Author: Marie Haigh

I started knitting 15 years ago right around the time of my marriage and the birth of my niece.

3 Months Later

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Has it really been that long since I’ve blogged?

I wish I could dazzle you with the pile of knitting I completed while AWOL but I can’t. It’s looking like this blanket is going to take me several years to complete.

I did complete several sewing projects in time for Christmas though. None of which I can show you since family members read this blog. Pictures and pattern reviews will have to wait until after Christmas.

Elly and I made ugly Christmas ornaments to deck the tree with from my stash of roving.

My attempt to wrap the felted balls with bits of hand-dyed wool failed miserably. The colorful wool just fell off in the dryer.

So ugly brown ornaments will be hanging on our tree for years to come. Woo.

High and (mostly) Dry

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We live 8 blocks uphill from the Manatawny River. Normally, I complain about the 8 blocks I have to bike uphill after visiting High Street, the main street through town. Yesterday, I had nothing but kind words for that hill.

Our basement took on a little water. I don’t know how much because it all went straight into the drains (the floor is sloped to aid the runoff).

My garden survived the high winds. No butternut squashes were lost unless you count the one that Dan accidentally mowed over the morning before the storm.

A few branches broke off the old oak tree, but that is a perk if you are talking to Jake. Oh how he loves to chew on sticks.

Though the river did not make it across the Manatawny Street into people’s houses, it did flood the Memorial Park.

Preserving Elly’s Baby Clothes

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Unable to toss the clothes I handmade for Elly and even unwilling to donate them to another baby, including any 2nd child we might have, I had stored them in a rubbermade tote. It had been my intention to save them for the day when Elly decided to become a mother herself.

There were a few flaws with my plan.
1. Elly may choose not to have children of her own
2. Elly may bear only boys and frown against putting them in the dresses
3. I feel an incredible need to use the items we store in our house. If items are not used for a certain period of time, I donate them. Storing clothes – no matter how precious – for 30 years on the chance they might be wanted by Elly for her children goes against my policy. Not only could Elly very well not want them, unused items irritate me and I would have to hit myself over the head repeatedly to not throw them out in 5 years.

So, when I stumbled over the pattern for Audrey’s Keepsake Quilt on Etsy, I was thrilled. Here was the answer to my dilemma. I would use Elly’s handmade baby clothes to make an heirloom quilt. The clothes that took me so long to make for Elly would be preserved in a useful item. The quilt could be used by Elly now and could later be passed down to her children, which was part of my original hope. There is even enough room to preserve some of the receiving blankets we wrapped Elly in when she was an infant.

I am so excited to start cutting up the squares. My thanks to Sandra Saunders of Lullaby Lucy for such a great idea.

Love for Google+

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Goodbye to Facebook. Hello Google+.

The main reason – Nay, the only reason – I am jumping ship is my love of sharing pictures. It’s true that Google+ has other perks, such as integrating with my gmail account. They’re nice features, but what sold me is the ability to link to all my photo albums to my account. It’s something Facebook does not offer. Not only does Facebook’s process for uploading pictures suck, Facebook won’t talk to Picasa, which is where I prefer to upload all my pictures to.

The first thing Google+ asked me when I joined was if I wanted to link my many Picasa albums to it. Heck yeah. Right now the only people who see all the pictures I take of Elly are my husband and my MIL. Occassionally I post a link in Facebook to one of the pictures. Several pictures of Elly are included in my blog posts, but Elly’s album has over 100 pictures.

Elizabeth, Age 1

It is impossible to post them all. Still I would love family and friends to have easy access to them. Finally, I can have my cake and eat it too.

If you are on Google+, please add me to your circle.

Kellogs Cereal

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Much to my surprise and delight, Kellogs sent me 2 of their new cereals to taste and to blog about. I was so sure they would pass over my small blog and opt for a blog that maintains a higher readership. Despite blogging for about 4 years now, I am still a small-timer. When I first started this blog, my goals were to become one of the top knitting blogs and to promote my knitting patterns. Much has changed. My priorities are different. Elly, of course, comes first now. The blog has taken a back seat. It is written strictly for pleasure now. After her birth, I had even entertained the idea of retiring the blog. I chose not to because I love to write about my hobbies and I love to brag about Elly.

Enough of my babbling about this blog, I’m sure you are dying to know what I thought of the cereals. Even if you could care less, I’m dying to tell you.

The first cereal Elly and I tried was FiberPlus Cinnamon Oat Crunch. My reaction was mixed. With milk, it tasted both good and bad. I loved the spice of the cinnamon and the crunchiness of the O’s. The one thing I didn’t like was the texture. It was too light and airy and it became soggy too fast.

Elly’s reaction was different. She prefers her cereal dry so she tried the Cinnamon Oat Crunch without any milk. She cleaned her entire tray of them. She even prefers them over Cheerios, which shocked me, since Cheerios were her first love.     As soon as my local grocery store Weis carries it, I’ll be buying Elly her own box. Thanks to the high fiber and antioxidants in it, I will gladly fill and refill her snack container.

On a side note, we have retired the snack traps. Elly refused to put her hand into the opening in the lid. Apparently, it’s much too inefficient. She preferred to yank the entire lid off and then dump the contents rendering them useless.

