Happy Holidays!

Blondies Knits: Cowls Are The New Scarves

This was an experiment.  And it turned out awesome.  I see more cowls in my knitting future.

Blondie's Knits: Experiments

It seems like I'm on a new experimenting roll.  First I finally stitched together (ableit roughly) the pieces for the bag and hand embroidered a little heart.  Then I worked on my first cable knit hat!

What did I learn?  Cableing a hat sure shrinks the width of it!

Blondie's Knits: Fall Hats

We have not posted many crafting projects recently because well, we've just been plain busy.  With all the travel we've been doing I have managed to squeak in two new knit hats.  The one on the left is 100% soft and wonderful cotton and the one on the left is a sea cell and merino blend.

Viadoom

The big story here in Seattle is that the Viaduct, part of Highway 99, is closed for the next two weeks which will likely cause major traffic jams throughout the area.  They're tearing down the southern half of the viaduct and gave the public an opportunity to take one last walk on it this morning.

We will miss the Viaduct when it's gone, it's a beautiful drive and a super easy way for us to get around.

It was quite a trip walking around up there with no cars.  A fun opportunity for sure.

One of the neatest parts was that they were giving away pieces of the Viaduct!  They were actually starting to demo it while we were there and watched a tractor dump a fresh load of debris for the crowd to pick over.  We came away with a 10+ foot piece of rebar and a small block of concrete.

Year 1

Happy First Wedding Anniversary to Us!

And End of Summer Harvest

I'm sure we've got at least another two good harvests yet to come, but this was certainly our biggest to date!

Jasper, Banff, Kootenay, & Glacier

Athabasca River in Jasper National Park

Lake Louise from the Plain of Six Glaciers in Banff National Park

Near the Paint Pots in Kootenay National Park

Grinnel Glacier Overlook in Glacier National Park

Sushi at Home

Our treat to ourselves on the first Sunday home from our camping trip.  Made possible by fresh ikura and salmon from Loki Fish at the Ballard Farmers Market.  Also, no sushi meal is complete without green tea.

August Garden Update

Our garden is really coming along.  We've picked two massive cucumbers, some blueberries, mint, and chamomile.  Our chives are also constantly being used! Everything is growing so well.

We've also added lingonberries and "Pink Lemonade" blueberries to the mix!

Project: Plant Bench

Our plants were starting to take over all our chairs on our back porch.  So Zeke built a wonderful bench for them! I'm hoping eventually he'll make another one for sitting!

Kitchen Cafe Curtains

Since we're not planning to move anytime soon, we've started to make little improvements to the house here and there.  Replacing the old (and broken) mini-blinds with cafe curtains was our first step.

We bought a nice warm wood colored curtain rod and some cotton fabric from our favorite fabric store. Admittedly, this project took us two attempts.  The cutting board we have wasn't big enough to easily measure the fabric and we had to do all the cutting on the floor (not the easiest place to measure things well).

We followed some basic instructions on making the 3 different kinds of edges you need for a curtain of this type and learned that ironing folds before sewing them makes such a difference!

Next up, curtains for our big living room window.

From Our Garden

Our Wedding Is In A Magazine!

Screen Capture from Eco-Beautiful Weddings

Our wonderful and awesome photographer Claire submitted our wedding to Eco-Beautiful Weddings, an online & print magazine specializing in green and DIY type weddings!

Check out the Summer 2011 Edition here, we're on page 86-88!

And yes, we know there is a little typo in there...

Our Garden At 1+ Month

Even with not the warmest temperatures ever our garden is trucking along!  We've also added some new plants;

• Artichoke
• English Lavender
• Carving Pumpkin
• Pansies
• BBQ Rosemary
• Sun Sugar Tomatoes
• Jalapeno

Our romaine was being nibbled away by some kind of creature, so we put up a cage around that planter. The arugula, dill, tomato, and tea plants are growing like weeds. And we're getting swiss chard sprouts from the seeds we planted!

Slow Cooker Sundays: Apple Butter

14 small to medium apples (we used a random assortment of pink lady, fuji, gala, and granny smiths)

2 tbsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup dark brown sugar (use more if you like it sweeter, most recipes seem to call for at least 2 cups)
2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ground cloves

Peel and core the apples.  We used this handy tool because it also slices the apples up into smaller chunks.
Place the apple slices/chunks into the slow cooker and add the 2 tbsp of vanilla.
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.
Mash the apples with a potato masher and stir in sugar, cinnamon, and ground cloves.
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.
Let the mixture cool and then use an immersion blender to smooth out the remaining apple chunks.

Toasts, Excellent Toasts

I don't think we need a lot of description here to describe the toasts at our wedding.  Just looking at everyone's faces gives the perfect description.

If you're wondering what that pink substance is in everyones glasses, we toasted with pomegranate cider!

Wedding Slideshow & Restarting the Wedding Photo Posts

I just watched our wedding slideshow again and realized that we never posted the link here, so there you go. Posted.

I also just realized that I sort of stopped posting about our wedding since we got back from our New Zealand Honeymoon.  Since I already posted about our ceremony, the big group picture, and our scrumptious dinner it looks like the next post up should be about the toasts! And then we can get into the crazy awesome dancing pictures!

So stay tuned for the rest of the wedding posts!

And after that I'll have to finally start working on the slideshow/film that I've been promising everyone from our New Zealand trip.  But first I have to sort the 1,600 photos down to a manageable couple of hundred.

Birthday Banner

We celebrated Zeke's birthday yesterday and I made another banner out of the burlap & jute bunting that we originally made for the wedding. I followed pretty much the same instructions as I did for the holiday banner except I used navy blue cotton fabric with cream colored thread.

Since we still have a lot of bunting left to use, perhaps I'll put some time in to actually making a tutorial one of these days...

Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

We used these instructions from Apartment Therapy to dye eggs naturally! And the results were pretty great for a first try!

Step 1: Hard boil eggs and set aside to cool.

Step 2: Roughly chop up purple cabbage and place in a large pot with enough water to cover the cabbage and to completely cover the number of eggs you plan to dye. Bring to a boil and cover and simmer for about 30 minutes. Set outside to cool to room temperature.

Step 3: When the pot and contents have cooled, strain contents into a flat bottomed pot or jar large enough to submerge the eggs in.  Add about 1/2 cup vinegar (all we had was Apple Cider Vinegar) and stir to combine.

Step 4: Place the eggs in the mixture and place in refrigerator.  We let ours sit overnight.

A couple observations to consider for next time...
- The un-dyed spots you see on the eggs were the sides siting on the bottom of the pan.
- I picked the eggs up out of the dye matter with tongs and it appears to have scraped the dye off!  So next time I'll be more gentle!
- Apartment Therapy suggests rubbing the outsides with a bit of olive oil and I bet that would be a good idea too!

Our 2011 Spring Garden

We've started off the spring with a tea plant, romaine lettuce, chives, dill, thyme, sage, chamomile, mint, rhubarb, blueberries, arugula, and tarragon!

More Spring Blooms

We've got tulips spouting everywhere!  These beautiful pink ones are blooming in our front yard.

And brilliant red ones in the back.

Fiordland National Park

I think Fiordland National Park on the South Island of New Zealand is the most beautiful place that I've ever been to.  It's hard to imagine some place more amazing then this.  I hope some day we are able to go back and spend more time here.

We took a cruise on Milford Sound.

And drove along the gorgeous Milford Highway.

We even spotted a Kea bird begging for treats along the roadside.

We kayaked Doubtful Sound and lived to tell the tales of the horrendous sand flies!

And we even spotted a Fiordland Crested Penguin!