Plethora of Peaches, Part 1

For our vacation this year, we drove to Colorado to see my mom and to spend some time in the mountains. It was fantastic. I have been back nearly two weeks and am just now posting some photos.

My mom has a peach tree in the back yard that is prolific. The peaches are sweet, juicy, and delicious. Since they were ripening, she harvested some while we were there. That's her up on the ladder.

Even Lucy thought the peaches were delicious. They tasted so good to her that she even ate the pits! This wasn't authorized eating. She was just scavenging some that had fallen off the tree.

Read the next post to see what I did with some of my peaches.

Plethora of Peaches, Part 2

My mom sent me home with a big box of her delicious peaches. Of course the best way to eat them is just straight. But we couldn't eat that many all at once. So I made several things with the peaches over Labor Day weekend.

Peach pie. It's Betty Crocker's recipe--can't improve on that--and our family's old pie crust recipe.

Freezer jam. The recipe is the one found inside the Sure Jell pectin box.

Peach crumble. Though the Smitten Kitchen lady calls it Peach Shortbread, I don't think the name is accurate. Whatever it is, the people in my office liked it.

Vacation Knitting

I recently went on a roadtrip to Colorado, to visit my mom and to spend some time in the mountains. I knew I'd have a lot of time in the car to knit. Since the vacation would be relaxed, with no place we needed to be at a certain time, I thought I would have plenty of opportunity to knit. I wanted a fun and interesting project, but not something too complicated that might require techniques I wasn't familiar with. So I decided to make an Ishbel shawl (Ravelry link), something I'd made before.

I'm quite happy with the results! The Malabrigo sock yarn is very nice too. This color is Tiziano Red and I love the subtle variations in shade.

I love looking at the pre-blocking pictures and comparing them to the finished object. Sometimes blocking seems like a pain, but it is so worth it. (This obviously is the before.)

The biggest lesson of this Ishbel: I have learned so much about lace knitting in the year since the first time I made this shawl. I found I am now a confident lace knitter. That somewhat surprised me.