A little bag for Jack

Yeeeesss! Ive finished something in one sitting! I can't tell you how good that feels. I've been working on Jack's quilt and various knitting projects which are all fine and good until your soul cries out for something to actually be finished. Enter the extra long naps Jack has been taking lately (such a good boy) and something I've been meaning to try forever. I give you the fabric basket or bucket or bag or whatever you want to call it.


I used an old pair of pants for the outer and some super cool vintage fabric I scored at the senior center swap meet that I had no idea what to do with.

I didn't use a pattern and my math was a little off. Oof, should have paid better attention in high school geometry. But fabric can be forgiving and so I just fudged the edges a bit as I was pinning and it came out OK. All in all I'm pretty pleased. I think it'll be easier next time. Perhaps I'll bust out a couple more of these before I go back to that quilt.

Pickles!

I must admit. I never really "got" making your own pickles. Sure, regular store bought pickles are kind of ugly, but what do I really do with them beside chop them up to go in tuna salad or throw a couple on a burger. I'd see these lovely photos on other blogs of jars of beautifully vibrant pickles and think oh those are pretty, but is it really worth the effort? We took Jack to play on the Pilchuck river in Snohomish last week and on the way out had to stop at one of our favorite farm stands. We always buy more than we know what to do with, the abundance of fresh food is just intoxicating somehow, and we ended up with a bag of pickling cukes. I figured they would sit in the fridge for a week and I'd get sick of them staring at me and make a cream cheese sandwich out of them. Enter the glory of Pinterest and this link to Zaaberry. It looked too easy not to give it a shot.

Took all of about 5 minutes to whip up 2 jars (even with a fussy baby I had to randomly hand kitchen instruments to).

I'll never go back to store bought. These pickles are salty, crunchy, sour and beautiful. I followed the recipe exactly. The only thing I might change would be to try dividing the garlic into each jar instead of mixing it into the brine. It did tend to get stuck to the sides of the bowl as I poured it into the jars, and I ended up scooping it out with a spoon to make sure the garlicky goodness made it in. If you've been on the fence about making your own pickles just dive in and try it out. I'm thinking pickled cabbage next. Mmmmmmm.

Knit pants for fall.

I know, its sweltering hot in Seattle. By sweltering of course, I mean 80 degrees. It IS the PNW after all. So you may think I'm a little nuts to be knitting pants but my reasoning is 2 fold. First, I am using knitting as part of my post-op physical therapy regimen. It's actually doing wonders, in small doses of course, for my wrist/hand mobility and strength. Second, I wanted to get a jump on the knitting season. I always seem to find myself up to my ears in projects I wish I'd started over the summer. Not this year! This year I'm being proactive! I chose this pattern.

It only took about a week of evening in-front-of-the-tv type knitting. The pattern was so easy. My only complaint would be that not every step is spelled out completely. For instance, you'll end up casting off a couple of stitches in the crotch area before you divide to knit each leg. The pattern doesn't actually tell you to sew these stitches up during the finishing but its pretty self explanatory.

My consensus is that you must knit these for the baby in your life immediately. Super easy, super fun and as you can see super super adorable.