Thimbleanna – Page 138 – My little online diary.

A Finish and A Start

29 Comments / August 1, 2008 March 8, 2016 / Knitting, Socks

Whew! That pesto exercise was sure fun! Thanks for all of your great comments — you either love pesto or you don’t, huh? Several of you even left some great sounding recipes, so be sure and go read the pesto post comments if you’re a pesto lover.

Yipee! It’s the weekend. It will be very low-key here in Thimbleannaland. There are so many things that need to be done around here, so I’m just going to stick my head in the sand and do as little as possible. Maybe some reading, knitting and sewing. But very little cleaning (which is the most pressing need!) and cooking. Although, I do hope to finally try the No-Knead Bread recipe that everyone has been raving about. It looks yummy.

I did manage to finish my first-ever two socks on one circ socks this week. I thought they’d NEVER be done, so I’m happy that they’re finally finished.

I didn’t enjoy knitting on US size 0 needles one tiny little bit. I’m hoping never to have that experience again LOL. These were made from some Knitpicks yarn given to me by a dear friend. (Thanks Sweetie!) This yarn made for a nice, comfortable weight sock and it didn’t tangle or anything, but it’s not a real smooth, plush yarn with which to knit.

While I didn’t love knitting on size 0s, I did love knitting two socks on one circ. So when I was at Cami’s last week I bought a US size 1 needle. She was out of size 2s, which is what I wanted, but as it turns out, size 1s are perfect. I started these Mockery socks with yarn I bought at Cami’s last fall. I should probably call these my Cami Socks, especially since Cami is where I learned about mockery socks in the first place.

I’m having a great time knitting these. The yarn is heavenly and they seem to be going much faster on size 1 needles. I certainly wouldn’t have thought moving up only one size would make that much difference, but my progress seems to be much faster.

I thought I’d see how socks in progress look as earrings for Pooh Bear, but I see now that they should be modeled as ear muffs. Pooh would be so happy in winter and maybe they would keep his ears from cracking like his face has. Poor Pooh … I know how you feel. It comes with age.

Happy Weekend Everyone, cracked face or not!

XOXO,
Anna

Presto, We have Pesto!!!*

41 Comments / July 29, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Chat

Dear Ms. Pesto,

Are you sitting on the edge of your chair wondering how my pesto experiment went? You know I don’t like that green icky stuff, but I decided I’d try your recipe anyway — ’cause you never know, maybe the one and only time I tried it, the flavor was just too strong.

So, on Sunday afternoon, I went to MeMum’s and we had a little pesto adventure with TheManoftheHouse, BigDaddy and my nephew as willing taste testers. I know you’ll probably gasp in disbelief, but none of us had ever really had pesto. We gathered our supplies, as meticulously laid out in your very clear recipe.

We dutifully chopped, blended and poured. (Ad btw…do you think this is a Holiday Inn Express? We don’t have a Trader Joe’s anywhere in the vicinity, so I had to toast my own pine nuts. I just felt darn fortunate that I didn’t have to go out and harvest them from our pine trees. I think I may have scorched a few of them, but all that green stuff will cover the black marks, right?) I didn’t take a picture of the green goo, ’cause it looked just like yours.

Now to taste. Is there some sort of official pesto connoisseur tasting exercise we should have followed? You know, like wine tasters do things — swirl, sniff, yadda, yadda? We all peered over the edge of the food processor bowl, and with our little testing spoons, we each took a sample. We gingerly placed a bit on our tongues….hmmmm….

WAIT! You said to put it on pasta. But why limit ourselves? We should broaden our horizons and try it on a few other things no? How ’bout bananas? You know I love bananas…

Not bad! Not bad at all! Could be the delicious banana overshadowing that gunky stuff though … how ’bout a potato chip?

Umm…maybe not so much. But then I love bananas more than potato chips so that could be the problem. So, how ’bout a fig?

Aren’t you proud of us? We’re not only trying pesto, but figs too! I think we liked the pesto better than the figs — we didn’t dislike figs, but they were very bland. (We tried them with drizzled honey too, but that’s another discussion.) And you should have been here for a good laugh during the fig cutting. Are we supposed to eat that skin or not? We eat peach skin, so we ate fig skin. Was that proper?

