I have a lot of crafting supplies, and one of my goals is to use up what I have. (This has worked so well for the fawncho, my latest knitting project, that I've not only used up the one hefty skein and various odd balls of this particular yarn in my stash, I've used exactly all of this remaining yarn. To the point that I'm running out of yarn for the final 1/3 of the bind off, and will have to steal most the fairly long tail I have from the cast on edge in order to finish the bind off).

Lately i've been thinking about embroidery. Not only did I collect various embroidery floss (flosses?) some time ago, I also inherited my grandmother's embroidery materials. I've kept them housed in their vintage Knott's Berry Farm box. My grandmother kept her materials all nicely organized, of course. Going through the collection now, I see that many of the plastic bags housing different colour families of floss are actually what appear to be milk bags, cut in half. That's thrifty and practical repurposing for you. You can see below which are my collection of floss added to the collection in the tangled mess on the left. I'm straightening them up now so I no longer need to feel ashamed.

Having embroidery on the brain has made me think of that great Olivia de Havilland movie from 1949, The Heiress, in which the shy protagonist protests to her father that she can't go out to a fancy evening party because she has some embroidery she must finish. We've all been there.

In looking up embroidery inspiration online, I came across this, which blew my mind.

Otherwise, my modest summer goals of attracting Neko Atsume cats, reading on the deck, and grilling vegetables continue. We've been eatng corn on the cob as much as we can and there have been several cobs scoring an 8 or higher (I come from a family that loves corn on the cob, and grew up with an expectation that when you eat corn on the cob, you rate your cob). There has been a slight flurry of dishcloth knitting, and we ended up rather enjoying a documentary series on Netflix on great British castles, despite the presenter's odd and slightly forceful cadence. I became both repelled by and drawn to oubliettes.

​The plan for August will be more of the same, and at this rate, a hike.

Up until Friday, I didn't have any games installed on my phone. Now, I have Neko Atsume both on my phone and my iPad. If I were a game developer, this is exactly what I would have come up with.

The premise is simple. You leave food and toys in your yard to attract cats. You buy food and toys with fish. Cats come to visit and leave fish as gifts for you. You can then purchase more food and toys. And just like in real life, you can take photos of the cats when they come and keep them in your kitty albums. Neko Atsume is utterly pointless, and completely charming.

Here you can see that I really care for my cats, as I've put out expensive food with bonito for them.

Aside from knitting on my fawncho (I'm on the last few rounds but have a serious yarn shortage situation) and reading Swann's Way on the deck, I've also been continuing to try to learn to use the barbeque. I'm aided in this in part with weird recipes from Bon Appetit. Brined and grilled radishes and carrots anyone? Marinated and grilled kale? How about putting halloumi directly on the grill, where it will stick? There have been a few modest successes though. I liked wrapping a block of feta in tinfoil, with a drizzle of olive oil, a bit of honey, thyme and pepper, and then serving the grilled feta with bread. Yesterday I learned that grilled asparagus is pretty tasty when tossed with a squeeze of lemon juice, a squirt of grainy mustard, and some salt and pepper. Next up: hot dogs, and marinated eggplant. Grilled pizza, however, is so last summer (to Jeff's relief).

I've been knitting away on a toque lately, and got to the point where I needed to start decreases for the crown. Normally I avoid using stitch markers, preferring instead to eyeball where to ssk and k2tog, but for this project, I really did need them. And I got to thinking about why I hate stitch markers so much, and it turns out the answer is mostly because the ones I have are cheap and crappy.

These are ugly. I hate them.

Clearly it's time for new stitch markers. And I figured I could probably just make my own. I spent all of 30 seconds digging up a few do-da's that I picked up at a notions shop years ago, on my one and only trip to NYC (I think it was at MJ Trimmings), and a few circular do-da's that I had on hand from a bead store, and ta-da! My new stitch markers. There are only 3 of them, and they're as yet untested, but really, a major improvement. And it finally answers the question as to what to do with miniature cutlery charms.

Friday night is pizza night. Whatever the week may bring, good things will happen after work on Friday.

We've really been enjoying our Breville electric pizza oven, which was a pre-wedding gift. As you can see above, it really does a nice job on the crust. After initially being terrified it was a dangerous appliance and would burn the house down, we've since relaxed a bit and are glad of its high-temperature capabilities (600-650 F).

This week's pizza was partly a fridge clean out:

Leftover arugula pesto
Caramelized onions
Diced zucchini and red pepper
Olives
A cheese medley (we had dribs and drabs of chèvre, blue cheese, and Parmesan)

Overloading our pizzas with toppings is kind of our norm (unless we make a marguerita, and even then I have a tendency to over-do it on the cheese). It is a bad habit that I am okay with. This particular pizza ranked about average (and we think our average is pretty good). Its only shortcomings were having an oil/moisture content that was a touch high.

