Our new garden is nothing but mounds of compost on top of a winter's worth of the chicken's straw. The plants seem to like it, but the fungi think it's completely wonderful. Seriously! I have never seen so many types of toadstools. We've been having some fun trying to identify them with the Field Guide to Mushrooms. The book says that an "essential part of mushroom identification" is to take a spore print. You do this by placing the mushroom cap on a piece of white paper, then putting an upside down glass on top of it and leaving it for a few hours.

It seems our yard mushrooms are all mostly poisonous. We think the little yellow ones are Golden Waxy Caps, but maybe they're Yellow Bolbitius. The description of the fungus seems to best match with the former, but the latter grows in "old straw and rich compost". Both species are edible, but I really don't trust myself there. Plus, they are quite slimy.

Here I am, showing my shining face here again. Where have I been? I'm not quite sure. First I was drinking the workahol, then I had to get summer planned and end-of-year business, and then iPhoto wanted to upgrade, but it wanted to update all of my ga-jillion photos first, and it just didn't seem like a good idea to do that with without backing up... You get it. Where I haven't been: I haven't been having an online life somewhere else and forgetting this place. I'm not on twitter, and I'm pretty much never on facebook. I think about them a lot, and I wonder if that's where other people are and if I'm missing something. But, I don't think they're for me--they seem too "on" always. I like the slow pace of sharing that blogging has. I don't think I can quite keep all my ducks in a row on facebook, and that's how I like my ducks--rowed.

I'm trying to make myself a bunch of summer shirts. This one is from Japanese craft book ISBN 9784834722506. The sleeves were really gappy, and I darted them up a bit, and they're still gappy. I like the keyhole though, and I especially like the keyhole button. The fabric is more bolt44. They have very crisp stuff. This photos was taken on the day Elie and I made compost berms in our garden where the old metal house used to be. We are so happy to be planting a garden there now. It's huge, and I hope we aren't doing too much, but there's nothing wrong with being optimistic in Spring, is there?

If the shirt fits...then you can be pretty sure I'll be making this pattern sometime again. This is Simplicity 4077, view E, sans ruffle. Even though I didn't do the ruffle, I kept the facing, because it makes the shirt look more finished. I top stitched around the collar for the same reason. I do think the shape of the collar is a little weird—it's a little of an era, but I'm not sure which one—so maybe I'll mess with that next time. The pattern also comes with a mandarin collar, but I'm not so sure about that. If I make it again, I might bring the waist up a little bit so it's more petite. I added 3/4 in. of length though, and I'm glad I did. I decided to do that after looking at many photos of this pattern on flickr. Flickr is so awesome for deciding which commercial patterns to sew because you can see all different body types modeling what you might make. Oh, and the fabric came from Bolt 44—thanks to True Up for alerting me (and other people on the internets) to their existence.

In other weekend news: Elie and I (just the two of us!) carried the old powder blue bathtub out of the old bathroom/future laundry room. Now, it was just steel and not cast iron, but still, I think I deserve some kind of tub hauling prize.

The easter bunny was totally in our yard today. Someone's very large velvety-brown bunny must have busted out of its hutch. We call him Bob, for Big Old Bunny. He was trying to make friends (very close friends, I presume) with the wild yard bunny who lives under the lilacs. Bob is twice the size of wild yard bunny, and he chased her around the neighborhood all afternoon. We get so much entertainment from the animals.

Hope you've had a bit of goodness in your weekend, hanging out with your peeps (and cats). We got stuff done, which is always nice, and managed to have some fun too. This was my favorite conversation. It just happened & cracked me up:

Me: (I've been working on my bro-in-law's website) Elie, want to see something kind of cool?

(I show Elie the thing I've done with the internet.)

Elie: Wow. That's kinda sci-fi. Did you write that or is it some sort of applet or something?

Me: It's jQuery. Do you remember me talking about jQuery before?

Elie: Yeah, I remember you talking about jQuery, because I always think you're talking about something like jDate.

Me: ha!

