I turn my back for 5 minutes...

The latest sneaky produce from my garden.

Visiting

Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory (more fun than I expected)


Tour de B-cycle, Denver. 25 miles, 43 bike stations in one day.


Dushanbe Teahouse, or: why can we import more buildings from Tajikistan?


Historic Georgetown, CO. I just love that pup waiting for his owner.

Ceramics update

I've spent quite a lot of my free time this summer working on some things in the ceramics studio. This is my first time throwing pottery on the wheel in 11 years, and my first time back in the studio since 2004. I'm still perfecting my skills, so not everything comes out exactly as I want, but I have been rapidly improving. Here's a peek at some of the more successful items so far:

Baby things

I met my lil' nephew last month and brought a few handmade gifts: Sheldon the turtle (renamed Mervin by my sister), a bright blue baby placket neck pullover, and a small blanket.

Summer kitchen

Well, hello there!

I've been enjoying my summer so much that I've neglected the blog for two months! To be honest, I'm not knitting or sewing much lately. It might be time to reinvent this space a little, though I haven't quite figured that out yet.

I've been completely buried in vegetables lately--from my own garden, and from the farm CSA. It's great, and overwhelming. Here are a few things I happened to photograph:


Homemade pizza on my new pizza peel. This peel is great--I had been using my largest cutting board, which was not nearly large enough. This is a fresh, organic spinach pizza.



Tahini smashed english peas. Soooo good, I wish I was eating this right now.



Almond cake with strawberry rhubarb compote, via Smitten Kitchen. This was really tasty, though I preferred the cake without the compote. The compote was wonderful with plain yogurt.



Spinach and zucchini lasagne, back when the farm sent me two gargantuan bunches of spinach, and I was not yet at war with my over-productive zucchini plants.



This was either round two or three of zucchini bread fest 2010. There's much much more to come! I think I used this recipe, and it was good.



My first zucchini plant attack involved plucking some of the male flowers to make these great homemade zucchini blossom quesadillas. I used yogurt instead of crema, and threw in some green onion. Quite nice!

Ceramics!

I started a ceramics class several weeks ago. It's a great class with plenty of open studio hours. I try to stop by 3-4 times a week--if only for an hour. Those of you who have worked with clay know that it takes a lot of time and attention. This is my first time back at the pottery wheel in 11 years--I have done several campaigns of handbuilding since then, however. I'm still regaining my skills, and am very much at the small-bowl-stage, but hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be able to branch out a bit more.

The pots above have been bisque fired and are ready to be glazed. That's the step that always makes me a bit nervous--glazing is as much of an art as making the pot itself, and it can really make or break a piece. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I like most of them in the end!

Meet Sheldon

My first knitting in months--I finished him over the weekend and my wrists did not appreciate the quick pace of the project. If you haven't met Sheldon, he's a free pattern from knitty.com. He wears his shell like a little sweater vest, and it comes off. I almost think he's cuter without it, just this little green blob.