...6.17...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...I've started my version of the Jayne Cobb hat...using somewhat muted colours with a single fingering weight strand of a tannish-gold mixed in...on size 10.5 (6.5 mm)...

...I know I rambled on quite a bit about the different pattern options...in the end... I cast on 45 stitches using the German cast on and then knit back across those stitches the first row in knit one purl one ribbing because the section over the ear flaps is longer than the section over the forehead so I either needed to do some sort of short rows there or not join immediately in the round, but work back-and-forth for a couple of rows in one by one ribbing and increase at the end of each of those rows when I completed the second row, I increased one and the end still using the German cast on with the tail I had left I cast on 12 more stitches for the forehead and joined to the other side then completed that row in the round and one by one ribbing and as I came back around to complete that row, there is only one row of one by one ribbing over the forehead area then I switched to stockinette stitch and knit eight more rows

...and then switched to a bright yellow gold (saffron) colour...and still mingled in the tannish-gold thread to mute the brightness a bit...

...this is the area over the forehead...

...with the increases on the side and just one row of ribbing...I've slipped it on my head and it fits and has that sort of 'curved' look of the original over the forehead...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!

...6.15...Over the Weekend...

...getting an early start on the weekly shopping...I need to go into town and pick up some photos that I ordered for my girlies and so I'm going to a couple of grocery stores that I don't usually visit...so I wrapped up the last piece of banana bread...grabbed a big mug of water and headed out...

...back home with the loot...

...and a huge score on the cereal front...again the pumpkin spice variety was $1.50...and the plain were $2.50...so way less than half price...

...otherwise a pretty regular shop...but the 'posh' grocery store actually had the organic unsweetend Silk...I still won't be shopping there regularly though...

...gave the peppers and tomatoes a dunk in some baking soda water to remove any pesticide residue...

...and slice up the perfectly ripe canteloupe...

...I used up last weeks leftover bananas to make a new banana bread for this week...

...and I stopped by the neighborhood vegetable stand and got some fresh corn...our first of the season...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...6.12...Friday Update...

...guess what happened this morning...Blogger let me upload multiple photos...YAY...the Asiatic lilies have bloomed...and they look like fireworks splaying out on their long stems around the echinacea...

...they're really stunning...

...this clump of white yarrow is going strong...

...the star jasmine continues to bloom...it's blooming season lasts about 8 to 12 weeks...

...and the orange striped lily bloomed...it's later than the others for some reason...I love it's symmetry...with three yellow petals and three orange striped ones...

...the white echinacea is blooming too...

...the very first blooms on the hibiscus...

...and in the garden the rattlesnake beans are blooming...

~Have a lovely day!

...6.11...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...

...mangoes have been really cheap lately...69¢ each...which seems pretty reasonable...

...and one of my favorite way to eat them is just chopped up with some oats...I know it doesn't really sound like it would be that good...but it's delicious...

...what delicious food have you been eating lately?...

~Have a lovely day!

...6.10...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...the first athletic sock is finished...I went with the turned down cuff...but I'm still not sure about it...so I may take it out and just do a single cuff...I'll definitely decide before I finish the second sock...

...which will have to wait for a bit...because Our Airman has asked me to make a Jayne Cobb hat...it's from a series that I have neither watched nor even heard of...Firefly...it's an early 2000's space western...a genre that I didn't even know existed...

...and since it's not that often that a grown up son asks his Mom to knit something for him...of course I'm going to get started on it right away...

...so first of all I looked at lots of patterns for the Jayne Cobb hat, and noticed a lot of dissimilarities between the photos that I’ve seen of the actual hat being worn by Jayne Cobb, which are sometimes dark and fuzzy, but I zoomed in on some of the images and counted the stitches...

...and then I went in search of some actual images of the hat...these screenshots are from a video where the actor is singing wearing the hat...and they're a little bit clearer than the screenshots I've got from the actual show...

...the first thing that I noticed was that the colors in most of the patterns are too bright...the colours in the actual film are somewhat muted and the orange section looks like it has flecks of gold in it so I'm going to try to replicate that by adding a strand of fingering weight gold to the bulky orange yarn...and then almost everyone chooses some sort of red for the ear flaps and they look to me more like they are a brownish burgundy, so I want to use the leftover yarn from the unraveled scarf that I made the small burgundy pillow for the sofa out of several months ago as it seems like the perfect colour...

...and then there's the anomaly of the number of rows over the ears...not matching the number of rows over the forehead...so maybe some short rows to accomplish that...most patterns just have a same height band of orange...

...in the end none of the patterns suited me either… the top of the hat looks like it was just knit in a tube and then gathered at the top and secured with no shaping decreases like in a modern toboggan sort of hat...and the gathering area with all those stitches is just hidden with a pom-pom and the ear flaps are not rounded, but it looks like there’s just the natural curl of the stockinette stitch inward and then on the ends, there’s a few decreases which makes the rather pointed ends curl outward...they also may have used some sort of 'stiffener' to create that effect for this 'movie prop'...I think the effect they were going for was that Jayne's Mom was a sort of novice knitter and had knit him this rather odd looking creation out of great love...

...more to come...obvi...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!

...6.8...Over the Weekend...

...we did the weekly shopping...nothing of note...

...but I was thrilled to find the soy milk in stock again...

...and for my pop treat this week...I chose the cola version...I'm really not much of a 'coke' drinker...I'm much more likely to choose a fruit flavor or Dr. Pepper...but it was a nice change...

...since it's the first weekend of the month...we did all of the little monthly 'chores'...and put the conditioner on the butcher block...

...and we made a makeshift outdoor clothesline to dry the sheets and towels outside for a nice fresh change...

...we harvested our very first zucchini from our little garden...

...and we're still getting a good handful of delicious sweet plump blueberries every day...

...and I was so happy to see on my bike ride that the neighborhood gardener had his veggie stall open for business again this year...

...so I hopped off my bike and grabbed some veggies for $1 per pound...

...we got some squash...and new potatoes and an onion...

...and we promptly fried those up for dinner...

~wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...6.6...Dinner and a Movie...

...we had leftover lentils for dinner...and I made some green onion filled flatbreads to go with it...

...I've made these a couple of times before...

...and we had a nice big salad...with homemade creamy italian dressing...

...and fresh mango for dessert...

...and the movie was Murder by Death...it's a spoof of the murder mysteries we're always watching...haha...basically a group of famous detectives are invited to "Dinner and a Murder"...funny...I know...it was a pretty silly movie with lots of twists and masks...

...what have you been watching lately?...

~Have a lovely day!