Yarn and Rhubarb

It was a rather blah looking, too hot, too humid day so I scraped my plans for a second day of hiking with the wee one and we cooked and relaxed instead. This gave me some time to put in some serious mileage on several long outstanding needlecraft projects, ironically they were all winter or cold-weather projects.

First, I got as far as I am going to until it gets cooler on a pair of fleece pants and matching jumper dress for K. The elastic is in the the waistband but I'll hold of on sewing it until the fall so that I can size it properly; no need to sew it in now and then rip it out and fix it later if she grew over the summer. The dress is also on hold needing only bias tape in the armholes and potentially a button up the back to get it over her big head, again if she keeps growing. Next, I got one step away from finished sewing new liners for some of my lined baskets...with X-mas prints on the accent band. Yeah, I know, but now I'm ahead of the game for next year. These are to replace the current fall liners that they came with. If I start now I should be able to finish spring themed ones in time for 2010. I'm also trying to pickup cross stitching again, but I only have the yarns that came with my little how to book so I'm pretty limited in what I can make right now. I'm hoping to add some detail to K's cloths and also lettering on the basket liners.

Then I got in a few more rows of my crochet sampler stitch scarf in a variegated 'fiesta jewel' Red Heart yarn, that is turning out to be much better than I anticipated. I think that I might actually want to keep this one for me instead of donating it to the K dress up bin. That's pretty good considering that I only taught myself crochet a few weeks ago and this is my first crochet project. Last, but not least, I finally knit over the one third mark on Mom's X-mas scarf. I turned on Batman Begins and just dug in while K was napping and got another 6 inches which pushed me up over 1/3 of my intended final length. This is a nice washable wool in a deep heather blue with creamy white stripes at the tip. If I can figure out how, I'm also still considering adding pockets on the end but that depends on if I can get this done before next X-mas.

This evening K was a great helper in the kitchen. She rolled out her own pizza dough and picked the orange cheese while I formed the rest and topped them with feta, zucchini and pizza sauce with sweet peppers and onions. She washed strawberries while I cut the rhubarb. She mixed dry ingredients for muffins while I mixed them for cobbler biscuits. She dumped flour on the floor and all over her front while I chopped the strawberries and mixed them with the rhubarb and sugar. She cleaned up while I melted butter and poured the wet stuff for the muffins. She stirred the wet stuff while I mixed and kneaded the biscuit dough. She put muffin papers in the tin while I mixed up rhubarb into the batter and she held the tray as I spooned it in. She generously piled the tops with the cinnamon sugar and I put them in the oven. As I cut the biscuits and assembled the strawberry-rhubarb cobbler, she washed up and took her pizza to the table. She refused to eat said pizza but was nice about it and asked for a muffin instead. We both enjoyed the muffins, though she ate mostly just the tops, and are looking forward to cobbler with ice cream for dessert.