The key to a successful pizza, in my opinion, is salt. It's really hard to over-salt a pizza, and ample salt really amps up the flavour. Don't be afraid to put plenty of it in your dough, and to make your pesto excessively salty!

Peaches wishes you a happy new year!

We have a new addition in the front hallway, in the form of this lovely new cabinet... except that it's not exactly new, as it's made from pieces of old doors. It was a custom made order (by Rick in Surrey); I wouldn't have normally thought of custom made furniture as being feasible, but it wasn't pricier than buying a new piece of furniture, and I like that it's locally made out of salvaged material, with no shipping, no packaging, and no middle men involved. Plus it has lots of character. (I heart anything with crystal knobs on it, and the curvy feet are a nice touch too.) 

It's been a memorable summer - memorable for being the busiest and most intense period of time since... I'm not sure when. By about the end of July, when it looked as though the entire summer could pass without taking advantage of the season, we made up a Summer Fun List. It had such things on it as "eat corn and blueberry pie and other summery stuff"; "ride bikes"; "read a book"; "go on a hike by Mount Baker"; "have slushy drinks"; "spend time on the deck"... We didn't cross off all the items on our list, but we did remind ourselves of what we should be doing at this time of year.

And we had one vacation, on Mayne Island. We had pounced on booking this cob house (which is clearly a hobbit house, right?) back in the spring when we saw that there happened to be a half a week during the summer when it wasn't reserved. So we went, and ate at the (really excellent) local restaurants, and hung out at the water, and napped, and visited the farmers' market, and took walks in the woods. We also found a book in the living room of our cottage about building cob houses; apparently drum circles are very important. 

Now it's time to contemplate the Fall Fun List. It's time to get back into knitting, to actually read a book (didn't cross that one off the summer list), to bake with apples and butternut squash, to take walks on crisp days, and be cozy inside on rainy days. Bring it on, fall! 

With no real vacation plans decided upon yet for the year, a stop-gap was in order. Truthfully, since I've been to Vancouver Island several times, I wasn't expecting a very exciting getaway, but we had lots to see and do over half a week. Perhaps Vancouver Island's slogan should "Better than you might think". The first stop was Cathedral Grove for a short woodsy walk, before continuing on to Courtenay. 

This is Goose Spit Park, in adjacent Comox. Well worth checking out.

And just around the corner is the Filberg Heritage Lodge & Park. The grounds are open from dawn to dusk, so even though the house had closed for the day by the time we got there, we were able to stroll around and look at the various old-timey buildings, including this alleged root cellar. I could store a lot of potatoes in there. 

Despite a rainy drive down to Victoria, a couple of stops were in order. This bold sheep was at the Little Qualicum Cheeseworks, where we sampled cheese and bought a bottle of blueberry wine. 

For some time, I've been curious about the Crow and Gate pub outside of Nanaimo. A deluxe ploughman's lunch awaited; it was a rare meal that defeated me as I couldn't quite manage to finish it all. Then, while driving through the small town of Duncan, we passed by a small, temporary midway. What better activity after eating a large meal that to go on the tilt-a-whirl? It's always been my favourite ride but I hadn't been on one in years; it still lives up to my memories. Whee! After eating too much and then spinning around and around, clearly it was time for a tasting at the Merridale Ciderworks. Oof...

In Victoria, we stayed down the street from Emily Carr House. A lot of eating ensued. There was dinner at Rebar, perogies at Hungry Rooster food truck, the best meal of the trip at Stage, pizza at Fol Epi, and doughnuts at Discovery Coffee.

Aside from eating, we also took in the sights of the Royal BC Museum, wandered the grounds of the Lieutenant Governor's house, and had a self-guided tour of BC Parliament Buildings (next time we'll check out the restaurant there too). On our last day we managed to also see baby goats at the petting zoo in Beacon Hill Park, and stop for a wine tasting at Church and State. More than a successful stop-gap, it was a real vacation after all.

2 dinners in a row, 2 make-again winners in a row. First there was an Ottolenghi pasta via Orangette. The ingredient list was a little odd (equal weights Greek yogurt and peas to dry pasta?) but I trusted the Ottolenghi/Orangette pedigree. And it was fantastic. I immediately began prosthelytizing to friends. Tonight's new recipe was one that I had overlooked from Smitten Kitchen's blog, and glanced at with little interest in her cookbook. Yet, as I had tomatoes in need of using up and there was next to no prep time involved, it seemed like a good one to throw together on a Monday night. It looked pleasantly rustic on the plate. I tried it and struggled between savouring it and devouring it. Divine.