Elie: Yeah, like it's a way you can ask Jewish questions, even when there are no Jews around! (Mimes typing action) What is hamentaschen?

Me: When is Passover 09?

And more giggling. So hysterical to me, the difference between a JavaScript library and a queriable online source for Jewish facts. Yup, we crack ourselves up.

Also this weekend, Eva and I made Sarah's grapefruit sorbet. So good. You might recall, I'm a grapefruit junkie, and this sweet, tasty, frozen stuff really hits the spot. It might be my choice of evening refreshment this summer.

I know that not everyone was at home on Sunday morning with nothing to do when we got our first snowfall of the year. I am really very sorry if you had to travel in it. I know that stinks--it took me double the time to get to work today, one day later. My Sunday was lovely though. There wasn't much to do except cozy up and enjoy the wintery light coming through my windows. I'll take it when I can get it!

Chickens aren't so sure about snow, but they'll eat it.

I know that you've all been wondering if that hat I made in July would really work in the cold weather. I mean sure, it was made with wool, but made in the summer! Hard to tell with these things, but I'm happy to report that it works.

Chicken Status Report

One of our hens started laying this week. Woo-hoo! That only leaves two more freeloaders. We've had 4 eggs so far, and the very first one was a double yolk. A fortuitous beginning? I certainly hope so.

Here are the double yolks about to become corn bread. Can you see how orange the yolks are? That's because they're our free-ranging chicken eggs and not from an egg factory. Who knew, right? Not me. I'm learning stuff all the time about food.

And speaking of free ranging, lately the chickens want to come up on the porch. I don't even know what's so good about the porch, except we were drying poppy head there, and they like to perch in the window that's missing its glass. You can tell they're there because they make a clucking racket and peek in the windows. What a bunch of nosy hens.

Color decisions can be so hard to make. It's especially difficult when buying online, but even right up close, the perfect color is not always obvious. I spent a bit of last weekend thinking about color choices, and I plan to spend a bit of this weekend implementing them. I'm dragging my feet.

Hancocks of Paducah carries the whole line of kona cottons, which is awesome, but I'll be darned if I can tell what the color will look like from the little online swatch. You know what they have for that very reason? A color card! It's so cool. I feel like I have the key to all colors ever of fabric. Sorta. I think the kona is missing some subtle blues, greens, and grays, but I hear Amy Butler is going to do solids and that should fill in the gaps.

This last bit o'color is for the little glass-front cabinet where I'm going to keep my yarn. I hope it works out. I was going for mustard-marigold, and I hope I don't end up with something too sunshine.

If you wish your life were a fairytale, it would be best to specify which one! Can you tell from the photo which magical setup we have going on at home right now? I was standing in the yard when I realized it, and it just about cracked me up.

Elie's mom is in visiting, and she's making all sorts of wonderful things to eat appear out of thin air. There have been tasty dinners to come home from work to—it is so nice. She brought these three baskets of apples with her from New Jersey. There are plenty of Stayman Winesaps in there, which are a favorite of ours that you just can't get out here. (Not that the Michigan apples aren't completely delicious in their own right!)

That title sounds like some disease you don't want, like shingles or rickets, doesn't it? It's my house really. Three-quarters of the rooms are halfway done, and although I am used to the chaos, sometimes it just gets to me (usually at 4:30 on a Sunday). Sometimes however, I embrace it. It gives me so many Anthropologie-like backdrops! Someone pointed it out in the comments of this photo, and it's true, and I've known it, but not really used it. Too bad! We had some great exposed lathe for about a year.

So first, here's my newly completed chevron scarf with photos taken macro-style on a white background in softly filtered daylight.

Here's my scarf on me (requisite wrap around the head shot like the model in the book) standing in my kitchen. Fierce, no? If I had done the Anthro makeup right, I would have looked like my mom in the 70s or like my grandmother in the 1940s, but I didn't do it at all.

I won't quit my day job.

The scarf was started last Feb-ish. I used these two koigus.