If you live in the United States, today is Columbus Day where we all revel in the fact that a man got lost, ended up finding some land, and within a few years managed to kill the majority of people on the land through enslavement or disease. This is not a widely celebrated "holiday" in my house and I think it unfortunate how so many people know the cute little Nursery
rhyme about 1492 but they tend to forget about the people side of the equation. Well, maybe now a couple more people have thought about it. So, on to our regular programming...
I've been working in earnest on gifts for the upcoming season. First is the one that isn't a secret, the aforementioned Poncho. S requested a poncho with a western flavor that she can curl up in through our cold St. Louis winters. Since I have been obsessed with Barbara Walker's Mosaic Knitting book, it was only natural to go to it to find some pattern motifs. This is the first thing with any complexity that I am totally design on my own. I searched for a long time to find the right combinations of colors in a washable yarn and I finally settled on Plymouth Encore. I'm using two shades of brown, red, and white and I'm using a couple of different techniques to move through the colors. After knitting a gauge swatch, I got started and below is what I managed to finish over the last couple of days.
I gotta say, I am thrilled with how this is looking. I'm working with two strands of yarn held together and it's making a really nice, thick fabric. S is thrilled so far and at the rate its going, I should even be able to finish it on time. :)
I'm also working on another sweater for Darla. She gets so cold during the winter and I haven't quite gotten a sweater to fit her just right. However, I've learned a lot over the last 9 months and I have a good feeling about this one. I bought some wool from Web's and cast on about a week ago. Of course, now I've been obsessed with the Poncho so I haven't made any more progress than you see in the picture.
Another gift I've been working on is shown below...well, sort of. I made some good progress on this one during a work trip last week and I expect to make some more in carpool this week.
Another gift under way shown below. It's turning out cute and very soft.
Now, garden update. I've still got a bunch of watermelons on the vine. Saturday we finally went out and cut one off to see if it was ready to eat. As you can see below, it was a little under ripe but I still ate a piece just so I could say I have eaten a piece of my own homegrown watermelon. Next year, we must plant the plants earlier in the season.
I've also got a ton of green tomatoes on the vines out there so I decided to pick a bunch. I set them up on the window sill but I'm afraid they just wouldn't be likely to ripen very well.
So, what's a girl to do? Well, naturally...make Fried Green Tomatoes. I've never made them before and I've only ever eaten them once, but I was determined to do something with these darned tomatoes! So, I looked up a recipe on the net, sliced my tomatoes....
And viola, Fried Green Tomatoes. They actually turned out darn good. We had a couple of friends over for dinner (my how domestic of me) and we ate homemade chili, cornbread, and fried green tomatoes. Yummy!
Wow, boy did we show him. From what I heard, they are saying there were between 80-100K people, more than any previous rally, and I was one of them. From where I was standing, right at the south leg of the arch, just outside the security fencing, I couldn't see the stage directly but I could see the screen. Here's my view.
It wasn't the best view but it was a truly amazing experience! Mr. Obama says so much of what I've always wanted to hear from a leader in our government and for the first time I feel like I will be voting for something better than the "lesser of two evils." The coolest thing about the rally was the diversity of the crowd. On the walk up we saw Jaguars, BMWs, Chevys, big Ford trucks and everything else. Once we got to the Arch grounds, the people were not any different. There was just a little bit of everything in the crowd. For those of you not from St. Louis, this is NOT typical. While I like this city that I have grown up in, it is fairly racially segregated and it was nice to see an event like this cross those boundaries. Thank you Mr Obama for giving us hope and I hope this country gives you a chance to prove your words.
Just as a little blog fodder, I wanted to share this one last photo with you all. We have a flood wall along the Mississippi River and along this one part of it, the city allows graffiti artists to do their best. Well, some of these artists are really amazing and this particular piece really caught my fancy. The colors are really great!