Ok, now the real test…Pesto on a Ding Dong…

Yeah Baby, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! I know you think I didn’t really taste that, but I did. Not bad at all, but hey, it’s chocolate, so what’s not to love?

Ok…Ok…you’ve been pretty patient Ms. Pesto. As you noticed above, we did put your pesto on radiatore pasta as instructed…

SMILES all around!!! We LIKED it! Dare I say, a few of us even REALLY liked it? I think you’re right…if someone doesn’t like pesto, it’s ’cause they haven’t had your pesto. So, thanks for broadening our horizons here in the unique-food-challenged heartland. We had great fun and we’ve found something new and exciting to have for dinner.

You ROCK, Ms. Pesto!

XOXO,
Anna

Oh, and two more little things…

Kim…oh Kim…are you there? Although I forgot to try it, I really think you should try pesto on mashed potatoes. This stuff is so good, it might cure your mashed potato phobia!

and…

Happy Birthday BigDaddy! You’re the best Dad ever and I LOVE you dearly!!! You make us all so happy with your wacky sense of humor and adventurous spirit. And thanks for trying the Pesto!!!

*Thanks Ms. Pesto for a great post title!

Flora and Fauna

36 Comments / July 27, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Around the House

Wow! Thanks for all the Goofy Bag love! You’re all so kind!

Did you all have a good weekend? It’s been nice and relaxing here in Thimbleannaland after being away all week. We cleaned the house a bit, saw Mama Mia (which was a pleasant surprise) and had a nice day with MeMum and Big Daddy today.

So, in the absence of any exciting crafty news, I thought I’d follow Sharon’s Flora and Fauna lead and show you a few pics of summer around here.Â Remember my Gerbera Daisies? This is their second bloom — aren’t they funny though? There are two pots there — one pot grows really long stemmed flowers and the other pot has twice as many, but they’re short stemmed.

My pretty pink lilies bloomed while I was gone this week. They won’t be around long with the heat, so I’ll try to peek in on them every day.

I have a few pots of petunias on the patio. I’ll probably be trimming these in the next week or they’ll get too leggy.

Now, for fauna, we’ve had a very exciting spring this year. Two or three months ago, two big hawks moved into the top of one of our trees in the front yard and built a very large nest.

After they moved in, we didn’t see a whole lot of them. At one point we even thought they might have abandoned the nest. Then one day, we saw an extra head peeking over the edge of the nest. So, we just watched for a few weeks and nothing exciting happened, and again, we wondered if they’d grown and gone. Then one night about 10 days ago, we came home and there was lots of squawking up in the tree. The kids all happened to be home and I’m sure the neighbors wondered what we were all doing under that big tree looking up and pointing. It appeared that mama was kicking the baby birds out, as they were on the branches around the nest. Then, one of them flew to the top of a nearby tree — convenient for a picture, as the top of the tree has lost it’s leaves. I wasn’t sure if this was a parent or baby.

Again it was quiet for a day or two and we thought they were gone. Don’t birds leave the nest and fly away? Apparently not…the Saturday morning that I went to see Cami, they were all lined up on a nearby branch. Aren’t they cute? Look at those new little downy feathers. We initially thought there were only two babies, but these three all look like young birds.

Tonight when we came home from MeMum and BigDaddy’s, these three were playing on the front lawn. They were springing straight up in the air and TheManoftheHouse says he saw something in one of the birds talons. We watched them for a minute and the neighbors came over. They’ve been watching them too — it appears that the hawks live in our yard and their dining room is in the neighbor’s tree. He said he frequently finds small bird carcasses at the base of his tree. While we were watching them on the ground, they got spooked and flew into a tree where I could get a little closer and take this picture of one of them. He (she?) looks older already.

