Yummy tomatoes

   Yummy tomatoes are ready to eat, I don't think I'll have a glut this year like most other years. I planted my tomatoes in smaller pots this year, too small really but I needed the big pots for my tobacco plants. Plus with the wind killing a couple and damaging a few more plants my crop this year should be manageable.
  The weathers picking up, suns out and its looking to get much warmer for the next few days. I could do with some rain though, one of my water barrels is already empty and my plants get thirsty in this weather. Still, its a good excuse to fire up the grill for some burgers and tomatoes. My lettuce has bolted but I might be able to pick a leaf or two and the salad onions are ready too.
  No yarn plans for this weekend really, going to play it by ear. I'm thinking of knitting a washcloth again to ease myself back into knitting and that grey yarn I attempted to knit the phone sock with will work nicely for that. No idea on what sort of pattern but will keep it as simple as possible for the time being.

  Hope you all have a great weekend, take care folks.

Red toms.

  There are at least 3 red tomatoes on my plants, I haven't picked them just yet. I'll give them at least another day to fully ripen even though I'm eager to eat them right away. Got to have a little patience when gardening.

  I'm still not back to working with any yarn stuff but will have a 10 min go at some spinning later and see how that goes. Hopefully it will get me back in the mood for knitting or weaving. I might get the drum carder out at the weekend and card some fleece, I always enjoy carding as its very relaxing.

  Hope you all have a great day, take care folks.

Slow going

   I know a lot of knitters who only knit during the winter months. I tend to knit all year round but at the moment I'm having a quiet spell where I can't seem to get into any knitting or other yarn projects. I've had short spells before where I've not knitted anything and am hoping this spell will not last long. I'll keep at it until the spells broken but blogging might be lighter than usual.

  My tomatoes are not ready yet but are very close, I'm itching to try one and can barely wait. I love picking my first crops, a wonderful sense of achievement.

  Hope you all have a great day, take care folks.

Orange toms.

   Didn't get much done over the weekend, read some books on weaving and watched a couple of videos on hem stitching. I'm not 100% sure I get how the hem stitch works once the piece is off the loom without a fringe. I'm kind of worried because my last clothespin peg bag started to come apart in places, I think that's holding me back from finishing this piece.

  I've been chopping up my tobacco leaves and I had a smoke of them too, they were difficult to keep alight but tasted fine and weren't harsh at all as I was sort of expecting. I need to chop the leaves up finer, might be a job for the food blender.

  A couple of my tomatoes are starting to change colour, none are fully red yet but in a day or three I should get a few red ones. I was worried about them ripening because the weathers been kind of funny this year but the sun is back out and its sort of warmer so all should go well.

  Hope you all had a good weekend, have a great day and take care folks.

Finally dry

   The kitchen is finally dry apart from a spot ot two like under the washing machine but that should dry up when I move it back into place, I'll be able to move much easier around the kitchen then. The plumbing still isn't 100% leak proof but I think this is as good as its going to get, its nothing major and I'll keep an eye on things to make sure they don't get worse.

  Harvested a couple more tobacco leaves and have started cutting up the ones that have dried and changed colour. I've not smoked any yet, the stuff doesn't smell like tobacco at all, more a green smell like normal leaves would smell. For next year I might look into fermenting the leaves on a small scale or drying them differently like the regular farmers do.

  This weekend I'm going to work mainly on the clothespin peg bag and see if I can finally get it finished, it was meant to be a birthday gift back in June so I should get a move on before next June swings around.

  Hope you all have a great weekend, take care folks.

Still drying

  Things are drying up nicely here now, I still have more towels to wash and dry though and the weathers not co operating. I think it will all be sorted in the next 24 hours. Fingers crossed for no more plumbing problems.

  I've not started knitting the phone sock yet. I'm not too sure on how to change the border, add a rib or change the design and do moss/seed stitch. I think if I go with moss/seed stitch I'd have to knit the back in moss/seed stitch as well so I might just add a rib, or I could just do reverse stocking stitch. I'll make my mind up today and get on with it.

  Hope you all have a great day, take care folks.

Flooded kitchen

   A bit of a disaster in the kitchen yesterday, a pipe blew off while the plumber was finishing up and flooded the kitchen. I've borrowed a de humidifier and am using the cooker for heat to help dry everything out. Not a happy day all in all.

  I made a start on knitting my phone sock in a grey sock yarn but forgot to adjust the pattern for the thinner yarn or change my needle size up so its too small, a silly mistake. I've only done two rows so its not so bad, I'll frog it and extend the border pattern a couple of stitches.

  Not much else to blog about today, I'm off to wash and dry towels. Hope you all have a great day, take care folks.

Raining.

