I dry my hydrangeas in probably the easiest way possible.  I wait until they are pretty good and dry on the bush and have turned a dusky color, this is in late summer.  When mine go dusty pink and grayish green and feel a bit papery, I know they are ready.  I snip each head, leaving a 4-5 inch stem, remove all leaves, place in individual half watered filled vase and leave to rest for a month or so.  The water will evaporate from the vase and will leave a pretty, dried hydrangea.  I have about 75% success rate, some of these will wilt, and as they do, I toss them and cut some more.  They usually wilt because I didn't pick them at the right time, that's the tricky part.

DIY link for the Faux Jarrahdale Pumpkins here.

I am so glad I was able to keep my focus and finish this summer sweater before summer was over!

Pocket detail and moss stitch.

It's so soft!  I used Berroco Pure Pima, discontinued now and I only just found it.  I love that it's just a simple cotton cardigan with a bit of stitch detail.  Pattern is Wisdom by Kim Hargreaves and my Ravelry link is here.  My husband admired it very much.  I wore it out to lunch and it kept me just warm enough in an air conditioned restaurant.  I hate air conditioning most times.  It was 75 degrees and I hardly think that's AC weather.  Oh well, I am always cold and am used to that, must knit to keep warm.

The sleeves are too short!  In the pattern book, I didn't notice that the model's sleeves were short, but other Raveler's sweaters and the pattern schematics show that they are short.  I lengthened them by about 2 inches which was not enough.  In order to get the moss stitch bands to match up with the body, any sleeve lengthening must be done at the cuff area.  Just a little heads up if you plan to knit this and don't want bracelet length sleeves.

As far as other knitting and crafting goes, I'm all over the map!  I admire all of the "one project at a time" people, but instead of managing one project, I'm tripping over a half dozen UFO bags.  A cross stitch tablecloth, red fuzzy Christmas cardigan, black Kid Classic pullover, pale blue linen cardigan that is almost finished, embroidered baby quilt (no one in mind!) and two knitted shawls are in the wings.  I just pick up what strikes my fancy at the moment but must admit I started a new one, Kim Hargreaves Tender with KSH.

The stunning slate gray/blue Jarrahdale Pumpkin was my inspiration.

Aren't they gorgeous?

I'm back from a three week blogging break with a lot of pictures that all seem to have a bit of red in them but not much else in common, thus the post title.  I've been on a family vacation and then had family stay, so I wrote up several posts in advance and used the Blogger delay post option which worked out great!


Leaving a large vegetable garden in August is a challenge.  We striped it clean before we left and brought up bags of fresh produce to the lake.   However, when we got home only one week later, it was burgeoning and ready to be harvested again.  I asked my neighbor to pick all she wanted but she didn't!

First thing though was to make a few posies for the house.


You can't imagine the bags and bags we picked the first day back, but I'll just tell you about the red ones, to go along with my theme.


I roasted a few of the beets to make a refreshing cold salad.


First day back we picked 70 pounds of tomatoes.  No joke.  That translates to lots and lots of fresh to eat and share, plus I made 4 quarts of diced tomatoes and 11 quarts of tomato sauce.

Here is one of our favorite summer lunches, cold tomatoes stuffed with tuna salad. 


Daily in the summer we have tomato tastings.  I've been keeping notes and will let you know our favorites.



On my needles were white summer cardi, black winter pullover, and a grey shawl.  I needed color so I cast on something bright and sparkly for Christmas.

Our red-headed grand dog.

Annie an her daddy,

Oops, hit a bump.

LOVE the faces!

Wipe out begins.

Ha Ha!  Skinny legs in upper right corner.

This picture kind of says it all.  We had fun and we were plenty tired at the end of each day.