This giant magnolia bloom from the tree in front of our house.

We had such a fun party the other night.  I don't have the greatest pictures but the idea was fun and wanted to share.  On Wednesday I emailed out about 14 invitations for a last minute casual Cavihour for Friday night.  "Please join us on Friday night from 6-8 for champagne and caviar, and if you can stay later, we'll be serving Chinese Chicken Salad at 8."  I know, don't tell me that none of it goes together, certainly not the casual with the champagne, and not the caviar with the chicken salad, but it did somehow manage to work out well!  Since it was last minute only 14 people could come, but everyone stayed late and laughed and had a good time.

With the caviar I served creme fraiche, finely chopped egg and green onion.  I had toast points too but everyone preferred the caviar on the sweet potato chips.  Those chips are such a big hit every time I serve them.  Here's how to make them.  It's strange I know, but not everyone likes champagne, so we also set up a small bar and had sparkly water too. I have no pictures of the Chinese Chicken Salad but ended up setting up the buffet in the kitchen and people served themselves and sat around the house, in the living room and around the dining room table, very casual. For dessert I made shortbread with gluten free flour and it was every bit as good as the original. I've updated the recipe to include the gluten free version.  We also had a large platter of fruit and cheese and a big bar of chocolate to share.

You know I love to have people over, and I usually love all the prep work, but sometimes I don't have enough time.  It's nice to be able to throw an easy peasy party that doesn't require a lot of preparation.  And really, it's all about getting people together, isn't it?

PS.  I had to add Captcha word verification on my comments section.  I was getting bombarded with spam which has been growing over the last few months until finally I couldn't keep up with it.  I'll take it off in a bit and see if the junk has settled down.  I hope you'll still comment, I love hearing from you!

I often get teased about how many white sweaters I knit!  I love white for summer and happy with this new chunky lace pullover, perfect for chilly summer evenings.  Chunky and lace, two words that in knitting don't seem to often go together!  But you can see from the photos that they do marry very well in this fancy over-sized sweatshirt.  Pattern is Eos is by Marie Wallin from Rowan's All Seasons Chunky Collection and the yarn is Rowan's All Seasons Chunky in Foam, one of the prettiest whites available in knitting yarn.  I am very familiar with white!  I have reviewed the yarn before:

All Seasons Chunky is a new spring offering for Rowan.  Similar to All Seasons Cotton in every way except the weight, Rowan has taken their popular aran weight and beefed it up to bulky weight.  Knitted up it gave the same soft and bouncy hand and excellent stitch definition.  Even though it knits up at 10 stitches per 4 inches, the fabric still feels lightweight and creates a "lighter" bulky knit than other bulkys.  I'm thinking this will allow the garment not to sag as can sometimes happen with other bulky knits.  Being bulky, it just zips along, done in no time.

A few particulars: No problems with splitting or slipping.  Chunky is multi plied and tightly twisted into an even round thick shape and is 60% cotton/40% acrylic.  It has bounce when knitting and makes fine, even, matte stockinette stitches.  Very, very soft, certainly soft enough for baby.  Chunky would make a great easy care baby blanket.  Minimal pilling.  Machine wash.  

This is a re-post from 2010, but since I just finished this business, I thought it might be time to share again.

I'm often asked how I store and care for all my sweaters. Twice a year I do a big cleaning that takes me a few weeks. This is how I do the big bi-annual sweater migration.

The first and most important step is to wash and block my winter sweaters that I want to store away for the summer.  I've heard that some people don't ever wash their wool sweaters, just air them out.  I cannot imagine that, mine get dirty, especially the cuffs, plus the suds remove any food spills and dirt that attracts moths.  I am careful to hand wash in a mild soap and rinse well.  I don't soak my handknits.  Next I roll them in a towel to remove excess water and block them outdoors on my mesh patio table and dry in the shade.  If the weather is nice, it will take only a day, but sometimes they have to be brought in at night to finish drying in the house.  I can fit about 3 sweaters on my table, and if I do this everyday I can have them all washed in a few weeks.

Next is to make any necessary repairs that I've ignored and try to remove the inevitable pills.  Some knits, such as the Kidsilk Haze sweaters benefit from a swift going over with a soft brush to fluff it up again. It's also at this time that I'm pretty brutal and gift/donate sweaters that I don't wear anymore.  I only keep what I wear!  Next they are folded and placed in my mother's cedar "hope" chest that is still fragrant with cedar after almost 70 years.  I don't use any moth protection in the cedar chest.

The summer sweaters are removed from their winter home, and since they were washed and stored 6 months ago, they are ready to be placed in my sweater armoire. It's filled with plastic sweater bins purchased from The Container Store. I organize them by color and/or weight with 3 or more per bin. Since the bins are somewhat clear it's not too difficult to find what I'm looking for, although sometimes the sweater search is like playing a game of Memory and I never seem to return them to the same bin.

I am petrified of a moth infestation and do use limited moth control in the sweater bins around the wool. I prefer No Moth , (limited use) so please tell what you use, if anything.

So that's the epic sweater care and storage a la Knitionary! Knitting is the fun part, and the upkeep is the not so fun part, but I don't know how to avoid it!  I'd love to know what you do!

I bought a dozen vintage inspired Ball canning jars from the Ball website.   They are that beautiful aqua we love to love, just like the oldies.

Kim Hargreaves newest is out, Spirit, with 21 beautiful and inspiring patterns  with her trademark lovely styling and elegant details. This deserves it's own post, but you can check out all the designs right here.

My LLYS, (Lovely Local Yarn Store) Uncommon Threads in Los Altos has a new shipment of the very new Rowan Fine Art Sock yarn.

My granddaughter came for a weekend visit. We went to the Pet Parade, Art in the Park, a church rummage sale, a garden tour, and dinners out! We also stopped at the yarn store, where she bought a pattern book. She's ready to go beyond garter scarves!

This weekend, just a few houses down from us was a garden tour for The Garden Conservancy whose mission is "Preserving America's Exception Gardens".  Over the years I've watched the installation of this garden as they acquired properties next door to them to add to their garden.  It's beyond beautiful and my pictures don't give it justice.  It looks like a park.