Today’s post has a Western feel. I’m pretty sure that prairie dog was waiting for a bus. These are from this morning while I was out and about in the mom taxi.
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coming next week!
This is the Cottage Thread Pal. It’s a bit similar in style to the Winter Thread Pal but I hope you will like it’s unique features. I designed this with A Place We Call Home from Country Cottage Needleworks in mind. The linen the pattern was originally stitched on has been discontinued so I went with my old favorite lambswool linen. I recommend 32 count, 28 count will fit but not leave as much of the pretty peach fabric showing around your stitching and of course the higher counts works as well.
These will be added to the webshop next week and I’ll let you know shortly when they will be at Hoffmans, hopefully next week as well. Feel free to email me about reserving one.
Wishing you a peaceful weekend and a Happy Father’s Day to dads everywhere.
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Rocky Mountain Wednesdays
After church and before running kids to various places Sunday afternoon, Jerry and I made a quick dash to the Estes Park Wool Market. It was a beautiful day and fun to just be alone together for a short bit before he was away for the week again.
I picked up two skeins of super soft alpaca yarn, a scarf and a hat are my thoughts at the moment, I think I should have got two of the camel colored skeins tho…..
Two pictures of the Stanley Hotel close out my post today.
Hope the rest of your week is sweet, we have wildfires here again, at the moment it’s quite hazy and smells smokey from the Big Meadows Fire at my house and Jerry is just outside of the evacuation zone of the Black Forest Fire. It must be summer!
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at the weekend
FIRST – let me say my computer monitor died and I felt like crying….I’m using something quite old and the colors are bad so I have no idea what these pictures REALLY look like, hopefully they are better than I think :0)
Tyler helped me come up with a way to make a feeder out this backyard torch pole. I couldn’t find a dish that fit so I ended up decorating a tuna can and gluing it to the bottom of a saucer that perches on top. Waiting to see how it holds up to traffic. While I was at it I made a little bird bath as well. No one has stopped by for a dip so far.
Jerry and I spent about an hour at the Estes Park Wool Market yesterday, just enough time to see the animals, pick up a bit of yarn, and enjoy some time together in the mountains before he headed off for his 6th week of out of town work. I’ll blog more about the wool and the mountains soon. We also had a family dinner last night with all the kids and the bonus of Amber’s boyfriend. I made PW’s Mocha Brownies for dessert – WOW! I will be making these again.
The clematis are getting ready to bloom, it’s like a jungle vine on the porch just now, there should be lots of flowers to enjoy. I’ll be dropping off Kellen for a week of Summer camp with the church youth group shortly. This should be a nice quiet week, in theory.
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PS -
Thought I’d introduce you to the rascal who likes to gorge himself on the feeder and then lounge on the porch rail (just to torment the cats) – I was knitting on the porch nearby as he did this yesterday.
a bit of baking
I’ve tested these two recipes a few times lately. They are both very good. We all have pink fingertips from not being patient enough to wait for things to cool first.
For both of these they work best when I put the hot water, sugar and yeast in the mixing bowl first, then add the flour and other ingredients and lightly mix with a wooden spoon before I put the mixing bowl in the mixer stand and then mix using the dough hook for the FULL 5 minutes. It really makes a difference in the texture I think.
For one batch of pretzels I skipped the soda water step and coated them with cinnamon and sugar after dipping them in butter after they were baked. We love them both ways. I think the boys would be happy if I made these daily.
The bread has a wonderful texture, I mixed one loaf with the leftover cinnamon and sugar mixture from my pretzel endeavors, that was very good too. These each only take about 1 hour to make from start to finish – perfect!
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Rocky Mountain Wednesdays
Moose! These are actually 2 different moose. I took these pictures on the far side (from home) of Rocky Mountain National Park in an area called Kawuneeche Valley you can see a webcam of the area here. You almost always see elk here and very often see moose.
Also, here is a rainbow I saw last night, just because it’s pretty.
Hope your week has been a good one so far.
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my favorite scarf too
I’ve been wanting to knit this for quite a while. I finally saved up enough pennies to get a skein of this super yummy yarn. I love the color changes and the pretty combinations of colors as you knit each row. This project is hard to put down.
I was knitting it while I had breakfast on the back deck this morning and you can see what a gorgeous morning it was.
Happy Monday!
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PS – the lilacs were a lovely surprise from Jerry who picked them on a country road for me.
PPS – I’m skipping the ‘dividing your skein into 2 equal parts’ bit in the pattern.
flower pots
Flowers have been planted and potted!
I know Jane’s not a flower but she’s just as sweet.
Happy Friday!
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Rocky Mountain Wednesdays
Trail Ridge Road is open, or it was. It was closed today because of new snow. I love to get up there when the snow is as deep as possible! It was a very nice drive which was part of a very nice day, and as you can see there was lots of snow. The poles you see are markers for the snow plow drivers.
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a basketful
A new addition to my little basket of pincushions.
This design from Beehive Needleworks is called Ruby Pemberton Sampler Pillow. I used one strand of DMC 154 over two threads of 40ct lambswool linen. In case you’re curious I’ve also shown a photo of the fabric I used for the back. I filled this with ground walnut shells.
This is the second Beehive design in my basket. The peacock is also by Beehive and I started the Red Swan Pin Pillow quite a while ago but I seem to have misplaced the pattern…*sigh*
You can see a list of all the designs in my basket here, and other (many of which I hope to stitch eventually) Beehive designs here.
My next stitch – Beehive Needleworks Zabeth Cottingill Sampler, for my wall.
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