   Its been a very wet weekend and reading the weather folks today they're saying it could rain for the next 30 days and maybe longer. It looks like St. Swithin might be right this year. I've managed to refill all my rain barrels and then some, I could really do with more storage capacity but the bigger barrels are pretty expensive.

  I made a start knitting the crossed arrow cable phone sock in a grey cotton but after about 10 rows I've decided to frog it. I'm not happy with the cotton, its kind of fluffy and I think its a dish cloth cotton. I'll have to go through my stash and see what other yarns I have, I know I don't have any suitable cottons in a nice plain colours so might have to go with a sock yarn. I have a grey sock yarn and also a nice dark forest green sock yarn I could use as well. I want a plain colour that is easy to wash.

  I didn't get any weaving done, I'll try and get the clothespin peg bag finished this week. Try. I also want to have a go at back strap weaving and finger weaving. I think the finger weaving/braiding will help me produce some nicer fringes. I really struggle to make nice ends on my inkle pieces, my hemming needs more work too.

  Hope you all had a great weekend, have a great day and take care folks.

Weekend plans

   I'm going to try and have a productive weekend and make a start on my crossed arrow cable phone sock and finish the bottom front part of the clothespin peg bag I'm weaving. Then I can make a start on weaving the top front part of the clothespin peg bag which is only a couple of inches long so shouldn't take long, then I can sew it all together.

  I bought a pdf version of Andean pebble weaving by  Laverne Waddington, its a little advanced for me at the moment as I've not tried backstrap weaving yet but would like to make a simple start on that this weekend as well. Nothing fancy but seeing as I can use the inkle loom for patterns I will just do a simple pattern to make a backstrap for my backstrap weaving.

  Its raining lots at the moment so I need to collect water to refill my barrels. I have one connector from the downspout to one barrel but I have to fill the rest from there by hand. I could do with a better system but its all I have for now so I needs to go get wet, several times. Empty the one barrel into another then wait for the downspout barrel to refill and repeat. Darn plumbers not due back until Tuesday, he let me down again yesterday.

  Hope you all have a great weekend, take care folks.

Tobacco leaves.

   I harvested some tobacco leaves last week and had them hung up in the dark in the spare front bedroom and thought they had gotten a black mold on then so I took them down today to wash in  weak white vinegar solution. They weren't moldy it was just the poor light and the way there changing colour. I still washed them and rinsed them off in clean water and now have them hanging on the washing line to dry. I also picked another leaf and have that hung up to. I'll bring them in later and hang them up in the back bedroom but I think the first leaves are pretty much done. I'm not 100% sure what to do once its dried, whether it really does need fermenting or as some folks say just smoke it. 

  I've decided the go with the crossed arrow cable design for my phone sock, still not too sure about the back but might go with moss/seed stitch. I had to download the pattern again, I do have the pattern written down because I've knitted the crossed arrow cable twice before but I couldn't work it out, I guess I'll have to write more clear instructions next time.

  Hope you all have  great day, take care folks.

Slow post

   Late and short post today as I've nothing to blog about really. I still can't make my mind up about how to knit my phone sock, at the moment I'm leaning towards a crossed arrow cable with a plain back or slip stitch back. If I do the back in slip stitch I'm not sure whether to do it in one colour or mix it up a little. Still not figured out how I'd do some lace work around the speaker yet though.

  That's it for today, I've not done anything else yarn wise in the last two days. I really need to get back to weaving the clothespin peg bag, I hate putting work aside then not being able to get back into it.

  Hope you all have a great day, take care folks.

Woven keyfob done.

   I finished weaving and sewing together the key fob I wanted to make for my sisters birthday, it took two days to weave because the tension bar on my inkle loom kept coming loose so I had to glue it and wait for it to dry fully. I glued the screw not the bar, so it still moves.

   That's all I managed to do this weekend. I did play with some braiding so I can make better fringes, I need to do a lot of practising there. I also thought about the phone sock I want to knit. I want to make the phone sock pretty thin so it fits my back pocket easily and I also don't want it to muffle the phone either so was thinking about some lace knitting around the speaker. I think slip stitch colour work would still make a thin cover, I've no idea how to incorporate the lace work into it though. I don't want all over lace for the front, just around the speaker part so the cover keeps the dust and what not out of the keys and off the screen. Any ideas are welcome.

  Hope you all had a great weekend, have a great day and take care folks.  

Weaving weekend.

   I'm going to warp the inkle loom in a little while and weave a key ring for my sister. I'll do a couple of book marks as well in the same pattern so as not to waste yarn. I figure I should be able to get that done today then I can get back to weaving the clothespin peg bag and make a start on my knitting.

