Rustic Red One and the fall garden
November 18, 2024
I love Christmas movies and Santa of course, and was so excited to learn there's a new big screen Christmas movie out right now. We're going tomorrow at noon and I'll be wearing my new hat. The hat is a replica of the exact hat Santa himself (JK Simmons) wears in the movie from the gal who designed the hat! The hat pattern is free and fun!
The hat story and how the design came about is so cute. A friend of a friend had a brother who was working on the Red One film and asked his knitter sister if she could design a hat that Mrs. Claus would knit for Mr. Claus. The knitting sister and her knitting friend designed two hats, they were both accepted and both used in the film and now we can make them! The two patterns, one rustic and one fancy, are free, or at least they are at the time of writing. Sometimes designers change a free pattern to a paid pattern and so I cannot guarantee they will always be free. For mine I used Malabrigo Rios in Cereza and Rowan Alpaca Soft DK in Rainy Day. The alpaca pom is from Toft. It's a snap to knit and is designed in 5 sizes, child to adult. I made the third size.
Make sure read the backstory.
Cereza looks purple on the site but IRL it's dark red.
Now for what's happening in the fall garden.
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| In our area persimmon trees are very common. There are two common types of persimmons, Fuyu, the fruit with flat bottoms that can be eaten when firm, seen on the table, and Hachiya (in the bowl) the fruits with a pointed end that must be ripened inside and eaten when soft. Several neighbors have trees and offered fruit and I held my hand up high. |
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| We'll pick the first early limes at Christmas. |
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| The last hydrangea holding onto pink. |
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| The vegetable garden is cleaned up and ready to go to sleep. We still have onions and leeks and some of the hardy herbs, but everything else is gone. |
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| I think the border may look pretty from afar, but close up, it's an overgrown mess even though we pulled out most of the annuals before they turn to mush with the frost. My large Chinese Pistache tree in the back corner is turning red which you can see on the far side facing the sunny south. The part that faces the house will turn red later, but this is what it looks like underneath the tree, below. |
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| My friend gave me a dozen amaryllis bulblets last year. They spent the summer in the dappled shade underneath the olive tree but the overnight temps are dipping into the 30s so I brought them into the greenhouse. They have some nice new growth and hopefully I'll have a few blooms this winter, but may have to be patient and wait another year. |
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| An upturned wheelbarrow says winter to me. We had our first rain! |
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| Every year my neighbor places a pomegranate from her tree on my windowsill. They are so beautiful and my heart skips a beat when I see it! |
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| I walked over to her house to take a picture of the tree. Pom trees can be scraggly! They lose their leaves at the same time the fruit is ripe. When I was a little girl my mother would crack open a pom and put me in the middle of the lawn to eat it. I imagine she hosed me off before she allowed me back in the house! |
I have two sweaters finished, Festive Yoke and Tsubaki, and now they are waiting to be photographed. I'm taking Carter's sweater, the Besties Hoodie, on a road trip next week and will have it finished by the end of November. This morning I plan to start Tursa, below. As soon as I post this I'm going to wind my yarn, read through the pattern and cast on! Isn't it exciting to start a new project?
I read Paris Hilton's autobiography. It is bizarre and absurd but it's also funny and honest, and somehow she garnered my sympathy and I was actually able to squeeze out some admiration for her too. I steer clear from pop idols in general and so my previous limited exposure to her made me think she was vacuous and nothing more. But there is more to her and it's a book worth reading, if only to learn about the ghastly "troubled teen wilderness camps" she was forced to spend two years in. There's also a film about her that I watched on YouTube. I just started All The Colors of The Dark. Up next for me is the audiobook, Selling Sexy, the backstory of Victoria's Secret. What are you reading?
I made this last night. So good!
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4 Comments
This was a great blog, Kristen. Even when your garden is being put to sleep it still looks beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThe Santa hat is adorable.
Thank you friend!
ReplyDeleteLove the hat. Will see that video. Am reading Hillbilly Elegy. Interesting but a bit dry.. loved the movie. chloe
ReplyDeleteI felt the book seemed more honest and felt the movie was a bit of a whitewash of what was a horrendous childhood. A friend just told me of some other autobiographies to read but of course I can't remember them. I'll text her and then report back!
DeleteYou make my day when you make a comment!