Last night, John and I were bottling the peach mead that’s been on the hearth. I glanced up from bottling and saw the lights twinkling through his test glass. It brought warm holiday thoughts.

Happy Holidays from all of us to all of you.

A lot of any craft is learned by trial and error; y’all know that. Today I bottled my third batch of beer. This is what I learned:

250º F in an oven for 10 minutes does more than sterilize a self-capping beer bottle. It Dali-izes the plastic cap. Oops.

There’s still a bit of knitting going on here, but most of my energy has been spent toward regular ol’ life stuff lately. I hope you all are doing well. Oh! Before I forget, a Saturday Sky for you all…

Take care.

Not a lot going on in my sky here today. It was a pretty day, though. To distract you from the blah sky, I give you my back yard:

The beans are twining (ahwwwwww). Now, if only they’d make baby beans, I’d be ever so grateful. The tomatoes are coming along nicely. It’s shaping up to be a nice garden year.

Gardens not your thing? Quick! Look in the front yard! The hydrangea is happy.

What? Knitting? Oh, yes, that’s been going on, too. The Hogwarts Socks are done, and await me for a little bit of kitchenering and end-weaving. I think they’ll need a nice blocking before you see a photo. Since I don’t own sock blockers yet, that means said photo is probably a few days away.

Meanwhile, work continues on my hubby’s socks. This reminds me to be grateful that I usually knit for my own, much smaller, tootsies.

Thanks, everyone, for submitting names and voting in the Name that Brew poll. The winner was Knitter’s Solace. Since my darling hubby picked that name, the prize of stitch markers will go to the runner up, Heide of Serendipitous Opportuknitty, for her entry of “Ewe Brew”.*

We took the ale for a test drive last night. I was pleasantly surprised at the taste – not bad at all. What really gave me pause me was the difference priming with honey and corn sugar made in the final product. See the foamy head on the left? Honey. I have my theories about why, but y’all come here to knit and not hear me babble on about brewing.

The Mini Jaywalker #2 progresses…

In entirely unrelated news, I’ve decided to try my hand at dying the yellow yarn for my Hufflepuff socks for the Hogwarts Sock Swap. I’m terribly excited about the whole affair, and about using up some of the food paste dye that is languishing in my cake decorating kit. Anyone who wants to join in my adventure, there’s a great article about dyeing with food paste over at Knitty.

*When I told my husband this, he pouted and claimed that he could pierce his nose and use them as jewelry. I’m almost tempted to call his bluff.

“Ooh, a contest! I’ll whip up a quick dishcloth!” Oy.

The first incarnation of the beast lovely dishcloth is seen in the thumbnail here. It’s a mini EZ square baby blanket, inspired by 1870 pearl. Well, here’s the thing. That cloth is full of short rows that go unwrapped, leaving lacy holes from the center to each corner. As previously documented, I am incapable of dainty holes. Click on the thumbnail of the original dishcloth for evidence. So, after knitting about halfway around, I frogged it.

Incarnation the second was the same dishcloth with wrapped short rows. I wrapped them all – even the long rows, which left a nice, big open circle in the middle of the cloth. It was quirky; I approved. Finished it all up, went to weave the start to the finish, and realized I should have used a provisional cast-on. I went back to the EZ book. Yup; she mentions it… at the END of the pattern. Uhm. Oops. I picked out my cast-on and weaved the edges together. Twisted stitches. ARGH. I tossed the cloth aside and went to bed. Frogged it in the morning for its impudence. I didn’t like that gaping hole in the center, anyways.

Incarnation the last is a wrapped short-row cloth with the center worked a bit differently. Now it has a perky little hole in the center, like a cheeky child showing her belly button in the summertime. The weaving looks horrid, but at this point I’ll live with it. It was a learning experience. More importantly, it makes that second mini Jaywalker sock look appealing again. I’ve already cast on.

Note: Today’s the last day to name my first batch of ale. “Ewe Brew” and “Knitter’s Solace” are currently neck-in-neck with three votes each. Yes, you read that right. Three votes. Those of you in the US need to start practicing now for 2008 – vote, vote, VOTE! Ahem. Sorry; I get carried away. The poll is in the sidebar; come on over to the site if you’re reading from a news aggregator. Voting ends at midnight tonight.

I’m taking Dave’s advice, and having my first contest. Last week, I bottled up my first batch of home brew. It’s a brown ale, and it’s currently named the gorgeous and descriptive name of “Batch One”. The bottlecaps weren’t quite big enough even for that, so we fondly call it “1″. My husband, meanwhile, brews lovely meads called “Serenity”, “Clarity”, “Bold”, and “Black Gold”. We can’t have this sort of disparity! I need a good name!

I’ll accept names (knitting-related or not) in the comments of this post for a week – deadline is midnight on Sunday, April 22nd – and then I’ll post a poll and we’ll pick. In the unlikely event that I get more than five names, our panel of judges (my family) will narrow the field before voting begins. My husband’s submission to the competition is “Knitter’s Solace”. Do you think he’s seen me frogging too many times?

Since I have basically NO stash (at least, no stash a sane knitter would be interested in), you will all be competing for a lovely set of stitch markers. Photo later, after I procure said markers.

Let the fun begin!

It’s rainy and cold today. After the boys and I finished our lessons for the day, I sent them off to watch “The Blue Planet” while I finished up this little project. It’s my virgin batch of brown ale. If it turns out as advertised, it should taste similar to Newcastle. The hard part is done. Now, I just have to wait three weeks and then find someone to help me drink it, preferably while knitting. I hope it’s palatable!

If you’re looking for crafting content, move along. Perhaps I should take up basketweaving so I can display my veggies as a craft.

This is the first harvest from our first little raised bed garden. Kentucky Wonder green beans – yum! This is the same vareity I grew last year in pots; they look much happier in a real garden.

Happy Saturday, everyone. Sky photos later, though they will likely be a uniform grey.