recommend it if you are deep in academia, it lampoons that world wickedly. For me? Tedious!  I'm not a fantasy fiction person so there's that too. Next week I'll have a new knit and a new book! 

Leaving you with this sweet goat who stopped to strike a pose on the way out to pasture. I was at Olympia Farm scouting, I plan to have my Knit Stars videos teaching photography for knitters segments filmed there, after the film crew visits me (GULP) at my home base. I thought why not lean into my She Shoots Sheep Shots tendencies?! We'll have a (real person) model with a shawl and also some lessons on still life shooting of their lovely farm yarn etc in the segments. I really really hope the weather will be good!  

PS I am serious about the peach recipes!  

other distractions

Here again for Unraveling on Wednesday, thanks to Kat I am back in the blogging habit. (too soon to declare? hope not!) Not much progress in knitting or reading -at least not enough for interesting photos and you know that's how I roll.  So I'm going to fill in with what's been filling in around here.

Some of my most favorite visitors are back in the 'hood!  We counted about a dozen down the street on Sunday. Always thrilling, we call them our dinosaurs. They are horseshoe crabs, they come to lay eggs during the full moon/new moon this time of year. 

 

With the clock ticking toward the Knit Stars filming, I jumped into refreshing  the rusting vintage style metal porch furniture. The cheerfully mismatched colors (as I liked to think of them) were looking several notches below charming.  Like every project of this kind, it is taking waaay longer, and needs more paint than estimated . And did the weather get humid and then have a major thunderstorm on me? Why yes it did. It is salmon /coral, not pink. And so are my hands!

 

 When  not in the yard sanding or spray painting metal chairs, this week, I am working this gig. Having a fascinating time listening to  speakers and the attendees roleplaying. My work is 75%  fiber/ wool/handmade photography and the rest is non-profits  institutions or corporations. While working I hear a lot of reknowned experts speak. another reason I love my job! (aka sticking my nose in everywhere) . The Campaign School is for getting women up to speed as candidates. It is intense and inspiring, the kind of thing that builds hope!

 

Which brings me to a book for this week, look at me staying on topic. A little .

 

 Link to the book. The author, Zoe Chance, was a presenter this week on building influence and how you present yourself in the world. Riveting! I am getting her book and diving in. 10:10 recommend.

As usual, we were the last to leave the beach Sunday, this is heading into 7 pm. with the tide heading way out.  The girls are 4, 7 and 14(!)  (not shown, Zoe and her BFF sitting a teen appropriate distance from us) . 

I'm looking forward to seeing what you have been knitting and reading over at Kat's roundup of Unravelers !  

Finish in'26 continues

 

KNITTING: Next up in the Finish It in '26  project parade is my Piilo sweater. One sleeve done this past week, one underway. It's a very blocky fit and I think I'm going to love it. Especially that collar. Yarn is Kelbourne Scout and like all of their yarns it is pretty great. (Seriously have you tried Kelbourne Perennial?)

 

While looking for a flat box yesterdayI found this, which may just be next up. I'm trying to remember when I labeled it and put it on top of a cabinet in my office. 10+years ago? 15?  (OMG I see it well underway on Ellen Bloom's blog while I was visiting LA...in 2010.)  As promised it is done and just needs ends finishing...ETC.  I wasn't sure  at first what ETC meant... 

 

It's really lovely airy bouclé mohair from Be Sweet, a South African yarn company, now out of business. It was a kit for a diagonal shawl, I quickly got bored of the even wide stripes and improvised. When I took it out of the box I remembered several things about it...

 

• It is very large as in at least 9 feet , and it'll grow more when blocked.  I'm likely to wear it as a big squished scarf-y piece so all good there. 

• It is very sherbert colored, this I do recall as a problem! Back then I'd regretted the colorway choice.  At first I thought that's how it ended up done but not finished. At the time my hair was dark and these weren't "my" colors.  Now that my hair is silver, I like to wear these colors a lot more. 

Holes! from dropped stitches! That was the ETC and the real reason I put this in a box and ignored it.  It all came back to me.  I'd dropped a few stitches in the curly boucleé in several places. You know what didn't come back to me? Yarn in all the colors. I just have these two! Any suggestions ? I am considering embroidering a daisy or asterisk wherever there's a hole.

 

READING :I am warming up to Katabasis.  It has nothing to do with the peonies, I just wanted to show them off. 

 

More Unraveled Wednesday posts linked over at As Kat Knits!