Oh, to Be a Cat

Cats really know how to relax. In the hustle and bustle of my life, they remind me of the beauty of curling up for a nap. I wish sometimes that I were as relaxed as they are, but doing stuff is much more fun.I was inspired by Debra's closet cleaning to get a bit more organized. I'd been keeping a lot of my jewelry in a jumble in milk glass bowls in the bathroom, but the damp isn't good for metals. I saw this idea on the net for storing and displaying pins. Take an old embroidery hoop, stretch a piece of wool in it, trim, put your pins in it, and hang it on the wall. I put mine up in the closet, where I'll be able to see it when I get dressed.
Last week Michael and I picked blackberries. We've been corrected about calling these blackberries, apparently they're Himalayan black raspberries. They're a real treat and this is the season when they ripen. We picked a couple of gallon buckets of berries, and I brought them home, washed them, and then froze them on parchment paper-covered baking sheets. Once they're frozen you can store them in plastic bags. They make killer jams, pies, and cobblers.
I've taken some stray balls of yarn and started a hooded vest. I bought this curly oatmeal colored yarn a long time ago in my early knitting days, and I never found a use for it. I recently realized that I can combine it with other yarns in order to knit larger-gauge items.
We'll see how this comes out. It's pretty thick, so it may not be the most attractive thing I've every knitted.
Allie finished knitting a Harry Potter scarf, and Susan wanted to see a picture. It's knit in a big tube in stockinette stitch, and then you sew up the ends. It's huge, but she stuck with it, even knitting in the dark at the movies. This is a Gryffindor scarf, and I guess she hasn't had enough, because she cast on for a Slythrin scarf in green and silver. She got the pattern here.

We've been busy bees here, despite the good example of the cats.