TheManoftheHouse came inside and did a little internet research. He thinks they’re Cooper’s Hawks and this Cornell website is full of more info if you’re interested. According to the website, they leave the nest around 5 weeks and go out on their own around 8 weeks. According to that schedule, we might only have a week left with them. We’ve had great fun watching them. The downside is that our birdfeeders (and the neighbors) are pretty lonely this year. It will be very interesting to see if they return next year.

If you have some interesting flora and fauna where you live, I’d love to see it!

XOXO,
Anna

Goofy Bags

52 Comments / July 24, 2008 February 18, 2011 / How-To, Sewing

Last weekend, when I decided to make a pit-stop into Clementine’s, I knew the girls would be feeding me goodies and therefore I wanted to make a little treat for them. Because it was a last-minute decision, I decided to make them some little bags like the Cousin Bags that I made for my cousins last year. I didn’t have time to come up with a fun new idea, so I stuck with the same ol’ cousin formula.

And ever since I made those cousin bags, I’ll occasionally get questions about how I made them. Poor Sharon even got tired of waiting on me to come up with some instructions and she made her own cute version. (Which shows that you don’t need a pattern and these aren’t rocket science!)

So, while I was making these little bags, I took some pictures and wrote up a little tutorial. Only I didn’t know what to call them — they aren’t Cousin Bags anymore. I thought about calling them Square Bags, but that was kind of boring. Or maybe No-Name Bags. I finally decided to call them Goofy Bags and you can find the instructions on a How to Make Goofy Bags page.

Obviously, you can embellish the outside of these little bags any way that you would like. The little crochet bags I made for the quilty peeps when we went to Chicago were made in the same manner — they’re just embellished differently. And for you zipper-phobes out there, there’s nothing to putting these zippers in — they’re easy peasy.

Goofy Bags are nice for controlling the clutter in larger tote bags. I made them for the Cami Peeps to put knitting odds ‘n ends in their knitting bags. The Goofy Bags for the quilty peeps were made to hold crochet items that are needed to make little crocheted cards.Â And I have a Cousin Goofy Bag that I keep my ipod and cell phone cords in when I travel.

So. Now you can all go and act Goofy. And have a great weekend while you’re at it!

XOXO,
Anna

U-Haul Over-Haul

32 Comments / July 22, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Chat

Back to the weekend (hey, you have to forgive me…I’m doing my monthly stint in NJ, so there’s no crafting going on here — I’m working hard to catch up with all of you though!)… after I left Clementine’s, I caught up with TheManoftheHouse and TheSecondChild at exit 90 on I-65. (How on earth did we do that before cell phones???) They were pulling a trailer of TheSecondChild’s junk and this was my view riding down the freeway.

Now, come on. I’ve just been at Cami’s for 3 hours surrounded by fabric beauty and inspiration. That U-Haul trailer is uhhh-gly. The orange is ok, but, yuck. So, what’s a girl to do but dream a little? How ’bout some flowers?

Are you with me??? Better, no??? How ’bout these cute chocolate bunnies (can you see them?) in a brocade-like setting???

Fabric lovers of the world unite! It’s one way we can beautify our environment — a feast for weary traveler’s (that’s traveller’s for those of you in the UK LOL!) eyes. Wait! How ’bout some cupcakes???*

And speaking of cupcakes, there’s a new cupcake on the blogger block! The ~~fabulous~~ FABULOUS noblog Brigette has finally joined us and started up a blog. (A few of you have already found her via her comments.) Please join me in welcoming — Oh, gag me– we hear that line all the time when they’re making organizational announcements at work!

What I really mean to say is run over to Brigette’s and say HI! You won’t be sorry — she’s one very cool and FUNNY chick. I mean, really. Her blog name is My Mother-in-Law is a Troll. The title alone should send you scampering over there. She’s a quilter, an awesome cook, and she’s lucky enough to live in sunny California amid bounteous (is that a word? it’s too close to beauteous) farms and she’s currently practicing extreme canning. I think she needs a little cheering up tonight, so go leave her a comment!

Oh, and one last thing — Penny is having a cute giveaway, so go check that out too!

XOXO,
Anna

*No fabrics (or cupcakes) were harmed in the over-haul of the U-Haul. I did, however, purchase those fabrics at Clementine’s.