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This past week I got to do more with the current projects, and added one more! I’m about halfway done with this square type for the Homage to the Granny Square afghan, then on to the next! I’m pretty happy with how they are turning out. My Open Weave shawl is moving right along – pretty much the same as before, except more of it. And the new project is a crocheted raffia sunhat, which I’m only getting started with. The pattern is Worn This Way , and the yarn is Ra-Ra-Raffia from Wool and the Gang. Mine is in black raffia, and Mom’s will be brown. I’m doing mine first so I can make all the mistakes on mine and get them out of the way Once this one is done, I’m making one for my Mom as well, so hoping it moves along pretty quickly! So that’s all the crafting news that’s going on with me. How about you? What are you working on and how is it going?

Yesterday DH and I participated in the Wandering Ewe Southeast Wisconsin Yarn Crawl! He is not a knitter, but was my designated driver. Everyone he said that to nodded and said “Yarn fumes”. There are 7 shops involved in the crawl – we went to 3 of them, which is fine for one day The others were in central Milwaukee, which we are not quite ready for yet. But I will get to them one day! Anyway, our first stop was Fox River Fibers . The outside doesn’t look that exciting, but the inside sure is! I was too excited to take an interior picture. I had settled down a little by the next stop. They are a really nice shop with a great array of both local dyers and more commonly available yarns. Lots of Madelinetosh, lots of other big brands. They had a few crawl specials – a few giveaways, and a trunk show by a dyer who works in the shop, Critical Sheep! I bought a couple of local dyer skeins here, and also got a yarn crawl tote bag from the last crawl, which the shop had labeled “heritage...

Still working on the same two projects, so they look kind of the same, but there’s more of them. The Open Weave shawl is coming along, growing wider and deeper. I have a bit more to do on this, but it’s a pretty fun knit, so I don’t mind it at all Guest appearance by Very Good Helper Punky! And I’m on to the next block type in the Homage to the Granny Square class – the small starburst. I need to do 20 of these things, but fortunately they go pretty quickly. What about you – what are you working on and how is it going?

Even though the garden feels like it is starting to wind down, it is still burying us in cucumbers and tomatoes. This is just from today. These things are as big as my forearm. Fortunately, we like tomatoes and cukes, though we have started pushing them on neighbors and on my brother and SIL. We do also have a few pumpkins growing, a few more bell peppers starting, and a couple of strawberries appearing every once in a while. We have definitely learned a few lessons about how many plants we need of different types! Some of the flowers are finished, but the lantanas are thriving, and also we have some flowers left from the previous owner that I think are possibly butterfly weeds? If you are gardening, how is it going?

I had a few questions about the Open Weave wrap ( Ravelry link ) I’ve been working on, so thought I would post some closer pictures to show what is going on with it. Here is a closeup of the front. The stripes are not connected to each other except at the intersection points. And here is the back. There’s lots of ends mainly because I am not great at judging how long a strand should be. But you can see what’s going on at the intersection points a lot better here. Even closer view of the back! Yarn management is truly the most difficult part of this!

Nothing new to report in WIPs, but both active projects are moving along! For the Homage to the Granny Square, I finished my six medium popcorn v1 blocks (lower 6) and 1 of the 9 needed v2 medium popcorns. My open weave shawl is progressing quickly too! The rows are getting longer, but it is still a pretty short repeat between vertical stripes and just doing the horizontal ones. I am enjoying it a lot! How about you? How are your projects – crafty or otherwise – going?

Yesterday I gave myself a redo on two baking experiments from last month that were not successful. First, the tart. Last month I made a plum tart that did not turn out great. It was too wet, and the filling was an uneven mix. This month I was not able to find any fresh plums for the redo, so I went with peaches. I found a reasonable looking recipe for peach tarte tatin . Apologies for the page linked – there are a lot of pop ups and if you want to print it out you need to enter your email, which you may or may not want to do. Anyway – the recipe. I made it as given, except I used a refrigerated pie crust. I probably should have done from scratch, but just was not about it yesterday. In any case, it turned out extremely well! This is a kind of different pie because you bake it basically upside down. You put the topping, then the fruit, then the crust in the pie pan. Then when it’s done you sort of flip it out. The other baking experiment I did yesterday was tomato pie ! I tried ...

On Thursday, DH and I took off work and went to the Wisconsin State Fair! It was much bigger than the AK State Fair, and had a lot going on. We did not ride any of the rides, but walked around the whole fair, ate delicious but terrible food, and generally had fun. The fair makes a big deal out of the cream puffs available from The Original Cream Puffs, so I needed to try them. I also got to meet their mascot. I’ve had cream puffs before I was not that enthused by them, so was not sure how this was going to go. However, they really were delicious! I did not get a picture of them, because we were too busy eating them. One thing I did miss out on – I could not find the crafts anywhere. I was looking for the knitting and quilting and so on that had been entered and did not find it. But I did find a stand run by an alpaca farm that had alpacas in the tent. And yarn! So it wasn’t a total loss on the crafting front. We had a good time and will likely go back next year. Next ...