a day in the sun

We ate cheese, walked by the river, had a little pick-er-nick and did some knitting (me) MIT OpenCourseWare (him), bought some more cheese, and walked home. What a glorious day!

Adventures in CSA-ing: Episode 1

Today we collected our first batch of fruit and veg from our local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). I even volunteered at the stand! And contrary to expectations, it wasn't all swiss chard! We got: a small bag of snow peas (mangetout), a bunch of kale, a bunch of the most amazing rocket/arugula I've ever tasted, a bunch of swiss chard (of course), a head of lettuce, a bunch of spring onions, a little pot of planted coriander/cilantro and chives, 3 garlic scapes and a large punnet of incredibly tasty strawberries. Of all of that, the garlic scapes were the one thing I had never come across before. A quick google led me to a pesto recipe and another to one that combined both the scapes and the arugula. Super easy. And super tasty. I just cooked up some fusilli and stirred the pesto in. We ate it with the mangetout, blanched and tossed in butter, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Yum. A quick search of smitten kitchen also led me to this very quick and easy strawberry cake. Did I mention yum? All in all, a pretty successful first CSA share I think. Well, as long as I come up with something to do with that swiss chard!

Progress?

Two steps forward, three steps back. I think I've written before that this is the nature of my crafting progression, and it's still true. Whether it's failing to read/follow a knitting pattern exactly and having to frog back, or not thinking ahead when it came to piecing fabric strips for a quilt (both of these happened in the past few days), progress is sometimes painfully slow. But, progress is progress, and I've finally made some head way on some things I've been meaning to do for a while.

The top of a long long long overdue wedding quilt is now pieced! The pattern is Elizabeth Hartman's New Wave quilt. And this was where I did not think ahead when I was piecing.

Resulting in much cursing and ripping.

The other two small projects were pencil rolls (from Last-Minute Patchwork+Quilted Gifts). I'm pretty pleased at how they turned out, despite additive inaccuracies in the fabric piecing. The pencils are from Jolly, and I got them here.

So, onwards I go! There have been a lot of babies recently, so I need to get back on the baby quilt wagon. I'm thinking simple square quilts. Fast and easy. Famous last words I'm sure. There's also this shawl, that I intended to give to a friend before her wedding last June!! "Better late than never" has become my mantra!