The 2nd cereal I tried was Kellogg’s FiberPlus Berry Yogurt Crunch. This cereal had a leg up in the taste test; I love dried fruit in my cereal. It didn’t disappoint. It had a great crunch and a melody of flavors from the yogurt covered blueberries, nuts,and sweetened flakes. Although I had no trouble devouring the entire box – so much so that I didn’t find time to take a picture-, I found the cereal a bit too sweet to eat on a daily basis. As an occassional treat, it’s perfect.

Elly turned her nose up at the Berry Yogurt Crunch cereal. She wouldn’t even try it. Ha! Kellogs shouldn’t be offended. Elly often turns her nose up at new foods, especially my homebaked breads. I hope she’ll learn to love my cooking and baking as she gets older, but I’m not holding my breath. Most kids would live off of chicken nuggets and french fries if allowed. Elly is no different.

Disclosure notice: As mentioned above, I have a material connection because I received a cash payment, gift or item of nominal value from a company affiliated with a brand, topic and/or product that is mentioned herein.

Blueberries and Cherries

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On Fridays, Elly and I visit the Pottstown Farmers Market. Two Fridays ago, there were blueberries and cherries for sell. I grabbed 2 pints of each.
My original plan of what to do with the fruit involved a blueberry pie and a bowlful of cherries on the dining room table to periodically nibble. The downside with my plan was that Elly wouldn’t be able to eat any cherries because I would be too worried about her choking on the pit.

While biking home, I came up with plan B: a blueberry and cherry pie. Pies are nothing more than fruit, sweetener and thickener. Yet, I still felt compelled to locate a recipe in order to get the proportions correct. I chose this recipe because it used equal amounts of sweet cherries and blueberries. After reading the reviews, I knew to cut drastically back on the sugar and cinnamon. I added only a little of each and then taste tested the fruit. The fruit was so flavorful and sweet that it didn’t take me long to find just the right balance.

My version of the blueberry and cherry pie:
2 ½ cups pitted sweet cherries
2 ½ cups blueberries
½ cup sugar
2 tbsp arrowroot or cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp butter
1 recipe pastry for a 9.5-inch pie

Cover pie shell with tinfoil. Weight tinfoil down with dry beans. Parbake pie shell in a 425 degree oven for 12 minutes. Remove tinfoil. Reduce oven temperature to 350 and bake for 12 more minutes or until shell is golden brown.
Mix fruit in a big bowl. Coat with sugar and cinnamon. Taste. Add more sugar if desired. Add arrowroot. Toss to combine.
Pour fruit into parbaked pie shell. Dot with butter.
Cook at 375 for approximately 45 minutes or until bubbly.

Killing the Hardiest Plants

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Spring this year was typical of this region: cool temperatures and spring rains. There was no reason to believe summer would be any different from previous summers: hot weather with thunderstorms rolling through every few days.
Well, the hot weather arrived in style. This week has been brutal with temperatures over 100F. Yet, the rains haven’t come. Nearby towns have gotten rain, but Pottstown has received no significant rainfall for almost 2 months. It shows. The grass is brown and brittle. Leaves are turning yellow on several trees and falling off far in advance of Fall.

The common privet hedgerow that my neighbor assured me was impossible to kill is dying.

This was the same hedgerow that I painstakingly removed all the dead branches, old growth and leggy shoots from when we first moved here. Despite all the hard work, I refuse to save it from this slow death by watering it. For if it dies, with joy I will cut it down and plant a row of Hollywood Juniper which will blend a bit better with the informal look of my garden elsewhere.

Goodbye Christmas Tree

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When we moved to this house 6 years ago, there were 18 trees on approximately 1/3 acre of land. Our neighbors  to the left of our house were partial to the 5 dogwoood trees. They told us stories about how the trees were often used as the back drop for their children’s prom pictures. Our neighbors to the right of our house were partial to the holly tree and the red berries it bore every winter.
The dogwoods and the holly are nice trees, but my 2 favorites were the huge pin oak

and the Colorado blue spruce.

The first 2 years we lived here I trimmed the spruce tree for the holidays. I loved how it almost shimmered after a snowfall.

A few days ago we had TreePro come by and remove it as it was slowly dying. I’m going to miss that old tree come winter.

For the record, despite removing 4 of the old trees for one reason or another, we have more trees than we started with thanks to my planting 5. Well, I actually planted 9, but only 5 took.

Perfect Intermittent Knitting Project

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The hexagon afghan is a perfect project to work on when occasions to knit are few and far between. With a quick row count, I know exactly where I am in the pattern. Should I forget what rows to count, I have the pattern written down in my pda (I have yet to embrace the smart phones or ipads. I’m also the same person who thought Dan was silly when he bought me a pda so many years ago. Some things never change).

It’s also the perfect project to knit when all such occasions to knit are in the car. Since the hexagons are being knit individually, the project always remains small and portable. No accessories are needed which means I have a better chance of packing everything necessary to knit with – just yarn and needles.

The best thing about this project is that it is fun to knit. The decreasing of stitches on almost every right side row, the swapping of yarn on every other row and the picking up stitches keeps me entertained.