  I was thinking of knitting a honeycomb cable pattern for my phone sock, figure it will give the phone loads of protection but might make it a little thick so maybe I should stick to a slip stitch colour pattern. The slip stitch colour work makes a thicker fabric so will give some protection to the phone.

  I still haven't looked for a washcloth pattern yet, its just for me so don't need anything fancy, just want to get back into the habit of knitting again. Saying that though I'll probably end up knitting the phone sock first.

  Hope you all have a great weekend, take care folks.

Still with a leak.

   Well the plumbers just left, he's fixed two leaks around the stop tap but the other leak behind the board is still leaking. I had thought it was just a loose elbow joint from all the knocks the pipes have taken in the last few weeks but its leaking higher up. No idea where abouts, I'm going to start ripping the board off in a little while so I can get a better look. I'm really hoping this doesn't turn into a big job and half the kitchen needs riping out. Of course this means I'm still without running water, again.

   Ok, just took the board off above the worktop and it doesn't appear to be leaking from there so I guess its leaking somewhere just under the worktop. Its probably just a joint that needs re soldering, I hope its that simple. I f^%king hate plumbing!!!

  Hope you all have a great day, take care folks.

Back to normal.

   Not much to blog about today, I finished off weaving the red and black nylon band on the inkle loom so that I can weave my sister a key ring. I'd probably be better having a go at back strap weaving for a piece so small but have never tried that before so I will stick to the inkle loom and make a book mark or two as well. This could change as soon as I get up out of this chair and I do try back strap weaving. I'll let you know tomorrow. I do have a rough idea of the design, black boarder with a black and white check pattern.

   Still not knitted anything but I did get a new mobile/cell phone so will need to knit a sock for it, haven't really thought about it yet so have no idea on the design. I also need to look for some wash cloth patterns and make a start on that. I think by the weekend I'll be back to my normal self yarn wise.

  Hope you all have a great day, take care folks.

Still got water problems.

   The plumbers due back on Friday, hopefully for the last time. The leak behind the board is worse than I first thought so I've switched the water off, I can switch it on when I need water so I'm not living without running water this time but I'm mainly living out of buckets, jugs and bottles again.
  The mini heatwave we were having has ended, getting much needed rain. All my plants are doing well apart from the potatoes which I have written off. The slugs and snails mainly did them in but I've also been a little stingy with the water on the potatoes as I really needed it for myself the last couple of weeks. I didn't need too really but I didn't know that at the time. Better safe than sorry.

  I've still not done anything yarn wise, not sure why not. I've decided to force myself with some simple knitting and will knit a face cloth. I really need to finish the clothespin peg bag as well. Also need to do a little something for my sisters Birthday but time is very short for that.

  Hope you all have a great day, take care folks.

Still leaking, somewhere.

  The dogs not had any more fits in over 60 hours now so its looking good that they have passed and the increased meds are working. I even managed to sleep in my own bed last night, I really needed that.

  I need to get the plumber back out to check the pipes, I think there is a leak further along past the stop tap. I can't get at it at the moment as its behind the washing machine and boarded up but I think I can here drips coming from that area and the carpets wet around the washing machine. The nuts on the stop tap need tightening or sealing better as there dripping as well.

   I didn't get anything done yarn wise over the weekend but promise to finish the clothespin peg bag this week, I also need to make a little something for my sisters birthday. I think I'll make her a bookmark or a key ring.

  Hope you all had a good weekend, have a great day and take care folks. Happy independence day to my American friends.

Yay, running water.

   Well the plumber did turn up and managed to fix everything, up to a point. Theres a small leak on the stop tap but I think that will stop once the taps bedded in. The plumber also forgot to re attach the earth cable which I did as soon as I saw it. Don't want the house to burn down. Its really nice to have running water again and now that I have I realise the stress it has been causing me the last week or so. Glad that's over with.

   The dogs had a couple more fits, last one was at 10.30 pm so I'm hoping that was the last. I slept pretty well on the couch last night and will spend another night there, then back to my own bed if he has no more fits.

  This whole week I've hardly touched anything yarn wise, just too much going on. I'll correct that this weekend though. Today I have to bottle up some beer but will try and fit some weaving and spinning in.

  Hope you all have a great weekend, take care folks.

Waiting for the plumber.

  The dogs been having fits again the last couple of days, don't think I've slept more than 2 hours straight through in the last 48hrs. I'm absolutely exhausted. The vets increased his meds dose and his blood work has come back fine so its just a matter of time now for the increased dose to kick in, fingers crossed.

  I'm waiting in for the plumber this afternoon, the guy is useless and keeps letting me down so I'm not sure if he will turn up or not. I'm more than a little annoyed.

  Not much in the mood for blogging this week, its nearly over though. I'll keep you all informed with the plumbing and the dog.

Have a great day and take care folks.