All Good Gardens Come to an End and the Rhythm of the Needles

The garden is done and has been since September.  (please bear with me as I catch up on my fall)

I am always sad about this day, when everything gets ripped out and thrown in the compost heap or lawn bags to head to the tree dump.

Timothy is the one person who looks forward to this day all summer...finally he is allowed to play in the giant dirt patch in the backyard!  He has been so patient, helping us pick tomatoes and beans, talking about driving his trucks in the dirt all summer.  He has been dutifully turning the soil over and giving all uncovered worms a ride in his dump truck.  :)

The garden produce has all been consumed, frozen, dried or canned.  I can once again walk in my pantry without tripping on the dehydrator and canning tools!

With the coming of the colder weather, the knitting needles and crochet hooks have made their annual reappearance as I now turn to hibernating in my home until April comes, hoping for a January thaw and good packing snow on a day that isn't too windy.  

You might be laughing, but it is 15 degrees out and the wind is blowing the snow horizontally, so I am feeling slightly desperate for just one fresh, garden tomato.  Thankfully, the bucket of yarn and patterns I have been slowly collecting over the last few months are calling me and I have some time to joyfully answer. 

Here is what I have been up to:

Christmas gifts!  This scarf is actually done and waiting blocking, ready to be gifted to one of my relatives.  :)  Check one off of the list!

A hat for Timmy!  This was a lot of fun and was a good refresher on the double pointed needles.  It is a little big, but needs to be blocked and has some wool, so it will tighten up just a bit.  I am thinking that I might add a fleece lining to help with the wind factor.

It is also reversible and Timmy wanted to show how big it is.  (I may have bribed him with a piece of halloween candy to model his newest winter clothing article)  :)

Next, something on the needles for me, an oversized shrug (it should have the structure of a shrug, but the coverage of a sweater) made with some lovely wool.  This is the fisherman's wool from Lion Brand and it feels soooo nice as it contains some of the natural oils in the yarn.  This is a longer term project, especially with homemade gifts taking over my to do list (and in my mind, take a much higher priority to other things, like say, the laundry).  :)  So thankful for my patient husband!

And speaking of my patient husband, I have a gift of his currently in the works, too.  If you can't tell what it is, that would be a death star pillow half done, not a yarn bowl.  :)  I love my nerdy husband and when I showed him the idea he was really quite giddy over the idea of a death star pillow.  I am crocheting it with two colors of gray so give it a little more texture and other than counting obsessively to get the correct increases, it is an easy project so far.