Summertime and the living is easy!

This is my Pi Shawl in progress. Down in the left corner of the picture, you can see the border I am knitting - it is from the Spanish Christening Shawl from Cheryl Oberle's book, 'Folk Shawls'. The white you see amongst the stitches is the piece of cotton yarn that holds the 576 stitches that will be picked up as I do the edging. I got the idea from Kelly Petkun, who is the gal that came up with the idea of knitting each month's project from Elizabeth Zimmermann's 'Knitter's Almanac'. It must have been cooler where Elizabeth was living in July, as there were a few days last week when this project was entirely too warm to be knitting on it!

I am using 3.75 mm needles and Jawoll Superwash sock yarn to knit the shawl. So far, I am on the 5th ball and I will definitely need the 6th ball to complete the project. I knit the circular part on a 3.75 mm circular needle, but for the 20 - 24 stitches (they vary with each row), I decided that two dpns were better! I have enjoyed this project, and have sort of put other things aside to finish it before the end of the month. There are two projects so far in the 'Knitter's Almanac' that I won't do, but will substitute another EZ pattern. I do not need anymore Christmas ornaments, although I might try the star and the tree, and I certainly have no need to knit myself wool leggings. I think EZ would not think it wise to knit things you had no use for, nor did you have anyone that you wanted to gift them too - just my thought! Instead, I will knit another Baby Surprise Jacket, another simple baby sweater by EZ and probably another Rib Warmer Vest! I think Elizabeth would give me approval on this plan!

Before I go any further, I must say a big Thank You to all who commented and wished me a Happy Birthday. Much appreciated, much celebrated and much enjoyed. I will try to write to all of you, but in case I don't get to everyone, thank you! We really should celebrate all occasions, life is short and should be sweet!
Above is my salad garden. We have such a problem here with slugs and earwigs that I try to keep things off the ground where possible. The 'table' they are sitting on is made from old fence boards on top of an old Singer sewing machine treadle base! In fact, once I post this note, I will go out and pick some lettuce for a salad for dinner!

The salad above is made from basil from the garden, tomatoes (both fresh and sundried), my own freshly made Mozzarella cheese, pine nuts, etc. It is perfect on a summer day with crusty rolls.

This is a tray of Mozzarella Cheese with fresh fruit. The little mouse sitting on the cheese is a pewter mouse I brought back from my holidays! The cheese looks like he might have taken a huge bite out of it, but I made it into balls and put them in a circle with one in the middle in a casserole, so that is the shape they took on! It was eaten with the Chocolate Bread below and a glass of wine. The bread was made in a local bakery and had a bitter chocolate flavour with chunks of chocolate and dried apricots through the slices. It is delicious!! The bakery has a huge brick oven that she gets up to 700 degrees and then puts in the breads. They are wonderful!

You can see I am not a food stylist, as they would never leave crumbs on the cheap vinyl cutting board! This bread will also be great toasted with cream cheese spread on it!
Lastly, this is a trug that my DH made for me, and yesterday I picked my lavender and got 15 bunches to dry. They are hanging in the shade of the shed, which I go to often, as it smells heavenly! There are several lavender farms here on the Island, but I am no competition for them. Oh yes, the deer do not eat lavender!! They do eat phlox and sunflowers - I went out last week and the phlox were just about to bloom, but the little 'dears' had nipped all the buds off. They do it neatly, but I was not amused!